After the decline of shojo anime I’d like to point out that a lot of women found salvation in kdramas and a lot of kdramas are adapted from manhwas. Most kdramas are female gaze oriented and in the last 6+ years there’s been a huge surge of popularity in kdramas.
And i think k drama is one of the reasons anime shojo decline to. Shoujo anime face to face with k drama since years ago. It's make less new audience for shoujo anime. For people want romantical fantasy, it's much better to see the phenomenal k drama that everyone watch.
@@muhammadjazidi8626 Yeah this makes more sense. Which is why kdrama cannot compete with Shonen anime because if a similar story is to be made into a drama and make it popular they would require CGI in the level of MCU.
For me the main reason isn't with shoujo and josei fans, but with the Male demographic. The fact is that men have a huge resistance to give female oriented content a try, and since women have no problem watching/reading male oriented romance for the production committees the shounen/seinen romance series is more of a sure bet. In the short term there is no solving this, the best that shoujosei fans can do is show that the show that are coming out are profitable and try show that shoujosei romance can be for everyone.
Thanks for your thoughts Gabriel. This is so true! I mainly did the shoujo fans part as a way to poke fun at myself but its true that people outside of the male demographic are more open to watching whatever as long as it's entertaining. Where as the opposite is not true. That's why there are so many (mostly weak) arguments about how romance or slice of life series are all the same or not very entertaining even though those same genres are popular in shonen series. And as you said there is no quick solution, but I hope people realize what's going on and why it's bad that we're losing access to this type of content.
The amount of people on MyAnimeList's Anime and Manga Recommendations board that deliberately say NOT to recommend ANY shoujo with no reason clarified has always and will continue to baffle me...
I had a male friend who absolutely hated shojo for no reason… Of course not everyone has to like everything but “hating” an entire genre is kinda dumb. Wish people would stop being so prejudiced and try watching stuff.
It is sad how shoujosei manga and anime are slowly losing their popularity even more, but the contents in shoujosei definitely have roles in it. Like you say, we want a well written romance. Many of adapted shoujosei mangas are not creative in plot, has terrible characterization, very mediocre overall. Which is a shame because of that reputation, the good shoujosei mangas are buried deep with only few people knowing it. I am one of the people who knows very little about good shoujosei story now, its not like i go and look for good ones when i can easily find a lot of good romance manhwas. I certainly hope the popularity of shoujosei will come back and give us opportunity to know great stories, though. Maybe they can start with animating s2 of Akatsuki no Yona.
yona of the dawn deserves a season two. a lot of men and women love action, adventure, romance, comedy, and plot-driven anime and yona of the dawn is one of them. it also has a dedicated fanbase that's been begging for a season two. even a classic and well-loved anime like ouran deserves a reboot. the fact that the fruits basket reboot became successful is giving me the tiny hope that more shoujo will be adapted
I *love* Yona of the Dawn. My husband picked it out for us to try and it became one of my all-time favorites. I will forever be salty it never got a second season when the manga is such a strong story - and really, that first season only barely got into the story! Seriously, the story and Yona's growth only got better after the point where the anime ended. It deserved a full adaption.
I remember the golden age of Shoujo for me was around 2004 to 2013 so many amazing mangas and animes like vampire knight, Ouren, kamisama kiss. And I remember so many amazing one shot mangas too. Now when I got to the book store I’m always shocked to see the series on the shoujo shelf were mostly ones I had read over then years ago. Hardly anything new was on the shelf
I've heard shoujo manga collectors complain about how only shoujo manga from last decade seem to be getting localized but not new or current series. It makes me sad that new shoujo/josei manga that is readily available in japan isn't as available elsewhere
@@TheAnimeTea Localisation can take time. I think improvements in streaming, etc has tricked many into thinking things should be more immediate/quick. Remember fan subs and dub releases? The whole “genre” was the result of material not being released quickly outside of Japan or were practically non-existent. Therefore, the delays in some localisation of work is to be expected. Unlike with shounen manga and anime (nowadays), where there has been a real effort to localise material and meet demand as soon as something is published or aired in Japan. Shoujo manga and anime just doesn’t have that market (for now).
It’s so frustrating because so many shōnen and seinen (eg Horimiya, Toradora, Golden Time, Your Lie in April, Madoka Magica Skip and Loafer lol etc) that capitalise off of the potential success and borrow heavily from shōjo and josei to the point they could be shōjos with some (if any) tweaking- whether they mean to or not. Some shows are even purely shounen and seinen because of the publishers even though the demographic could be anyone. Yet chances are, if they’re published under shoujo and josei companies, they would not get nearly as good marketing as anime and thus be far less popular than they became. I just saw the trailer for My Happy Marriage and it looks BEAUTIFUL and so interesting but it hasn’t even got subtitles while a bad isekai is probably on its second trailer on Crunchyroll by now with subtitles. It’s so sad :(((( It would be better if there was a unisex demographic and people could just choose based on genre rather than what might be aimed towards them, I think there’s even a manga award category that’s unisex- the gender boxes just seem to be pointless for shows like madoka and fruit baskets etc
The frustration is so real 😤 so many amazing series overlooked seemingly because of their demographic when there are series just like it thriving. Thanks for sharing your thoughts Moon Kitty!
hey, i really don't understand how horimya isnt considered a shoujo since it's a love story and i would assume it's targeted towards female? can someone explain the difference please!
@@stopprocrastinating4181 the reason why it's not shoujo is that you should try watching Colleen's, is this a shoujo? to which horimiya isn't because it was a stand alone webmanga that got published and serialized in shounen publication. Also the fact that Miyamura has substantial growth as a character in contrast to Hori that retains her overall character throughout the manga and the severe lack of intrapersonal emotional dialogue that is always present in shoujo because shoujo is a medium for art that expresses it's stories with the characters mainly the main girl and the side girls and even the boys that shares their insights. Also one of the reasons why I love shoujo. Really good self reflection and most of the time really relatable
@@stopprocrastinating4181 hi! Yeah I get really confused on it too sometimes because most shows can easily be unisex. Horimiya is a shounen because it’s a shounen web manga published series. It does also contain some generic shounen traits like simplistic eyes and there’s a lot more focus on Miyamura’s development than Hori’s (although this trend definitely isn’t true for all shounen and can sometimes even be true for some shoujo), but the main reason it is a shounen is because of its publisher and the editor will probably have more of a male demographic in mind. Shounen is also coming out with a lot more love story anime recently as less shoujo have been coming out and more guys are open to romance shows, so it’s no longer a shoujo specific trait. I hope this kinda helped and made sense 😅
this is why a lot of women watch kdraman now instead of shoujo anime... since there arent any left. i have two sisters who grew up watching so much shoujo anime. and now they only watch kdramas, they said the anime they want to watch no longer exist in this period😭
I think one of the saddest parts is that we rarely get any shoujo romance that gets adapted that is ACTUALLY GOOD, which of course makes interest/demand for the genre be lower than say a shonen anime.
Like, 7seeds is everything shounen bros claim shoujo lacks (action, high stakes, complex plot) while still keeping all the elements that make it a shoujo (romance, emphasis on emotions, well-written female and male characters, and a character driven narrative), which you can find in a lot of Yumi Tamura's works. But then they made an anime that butchered the story and artstyle, and cancelled it when it got understandably low ratings. And there's still not an official english version of the manga in sight, and it's now possible there never will be since the interest is dead. And even if the anime gets decent ratings (Yona of the Dawn and Princess Jellyfish), it still only gets one season and no merch. Anime producers really go "We've tried nothing and we're out of options" when it comes to marketing towards women.
bruh the number of manga I have on my list both shoujo, shounen, seinen and josei that are not being adapted are making me question who are making these decisions and if its base on popularity. who in the hell have these kind of tastes
@@teapartypenguin1353Im a big sucker for romance and thus also dabble in shoujo. The male characters are almost never realistic. Even if they avoid the fate of being only a romantic interest, the way they share their emotions with others simply doesnt match teenage boys. The most disturbing thing is the male friendship and how they interact. An example of this is the fragrant flower blooms with dignity, where all the boys are very emotional and basic boundaries among the male friend group get ignored and violated. There are situations, where I would have been seriously mad at that friend group and the male lead apologized instead.
It makes me so sad that there’s no shojo anime’s still being made. Anime’s like Kamisama Kiss and Fruits Basket mean the world to me. A good representation of the female gaze and sweet gentle love 😭
@@takeigiant5900 If I may suggest, you should read the Kamisama Kiss manga. It has the fully story, including details the anime left out in the adapted story arcs.
EXACTLY, they are my 2 favorites and there are many greats ones, but it's a shame they don't make them like before. Because they really were AMAZING!!!!
I feel like Shoujo anime died when sports anime became really popular with women around the 2010s (shows like Free!, Kuroko no Basket and Haikyuu). It's like producers thought "oh, girls like action now!" and ran with it since then. But let's be real, what we like about sports anime is not really the action, but more like the bishounen boys, the strong friendships, the different character tropes, the shipping, the talking about feelings and dreams and aspirations etc, which are all popular themes in Shoujo.
Honestly, this is a really good point. Especially, I think anyways, when Yuri on Ice came out, because between gorgeous animation, well-made characters and interesting conflicts (not to mention the queercoding and pretty boys in general), it became huge, and kinda fell into the same shoujo curse of one-season. I hadn't thought of this point, I think sports anime did spark a decline for sure.
Exactly this. Action is good but all that stuff u mentioned is golden and it's exactly why sports anime fandoms are always female majority. The feels n char dev and shipping is fun af
“You watch sports anime because you want to root for the underdog who struggles to win at first, I watch sports anime because I think the guys are hot. We are not the same.”
If anything, the recent Nana resurgence, the Rose of Versailles 50th anniversary movie and the Fruits Basket reboot are all good signs that there is definitely still an audience for shoujo and josei series. I'm desperately hoping for more in the future. I mean hey, it wasn't that long ago that I thought Fruits Basket would never get a reboot and here we are now! Ouran could be next!
There's a lot of stuff getting anime adaptations next year (Ice Guy and Cool Female Colleague, Last Boss Queen, Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts, etc.), I'm hoping this will make a shoujo/josei resurgence because the market has been DRY for the past couple years.
There is an audience but that audience grew up and are an older demographic now. Anime is generally a kid's show, and maybe if you can get kids into... mom... Shows... But reinvented for what youth (the bigger audience, in the end) are into these days, then yeah.
I find myself rewatching the classics over and over again cause I can hardly find wholesome, heartwarming shoujo anime like before. We need Shoujo back.
Me too, it's hard to find that suites my taste. I specifically like traditional soft and feminine MCs but I couldn't find those type in recent animes. There a lot of them in older animes but the story they're in usually pretty bland for me.
Suprising enough whenever I'm watching an old series i noted that some of the amazing anime came 2014-17....and only few such as fruit basket series came later till 2021. After that I rarely saw any anime which I want to rewatch.
Read the Blue Box manga,it's technically a shonen because it's in a shonen magazine but it has a female writer and feels more shojo-esque.Its one of the most popular romance mangas right now.The anime has also been announced and will probably come this year
I think this is why romance webtoons and kdrama got popular . Many shoujo fans got bored that shoujo manga are not available outside of Japan. So they started looking else where. Then they discovered webtoons and kdrama. Kdrama has the same feel as the shoujo romance.
When I started reading webtoons I noticed this too. Finally a good story with a strong female lead and not this male gaze fanservice shit. I sometimes stop watching an anime when it gets too much. 😅
I didn't realize i did this until watching this video because by the time i got into anime the era of shoujo had already passed. I'm just so tired of the in your face sexuality and waifu pandering of most romance anime, my reading catalogue tends towards the opposite end of the spectrum just to balance things a little. Ouran was one of my first introductions into anime and deep in my heart i still carry the hope that it'll get a fruits basket style update so i have more content to consume (give me haruhi figurines you cowards)
I love romance manhwa/otome isekai and it borrows very heavily from shoujo. I think one of the things that makes it really difficult for me to read/watch something is if the women are poorly written. A lot of shoujo and otome isekai are written by women so they feature well-written women very prominently and don't go too crazy with fanservice either. When I venture out of that realm and am hit with series with no women in them and constant fanservice, its shocking.
I don't think this is gonna be The Thing To Save Shojou and Josei, but one thing I noticed is that a lot of shojou and josei can also appeal to an older demographic. I got my parents, both in their sixties now, into anime by introducing them to slice of life/comedy shojou and josei. Princess Jellyfish became one of my dad's favourite anime. I think it's important to talk about the issues within anime fanbases, but we can't discount the power of bringing in new fans of all demographics who don't have the same expectations and baggage.
Sometimes a different perspective is all we need to change the dynamics of something. Especially because people who have watched anime or read manga for a while can get stuck in certain tropes and ideas that have been repeated over time (me). I'll keep this mind. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and story!
I think this is true. My family is into dramas, partly because they have the association of animation with kids, but also because the stories dramas have related to them more.
The thing is, that's not the demographic Crunchyroll or televisions are looking at. Even millennial men (now in their 30s and 40s)are quite open to female targeted content. 20 years ago, guys watched shoujo nearly as much as gals watched shounen. But it seems the market is interested mostly in people younger than 30, probably because they consume more media and are more likely to pay for it.
@@dahyimi2185 I completely agree! When I talk about bringing in new demographics, I'm not talking about relying on corporations to do that. The corps are what's killing anime on a lot of different levels. I'm talking about the fanbase bringing in new fans who aren't being marketed to. (Fans shouldn't have to do the marketing for the corporations, but as far as I can tell there isn't much of a choice right now.)
For sure! I think age plays a big part, "adult" animation is making a splash because of grown up millenials and gen z. Bee and Puppycat is a good example of starting from grassroots to Netflix!! I have noticed there are a lot of reincarnation villainess tropes now, it feels like cartoonists can't break from a formula.
So, basically, the anime market has regressed to the old "femininity is uncool and anything 'girly' or targeted at women is lame" mentality, it seems. Back to the old days when it was disgraceful for guys to like "girly things" but cool for gals to like "macho stuff".
Where are you even getting that ideal? Women outnumber men so stop looking for men to support things geared towards women. Women should just support things geared towards them. Why can women enjoy what they want in peace but men can't?
@@cflame14 Because there's a drought of new shoujo/josei anime: they can't enjoy in peace what doesn't exist. If there was barely any new shounen/seinen being adapted, you'd have the same issue.
@@KlutzyNinjaKitty Almost anything can be done with practical effects. There's nothing that needs to be animated but animation is a cool artform that predisposes itself to wonder and evocative feelings and it does tend to make genuine monster girl and monster guy love stories a lot easier to appreciate. 🤷♀️ But that's just me and what I want.
Why would we want to? We are men. Just like with the WMBA stop looking for men to support something geared for women and women can just support it themselves and it would be just as big as anything men do. Women outnumber men so don't blame us for what women aren't supporting
@@cflame14 thats because everything is geared towards you (men) whether you notice it or not. Because haha patriarchial society wow. Every big business/government there's always cynical men on top.
@@cflame14 agree mostly, women whine about men not watching female targeted stuff but you really never see men do the same. Women are to blame for low interest in women's shows/sports/movies and it's that simple. Wasn't made for you is said allot by women. Although I do see that tossed at women who complain about male interests too tbf
@@cflame14 it’s unattractive to know a man who doesn’t want to know anything about you, while you desperately talk about how hard it is to be a man, makes you look like an unintelligent baby who only cries over himself
The idea that girls don't buy as much as their boy counterparts feels a little flat for a reason as to why they're not getting adapted, since girls in general are extremely profitable if marketed to. Things like twilight and boybands made and continue to make ridiculous amounts of money off of their female fanbase. As long as there is a product it will be bought.
Thank you! There’s two demographics that are known to make money, kids as in elementary school kids which is why family channels, toy channels, and kid orientated channels are big on TH-cam. Tween girls and teen girls with examples of boy bands, the biggest tik tokers, kpop, and so much more
Don't forget that Frozen was the highest grossing animated film for a while, say what you want to about Frozen but there's no denying that there is a market out there for girls.
Some people in marketing for shoujo manga need to look at kpop albums sales to truly realise the length a lot of female fans will go to have pictures of pretty men & women 😂
As a male getting into anime in the early 90s, there were times I just didn’t know I was watching shoujo: Fushigi Yugi. But something like Sailor Moon…I knew what I was signing up for. As time passed I continued to stumble across other shoujo like Fruits Basket and Ghost Hunt which I absolutely adored. I even liked Vampire Knight. 😅 I told all my female friends about Jujutsu Kaisen when it came out. Lmao Sometimes you just know what your friends will like. Anyways, your theories and assumptions are all correct…especially that shounen fans are going to buy an insane amount of merch. I hope we can continue to get more shoujo and Josei anime. I always found it refreshing seeing anime from a different perspective…so that’s why I have always dabbled in them. I have never seen Ouran…but I remember hearing about it so much in the early 2010s. That’s one I might watch some time. 😎
I also liked vampire knight at one point so no shame here 😅 and Ouran is one of the most beloved from that era so it gets talked about alot. I just miss binging Naruto on my family's computer and then switching over to a romance series like The Wallflower. The ability to bounce from one type of anime to another was so much fun. It's harder to do that with newer anime these days. Thanks for sharing your thoughts as always!
