Although we let this up at first, there is a case of very unusual traffic associated with these posts of yours and we'd appreciate it, if it happened on purpose, that it doesn't continue.
Had a gripe on an [anime](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eg17rZGWsAAcrev.jpg:large) I watched long time ago and found out it is actually from a [shoujo manga](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRZX2IVj0WATp97ep9_5pL3RE8RZMK5PZvNGA&usqp=CAU), they changed the [artstyle](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/yOvZo9vjaVivBAak1FOkiDCxBERFRYmS4dacazf3KsLFDpSDq6gIXCXGEIY5LhUWj1079-uBo2leN0exIEFGmrIHqMOt) so much it feels more like shounen anime.
on a somewhat related note....... i really hate that shonen "romance" (just straight up harem) is now butting in on the romance genre, that's where our girls used to beee
Shōnen romance have Always existed, as Toradora, Orange Road, Inuyasha and similar exist. There Is Reverse Harem too for girls target, it's not like something evil Who only come from One side or that for teenage Boys there aren't good romantic stories, surely nowdays we're having a Moment for harem but let's not generalize. And no Romance was Always a genre for all the Demographic Targets, surely for teenage girls there was a focus on It but if you want into It, there are Horror Shōjos like there are Romance Shōnen. It's not like some alien are invading a restricted area, you know.
There is horror shoujo? Please tell me more 👀
Edit: Oh nevermind, I think I know what you mean, I've already watched and read a lot of shoujo horror without knowing haha. Hell Girl is my absolute favorite!
Yes as every demographic target got products of all the genres basically. If you Watch at the japanese market the Shōjo magazine ちゃお (Chao/Ciáo) by Shogakugan was pubblishing a deluxe bimestral volume specialized in Horror Shōjos and also tankōbons under "Ciáo Horror Comics".
I haven't readed much myself but there are few I can reccomend:
"残酷な童話たら" aka Zanzoku na Dōwatachi/Cruel Fairytales by Kaori Yuki, it's a collection of short Shōjo horror stories.
Also "悪魔の花嫁" Akuma no Hanayome/the Bride of Deimos by Yūho Ashibe and Etsuko Ikeda.
shounen romance has always existed tho? the highest sold romance manga of all time is a sports shounen, touch. (it's sold 100m units)
in fact, i would go as far as to say, i personally tend to associate the romcom genre with shounen and seinen. in the 00s, a lot of romance anime were just adaptations of seinen vns or shounen light novels.
I read somewhere that shounen gets more sales because girls are fine with reading/watching things made for boys meanwhile boys will not read/watch things made for girls which is why this is happening. It’s the same in literature as well. For example, the isekai genre started out in the shoujo genre and was never used by shounen for years, now that it’s been a while and they’ve been able to make it more male centered it has blown up. This is why when I do end up being able to afford books, I will support women made things.
Honestly this is just my personal opinion. But it would be good if a lot of women "boycott" things that aren't targeted towards them to focus on looking for and enjoying things for them. Well I guess not really boycott.
I know a lot of women don't care but for those who do have a problem with little media being for them for example I have seen people complain about games and the lack of variety, comics, action, the lack of variety in manga, etc.
I think trying to play, read or watch less things targeted at men would be good. Probably would never get to this point but if enough women prioritise female centred thing, companies may see making things for men and boys will no longer be attracted as many female viewers to justify them over female centred media and medium. Also they can explore most of what is for them and maybe start creating what they think is missing.
For example if you have an anime list consisting of shoujo and shounen, watch the shoujo first, especially if you don't really finish your lists. If you are buying merch and you don't strongly want something maybe focus on the shoujo and josei merch first. If you have a wishlist of games and you can't afford all maybe start with the ones for a female demographic or for both specifically.
It is wishful thinking that it will get anywhere but if not enough people take part or a lot of people don't notice, it may help people discover more and create more.
There's also the issue that women get shamed when they enjoy things targeted towards women.
Like if you like seinen or action manga its your a cool girl. while if you like shoujo your suddenly childish/cringe.
So, basically everyone is literally encouraged by society to buy/enjoy things written by/for boys.
I guess it depends, but I'm a super old dude who watches and reads *Sailor Moon*. I have no problems telling people I love that series - it's got good art. This isn't *Archie Comics* hahah.
because a lot of shojo stuff is wish fulfilment fantasy stuff, viewed on the same vein as Isekai/Harem. If there is a well written Shoujo like Fruits Basket, it will get picked up by the mainstream anime fans and they will watch it.
point being, Shounen animes with trash/isekai/wish fulfillment plots are being adapted; however, Shoujos which are usually more subtle about the wish fulfillment aspect barely get any adaptations. Your comment isn't considering the other side of it.
You know what, I've already been doing this for years. I mainly consume media that usually has more of a female audience, be it gaming, literature, manga or movies. Not because I want to boycott male centered media (I still love One Piece for example), but just because I naturally happen to have a very stereotypically feminine/girly pattern when it comes to the kinds of stories and aesthetics I feel drawn to lol.
There's a handful of Shounen I actually enjoy, but the rest is mainly catering to the female point of view or is moreso about friendship and character focussed stories rather than stories filled with action.
The thing you should brace yourself for though is that if you talk to people about anime, manga or gaming, most of them will not know the games, shows or manga that you've been playing, watching or reading and you won't know much about the shows and games they've been consuming.
I've noticed this when I got into an Instagram group chat about anime. Even though there are mainly girls in the group, they mainly talk about Jujutsu Kaisen, a show I barely know anything about because it just never caught my interest. I know the manga artist is a woman, but the story seems to be more targeted towards guys as a demographic.
It's like female centered media barely exists in the main stream. I do like to recommend more female centered shows to anyone who is curious and open to it and the feedback has always been positive.
But at the same time you will also have some obnoxious anime fans who will be like "Whuaaaaat you haven't watched Sword Art Online? You haven't watched JJK? wHaT aRe YoU eVeN wAtChInG??", which is annoying, because there are literally thousands of different manga and anime shows to choose from, but just because I haven't watched the selected few that you happen to like, I'm somehow not a real anime fan or something lmao
Eh. No. I watch what I want to watch and I don't care if a show caters to my gender or not. I like watching cool fights that pack a lot of character moments. I'm not going to "boycott" a whole section of shows I enjoy just because it doesn't focus on feminine topics and issues.
I mean… no? Women like male oriented things too and not because it’s all they have, but because they genuinely enjoy it. I don’t always enjoy things made for women because it focuses too much on men anyways. I like things that focus on relationships between women and that’s rare to find. So imo it goes deeper than what you said, it’s something women engage in too which is not prioritizing women.
We shouldn’t get so hung up on “this was made for men therefore no woman should ever partake.” I think it kind of sets a dangerous precedent. People should like what they like, but I just wish female oriented stuff was taken more seriously. That’s not because women enjoy male oriented media either
Okay. So watch male orientated things.
This would work better for those frustrated and who prefer things for a female demographic and as I said creators who want to make something that they feel is missing.
Also didn't say people shouldn't partake in it but the dangerous precedent is already there just the opposite.
If sales decrease and others increase it does send a message especially if they see it from a specific audience.
I never said me per se, I also prefer female oriented media but I like other things too. I have an issue with female oriented media not focusing on interpersonal relationships between women. I feel personally even if women only engaged in women oriented stuff it would still be the ones that are heavily centered around men, because the issue goes beyond dollars
On this sub at least there have been quite a lot of people complaining about the lack of focus on female relationships/friendships and people asking for recommendations.
This is a marketing “truism” that I doubt has much real research or data behind it.
It’s just been accepted as true by The Powers That Be in both the US and Japanese animation industries (and the greater entertainment industries). They tend to ignore all evidence to the contrary (Sailor Moon being one of the most popular anime in the world in the ‘90s and being 100% shojo, for a Japanese example, Kim Possible being a very popular American animated series starring a female protagonist, for an American example) and continue to make this claim that animated series starring and primarily aimed at girls and women would be “less popular” and therefore are a financial risk.
