Since I just recommended it in another thread, is anyone else reading this series? It has some of the more standard plot devices of shoujo, but due to the location in 1930's and 1940's Japan, they have more believability.
Our heroine, Butterfly, was sold to a geisha house by her starving family after one of her siblings starved to death during an multi-year famine. She becomes emotionally attached to a neighbor who is the only one who still is willing to care for her like she is child, rather than force her to act like a simple servant. It's her relationship with her neighbor, who is a tattoo artist, that drives the story.
I love that this story is showing the effects of the world they live in- famine, the buying and selling of human beings, terrorism, and war- on their lives, even as Butterfly begins to grow and mature from a 15 year old terrified of being abandoned again to an adult in this world. They chapter now is really going to test her, and I look forward to seeing how she handles things.