| I have been actively watching the anime industry sometime since 2016, and I began to notice what seems to be a certain trend. Recently, adaptations of shoujo manga have almost disappeared from the seasons, and if something gets an adaptation, then mostly gender-neutral titles (Natsume Yuujinchou, Kaichou wa Maid-sama!) very hyped titles or its remakes (Fruits Basket, Banana Fish, Shirayuki-hime, Chihayafuru), or titles that are very popular with both women and men (Hamefura, many shoujo yuri like Kase-san). This is especially noticeable against the background of male-focused titles, where you can find adaptations of either very young works or work with doubtful popularity. So, are the producers really afraid that no one will watch a female-focused anime if this is not the original idol show or that can attract enough men? |
RobertBobertJul 12, 2020 3:45 AM
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lolechka04 said: RobertBobert said: are the producers really afraid that no one will watch a female-focused anime if this is not the original idol show Well, most idol shows are seinen... I am talking about idol shows with bishonens and ikemens. But as you rightly noted, such titles are a minority in the idol genre. |
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| Not quite an educated guess, but shounen are easier to marketize and way more girls watch them compared to the guys going for the typical fluffy shoujo stuff. |
One Piece episode 914 & 915 & 1027 were a mistake and 957 brought the salvation - FMmatron |
RobertBobert said: I have been actively watching the anime industry sometime since 2016, and I began to notice what seems to be a certain trend. Recently, adaptations of shoujo manga have almost disappeared from the seasons, and if something gets an adaptation, then mostly gender-neutral titles (Natsume Yuujinchou, Kaichou wa Maid-sama!) very hyped titles or its remakes (Fruits Basket, Banana Fish, Shirayuki-hime, Chihayafuru), or titles that are very popular with both women and men (Hamefura, many shoujo yuri like Kase-san). This is especially noticeable against the background of male-focused titles, where you can find adaptations of either very young works or work with doubtful popularity. So, are the producers really afraid that no one will watch a female-focused anime if this is not the original idol show or that can attract enough men? RobertBobert said: If i get what you mean so i will tell you this i for example dont normally watch anime with focus on female character i will probably watch one if its really interestingI have been actively watching the anime industry sometime since 2016, and I began to notice what seems to be a certain trend. Recently, adaptations of shoujo manga have almost disappeared from the seasons, and if something gets an adaptation, then mostly gender-neutral titles (Natsume Yuujinchou, Kaichou wa Maid-sama!) very hyped titles or its remakes (Fruits Basket, Banana Fish, Shirayuki-hime, Chihayafuru), or titles that are very popular with both women and men (Hamefura, many shoujo yuri like Kase-san). This is especially noticeable against the background of male-focused titles, where you can find adaptations of either very young works or work with doubtful popularity. So, are the producers really afraid that no one will watch a female-focused anime if this is not the original idol show or that can attract enough men? |
| Don't fuck up the present, it's connected to your future! |
| The thing is, that as far as I can tell there isn't much overlap between the shoujo manga audience and anime viewers. Female Otaku aren't into shoujo, they are into BL and shipping male chars from male-targeted shows (sports anime, battle shounen etc...). And shoujo manga readers aren't into anime and prefer to stick to manga or live-action adaptations (of which there are quite a few that are shoujo/josei since there is more overlap between live-action fans and shoujo manga readers). In general manga is way more mainstream and accessible and accepted in Japan while anime is still mainly a nerd thing for certain niche fandoms and shoujo fans just tend to fall more into the 'normal reader' audience rather than some specific pandering niche that thrives in anime/the anime fandom. Not to mention that there is no particular advantage to being an anime for most shoujo titles. They mostly don't contain crazy supernatural action or the likes, which benefits from the creative freedom of animation. They don't contain any other kidn of material that would be easier or less problematic/controversial to pull off in anime so there is no particular draw for those stories to happen in the anime medium - live-action works just as well (which can't be said for a lot of the shounen stuff, from battle shounen to ecchi). Also just in general male fans are just much more insecure and many are scared of shoujo just because it is a female target audience and won't watch anything with that label to protect their imaginary manliness, not even trying to find out whether they would enjoy it or not. But girls mostly