It's Shojo Month!

I decided not to bother with two of the suggestions, however: Utena and Child's Toy. Why not? Well, it would have been cheating. You see, I'm a fan of both those series. The point of Shojo Month is for me to highlight series of which I am ignorant or that I don't care for. It's part of a annual New Year's resolution to be more open-minded. It wouldn't be fair for me to spend the column on two series I highly enjoy. Besides, either of them is likely to get a column of its own sooner or later.

So then, where to begin, where to begin...

Hana Yori Dango

is also worth checking out. I liked how the character pages for the main male characters, four rich boys, listed each boy's allowance. The "Merchandise" page features images of Hana Yori Dango products, including the aforementioned toys.

Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne

is another site worth visiting. It features extensive coverage of commercials for KKJ tie-in merchandise, both toys and dress-up clothes! Anyone who loves the often wacky Japanese television commercials should check out this site.

Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou

There were several notable sites for this anime, the best of which is, in my opinion, . It's a great place to be introduced to the series, with a quick-loading, simple-to-navigate layout (640x480-friendly, no less). The character sketches are well-written and detailed, and include opinions from other characters. Together with the "Background" page, which details the very beginning of the anime, the pages give you a good idea of what the show is like. There's a section featuring reviews of the show from print magazines, a gallery of Kare-Kano merchandise, covers from the manga volumes, fanart, MP3's... Look, there's a whole lotta stuff, so just go there. Very well-organized for a "shovel site".

Coming in a close second is Gainax' own Official Kareshi Kanojo no Jijoo Home Page, an excellent site in perfect English, likely thanks to Gainax' habit of hiring American translators. This is a great site, but it is a promotional site, rather than a fan site, and so goes a bit overboard in pushing the show from time to time. Here you'll find the original home of the character artwork that appears in most fan sites. By far and away the best reason to visit this site is the section which translates Hideako Anno's group interviews with high school students. Anno visited six different high schools in order to talk to the kids and see what makes them tick, all with the idea of making Kare-Kano more accurate.

If you can't wait to see what happens in Kare-Kano, and don't have the fansubs (which shouldn't even be available, since the anime's been picked up by The Right Stuf), visit the . The centerpiece of this site is a series of detailed synopses for all episodes through number 22, with synopses for the last four on the way. Each synopsis features twenty screen captures from the episode in question! That's close to one screen cap for every minute of animation!

Finally, check out the cute character sketches at . The site author allows the two main characters to introduce themselves in two illustrated pages. It's well-done and really funny.

Wedding Peach

To explore the world of Wedding Peach, a possible starting place could be . The "character encyclopedia" is fairly impressive, although not enough characters are covered to merit being split over as many pages as it is. Detailed synopses of the first seven episodes are offered, with more promised. The "merchandise" section offers links to retailers selling Wedding Peach stuff. MIDI, MP3, and video files are available for download.

Ai Tenshi Densetsu Wedding Peach is another nice site. I like the design of the previous site better, but I think this one is as good or better with regards to content. In fact, this is debatably a better starting site, with a page that details the back story of the plot. The character pages for the main characters have less detailed descriptions, but are better organized with respect to data like transformation chants and attacks. It even lists the "introduction speech", you know, like "In the name of the moon, I will punish you"?. (Oh, I forgot. That's from that other show that Wedding Peach is supposed to not be a rip-off of...) Screen captures illustrate each attack. The "Wedding Peach Dictionary" explains the significance of the names of both the characters and the attacks. There's also plenty of stuff to download, like MP3's and episodes scripts, though only the first five episodes are available.

Two other Wedding Peach sites made an impression on me. There's nothing subtle about . It is what it says, a site offering a bunch of MPEG videos for download. It had the most impressive collection of the sites I browsed. is a good example of the well-designed simple shrine, offering all the basics of the character in a few cute pages.

Finally, here are a few more pages, each the only one I felt worth mentioning for the series in question:

Thus ends shojo month. Let's open the mailbag!