I'm just saying this because it's true.
horror manga is epic.
that is all.
and for shojos I would recommend, outran high school host club, high school debut, and love com (lovely complex) were all pretty cool.

*Making memory of what I have read*

Good Ending was promising (but there is a part when everything become awful and cheesy)
Kimi Ni Todoke very popular, but didn't hook me.
Kaichou wa Maid-sama!, it wasn't for me (but I found it very light, so, is easy to be liked)
Vampire Knight, love triangle (kinda repetitive).
The Bride of the Water God, is very good (I like the art).
Ranma 1/2 (this is the shojo/shonen by exellence).
Shoujo Shounen (the name says everything. No one should read this).
100% Ichigo, I never understood why people like it, is kinda good at the beginning, but it disapoint you in the middle.
Vampire Crisis, didn't like it.
Kurobara Alice, reading it.
Tokage, good.
Deep Love Virus, bad.
Delinquent Lesson, I hate when the badass guy look like a girl.
Chrome Breaker, is for kids.
Jigoku Shoujo R, is ok.
NHK (is kinda shojo), I like it.
There was other I don't remember the name, of a guy who is destroyed by a UFO, but htey gave him a girl body as a compensation by the problems (it was ok).

I don't remember more =/

For me the deal with Shojo mangas, is that, is always the same, and same characters. If I do one, I would make the guy a depresive kid who have tried to kill himself and the girl a sex addict niphomaniac, and they meet in the psychiatric clinic, and they are between a relationship of friendship, trying to conquer their problems, but at the same time they like each other (but they know they can't be together, because that would be a problem to their recovery). That would be a kick ass love story.


Horror. Junji Ito all the way jajaja (yeah Horror is a great genre, but hard to make).

Kashi Mashi?

yeah that one.

The alien guy was awesome.

ranma 1/2. YES.
I own that. all 36 volumes of it.

Blegh I know how you feel. I actually like shojo but most are crap. One that I thought was p. good (But I didn't really like the art) was itazura na kiss. It's not what you'd expect from a shojo, but the main male character was a bit annoying.

Perhaps you're getting confused?

I don't think 100% Ichigo is a shoujo manga...it's a shounen manga, bishoujo, echhi, harem romance and I doubt many girls read this type...but I'd have to agree that shoujo manga are mostly crap and cheesy but I think there are more silly goose manga and silly goose than there are shoujo manga in the world.

So maybe you dislike silly goose harem romance as well? Those types have copy paste story lines.

You said Ichigo 100% is romance, silly goose and bishoujo. Bishoujo is a kind of shoujo, also the Ichigo 100% appeals to a female audience (this make it, inmediately a shoujo manga).

Ichigo 100% is per se a shoujo manga.

Read Kare Kano if you haven't already. It's a shojo but the romance is as sophisticated as a josei.

The last romance I saw and liked was Clannad. The last one I saw and hated . . . way too many, I can't count. If I read a harem silly goose, it's for the art (for To Love-Ru), or, at most, one character (as in the case of Nagasarete Airantou, for Suzu).

Shojo does seem extremely commonplace in the manga section at Borders. Even my mom said, "What the heck is with all these girly comics?" (Afterward, I pointed out Higurashi to her)

As Rio said, romance aimed at girls and women sells the fastest, even if they DO have copy-paste storyline.