I think of this as a sort of porn for young women. Not just in the sense of sex, but in the sense of repeatedly delivering the sexual tension the reader desires and reaffirming the Mary Sue’s good points (which is usually done by one of the love interests after the Mary Sue is done wallowing in self-pity or guilty). It puts the reader in a situation she wants to be in.

You can do the genre well. The manga I”S, which is more or less the male version of shoujo/josei manga like Sensual Phrase; great art, a mature presentation, but still wish fulfillment that objectifies the opposite sex.

I don’t think there’s any shame in it, though. It’s just a genre limited by its very nature. If you want to see romance done well, Solanin or the recent developments in Oyasumi Punpun are great. Inio Asano does interpersonal relationships in a very realistic way.

[...] Viz, meanwhile, releases 18 volumes of Sensual Phrase. It’s labeled “shojo” but the explicit sex scenes earned it a Mature reader [...]

[...] and Maison Ikkoku went 15 (although a few of those I thought were repetitive), and I still have Sensual Phrase‘s 18 books. I have hopes for Nana continuing beyond book 21, once the author feels better, [...]

[...] then I saw Rescue (MAR10 0478, $3.99), a new special issue by Kelly Sue DeConnick (Sensual Phrase) telling a story about Pepper Potts as Iron Man. That I hope to like, although it would be nice if [...]

[...] and tone tricks, and Yuu Watase (Imadoki!) gets six pages on creating color art. Mayu Shinjo (Sensual Phrase) concludes with a very brief section on digital tools, which I found memorable mostly for the high [...]

[...] list at Butcher’s site, I see some completed series I enjoyed (such as Aishiteruze Baby and Sensual Phrase), but mostly, I see books that never clicked with me (getting Hot Gimmick off shelves is a [...]

[...] The first Luv Luv Press title, Voices of Love, was intriguing to me, just because it was very unusual in the U.S. to see manga romance stories for women with explicit sex included. (Although there had previously been the occasional explicit shojo story.) [...]

[...] Sensual Phrase, a teen-girl fantasy love story, but with plenty of sex [...]

[...] terrific Sensual Phrase ended in February with book 18, and my beloved Tramps Like Us is moving towards conclusion in its [...]

[...] rare for me to keeping enjoying a title beyond about 12 volumes. (Sensual Phrase was a happy exception, at 18 books, and I’m still loving Tramps Like Us, which has just [...]