I feel like, due to the limitations surrounding access and availability back in the 90s and 2000s, a lot of anime fans just watched whatever they had access to. They really didn't have as much choice as they do now. This is true for both international fans and Japanese fans of anime. There are now so many more options for how to watch anime, like TV, recording, streaming, DVDs/BDs, etc. and the amount of anime being created is more. This has made it so that nowadays an anime fan will see that a series is shoujo or josei and say, "Oh, that's for girls" or "Oh, that's just cheesy romance" (even though plenty of them aren't), and still have tons of anime to choose from. Back in the day, you were more like, "IDK what this is, but it's anime, so I guess I'll watch it!" So there was more opportunity to watch things outside of a particular demographic or genre, due to the more limited access or lesser amount of content that was out there to consume. The anime community was also less divided by gender in the past as well. When you wanted to discuss anime in the past, you had IRL friend groups, conventions, and forums, all of those spaces were more mixed gender-wise than the current social media landscapes that are used for anime discussion (ex. Reddit & YT - more male dominated, Twitter & Tumblr - more female dominated, etc.). This creates more echo chamber-like interaction, and results in more of the same series being recommended and talked about, which means you get less male anime fans even becoming aware of the existence of shoujo and josei anime (or other anime series aimed more at women than men).
@@LilyGinnyBlack35 I completely agree. One thing I will add is this is also a by product of anime becoming even more popular over time. And what I am about to say is not me being condescending...like video games...there are going to be the anime equivalent of Call of Duty players. There are going to be people (mostly guys) that will only watch anime with the highest production and best fights. That's it. They will never go further than Demon Slayer....they will just wait for the next one or when there is a new Dragon Ball. I am not mad at these people. Some people are just not going to get too far into anime.
@@SteelMaiden9049 yeah! When I decided to watch it, I didn't know who the target audience was. I just got excited that it was an anime series with ghosts in it. 😂 Turned out to be really good! 😌
I don't think this is an issue caused by a lack of female audience. Over the years there has been a huge surge in popularity of romance kdramas, light novel, manhwa, manga, and otomes. If you go on any manga, manhwa or kdrama site, romance media directed towards woman are on the top page. The issue is, anime studios just aren't interested in adapting romance anime as much as shounen anime anymore. Shonen garners more hype, so regardless of the number of girls interested, they'd rather take the easy route and continue to push out the same generic isekai instead
the massive advantage isekai have is that the premise is nearly always very interesting alone in a monster school as a human , building up a city ,being a nobody etc. seriously if at least half of isekai actually commit to the premise they would be way better just like the mangas but devolved always to ecchi harem with the annoying tsundere .
@@laisphinto6372 Yup exactly. Plus the isekai genre is all around appealing to the majority of anime/manga fans. Even for girls, otome isekai stories have been extremely popular for many years now
I do find the boys buy more merch argument a little redundant. If you follow any otome game fan you will find more often than not, dedicated shrines to their fave characters and games. I've seen people's merch hauls where they would even have multiple copies of the same game, or various limited editions. Female fans do shell out the money, in vast quantities even. The main problem I find is the lack of variety and availability of merchandize for the female fanbase. There's the mentality that girls don't buy merch, so they don't bother creating any. Heck when I was in Japan finding any merch on the series I like was so hard. It was all popular shounen series. There was a small corner for Wotakoi, but it was the promote the latest volume and was mainly just the limited edition version of it. I wanted to spend money but I didn't find anything for my shoujo series. I do also wish there was more variety of merch available, aside from the usual figures and such. I recently saw an Ascendance of a Bookworm themed tea set that I seriously wanted to buy no matter how expensive it was. If there were more things like this available maybe some wallets would loosen more. EDIT: I forgot to add, but great video! And it's nice to see a fellow Hojo.
Adding to this since my sister just reminded me, but kpop fans completely prove otherwise. There is no one with a looser purse string than a dedicated kpop fangirl.
Hey Jules! Thanks for sharing your experiences. This is an aspect I didn't consider but makes a ton of sense especially since it's difficult to come across licensed and translated shoujo and josei manga series, let alone merch of those or other series. The fact that this is also a problem in Japan is even more concerning. It almost feels like the audience is made to seem less profitable so they don't have to try to promote it or something... Anyway I hope you got that Ascendence of a Bookworm tea set because that sounds adorable!
sure female fans will spend money but there are LESS female fans overall. People act like the anime community is 50/50 along gender lines or something and that's a ridiculous notion.
As a librarian I already know the answer to why. Most males do not care to read or watch females leads while women will read and watch male leads. Thats literally what it breaks down to. Companies want the most money and so then appeal to the largest demographic. Shows that males and females will watch. Sadly shows with a female lead thats not completely sexualized will not appeal to men so they dont do it for fear of losing 50% of the demographic. Its sad but I cant tell you how many times I try to recommend series that are amazing but young males especially will absolutely not want to read it because a girl is the lead or how many grown men will go out of their way to HATE any show, movie, book, maga etc. because it has a female lead and appeals to women. Im not sure what the solution is, but maybe we need to collectively start taking our money, viewership as well as our talent to more female dominated series. Is there no female animators, authors, etc. that we can encourage to break off and create studios that will focus on adapting female oriented animes? I wish I was talented and could help. hell, I would help for free!
But so many male leads are terrible. I don't know why anyone watches some of them at all. Especially the shouty stupid ones. I find it difficult to to believe that men or women of any age watch these, let alone grown men or women.
You might be onto something. I for one, as a dude like or even prefer (to a degree)female lead fantasy books. As long as they are good product overall.
I think lots of anime fans are getting really tired of watching the same ecchi romcam harem every season i do believe those fans even male fans are voicing their concerns over these ecchi animes I’m talking about the western fans idrk about the Japanese fandoms.
I'm sure that people are getting tired of similar series being animated each season. Time will only tell if the popularity of certain shows will change over time based on taste. Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts!
To me, Fruits Basket is the panicle of Shoujo. Because it’s so much more than just a romance. It’s about abuse, trauma, moving forward and finding your strengths, family, friendships, empathy, the value of memories, the value of living, etc. I also love that the two male leads are never perverse towards the female lead. I love that it makes it look like it’s set up to be a love-triangle, but it’s never the case. I don’t find many shoujos like it. It’s a beautiful story. It’s funny how I saw so many men push back on it when it took the #1 spot over FMA Brotherhood on MIA, but I’ve also seen men who’ve watched it appreciate the message and root for these characters. Because again, it’s so much more than a romance story. There’s a reason why it’s a #1 best seller. I knew it was special the moment I read it when I was 14. Funny enough it was the first manga I had ever read. I don’t cling to a lot of shoujo just because the tropes are overused make my eyes roll. The fan service, the yitties, beach episodes “I wonder what kind of swimsuit Kimi-san will wear?” *nosebleed* type of stuff. You know what i mean. I feel like if more shoujos pulled away from that and gave them more relatability like how Fruits Basket did, it’d pick up on success. This is just my opinion, tho.
A thing that I noticed people is ignoring when discusing the problem of shojo adaptations is exactly where is the money going. When an anime is produced, actually very little of the money goes for the studio working on it. Most of it goes to the production comite that includes editorial companies, music companies and TV. The animation companies make a profit mostly out of two three sourses: the fix payment from the production comite, which for what we know is very little, the DVD Bluray sales, which is declining as phisical media is less and less of a thing each year, and finaly, the most important, merchandise asociated TO THE ANIME, not the manga. This last one is key, becouse if after the anime the manga sells double or triple the copies, it doesn't matter to the studio becouse they make no money out of it. The reason companies make shity isekai after shity isekai is that they can make a profit from the mercandise there, selling figurines, posters, artbooks, pins, and everything you can imagine. People likes to mock hardcore otaku a lot for being so weird, but often underestimate just how big of an economic impact they make in the anime industry, specialy for smaller studios that can't get contracts for this mega projects like Demon slayer or Attack on titan that apeal to the general public. I honestly don't know what is the key reason behind it in the end, if its sexism, desinterest or what, but shoujo anime doesn't sell this type of merchandise as well and there is a lack of merchandise available for those interested in this series making them unprofitable for the animation studios when compared to other projects. And again, is kinda weird, becouse, after all, there are shoujo fans that buy anything related to their favorite series just like everybody else, and there are franchises like Love live!, Idol Master, K-on!, Precure, Frut Basket and others that are very, very femenine (some of them with a more male audience in consideration but all incredibly successful amongst women and with a very femenine touch to their core) so it's clear male audiences are interested in more than fighting and swims suits (I'm a man and I consume shoujo manhwa like I drink water), but it's still dificult for anime studios to market correctly shoujo adaptations, or at least, its far easier to sell from shonen. It's sad, becouse shoujo manga has so much to offer, but... the only solution I can think of is just buy more products and that is not necesarily a good mindset. Sorry for my bad english and the gigantic wall of text.
another well selling "merch" when it comes to isekai/shonen are gacha "waifu collector" mobile games where just a handful high payers bring in more money than the whole anime series made...
I appreciate you taking the time to share those points! After thinking about it and reading what you've said I think what would also help is publishers being more willing to share their products for cheaper. Right now the only official app I have to read manga (Shonen manga specifically) is the official Shonen Jump app which I'm happily subscribed to. Shueisha frequently publishes and has all sorts of differently aimed manga under it's watch. Why they, or any company in a similar position wouldn't make another subscription service to lower the bar to entry and make passive revenue is beyond me but if they did there's a chance to reach a wider base than they have now. I can't speak for any market other than north America but sexism (most certainly) and the higher monetary bar to entry (purchasing tankobon for 12-19$) can be a steep bar if you're not sure you're going to like a given series in a way that 3$ a month to read a whole library and create a collection from there isn't. I do want to get back into reading shoujo and josei and supporting the creators who make it but as someone who doesn't watch much anime, that's one of the bars of entry. I think it's important to bring up manga too because the manga/ comic of something selling well can decide what does and doesn't get an adaption. Shoujo and josei have a much smaller word of mouth ability than shonen and seinen and that is unfortunate quite frankly.
I imagine it's because fans of shojo and josei anime and manga do not appreciate the merchandise typically made for anime, and has more "tame" tastes, both within and without japan. I for one would be happy to buy things like behind the scene artbooks, accessories with character themes, etc, but I wouldn't buy figurines, drama cds, plush, etc.
this is exactly what i was thinking... when i think of the kind of fans who buy lots of product and merch or collectors items i think of shounen/seinen almost exclusively... of course there are exceptions but as far as i know nothing recent that has been note worthy in this respect (im also not super in the loop but basically your comment validated my assumptions a bit haha) it does feel like shoujo/josei end up with less associated product purchases for whatever reason. of course i rarely purchase any anime or manga product besides the show or book themselves for financial reasons so im not one to talk ahahah
As an adult male, I have to agree with you, and it's a shame. Money ruins everything, and anime has fallen into the same trap that makes American TV unwatchable - people want the same story over and over, and aren't looking for new. I adore Josei and Shoujo rom dramas and romcoms, and have noticed a drought in the past few years. I'm reading a lot more manga and watching a lot less anime as a result - which is sad. The "Mega-Hit" is killing anime.
And sadly there is also the unfortunate reality that Japan, despite having social programs that America does not have, is still a capitalist country. I'm mean about Japanese work culture? It's very insane, and although some parts might come from their culture I have no doubt that the capitalist mindset place a role into that insane work culture.
I've been thinking about doing a deep dive into this because we have anime like Kaguya-sama Love is War getting a very successful live action film yet still has multiple animated seasons. Even Wotakoi has an anime and a drama. It makes me question what's wrong with having both, or how profitable is one over the other. Anyway, thanks for leaving your thoughts and watching the video Stephanie!
@@TheAnimeTea for love is war i think bc it's Shoujo that apiel to male. Male like competition, and the idea of romance as competition between lovers is interesting. Basically it's what male doing irl they see getting woman is a win. That's why term playboy is more often we hear than playboy. For wotakoi i think is bc weeb thing sells. Past view years we always see story about weebs. Even marvel did it in miss marvels.
@muhammad jazidi Thank you for what you said! I've been bonking my head trying to figure out what it is about Kaguya that doesn't make it a shoujo. Because it has a lot of shoujo roots in its comedy and romantic moments, but it's the competition! The competition frames romance as a prize to win rather than a deeper connection and experience.
@@muhammadjazidi8626 kaguya-sama is published in seinen magazine, so their main TA are young men. By definition it is not shoujo. I think that many people lable shoujo any romance anime that is not harem. It's understandable, but there is a lot of romance targeted on boys and publishing in shounen and seinen journals.
Don't think it's dying, it's hibernating. As Isekai and Shonens dominate the current field, given time people will gravitate to "new" and more emotional rewarding content. One day someone is going to make the same video except it will be a different genre. This is how it's going to roll since anime is controlled by money rather than creativity.
Y'know what I hate the most? Sakisaka Io's (writer of Ao Haru Ride) first work Strobe Edge isn't even animated 😭 That was one of the best highschool shoujo I've ever read that is actually realistic in terms of pacing. And the first shoujo that made me stay up all night to wait for updates. But going back to your point, as an old shoujo fan, I just resort to otome games now. Current anime scenes just don't include us anymore 🥲
omg gakuen alice was my childhood ahh that was the first manga i ever read and kept up with in real time i would LOVE a reboot bc the anime was so disappointing lol
this is why i started deviating from watching romance anime anymore, it’s just filled with harem. i just started sticking to mangas and manhwas and rewatching all of the “old” shoujos. kamikaze kaitou jeanne is still one of my favorite
As someone who was into anime in the late 90s to mid 2000s I just don’t watch anime anymore because it’s just so annoying to find anything female oriented or that doesn’t have a lot of fan service with underage looking girls now I just read Asian comics and indie comics.
I've been finding myself reading more manwha and webcomics because they tend to have more diverse romance stories told from the perspectives of young and older adult women and it's much easier to access legally. So I totally don't blame you for moving away from anime and manga, especially since they seem to predominately cater to certain audiences.
I remember watching Ouran Highschool Host Club as a kid, anime with wholesome comedy and romance is so rare nowadays and the kind of romance anime we get now is all very obviously male centric like My Dress Up Darling, can we also please bring back tall long haired bishounen pretty boys? I feel like male character design has gotten so generic
Then make it. Every artist can make whatever they want and every consumer is allowed to like what they like and support what they want. Bashing men won't fix that. Women can enjoy what women like in peace with no criticism so let men enjoy what we like
@@cflame14 Someone wanting more of something doesn't mean taking away other forms (in this case what already exists). It only means widening the breadth of creations.
It's honestly so unfair, why should things that girls and women like be looked down upon. I used to love watching anime (mostly shoujo) but ever since 2016 I rarely watch any anime because there isn't anything that lives up to what I want. Instead I end up rewatching the same series over and over again.
Another issue in the anime world is that they use BL to target us, and sorry to burst some bubbles we don’t want those. We want a main character that is a girl with depth and amazing storyline. So many people are moving to kdramas because we miss shojou animes 😫
As a queer person I love seeing all kinds of love but yes it’s so annoying how there’s been a lot of BL but where are my GL romances and heterosexual ones!
The reason I stop reading shoujo was because I absolutely dislike the bad guy abusive bf x the pure heart gf (ik there are better shoujos out there, but the ones I read had almost the same dynamic) and when I started reading BL it's almost the exact same thing but repackaged, but the fact that they are both men somehow made me less uncomfortable that with an straight couple? Idk how to describe it.
UMmmmM personally I would love a lot more BL as a queer woman and GL as well but rn there's a bunch of GL anime that came out and not as much BL, like if it were up to me i would like more jousei stuff but also more BL please as well.
I spent a long time as a male anime fan gobbling up Shonen content. After all, shonen go vroooom and brrrrrr. But now as an actual adult I can’t stand it. I’ve spent a majority of the past couple years diving deep into missed gems and older shoujo/josei that I used to ignore. The overall quality of character development and captivating story telling really uncovers the fact that a lot of big budget Shonen are really just the same story with different visual effects.
When I was younger I thought I might hit a point where I would grow out of anime. That didn't happen, but I am bored with certain shounen. I don't have to have fight scenes in my anime anymore.
True, shounen is very in-your-face with everything, which may appeal to children and teens, it often lacks subtlety. As an adult you’re (hopefully) mature and get annoyed by it, and want something where you can use your brain more.
I hate shounen. Not for the storylines because some of them are good but because the male main characters are so infuriating that I spend the entire time wishing the author would kill them off
I want to add that there's a generation gap in how much shoujo is consumed. growing up in the late 90s and 2000s, anime fans would watch a lot more shoujo, and anime like OHSHC or Fruits Basket were insanely popular among girls. you couldn't be in an anime community without shoujo being in the top spot. nowadays, with anime becoming more mainstream, you can ask a teen what manga they like and it's mostly going to be shonen with the occasional seinen and slice of life, no shoujo. i was in anime communities in the 2000s and shoujo was huge, now i'm in college and the girls around me who like anime consume a lot of shonen, with the girls who like shoujo mostly reading classics and watching kdramas.
_Skip and Loafer_ is actually a seinen manga that serializes in the same magazine as _Vinland Saga, Blue Period,_ and _Land of the Lustrous,_ but otherwise amazing video! It really does suck to see all the money I've spent on shoujo manga (arguably half of it being new so that money could go to the companies that license these and hopefully also goes to the original creator in some way) going nowhere... there's so many shoujo manga on my shelf that hasn't gotten A SINGLE ADAPTATION OF ANY KIND despite being as old as from the 2000s, and it really just makes me wonder what the industry is doing ignoring all this potential. Seriously, nothing for _Kitchen Princess? Othello? I Am Here? Pixie Pop: Gokkun Pucho,_ hell how hasn't there been a _Full Moon wo Sagashite_ remake yet lol???
