A medium praised for its diversity and multifaceted appeal, anime owes much of its popularity to just how much variety of stories it offers to experience. From high-octane action flicks to tender romantic comedies to bone-chilling thrillers, close to every thinkable genre is represented in the medium, with no shortage of unique crossovers and genre-bending examples. However, aside from familiar groupings by theme and genre, anime also emphasizes another prominent classification - demographics. When first discovering the medium, new anime fans soon learn of the major anime demographics - shonen, seinen, shojo, and josei - which help distinguish series based on target age group and gender. However, out of the four, one stands out as the most overlooked and commonly misunderstood in the anime mainstream - josei.

Josei, literally translated to “woman,” is a manga demographic aimed at adult women, in contrast to shojo, which targets younger female audiences. Just...