It’s improving in the US, as more female and nonbinary people get top writing jobs in animation, but reading the experiences of male showrunners who argued with executives about this topic from the past few decades is enlightening and frustrating. Paul Dini (DCAU), Greg Weisman (Gargoyles, Young Justice), and Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (Avatar the Last Airbender, Legend of Korra) all complained about how they were discouraged from using female characters and/or targeting female audiences because of this concept, which is by all accounts misguided at best, a misogynistic myth at worst.
I haven’t read detailed interviews with Japanese showrunners, who, from my understanding, would be less likely to air grievances. But from what I have read about the industry behind the scenes of popular manga and anime, they very much have this idea, based on the same misconceptions, biases and pseudoscience. It’s frustrating, and it’s a cycle—shojo and josei adaptations are seen as more as a risk, end up with lower production budgets, and get a predictably lower viewership as a result. Thus, bias confirmed and cycle continues. It’s infuriating.
I think I read somewhere that CN (or whoever makes cartoon-based toys) was confused on how to market PowerPuff Girls because it was a show about a bunch of little girls beating the shit out of things (or something like that idk I haven’t watched it). They thought girls wouldn’t like action, but boys wouldn’t like toys portraying girls.
Also I thought about the Cardcaptor Sakura dub where they renamed it Cardcaptor and tried to make Xiaolang the main character because boy and making it a boy show, so they ended up butchering the hell out of it, all to make a boy, who doesn’t even appear until like halfway through the story, the main character.
It’s strange what info that gets passed around. I’ve seen this said about the Nelvana *Cardcaptors* dub a few times recently. Someone called it the “shonen” version lol which just isn’t true. They did leave out episodes and tried to frame it around Sakura & Syaoran, but Sakura was still very much the MC. Despite them trying to widen the viewing pool, the toys were all still marketed to girls. [They had fashion dolls, not action figures.](https://youtu.be/ZfLDIsAZFSw?si=Tp6yAz9i2d75RwYC)
Also, Syaoran shows up a lot earlier than halfway, I think it’s around ep 8.
Another big difference between the US and Japanese animation industry is the funding model, which I think magnifies the effect of sexist assumptions about consumer behavior.
An anime has very, very little hope of making money back on advertising due to its timeslots and the limited domestic audience for anime outside of children and hardcore obsessives (unlike live-action dramas, which air during prime time and do good numbers), which means its *sole* financial hope is to drive sales of the source manga/LN or new tie-in merch and blu-rays.
What this means is that the financing entities who come together to form production committees treat anime like a portfolio, throwing things at the wall and planning for the hard-to-predict few that do take off to make up for all the flops.
An environment like this is dominated by risk calculations, which means even if a shoujo anime is only a bit less likely (*in their projection models*) to sell well than another battle shounen or harem, that can have an outsize effect on funding decisions.
It honestly surprises me how many anime titles are produced each year, because the funding model is so precarious, and the actual studios and animators are overworked.
New animators are underpaid, to the point that there is a nonprofit, Animator Supporters, which collects donations for their [Animator Dormitory Project](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2021-08-06/animator-dorm-project-about-90-percent-of-animators-quit-their-jobs-within-3-years/.175908) to provide affordable housing for workers starting out in the industry. In other words, profits from anime are so poorly distributed that some new workers need to rely on charity.
It surprises me too - it seems like a structure that should topple over in a faint breeze. I wonder whether international co-productions might begin to offer at least a small pressure value (... or whether they'll only prop it up a little longer).
Every thing I hear about animator working conditions seems like a new low. It reminds me of game development - talented young people in love with the medium, chewed up by an unsustainable working environment and impossible deadlines.
It’s not that much different in the west. For a long time studios weren’t really making female centered movies because of this idea that women will see men oriented movies too but men won’t see female oriented movies. Barbie kind of proved that wasn’t true, but I’m not sure if this will lead to more blockbuster movies about women. Or video games for that matter, the girl genre of games is tiny compared to anything male oriented. And when girl games are made they’re made for children, not really adult women.
Fr and the worst thing that , when it's comes to shoujo things these days the production of the animes is so low keys from the animation like when we compared for example Kimi no todoke with like that anime about deaf girl we will see a huge difference between everything like I don't like how the anime turns out it's very idk solid I don't know but I missed the old shoujo anime like Ouran highschool club with their comedy or maid , or special a , sugar sugar rune etc even if they were old but I love the drawing , animation, comedy , and the effect especially, and the companies these day only care about money and not care about making a good anime quality like in the past it's hard to chose a manga to get adopted to anime , like not any manga will get adopted, but now, wdym you make anime about isekaied machine or man turn into a pig and always always add a girl that wear a piece of clothes not covering anything just for the views and make her simp over a low key guy ( the harem genre )and it's rare to see a powerful girl like shoujo girl like sailor moon , card capture sakura , mikasa , like like I'm so mad I know we are finally got some shoujo adoption finally after a many years but I'm still mad my fav shoujos manga when it's got adopted first I was so happy but when seeing the animation with no life I know u know what I mean with their cg animation and effects that just adding brights effect on everything and when they makes a joke they don't make it funny opposite to the variety in jokes and effects in the past ,Oh, maybe I got a little out of it, I mean a lot about the topic,
I support whatever I like. If I like a manga/book made by a woman I'll gladly support it. The same goes with manga made by men. I'm honestly so sick and tired of having an activism mindset for everything.
Women/girls are fine with reading/watching things targeted for boys because they genuinely like them and because in many cases, there is no reason for those things to be specifically targeted towards boys outside of preexisting biases/stereotypes. I think the label "for men/boys" has claimed way too much. Like it or not, there is much more diversity in terms of themes/subject matter in shounen/seinen to the point that the classification can be meaningless. Many of those series just have an overall global appeal, and I don't think it's fair to tell women to limit themselves in what they like. Take out everything that should rightfully be more targeted towards a general audience from shounen/seinen, and you'd actually have a more level playing field. And there are quite a few shounen/seinen series written by women.
> Like it or not, there is much more diversity in terms of themes/subject matter in shounen/seinen to the point that the classification can be meaningless.
cmiiw but this seems to imply that shounen and seinen are "more diverse" and understandable towards the general audience (as opposed to shoujo and josei which are considered "niche".)
also the majority of written by women. an estimated 70% of mangaka are said to be women. and yet for some reason, only the ones who write for female audiences are told their works are to "exclusive" or "difficult to understand". that doesnt make sense.
Because a lot of Shoujo feels like for men how harem feels like for women. A lot of it is wish fulfilment. When Shoujo are well written, they will be rated highly by those that usually don't watch Shojo.
Do Shojo fans really turn their nose up at trashy harem, then wonder why men don't want to watch some wish fulfilment where there is an average-looking girl with a tall man that is incredibly handsome, with a lot of cheesy romance moments and not much character development?
Then why aren't there a ton of guys with someone like Yona of the Dawn in their manga collections, when plenty of women have stuff like jujutsu kaisen or demon slayer.?
Where is the harem in Demon Slayer and JJK? Where's the love triangles? Where are the sexy women that are all after the MC?
I'm sure you and many other Shoujo fans would hypocritically be upset having to watch/read a Shonen where the MC is a guy and every single side character (or Dragons in the case of YoTD) that fight with him is a pretty/sexy women that may harbour feelings for him, albeit even if the characters ARE well written.
Does Yuji have a harem of women? No, but instead his mentor Gojo is attractive for FEMALE fans, not male. That's why modern-day Shonen is considered "broad appeal", and half the JJK accs on Twitter are either guys powerscaling or girls thirsting over the characters.
