Abstract

Nakagawa Hiromi’s work The Transformation of “Girl” Image Seeing through Girl‘s Magazine: How the Comics Represented “Girl” is a discourse on a concept, “girl” which was formed since modern times. An image of “girl” has been transformed by several media of Japan. Furthermore, this image of “girl” symbolizes part of Japanese culture. Until now various studies of “girl” have been progressed and that is what a discourse of “girl” image is an important reason. A history of “girl” started from “female student” which was derived from an operation of public education. In addition, “girl” has a very special image which was created by “girl’s magazine.” Nakagawa Hiromi analyzes and criticizes synthetically discourses on “girl” which was explained by several scholars after a study of Honda Masuko. By extension, she made an attempt to analyse “girl” in the shojo manga. The “girl” in the comics has been excluded from studies on “girl” by this time although that is very important. Therefore, Nakagawa’s study has a great significance in that it led the “girl” in the comics out into the field of serious “girl” discourse. This book review points out a few of problems of Nakagawa Hiromi’s analysis on “girl” and presents new discourse on “girl.”