The Josei magazine Flowers began its life as the Shojo Magazine Petit Flower published by Shogakukan. Petit Flower ran as a shojo magazine from 1980 until March 2002, after which it was revamped into Flowers magazine which released in April 2002. Other major magazines published by Shogakukan include Cheese!, Ciao, Sho-comi, and Betsucomi. 

Petit Flower itself originally started as a special issue of Betsucomi (home to works like Banana Fish, Queen’s Quality, etc) before being made into a regular shojo magazine in 1980. Historically Petit Flower targeted girls in their late teens to early 20s. During this period the artists published in the magazine were granted much more editorial freedom in exchange for limited editorial support.

Upon its re-launch as the Josei magazine Flowers, several popular Betsucomi works were transferred over for its debut like 7 seeds and Yasha to be published along side the works rolling over from Petit Flower. 

Form 1980 until now, Flowers (formerly Petit Flower) has published the works of major writers like Moto Hagio, Keiko Nishi, You Watase, Yumi Tamura, Akimi Yoshida,  Keiko Takemiya, Reiko Kano, Setona Mizushiro, Chiho Saito (part of the Be-Papas creative team), and many more. 

Some major seminal works have and continue to come from the magazine like Kids on the Slope, Kazi to ki no uta, Marginal, A cruel god reigns, 7 seeds, Suji de Asobo, Umimachi Diary, and Don’t Call It Mystery which is one of the best-selling manga these days.

However, despite its major legacy, works from the magazine have only been officially published 13 times. Thankfully, the majority of the works available in English from this magazine are still officially accessible either digitally or physically, with only the short stories which were included in “Four Shojo Stories” and “Love Song” both out of print and unavailable officially in digital. 

The works from this magazine which have been published in English are:

* Revolutionary Girl Utena: After the Revolution (Viz physical and digital)
* Gold Kingdom and Water Kingdom (7 seas physical and digital)
* Polar Bear Cafe (7 seas physical and digital)
* Fushigi Yugi: Byakko Senki (Viz physical and digital)
* Don’t Call it mystery (7 seas physical and digital)
* Kaze Hikaru (Viz physical and digital, although some volumes are probably OOP)
* Wolf’s Daughter: A werewolf’s tale (7 seas Physical and digital)
* Lil’ Leo (Denpa physical and digital)
* Otherworld Barbara (Fantagraphics Physical only, but likely near the end of its print run, so vol 1 seems out of stock at the moment. It might be a year or 2 until it gets restocked like it did with The Heart of Thomas)
* A Drunken Dream and other stories (Fantagraphics physical only) (specifically the stories “Hanshin: Half God”, “Angel Mimic”, “Iguana Girl”, and “The willow tree”) 

OOP:

* Four Shojo Stories (Viz specifically “Changeling”, and it’s highly likely at least 1, if not both, of the Keiko Nishi stories were published in Petit Flower)
* Love Song: 4 tales by shojo artist Keiko nishi (Viz all 4 short stories were published in Petit Flower)
* Times 2 (X2) (Viz Out of Print Physical)

A Brief Introduction to Flowers Magazine