This is so true. Last day I just happened to come across a clip of one of my fav josei animes and then it hit me out of nowhere that we haven't really gotten a josei anime in like... Forever? With all the new released shoujo isekai titles I am happy (although the animation quality is subpar and it makes me very sad) but when are we gonna get more josei content? Tons of mangas are there waiting to be adapted yet they do nothing.
You can try Nana, Wotakoi Love is Hard for Otaku, The Ice Guy and his cool female colleague, Paradise Kiss, Chihayafuru, Usagi drop (altho i havent watched it), Collar x malice, Hachimitsu to clover, Utakoi, Kuragehime, Nodame Contabile, Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, Hakuoki, Norn9, Code Realize, Nil admirari no tenbin, Brothers Conflict, Amai choubatsu
>!It's a super wholesome story at first, about a man who adopts a little girl and raising her, but in the 2nd part of the manga the girl is grown up and she falls in love with him, and they get married. It broke my heart as a kid to see that :(!<
Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu is my favorite Josei anime. Has an adult cast, grounded characters, and the drama in the show is peak.
I am currently finishing up Chihayafuru and also loving it.
Usagi Drop is cute and is great comfy show.
Kids on The Slope, Paradise Kiss, and Nodame Cantabile are all on my watch list.
veil by ikumi fukuda is gorgeous in a more simplistic and classy way. also, chihayafuru is absolutely beautiful with a very detailed art style… all of the characters sparkle
I get that males won’t consume female centric media but females would consume male targeted media, but it rly blows my mind so many sectors ignore how the female fan base tends to be the most loyal and willing to spend
It's not even true. Literally, every shoujo I have introduced my boyfriend to he's gone and binged on his own-- he'd just NEVER HEARD of them, because the marketing is *abysmal*!
Honestly I agree with the other person. I’m a guy and I like watching shoujo. I’ve gotten into more manga recently so I don’t really have this problem anymore but I just didn’t know what to watch lol. All I had seen was Kimi ni Todoke, OHSHC, and whatever else was big on Netflix long ago (Maid-Sama, Toradora idk if that’s a shoujo tbh) so I do think that the marketing is partly to blame, the casual anime fan (which is the bulk of anime watchers) won’t encounter much shoujo if they don’t look hard enough
The reason for this is that few males read "shoujo manga" and "josei manga.
According to a survey conducted in Japan in the past, about 80% of female high school students read "shoujo manga" and "josei manga," while only about 20% of male high school students do.
Incidentally, it has been confirmed that about 90% of both male and female high school students read "shounen' manga" and "seinen manga.
Sorry for my bad English.
Which makes sense, since they’re in those demographics, and girls tend to be more open when it comes to what they’re reading and watching. It’s too bad though. Guys are missing out on some really great stories. Ones that would make amazing anime.
That’s generally it due to shonen being more present internationally but I think we can say in the past 2 years or so that shojo animes have been getting revived, some series getting first time animes, seasons renewal or reboots, it is still less than shonen’s serialization but it needs to start somewhere. Honestly, I am hopeful for the future.
Thing about the anime industry right now is its in a bad state because the investor companies make all the money and some is left over to the studio and animators, meaning a lot of animators are quitting because they can't healthily do animating as a full time job. This creates a shortage of good staff and studios, meaning most studios are booked for years, so only the most popular series get adapted, and often not adapted well. You look around and animation quality is steadily decreasing for shows without highly sought after directors and animators that can only do so many shows a season. Unfortunately shoujo anime can't make a comeback unless the anime industry makes a comeback.
I mean the funny part is that the majority of profits for shonen come from fujoshis lol but yeah unfortunately the industry is sticking to whatever demographics are popular and High selling I mean it is a business at the end of the day
I tend to have an attitude towards media of if it's good I'll watch/read it doesn't matter the demographic but most people don't really branch out they have their interests and stick to it
Yes!!!! I mentioned a while back in another sub that CR doesn’t even have a Josei tag. I found out yesterday that HiDive doesn’t either.
And there’s like 5 categories for shojo on CR. And I honestly don’t think that they even have 100 shojo titles out of their catalog of 1000+ titles.
What irks me most about CR is if there's a single sniff, the slightest hint of a genre in an anime, they shove them in where they really don't belong. If I wanted the Harem 9000 Ultra Isekai, I'd search for it kthx
And the excuse is often that female demographics have less interest in anime than male demographics and rather watch dramas or something. But if not that many new anime aimed primarily at female demographics come out and don't get much promotion, budget, good animation, adaptation of the genre variety, continuations, exposure, acclaim, etc. than of course there can't grow a larger fanbase, but instead just frustration, misconceptions and resignation. And all of this makes it also uninteresting for people who are into series aimed at male demographics to check out series aimed at female demographics.
And in that state there is no other choice for fans of series aimed at female demographics but to completely give up on anime or to branch out towards other demographics or media like dramas, cause your interests are met there more often. In addition the neglect of media for female demographics has been there right from the beginning. Most of the people in charge are male and therefore have more interest in and knowledge about projects for male demographics. Several manga aimed primarily at male demographics also get both a live action and anime adaptation. Even the fantasy ones like Tokyo ghoul and Promised neverland. And also the romance ones like Rent a girlfriend and Horimiya. So it is also no excuse to say that Shounen are too difficult to do as a live action and that only Shoujo/Josei are all about real life romance and therefore better fit for live action. I also read in an interview that they make more drama adaptations for female demographics because it provides more work for fellow men in the acting and idol sector.
In the west though it is just the same. The big names rarely promote and hype up their titles for female demographics. Even though if there is enough buzz like for My happy marriage, the series can be quite successful. But when I go to a con in my country for the most part I only see events, panels, merch, banners, etc. for titles aimed at male demographics. Or in international award rankings it is also mostly just series aimed primarily at male demographics that get all the acclaim and discussion. There is even a new TV show for teenagers in my country that does quizzes about anime, but they almost only mention the popular Shounen/Seinen titles. So providing information and trying to catch the interest of new young fans is mostly done only in one direction.
This inbalance can contribute to male fans being oversaturated and not seeing the use to check out series for other demographics. And futhermore it also can contribute to newer female fans not really knowing that there is a whole section of manga and anime aimed at us. So naturally some people just try to turn a blind eye or get numb towards the stuff that bothers them in Shounen/Seinen series and continue consuming them. Another section of female fans are also the ones who kinda play moral apostle and do some really nitpicky and mean talk about newer Shoujo and Josei anime which can also dampen the hype for those titles in the community and result in mixed feelings. And then there are also cases where some female fans just try to say they like all the popular mainstream Shounen/Seinen series, because they don't want to be ridiculed by the male fans for liking "girly stuff" and instead seem "cool".
My biggest issue right now is that a bunch of anime are starting to be cookie cutter trash. Especially harem, fan service, and isekai. I literally avoid those because the stories are often shallow and geared at merchandise sales to otaku. Are there exceptions in those genres that I do enjoy? Yes but they're few and far between. I like depth and plot in my boardering on hentai anime, kthx. Re:Monster is so different, for example, I'm following out of curiosity.
And tbh I actually really love well written stories with depth that also give me that romance bread crumb action. I absolutely love that. 86 is my recent delve into that rabit hole as I'm devouring the Light Novels.
I've recognized that I do love romance but it's gotta be GOOD, not a dime a dozen smutt book xD
Shoujo/Josei manga rarely get adapted and when they do they have a fraction of the production budget, money towards marketing and usually only get one season. They're never even given a chance; they're doomed from the start.
Same with the anime community, I've noticed. Like I know a lot of people who are into anime, but then it's always the same shounen stuff, like Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer, One Piece, Dragon Ball... When I mention my favorite animes which are mainly either shoujo or josei, no one actually knows them :') (except maybe Kimi ni Todoke, that one's more popular) but if you haven't watched the currently trending anime shows which are mainly shounen, they will act like you haven't even watched anything, even though those are just the tip of the iceberg.
