Mayu Shinjo
Mayu Shinjo (新條まゆ Shinjō Mayu?, born January 26, 1973) is a Japanese manga artist. She debuted in 1994 in Shogakukan's Shōjo Comic with "Anata no Iro ni Somaritai". She continued writing for Shogakukan until 2007, with her works appearing in both Shōjo Comic and Cheese!, their other magazine.
Mrs. Shinjo left the company to go freelance citing a dispute over working conditions and abusive treatment by her editor. How bad was that? In her blog, she noted that though she was the actual creator of her manga titles, she was one of the last to know about any adaptation plans for her series, even learning about some (like Sensual Phrase) through TV channel websites instead of her editor. When she decided to leave, one editor threatened to take all of her earlier series out of print, but Shinjo contacted a lawyer and the threat was never carried out.
Mrs. Shinjo's manga, as mentioned, qualify in the shoujo spectrum. She draws lots of bishonen, gives her male leads very sex-driven and forceful personalities with lots of snarky comments about everything, while making her female leads quite Hollywood Homely (until it's time to clean up) and constantly prone to being corrupted. Her stories tend to go for lots of emotional stuff, if not downright Melodrama, as well as being Hotter and Sexier than your average shoujo, featuring many sex scenes among her male and female leads.
Oh, and it looks like she's good friends with Tite Kubo, judging by their twitter exchanges. Be afraid. Be VERY, VERY afraid.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: The reason most of her stories exist.
- All Men Are Perverts
- A Match Made in Stockholm: The majority of her lead characters.
- Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: What they're supposed to come across as.
- Author Appeal: Girls with big breasts, according to an interview.
- Bastard Boyfriend: Oooh boy, she's famous for this. They mostly tend to be Conflicted types: huge bastards to pretty much everyone, as well as having very Dark And Troubled Pasts.
- Blackmail: People tend to be extorted quite often.
- Bishonen: Everyone male, even the Hollywood Homely.
- Bishoujo: Same for her female characters.
- Break the Cutie: A given, specially in regards to the female characters.
- Corrupt the Cutie: Oh, my. It's even deliberately invoked in Haou Airen by Reilan. She doesn't live to see the results.
- Double Standard Abuse (Female on Male): Inverted like holy hell.
- Dull Surprise: Characters...don't emote well.
- Female Misogynist: Shinjo's suspected to be one in Real Life. Her portrayals and treatment of female characters are... interesting. (And yes, she has been compared to Stephenie Meyer.)
- Guilty Pleasures: Ahahahaha, oh wow. Her stories are full of Wangst, rape, idiot plots... but the artwork is so pretty! And the melodrama, well, at times is absolutely hilarious instead of deep/touching/ragey/etc.
- Hotter and Sexier: More than the average shoujo. In fact it's almost a wonder that she managed to publish them in Sho-Comi.
- Darker and Edgier: Haou Airen not only is rather sex-driven, but it also features a heavilyy violent environment as a whole.
- Karma Houdini: Most of the male leads never get their comeuppance, but their Bishonen looks, who can blame them?
- Never Trust Viz: Ai Ore Love Me was advertised by Viz as a wacky crossdressing romantic comedy, leaving out all the non-consensual overtones and Values Dissonance.
- No Export for You: There's a reason why Akuma na Eros, Love Celeb and Haou Airen will never get released in the US. Not like that's bad though...
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Chances are, someone will lose their memories at some point.
- Lighter and Softer: Ai Ore Love Me, enough to manage an official English release. It's still a fairly disturbing series.
- Love Martyr: Whenever the female leads fall for their boyfriends, expect this to happen.
- Off-Model: Character's faces tend to look off when drawn from certain angles.
- Only Six Faces: Satan from Akuma na Eros is simply Sakuya from 'Sensual Phrase with longer hair and horns, and they both look like Hakuron from Haou Airen. Don't forget that Kurumi is basically Aine with Girlish Pigtails, and Miu is Aine with a headband and a sailor uniform.
- Ordinary High School Student: The majority of her female leads start as this.
- Psycho Lesbian: One appears in Ai Ore Love Me and tries to rape Mizuki. She's probably the only LGBT character in any of these works.
- Melodrama: The bread and butter of her stories.
- Rape Tropes, especially Rape Is Love: Hoo boy... Let's not get started.
- Stealth Parody/Trolling Creator: Some people suspect all of her works are this, while others think that Shinjo has realized that she can't really tell consistent stories and decided to just go along with it, especially now that she's freelance. That she's friends with Tite Kubo tends to muddy the waters for some people.
- Tall, Dark and Snarky: Her male leads tend to be this.
- Trauma Conga Line
- Villain Protagonist: The male leads, with all their rape and abuse, count as this.
- Yandere/Crazy Jealous Guy: Oh, boy howdy, does she ever write these.