Thanks for informing me! I should have double checked my source for Skip and Loafer. I would live for a Full Moon O Sagishite reboot! It’s so sad that there are so many great series from the 2000s that we haven’t gotten adaptations for despite the love for them.
@@TheAnimeTea - No problem, that's all right and I can't really blame you as it seems a lot of shoujo fans are still really looking forward to this one. I totally agree with all those poor 2000s shoujo manga getting left out (loved your Whisper of the Heart review recently btw), are you going to make a video around this topic on some of these that you want to see adapted or something? I'd love to see your picks!
oh my god, thank you for reminding me about i am here and pixie pop....those are my childhood! i also loved kitchen princess, im so bewildered how natsumi andou has yet to have an anime adaption for any of her works!
Yeah... I think the issue is that women and girls will watch anything as long as it is entertain, where as men and boys won't necessarily watch female led and female geared shows because "they're for girls." It really comes down to that fragile masculinity and patriarchy.
I don't watch that much anime but Sailor Moon and the Rose of Versailles are masterpieces. I really like the shojo and josei aesthetic with the large sparkly eyes and dark and serious subjects being explored in a kawaii color palette and drawing style. Also, I do enjoy Diabolik Lovers. Series I would like to explore is the Mémoires de Vanitas. I sometimes read shojo dark fantasy series. I tend to enjoy shonen comedy and seinen grittiness, but I do like manga and anime with "elegant gore".
As others commnets have mentioned, the K dramas have become more prevalent than shoujo animes, and on the same note those K-dramas are adapted from popular romance/ slice of life manhwas (usually modern Korea). While the golden era of shoujo mangas and consequently shoujo animes have passed, we can see the rise of OI - otome isekai (villainess reincarnation/ transmigration) mangas/ manhwas alike and OI anime as well. Look at My Next Life as aVillainess(Hamefura/ Bakarina) which was a huge success, and recently, there has been announcement about the new anime of an OI manhwa called The reason why Raeliana ended up at the Duke's mansion (which is one of my favorite Korean OIs). We can hope that if also becomes a huge success, the anime industry will start doing the adaptations of Korean manhwas (popular ones: Who made me a princess, Villains are destined to die, Baby tyrant, and many more) , too. And my main point here is, unlike modern/ Korean historical manhwa that can be easily adapted to Kdrama, OI manhwas have medieval European setting, which make it harder to adapt into a Kdrama (the issue of budget), but more convenient into an anime.
if you're a fan of the villainess genre check out Tearmoon Empire, it's my favorite series ever and as such i peddle it at every opportunity. The anime is coming out this season!! Also baby tyrant slaps, i'd be so hyped if that or for my derelict favorite got animated.
I feel this is a phenomenon many will not even notice and I think it's kind of sad. As a male and a person who wants to be a writer I have some theories and reasons why shojo/josei are becoming irrelevant in the anime community - Writers don't want to appeal to a single demographic anymore. It's not economic (in the minds of writers), it's simply "Why should you exclude a gender from enjoying your story?" -Shojo/josei fails to market itself as anything but romance. For new viewers there's no variety. Shonen/seinen instead are recognized to have many genres: dramatic action (Naruto, Death Note), fun adventures&action (One Piece, Dragon Ball), pure comedies (Gintama, Saiki k), slice of life+romance (My dressup Darling, Love is war, Horimiya), mistery (Monster, Erased), sports (Slam dunk, Blue Lock, Haikyuu, Ao Ashi), dramatic romance (Your Lie in April, Quintessential Quintuplets, Clannad), psychology (Evangelion, and various elitist things), shitty harem and shitty isekai. People know variety of shonen/seinen exists. - Men are ridiculed if they like feminine things. By both men and women. Many won't even try for this reason and categorically avoid the demographies. "I won't watch this shit" they'll say. And also that men aren't as used to the female gaze as women are to the male one. Women can watch male oriented media because they're more used to, men cannot. Even I have to admit the its greatness, the first 15 episodes of Fruits Basket were hard to watch for me, boys were hardly watchable (except Kyo) and Tohru felt like a talking carpet, harldy interesting. - Shojo/josei aren't as critically acclaimed as shonen/seinen. Critics have a huge psychological seinen/shonen bias. This reinforces the idea that deep, philosophical shonen/seinen series are better than anything else - I feel that society have this bias: "if not specifically female, then this thing is for males". Like games, half of gamers are female but they hardly get recognized. Half of the internet users are female, yet there's the joke: "there are no women on the internet, only men in disguise". There are no female weebs, yet they are the majority in japan and a slight minority around the world. Buying merchandise isn't specifically for females so producers create much more male oriented merchandise, and they keep this vicious cicle. They get more money from shonen/seinen because they act like the majority is men, so produces things that men will probably buy and keep the circle going
Haven't read the first point but I would argue that is what their doing with shounen. They aren't actually making it adaptable for females too, in fact the over ecchiness and CONSTANT sexual objectification of women is pushing us away but since there are no options that ARENT that most of the time we watch it anyway bc we like anime and are pushing through our disappointment in hope. Girls are being pushed away from anime thanks to this dedication to sexualizing literally everything in shounen. It would be fine if that weren't the case for like nearly all the animes coming out but it is. Gradually over time this developed and those female watchers were lost and left to the point only the shounen stuff remained.
@@tulip5210 I'm not saying shonen got to a reasonable amount of "no women objectification", but rather that the more time passes, the more series are made with in mind both male and female audiences and they actually get to be the most popular Just look at demon slayer, jujutsu kaisen, chainsaw man, spy x family, love is war, mob psycho. The more time passes, more shows get better at this aspect
@@wigosas and I misspoke I meant I haven't read more then the first point and my argument was about that. Not a hate on you or anything more like discourse it's hard to tell in text but wanted to clarify in case it felt like I was trying to attack you
Welp I guess Japan heard. 3 shoujo anime next year. We're getting Sugar Apple Fairy Tale, Why Raeliana ended up at the Duke's mansion and Niehime to Kemono no Ou. And there's possibly more on the way with the announcement of a second season of the Saint's magic power is op, a second season of Tokyo Mew Mew and Ojou to Banken-kun
Yeah it’s a bit of a trend that Shoujo was declining but it’s bound to return. That’s how trends are they go and come back. also Shonnen had their issues for many years. For example the majority of early 2000’s and early 2010s shonnen series had lots of filler. Now that it’s becoming the norm to do Shonnen for seasons and by releasing quors, Shojo also has a chance to comeback and fill lots of gaps in the season of Shonnen taking a break. I know my Dress up Darling was a bit etchy and but I consider it a great Shoujo. Because there is more to the series besides Marine fan service. Also Tokyo Mew Mew was a huge return and there are plenty of small Shoujo out there hopelly they will get as popular as Kaguya Sama Love is war.
I wonder with how much anime has become mainstream internationally, companies and publishers are looking at which animes have become mainstream and seem more “franchise-able” but like other people pointed out the reboot of fruits basket and the nostalgia wave for 90s-00s animes including shoujo series can definitely help the genre
This is one of the biggest reasons why I left the anime/manga community. I’ve watch a-lot of series and read a lot of series. I left 5-6 years ago because of the decline of Shoujo and Josei series. Even as an adult Josei series started disappearing and I started seeing Seinen disguised as Josei. Until you start reading. Honestly that’s why Webcomics are the best for now they don’t have much plot diversity, but they got hot men, romance, colored comics and bold female leads 😊 it’s even elevated to developing Harems for women fans with romance.
I have to admit that as a teenager I preferred the typical geared towards me anime with action and good stories. As I hit my 20's I shifted to mysteries and slice of life. My late 20's to mid 30's I shifted to slice of life and romance/drama and thrillers. Pushing 40 now, I find myself less and less interested in what I used to prioritize and maybe it just has to do with whatever phase of life you are currently in and what resonates with you at the time. As you grow your tastes change and grow as well (though not always). One downside to ALL anime and manga though, is sameness. Something does well, and suddenly you have dozens or hundreds of generic copies that just make you start to want to branch out to some other medium to get your fix.
It's a tragedy. I frankly haven't really cared much for some of the more recent shounen anime, and I couldn't really put my finger on it until I realized, "Oh, they feel like just another typical shounen anime with all the tropes that come with it." I think the reason I came to that conclusion is exactly because there is a segment of anime that hasn't been in the forefront in years. I'm more of a slice of life person, myself (and mystery/supernatural stuff, like Mushishi). They're cozy, easy to watch and not typically dragged out any longer than they need to be. Anyway, I also find it disappointing that shoujo has been falling off the market - and I ain't even a girl! I like seeing a healthy amount of variety that targets DIFFERENT audiences versus trying to reach ALL audiences. It's comparable to how Hollywood is these days, with all the super hero movies that are just -- well, superhero movies. They only do it because it's a "safe" investment. The entertainment industry just doesn't like to take as many risks these days, and it's slowly killing creativity..
I will say one my my newer favorite comfort shows is Tsurune. It’s a sport show but it’s vibe and tone are more like Natsume then a typical sport show. I feel so relaxed whenever I watch it. 😊
I definitely feel that. Both industries seem to be going for safe investments and don't create content for different audiences but more for the common denominator. This video also helped me understand why I was feeling like this towards the anime industry. I'm also a guy but I am older and the usual Shonen anime are marketed towards a younger male demographic. I have been enjoying more slice of life stuff like Aggrestuko and The Way of the Househusband. It is a nice change from the constant battle shonen. I'm also glad other anime are being funded outside traditional means like the upcoming Pluto which looks interesting.
It is honestly so annoying that most romance anime are shounen and seinen nowadays BECAUSE of the way female characters are written like you mentioned. I couldn't continue with Rent-A-Girlfriend after S1 for that reason, and some romance anime I just don't watch because the women characters are just not interesting enough to me and I don't care to see the same yitties and associated tropes with them in every show. I try to avoid most harem shows too for that reason. Even Kaguya-Sama, as much as I enjoyed it and kept watching more, there was always something "off" about the show that put me off, but not enough to stop watching it. I WISH Wotakoi and other josei/shoujo slice of life manga/anime would get adapted or a second season because those are my main shows. I don't care about isekais or most action anime besides MHA. I want my shoujo/josei shows.
Adding to this: justice for Skip Beat! One of the few manga I've followed since I was in middle school and I wish it got another season because there's so many good, juicy parts that should be animated 😢
In my opinion any Shoujo is a story (about daily life stuff or with fantasy, adventures, politics or wathever content important in the plot) that has to include a romantic development where its explained the emotional conexion between characters throught them and all their struggles. There can be sex between the characters or tense moments but the point of view and the development of this relationship is throught their feelings and the overcoming of x situations together. I have the impression that a lot of the current animes categorized as shoujos are using the sexualization of one of the characters and the scenes of sexual tension to create the whole plot of a love story based mostly based just in ecchi/sexual conent and not in the development of the emotional conexion between the characters. And to me that can be a love story but its not shoujo.
I am the opposite of male shounen fans. I refuse to watch most shounen and it makes it really makes it hard to talk to other anime fans. I can't watch most shounen because it's so misogynistic a lot of the time. It hurts to watch shows like rent-a-girlfriend and my dress up darling. Some of my favourites are shounen romances, but nothing is as refreshing as a female-oriented show with no up-skirt shots. Shows like Horimiya, Kaguya-sama, and sasaki to miyano make me a little more hopeful for the future of romance anime.
hdjsgdg yeah, I think this is why I'm so obsessed with Jujutsu Kaisen. It's like the only Shonen anime I can think of where the female characters wear skirts that are ACTUALLY school-uniform length with tights/shorts underneath.
@@flyingorange2482 I just don't like the amount of fanservice. I starting watching it thinking the premise would be really cool and I was really disappointed when it became almost unwatchable to me because of it. I didn't mean dress up darling specifically was sexist, just that a lot of sexist tropes and characters exist in mainstream shounen.
As many have pointed out many people have turned to kdramas, luckily the kdrama to manhwa pipeline is very real. Since The Reason Why Raeliana Ended Up At The Duke’s Mansion is getting animated I think there's a potential comeback in store for shoujo!
Thanks for presenting your thoughts on this. I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of most romance shows, being largely asexual myself it just doesn't appeal to me. So, this isn't something I've given a lot of thought to. But I definitely see the value in letting more people present their stories. It's one of the best ways we can learn and grow as a society. So, thanks again for the insightful breakdown.
i'm ace myself, but i actually really like the romance genre because i find those stories are more likely to place stronger emphasis on strong characterization and inter-personal conflict, which are the elements i find most engaging. Although i do wish there were more media that centred around explicitly platonic relationships. I don't mind romance, but it gets so exhausting when you see the exact same dynamic play out across 50 different titles with no meaningful variation. *cough* harem anime *cough*
Its not us but the manga industry itself that's trying to kill shoujo. One review for nana in Japan was " two girls with the same name move into an apartment where one finds out sleeping with multiple men doesn't get her a husband while the other forms a band to stalk her ex" that is not a proper review for any series. And I'm glad you mentioned Clamp as the studio enforced rules on their manga on what or how far they could go with romance. If you've read their angel series then you know the last volume felt off. It was because Clamp was supposed to be green lit for another 3-4 volumes more but even with its high ratings but were told to can it in the forth volume. This shocked me as Clamp was one of the highest seller manga artist at the time following Chobits. But they weren't the only ones that got this treatment as many more shoujo manga and anime started getting bought up and put in hiatus mode as studios would buy them and then do absolutely nothing with them. And once a studio bought them not even the mangaka could continue the series. Hell things have gotten so bad one mangaka was even arrested for making a manga about periods. She got five years for making a chibi vigina character. Shoujo hasn't died its just gone underground and moved to other platforms. I also hate that crunchy roll romance (and sadly shoujo section) is full of shounen romance or haram anime......if they didn't have decent horror, classic, and action titles I wouldn't still bother to stay with CR but it is not far off if something doesn't change soon
As men become less shy about liking romance (probably a good thing) their tastes and expectations come to be considered in the production of romance series. That doesn't just mean that they, and specifically the men with very.. uh... particular tastes, being a higher spending demo, will tend to be more influential, but also, what of their tastes the rest of the audience can tolerate will tend to be more influential than those elements the rest of the audience finds intolerable. If we spent more on series that didn't involve an uncomfortable amount of male gaze, and that encouraged more and higher value productions in that niche, that we're also following series with more distasteful themes and just putting up with it would still slant things towards those series. I find it difficult to care too much about the publication demographic of an anime's source material. While I can understand the importance of there being media specifically aimed at women, I find myself more or less just drifting towards what I like and not feeling too strongly about who it's for if there's nothing in it that bothers me. There is, however, content that bothers me, and it's in part a by-product of who it's for. So I'd like to see less of that, or at least spend more time with things that are more for me; nevertheless, I find myself tolerating things that bother me, God only knows why, and I have to wonder if I were more discerning, and others were too, if there would be less of... this.
I know what you mean. Yona of the Dawn and Fushigi Yuugi were some of my top timeless faves. I haven’t seen anything quite like those. Shounen anime can be fun but it does not always accommodate for my feminine palate, what with the male gaze’s inclination towards competition and action…
UPDATE: New video continuation of this one is out now: How Shojo Changed Shonen FOREVER: th-cam.com/video/w-cApJBzulM/w-d-xo.html Couple of Things: - Skip and Loafer is actually a Seinen series. Support other Shojo series getting anime adaptations like Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts coming 2023 - I meant the shoujo fan thing as a kind of satire, fans are only working with what we got there’s not a lot of licensed and adapted shoujo anime or manga series in comparison to shonen and seinen series so it can’t be helped. Watch what you want. Just wish we had more series with leads that weren’t the typical boys we’re used to seeing. - I spelled Chihayafuru wrong at 14:36 What do you think about the slow death of shoujo anime? Feel free to ✨politely ✨ share your thoughts and lets discuss! Please make sure to go watch Colleen’s video: (th-cam.com/video/pY39RGRO1i0/w-d-xo.html)! It was very informative and well done. And check out they’re channel for more Shoujo anime and manga recommendations and information.
I agree that there should be more variability with manga adapted into anime. Sometimes there are shonen or shows with romance geared towards young and older men that have a great story but a bland bitch of a protagonist that drags the story. Hopefully shows like fruits basket, magical mew mew, horimya, others can break the cycle. It would be a shame if we didn't get more shows like revolutionary girl utena,sailor moon or who knows what else. Thanks again phoenix, also thanks for giving an OG show like Fushigi Yugi a shout out.
Was talking to a friend about this and how I think this has to do with merch sales. Cause from what I know animes make money off of blue ray, merch sales, as well as commercial slots (which are hard to make money off of if the anime airs in the middle of the night). I think most companies look at shojo and don't see a way to make back the money they put into adapting them anime wise. I also think that why we also get lazy attempts at adapting them as well, they think they'll make little profit to no profit so they don't get the budget they need. I was also listening to a podcast and one of the girls went to Japan for a while and she talked about merch collecting culture over there and she said its very much like you choose one character you love & just collect merch of that one character. Which is why there sooo much isekai anime (IMO) being pumped out cause its very good waifu bait. Guy gets transported and is surrounded by attractive girls, ofcourse your gonna have a favorite girl ofcourse your going to collect merch of her(If you enjoy collecting merch). This makes isekai basically a sweet spot for these companies cause even if it's not extremely popular you'll make some what of a profit. I also noticed a lot of girls are enjoying & getting more into male gaze anime media (like harems,isekai, fan service shows) I don't think this has much to do with Shojo (nor nothing wrong with it) but I find it interesting.