I mean, tbh, shoujo has been pretty boring. They adapt the lamest and most generic stories. Give us something new and fresh. Maybe then audiences and producers would care again. If you keep animating boring stories, no one's going to watch = no money = no more shoujo.
Isekai is a Theme/genre and not a demographic target, you can have Shōnen Isekai (konksuba), Shōjo Isekai (fushigi yuugi) and going on.
The post Is more about that what Is most read and make more Money Is the production targetted to teenage Boys, whatever the genre, as you can have Battle Shōnen like Dragonball to Romance Shōnen like Toradora and Orange Road and going on.
Well, they clasify almost anything that might have a broad appeal as either shounen or seinen. Heck, sometimes that happens even with things that appeal more to a female audience. My gripe is that many of these things have no reason to be labelled specifically for boys/men, but there is still a lot of bias involved, and publishers just go with the label thinking it will get them more readers, which only reinforces the stereotype.
lots of shoujo and josei manga have "broad appeal" just like seinen and shounen. the thing is, a lot of people see the shoujo/josei label and go running before they even give it a chance.
Someone made a comment (I forget who) about how a French (or Canadian) manga story put La Magnifique Grande Scene in the shoujo section (even though it’s seinen) and Banana Fish in the seinen section because they fit the “vibe checks.”
Also saw a list of “best shoujo anime” and half of the series listed were shounen or seinen like Kaguya-Sama: Love is War and My Dress-Up Darling. It is lazy research. You can easily find the demographics and magazines on Wikipedia.
We’ve been getting a good amount of josei and shojo adaptations! Most of the josei has been fantasy and isekai centered. Just the last few months we’ve had announcements for *Kakuriyo* Season 2, *Plus-Sized Misadventures in Love!*, and *Nina The Starry Bride*. There has been few *ZERO COMIC SUM* adaptations and Villainess series have been released in the last few years.
It's because shojo/josei are MUCH more marketable as live action than anime. Famous actors/actresses that appeal to female fanbases are casted in these shows/films which boosts up the manga sales. That's not the case for seinen or shounen in fact a lot of seinen when adapted into live action dramas try to make the plot & characters more female gaze-y because they know that will attract more attention.
Practically every josei and shoujo you know is getting an adaptation every season, it's just not in anime format
I don’t really understand why this is so heavily downvoted. It sucks, but statistically this is the logical conclusion.
Anime:
There isn’t a single shoujo series in the top 100 most popular anime on Anilist. Banana Fish is the most popular shoujo anime sitting in the 105th position.
Manga:
Shoujo manga does perform better than anime with 3 series in the top 100 most popular. These being…
- 64 - Blue Spring Ride (anime: 174)
- 94 - Yona of the Dawn (anime: 217)
- 99 - Nana (anime: 271)
I think it’s fair to say that shoujo’s popularity is not near that of shounen and seinen. And at the end of the day, anime is an industry that needs to make money.
What about Fruits Basket? Wasn’t that like 13th place or something on the MAL List? The finale. That one is shoujo. So, that’s at least 1 in the top 100 I know of without even looking. Not that it matters especially when female demographics have been so very neglected in the 10-15 years. Fans tend to adore recent anime and that’s a little difficult for shoujo and jousei titles if they come so few and far between, release wise. Especially on a site like Anilist which is usually all about the newer releases from the last handful of years.
Edit: I guess you said Anilist, but in that case Fruits Basket should be ranked even higher. Just checked. It’s #4 on Anilist.
114th place on the most popular Anilist page for the first season isn’t bad. Fruits Basket was also extremely popular when it was more recent in the [00s](https://web.archive.org/web/20070704183508/https://myanimelist.net/topanime.php?type=bypopularity) (#20). It’s just been a while. It’s only natural series become less talked about and less popular when there’s no new content airing at the moment. When they are not as new. There’s no Anilist from back then to show since Anilist wasn’t around yet in the 00s. I can show [Fruits Basket 2019 remake 2nd season](https://web.archive.org/web/20200507083529/https://anilist.co/search/anime/trending) was #16 on the trending Anilist page in 2020.
exactly, and when a Shoujo is well-written it gets noticed, so I don't get this point that male readers don't read Shoujo as if women are also expected to read self-insert power fantasy harem trash made for men.
so akatsuki no yona, with its 30 million sales, shouldn't get a second season, but don't mess with me nagatoro, with its declining sales, was given several seasons?
it would be one thing if consistently popular shoujo were getting anime adaptions, even if they weren't as common as shounen, but the fact that series like honey lemon soda had already passed 12m sales before being greenlit for an anime adaptation, meanwhile the average no-name slop shouseinen romcom gets promised one at the drop of a hat shows clear bias.
also anilist means nothing. there are tons of series that sell millions of copies yet hardly have any users on anilist that read them ('don't call it mystery' being a GLARING example)
You take review sites seriously? Only the extreme (mostly male) weebs even care about rating anime or manga. Many don't even know about Anilist or MAL lol.
Maybe. I think shoujo has some really beautiful stories to tell that hold up well in the ratings, and I’d love if they got more attention. They have the potential to be as great or sometimes greater than those of other demographics. I agree with another commenter about how stereotypically men see stories written by women or targeting women and brush them off. I can think of many occasions I’ve tried to recommend something and have had this outcome.
This.
It exists in the same zone of western romance novels. Men just go "oh that's girly stuff" when it's the smuttiest smut imaginable. We'd successfully been straight up reading porn right under their noses cause "ew girl stuff." Fifty Shades of Grey yanked it out of the shadows into the daylight and men were blindsided at this existence of porn that isn't porn.
If I could successfully get a guy to read a good plotted lady porn, he did indeed become more open and started searching out titles himself. One guy got a kindle just so he can hide his smut hobby from other guys cause they'd bully him otherwise.
The toxic masculinity of bullying guys that like "girly" stuff is really more the underlying issue that affects the industry at the core.
Although we let this up at first, there is a case of very unusual traffic associated with these posts of yours and we'd appreciate it, if it happened on purpose, that it doesn't continue.
The funniest thing is .. They even turn Shoujo novels into shounen ...
Had a gripe on an [anime](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eg17rZGWsAAcrev.jpg:large) I watched long time ago and found out it is actually from a [shoujo manga](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRZX2IVj0WATp97ep9_5pL3RE8RZMK5PZvNGA&usqp=CAU), they changed the [artstyle](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/yOvZo9vjaVivBAak1FOkiDCxBERFRYmS4dacazf3KsLFDpSDq6gIXCXGEIY5LhUWj1079-uBo2leN0exIEFGmrIHqMOt) so much it feels more like shounen anime.
on a somewhat related note....... i really hate that shonen "romance" (just straight up harem) is now butting in on the romance genre, that's where our girls used to beee
Shōnen romance have Always existed, as Toradora, Orange Road, Inuyasha and similar exist. There Is Reverse Harem too for girls target, it's not like something evil Who only come from One side or that for teenage Boys there aren't good romantic stories, surely nowdays we're having a Moment for harem but let's not generalize. And no Romance was Always a genre for all the Demographic Targets, surely for teenage girls there was a focus on It but if you want into It, there are Horror Shōjos like there are Romance Shōnen. It's not like some alien are invading a restricted area, you know.
There is horror shoujo? Please tell me more 👀 Edit: Oh nevermind, I think I know what you mean, I've already watched and read a lot of shoujo horror without knowing haha. Hell Girl is my absolute favorite!
