Nothing lasts forever. Even the most constant things will stop in time. The Simpsons will end one day. People will eventually stop getting nostalgic for the 1980s, and manga artists will move on to other projects after a while. It's just a fact of life.
It happened to Naruto and Dr Stone, and it’s happening to One Piece and Jujutsu Kaisen. While people will miss those popular shonen entries, their shojo counterparts also have a bunch of popular comics that completed their run recently. These are the best shojo manga that ended across 2022.
7 Love Me, Love Me Not
Technically, Io Sakisaka’s manga for Bessatsu Margaret ran from 2015 to 2019. She moved on to "Love" Will Be in Full Bloom in 2021. But Viz Media’s English adaptation translated the last chapters in January 2022. Love Me, Love Me Not is a coming-of-age tale about high schoolers Yuna and Akari.
They befriend each other when they discover they live in the same apartment complex. The two have a lot in common as well, except how they navigate love. Yuna develops feelings for Akari’s little stepbrother Rio, and Akari gets a thing for Yuna’s childhood friend Kazuomi. This could put their friendship at risk, or tighten its bonds.
6 Living Room Matsunaga-san
Kodansha, the publishers behind Keiko Iwashita’s Living Room Matsunaga-san, were able to publish it directly to the West via its US division. Even so, the English version didn’t reach its conclusion until February 2022, 8 months after its Japanese finale in June 2021.
Originally featured in Dessert magazine, the manga followed Miko, a student who has to live at her uncle’s boarding house with grown-up roommates. This includes the titular Matsunaga-san, a designer she left a bad first impression on. She dreads living independently, but Matsunaga and the other tenants show her that it’s not so bad over time. It might even leave room for romance with the right person.
5 Cheeky Brat
The English translation of Mitsubachi Miyuki’s manga will continue up to April 2023. However, the last Japanese volume of Cheeky Brat hit shelves back in March 2022. That’s after its last strip cropped up in Hana to Yume magazine in December 2021. It’s a classic Pride & Prejudice-style tale as a prideful rake has to prove he’s more than his flaws for his crush.
Sho is a selfish punk who often makes lecherous comments about Yuki, the manager of the school’s basketball team. He actually has a thing for her, but she prefers Kido, the team captain. Unfortunately, he already has a girlfriend, leaving Yuki in the lurch. Sho has to show he’s more than a brat by thinking of her needs over his own for a change.
4 Orange
Ichigo Takano’s 2012 manga for Bessatsu Margaret inspired a light novel series, a seinen spin-off, an anime series, and two movies: one live-action and one following the anime. But the original Orange concluded back in April 2022. It was about Naho, a schoolgirl who starts receiving letters from herself 10 years in the future.
She doesn’t believe them at first, but when they predict future events, she begins to follow them to the letter. Naho has to prevent her future self’s ‘biggest regrets’, which involves averting a grim fate for the new transfer student Kakeru. It sounds simple enough, but fate affects more than just one person. What changes for Kakeru could change for Naho and the rest of her friends.
3 My Love Mix-Up!
Written by Wataru Hinekure and illustrated by Aruko for Bessatsu Margaret, My Love Mix-Up! ran its course in June 2022. It was a unique take on the love triangle as Aoki loves his classmate Hashimoto, but he thinks she’s with another classmate called Ida. While Ida misinterprets things and thinks Aoki has a thing for him!
What would’ve produced a bunch of gay jokes decades prior ends up becoming a genuinely heart-felt LGBTQ romcom as Ida might not be barking up the wrong tree with Aoki after all. The main story is over, but fans of the characters can see them get up to skits and bits in the still-running spin-off My Love Mix-Up!: Mini Theater.
2 Hatsukoi Maze
Finishing off a month after My Love Mix-Up in July 2022, Komugi Yuzuki’s story, Hatsukoi Maze, was also about the awkwardness of one’s first love. This time, it’s more about how a spur-of-the-moment decision can have big consequences, given high schoolers Makoto and Kokoro barely know each other.
But Makoto acts on impulse and asks Kokoro to go out with him, and she says yes! Kokoro’s friend Mika warns her against linking up with strangers, but she has a good feeling about Makoto. She opens up to him, and hopes he’ll open up to her in turn. But love isn’t as straightforward as that. Like a maze, the two will have to find their own way out, be it together or apart.
1 Chihayafuru
Yuki Suetsugu’s comic for Be Love magazine has its finale back in December 2022, and is technically aimed at a slightly older audience than the shojo crowd. However, it wasn’t because its content was any more dark or explicit than standard shojo fare. It was about something less likely to interest young girls: competitive karuta- Japanese card games a la hanafuda.
In Chihayafuru, Chihaya learns how to play from a boy called Arata, and develops a talent for it. But as she got better, she drifted further from him and her other friends. Now in high school, she sets up a karuta club with her old friend Taichi in the hopes of reconnecting with her old karuta pals, and becoming the best player in the world. The series popularized karuta in Japan during its run, but its deck has now been put away.