don't give a fuck what's the target audience of a show - if they enjoy it, they watch it. I have yet to see comments from female anime fans bashing a show just for being shounen and trashing it before even trying it, or making sad threads asking the community if it's actually okay to watch shounen or if that makes them lesbians. But the other way round I've seen a ton. Male fans do seem to have the monopoly on being whiny and judgmental solely because of the target audience, or in many cases even the gender of the main characters. They lose interest or their standards for enjoying an anime increase tenfold when that's the case, making it much harder for female-targeted shows to find broad success.Shoujo basically have to deal with 50% of the population being prejudiced against them because of their gender and the other 50% being prejudiced against them because of the medium (anime) which doesn't leave a lot of room for shoujo anime to actually find a sustainable target audience. Those are just a few reasons I can think of. |
AlcoholicideJul 12, 2020 4:07 AM
| I probably regret this post by now. |
| Most of the shoujo adaptations are more suited for Live Action or J-Doroma and plenty of people, including older men, watch those in Japan and other parts of Asia. There are some incredible stories out there but they are never gonna be animated because they are not marketable enough as a medium. For examples: Hana to Akuma, Dengeki Daisy, Ohayou Ibrahime, NG Life, Taiyou no Ie, Queen's Quality, Boku to Kimi no Taisetsu na Hanashi, Oresama Teacher, Machida-kun no Sekai, Niehime to Kemono no Ou, Joou no Hana, Colette wa Shinu koto no Shita, Kawaii Hito, Love So Life, Cat Street, Hirunaka no Ryuusei, Nekota no Koto ga Kininatte Shikatanai, Takane to Hana, Mekakushi no Kuni, Short Cake Cake, Koi wo Shiranai Bokutachi wa, Shitsuji-sama no Okiniiri etc. etc. That being said, real men read shoujo manga and watch shoujo anime. |
| Stay Home and Wash Your Hands. Protect Yourself. Protect Your Loved Ones. Protect Your Community and Help Defeat Coronavirus. |
| Wait, recent shoujo anime are gender-neutral? I assumed otherwise, since I enjoy so few of them. |
| その目だれの目？ |
| I'd like to see more shoujo anime. I recently watched Kamisama Kiss and loved every minute of it. Now I'm looking up more similar shoujo titles (Inari Konkon, 3D Kanojo: Real Girl, My Little Monster & Otome Youkai Zakuro, although that one has a seinen tag). I especially like how shoujo tend to treat the subject of romance more seriously and with greater brevity than most shounen, which is understandable as young guys tend not to be the most romantic at that time in their lives. I have tended to watch a lot of harem/ecchi shows and am sick of the callous way women are treated as objects for horny teenagers, and the pathetic protagonists we get time after time. However, the recent trend of more wholesome harem shows like Bokuben & The Quintessential Quintuplets is encouraging. I recently finished the first season of Bokuben and really liked it from beginning to end and the protagonist was a nice guy with depth and feeling. Looking forward to catching up on The Quintessential Quintuplets soon. |
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| Erm four years is a really short time span, but anyway. Your last assumption is about as close to the truth as anything else. |
| watch more shoujo 2k20! i kinda see your point! thinking about it, i've been watching shoujos recently that are either pretty old/classics or magical girl anime intended for a younger audience. The only shoujo coming out this summer is like a random otome game adaption (not interested). Fall and winter? none are announced but thats alright. I have so much shoujo to catch up on, and it can really feel timeless. And i will watch pretty much any demographic of anime (as long as its not too ecchi for me) |
| In general, shoujo animes are rarer, though there's a good chance they just became rarer in the last few years. I can't think of one big shoujo from the last 5 years, not even really the last 10 (Chihayafuru is a Josei) |
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| This reminds me of a long-running controversy about western children's animation. This is mostly from the days when Saturday morning cartoons were a thing and there were few animated shows targeting adult viewers, but even with the changing landscape it's still relevant. The controversy is that there are more shows targeting boys than shows targeting girls. One of the main reasons for this is that girls will cross over and watch "boy" shows, while boys won't touch "girl" shows(*). The effect of this on advertising/sponsorship is not hard to guess, and demand drives supply. What I'm seeing so far in this thread is that there's a similar trend in anime. I had thought that might not be the case, considering how many male fans of CGDCT there are, but maybe I'm just not seeing the bigger picture. (*)- There have been exceptions to this. "Powerpuff Girls" proved to be popular with boys despite being a "girl" cartoon. And then there was "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" which really blew the lid off this assumption, particularly considering that earlier generation "My Little Pony" cartoons were textbook examples of "girl" cartoons that boys avoid like the plague. |
