The National Art Center, Tokyo has opened the first large-scale exhibition of shojo manga ever mounted by a national museum in Japan. Shojo Manga Infinity, which opened on October 28 and runs through February 8, 2027, traces the careers of Moto Hagio, Ryoko Yamagishi and Waki Yamato, three artists who transformed the possibilities of manga for girls in the 1970s.

All three began their careers in the late 1960s and became leading figures in what is now remembered as the golden age of shojo manga, when the genre expanded its creative range far beyond romance. The exhibition follows their individual paths through more than 800 original monochrome and colour artworks, including manuscripts from their best-known works and valuable archival material, showing how each developed a distinct visual language for interior life, fantasy and science fiction.

The show is part of the National Art Center's twentieth-anniversary programme, and its title reflects the multilayered appeal and boundless potential the museum sees in the form. Colour works will be rotated between two terms, the first running to December 14 and the second from December 16 to the close, so repeat visitors will find different drawings on the walls.

By placing manga manuscripts in the galleries of a national art museum, the exhibition treats the artists as major figures in post-war Japanese culture rather than as popular entertainers. Hagio, Yamagishi and Yamato drew stories that shaped generations of readers, and the show argues that their innovations in page composition, emotional expression and genre belong in the same conversation as any other modern art.