Iteration 1: Initial Concept

A page from a legal pad, with writing in black gel ink. Some stand-out notes are "Tomie and Helter Skelter" and "The Dorian Gray Effect: investigating beauty, body horror"

This was the first planning process I went through for this project in assembling my application to the Honors in the Major program. In comparison to the others, it is the most abstract and mostly focused around the title and main themes within the text. Two of my original titles were "The Dorian Gray Effect: Beauty and Body Horror in Japanese Manga" and "Brand New City: Body Horror and Beauty in Manga". Both these proposed titles are quite different from my final title: "Eye of the Beholder: Beauty, Body Horror, and Women's Empowerment in Shojo Manga". This change comes as a result of deeper research efforts and critique as a part of the writing process.