Lmao young girls nowadays consuming alot of anime in a male pov make me think that might be one of the reason why there are more gay young girls and girls who enjoy gay romance than straight ones
I think merchandise is something that gets overlooked in anime in places outside of Japan because overall, our access to official merch is still pretty limited. Thanks for sharing the info about how people tend to collect merch on specific characters. That actually makes a lot of sense because I've noticed that really popular figurines tend to have an almost endless amount of variations in designs. Thanks for leaving your thoughts and watching!
Girls actually collect merch too! The best example recently are from joseimuke or female-targeted games like Ensemble Stars, Twisted Wonderland, or A3! which some of them also had anime adaptation. I think the reason why girls are also enjoying male-gaze medias is mostly because of the lack in shoujosei adaptation nowadays, we don't get that much food in the first place so might as well try out other things that are available out there😅 but surely there's still female-targeted media other than anime that is flourishing like otome or joseimuke games i mentioned earlier, and shoujosei manga thats been proven to have very high sales number without anime adaptation and they also sell merch!
@@spring6066 First off, I love Twisted Wonderland! And it's very true that girls buy a lot of merchandise as well. I was more so trying to make a point about romance shoujo series not seeming as profitable as otome, idol or other bishounen series. But maybe I'll do a deeper dive on that in another video. I did leave out merchandise sold for manga series and I think that's an aspect that should be discussed as well. Thank you for your thoughts and for watching!
@@TheAnimeTea of course! Joseimuke or other non-manga media can be a whole different topic on it's own. I think you already did a great job on bringing up this topic into a discussion and honestly i'm just very happy that more people are talking about shoujo so thank you! A video about joseimuke/otome would be interesting as well
Okay, let me get on topic of the whole video. Everything has its season. I've been an anime fan for over 20 years. I've been a huge fan of music and television even longer. Everything comes and goes in seasons. There will be a Shoujo that comes out that will spearhead another wave of Shojo anime just like this new kind of action romance is being on the for front now. Nothing is ever really dying it just change and flex and takes a back seat. The wave will come back again just give it time.
Exactly. It’s the same reason why we’ve been seeing a fantasy resurgence here in the west. In the 80s you had a lot of campy fantasy stuff, that got milked and died off. Lord of the Rings came out, that got milked and died off. Now we have Game of Thrones and its clones. And this trend will die off too once people get tired of the tropes. This happened with disaster movies, zombie media, romcoms, vampire stuff, I think we’re starting to see it a little with superhero stuff, etc. All this misogyny talk feels really melodramatic and like women are pitching a fit that their favorite genre’s out of its honeymoon period. (And I’m saying this as a woman.)
17:02 legit this is the reason Genshin is getting an ufotable anime, I highly doubt it will add anything to the storyline… So many series not getting any recognition but stuff that’s already popular gets even more series. Wish not everything was about money and popularity haha…
True, and Ufotable is almost exclusively known for adapting popular franchises gaming or manga. Unfortunately money and popularity are what make series more desirable and help projects get funded. I wish certain series got more publicity so people could know about them to even want an anime adaptation but we can't control everything.
I'd have to disagree regarding the point on Bishies in shonen being a recent thing. Remember Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho? It's arguably part of why sports shonen have had a larger female audience: it's a whole CAST of pretty boys.
I mean, there's a reason why in every shounen manga there is the cool, pretty boy who's the rival/2nd main character in the story. It's to garner some additional audiences 😂
People are lacking information. Shoujo anime is desapearing because of the sucess of Korean Dorama, some adaptations of Japanese mangas. More and more shoujo has been adapted in live action series instead of anime, even modern series with animes are getting live action versions, and many are becoming teatriocal movies; live action and animes that dont come to the west,
Bruh I miss the 2010s Shoujo Anime Romance and what's annoying is the fact ththat they're so many great Shoujo Romance manga series that I've read so far but hasn't had the opportunity to get adapted. But yes I truly miss those amazing anime series as a whole. I don't know if you noticed but a good number of Shoujo Romance Manga series are more prone to be adapted by JDrama or a live action film and don't get me wrong this type of tactic has been around since the 2000s but it is more now than it was before.
I never used to be a huge shoujo fan but i always loved the reliability of the heartwarming storyline that would ultimately end with sweet characters getting their endings. Theres really none of that anymore and i do miss it more which i think has made me more of a fan.
I got into anime because of a romance anime and continued mainly watched Shoujo Romance Anime. In 2014 watching anime was still being seen as weird but even amongst the anime fans I met, I would also get made fun of for mainly watching romance anime (usually by boys). I eventually started getting into other genres like shonen and isekai which I also grew to like. Anyway I believe the reason for a decline in Shoujo Romance Anime is because anime which are mainly marketed to men/boys have been doing very well in recent years so only more of those are popping up. Also women/girls are more open to watching all genres than men/boys are less willing stray from the typical male marketed/shonen animes.
You are extremely open and unbiased in views and opinion. I might not agree completely with everything you say but I love that your contents are these ways. Subscribed. Take care!
I think one thing to consider, although Japanese companies tend to have a "Japan First" mindset in marketing, a lot of corporations that are international are likely prioritizing male viewers because of the binary gendered viewers of anime, 65% of them are male in the US (at least according to animeasure). In the west, things made for men are seen as good and worth your time whether or not you're a man, and things made for women are often made out to be frivolous, gauche, or immature. So if you're crunchyroll and you're trying to cast the widest net in your marketing, it makes sense to market shows geared toward male audiences more because not only do they make up the largest watching majority in the west, but you are also likely to catch female fans as well because it is cool if a woman watches anime for men, but embarrassing if a man watches anime for women (this is not how I feel or how I think things should be. Just a commentary on how media that is gendered tends to be treated here, even implicitly. Shanspeare has great videos about how we demonize things made for girls, especially teenage girls, in the west.) In addition, when it comes to conventions and events, women tend to comprise 40-50% of attendees in the west, in spite of making up the viewing minority, suggesting that casual fans tend to skew male, which is where a lot of viewership money will go for anime adaptations, and could explain the success of shoujo manga and decline/abandonment of shoujo anime. The average female fan is more likely to read manga than the average male fan, because he is statistically more likely to be a casual. So companies that deal in the west will invest in shounen shows and divest in shoujo that isn't exclusively manga where there is still money to be made. Good video! Got me thinking!
I have a sudden yen to rewatch The Vision of Escaflowne. Now there's a classic example of an isekai shojo with epic romance, worldbuilding and violence aplenty
This autumn season gives some hope about Shoujo animes! I'm not sure if all of series I'll mention are shoujo, but I'm really surprised that things like them came out
I was SO excited when I saw Akuyaku Reijou nano de Last Boss o Katte Mimashita became an anime! I loved the manga and the anime was gorgeous. Romance killer was another I loved when I saw it! I showed it to my sister the first chance I got and she also loved it. I've watched the series twice that way.
as a big fan of OHSHC and Nana, I can only ask for more seasons rather than asking for more anime's like them and I already know that's never happening 😅
There's a otome game I want to see get translated and that's Uta no Prince sama and also Brothers Conflict too. And I wish for a Fate Prototype series to happen in the future.
There's a TON of female oriented romance out there. You got everything from kdrama, doramas, YA fiction and shoujo manga and manhwas that are still incredibly popular, the only difference is that they rarely get adapted in anime. It's simply more profitable for them to shoot a live action. On the other hand for anime companies, besides the "waifu of the month" demographic, it's easier nowadays to simply target a bigger fujoshi & yumejoshi audience because they spend more money on merch. Shounen romance works because they're selling you a waifu, while shoujo romance doesn't sell a husbando in the same way so female fans are less inclined to bulkbuy merch
I think a good shojo is Romance Killer. It’s a new one and follows a very basic plot line but with a twist. The character is a bit more realistic in a way even and the MC is very likable .
@@msuzuki5971 Okay, I thought Nozaki-kun as a shoujou. What the hell is a shoujou then? I don't see how Ouran is a shoujou but Nozaki-kun isn't. I would have also thought Romance Killer, Horimiya, Tomo-chan is a Boy, and Fruits Baskets are all shoujou.
this was a very thoughtful video. i liked it even before finishing. money..yep. unfortunately, in the pursuit of security/profit we lose diversity of stories. as someone who fell in love with animanga becuz of shojo its sad
As a man who loves to hate anime but hasn't watched through very many of them Fruits basket is one of my favorites. I imagine I would generally like shoujo more because of the different character archetypes, not necessarily that they're better but that I haven't seen them a million times and thus they forge stories I haven't seen before
I'm a guy who watched all kinds of anime but also gotten into more romance and shoujo type anime. I have noticed a lot of anime currently are aimed heavily towards the male demographic with lots of action and violence. I am getting older and seem to gravitate towards stories in more shoujo, josei, and some seinen. I'm really glad it isn't just me noticing this because the larger online anime community makes it seem like anime is as diverse and experimental as ever. I never thought I'd gravitate towards slice of life, but I really like some of them lol. Like other people have said, some of us are finding these kinds of stories elsewhere such as K-dramas, web-novels, or places we haven't really looked before.
I hate all the pointless fight scenes. That's because there is usually not even background going on or stakes to justify all the fights to make them meaningful. You can often skip over them in most series and it won't make a difference. Often you don't even need to really know the outcome. I'd much rather watch a bunch of misunderstandings which makes me angry because at least that means I'm invested.
That photoshop of Kamui gave me life! 🤣 I appreciate your take on this topic. I recently saw Colleen's Manga Recs' video about this and you added a good perspective about the economics of the situation. Also, it was great seeing all your references to series I enjoy. :) I didn't realize about the decline in shoujo anime until recently, and before that, I just thought that I was growing out of anime or that there was good anime coming out that I just wasn't finding. Shoujo is definitely my favorite so this explains why I've been having issues finding appealing anime. Question: what's your favorite CLAMP series? And do you like Tokyo Babylon too, on top of X/1999?
I'm putting all of my hopes and dreams on the Loving Yamada at Lv999 anime adaption and pretending that will save the genre 🙃 Something of note from my own experience in the figure collecting sphere is that there aren't really any figures from shojo/josei series to buy and they definitely don't get the extremely well done figures when they're made either. The female figures are always geared towards men/neutral and the male characters are also geared towards men/neutral. There's few figures of men and women that have a specific female audience in mind and it's a shame. I would love to get more figures and merch of my favorite shojo/josei characters (or even characters with a specific feminine gaze) but the merch industry is slow on the uptake that women have spending power too (if not more considering the gap in the market and the fan bases that are definitely hungry for it).
Love this breakdown. You can see the same in Western comics, where female-gaze fare like Rogue & Gambit is critically acclaimed but doesn't sell as well as putting Emma Frost on the cover, even from the same writer's room.
Something I've seen brought up a lot was how many below average shoujo manga had indulged in toxic romantic tropes for a long time, like abusive boyfriends and that sort of drama, so much that it's become a bit of a stereotype. Shounen romances are also pretty toxic, but I do wonder. We even see it in the west - the blockbuster movies are ones that appeal to teenage boys first + everyone else second, and things like romances or specifically female aimed movies almost don't really exist on the mass scale, usually they're in more niche streaming services. This isn't really a good thing for either demographic but it's what marketers rely on as a crutch in the best of times. Male audiences are far less willing to divulge in 'female' aimed media, while female audiences tend to take part in everything (hot topic merchandise for example has mainly shounen franchises, but tons of female shoppers). An average young female anime fan these days will probably like shounen action and sports series before ever getting into their first shoujo.
Fruit Baskets, Yona of the Dawn, and Kimi ni Todoke are so freakin precious to me. I’m still getting into the newer ones, but I keep getting turned off when I see tiktok edits. But I have watched recent movies that made me cry
Thank youuu! I noticed too that now they’re trying to sell us this version of “romance” anime where for example the underage girl is doing mad fanservice for this bland loser boy.
The fact that you mentioned Fushigi Yuugi shows that you're a veteran and you know what you're talking about! Subscribed✅! 9 out of 10 anime fans tell me they don't know this anime.. but then again they're mostly Gen Z lol no offense.
I watched ayashi no ceres last year and it was so refreshing! I've been hoping yuu watase's alice 19th and absolute boyfriend manga's would get anime's too. Fushigi yuugi is still soo fun to watch and read!
There are way too many animes nowadays. Therefore it doesn't give time to boys something different to watch. I've watched shoujo/josei animes with my big brother and I can tell he enjoyed them (obviously he likes shounen/seinen more). The only difference between him and me was that for him to be interested, the story had to be a little bit engaging. I mean the story had to have an upper purpose that just 2 teenagers falling in love and watching them interact. That is why he enjoyed animes like Nana, Sailor Moon, Fruit Basket and Violet Evergarden (especially this one XD). However he didn't like Maid-Sama or Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun since for him nothing was happening.
Another aspect might be that a lot of shoujo anime is slice of life, which doesn't draw in a lot of people who are more interested in action, comedy, fantasy, etc. Slice of life shows don't inspire the sort of fandoms that shows with more worldbuilding have. For example, I really enjoyed Yona of the Dawn and Ouran High School Host Club because they had more than just romance; Yona had fantasy, and Ouran had fantastic comedy. I think it's pretty telling that a lot of recent shoujo are isekai with more complicated conflicts and storylines. I really enjoyed the show about the girl who gets reincarnated as the villainess in a dating sim and gets a bisexual harem. That one even got a second season.
Reincarnated as a Villainess is a shoujou? It never even crossed my mind that it was. Probably because it didn't even cross my mind that it's actually a love story lol.
I hard disagree with Shoujosei being not profitable outside of the manga sales. Figures and merchandise outside of, maybe some buttons and file holders, are just not made at all. You can't say that women aren't buying figures, dakimakuras and other merch if merch is not made to begin with. Goodsmile has only just started releasing nendoroids of shoujo characters and I preordered all of them. Lets also not forget bluray sales as well. Even though not technically a shoujo, Yuri on Ice was definitely made for a female audience and that series sold 50k copies of the bluray in it's first week. When you compare that to Mappa's other work Chainsaw Man. CSM only sold 1.7k copies in it's first week. Women have just the same spending capabilities as men, it's just that companies do not make the merchandise. On top of all that, think about all the artist allies or artists online as well. People who sell shoujo merch make good money like Ocean in Space. We are so desperate for merch we turn to each other for it.
korean has been prompant in giving us shoujos. There are so many amazing shoujo webtoons. For ex : (The way to protect the female's older brother, shadow Queen, villians are destined to die etc)
Ahh... I just died a little inside when I saw "Ascendance of a Bookworm" threw in among the seasonal isekai anime trash... please, if you don't know what it is, give it a try! And I would strongly suggest the Light Novel over the anime. That is also perfect, because you could call Bookworm a "shoujo" slice of life isekai. The author is a woman and she did an amazing job with worldbuilding and characters, I would strongly recommend it.
I had the same reaction as you and I also highly recommend the series. I think Bookworm has universal appeal in addition to shoujo elements, since there's a lot of male fans as well, but yeah, the world building is amazing despite the author's hate for worldbuilding, and the characters are great due to the author's love for character development. Honestly, the reason I tried the Light Novel in the first place was because the anime drew me in. I mean, yeah the Light Novel always beats the anime, but also books are far less accessible than anime, so I highly recommend both.
Same here! The anime is by no means bad, but think it does suffer later on into its run. I don't read many light novels at all, but AoaB is right up there with S&W for me.
I am a isekai hater but Ascendance of a Bookworm is something else. You can just think of it more as a little girl trying to make her way in a magical, medieval world. The anime does not do it justice to be honest. I can't watch the anime after reading the LN. You need the LN. Zero fan service. If there is fan service it's probably Ferdinand due to how the show portrays his strength of character. I say that as a guy so it must be pretty strong for me to pick up on it.
This got me thinking about something only tangentially related: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a shoujo story with sci-fi elements. I’m sure there exists time travel shoujo stories, but I can’t name them off the top of my head.
They definitely exist, but just aren't as talked about and don't get as many adaptations as fantasy shoujo. One of the most iconic shoujo scifi series is 7SEEDS (it received an anime, but the fandom generally agrees that it's terrible). It starts off with this 16 year old girl waking up on a ship in the middle of the ocean, with no idea how she got there. She's with three others who also seem to have no idea what's going on, they go to a nearby island that has something kind of off about it. There's much more to it than that, but I don't want to spoil anything for you if you decide to check it out.
Chobits is josei, but it's sci-fi with romance on it. The Gundam series, especially the earliest ones have romance surrounding the characters. Soul Link has romance on it although it is tragic, My Absolute Boyfriend is also a good one involving a cyborg dude and a human girl (writer is the one who made Fushigi Yuugi). There are so many more if you try to watch past era animes.
There's a shojo manga series called "Please Save my Earth" which is a 21 volume manga series that ran from 1986 to 1993/94 (you can read it on Kindle from Viz Media, but physical copies are out of print) about high school teenagers and a little boy who have recurring dreams about their past lives on the moon. It's very fascinating and there's even a six episode mini series made in 1994 and you can watch it here on TH-cam!
@@tkraid2575 chobits is seinen, gundam is shounen (romance =/= shoujo), soul link looks like an adaptation of a nsfw vn, so its seinen. my absolute boyfriend is shoujo! so that's the only one that qualifies on this list.
For the longest time, I thought I had outgrown anime. A while ago I realized it I hadn't, I just wasn't being shown anime aimed at me, so I had moved on. I'm a little more interested in comics, webtoons, and mawha now and I think this is why.
