Mayu Shinjo (born January 26, 1973) is a Japanese manga artist. She debuted in 1994 in Shogakukan's Shōjo Comic with "Anata no Iro ni Somaritai". She continued writing for Shogakukan until 2007, with her works appearing in both Shōjo Comic and their other magazine Cheese!. She's now working freelance, and her most recent series is ''Manga/Demon Love Spell'' (published in ''Margaret'' from 2008 to 2014).
Ms. Shinjo left the company to go freelance citing a dispute over working conditions and abusive treatment by her editor. How bad was that? In her blog, she noted that not only she was subjected to very abusive and restrictive work conditions (limited sleep hours, being forced to work many extra hours without any extra pay, constant editor pressure, being forced to change her storylines, etc.), but also that though she was the actual creator of her manga titles, she was ''one of the last to know about any adaptation plans for her series'', even learning about some (like ''Manga/SensualPhrase'') through TV channel websites instead of her abusive editors. When she decided to leave, one editor threatened to take all of her earlier series out of print, but Shinjo contacted a lawyer and the threat was never carried out.
The majority of Ms. Shinjo's manga, as mentioned, qualify in the shoujo spectrum. She draws lots of bishonen, gives her male leads [[FetishizedAbuser very sex-driven and forceful personalities]] [[TallDarkAndSnarky and lots of snarky comments about everything]], while making her female leads quite HollywoodHomely ([[SheCleansupNicely until it's time to clean up]]) and [[CorruptTheCutie in constant verge of being corrupted.]] Her stories tend to go for ''lots'' of emotional stuff, if not downright {{Melodrama}}, as well as being HotterAndSexier than your average shoujo, featuring many sex scenes among her male and female leads.
However, in 2014, she admitted that [[https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2014-11-12/mayu-shinjo-i-dont-think-ill-ever-write-shojo-manga-again/.80937 she has no interest in writing shoujo manga anymore]] [[note]] no doubt partly due to her experiences writing them [[/note]] preferring BoysLove instead.
Oh, and it looks like she's good friends with Creator/TiteKubo, judging by their twitter exchanges. Be afraid. Be VERY, VERY afraid.
%%Please refrain of hating and bashing Mayu Shinjo '''as a person''' here. Hate her works as much as you wish, but accusing her of being a FemaleMisogynist and acting as if she deserved the abuse she got in real life for her stories is incredibly creepy.%%
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!!Some of her works include:
* ''Manga/AiOreLoveMe''
* ''Manga/AkumaNaEros''
* ''Manga/DemonLoveSpell''
* ''Manga/HaouAiren''
* ''Manga/LoveCeleb''
* ''Manga/SensualPhrase''
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!!Tropes common across most of Mayu Shinjo's works:
* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Many of her stories feature a pure innocent virgin being seduced by a bad boy of some kind, Haoi Airen (Hakuron is a Triad gangster) and Sensual Phrase (Sakuya is a rock star) in particular.
* AllMenArePerverts: Almost every single man in her stories, if they are not related to the female lead, want to sleep with her, willingly or not.
* AllWomenArePrudes: Her female leads tend to be innocent virgins who balk at the first sign of sexual intimacy. However, this gets ZigZagged along with AllWomenAreLustful, since Shinjo typically resolves such stories with the male leads forcing themselves on to the female leads and the female leads falling in love with them because they succumbed to lust / love.
* AMatchMadeInStockholm:
** Happens quite a few times in her stories, most notably,
** BroodingBoyGentleGirl: What they're ''supposed'' to come across as. Oops?
* AttemptedRape: See RapeAsDrama below.
* {{Blackmail}}: Someone's gonna get extortioned here.
* BreakTheCutie:
** A given, specially in regards to the female characters. [[Manga/HaouAiren Kurumi]] and [[Manga/SensualPhrase Aine]] are the ones who get it the worst.
** There seems to be a sort-of "unspoken rule" about this in the story. The boys get broken in their {{Dark And Troubled Past}}s and later they're the ones who do the breaking, the girls generally do well until they meet the already broken guys and from then on get regularly broken on page/screen.
* CorruptTheCutie: Oh, my. It's even [[InvokedTrope deliberately invoked]] in ''Haou Airen'' by [[spoiler: Reilan. [[DeathByGenreSavvy She doesn't live]] [[ThanatosGambit to see the results]].]]
* CrazyJealousGuy: All of the male leads tend to be extraordinarily possessive. Often, after rescuing the female lead from being assaulted, they'll force themselves on them out of jealousy that the female leads "allowed" another man to touch them, completely ignoring that it wasn't invited or wanted.