A møøse once bit my sister... |
mwalimu said: girls will cross over and watch "boy" shows, while boys won't touch "girl" shows(*). This is why Cardcaptors was marketed to boys. People laugh at it now, but all my boy friends watched it. |
| その目だれの目？ |
| I'm a guy, but I do enjoy a lot of Shoujo stuff, so I would have no problem with them producing more. However, my educated guess is what was framed within the OP; It doesn't make much sense to produce a product that is targeted toward a niche demographic in the market when you can make something else that covers a far broader audience. From a revenue perspective, it only makes sense to do, especially in this current COVID environment where production capacity is more limited than ever before. Albeit, I don't actually know the ins-and-outs of the industry. |
| Blanks. |
| Manga is more popular with girls than anime is, so I think girls who would want to read a shoujo title would already know about it if they were in the market for it, and if they don't then an anime wouldn't help, as far as anime used as an advertising tool goes. In terms of anime as an entertainment medium, there's also fewer female eyes on anime than manga, so if you can't get a male audience from it as well then you've wasted your resources. Shows for really young girls (below the shoujo demographic of teens) are still being made, and although they don't rely on male viewership, they have come to expect it. On another note, shounen is already popular with girls anyway, which already attracts boys, so adapting shoujo manga isn't particularly necessary. I would like it if we got more shoujo anime, but it's just the reality of things that it will always be vastly outnumbered by the amount of both shounen anime and shoujo manga. |
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| I don't really understand what you tried to say OP; There are quite female-oriented shows in each season though they're "probably" not a manga adaptation... And then you call every popular recent shoujo being gender-neutral or popular among both men and women and you didn't even showed us one example of a shoujo you want that nothing like it exist after 2016 but it existed before 2016 And the responses at least didn't tell me what has gotten different in the last years and instead most of them telling "shoujo anime" was never popular (and they are right) so I'm just listing shoujo tagged anime on MAL after 2016 OP didn't mention their names or genres (like male idols) and want to know what has gotten different (also excluded children and Chinese and short shows here): https://myanimelist.net/anime/37964/Mayonaka_no_Occult_Koumuin (is this gender-neutral?) https://myanimelist.net/anime/34209/Meiji_Tokyo_Renka https://myanimelist.net/anime/35222/Gakuen_Babysitters https://myanimelist.net/anime/34712/Kujira_no_Kora_wa_Sajou_ni_Utau https://myanimelist.net/anime/34501/Kenka_Banchou_Otome__Girl_Beats_Boys https://myanimelist.net/anime/33203/Fukumenkei_Noise I want to know which "category" the OP created they belong |
| @mhkr I want to say that in recent years there have been quite a few shoujo adaptations, especially "pure" shoujo, and not works that are as easy to sell to guys as the target audience. Two-thirds of the shows you mentioned were either rather inconspicuous or had an audience of people of any gender. Especially the Whales, which subjectively felt like a shoujo just because there were a lot of bishonens in it. If most of the female-focused shows you mentioned are on the same level of mediocre male-focused shows, then that says something. @Pullman I don’t know how "true my masculinity" is, but I never had problems with female MC if they were portrayed as developed characters, and not fanservice magnet. So I enjoyed Fruits Basket because of Tooru, although as I understand it, she was intended as an avatar of the audience, not a popular character. Plus, while male-focused anime has become increasingly negative for male characters due to otaku salinity and pop feminism, shoujo remains a rare “genre” where you can see positively portrayed and developed male characters. Damn, I guess at such moments I understand complaints about generic harem anime, lol. But in my country I often hear complaints that attractive male characters = gay. Therefore, many guys ignore even the most straight shoujo anime, since attractive male characters cause them to exacerbate senseless homophobia. |
RobertBobertJul 12, 2020 9:43 AM
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| @RobertBobert, I repeat my question again. what's an example of "pure shoujo" anime? Though yeah "most" of the anime are male-oriented and it was like this for over 20 years I guess RobertBobert said: Hmm, you're right as we have nothing like them recently so probably even girls not interested in them at least in being an animated showA show that is fully aimed at a female audience and has neither shonen / seinen influence, nor elements that can attract a sufficient male audience. For example, Paradise Kiss, Skip Beat or Marmelade Boy. |
