How is that for a post title?  Shoujo manga heroines need to stay far away from anyone playing sports. In Shoujo Manga Land, it’s a dangerous place to be. Seriously!

Life in Shoujo Manga Land can be rough. Sure, there are many fabulously wealthy characters, but there are also a lot of people who have to work for a living. Let’s not forget all those poor high school students who need a way to finance the all-important Christmas and birthday gifts! But what options are available for people who need to work in Shoujo Manga Land? Let’s looks at some of the most popular choices:

  Teacher

If you’re an adult, being a teacher is a good Shoujo Manga Land occupation. You get to spend all day hanging around all the ridiculously cute students. And, if you’re a guy in your 20’s, there is a good chance you’ll have a forbidden romance with one of your students. Oh my! In Shoujo Manga Land, I think one of the requirements to become a teacher is that you are young and good-looking. Take, for example, these fine teachers —

Now, we certainly didn’t have any teachers this hot when I was in high school. No wonder these girls are so tempted!

Doctor/Nurse

We don’t see all that many hospital Doctors in Shoujo Manga Land, but school doctors are everywhere. With their long flowing lab coats and devastating good looks, they can be quite dangerous. They all seem to be just a bit more naughty than even the teachers. It must be the easy access to those deliciously private infirmary beds that attracts these playful people to become school Doctors. School doctors always seem to have a lot of spare time during the day. I guess they just sit around waiting for students to get hurt and ask to be patched up. But this means that they are also free during the day for some extra-curricular activities of an innocent shoujo heroine should venture near during class time.

Idol

If you’re young, another good option to support yourself is by becoming an idol! There are all kinds of idols- models, actors, singers, etc. It’s an exciting job that allows for lots of travel and a great wardrobe. Plus, they don’t seem to care if you have any prior experience for this job, because scouts are more than happy to recruit average people off the streets to go join talent agencies. (I should know, I’ve even been approached by a scout in Japan!)

icon-book Novelist

Say you’re an eccentric type who doesn’t like to venture out much. A career as a novelist might be ideal for you! In Shoujo Manga Land, novelists are often presented as messy, distracted people who are always at home writing, usually late for deadlines, and desperately in need of an assistant to help them. 8 out of 10 times, the novels they write are erotic. Sounds fun, right? There is no age requirement for this job, either. Sometimes the novelist is a high school student desperately writing to pay the bills. Other times, the novelists are award-winning geniuses who look to strange places for inspiration. Heck, these days, some novelists publish their work via cell phone! And look at Kaga-sensei, pictured below — he manages to be both a teacher AND a novelist!

Mangaka

If you’d rather draw than write prose, another possibility is becoming a mangaka! In shoujo Manga Land, there are many high school kids working as manga authors! If it’s a girl, she usually lacks some valuable life experience that would make her manga better, so she must therefore do some quality “research,” preferably with a hot guy at her school. If the mangaka is a guy, then the genre of manga must clash entirely with your physical appearance. The guy will probably draw shoujo manga.

Waiter/Waitress

If you’re an average young person without much chance of becoming a model or idol, there are other employment options. For guys who want to earn enough money to move away from home (and away from whatever shoujo heroine is tempting them, such as a step-sibling…) and for girls who want to earn enough money to buy their crush a birthday/Xmas present, Family Restaurants are great places to work. Places like Denny’s are busy and always hiring, and in Shoujo Manga Land, are often staffed by cute teens. At the Family Restaurant, guys can get lots of work hours, while being stalked by the heroine or various other meddlesome family members or classmates. Girls can make good money while also meeting new potential love rivals.

Shoujo Manga Land is a vast and wondrous place, yet strangely, we usually only see the same sorts of places depicted within manga pages.

Here are some of the places you’re likely to see when reading shoujo manga.

School

Well, obviously. So much shoujo manga is about kids that are school-age. It is usually a middle school or a high school, but sometimes we may get a glimpse of an elementary school or *gasp* university!

In high school, we get views of all the usual places:

Classrooms — last seat next to the windows, of course

Club rooms — Small rooms where club members can relax after a long day of studying. Can be used for anything from drawing manga, to knitting, to practicing band.

School Roof — The school roof is really the place to be. All the cool kids eat lunch there, and after school it’s the best place for a love confession.

Infirmary — After the love confession, the next place to go is the school infirmary, with its comfortable cots and privacy curtains. All sorts of fun can happen there.

Gymnasium — The best place for the girls to squeal over how wonderful the School Prince is at playing basketball, or for the team manager to long for her senpai to notice her. The equipment room here can be home to other naughty activities, but watch out! You might get locked in!

Hallways/Stairs — Stairs pose the greatest threat to shoujo manga heroines at school. Because students have to wear slippers or indoor shoes inside school, they don’t have quite the traction as they’d normally expect outside. Therefore, slipping on stairs is a huge problem. Fortunately, any good shoujo manga hero worth is name has the ability to catch or break the fall of a shoujo heroine, even if he was higher up on the stairs than she before the fall. I seriously think that every boy in shoujo manga land is taken aside during PE in middle school, and instructed in the fine art of bending time and space in order to catch girls falling down stairs.

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Aquarium

These kids gotta date, and the most romantic place to go is the Aquarium, with all the brightly colored fish glowing in the darkened hallways. This is a great place to hold hands.

Beach

Summertime stories MUST include a trip to the beach! Fortunately, most shoujo manga heroines know someone who has a vacation house near a beach, or is able to find someone who is offering a summertime job that includes sleeping arrangements. The beach is the place to show off your bikini, and (unfortunately) nearly drown so the hero can rescue you (sigh). It’s also the place for the hero to show off his surfing skills or his beach volleyball prowess. There might also be some watermelon smashing and fireworks.