I see a lot of sentiment about how shounen/seinen fans are super resistant to shojo/josei so I tried seeking some critically acclaimed shojo/josei manga out because I wanted to have better perspective as a dude who has mainly consumed seinen/shounen up until now. Since then I've tried around 7 or 8 shojosei manga but I haven't been pulled in by any of them. My best guess as to why this happened (Besides just unfortunate luck in finding stories I didn't personally enjoy) is that there is something fundamentally off about the way they write and develop characters as a whole that I don't find particularly interesting or get downright annoyed by. The way some male characters behave also comes off as downright cringe to me sometimes. I'm someone who has read an OK amount of romance already and many of my favorite manga borrow stereotypically shoujo elements all the time. Now since series like Horimiya borrow from Shojo people start bringing up the idea that Shounen fans are just stubborn idiots who don't want associate with something labeled shojo because its too girly but will happily consume content that falls under a different label, and while there certainly ARE shounen fans who are up their own ass about their masculinity this entire sentiment comes off as a weird scapegoat mentality for shojo fans wanting something to blame for the downfall of their favorite style of manga on anything they can get their hands on. Simply put I think its literally just something to do with Female Gaze vs Male Gaze. A lot of elements of the Female Gaze just aren't interesting for a male audience. You can't help what you're interested in, as much as I'd like to broaden my perspective there are some stories I fundamentally wont like and I think for men its simply that. Almost all these shounen/seinen manga that "borrow" shojo elements do so in a way that male readers can get invested in their characters FIRST through ways that appeal to THEM. Men are going to generally prioritize things like capability or surface level behavior when expressing what characters they like while I feel like female authors and readers push for much more introspection into the characters personality and values. Its all about how the individual is CONNECTING to these characters that matter, not once through my read of those 7 manga was I ever particularly fond of any male characters, probably because my view on male characters is tainted to expect power and capability rather than emotional vulnerability and values. This all goes to say that I think men are being screwed over by internalized toxic masculinity that actively prevents them from enjoying certain kinds of media, nothing we can really do but push for more emotional vulnerability moving forward.
So….you admit you’re the reason you can’t get into shoujo? 😂 God if only Harry Potter was a girl. I have paid attention to SO MANY stories that Are About Dudes and have The Cringiest Ever writing for all their female characters, in so many media. Even put up with the gratuitous male gaze random body descriptions of like, the postlady. Grow up, fren.
It sucks that toxic masculinity screws everyone over, including men. Says something about society how half of the population can't comfortably show off emotions without being called a sissy or getting targeted. (as for recommedations the ones above me are solid if you're up for experimenting again. nana is a personal favourite, because I'm more into edgier dramas than I am slice-of-life.)
@@zkme2734 I did and they were boring the men are to much of simps to the FMC in shoujo that if just pisses me off it’s so unrealistic men hate those type of men and those men who white knight and do the things that shoujo men do are considered to be creeps by men and also idiots as they act like they are above every other man it also creates a ridiculous expectation that women have for men about both physical features and how they should behave one of the reason why men hate stuff such as kdrama’s and shoujo is because it’s so unrealistic in how the main male character is portrayed the difference Being men can distinguish reality from fiction much more easily than women so these stupid dramas, shoujo and movies have poisoned females expectations about men when no men will act like in those media’s and most men would even recommend to friends and family to stay away from them as either they are creeps or they are trying to get you to sleep with them most of the time Sorry for the rant
After the decline of shojo anime I’d like to point out that a lot of women found salvation in kdramas and a lot of kdramas are adapted from manhwas. Most kdramas are female gaze oriented and in the last 6+ years there’s been a huge surge of popularity in kdramas.
Yes and nowadays manhwa is also getting popular with female audience
Not just manhwas but Manga. The K-drama adaptation of Boys Over Flowers was arguably a bigger hit than the Hanayori Dango anime.
And i think k drama is one of the reasons anime shojo decline to. Shoujo anime face to face with k drama since years ago. It's make less new audience for shoujo anime. For people want romantical fantasy, it's much better to see the phenomenal k drama that everyone watch.
@@muhammadjazidi8626 Yeah this makes more sense. Which is why kdrama cannot compete with Shonen anime because if a similar story is to be made into a drama and make it popular they would require CGI in the level of MCU.
Yep Kimi wa Petto and Boys over Flowers are still on my manga shelf and they have been made into live action dramas
For me the main reason isn't with shoujo and josei fans, but with the Male demographic. The fact is that men have a huge resistance to give female oriented content a try, and since women have no problem watching/reading male oriented romance for the production committees the shounen/seinen romance series is more of a sure bet. In the short term there is no solving this, the best that shoujosei fans can do is show that the show that are coming out are profitable and try show that shoujosei romance can be for everyone.
Thanks for your thoughts Gabriel. This is so true! I mainly did the shoujo fans part as a way to poke fun at myself but its true that people outside of the male demographic are more open to watching whatever as long as it's entertaining. Where as the opposite is not true. That's why there are so many (mostly weak) arguments about how romance or slice of life series are all the same or not very entertaining even though those same genres are popular in shonen series. And as you said there is no quick solution, but I hope people realize what's going on and why it's bad that we're losing access to this type of content.
The amount of people on MyAnimeList's Anime and Manga Recommendations board that deliberately say NOT to recommend ANY shoujo with no reason clarified has always and will continue to baffle me...
I had a male friend who absolutely hated shojo for no reason… Of course not everyone has to like everything but “hating” an entire genre is kinda dumb. Wish people would stop being so prejudiced and try watching stuff.
@@crownedoll i could understand if he saw an anime like peach girl (i couldn't watch beyond the episode 9, and it has 25)
@@julianmartinez4719 why was it that bad?
I just want a well-written romance.
It is sad how shoujosei manga and anime are slowly losing their popularity even more, but the contents in shoujosei definitely have roles in it. Like you say, we want a well written romance. Many of adapted shoujosei mangas are not creative in plot, has terrible characterization, very mediocre overall. Which is a shame because of that reputation, the good shoujosei mangas are buried deep with only few people knowing it. I am one of the people who knows very little about good shoujosei story now, its not like i go and look for good ones when i can easily find a lot of good romance manhwas.
I certainly hope the popularity of shoujosei will come back and give us opportunity to know great stories, though. Maybe they can start with animating s2 of Akatsuki no Yona.
Switch to asian dramas, their the top ones in producing good shoujo stories :)
There are still a lot of well written shonen seinen romance but I still hope for new seasons Of some shoujo anime I like, like chihayafuru
Same. Like shounen, Seinen, Shoujo orw hatnot i just want interesting characters and something that respects it's characters
now all we have is crappy hentia , tentacle erotica and stupid "I was fated to like this guy based on the "goddess "" werewolf and vampire crap
yona of the dawn deserves a season two. a lot of men and women love action, adventure, romance, comedy, and plot-driven anime and yona of the dawn is one of them. it also has a dedicated fanbase that's been begging for a season two. even a classic and well-loved anime like ouran deserves a reboot. the fact that the fruits basket reboot became successful is giving me the tiny hope that more shoujo will be adapted
Yes. I'm a guy and I really like Yona of dawn. It's such a shame it didn't receive a season 2.
Yep. And the manga of Yona of the dawn is even more appreciable. A must- read one too
I'm caught up to the manga and it just keeps getting better. I keep waiting and waiting but I've really lost hope.
I *love* Yona of the Dawn. My husband picked it out for us to try and it became one of my all-time favorites. I will forever be salty it never got a second season when the manga is such a strong story - and really, that first season only barely got into the story! Seriously, the story and Yona's growth only got better after the point where the anime ended. It deserved a full adaption.
I love Yone it has such a cool story, is hilarious,with good characters ,and is so intersting.I hope some day they give them their 2 season
I remember the golden age of Shoujo for me was around 2004 to 2013 so many amazing mangas and animes like vampire knight, Ouren, kamisama kiss. And I remember so many amazing one shot mangas too. Now when I got to the book store I’m always shocked to see the series on the shoujo shelf were mostly ones I had read over then years ago. Hardly anything new was on the shelf
I've heard shoujo manga collectors complain about how only shoujo manga from last decade seem to be getting localized but not new or current series. It makes me sad that new shoujo/josei manga that is readily available in japan isn't as available elsewhere
I’m shocked all these are now considered “golden age”. I really thought there was more to come, who thought it would end like this. 😢
Don't forget His and Her Circumstances. Or what I consider the pinnacle of true romance anime: Maison Ikkoku.
@@TheAnimeTea
Localisation can take time. I think improvements in streaming, etc has tricked many into thinking things should be more immediate/quick.
Remember fan subs and dub releases? The whole “genre” was the result of material not being released quickly outside of Japan or were practically non-existent. Therefore, the delays in some localisation of work is to be expected.
Unlike with shounen manga and anime (nowadays), where there has been a real effort to localise material and meet demand as soon as something is published or aired in Japan.
Shoujo manga and anime just doesn’t have that market (for now).
Vampire Knight is good? Since when? Kamisama kiss, maybe, I can maybe pass, but not vampire knight.
It’s so frustrating because so many shōnen and seinen (eg Horimiya, Toradora, Golden Time, Your Lie in April, Madoka Magica Skip and Loafer lol etc) that capitalise off of the potential success and borrow heavily from shōjo and josei to the point they could be shōjos with some (if any) tweaking- whether they mean to or not. Some shows are even purely shounen and seinen because of the publishers even though the demographic could be anyone. Yet chances are, if they’re published under shoujo and josei companies, they would not get nearly as good marketing as anime and thus be far less popular than they became. I just saw the trailer for My Happy Marriage and it looks BEAUTIFUL and so interesting but it hasn’t even got subtitles while a bad isekai is probably on its second trailer on Crunchyroll by now with subtitles. It’s so sad :(((( It would be better if there was a unisex demographic and people could just choose based on genre rather than what might be aimed towards them, I think there’s even a manga award category that’s unisex- the gender boxes just seem to be pointless for shows like madoka and fruit baskets etc
The frustration is so real 😤 so many amazing series overlooked seemingly because of their demographic when there are series just like it thriving. Thanks for sharing your thoughts Moon Kitty!
My happy marriage looks magnificent 😩 Josei x shojo supremacy
hey, i really don't understand how horimya isnt considered a shoujo since it's a love story and i would assume it's targeted towards female? can someone explain the difference please!
@@stopprocrastinating4181 the reason why it's not shoujo is that you should try watching Colleen's, is this a shoujo? to which horimiya isn't because it was a stand alone webmanga that got published and serialized in shounen publication. Also the fact that Miyamura has substantial growth as a character in contrast to Hori that retains her overall character throughout the manga and the severe lack of intrapersonal emotional dialogue that is always present in shoujo because shoujo is a medium for art that expresses it's stories with the characters mainly the main girl and the side girls and even the boys that shares their insights. Also one of the reasons why I love shoujo. Really good self reflection and most of the time really relatable
@@stopprocrastinating4181 hi! Yeah I get really confused on it too sometimes because most shows can easily be unisex. Horimiya is a shounen because it’s a shounen web manga published series. It does also contain some generic shounen traits like simplistic eyes and there’s a lot more focus on Miyamura’s development than Hori’s (although this trend definitely isn’t true for all shounen and can sometimes even be true for some shoujo), but the main reason it is a shounen is because of its publisher and the editor will probably have more of a male demographic in mind.
Shounen is also coming out with a lot more love story anime recently as less shoujo have been coming out and more guys are open to romance shows, so it’s no longer a shoujo specific trait.
I hope this kinda helped and made sense 😅
this is why a lot of women watch kdraman now instead of shoujo anime... since there arent any left. i have two sisters who grew up watching so much shoujo anime. and now they only watch kdramas, they said the anime they want to watch no longer exist in this period😭
Sadly yeah but switch to asian dramas was the best decision I made around 2010 with the rise of ecchi harem genres were happening.
I don't really watch k-dramas but I can understand. It's hard to find shoujo animes these days. Not to mention a decent one too
They can watch seinen anime it's good
@@kalliskivike Ecchi Harem is romance too, whats the problem.
@@nelzelpher7158 different target audience
I think one of the saddest parts is that we rarely get any shoujo romance that gets adapted that is ACTUALLY GOOD, which of course makes interest/demand for the genre be lower than say a shonen anime.
Like, 7seeds is everything shounen bros claim shoujo lacks (action, high stakes, complex plot) while still keeping all the elements that make it a shoujo (romance, emphasis on emotions, well-written female and male characters, and a character driven narrative), which you can find in a lot of Yumi Tamura's works. But then they made an anime that butchered the story and artstyle, and cancelled it when it got understandably low ratings. And there's still not an official english version of the manga in sight, and it's now possible there never will be since the interest is dead. And even if the anime gets decent ratings (Yona of the Dawn and Princess Jellyfish), it still only gets one season and no merch. Anime producers really go "We've tried nothing and we're out of options" when it comes to marketing towards women.
bruh the number of manga I have on my list both shoujo, shounen, seinen and josei that are not being adapted are making me question who are making these decisions and if its base on popularity. who in the hell have these kind of tastes
@@teapartypenguin1353Im a big sucker for romance and thus also dabble in shoujo. The male characters are almost never realistic. Even if they avoid the fate of being only a romantic interest, the way they share their emotions with others simply doesnt match teenage boys. The most disturbing thing is the male friendship and how they interact. An example of this is the fragrant flower blooms with dignity, where all the boys are very emotional and basic boundaries among the male friend group get ignored and violated. There are situations, where I would have been seriously mad at that friend group and the male lead apologized instead.
@@Brien831yeah that is one of the reason why shojo male characters are so off-putting.
How I wish shoujo gets adopted to kdrama because kdrama has better market
It makes me so sad that there’s no shojo anime’s still being made. Anime’s like Kamisama Kiss and Fruits Basket mean the world to me. A good representation of the female gaze and sweet gentle love 😭
Fruits basket makes me cry every time and I just started watching kamisama kiss and I love it😊
@@takeigiant5900 If I may suggest, you should read the Kamisama Kiss manga. It has the fully story, including details the anime left out in the adapted story arcs.
omg kamisama kiss was the perfect anime! i wish they would add the ova to funimation cause it ends the story so beautifully
EXACTLY, they are my 2 favorites and there are many greats ones, but it's a shame they don't make them like before. Because they really were AMAZING!!!!
@@dhakirah151 OMG that would be incredible
I feel like Shoujo anime died when sports anime became really popular with women around the 2010s (shows like Free!, Kuroko no Basket and Haikyuu). It's like producers thought "oh, girls like action now!" and ran with it since then. But let's be real, what we like about sports anime is not really the action, but more like the bishounen boys, the strong friendships, the different character tropes, the shipping, the talking about feelings and dreams and aspirations etc, which are all popular themes in Shoujo.
Honestly, this is a really good point. Especially, I think anyways, when Yuri on Ice came out, because between gorgeous animation, well-made characters and interesting conflicts (not to mention the queercoding and pretty boys in general), it became huge, and kinda fell into the same shoujo curse of one-season. I hadn't thought of this point, I think sports anime did spark a decline for sure.
But we only liked those because they had hot guys 🤣 tbh I only read danmei now....
Exactly this. Action is good but all that stuff u mentioned is golden and it's exactly why sports anime fandoms are always female majority. The feels n char dev and shipping is fun af
I don't think that's the case, the creators of the anime know EXACTLY why those series were popular with women.
“You watch sports anime because you want to root for the underdog who struggles to win at first, I watch sports anime because I think the guys are hot.
We are not the same.”
If anything, the recent Nana resurgence, the Rose of Versailles 50th anniversary movie and the Fruits Basket reboot are all good signs that there is definitely still an audience for shoujo and josei series. I'm desperately hoping for more in the future. I mean hey, it wasn't that long ago that I thought Fruits Basket would never get a reboot and here we are now! Ouran could be next!
There's a lot of stuff getting anime adaptations next year (Ice Guy and Cool Female Colleague, Last Boss Queen, Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts, etc.), I'm hoping this will make a shoujo/josei resurgence because the market has been DRY for the past couple years.
Really crossing my fingers for a ouran reboot in the next few years 🤞🤞
There is an audience but that audience grew up and are an older demographic now. Anime is generally a kid's show, and maybe if you can get kids into... mom... Shows... But reinvented for what youth (the bigger audience, in the end) are into these days, then yeah.
Ppl will try to cancel host club lol
@@velvetteen5090 dude what??
I find myself rewatching the classics over and over again cause I can hardly find wholesome, heartwarming shoujo anime like before. We need Shoujo back.
Me too, it's hard to find that suites my taste. I specifically like traditional soft and feminine MCs but I couldn't find those type in recent animes. There a lot of them in older animes but the story they're in usually pretty bland for me.
Yes, we do. I always ended up rewatching Nana, Lovely Complex, Kimi ni Todoke, or any other shoujo anime because there's nothing new for me to watch
Same 😭
Suprising enough whenever I'm watching an old series i noted that some of the amazing anime came 2014-17....and only few such as fruit basket series came later till 2021. After that I rarely saw any anime which I want to rewatch.
Read the Blue Box manga,it's technically a shonen because it's in a shonen magazine but it has a female writer and feels more shojo-esque.Its one of the most popular romance mangas right now.The anime has also been announced and will probably come this year
I think this is why romance webtoons and kdrama got popular . Many shoujo fans got bored that shoujo manga are not available outside of Japan. So they started looking else where. Then they discovered webtoons and kdrama. Kdrama has the same feel as the shoujo romance.