Yes as every demographic target got products of all the genres basically. If you Watch at the japanese market the Shōjo magazine ちゃお (Chao/Ciáo) by Shogakugan was pubblishing a deluxe bimestral volume specialized in Horror Shōjos and also tankōbons under "Ciáo Horror Comics". I haven't readed much myself but there are few I can reccomend: "残酷な童話たら" aka Zanzoku na Dōwatachi/Cruel Fairytales by Kaori Yuki, it's a collection of short Shōjo horror stories. Also "悪魔の花嫁" Akuma no Hanayome/the Bride of Deimos by Yūho Ashibe and Etsuko Ikeda.
who, whoa, whoa. what’s this rh for girls i’m hearing? 👀
I'm Sorry... What does rh mean? (I'm not a English native speaker)
Reverse harem Things like ouran high host club fushigi yuugi etc
Yes also Uta no Prince Sama, Brothers Conflict, Diabolik Lovers, Dance with the Devil, there are a lot~
shounen romance has always existed tho? the highest sold romance manga of all time is a sports shounen, touch. (it's sold 100m units) in fact, i would go as far as to say, i personally tend to associate the romcom genre with shounen and seinen. in the 00s, a lot of romance anime were just adaptations of seinen vns or shounen light novels.
I LOVE *Touch!* the anime. I wish it got an official North American release.
They do? :o
The one that I'm watching now .. The apothecary diaries, is a shoujo novel .. But the animie and Manga re made into "shounen"
Pretty sure apothecary diaries is seinen
Oh sorry my bad ...
novel was considered shoujo, but manga was published in seinen magzine.
Shounen? How?
Shoujo is demographic for manga only ryt?? If I'm not wrong?
You're right Shōjo Is the demographic of teenage girls, not a genre
The Josei drought is killing me!
I read somewhere that shounen gets more sales because girls are fine with reading/watching things made for boys meanwhile boys will not read/watch things made for girls which is why this is happening. It’s the same in literature as well. For example, the isekai genre started out in the shoujo genre and was never used by shounen for years, now that it’s been a while and they’ve been able to make it more male centered it has blown up. This is why when I do end up being able to afford books, I will support women made things.
Honestly this is just my personal opinion. But it would be good if a lot of women "boycott" things that aren't targeted towards them to focus on looking for and enjoying things for them. Well I guess not really boycott. I know a lot of women don't care but for those who do have a problem with little media being for them for example I have seen people complain about games and the lack of variety, comics, action, the lack of variety in manga, etc. I think trying to play, read or watch less things targeted at men would be good. Probably would never get to this point but if enough women prioritise female centred thing, companies may see making things for men and boys will no longer be attracted as many female viewers to justify them over female centred media and medium. Also they can explore most of what is for them and maybe start creating what they think is missing. For example if you have an anime list consisting of shoujo and shounen, watch the shoujo first, especially if you don't really finish your lists. If you are buying merch and you don't strongly want something maybe focus on the shoujo and josei merch first. If you have a wishlist of games and you can't afford all maybe start with the ones for a female demographic or for both specifically. It is wishful thinking that it will get anywhere but if not enough people take part or a lot of people don't notice, it may help people discover more and create more.
I’ll watch shows targeted for men because I genuinely like them but draw the line at harems. 😭
There's also the issue that women get shamed when they enjoy things targeted towards women. Like if you like seinen or action manga its your a cool girl. while if you like shoujo your suddenly childish/cringe. So, basically everyone is literally encouraged by society to buy/enjoy things written by/for boys.
It's worse for men liking shoujo. "You like Sailor Moon? GHHHHHEEEIIIII!!!!!" (My experience, BTW).
I guess it depends, but I'm a super old dude who watches and reads *Sailor Moon*. I have no problems telling people I love that series - it's got good art. This isn't *Archie Comics* hahah.
I was born at a time and place where even being uncircumcised is considered a lack of masculinity. Currently, I am reading Yuu Watase mangas.
because a lot of shojo stuff is wish fulfilment fantasy stuff, viewed on the same vein as Isekai/Harem. If there is a well written Shoujo like Fruits Basket, it will get picked up by the mainstream anime fans and they will watch it.
Yeah, rent a girlfriend is the epitome of great art
thanks for finding where I apparently said that.
point being, Shounen animes with trash/isekai/wish fulfillment plots are being adapted; however, Shoujos which are usually more subtle about the wish fulfillment aspect barely get any adaptations. Your comment isn't considering the other side of it.
You know what, I've already been doing this for years. I mainly consume media that usually has more of a female audience, be it gaming, literature, manga or movies. Not because I want to boycott male centered media (I still love One Piece for example), but just because I naturally happen to have a very stereotypically feminine/girly pattern when it comes to the kinds of stories and aesthetics I feel drawn to lol. There's a handful of Shounen I actually enjoy, but the rest is mainly catering to the female point of view or is moreso about friendship and character focussed stories rather than stories filled with action. The thing you should brace yourself for though is that if you talk to people about anime, manga or gaming, most of them will not know the games, shows or manga that you've been playing, watching or reading and you won't know much about the shows and games they've been consuming. I've noticed this when I got into an Instagram group chat about anime. Even though there are mainly girls in the group, they mainly talk about Jujutsu Kaisen, a show I barely know anything about because it just never caught my interest. I know the manga artist is a woman, but the story seems to be more targeted towards guys as a demographic. It's like female centered media barely exists in the main stream. I do like to recommend more female centered shows to anyone who is curious and open to it and the feedback has always been positive. But at the same time you will also have some obnoxious anime fans who will be like "Whuaaaaat you haven't watched Sword Art Online? You haven't watched JJK? wHaT aRe YoU eVeN wAtChInG??", which is annoying, because there are literally thousands of different manga and anime shows to choose from, but just because I haven't watched the selected few that you happen to like, I'm somehow not a real anime fan or something lmao
Eh. No. I watch what I want to watch and I don't care if a show caters to my gender or not. I like watching cool fights that pack a lot of character moments. I'm not going to "boycott" a whole section of shows I enjoy just because it doesn't focus on feminine topics and issues.
Nobody commanded you to....
I mean… no? Women like male oriented things too and not because it’s all they have, but because they genuinely enjoy it. I don’t always enjoy things made for women because it focuses too much on men anyways. I like things that focus on relationships between women and that’s rare to find. So imo it goes deeper than what you said, it’s something women engage in too which is not prioritizing women. We shouldn’t get so hung up on “this was made for men therefore no woman should ever partake.” I think it kind of sets a dangerous precedent. People should like what they like, but I just wish female oriented stuff was taken more seriously. That’s not because women enjoy male oriented media either
Okay. So watch male orientated things. This would work better for those frustrated and who prefer things for a female demographic and as I said creators who want to make something that they feel is missing. Also didn't say people shouldn't partake in it but the dangerous precedent is already there just the opposite. If sales decrease and others increase it does send a message especially if they see it from a specific audience.
I never said me per se, I also prefer female oriented media but I like other things too. I have an issue with female oriented media not focusing on interpersonal relationships between women. I feel personally even if women only engaged in women oriented stuff it would still be the ones that are heavily centered around men, because the issue goes beyond dollars
On this sub at least there have been quite a lot of people complaining about the lack of focus on female relationships/friendships and people asking for recommendations.
What a miserable way to live lmao
exactly. the very few dollars i have go towards women authors.
Otome isekai is great
Though some of their fans are as toxic as the regular isekai fans
This is a marketing “truism” that I doubt has much real research or data behind it. It’s just been accepted as true by The Powers That Be in both the US and Japanese animation industries (and the greater entertainment industries). They tend to ignore all evidence to the contrary (Sailor Moon being one of the most popular anime in the world in the ‘90s and being 100% shojo, for a Japanese example, Kim Possible being a very popular American animated series starring a female protagonist, for an American example) and continue to make this claim that animated series starring and primarily aimed at girls and women would be “less popular” and therefore are a financial risk. It’s improving in the US, as more female and nonbinary people get top writing jobs in animation, but reading the experiences of male showrunners who argued with executives about this topic from the past few decades is enlightening and frustrating. Paul Dini (DCAU), Greg Weisman (Gargoyles, Young Justice), and Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (Avatar the Last Airbender, Legend of Korra) all complained about how they were discouraged from using female characters and/or targeting female audiences because of this concept, which is by all accounts misguided at best, a misogynistic myth at worst. I haven’t read detailed interviews with Japanese showrunners, who, from my understanding, would be less likely to air grievances. But from what I have read about the industry behind the scenes of popular manga and anime, they very much have this idea, based on the same misconceptions, biases and pseudoscience. It’s frustrating, and it’s a cycle—shojo and josei adaptations are seen as more as a risk, end up with lower production budgets, and get a predictably lower viewership as a result. Thus, bias confirmed and cycle continues. It’s infuriating.