mhkrJul 12, 2020 12:56 PM
| Actually.. i saw quiet a few of female-oriented anime that are non-idol. But of course, just like you said, almost none of them are adapted from shoujo manga... (From last year iirc there was 3D kanojo tho, adapted from manga). I think it's related on how the audience is..? Like, shounen has both male and female audience. But shoujo doesn't attract much male audience, and i don't think all female audience like shoujo. Hence based on it alone, adapting a shoujo manga doesn't seems much profitable.. |
 I'm starting to get embarrassed by my own forum signature line.. XD |
mhkr said: @RobertBobert, I repeat my question again. what's an example of "pure shoujo" anime? Though yeah "most" of the anime are male-oriented and it was like this for over 20 years I guess A show that is fully aimed at a female audience and has neither shonen / seinen influence, nor elements that can attract a sufficient male audience. For example, Paradise Kiss, Skip Beat or Marmelade Boy. Meira_Eve said: Actually.. i saw quiet a few of female-oriented anime that are non-idol. But of course, just like you said, almost none of them are adapted from shoujo manga... (From last year iirc there was 3D kanojo tho, adapted from manga). I think it's related on how the audience is..? Like, shounen has both male and female audience. But shoujo doesn't attract much male audience, and i don't think all female audience like shoujo. Hence based on it alone, adapting a shoujo manga doesn't seems much profitable.. Well, what do you think of the recent shoujo-ish shonen fashion like Kono oto Tomare, Arte or Act-age? This can be found even in games, for example, Revue Starlight as yuri-ish Utena's doughtier was simultaneously aimed at female fans of Takarazuka and bishoujo otaku. |
RobertBobertJul 12, 2020 10:03 AM
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| It might be just me, but it's very difficult to translate Shoujo from Manga to Anime. The style of illustration that makes it so distinct would probably require hand-drawn animation sequences to look right, and if you give up on that, then the story behind the pretty illustrations needs to be very solid to carry the production alone. |
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Meritas said: It might be just me, but it's very difficult to translate Shoujo from Manga to Anime. The style of illustration that makes it so distinct would probably require hand-drawn animation sequences to look right, and if you give up on that, then the story behind the pretty illustrations needs to be very solid to carry the production alone. Well, many action shonen also require good animation, but here again we are faced with the fact that with equally good art, generic shonen will subjectively have a wider appeal than generic shoujo. |
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| Yes we definitely need more shoujo adaptations tbh, hell even more josei/seinen romances would also be nice because they have some realllly interesting stories with them (like Even if you Don't do It, Daughter's Friend) some amazing romances that actually take place while they're dating (I'm Around 30 but This Is My First Love, The Two Gets by Tomorrow Too More or Less, Living Eating and Sleeping Together, Will you marry me again if you are reborn?) and also romances with more intimacy like sex in them (like Pretend-Lovers Serenade for instance) without just being for the sake of hentai purposes. Cause quite frankly, the anime romance genre has been quite lacking lately tbh And shoujo's also have some great stories behind them like Mairimashita Senpai, Koi wo Shirania Bokutachi wa, Our Precious Conversations, What My Neighbor Is Eating, A Sign of Affection etc. shanimebib said: That being said, real men read shoujo manga and watch shoujo anime. preach it brotha |
 'On-Hold' is another way for a completionist to say 'Dropped' |
Lucifrost said: mwalimu said: girls will cross over and watch "boy" shows, while boys won't touch "girl" shows(*). This is why Cardcaptors was marketed to boys. People laugh at it now, but all my boy friends watched it. These series are regarded as shojo too , since they based on shojo manga, yet they were still more popular with the boys! Yet unlike Cardcaptors, distributors and dubbing staff had no clue about it. One of the rare cases where manga is labelled shojo, yet anime is labelled shonen! https://myanimelist.net/manga/1747/Igano_Kabamaru https://myanimelist.net/anime/2762/Igano_Kabamaru  Pygmalio anime is correctly labelled as shoujo, though if one was not given any tags, it would be labelled as shonen as well.  |
| @petran79 Your Igano Kabamaru example is hilarious! But how do you know the tag isn't an error on the part of MAL? As for Pygmalio, I never would have thought it a shoujo series! This is exactly why I oppose objective demographic labels. |