When I started reading webtoons I noticed this too. Finally a good story with a strong female lead and not this male gaze fanservice shit. I sometimes stop watching an anime when it gets too much. 😅
I didn't realize i did this until watching this video because by the time i got into anime the era of shoujo had already passed. I'm just so tired of the in your face sexuality and waifu pandering of most romance anime, my reading catalogue tends towards the opposite end of the spectrum just to balance things a little. Ouran was one of my first introductions into anime and deep in my heart i still carry the hope that it'll get a fruits basket style update so i have more content to consume (give me haruhi figurines you cowards)
I love romance manhwa/otome isekai and it borrows very heavily from shoujo. I think one of the things that makes it really difficult for me to read/watch something is if the women are poorly written. A lot of shoujo and otome isekai are written by women so they feature well-written women very prominently and don't go too crazy with fanservice either. When I venture out of that realm and am hit with series with no women in them and constant fanservice, its shocking.
Korea delivers more now
I don't think this is gonna be The Thing To Save Shojou and Josei, but one thing I noticed is that a lot of shojou and josei can also appeal to an older demographic. I got my parents, both in their sixties now, into anime by introducing them to slice of life/comedy shojou and josei. Princess Jellyfish became one of my dad's favourite anime. I think it's important to talk about the issues within anime fanbases, but we can't discount the power of bringing in new fans of all demographics who don't have the same expectations and baggage.
Sometimes a different perspective is all we need to change the dynamics of something. Especially because people who have watched anime or read manga for a while can get stuck in certain tropes and ideas that have been repeated over time (me). I'll keep this mind. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and story!
I think this is true. My family is into dramas, partly because they have the association of animation with kids, but also because the stories dramas have related to them more.
The thing is, that's not the demographic Crunchyroll or televisions are looking at. Even millennial men (now in their 30s and 40s)are quite open to female targeted content. 20 years ago, guys watched shoujo nearly as much as gals watched shounen. But it seems the market is interested mostly in people younger than 30, probably because they consume more media and are more likely to pay for it.
@@dahyimi2185 I completely agree! When I talk about bringing in new demographics, I'm not talking about relying on corporations to do that. The corps are what's killing anime on a lot of different levels. I'm talking about the fanbase bringing in new fans who aren't being marketed to. (Fans shouldn't have to do the marketing for the corporations, but as far as I can tell there isn't much of a choice right now.)
For sure! I think age plays a big part, "adult" animation is making a splash because of grown up millenials and gen z. Bee and Puppycat is a good example of starting from grassroots to Netflix!! I have noticed there are a lot of reincarnation villainess tropes now, it feels like cartoonists can't break from a formula.
So, basically, the anime market has regressed to the old "femininity is uncool and anything 'girly' or targeted at women is lame" mentality, it seems. Back to the old days when it was disgraceful for guys to like "girly things" but cool for gals to like "macho stuff".
Where are you even getting that ideal? Women outnumber men so stop looking for men to support things geared towards women. Women should just support things geared towards them.
Why can women enjoy what they want in peace but men can't?
@@cflame14 Because there's a drought of new shoujo/josei anime: they can't enjoy in peace what doesn't exist. If there was barely any new shounen/seinen being adapted, you'd have the same issue.
@@cflame14 bro stop copy pasting the same thing over and over again stop projecting
Not really. Romance is harder to write and it doesn’t make much sense to animate it. That’s why there’s been a shift onto live action dramas.
@@KlutzyNinjaKitty Almost anything can be done with practical effects. There's nothing that needs to be animated but animation is a cool artform that predisposes itself to wonder and evocative feelings and it does tend to make genuine monster girl and monster guy love stories a lot easier to appreciate. 🤷♀️ But that's just me and what I want.
This gives me flash backs on how Turning Red got slammed because men couldn't dare relate to girls
As a brazilian, i can say i dont like american animation. The golden era is over.
Why would we want to? We are men. Just like with the WMBA stop looking for men to support something geared for women and women can just support it themselves and it would be just as big as anything men do. Women outnumber men so don't blame us for what women aren't supporting
@@cflame14 thats because everything is geared towards you (men) whether you notice it or not. Because haha patriarchial society wow. Every big business/government there's always cynical men on top.
@@cflame14 agree mostly, women whine about men not watching female targeted stuff but you really never see men do the same. Women are to blame for low interest in women's shows/sports/movies and it's that simple. Wasn't made for you is said allot by women. Although I do see that tossed at women who complain about male interests too tbf
@@cflame14 it’s unattractive to know a man who doesn’t want to know anything about you, while you desperately talk about how hard it is to be a man, makes you look like an unintelligent baby who only cries over himself
The idea that girls don't buy as much as their boy counterparts feels a little flat for a reason as to why they're not getting adapted, since girls in general are extremely profitable if marketed to. Things like twilight and boybands made and continue to make ridiculous amounts of money off of their female fanbase. As long as there is a product it will be bought.
Absolutely. We arent buying action figures but we are buying posters, merch, collabs with other brands, music, etc
Thank you! There’s two demographics that are known to make money, kids as in elementary school kids which is why family channels, toy channels, and kid orientated channels are big on TH-cam. Tween girls and teen girls with examples of boy bands, the biggest tik tokers, kpop, and so much more
It’s funny how female otaku are so often overlooked when it’s confirmed that they’re much more willing to spend in merch than their male counterparts.
Don't forget that Frozen was the highest grossing animated film for a while, say what you want to about Frozen but there's no denying that there is a market out there for girls.
Some people in marketing for shoujo manga need to look at kpop albums sales to truly realise the length a lot of female fans will go to have pictures of pretty men & women 😂
As a male getting into anime in the early 90s, there were times I just didn’t know I was watching shoujo: Fushigi Yugi. But something like Sailor Moon…I knew what I was signing up for. As time passed I continued to stumble across other shoujo like Fruits Basket and Ghost Hunt which I absolutely adored. I even liked Vampire Knight. 😅
I told all my female friends about Jujutsu Kaisen when it came out. Lmao Sometimes you just know what your friends will like. Anyways, your theories and assumptions are all correct…especially that shounen fans are going to buy an insane amount of merch.
I hope we can continue to get more shoujo and Josei anime. I always found it refreshing seeing anime from a different perspective…so that’s why I have always dabbled in them. I have never seen Ouran…but I remember hearing about it so much in the early 2010s. That’s one I might watch some time. 😎
I also liked vampire knight at one point so no shame here 😅 and Ouran is one of the most beloved from that era so it gets talked about alot. I just miss binging Naruto on my family's computer and then switching over to a romance series like The Wallflower. The ability to bounce from one type of anime to another was so much fun. It's harder to do that with newer anime these days. Thanks for sharing your thoughts as always!
I feel like, due to the limitations surrounding access and availability back in the 90s and 2000s, a lot of anime fans just watched whatever they had access to. They really didn't have as much choice as they do now. This is true for both international fans and Japanese fans of anime. There are now so many more options for how to watch anime, like TV, recording, streaming, DVDs/BDs, etc. and the amount of anime being created is more.
This has made it so that nowadays an anime fan will see that a series is shoujo or josei and say, "Oh, that's for girls" or "Oh, that's just cheesy romance" (even though plenty of them aren't), and still have tons of anime to choose from. Back in the day, you were more like, "IDK what this is, but it's anime, so I guess I'll watch it!" So there was more opportunity to watch things outside of a particular demographic or genre, due to the more limited access or lesser amount of content that was out there to consume.
The anime community was also less divided by gender in the past as well. When you wanted to discuss anime in the past, you had IRL friend groups, conventions, and forums, all of those spaces were more mixed gender-wise than the current social media landscapes that are used for anime discussion (ex. Reddit & YT - more male dominated, Twitter & Tumblr - more female dominated, etc.).
This creates more echo chamber-like interaction, and results in more of the same series being recommended and talked about, which means you get less male anime fans even becoming aware of the existence of shoujo and josei anime (or other anime series aimed more at women than men).
Omg ghost hunt. Brings back memories.
@@LilyGinnyBlack35 I completely agree. One thing I will add is this is also a by product of anime becoming even more popular over time. And what I am about to say is not me being condescending...like video games...there are going to be the anime equivalent of Call of Duty players. There are going to be people (mostly guys) that will only watch anime with the highest production and best fights. That's it. They will never go further than Demon Slayer....they will just wait for the next one or when there is a new Dragon Ball. I am not mad at these people. Some people are just not going to get too far into anime.
@@SteelMaiden9049 yeah! When I decided to watch it, I didn't know who the target audience was. I just got excited that it was an anime series with ghosts in it. 😂 Turned out to be really good! 😌
I don't think this is an issue caused by a lack of female audience. Over the years there has been a huge surge in popularity of romance kdramas, light novel, manhwa, manga, and otomes. If you go on any manga, manhwa or kdrama site, romance media directed towards woman are on the top page. The issue is, anime studios just aren't interested in adapting romance anime as much as shounen anime anymore. Shonen garners more hype, so regardless of the number of girls interested, they'd rather take the easy route and continue to push out the same generic isekai instead
the massive advantage isekai have is that the premise is nearly always very interesting alone in a monster school as a human , building up a city ,being a nobody etc. seriously if at least half of isekai actually commit to the premise they would be way better just like the mangas but devolved always to ecchi harem with the annoying tsundere .
@@laisphinto6372 Yup exactly. Plus the isekai genre is all around appealing to the majority of anime/manga fans. Even for girls, otome isekai stories have been extremely popular for many years now
Similar to how the anime industry treats horror. Horror manga is extremely popular. Horror anime is rare as hell.
@@mysteriiis Very true! I just realized that
I do find the boys buy more merch argument a little redundant. If you follow any otome game fan you will find more often than not, dedicated shrines to their fave characters and games. I've seen people's merch hauls where they would even have multiple copies of the same game, or various limited editions. Female fans do shell out the money, in vast quantities even. The main problem I find is the lack of variety and availability of merchandize for the female fanbase. There's the mentality that girls don't buy merch, so they don't bother creating any.
Heck when I was in Japan finding any merch on the series I like was so hard. It was all popular shounen series. There was a small corner for Wotakoi, but it was the promote the latest volume and was mainly just the limited edition version of it. I wanted to spend money but I didn't find anything for my shoujo series.
I do also wish there was more variety of merch available, aside from the usual figures and such. I recently saw an Ascendance of a Bookworm themed tea set that I seriously wanted to buy no matter how expensive it was. If there were more things like this available maybe some wallets would loosen more.
EDIT: I forgot to add, but great video! And it's nice to see a fellow Hojo.
Adding to this since my sister just reminded me, but kpop fans completely prove otherwise. There is no one with a looser purse string than a dedicated kpop fangirl.
Hey Jules! Thanks for sharing your experiences. This is an aspect I didn't consider but makes a ton of sense especially since it's difficult to come across licensed and translated shoujo and josei manga series, let alone merch of those or other series. The fact that this is also a problem in Japan is even more concerning. It almost feels like the audience is made to seem less profitable so they don't have to try to promote it or something...
Anyway I hope you got that Ascendence of a Bookworm tea set because that sounds adorable!
Women invented itabgs, for fuck's sake!
That's what i was thinking about, I myself have a loats of merch from my fav ips, for me the big 🐘 in the room was not addressed: misogyny
sure female fans will spend money but there are LESS female fans overall. People act like the anime community is 50/50 along gender lines or something and that's a ridiculous notion.
As a librarian I already know the answer to why. Most males do not care to read or watch females leads while women will read and watch male leads. Thats literally what it breaks down to. Companies want the most money and so then appeal to the largest demographic. Shows that males and females will watch. Sadly shows with a female lead thats not completely sexualized will not appeal to men so they dont do it for fear of losing 50% of the demographic. Its sad but I cant tell you how many times I try to recommend series that are amazing but young males especially will absolutely not want to read it because a girl is the lead or how many grown men will go out of their way to HATE any show, movie, book, maga etc. because it has a female lead and appeals to women. Im not sure what the solution is, but maybe we need to collectively start taking our money, viewership as well as our talent to more female dominated series. Is there no female animators, authors, etc. that we can encourage to break off and create studios that will focus on adapting female oriented animes? I wish I was talented and could help. hell, I would help for free!
But so many male leads are terrible. I don't know why anyone watches some of them at all. Especially the shouty stupid ones. I find it difficult to to believe that men or women of any age watch these, let alone grown men or women.
it's just deeply engrained cultural misogyny. not much more than that.@@DKNguyen3.1415
Everyone seems to laugh when the boy who likes to play with Barbie gets his ass kicked, but it does have consequences.
You might be onto something. I for one, as a dude like or even prefer (to a degree)female lead fantasy books. As long as they are good product overall.
Very true
I think lots of anime fans are getting really tired of watching the same ecchi romcam harem every season i do believe those fans even male fans are voicing their concerns over these ecchi animes I’m talking about the western fans idrk about the Japanese fandoms.
I'm sure that people are getting tired of similar series being animated each season. Time will only tell if the popularity of certain shows will change over time based on taste. Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts!
To me, Fruits Basket is the panicle of Shoujo. Because it’s so much more than just a romance. It’s about abuse, trauma, moving forward and finding your strengths, family, friendships, empathy, the value of memories, the value of living, etc. I also love that the two male leads are never perverse towards the female lead. I love that it makes it look like it’s set up to be a love-triangle, but it’s never the case. I don’t find many shoujos like it. It’s a beautiful story. It’s funny how I saw so many men push back on it when it took the #1 spot over FMA Brotherhood on MIA, but I’ve also seen men who’ve watched it appreciate the message and root for these characters. Because again, it’s so much more than a romance story. There’s a reason why it’s a #1 best seller. I knew it was special the moment I read it when I was 14. Funny enough it was the first manga I had ever read. I don’t cling to a lot of shoujo just because the tropes are overused make my eyes roll. The fan service, the yitties, beach episodes “I wonder what kind of swimsuit Kimi-san will wear?” *nosebleed* type of stuff. You know what i mean. I feel like if more shoujos pulled away from that and gave them more relatability like how Fruits Basket did, it’d pick up on success. This is just my opinion, tho.
A thing that I noticed people is ignoring when discusing the problem of shojo adaptations is exactly where is the money going. When an anime is produced, actually very little of the money goes for the studio working on it. Most of it goes to the production comite that includes editorial companies, music companies and TV. The animation companies make a profit mostly out of two three sourses: the fix payment from the production comite, which for what we know is very little, the DVD Bluray sales, which is declining as phisical media is less and less of a thing each year, and finaly, the most important, merchandise asociated TO THE ANIME, not the manga. This last one is key, becouse if after the anime the manga sells double or triple the copies, it doesn't matter to the studio becouse they make no money out of it.
The reason companies make shity isekai after shity isekai is that they can make a profit from the mercandise there, selling figurines, posters, artbooks, pins, and everything you can imagine. People likes to mock hardcore otaku a lot for being so weird, but often underestimate just how big of an economic impact they make in the anime industry, specialy for smaller studios that can't get contracts for this mega projects like Demon slayer or Attack on titan that apeal to the general public.
I honestly don't know what is the key reason behind it in the end, if its sexism, desinterest or what, but shoujo anime doesn't sell this type of merchandise as well and there is a lack of merchandise available for those interested in this series making them unprofitable for the animation studios when compared to other projects. And again, is kinda weird, becouse, after all, there are shoujo fans that buy anything related to their favorite series just like everybody else, and there are franchises like Love live!, Idol Master, K-on!, Precure, Frut Basket and others that are very, very femenine (some of them with a more male audience in consideration but all incredibly successful amongst women and with a very femenine touch to their core) so it's clear male audiences are interested in more than fighting and swims suits (I'm a man and I consume shoujo manhwa like I drink water), but it's still dificult for anime studios to market correctly shoujo adaptations, or at least, its far easier to sell from shonen.
It's sad, becouse shoujo manga has so much to offer, but... the only solution I can think of is just buy more products and that is not necesarily a good mindset. Sorry for my bad english and the gigantic wall of text.
You made a good wall of text. It was worth reading. Thank you! 💻
another well selling "merch" when it comes to isekai/shonen are gacha "waifu collector" mobile games where just a handful high payers bring in more money than the whole anime series made...
I appreciate you taking the time to share those points! After thinking about it and reading what you've said I think what would also help is publishers being more willing to share their products for cheaper. Right now the only official app I have to read manga (Shonen manga specifically) is the official Shonen Jump app which I'm happily subscribed to. Shueisha frequently publishes and has all sorts of differently aimed manga under it's watch. Why they, or any company in a similar position wouldn't make another subscription service to lower the bar to entry and make passive revenue is beyond me but if they did there's a chance to reach a wider base than they have now.
I can't speak for any market other than north America but sexism (most certainly) and the higher monetary bar to entry (purchasing tankobon for 12-19$) can be a steep bar if you're not sure you're going to like a given series in a way that 3$ a month to read a whole library and create a collection from there isn't.
I do want to get back into reading shoujo and josei and supporting the creators who make it but as someone who doesn't watch much anime, that's one of the bars of entry. I think it's important to bring up manga too because the manga/ comic of something selling well can decide what does and doesn't get an adaption. Shoujo and josei have a much smaller word of mouth ability than shonen and seinen and that is unfortunate quite frankly.
I imagine it's because fans of shojo and josei anime and manga do not appreciate the merchandise typically made for anime, and has more "tame" tastes, both within and without japan. I for one would be happy to buy things like behind the scene artbooks, accessories with character themes, etc, but I wouldn't buy figurines, drama cds, plush, etc.
this is exactly what i was thinking... when i think of the kind of fans who buy lots of product and merch or collectors items i think of shounen/seinen almost exclusively... of course there are exceptions but as far as i know nothing recent that has been note worthy in this respect (im also not super in the loop but basically your comment validated my assumptions a bit haha) it does feel like shoujo/josei end up with less associated product purchases for whatever reason. of course i rarely purchase any anime or manga product besides the show or book themselves for financial reasons so im not one to talk ahahah
As an adult male, I have to agree with you, and it's a shame. Money ruins everything, and anime has fallen into the same trap that makes American TV unwatchable - people want the same story over and over, and aren't looking for new. I adore Josei and Shoujo rom dramas and romcoms, and have noticed a drought in the past few years. I'm reading a lot more manga and watching a lot less anime as a result - which is sad. The "Mega-Hit" is killing anime.
