The shojo genre is filled with all kinds of heroines, coming in all different kinds of personalities, appearances, backgrounds, and stories. But, usually, they are kind-hearted and well-meaning, have their dreams, and want to do what's right. And more often than not, they tend to be late for school.
Still, whether they are a magical girl, a superhero, or are the subject of a mundane high school romance, the point of these qualities in a shojo heroine is to make them relatable to the audience. Even male fans can easily find a little bit of themselves in a well-written heroine, just as vice-versa.
10 Usagi Tsukino (Sailor Moon)
Usagi sure has her vices: she's a crybaby, a bit cowardly, a klutz, pretty lazy, is usually seen eating something, and seems to spend most of her free time playing video games, reading comics, and finding new ways of spending her mother's money. In contrast to other superheroines, even the ones on her own team, this makes her come off all the more human. She's also romantic, has her dreams, loves her friends, and seems like a fun person to have on your side. Combine that with the fact she's a princess with magic powers, she somehow manages to be an escapist character and someone the viewer can see themselves in all at the same time.
The '90s English dub even ending each episode with "Serena" telling the audiences about how they should believe in themselves, among other various family-friendly morals, also helped make her seem like a friend to a lot of children.
9 Tohru Honda (Fruits Basket)
Tohru Honda seems like a heroine straight out of a fairy tale, being taken in by the cursed Sohma family essentially after losing her mother. She's feminine, kind-hearted, and seems to love everyone, winning her a lot of surprising friends. She's a bit more hard-working than most people would probably be willing to be, essentially serving as a housekeeper for the Sohma family and working as an office janitor, but a lot of people know the struggle of getting their hands on a disposable income.
At the same time, she's clumsy, insecure, and naive about things. And sometimes her willingness to help others makes her come off as a little stubborn. In the original Japanese version, for example, she has a tendency to use polite language even when it's unnecessary.
8 Doremi Harukaze (Ojamajo Doremi)
Doremi Harukaze is studying to become a witch after accidentally turning Majo Rika into a frog, but she started the series as a normal girl. She gets bad grades, is a bit of a clumsy ditz, and, starting with the third season, is the least capable in her side job at the bakery. Even becoming a magical girl doesn't necessarily do her any favors; her younger sister seems to be a more capable witch-in-training than she is. But she loves her friends and all kinds of people warm up to her. Looking at her odango-styled hair, it's tempting to think Usagi Tsukino was more than a little influence on her.
Her love of steak is so passionate, it can make the casual viewer hungry even if they don't actually like steak. And her regular catchphrase is something a lot of people can relate to: "I'm the unluckiest bishoujo in the world!"
7 Momoko (Powerpuff Girls Z)
Unlike her American counterpart, Momoko, the alter-ego of Blossom, is a completely different character than the original level-headed Powerpuff Girls leader: she's silly, ditzy, loves to eat, and is a bit obsessed with superheroes, magical girls, romance stories, and the occasional Sentai series. Essentially, she's the ultimate fangirl who gets to live out her fantasies. And this little otaku falls in love with nearly every boy she sees.
By contrast, her friends Kaoru (Buttercup) and Miyako (Bubbles) are much closer to their original personalities and they can make her seem less strong and mature, respectively, by comparison.
6 Candy White Ardley (Candy Candy)
Candice "Candy" White is a plucky tomboy from Lake Michigan and a classic 1970s shojo heroine. Her story is heavily reminiscent of the novel Daddy-Long-Legs, especially with its twist ending, but with more soap opera elements. She goes through a lot of the drama a typical novel heroine would go through: she's an orphan, misses out on a chance to get adopted by a rich family, gets adopted by another rich family who uses her as a servant, falls in love with a boy who dies, falls in love with another boy who is forced to marry a suicidal girl he doesn't even love by her mother, and so on.
And if that wasn't enough, she even has to live through the Great War. Things get so melodramatic that the Italian dub edited the series to have a happier ending. While she probably goes through more than the average reader, audiences certainly root for her.
5 Himeno Awayuki (Pretear)
Himeno Awayuki's life is complicated, having to put up with an alcoholic father, two cold stepsisters, and a stepmother who nobody notices is possessed by the series' main villain, all the while mourning her real mother. Even her new stepfamily's servants seem to dislike her. And then she meets seven magic knights who claim she's their lost princess.
She's a bit tougher and more hot-blooded in the anime, being a bit more introspective in the manga, but she's still a loving, forgiving character throughout, and all kinds of people can have different extremes.
4 Ahiru (Princess Tutu)
In a sense, Ahiru isn't like most girls, considering she's actually a duck, but she's still relatable. The boy she likes is emotionally distant, due to being magically stripped of his emotions, and struggles to help save him, by becoming a magical girl and returning his emotions, all the while contending with ghosts, an evil princess, and various characters from ballet stories.
And if her being a duck is too off-putting for some fans, she's not a duck in the manga adaptation.
3 Sakura Kinomoto (Cardcaptor Sakura)
Sakura is rather accident-prone. She starts the series accidentally releasing the Clow Cards, causing her to become the new Cardcaptor. Of course, as her story goes on, she even ends up accomplishing things accidentally, like creating Clear Cards.
Ditzy and kind-hearted, she's a sweetheart who often falls victim to slapstick and finds herself in over her head.
2 Sakaki (Azumanga Daioh)
Tall, misunderstood Sakaki, is actually rather smart and athletic, but she's shy and lonely, with people keeping their distance either because they find her imposing or intimidating. Even cats seem to go out of their way to be cruel to her, until she meets Mayaa.
It gets to a point where even short people can find themselves feeling sorry for her, except when they think they stole their height. She's a character that makes being aloof sympathetic.
1 Sawako Kuronuma (Kimi Ni Todoke)
Sawako is a lonely girl who wants to make friends but bears an unfortunate resemblance to the famous ghost, Sadako Yamamura, which, combined with her natural shyness, keeps her socially inept. Things get a little brighter for her when she befriends Shouta Kazehaya.
Unlike a lot of examples, she's a good student and shows herself to be responsible and hard-working. She's also pretty sensible in objective manners. She also feels a duty to her parents, even initially turning down a party invitation to spend time with them.