While some people love to binge read stories from start to finish, there's something special to following a story right from the start and enjoying the eager anticipation of each volume as it slowly comes out. Fortunately for those kinds of folks who are also fans of shojo manga, 2021 was a year when a lot of excellent stories got started to look into.
With so many new books coming out, it can be hard to pick the best ones to pick up and read. With a multitude of options to choose from, it can help to narrow things down to a more reasonable number of potential reads.
10 Backflip!!
With its Spring 2021 anime being especially popular, it makes sense that fans would want to read Backflip!! in its manga form. A unique combination of sports and shojo, it follows Shoutarou Futaba as he falls absolutely in love with boys gymnastics and joins the club for it at Soushuukan Private High School.
As it's an adaptation of the anime, there shouldn't be too many differences in the story, but it might be fun reading it to see where the writer and artist make little changes.
9 A Star Brighter Than The Sun
My Love Story!! was a massive success as both a manga and anime and its creator Kazune Kawahara just started up a new series that everyone should have their eyes on. A Star Brighter Than the Sun follows Sakuhide Iwata as she reunites with a childhood friend at a school sports festival. She has always been quite strong and him quite weak, but it seems that he's grown taller, stronger, and far more handsome than she ever could have imagined.
8 There's No Such Thing As A Villainess Route? Not In My Book!
Fans of great isekai stories will want to check out this story, especially if they enjoyed My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! and want more like it.
The story also has the main character transported into another world of an otome game as a villainess, but she actually tries to be evil and finds the people around her falling for her instead. It's a cool twist on a new shojo subgenre that readers are sure to enjoy.
7 Drops Of One Wing
There are some excellent sci-fi stories in the anime and manga world and Drops of One Wing is looking like it will be one of them. With the ocean covering most of the planet in this story's world, it's quite normal for humans to fly. Some people are still unable to, however, and one of them is Tsubasa Fukami. While she had to choose her high school because it still had stairs, so she could even access it, she ends up meeting Ren Takatsuki who may also be unable to fly just like her.
6 You Are The One I Am Destined To Fall In Love.
People never get a second chance at a first impression, but Yuki Honda finds herself tangled up with a man named Iori who made a terrible one on her while out at a club with her college friend. From the creative mind of Anashin who made other shojo classics like Waiting for Spring, Hiren Trip, and Yume Koi, it's certain to be a romance that readers can get behind.
5 "Love" Will Be In Full Bloom!
For those who are fans of Io Sakisaka's other works, "Love" Will be in Full Bloom! is a must-read. For everyone else, it's also one of the best new shojo comedy romances to hit the market in some time. The story follows Saku Fujigaya who normally feels like the background character in her own life, but suddenly finds herself turning over a new leaf after a mysterious man helps her out, and then she meets his brother and starts to develop feelings for him too.
4 Falling Drowning
Yuuko Inari has written and drawn quite a few excellent shojo stories and Falling Drowning is set to be another one. This romantic drama is about Honatsu, a high school girl who isn't even sure she wants a relationship in the first place.
While enveloped in rumors about her being in love with her childhood friend, a new exchange student makes things even more complicated for her romantic life. From here, there's a classic love triangle that fans of the genre are sure to enjoy.
3 Which Face Does Tamon Have Now?
While long and sprawling series can be quite fun, sometimes it's nice to enjoy a one-shot. Which Face Does Tamon Have Now? breaks down the stereotypes people who idolize famous people may have through the eyes of Konoshita Utage. She's suddenly hired to help clean the house of her favorite member of a rising idol group and discovers she's nothing like what she ever had expected.
2 Lightning And Romance
A great manga that's been published digitally, Lightning and Romance shows the budding romance between Sumire and Leo, the latter of whom is quite the troublemaker. Sumire's overprotective dad won't make things easy as the high schooler tries to have her first life-changing romance. Will she still be able to find love? There's only one way to see how the story ends...
1 Love, That's An Understatement
Risa Amakawa is a high schooler who has everything in her life planned to the extreme, keeping a massive amount of things in her bag so she can be prepared for any situation. When she's thrown a curveball in life after helping a young delinquent Zen Oohira patch himself up with some emergency medical supplies, she finds herself having to cash in a "help coupon" he gave her in case she ever needed the favor returned.
Love, That's an Understatement shows what happens when a girl who keeps her life meticulously perfect suddenly finds herself falling for a boy and wants to try and be carefree for a change.