| その目だれの目？ |
| I sometimes question the MAL standard of "anime demographic=manga demographic." Yes, it's objective, but some adaptations are near unrecognizable. |
| その目だれの目？ |
HeruruMeruru said: Works aimed at women are more popular and numerous than ever and the female market is very lucrative (Yuri on Ice is the third highest selling anime of the 2010s), it's just that otome and joseimuke games are far more popular to adapt than shoujo manga if it's not an original (usually manservice sports) property. My guess is that women that are into these sorts of titles, yumejoshi and fujoshi, are more likely to watch late night anime than the more mainstream demographic shoujo manga tends to go for. Shoujo aimed at older teen girls were also a difficult sell in the 90s, they had to shoehorn in toys aimed at much younger kids just to get by. I feel 2000s shoujo classics like Fruits Basket and Ouran would be very very different if they still did that. Or at least, the same but with more babby toys. Well, I once heard that at one time the authors of the sports shoujo, or even Sailor Moon's, criticized the dominance of romance in shoujo, because they believed that it prevents the "genre" from being diverse in terms of both plot and social message. It’s ironic, but when she tried to make the message “romance is not the only important thing in women's life” and didn’t give the boyfriends for part of the girls, people still read it as “so, will these girls be with each other?”. I want to say that thanks to this, many people perceive shoujo as female-orientated cheesy romance and bishonen fanservice. Could this affect the sales and interest of producers in titles? @Short_Circut I will only support this. I cannot call myself a big fan of manga, but any manga genre can present you with a lot more unusual and interesting stories than several seasons with hyped anime. |
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| It's an interesting question. While I don't watch a lot of anime, I mostly read manga, I often try to make sense of what I see in female demographics. All in all later seasons do feel like women don't get much of attention. The way I see it, the reign of shounen is never ending, but shounen has the broadest target audience. It's for everybody, even though it often has male-centered fanservice, which speaks about our culture in genereal. As in female viewers just deal with it. Men though don't even notice manservice in many cases, btw. Like with Gangsta, which was a BL-bait pseudo-action. Then there're many pure male-targeting series - harem series, which have been here for a long time, and now isekai series, usually also harem. These two things make up the bulk of the seasons later, from my pov, with occasional revivals of old classics. Pure shoujo as in a light hearted romance, I think, even in manga form feels outdated in many ways. Honestly, the formula needs a rework. Shounen adventuring is just stronger as an idea. In shoujo there're so many contradictions when heroine's agency and the "needs" of the traditional romance clash. BL is often unsavory, so it keeps to its own artistic forms, mostly manga and LNs. It's not trad, and not quite lgbt-friendly, and there's fetishisn, lack of consent and pure sexual content. But then, considering the shit many isekai series show, I guess BL stories rarely get on screen mostly because of homophobia and, again, culture. We’ve had Yuri on Ice and Banana Fish however, there’s the new BL movie, so these series happen and will continue to at their own rate. The strangest thing is that otome adaptations are consistently disappointing. And genres like the currently popular revenge porn LNs and webtoons, or more mature drama, usually are adapted as TV-shows, they don't get animes. At the same time there have been quite a few successful series that are women-oriented, but don't focus on romance and thus attract broad audience. Actually Psycho-Pass season 1 has plenty of fanservice, BL-bait and a reverse harem, so it feels like it's female-focused. Plenty of men watched Yona and Shirayuki-hime. Virgin Soul tried and succeeded for a while. Feel good dad-and-daughter series are welcoming to women, ones like the recent show with a golem dad. And men seem to like Bakarina's story, so we may expect female-centered isekais. Maybe the common love for gaming, escapism and wish fulfillment will help. But overall I feel like these types of show are indeed largely absent from the later seasons, and Noitamina offrings has become weaker. It’s obvious that female pov isn’t catered for and appreciated in the same way male is, where most fetishes get their own titles. Like, there’re dozens of series about lonely loser guys and their suffering, but not many about girl losers, even less without a magical transformation into a beauty. All in all it's likely a combination of cultural factors, which make men unable to empathize with women at the same rate women do with men, female-oriented series "lower" in status, niche and thus a less developed tradition, women sticking