I know it's been like 3 years, but I'd like to recommend Ascendance of a Bookworm as a fantastic shoujo series. Good writing and interesting characters, plus a lot of cool worldbuilding.Man, I love how they fake you out by making the first chapter the most unbearable sappy romance story ever, and then destroy it with that ending. No matter how many times I reread this manga it's always shocking how good it all is. Especially since it's the only shoujo manga I've found with actually good writing and likeable characters. (Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun doesn't count. It's considered Shounen)
I've watched Ascendance of a Bookworm and read Mr. Villians Day Off and I'm not sure that's actually shoujo but I'll take a look at your other recommendations. Thank you very much.I know it's been like 3 years, but I'd like to recommend Ascendance of a Bookworm as a fantastic shoujo series. Good writing and interesting characters, plus a lot of cool worldbuilding.
If you don't mind villainess manga, then The One Within the Villainess and May I Ask for One Final Thing? are also fantastic. The former has gorgeous art and great characters, and the latter is just really fun.
Alternatively if you just want something a bit chill, Mr. Villain's Day Off is a really cute way to look at the Tokusatsu genre. Some of the chapters can hit surprisingly hard.
That's pretty much why I drop most of the shoujo manga I read. A lot of the MLs in shoujo manga are either horribly abusive or puppy dogs with no agency. The One Within the Villainess and May I Ask for One Final Thing? don't fall into that trap, but honestly I can only think of like less than 10 other shoujo manga that have a good ML. It seems to be a lot worse in pre-2010s shoujo manga so I just avoid those whenever I can.To be honest, I've never really looked particularly hard for a good shoujo series so I probably shouldn't have said all that but every time I did decide to give a shoujo series a try I'd end up disgusted by the horribly abusive "bad boy" characters.