Transcultural shōjo manga: rethinking the Italian comic series W.I.T.C.H. through Heinrich Wölfflin’s art-historical comparative methodology

This study explores the complexities of defining shōjo manga, a Japanese comics genre for adolescent girls, in a transcultural context by analysing the formal aspects of W.I.T.C.H. (2001–2012), an Italian Disney comic series known for its hybridisation of shōjo manga and Western elements. The study achieves this by comparing W.I.T.C.H. with its redrawn version by Japanese shōjo manga artist Haruko Lida (2003–2004), who further ‘manga-ised’ the already ‘manga-like’ series. The study emerges from Anglophone comics scholarship, contending that while shōjo manga is frequently used to signal ‘cultural differences’ between Japanese and Western comics, more nuanced approaches to formal analysis are required to account for transcultural works. To this end, the study draws upon Ian Horton and Maggie Gray’s application of Heinrich Wölfflin’s art-historical comparative methodology to a formal analysis of comics, extending their approach according to the medium’s specificities. By comparing two versions of W.I.T.C.H., the study reveals that W.I.T.C.H., despite sharing with its Japanese version shōjo manga page layout techniques, diverges formally in ways that bring plurality and nuance to the genre’s definitions. Ultimately, this study argues that shōjo manga is not an exclusive category but a dynamic genre continuously reshaped, expanded, and innovated through transcultural exchange.