to their own corners and mediums. By less developed I mean the fact that female-targeted series, frankly, often don’t cover their bases where they should to attract male readers too. We have much less of a cultural idea of what a heroic, cool, successful women is; it’s more difficult to integrate women into action; female-targeted romance has to balance around trad gender roles, agency and damseling. I still hope that female-oriented series will grow one day to have genuinely good blockbuster scope stories in anime format. Oh, and btw, if I think about it, Balance Unlimited is the choice show for older ladies in this season. But yeah, it's not shoujo. It's true that there isn't anything like Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha atm. But then later seasons feel very safe, and there’s covid crisis now. |
| Banana Fish wasnt a remake? charalim |
| I honestly don't understand why there is even an audience for rom coms or rom dramas. A few are good but most are the same copy paste story. Marketing towards girls needs to ditch romance and branch out. |
 ☆☆☆ "There's a huge difference between one and infinity. However, compared to the difference between existence and non-existence, one and infinite are nearly the same. I am the child destined to become the best witch... no... The greatest Creator in the world...!" -Maria Ushiromiya ☆☆☆ |
Pullman said: Also just in general male fans are just much more insecure and many are scared of shoujo just because it is a female target audience and won't watch anything with that label to protect their imaginary manliness, not even trying to find out whether they would enjoy it or not. But girls mostly don't give a fuck what's the target audience of a show - if they enjoy it, they watch it. I have yet to see comments from female anime fans bashing a show just for being shounen and trashing it before even trying it, or making sad threads asking the community if it's actually okay to watch shounen or if that makes them lesbians. But the other way round I've seen a ton. Male fans do seem to have the monopoly on being whiny and judgmental solely because of the target audience, or in many cases even the gender of the main characters. They lose interest or their standards for enjoying an anime increase tenfold when that's the case, making it much harder for female-targeted shows to find broad success.Shoujo basically have to deal with 50% of the population being prejudiced against them because of their gender and the other 50% being prejudiced against them because of the medium (anime) which doesn't leave a lot of room for shoujo anime to actually find a sustainable target audience. Those are just a few reasons I can think of. While I agree with the first two points this last point I don't agree with. Shojo tends to have a more limited genre availability and most female targeted demographics in general tend to mostly focus on stuff that very much targets mainly women. It's kinda insanely judgemental to act that the only reason someone wouldn't be interested in that demographic has to do with all those reasons you stated. Even as someone who does occasionally like Shojo and Josei anime and manga both those record on my list and those I have browsed in the past again I can understand why the can be limiting in appeal even for some women. Of course it does have some genre variety but not as much as shonen and seinen and that can also distort what actually is available in these demographics making some unwilling to get more into them. You have of course exceptions but in large you have to enjoy SOL or romance to some degree from that female perspective for the most part if you want to get into manga like that. You always have exceptions of titles that could appeal to fans of sports or action shonen anime and manga like Yona of the Dawn or Chihayafuru but when people do think shojo they very much align with the romance genre because that tends to be incredibly dominant. I rarely see people bashing on Shojo titles just more like non interest since it doesn't cater to the genres they are interested in large or at least what they think is available which is why I always try to put titles like Yona out there as many don't even realize classic action adventure titles exist outside shonen and seinen. If male anime fans really cared about such things like their masculinity being threatened Precure wouldn't have a huge male fanbase in Japan nor would titles like CGDCT end up being created for a male market. The amount of threads on that are incredibly small and they aren't massive misogynists with huge male egos you are making them out to be. In large are just surprised they enjoy girls content and wonder if other guys feel the same which many fans tend to be in support of. Finally I have actually seen female fans be incredibly prejudiced to male writers and the overall demographic usually due to the belief male creators are incapable of writing female characters or are incredibly sexist. So that's just anecdotal experience as personally women tend to be way more adamant about that