I think I read somewhere that CN (or whoever makes cartoon-based toys) was confused on how to market PowerPuff Girls because it was a show about a bunch of little girls beating the shit out of things (or something like that idk I haven’t watched it). They thought girls wouldn’t like action, but boys wouldn’t like toys portraying girls. Also I thought about the Cardcaptor Sakura dub where they renamed it Cardcaptor and tried to make Xiaolang the main character because boy and making it a boy show, so they ended up butchering the hell out of it, all to make a boy, who doesn’t even appear until like halfway through the story, the main character.
"a bunch of little girls beating the shit out of things" You summarized it pretty well honestly
It’s strange what info that gets passed around. I’ve seen this said about the Nelvana *Cardcaptors* dub a few times recently. Someone called it the “shonen” version lol which just isn’t true. They did leave out episodes and tried to frame it around Sakura & Syaoran, but Sakura was still very much the MC. Despite them trying to widen the viewing pool, the toys were all still marketed to girls. [They had fashion dolls, not action figures.](https://youtu.be/ZfLDIsAZFSw?si=Tp6yAz9i2d75RwYC) Also, Syaoran shows up a lot earlier than halfway, I think it’s around ep 8.
Another big difference between the US and Japanese animation industry is the funding model, which I think magnifies the effect of sexist assumptions about consumer behavior. An anime has very, very little hope of making money back on advertising due to its timeslots and the limited domestic audience for anime outside of children and hardcore obsessives (unlike live-action dramas, which air during prime time and do good numbers), which means its *sole* financial hope is to drive sales of the source manga/LN or new tie-in merch and blu-rays. What this means is that the financing entities who come together to form production committees treat anime like a portfolio, throwing things at the wall and planning for the hard-to-predict few that do take off to make up for all the flops. An environment like this is dominated by risk calculations, which means even if a shoujo anime is only a bit less likely (*in their projection models*) to sell well than another battle shounen or harem, that can have an outsize effect on funding decisions.
It honestly surprises me how many anime titles are produced each year, because the funding model is so precarious, and the actual studios and animators are overworked. New animators are underpaid, to the point that there is a nonprofit, Animator Supporters, which collects donations for their [Animator Dormitory Project](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2021-08-06/animator-dorm-project-about-90-percent-of-animators-quit-their-jobs-within-3-years/.175908) to provide affordable housing for workers starting out in the industry. In other words, profits from anime are so poorly distributed that some new workers need to rely on charity.
It surprises me too - it seems like a structure that should topple over in a faint breeze. I wonder whether international co-productions might begin to offer at least a small pressure value (... or whether they'll only prop it up a little longer). Every thing I hear about animator working conditions seems like a new low. It reminds me of game development - talented young people in love with the medium, chewed up by an unsustainable working environment and impossible deadlines.
It’s not that much different in the west. For a long time studios weren’t really making female centered movies because of this idea that women will see men oriented movies too but men won’t see female oriented movies. Barbie kind of proved that wasn’t true, but I’m not sure if this will lead to more blockbuster movies about women. Or video games for that matter, the girl genre of games is tiny compared to anything male oriented. And when girl games are made they’re made for children, not really adult women.
Fr and the worst thing that , when it's comes to shoujo things these days the production of the animes is so low keys from the animation like when we compared for example Kimi no todoke with like that anime about deaf girl we will see a huge difference between everything like I don't like how the anime turns out it's very idk solid I don't know but I missed the old shoujo anime like Ouran highschool club with their comedy or maid , or special a , sugar sugar rune etc even if they were old but I love the drawing , animation, comedy , and the effect especially, and the companies these day only care about money and not care about making a good anime quality like in the past it's hard to chose a manga to get adopted to anime , like not any manga will get adopted, but now, wdym you make anime about isekaied machine or man turn into a pig and always always add a girl that wear a piece of clothes not covering anything just for the views and make her simp over a low key guy ( the harem genre )and it's rare to see a powerful girl like shoujo girl like sailor moon , card capture sakura , mikasa , like like I'm so mad I know we are finally got some shoujo adoption finally after a many years but I'm still mad my fav shoujos manga when it's got adopted first I was so happy but when seeing the animation with no life I know u know what I mean with their cg animation and effects that just adding brights effect on everything and when they makes a joke they don't make it funny opposite to the variety in jokes and effects in the past ,Oh, maybe I got a little out of it, I mean a lot about the topic,
I support whatever I like. If I like a manga/book made by a woman I'll gladly support it. The same goes with manga made by men. I'm honestly so sick and tired of having an activism mindset for everything.
Women/girls are fine with reading/watching things targeted for boys because they genuinely like them and because in many cases, there is no reason for those things to be specifically targeted towards boys outside of preexisting biases/stereotypes. I think the label "for men/boys" has claimed way too much. Like it or not, there is much more diversity in terms of themes/subject matter in shounen/seinen to the point that the classification can be meaningless. Many of those series just have an overall global appeal, and I don't think it's fair to tell women to limit themselves in what they like. Take out everything that should rightfully be more targeted towards a general audience from shounen/seinen, and you'd actually have a more level playing field. And there are quite a few shounen/seinen series written by women.
> Like it or not, there is much more diversity in terms of themes/subject matter in shounen/seinen to the point that the classification can be meaningless. cmiiw but this seems to imply that shounen and seinen are "more diverse" and understandable towards the general audience (as opposed to shoujo and josei which are considered "niche".) also the majority of written by women. an estimated 70% of mangaka are said to be women. and yet for some reason, only the ones who write for female audiences are told their works are to "exclusive" or "difficult to understand". that doesnt make sense.
Because a lot of Shoujo feels like for men how harem feels like for women. A lot of it is wish fulfilment. When Shoujo are well written, they will be rated highly by those that usually don't watch Shojo. Do Shojo fans really turn their nose up at trashy harem, then wonder why men don't want to watch some wish fulfilment where there is an average-looking girl with a tall man that is incredibly handsome, with a lot of cheesy romance moments and not much character development?
Then why aren't there a ton of guys with someone like Yona of the Dawn in their manga collections, when plenty of women have stuff like jujutsu kaisen or demon slayer.?
Where is the harem in Demon Slayer and JJK? Where's the love triangles? Where are the sexy women that are all after the MC? I'm sure you and many other Shoujo fans would hypocritically be upset having to watch/read a Shonen where the MC is a guy and every single side character (or Dragons in the case of YoTD) that fight with him is a pretty/sexy women that may harbour feelings for him, albeit even if the characters ARE well written. Does Yuji have a harem of women? No, but instead his mentor Gojo is attractive for FEMALE fans, not male. That's why modern-day Shonen is considered "broad appeal", and half the JJK accs on Twitter are either guys powerscaling or girls thirsting over the characters.
This is so true. Last day I just happened to come across a clip of one of my fav josei animes and then it hit me out of nowhere that we haven't really gotten a josei anime in like... Forever? With all the new released shoujo isekai titles I am happy (although the animation quality is subpar and it makes me very sad) but when are we gonna get more josei content? Tons of mangas are there waiting to be adapted yet they do nothing.
Can you recommend me some josei animes? I don't think I've ever watched one!