%% ** ClingyJealousGirl: There is no shortage of these as well, and often portrayed as the female lead's rival in love.
* DamselInDistress: CONSTANTLY. Goes hand in hand with RapeAsDrama.
* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Haou Airen'' not only is rather sex-driven, but it also features a heavily violent environment as a whole.
* {{Doujinshi}}: She released some ''Anime/TigerAndBunny'' doujins, doubling as her first foray into {{Yaoi}}. The main couple is Barnaby/Koutetsu, if you're wondering.
* FetishizedAbuser: Mayu Shinjo is notorious for her ''kichiku'' male leads, who mostly tend to be huge bastards to pretty much everyone, as well as having ''very'' {{Dark And Troubled Past}}s.
* HotterAndSexier: More than the average shoujo. Not ''that'' surprising if you consider she published many of them in ''Shoujo Comic'' which tends to host more steamy (and often rape-y) shoujo manga than the standard shoujo magazines.
* ImAManICantHelpIt: It goes hand in hand with the FetishizedAbuser trope. It's usually the justification given for the male love interest's constant attempts to sleep with the heroine.
* KarmaHoudini: Most of the male leads never get their comeuppance, but with their {{Bishonen}} looks, who can blame them? [[spoiler: The closest to an aversion is ''Haou Airen'', where Hakuron gets a mix of RedemptionEqualsDeath and HeelFaceDoorSlam.]]
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Chances are, someone '''will''' lose their memories at some point.
* LighterAndSofter:
** ''Manga/AiOreLoveMe'', enough so to get ''an official English release''. It's still a fairly... polemic series.
** ''Manga/DemonLoveSpell'', where Kagura is less of a bastard (though some of his antics are still questionable) and Miko is more able to keep him under her thumb.
* LoveMartyr: Whenever the female leads fall for their boyfriends, expect this to happen.
* {{Melodrama}}: The bread and butter of her stories.
* NearRapeExperience: Goes hand in hand with RapeAsDrama. For example, In ''Love Celeb'', Gin saves Kirara from being raped by a sleazy exec producer only to try to force himself on her. She escapes that too.
* NoExportForYou: There's a reason why ''Manga/AkumaNaEros'', ''Manga/LoveCeleb'' and ''Manga/HaouAiren'' will never get officially released in the West. ''Manga/DemonLoveSpell'' did, however.
* [[NeverTrustATrailer Never Trust Viz]]: ''Manga/AiOreLoveMe'' was advertised by Viz as a wacky crossdressing romantic comedy, leaving out all the rapey overtones.
* OnlySixFaces: Satan from ''Manga/AkumaNaEros'' is simply Sakuya from ''Manga/SensualPhrase'' with longer hair and horns, and they both look like Hakuron from ''Haou Airen''. Don't forget that Kurumi is basically Aine with GirlishPigtails and Miu is Aine with a headband and a SailorFuku.
* OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent: The majority of her female leads start as this. They obviously don't stay that way.
* PrettyBoy: All of her male leads are stunningly beautiful in-universe with women willingly throwing themselves at them. Due to Shinjo's issues with OnlySixFaces, this bleeds into all of her supporting characters as well.
* PsychoLesbian: One appears in ''Manga/AiOreLoveMe'' and tries to rape Mizuki.
* PsychoticLoveTriangle: There will be at least one in every work. At first the male love interest will be a Yandere and FetishizedAbuser while his GirlNextDoor girlfriend will be more or less normal. Then, the girl who will appear to challenge said GirlNextDoor will tun out to be a Yandere ClingyJealousGirl... meaning that the two yanderes do not compete for someone else, but the crazy dude is the target of both a crazy girl and a non-crazy one.
* RapeAsDrama: If the heroine of the series isn't ''at least'' being threatened with rape at some point, it isn't a true Mayu Shinjo creation. To be specific, Kirara from ''Love Celeb'' is almost raped in the first chapter by a music industry big shot then almost raped by the male lead; Mizuki from ''Ai Ore'' is almost assaulted on different occassions by one of Akira's friends after he realizes she's a girl.
* RomanticizedAbuse: She seems to really like this.
* StealthParody: Some theorize her works as being this for Shoujo manga as a whole given just how over the top all of the scenarios are and how they take typical unquestioned tropes present in many shoujo works (FetishizedAbuser, RapeAsDrama, BroodingBoyGentleGirl, etc.) and turn them up to eleven.
* TrollingCreator: Seems obvious by now. It helps that she's friends with Creator/TiteKubo.
%% * TallDarkAndSnarky: Her male leads tend to be this.
%% * {{Yandere}}/ ... Need to ask?
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