then men in my experiances. The shonen demographic tends to get the most abuse I would argue of the main demographics where seinen gets the most praise. Outside of their small communities no one really cares about female oriented content even women themselves. I would add on there are many titles like The Ancient Magus Bride that have ended up in Shonen manga/anime that I would argue would be classified as YA female oriented content elsewhere. A lot more titles I think are coming out in shonen magazines that are more for mass appeal than just teen boys. So there are more female fans also ending up fans of shonen anime and manga for that reason. We might get to a point where demographics stop mattering and shonen jump is more about appealing to all the average mainstream anime fans than just male teens. I think the success of titles like Haikyuu are showing that to editors what cross appeal can do for sales. |
BilboBaggins365Jul 13, 2020 5:27 PM
All I know about that series is that it's getting a Takarazuka adaptation next week. https://kageki.hankyu.co.jp/english/revue/2020/haikarasangatooru/index_takarazuka.html?yclid=YJAD.1594684865.Y29.Hhadcq18f72Zhpk35284x_hYgxtgt3spAMM.zopiTaqeLrHTIpRbBUkzOA-- EndlessMaria said: I honestly don't understand why there is even an audience for rom coms or rom dramas. It's the same reason we get so much isekai, to put it simply. |
| その目だれの目？ |
I think it's circular. The fact that men are unwilling to associate with female characters is well-known and well-documented. Women are seen as lesser, men gravitate to action stories that ask for male characters, our whole storytelling tradition leans heavily on male-centered action plots, so no one knows what female characters can and should do. Women associate with male characters way easier. So, as you notice, it's more profitable to market a non-romance story to both genders. And only something aimed squarely at women is left for shoujo and josei magazines. I've read that josei is the smallest demographic too. At the same time, shoujo works develop in their own corner, they don't try to target outside of their usual crowd, which hurts them. I would be hard pressed to remember shoujo with good fighting, for example, even though nothing stops it from having one. At least that's my theory. All of us are more accustomed to see men as heroes and stuff men do better as heroic (punching faces, it all boils down to punching faces). That's really interesting, thanks. I have heard about this manga, and its plot looks impressive. But doesn't it prove my line of thinking in a way? It's a product of its time, that deals with a largely unsung part of women's history. To enjoy it people would need to understand why the heroine stands out with her new age behaviors. And it's a plot-heavy shoujo, the type that is largely left behind. I don't see modern shoujo pay much attention to emancipation or give its female leads a lot of stuff to do outside of dating. Way too often it undermines its female leads by building a traditional romance dynamic, where the guy has to be more talented and experienced in everything. All in all nowadays I just don't know what typical shoujo can offer me and my expectations for it arent high, tbh. They even had a popular series ridicule the genre - I mean Nozaki-kun, and this says a lot. Personally, I think we need more female-targeted works, but not trad shoujo love stories. I like Love So Life, for example, but the constantly chibified kids and the uncomfortable age gap are an issue. Fruits Basket is special, but Tooru being a free housekeeper isn't a good feature. Etc. I think it's really not too marketable basically. |
deadoptimist said: I think it's circular. The fact that men are unwilling to associate with female characters is well-known and well-documented. Women are seen as lesser, men gravitate to action stories that ask for male characters, our whole storytelling tradition leans heavily on male-centered action plots, so no one knows what female characters can and should do. Women associate with male characters way easier. So, as you notice, it's more profitable to market a non-romance story to both genders. And only something aimed squarely at women is left for shoujo and josei magazines. I've read that josei is the smallest demographic too. At the same time, shoujo works develop in their own corner, they don't try to target outside of their usual crowd, which hurts them. I would be hard pressed to remember shoujo with good fighting, for example, even though nothing stops it from having one. At least that's my theory. All of us are more accustomed to see men as heroes and stuff men do better as heroic (punching faces, it all boils down to punching faces). You would have to send the studies and I would have to look at who is responsible for them and how they got to that conclusion. In large in anecdotal settings I have not seen that at all. Nor do I accept your reasoning for even if they gravitate away from female stories as them being seen as lesser. I would bet it's more due to how men feel they need to identify or