And sadly there is also the unfortunate reality that Japan, despite having social programs that America does not have, is still a capitalist country.
I'm mean about Japanese work culture? It's very insane, and although some parts might come from their culture I have no doubt that the capitalist mindset place a role into that insane work culture.
This is why I moved to tabletop games.
Also, in Japan, these shoujo and josei titles get adapted into "more respectable" live-action shows or films.
I've been thinking about doing a deep dive into this because we have anime like Kaguya-sama Love is War getting a very successful live action film yet still has multiple animated seasons. Even Wotakoi has an anime and a drama. It makes me question what's wrong with having both, or how profitable is one over the other. Anyway, thanks for leaving your thoughts and watching the video Stephanie!
@@TheAnimeTea for love is war i think bc it's Shoujo that apiel to male. Male like competition, and the idea of romance as competition between lovers is interesting. Basically it's what male doing irl they see getting woman is a win. That's why term playboy is more often we hear than playboy.
For wotakoi i think is bc weeb thing sells. Past view years we always see story about weebs. Even marvel did it in miss marvels.
@muhammad jazidi Thank you for what you said! I've been bonking my head trying to figure out what it is about Kaguya that doesn't make it a shoujo. Because it has a lot of shoujo roots in its comedy and romantic moments, but it's the competition! The competition frames romance as a prize to win rather than a deeper connection and experience.
@@muhammadjazidi8626 kaguya-sama is published in seinen magazine, so their main TA are young men. By definition it is not shoujo.
I think that many people lable shoujo any romance anime that is not harem. It's understandable, but there is a lot of romance targeted on boys and publishing in shounen and seinen journals.
@@TheAnimeTea Kaguya and even Wotakoi aren't shoujo
Don't think it's dying, it's hibernating. As Isekai and Shonens dominate the current field, given time people will gravitate to "new" and more emotional rewarding content.
One day someone is going to make the same video except it will be a different genre. This is how it's going to roll since anime is controlled by money rather than creativity.
The fact that Ao Haru Ride never got a season 2, still hurts me to this day (also Alice Academy...) :((( Us Shoujo and josei fans deserve better
Gakuen Alice absolutely deserves a remake, I remember when the manga was killing it with every new chapter.
Y'know what I hate the most? Sakisaka Io's (writer of Ao Haru Ride) first work Strobe Edge isn't even animated 😭 That was one of the best highschool shoujo I've ever read that is actually realistic in terms of pacing. And the first shoujo that made me stay up all night to wait for updates. But going back to your point, as an old shoujo fan, I just resort to otome games now. Current anime scenes just don't include us anymore 🥲
@@tkraid2575 what otome games do you recommend?
In addition to that, I'd personally love to see more of My Love Story. Sometimes sickeningly sweet is a good palette cleanser.
omg gakuen alice was my childhood ahh that was the first manga i ever read and kept up with in real time i would LOVE a reboot bc the anime was so disappointing lol
this is why i started deviating from watching romance anime anymore, it’s just filled with harem. i just started sticking to mangas and manhwas and rewatching all of the “old” shoujos. kamikaze kaitou jeanne is still one of my favorite
As someone who was into anime in the late 90s to mid 2000s I just don’t watch anime anymore because it’s just so annoying to find anything female oriented or that doesn’t have a lot of fan service with underage looking girls now I just read Asian comics and indie comics.
I've been finding myself reading more manwha and webcomics because they tend to have more diverse romance stories told from the perspectives of young and older adult women and it's much easier to access legally. So I totally don't blame you for moving away from anime and manga, especially since they seem to predominately cater to certain audiences.
@@TheAnimeTea same
There's still great anime being made.
I remember watching Ouran Highschool Host Club as a kid, anime with wholesome comedy and romance is so rare nowadays and the kind of romance anime we get now is all very obviously male centric like My Dress Up Darling, can we also please bring back tall long haired bishounen pretty boys? I feel like male character design has gotten so generic
Then make it. Every artist can make whatever they want and every consumer is allowed to like what they like and support what they want. Bashing men won't fix that.
Women can enjoy what women like in peace with no criticism so let men enjoy what we like
@@cflame14 yeah let me pull a anime out of my ass real quick
@@cflame14 Someone wanting more of something doesn't mean taking away other forms (in this case what already exists). It only means widening the breadth of creations.
" I feel like every male character design has gotten so generic, so can we bring back this OTHER generic design? "
It's honestly so unfair, why should things that girls and women like be looked down upon. I used to love watching anime (mostly shoujo) but ever since 2016 I rarely watch any anime because there isn't anything that lives up to what I want. Instead I end up rewatching the same series over and over again.
Another issue in the anime world is that they use BL to target us, and sorry to burst some bubbles we don’t want those. We want a main character that is a girl with depth and amazing storyline. So many people are moving to kdramas because we miss shojou animes 😫
As a queer person I love seeing all kinds of love but yes it’s so annoying how there’s been a lot of BL but where are my GL romances and heterosexual ones!
The reason I stop reading shoujo was because I absolutely dislike the bad guy abusive bf x the pure heart gf (ik there are better shoujos out there, but the ones I read had almost the same dynamic) and when I started reading BL it's almost the exact same thing but repackaged, but the fact that they are both men somehow made me less uncomfortable that with an straight couple? Idk how to describe it.
Honestly I want both. But they don't really make them like they use to🥲
UMmmmM personally I would love a lot more BL as a queer woman and GL as well but rn there's a bunch of GL anime that came out and not as much BL, like if it were up to me i would like more jousei stuff but also more BL please as well.
I want both honestly too 👀✨
But yea.. there is a decline of shoujos recently
Miss the old days
I spent a long time as a male anime fan gobbling up Shonen content. After all, shonen go vroooom and brrrrrr.
But now as an actual adult I can’t stand it. I’ve spent a majority of the past couple years diving deep into missed gems and older shoujo/josei that I used to ignore. The overall quality of character development and captivating story telling really uncovers the fact that a lot of big budget Shonen are really just the same story with different visual effects.
character development
When I was younger I thought I might hit a point where I would grow out of anime. That didn't happen, but I am bored with certain shounen. I don't have to have fight scenes in my anime anymore.
True, shounen is very in-your-face with everything, which may appeal to children and teens, it often lacks subtlety. As an adult you’re (hopefully) mature and get annoyed by it, and want something where you can use your brain more.
Oh I want your recommends!
I hate shounen. Not for the storylines because some of them are good but because the male main characters are so infuriating that I spend the entire time wishing the author would kill them off
I want to add that there's a generation gap in how much shoujo is consumed. growing up in the late 90s and 2000s, anime fans would watch a lot more shoujo, and anime like OHSHC or Fruits Basket were insanely popular among girls. you couldn't be in an anime community without shoujo being in the top spot. nowadays, with anime becoming more mainstream, you can ask a teen what manga they like and it's mostly going to be shonen with the occasional seinen and slice of life, no shoujo.
i was in anime communities in the 2000s and shoujo was huge, now i'm in college and the girls around me who like anime consume a lot of shonen, with the girls who like shoujo mostly reading classics and watching kdramas.
You`ll understand everything you need to by the fact that I can`t imagine Ouran,NANA or Paradise Kiss being made today.
_Skip and Loafer_ is actually a seinen manga that serializes in the same magazine as _Vinland Saga, Blue Period,_ and _Land of the Lustrous,_ but otherwise amazing video! It really does suck to see all the money I've spent on shoujo manga (arguably half of it being new so that money could go to the companies that license these and hopefully also goes to the original creator in some way) going nowhere... there's so many shoujo manga on my shelf that hasn't gotten A SINGLE ADAPTATION OF ANY KIND despite being as old as from the 2000s, and it really just makes me wonder what the industry is doing ignoring all this potential. Seriously, nothing for _Kitchen Princess? Othello? I Am Here? Pixie Pop: Gokkun Pucho,_ hell how hasn't there been a _Full Moon wo Sagashite_ remake yet lol???
Thanks for informing me! I should have double checked my source for Skip and Loafer. I would live for a Full Moon O Sagishite reboot! It’s so sad that there are so many great series from the 2000s that we haven’t gotten adaptations for despite the love for them.
@@TheAnimeTea - No problem, that's all right and I can't really blame you as it seems a lot of shoujo fans are still really looking forward to this one. I totally agree with all those poor 2000s shoujo manga getting left out (loved your Whisper of the Heart review recently btw), are you going to make a video around this topic on some of these that you want to see adapted or something? I'd love to see your picks!
oh my god, thank you for reminding me about i am here and pixie pop....those are my childhood! i also loved kitchen princess, im so bewildered how natsumi andou has yet to have an anime adaption for any of her works!
Yeah... I think the issue is that women and girls will watch anything as long as it is entertain, where as men and boys won't necessarily watch female led and female geared shows because "they're for girls." It really comes down to that fragile masculinity and patriarchy.
I don't watch that much anime but Sailor Moon and the Rose of Versailles are masterpieces. I really like the shojo and josei aesthetic with the large sparkly eyes and dark and serious subjects being explored in a kawaii color palette and drawing style. Also, I do enjoy Diabolik Lovers. Series I would like to explore is the Mémoires de Vanitas.
I sometimes read shojo dark fantasy series. I tend to enjoy shonen comedy and seinen grittiness, but I do like manga and anime with "elegant gore".
As others commnets have mentioned, the K dramas have become more prevalent than shoujo animes, and on the same note those K-dramas are adapted from popular romance/ slice of life manhwas (usually modern Korea). While the golden era of shoujo mangas and consequently shoujo animes have passed, we can see the rise of OI - otome isekai (villainess reincarnation/ transmigration) mangas/ manhwas alike and OI anime as well. Look at My Next Life as aVillainess(Hamefura/ Bakarina) which was a huge success, and recently, there has been announcement about the new anime of an OI manhwa called The reason why Raeliana ended up at the Duke's mansion (which is one of my favorite Korean OIs). We can hope that if also becomes a huge success, the anime industry will start doing the adaptations of Korean manhwas (popular ones: Who made me a princess, Villains are destined to die, Baby tyrant, and many more) , too. And my main point here is, unlike modern/ Korean historical manhwa that can be easily adapted to Kdrama, OI manhwas have medieval European setting, which make it harder to adapt into a Kdrama (the issue of budget), but more convenient into an anime.
if you're a fan of the villainess genre check out Tearmoon Empire, it's my favorite series ever and as such i peddle it at every opportunity. The anime is coming out this season!! Also baby tyrant slaps, i'd be so hyped if that or for my derelict favorite got animated.
I feel this is a phenomenon many will not even notice and I think it's kind of sad. As a male and a person who wants to be a writer I have some theories and reasons why shojo/josei are becoming irrelevant in the anime community
- Writers don't want to appeal to a single demographic anymore. It's not economic (in the minds of writers), it's simply "Why should you exclude a gender from enjoying your story?"
-Shojo/josei fails to market itself as anything but romance. For new viewers there's no variety. Shonen/seinen instead are recognized to have many genres: dramatic action (Naruto, Death Note), fun adventures&action (One Piece, Dragon Ball), pure comedies (Gintama, Saiki k), slice of life+romance (My dressup Darling, Love is war, Horimiya), mistery (Monster, Erased), sports (Slam dunk, Blue Lock, Haikyuu, Ao Ashi), dramatic romance (Your Lie in April, Quintessential Quintuplets, Clannad), psychology (Evangelion, and various elitist things), shitty harem and shitty isekai. People know variety of shonen/seinen exists.
- Men are ridiculed if they like feminine things. By both men and women. Many won't even try for this reason and categorically avoid the demographies. "I won't watch this shit" they'll say. And also that men aren't as used to the female gaze as women are to the male one. Women can watch male oriented media because they're more used to, men cannot. Even I have to admit the its greatness, the first 15 episodes of Fruits Basket were hard to watch for me, boys were hardly watchable (except Kyo) and Tohru felt like a talking carpet, harldy interesting.
- Shojo/josei aren't as critically acclaimed as shonen/seinen. Critics have a huge psychological seinen/shonen bias. This reinforces the idea that deep, philosophical shonen/seinen series are better than anything else
- I feel that society have this bias: "if not specifically female, then this thing is for males". Like games, half of gamers are female but they hardly get recognized. Half of the internet users are female, yet there's the joke: "there are no women on the internet, only men in disguise". There are no female weebs, yet they are the majority in japan and a slight minority around the world. Buying merchandise isn't specifically for females so producers create much more male oriented merchandise, and they keep this vicious cicle. They get more money from shonen/seinen because they act like the majority is men, so produces things that men will probably buy and keep the circle going
Haven't read the first point but I would argue that is what their doing with shounen. They aren't actually making it adaptable for females too, in fact the over ecchiness and CONSTANT sexual objectification of women is pushing us away but since there are no options that ARENT that most of the time we watch it anyway bc we like anime and are pushing through our disappointment in hope. Girls are being pushed away from anime thanks to this dedication to sexualizing literally everything in shounen. It would be fine if that weren't the case for like nearly all the animes coming out but it is. Gradually over time this developed and those female watchers were lost and left to the point only the shounen stuff remained.
@@tulip5210 I'm not saying shonen got to a reasonable amount of "no women objectification", but rather that the more time passes, the more series are made with in mind both male and female audiences and they actually get to be the most popular
Just look at demon slayer, jujutsu kaisen, chainsaw man, spy x family, love is war, mob psycho. The more time passes, more shows get better at this aspect
@@wigosas I know, my argument is I don't feel they are.
@@wigosas and I misspoke I meant I haven't read more then the first point and my argument was about that. Not a hate on you or anything more like discourse it's hard to tell in text but wanted to clarify in case it felt like I was trying to attack you
@@tulip5210 no problem, but still I see that series which constantly objectify women hardly ever become the most popular in the last years
Welp I guess Japan heard. 3 shoujo anime next year.
We're getting Sugar Apple Fairy Tale,
Why Raeliana ended up at the Duke's mansion and Niehime to Kemono no Ou. And there's possibly more on the way with the announcement of a second season of the Saint's magic power is op, a second season of Tokyo Mew Mew and Ojou to Banken-kun
Yeah it’s a bit of a trend that Shoujo was declining but it’s bound to return. That’s how trends are they go and come back. also Shonnen had their issues for many years. For example the majority of early 2000’s and early 2010s shonnen series had lots of filler. Now that it’s becoming the norm to do Shonnen for seasons and by releasing quors, Shojo also has a chance to comeback and fill lots of gaps in the season of Shonnen taking a break. I know my Dress up Darling was a bit etchy and but I consider it a great Shoujo. Because there is more to the series besides Marine fan service. Also Tokyo Mew Mew was a huge return and there are plenty of small Shoujo out there hopelly they will get as popular as Kaguya Sama Love is war.
BRING BACK THE FEMALE GAZE!
I wonder with how much anime has become mainstream internationally, companies and publishers are looking at which animes have become mainstream and seem more “franchise-able” but like other people pointed out the reboot of fruits basket and the nostalgia wave for 90s-00s animes including shoujo series can definitely help the genre
This is one of the biggest reasons why I left the anime/manga community. I’ve watch a-lot of series and read a lot of series. I left 5-6 years ago because of the decline of Shoujo and Josei series. Even as an adult Josei series started disappearing and I started seeing Seinen disguised as Josei. Until you start reading. Honestly that’s why Webcomics are the best for now they don’t have much plot diversity, but they got hot men, romance, colored comics and bold female leads 😊 it’s even elevated to developing Harems for women fans with romance.
Kimi Ni Todoke is in my Top Five best anime ever.
One of my favorites!
I have to admit that as a teenager I preferred the typical geared towards me anime with action and good stories. As I hit my 20's I shifted to mysteries and slice of life. My late 20's to mid 30's I shifted to slice of life and romance/drama and thrillers.
Pushing 40 now, I find myself less and less interested in what I used to prioritize and maybe it just has to do with whatever phase of life you are currently in and what resonates with you at the time. As you grow your tastes change and grow as well (though not always).
One downside to ALL anime and manga though, is sameness. Something does well, and suddenly you have dozens or hundreds of generic copies that just make you start to want to branch out to some other medium to get your fix.
It's a tragedy. I frankly haven't really cared much for some of the more recent shounen anime, and I couldn't really put my finger on it until I realized, "Oh, they feel like just another typical shounen anime with all the tropes that come with it." I think the reason I came to that conclusion is exactly because there is a segment of anime that hasn't been in the forefront in years. I'm more of a slice of life person, myself (and mystery/supernatural stuff, like Mushishi). They're cozy, easy to watch and not typically dragged out any longer than they need to be.
Anyway, I also find it disappointing that shoujo has been falling off the market - and I ain't even a girl! I like seeing a healthy amount of variety that targets DIFFERENT audiences versus trying to reach ALL audiences. It's comparable to how Hollywood is these days, with all the super hero movies that are just -- well, superhero movies. They only do it because it's a "safe" investment. The entertainment industry just doesn't like to take as many risks these days, and it's slowly killing creativity..
