Shōjo Gahō

Popular artists including Takabatake Kashō, Fukiya Kōji and Matsumoto Katsuji also contributed to the illustrations for the magazine.

Shōjo Gahō was printed in the size of a kikuban (150×220) which was typical for a magazine published in this period, and approximately a centimeter thick.

Including Japanese customs, lifestyle, nature, letters from girls' schools, pictures of readers, Takarazuka stars and social events, the magazine actively introduced visual information and entertainment.

[3][4] The magazine often featured the lives of girls from overseas such as Europe, America, East Asia, India, Africa and Russia.

Shōjo Gahō interacted with readers through letters that sought for professional advice and submissions of creative works of literature and poetry.

[5] Shōjo magazines that were published in this period provided young women with moral guidance, to live a modest life and work hard.

While the main aims remained to educate girls to become a model national citizen, there was a visible shift to the consideration of higher magazine popularity and circulation.

The editors aimed for a magazine that could sell better, while maintaining its main purpose to nurture the skills of a mother and a wife to young women.

[12] Illustrations by artists such as Kashō, Fukiya Kōji and Matsumoto Katsuji often appeared in the magazine, and their Images of young women wearing an elegant kimono or an extravagant Western dress contributed in establishing the discourse of the shōjo.

Shōjo magazines were under the target of regulation, censored in order to promote spiritual education to the Japanese citizens including children.

[14] Although it was not initially planned to be a series, with its huge success, being requested by the chief editor Wada Kokō, Yoshiya continued to publish her works on the magazine to be serialised as Hana monogatari.

[13] His illustrations that depicted girls often in pairs, one in a kimono and the other in a Western dress, evoked the S relationships that were expressed in stories published in the magazine.