The Josei Parlour

Josei (女性向け) literally means “for women” and is a category of Japanese manga created primarily for an adult female audience. Josei tends to explore more mature relationships, work, friendships, sexuality, heartbreak and the messy realities of being an adult woman.

And somewhere along the way, I realised there was a problem.

There are so many of us who love these stories, josei, mature romance, manga, manhwa, anime and books: dark romance, adult romance etc.

But finding other women who are just as obsessed can be surprisingly difficult.

So I decided to create the place I couldn’t seem to find.

The Josei Parlour is a new London meetup community for women who want somewhere to talk about the stories we love, discover new ones and meet other women who understand why we can spend three hours analysing the emotional significance of a fictional man’s jawline.

We’ll talk josei!

We’ll swap recommendations, argue about fictional red flags, discover new favourites and occasionally ask ourselves why we’re rooting for someone who would be an absolute nightmare in real life.

The idea is simple: good stories, good conversation and good company.

And because this is genuinely just getting started, there isn’t an existing community behind it. I’m building it from the ground up and looking for the women who want to be part of it from the beginning.

So if you’ve ever looked around and thought, “Surely there are other women in London who are this obsessed with fictional men?”

There probably are.

Let’s find each other.

Welcome to The Josei Parlour.