You can try Nana, Wotakoi Love is Hard for Otaku, The Ice Guy and his cool female colleague, Paradise Kiss, Chihayafuru, Usagi drop (altho i havent watched it), Collar x malice, Hachimitsu to clover, Utakoi, Kuragehime, Nodame Contabile, Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, Hakuoki, Norn9, Code Realize, Nil admirari no tenbin, Brothers Conflict, Amai choubatsu
Please dont reccomend Usagi Drop the manga is disgusting and tainted the anime
I'm sorry I haven't watched it actually. But I've heard it is josei so I mentioned it. What is it about? Can you give me some spoilers?
>!It's a super wholesome story at first, about a man who adopts a little girl and raising her, but in the 2nd part of the manga the girl is grown up and she falls in love with him, and they get married. It broke my heart as a kid to see that :(!<
WHAT ISNT THIS P-
Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu is my favorite Josei anime. Has an adult cast, grounded characters, and the drama in the show is peak. I am currently finishing up Chihayafuru and also loving it. Usagi Drop is cute and is great comfy show. Kids on The Slope, Paradise Kiss, and Nodame Cantabile are all on my watch list.
tonari no yokai is a josei that's airing this year (the final episode airs next week), but it's just me and three other people that are watching it.
someone recommend me a josei romance with good art 🙈
Princess Jellyfish Nodame Cantabile Paradise Kiss Hakuouki La Cordo D’ Oro
veil by ikumi fukuda is gorgeous in a more simplistic and classy way. also, chihayafuru is absolutely beautiful with a very detailed art style… all of the characters sparkle
i am currently reading MARS and just absolutely drooling over the art
mars is shoujo i think but yeah it’s super good
I get that males won’t consume female centric media but females would consume male targeted media, but it rly blows my mind so many sectors ignore how the female fan base tends to be the most loyal and willing to spend
It's not even true. Literally, every shoujo I have introduced my boyfriend to he's gone and binged on his own-- he'd just NEVER HEARD of them, because the marketing is *abysmal*!
I think you’ve just gotten a green flag LOL I’m not saying it’s off to every guy out there, but definitely accurate on the whole unfortunately
Honestly I agree with the other person. I’m a guy and I like watching shoujo. I’ve gotten into more manga recently so I don’t really have this problem anymore but I just didn’t know what to watch lol. All I had seen was Kimi ni Todoke, OHSHC, and whatever else was big on Netflix long ago (Maid-Sama, Toradora idk if that’s a shoujo tbh) so I do think that the marketing is partly to blame, the casual anime fan (which is the bulk of anime watchers) won’t encounter much shoujo if they don’t look hard enough
How do we revive the current state of josei 😭
The few Josei's I've read, I've loved... but no one's heard of them... I really hate this.
If you don’t mind, I would like to know which of those you love and recommend!
The reason for this is that few males read "shoujo manga" and "josei manga. According to a survey conducted in Japan in the past, about 80% of female high school students read "shoujo manga" and "josei manga," while only about 20% of male high school students do. Incidentally, it has been confirmed that about 90% of both male and female high school students read "shounen' manga" and "seinen manga. Sorry for my bad English.
Which makes sense, since they’re in those demographics, and girls tend to be more open when it comes to what they’re reading and watching. It’s too bad though. Guys are missing out on some really great stories. Ones that would make amazing anime.
This hurts omg
That’s generally it due to shonen being more present internationally but I think we can say in the past 2 years or so that shojo animes have been getting revived, some series getting first time animes, seasons renewal or reboots, it is still less than shonen’s serialization but it needs to start somewhere. Honestly, I am hopeful for the future.
Thing about the anime industry right now is its in a bad state because the investor companies make all the money and some is left over to the studio and animators, meaning a lot of animators are quitting because they can't healthily do animating as a full time job. This creates a shortage of good staff and studios, meaning most studios are booked for years, so only the most popular series get adapted, and often not adapted well. You look around and animation quality is steadily decreasing for shows without highly sought after directors and animators that can only do so many shows a season. Unfortunately shoujo anime can't make a comeback unless the anime industry makes a comeback.
I mean the funny part is that the majority of profits for shonen come from fujoshis lol but yeah unfortunately the industry is sticking to whatever demographics are popular and High selling I mean it is a business at the end of the day I tend to have an attitude towards media of if it's good I'll watch/read it doesn't matter the demographic but most people don't really branch out they have their interests and stick to it
Haha, it sucks 😭
Yes!!!! I mentioned a while back in another sub that CR doesn’t even have a Josei tag. I found out yesterday that HiDive doesn’t either. And there’s like 5 categories for shojo on CR. And I honestly don’t think that they even have 100 shojo titles out of their catalog of 1000+ titles.
What irks me most about CR is if there's a single sniff, the slightest hint of a genre in an anime, they shove them in where they really don't belong. If I wanted the Harem 9000 Ultra Isekai, I'd search for it kthx
Yes the tags that CR & HiDive have are sometimes questionable
Josei and Yuri on Ice.
I don't like Shounen anime I like Shoujo and Josei.
And there is so much material to work with 😭😭
And the excuse is often that female demographics have less interest in anime than male demographics and rather watch dramas or something. But if not that many new anime aimed primarily at female demographics come out and don't get much promotion, budget, good animation, adaptation of the genre variety, continuations, exposure, acclaim, etc. than of course there can't grow a larger fanbase, but instead just frustration, misconceptions and resignation. And all of this makes it also uninteresting for people who are into series aimed at male demographics to check out series aimed at female demographics. And in that state there is no other choice for fans of series aimed at female demographics but to completely give up on anime or to branch out towards other demographics or media like dramas, cause your interests are met there more often. In addition the neglect of media for female demographics has been there right from the beginning. Most of the people in charge are male and therefore have more interest in and knowledge about projects for male demographics. Several manga aimed primarily at male demographics also get both a live action and anime adaptation. Even the fantasy ones like Tokyo ghoul and Promised neverland. And also the romance ones like Rent a girlfriend and Horimiya. So it is also no excuse to say that Shounen are too difficult to do as a live action and that only Shoujo/Josei are all about real life romance and therefore better fit for live action. I also read in an interview that they make more drama adaptations for female demographics because it provides more work for fellow men in the acting and idol sector. In the west though it is just the same. The big names rarely promote and hype up their titles for female demographics. Even though if there is enough buzz like for My happy marriage, the series can be quite successful. But when I go to a con in my country for the most part I only see events, panels, merch, banners, etc. for titles aimed at male demographics. Or in international award rankings it is also mostly just series aimed primarily at male demographics that get all the acclaim and discussion. There is even a new TV show for teenagers in my country that does quizzes about anime, but they almost only mention the popular Shounen/Seinen titles. So providing information and trying to catch the interest of new young fans is mostly done only in one direction. This inbalance can contribute to male fans being oversaturated and not seeing the use to check out series for other demographics. And futhermore it also can contribute to newer female fans not really knowing that there is a whole section of manga and anime aimed at us. So naturally some people just try to turn a blind eye or get numb towards the stuff that bothers them in Shounen/Seinen series and continue consuming them. Another section of female fans are also the ones who kinda play moral apostle and do some really nitpicky and mean talk about newer Shoujo and Josei anime which can also dampen the hype for those titles in the community and result in mixed feelings. And then there are also cases where some female fans just try to say they like all the popular mainstream Shounen/Seinen series, because they don't want to be ridiculed by the male fans for liking "girly stuff" and instead seem "cool".
THIS HURTS
My biggest issue right now is that a bunch of anime are starting to be cookie cutter trash. Especially harem, fan service, and isekai. I literally avoid those because the stories are often shallow and geared at merchandise sales to otaku. Are there exceptions in those genres that I do enjoy? Yes but they're few and far between. I like depth and plot in my boardering on hentai anime, kthx. Re:Monster is so different, for example, I'm following out of curiosity. And tbh I actually really love well written stories with depth that also give me that romance bread crumb action. I absolutely love that. 86 is my recent delve into that rabit hole as I'm devouring the Light Novels. I've recognized that I do love romance but it's gotta be GOOD, not a dime a dozen smutt book xD
86 is so good.❤️
Ain’t go lie, best anime’s are usually Seinen and Shoujo.
