are Japanese comics aimed at women in their late teens on into adulthood. Josei manga are distinguished from "
shōjo manga" (少女漫画) for younger girls on the one hand, and or , which tend to have erotic content on the other. Readers can range in age from 15 to 44. In Japanese, the word means simply "woman", "female", "feminine", "womanhood", and has no manga-related connotations at all.