be like than your wide assumption that most men are inherently misgoynistic. Society as a whole including women tend to equate feminine traits in a man as being weak. Even on your point sure action stories lean towards male heroes due to how roles have largely existed through most of history and in most cultures there are some exceptions but in large they are male which is why most action stories tended to lean that way. That is fair point. As I said in my post you have shonen manga that now have stories that would be exclusively aimed at women in the past. I think there is a change in what people see male oriented manga as these days. I don't agree that men can't enjoy shojo/josei but overall biases from impressions of the medium infer for the most part they wouldn't enjoy that and some of those biases aren't wrong such as the dominance of romance/SOL. You would have more male readers if anime and manga like Yona were more dominant. Finally I think it's very much a jump to say men don't value women as human beings that's why in large they can't enjoy some female content. I would argue a statement like that is actually pretty sexist. |
BilboBaggins365Jul 13, 2020 7:38 PM
deadoptimist said: I think it's circular. The fact that men are unwilling to associate with female characters is well-known and well-documented. Women are seen as lesser, men gravitate to action stories that ask for male characters, our whole storytelling tradition leans heavily on male-centered action plots, so no one knows what female characters can and should do. Women associate with male characters way easier. I think this can be most easily solved by stories with both male and female protagonists, such as Digimon or The Simpsons. |
| その目だれの目？ |
| I feel like shounen in general has more cross gender appeal than shoujo. To put things into a very generalized perspective, boys can get a kick out of the action scenes and themes of the story, whereas girls could get invested in the character development and shipping side of things, for example. There's not much about slice of life shoujo anime I can think of that would appeal to young boys, and I've even talked to female fans who are fed up by the tropes. You don't really see many shoujo anime with 100+ episodes like you do with shounen either, even if there are plenty of shoujo manga out there with enough material to adapt. It's a shame because I absolutely do prefer the longer formula, as it allows me to grow closer to and have more fun with the characters I love. The more straight forward and short adaptations are also good, but eh... I guess we still have series like Precure and Aikatsu carrying that torch. Though far from irrelevant, I can't exactly see shoujo being as big now as it was back in the '90s. |
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| Imo shoujo anime doesn't sell. Just look at 3d kanojo, for some reason few guys watch shoujo. Which is a shame because there are some great shoujo manga. |
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EndlessMaria said: I honestly don't understand why there is even an audience for rom coms or rom dramas. A few are good but most are the same copy paste story. Marketing towards girls needs to ditch romance and branch out. This can be said of any genre. For example, I don’t understand the popularity of CGDCT, since 90% of them are the same set of archetypes that just change the setting. The original manga never had an adaptation, they decided to make it in honor of the anniversary of the author’s career. |
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| FWIW I've lately started watching Yona of the Dawn and it's pretty nice. |
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
| Yes, we need more of those fluffy Shoujo adaptions! Like seriously, these have all converted to the Live-Action format now it seems. Shows like Kimi no Todoke (From Me to You), Ao Haru Ride (Blue Spring Ride), Akatsuki no Yona (Yona of the Dawn), Sukitte Ii na yo. (Say "I Love You"), Ore Monogatari!! (My Love Story!!) etc. Seeing Fruits Basket every week is far from enough to sate this. @shanimebib, #RealMenWatch&ReadShoujo Had a quick look at the Shoujo anime lined up for future seasons and Omoi, Omoware, Furi, Furare immediately stood out. This is exactly the Shoujo that I've been craving for! |
_MushiRock11_Jul 23, 2020 6:36 AM
#Anime4Life be my Life Motto! #PrayForKyoAni  |
| The only major new shoujo title last year was kono oto tomare and it was quite good. Definitely need more shoujo just for the sake of diversity if nothing else. |
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| Kono Oto is serialized in this shounen magazine. https://myanimelist.net/manga/magazine/161/Jump_SQ |
| その目だれの目？ |
Lucifrost said: I thought kono oto was a shoujo anime. My bad. Well then it's even worse lol considering we didn't even have a single new shoujo title last year(apart from remakes and sequels).Kono Oto is serialized in this shounen magazine. https://myanimelist.net/manga/magazine/161/Jump_SQ |
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