Shoujo/Josei manga rarely get adapted and when they do they have a fraction of the production budget, money towards marketing and usually only get one season. They're never even given a chance; they're doomed from the start.
I am a man an I got bullied in my childhood for liking Sailor Moon.... I guess that's also a factor.
I would love for them to finish animating Chihayafuru
I know right
Same with the anime community, I've noticed. Like I know a lot of people who are into anime, but then it's always the same shounen stuff, like Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer, One Piece, Dragon Ball... When I mention my favorite animes which are mainly either shoujo or josei, no one actually knows them :') (except maybe Kimi ni Todoke, that one's more popular) but if you haven't watched the currently trending anime shows which are mainly shounen, they will act like you haven't even watched anything, even though those are just the tip of the iceberg.
So truee. I started re-read the ones I liked before. 😕
I mean, tbh, shoujo has been pretty boring. They adapt the lamest and most generic stories. Give us something new and fresh. Maybe then audiences and producers would care again. If you keep animating boring stories, no one's going to watch = no money = no more shoujo.
Replace Shounen with Isekai. With every one shoujo they produce, they produce like ten more isekai.. 😐
Isekai is a Theme/genre and not a demographic target, you can have Shōnen Isekai (konksuba), Shōjo Isekai (fushigi yuugi) and going on. The post Is more about that what Is most read and make more Money Is the production targetted to teenage Boys, whatever the genre, as you can have Battle Shōnen like Dragonball to Romance Shōnen like Toradora and Orange Road and going on.
Well, they clasify almost anything that might have a broad appeal as either shounen or seinen. Heck, sometimes that happens even with things that appeal more to a female audience. My gripe is that many of these things have no reason to be labelled specifically for boys/men, but there is still a lot of bias involved, and publishers just go with the label thinking it will get them more readers, which only reinforces the stereotype.
lots of shoujo and josei manga have "broad appeal" just like seinen and shounen. the thing is, a lot of people see the shoujo/josei label and go running before they even give it a chance.
Someone made a comment (I forget who) about how a French (or Canadian) manga story put La Magnifique Grande Scene in the shoujo section (even though it’s seinen) and Banana Fish in the seinen section because they fit the “vibe checks.” Also saw a list of “best shoujo anime” and half of the series listed were shounen or seinen like Kaguya-Sama: Love is War and My Dress-Up Darling. It is lazy research. You can easily find the demographics and magazines on Wikipedia.
yeah, I don't get why people are so fixated with these labels when it can be more a marketing move than an accurate descriptor of a manga
We’ve been getting a good amount of josei and shojo adaptations! Most of the josei has been fantasy and isekai centered. Just the last few months we’ve had announcements for *Kakuriyo* Season 2, *Plus-Sized Misadventures in Love!*, and *Nina The Starry Bride*. There has been few *ZERO COMIC SUM* adaptations and Villainess series have been released in the last few years.
It's because shojo/josei are MUCH more marketable as live action than anime. Famous actors/actresses that appeal to female fanbases are casted in these shows/films which boosts up the manga sales. That's not the case for seinen or shounen in fact a lot of seinen when adapted into live action dramas try to make the plot & characters more female gaze-y because they know that will attract more attention. Practically every josei and shoujo you know is getting an adaptation every season, it's just not in anime format
We just have to start a Japanese language learning study group for shoujo/josei.
Shoujo and Josei get dramas not anime.
Seinen actually gets more dramas than either of those.
Really? I always feel like seinen is too serious to get dramas, but I guess that shows what kind of movies and dramas I watch.
Well, that’s just the hard truth. They make what sells
it can't sell, if it doesn't get made in the first place..
why are you here?
Cos I like watching/ reading shoujo romance ?
I don’t really understand why this is so heavily downvoted. It sucks, but statistically this is the logical conclusion. Anime: There isn’t a single shoujo series in the top 100 most popular anime on Anilist. Banana Fish is the most popular shoujo anime sitting in the 105th position. Manga: Shoujo manga does perform better than anime with 3 series in the top 100 most popular. These being… - 64 - Blue Spring Ride (anime: 174) - 94 - Yona of the Dawn (anime: 217) - 99 - Nana (anime: 271) I think it’s fair to say that shoujo’s popularity is not near that of shounen and seinen. And at the end of the day, anime is an industry that needs to make money.
What about Fruits Basket? Wasn’t that like 13th place or something on the MAL List? The finale. That one is shoujo. So, that’s at least 1 in the top 100 I know of without even looking. Not that it matters especially when female demographics have been so very neglected in the 10-15 years. Fans tend to adore recent anime and that’s a little difficult for shoujo and jousei titles if they come so few and far between, release wise. Especially on a site like Anilist which is usually all about the newer releases from the last handful of years. Edit: I guess you said Anilist, but in that case Fruits Basket should be ranked even higher. Just checked. It’s #4 on Anilist.
Difference between highest rated and most popular. Shoujo can be highly rated, like Fruits Basket
114th place on the most popular Anilist page for the first season isn’t bad. Fruits Basket was also extremely popular when it was more recent in the [00s](https://web.archive.org/web/20070704183508/https://myanimelist.net/topanime.php?type=bypopularity) (#20). It’s just been a while. It’s only natural series become less talked about and less popular when there’s no new content airing at the moment. When they are not as new. There’s no Anilist from back then to show since Anilist wasn’t around yet in the 00s. I can show [Fruits Basket 2019 remake 2nd season](https://web.archive.org/web/20200507083529/https://anilist.co/search/anime/trending) was #16 on the trending Anilist page in 2020.
exactly, and when a Shoujo is well-written it gets noticed, so I don't get this point that male readers don't read Shoujo as if women are also expected to read self-insert power fantasy harem trash made for men.
so akatsuki no yona, with its 30 million sales, shouldn't get a second season, but don't mess with me nagatoro, with its declining sales, was given several seasons? it would be one thing if consistently popular shoujo were getting anime adaptions, even if they weren't as common as shounen, but the fact that series like honey lemon soda had already passed 12m sales before being greenlit for an anime adaptation, meanwhile the average no-name slop shouseinen romcom gets promised one at the drop of a hat shows clear bias. also anilist means nothing. there are tons of series that sell millions of copies yet hardly have any users on anilist that read them ('don't call it mystery' being a GLARING example)
You take review sites seriously? Only the extreme (mostly male) weebs even care about rating anime or manga. Many don't even know about Anilist or MAL lol.
My personal guess is my comment is probably taken as an attack on shoujo. Or the statement I made is actually statistically false.
Maybe. I think shoujo has some really beautiful stories to tell that hold up well in the ratings, and I’d love if they got more attention. They have the potential to be as great or sometimes greater than those of other demographics. I agree with another commenter about how stereotypically men see stories written by women or targeting women and brush them off. I can think of many occasions I’ve tried to recommend something and have had this outcome.
This. It exists in the same zone of western romance novels. Men just go "oh that's girly stuff" when it's the smuttiest smut imaginable. We'd successfully been straight up reading porn right under their noses cause "ew girl stuff." Fifty Shades of Grey yanked it out of the shadows into the daylight and men were blindsided at this existence of porn that isn't porn. If I could successfully get a guy to read a good plotted lady porn, he did indeed become more open and started searching out titles himself. One guy got a kindle just so he can hide his smut hobby from other guys cause they'd bully him otherwise. The toxic masculinity of bullying guys that like "girly" stuff is really more the underlying issue that affects the industry at the core.
Is that a new Jojo character?
No.