Current mangas

Recently read a manga called Girl Friends.

This manga will make you feel really girly reading it. If you're already a girl, you'll feel extra girly if you're not normally girly. I don't normally read Girls Love, but I saw this over on Uboachan somewhere and decided to give it a try since I was curious. At first I thought it was cute, but before I realized it I ended up marathining the whole series. Really, it got me by surprise. It's just generic romance though, for the most part, it's just something about the lovable characters that make it really enjoyable to read.

As you can guess from the title, it's about girls. Girls who are friends. Girls who are friends and develop feelings past friendship. It's only 5 volumes long, so not too much of a read, really. Still surprising how I got sucked into it though, a series like this would have normally been one that I pick at slowly once a week or something, but I really couldn't help it.

Seconding this recommendation.

I have to admit, it really made it seem like doing things like painting nails could actually be fun. I'm not to saying that it made me feel pretty FABULOUS, but rather- I liked and found a connection to the characters, and because of them, I had sort of felt like I was in on what they were doing, and watching them do girly things seemed actually fun and also made me feel kinda girly.

Anyways, it's a cute, satisfying shoujo about misunderstandings. You're right, it IS typical; and as you say, the characters really make the read worth it. Give it a shot.