I will say one my my newer favorite comfort shows is Tsurune. It’s a sport show but it’s vibe and tone are more like Natsume then a typical sport show. I feel so relaxed whenever I watch it. 😊
I definitely feel that. Both industries seem to be going for safe investments and don't create content for different audiences but more for the common denominator. This video also helped me understand why I was feeling like this towards the anime industry. I'm also a guy but I am older and the usual Shonen anime are marketed towards a younger male demographic.
I have been enjoying more slice of life stuff like Aggrestuko and The Way of the Househusband. It is a nice change from the constant battle shonen. I'm also glad other anime are being funded outside traditional means like the upcoming Pluto which looks interesting.
It is honestly so annoying that most romance anime are shounen and seinen nowadays BECAUSE of the way female characters are written like you mentioned. I couldn't continue with Rent-A-Girlfriend after S1 for that reason, and some romance anime I just don't watch because the women characters are just not interesting enough to me and I don't care to see the same yitties and associated tropes with them in every show. I try to avoid most harem shows too for that reason. Even Kaguya-Sama, as much as I enjoyed it and kept watching more, there was always something "off" about the show that put me off, but not enough to stop watching it. I WISH Wotakoi and other josei/shoujo slice of life manga/anime would get adapted or a second season because those are my main shows. I don't care about isekais or most action anime besides MHA. I want my shoujo/josei shows.
Adding to this: justice for Skip Beat! One of the few manga I've followed since I was in middle school and I wish it got another season because there's so many good, juicy parts that should be animated 😢
In my opinion any Shoujo is a story (about daily life stuff or with fantasy, adventures, politics or wathever content important in the plot) that has to include a romantic development where its explained the emotional conexion between characters throught them and all their struggles. There can be sex between the characters or tense moments but the point of view and the development of this relationship is throught their feelings and the overcoming of x situations together.
I have the impression that a lot of the current animes categorized as shoujos are using the sexualization of one of the characters and the scenes of sexual tension to create the whole plot of a love story based mostly based just in ecchi/sexual conent and not in the development of the emotional conexion between the characters. And to me that can be a love story but its not shoujo.
I am the opposite of male shounen fans. I refuse to watch most shounen and it makes it really makes it hard to talk to other anime fans. I can't watch most shounen because it's so misogynistic a lot of the time. It hurts to watch shows like rent-a-girlfriend and my dress up darling. Some of my favourites are shounen romances, but nothing is as refreshing as a female-oriented show with no up-skirt shots. Shows like Horimiya, Kaguya-sama, and sasaki to miyano make me a little more hopeful for the future of romance anime.
hdjsgdg yeah, I think this is why I'm so obsessed with Jujutsu Kaisen. It's like the only Shonen anime I can think of where the female characters wear skirts that are ACTUALLY school-uniform length with tights/shorts underneath.
are we just pretend that guys arent sexualized in shonen as well ? whats wrong with sex appeal?
@@laisphinto6372idk lol I just don't really like it
Since when Sono Bisque Doll is sexist? Lmao
@@flyingorange2482 I just don't like the amount of fanservice. I starting watching it thinking the premise would be really cool and I was really disappointed when it became almost unwatchable to me because of it. I didn't mean dress up darling specifically was sexist, just that a lot of sexist tropes and characters exist in mainstream shounen.
As many have pointed out many people have turned to kdramas, luckily the kdrama to manhwa pipeline is very real. Since The Reason Why Raeliana Ended Up At The Duke’s Mansion is getting animated I think there's a potential comeback in store for shoujo!
Thanks for presenting your thoughts on this. I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of most romance shows, being largely asexual myself it just doesn't appeal to me. So, this isn't something I've given a lot of thought to.
But I definitely see the value in letting more people present their stories. It's one of the best ways we can learn and grow as a society. So, thanks again for the insightful breakdown.
i'm ace myself, but i actually really like the romance genre because i find those stories are more likely to place stronger emphasis on strong characterization and inter-personal conflict, which are the elements i find most engaging. Although i do wish there were more media that centred around explicitly platonic relationships. I don't mind romance, but it gets so exhausting when you see the exact same dynamic play out across 50 different titles with no meaningful variation. *cough* harem anime *cough*
Its not us but the manga industry itself that's trying to kill shoujo. One review for nana in Japan was " two girls with the same name move into an apartment where one finds out sleeping with multiple men doesn't get her a husband while the other forms a band to stalk her ex" that is not a proper review for any series. And I'm glad you mentioned Clamp as the studio enforced rules on their manga on what or how far they could go with romance. If you've read their angel series then you know the last volume felt off. It was because Clamp was supposed to be green lit for another 3-4 volumes more but even with its high ratings but were told to can it in the forth volume. This shocked me as Clamp was one of the highest seller manga artist at the time following Chobits. But they weren't the only ones that got this treatment as many more shoujo manga and anime started getting bought up and put in hiatus mode as studios would buy them and then do absolutely nothing with them. And once a studio bought them not even the mangaka could continue the series. Hell things have gotten so bad one mangaka was even arrested for making a manga about periods. She got five years for making a chibi vigina character. Shoujo hasn't died its just gone underground and moved to other platforms. I also hate that crunchy roll romance (and sadly shoujo section) is full of shounen romance or haram anime......if they didn't have decent horror, classic, and action titles I wouldn't still bother to stay with CR but it is not far off if something doesn't change soon
As men become less shy about liking romance (probably a good thing) their tastes and expectations come to be considered in the production of romance series. That doesn't just mean that they, and specifically the men with very.. uh... particular tastes, being a higher spending demo, will tend to be more influential, but also, what of their tastes the rest of the audience can tolerate will tend to be more influential than those elements the rest of the audience finds intolerable. If we spent more on series that didn't involve an uncomfortable amount of male gaze, and that encouraged more and higher value productions in that niche, that we're also following series with more distasteful themes and just putting up with it would still slant things towards those series.
I find it difficult to care too much about the publication demographic of an anime's source material. While I can understand the importance of there being media specifically aimed at women, I find myself more or less just drifting towards what I like and not feeling too strongly about who it's for if there's nothing in it that bothers me. There is, however, content that bothers me, and it's in part a by-product of who it's for. So I'd like to see less of that, or at least spend more time with things that are more for me; nevertheless, I find myself tolerating things that bother me, God only knows why, and I have to wonder if I were more discerning, and others were too, if there would be less of... this.
I know what you mean. Yona of the Dawn and Fushigi Yuugi were some of my top timeless faves. I haven’t seen anything quite like those. Shounen anime can be fun but it does not always accommodate for my feminine palate, what with the male gaze’s inclination towards competition and action…
UPDATE: New video continuation of this one is out now: How Shojo Changed Shonen FOREVER: th-cam.com/video/w-cApJBzulM/w-d-xo.html
Couple of Things:
- Skip and Loafer is actually a Seinen series. Support other Shojo series getting anime adaptations like Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts coming 2023
- I meant the shoujo fan thing as a kind of satire, fans are only working with what we got there’s not a lot of licensed and adapted shoujo anime or manga series in comparison to shonen and seinen series so it can’t be helped. Watch what you want. Just wish we had more series with leads that weren’t the typical boys we’re used to seeing.
- I spelled Chihayafuru wrong at 14:36
What do you think about the slow death of shoujo anime? Feel free to ✨politely ✨ share your thoughts and lets discuss!
Please make sure to go watch Colleen’s video: (th-cam.com/video/pY39RGRO1i0/w-d-xo.html)! It was very informative and well done. And check out they’re channel for more Shoujo anime and manga recommendations and information.
I agree that there should be more variability with manga adapted into anime. Sometimes there are shonen or shows with romance geared towards young and older men that have a great story but a bland bitch of a protagonist that drags the story. Hopefully shows like fruits basket, magical mew mew, horimya, others can break the cycle. It would be a shame if we didn't get more shows like revolutionary girl utena,sailor moon or who knows what else. Thanks again phoenix, also thanks for giving an OG show like Fushigi Yugi a shout out.
You also said "Shinomiya" when talking about "Shirogane". Shinomiya is Kaguya's family name.
Was talking to a friend about this and how I think this has to do with merch sales. Cause from what I know animes make money off of blue ray, merch sales, as well as commercial slots (which are hard to make money off of if the anime airs in the middle of the night). I think most companies look at shojo and don't see a way to make back the money they put into adapting them anime wise. I also think that why we also get lazy attempts at adapting them as well, they think they'll make little profit to no profit so they don't get the budget they need.
I was also listening to a podcast and one of the girls went to Japan for a while and she talked about merch collecting culture over there and she said its very much like you choose one character you love & just collect merch of that one character. Which is why there sooo much isekai anime (IMO) being pumped out cause its very good waifu bait. Guy gets transported and is surrounded by attractive girls, ofcourse your gonna have a favorite girl ofcourse your going to collect merch of her(If you enjoy collecting merch). This makes isekai basically a sweet spot for these companies cause even if it's not extremely popular you'll make some what of a profit.
I also noticed a lot of girls are enjoying & getting more into male gaze anime media (like harems,isekai, fan service shows) I don't think this has much to do with Shojo (nor nothing wrong with it) but I find it interesting.
Lmao young girls nowadays consuming alot of anime in a male pov make me think that might be one of the reason why there are more gay young girls and girls who enjoy gay romance than straight ones
I think merchandise is something that gets overlooked in anime in places outside of Japan because overall, our access to official merch is still pretty limited. Thanks for sharing the info about how people tend to collect merch on specific characters. That actually makes a lot of sense because I've noticed that really popular figurines tend to have an almost endless amount of variations in designs. Thanks for leaving your thoughts and watching!
Girls actually collect merch too! The best example recently are from joseimuke or female-targeted games like Ensemble Stars, Twisted Wonderland, or A3! which some of them also had anime adaptation. I think the reason why girls are also enjoying male-gaze medias is mostly because of the lack in shoujosei adaptation nowadays, we don't get that much food in the first place so might as well try out other things that are available out there😅 but surely there's still female-targeted media other than anime that is flourishing like otome or joseimuke games i mentioned earlier, and shoujosei manga thats been proven to have very high sales number without anime adaptation and they also sell merch!
@@spring6066 First off, I love Twisted Wonderland! And it's very true that girls buy a lot of merchandise as well. I was more so trying to make a point about romance shoujo series not seeming as profitable as otome, idol or other bishounen series. But maybe I'll do a deeper dive on that in another video. I did leave out merchandise sold for manga series and I think that's an aspect that should be discussed as well. Thank you for your thoughts and for watching!
@@TheAnimeTea of course! Joseimuke or other non-manga media can be a whole different topic on it's own. I think you already did a great job on bringing up this topic into a discussion and honestly i'm just very happy that more people are talking about shoujo so thank you! A video about joseimuke/otome would be interesting as well
Okay, let me get on topic of the whole video. Everything has its season. I've been an anime fan for over 20 years. I've been a huge fan of music and television even longer. Everything comes and goes in seasons. There will be a Shoujo that comes out that will spearhead another wave of Shojo anime just like this new kind of action romance is being on the for front now. Nothing is ever really dying it just change and flex and takes a back seat. The wave will come back again just give it time.
Exactly. It’s the same reason why we’ve been seeing a fantasy resurgence here in the west. In the 80s you had a lot of campy fantasy stuff, that got milked and died off. Lord of the Rings came out, that got milked and died off. Now we have Game of Thrones and its clones. And this trend will die off too once people get tired of the tropes. This happened with disaster movies, zombie media, romcoms, vampire stuff, I think we’re starting to see it a little with superhero stuff, etc.
All this misogyny talk feels really melodramatic and like women are pitching a fit that their favorite genre’s out of its honeymoon period. (And I’m saying this as a woman.)
17:02 legit this is the reason Genshin is getting an ufotable anime, I highly doubt it will add anything to the storyline… So many series not getting any recognition but stuff that’s already popular gets even more series. Wish not everything was about money and popularity haha…
True, and Ufotable is almost exclusively known for adapting popular franchises gaming or manga. Unfortunately money and popularity are what make series more desirable and help projects get funded. I wish certain series got more publicity so people could know about them to even want an anime adaptation but we can't control everything.
I'd have to disagree regarding the point on Bishies in shonen being a recent thing. Remember Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho? It's arguably part of why sports shonen have had a larger female audience: it's a whole CAST of pretty boys.
Whole cast? Nah. Maybe one or two boys are cute. Girls have a tendency to bond/like a characters personality even if they don’t think their cute.
@@idongesitx1873 There's definitely more than 2 cute boys in Haikyuu
Me casually hiding all my Free! merch
Yeah, I have to agree that bishounen in shounen manga have pretty much always been a thing. Sometimes the art style doesn't help, but it's there.
I mean, there's a reason why in every shounen manga there is the cool, pretty boy who's the rival/2nd main character in the story. It's to garner some additional audiences 😂
People are lacking information.
Shoujo anime is desapearing because of the sucess of Korean Dorama, some adaptations of Japanese mangas.
More and more shoujo has been adapted in live action series instead of anime, even modern series with animes are getting live action versions, and many are becoming teatriocal movies; live action and animes that dont come to the west,
Bruh I miss the 2010s Shoujo Anime Romance and what's annoying is the fact ththat they're so many great Shoujo Romance manga series that I've read so far but hasn't had the opportunity to get adapted. But yes I truly miss those amazing anime series as a whole.
I don't know if you noticed but a good number of Shoujo Romance Manga series are more prone to be adapted by JDrama or a live action film and don't get me wrong this type of tactic has been around since the 2000s but it is more now than it was before.
Great video!!! Also god i wish they made/translated anime adaptations and MERCHANDISE for more of the shojo/josei manga i love 😭💖
Thank you Tab! I agree 😭
I never used to be a huge shoujo fan but i always loved the reliability of the heartwarming storyline that would ultimately end with sweet characters getting their endings. Theres really none of that anymore and i do miss it more which i think has made me more of a fan.
I got into anime because of a romance anime and continued mainly watched Shoujo Romance Anime. In 2014 watching anime was still being seen as weird but even amongst the anime fans I met, I would also get made fun of for mainly watching romance anime (usually by boys). I eventually started getting into other genres like shonen and isekai which I also grew to like.
Anyway I believe the reason for a decline in Shoujo Romance Anime is because anime which are mainly marketed to men/boys have been doing very well in recent years so only more of those are popping up. Also women/girls are more open to watching all genres than men/boys are less willing stray from the typical male marketed/shonen animes.
You are extremely open and unbiased in views and opinion. I might not agree completely with everything you say but I love that your contents are these ways.
Subscribed. Take care!
I agree but I feel like this year has given it a chance! A lot of romance animes are finally being discovered!
I think one thing to consider, although Japanese companies tend to have a "Japan First" mindset in marketing, a lot of corporations that are international are likely prioritizing male viewers because of the binary gendered viewers of anime, 65% of them are male in the US (at least according to animeasure). In the west, things made for men are seen as good and worth your time whether or not you're a man, and things made for women are often made out to be frivolous, gauche, or immature. So if you're crunchyroll and you're trying to cast the widest net in your marketing, it makes sense to market shows geared toward male audiences more because not only do they make up the largest watching majority in the west, but you are also likely to catch female fans as well because it is cool if a woman watches anime for men, but embarrassing if a man watches anime for women (this is not how I feel or how I think things should be. Just a commentary on how media that is gendered tends to be treated here, even implicitly. Shanspeare has great videos about how we demonize things made for girls, especially teenage girls, in the west.) In addition, when it comes to conventions and events, women tend to comprise 40-50% of attendees in the west, in spite of making up the viewing minority, suggesting that casual fans tend to skew male, which is where a lot of viewership money will go for anime adaptations, and could explain the success of shoujo manga and decline/abandonment of shoujo anime. The average female fan is more likely to read manga than the average male fan, because he is statistically more likely to be a casual. So companies that deal in the west will invest in shounen shows and divest in shoujo that isn't exclusively manga where there is still money to be made. Good video! Got me thinking!
I have a sudden yen to rewatch The Vision of Escaflowne. Now there's a classic example of an isekai shojo with epic romance, worldbuilding and violence aplenty
This autumn season gives some hope about Shoujo animes! I'm not sure if all of series I'll mention are shoujo, but I'm really surprised that things like them came out
So far I really have enjoyed Romantic Killer! I haven't watched an anime in quite some time and it's so much fun to watch.
I was SO excited when I saw Akuyaku Reijou nano de Last Boss o Katte Mimashita became an anime! I loved the manga and the anime was gorgeous.
Romance killer was another I loved when I saw it! I showed it to my sister the first chance I got and she also loved it. I've watched the series twice that way.
as a big fan of OHSHC and Nana, I can only ask for more seasons rather than asking for more anime's like them and I already know that's never happening 😅
There's a otome game I want to see get translated and that's Uta no Prince sama and also Brothers Conflict too. And I wish for a Fate Prototype series to happen in the future.
There's a TON of female oriented romance out there. You got everything from kdrama, doramas, YA fiction and shoujo manga and manhwas that are still incredibly popular, the only difference is that they rarely get adapted in anime. It's simply more profitable for them to shoot a live action. On the other hand for anime companies, besides the "waifu of the month" demographic, it's easier nowadays to simply target a bigger fujoshi & yumejoshi audience because they spend more money on merch. Shounen romance works because they're selling you a waifu, while shoujo romance doesn't sell a husbando in the same way so female fans are less inclined to bulkbuy merch
I think a good shojo is Romance Killer. It’s a new one and follows a very basic plot line but with a twist. The character is a bit more realistic in a way even and the MC is very likable .
RK isn't shoujo. It's a shounen that parodies shoujo tropes, kinda like Nozaki-kun.
@@msuzuki5971 kinda werid
@@msuzuki5971 Okay, I thought Nozaki-kun as a shoujou. What the hell is a shoujou then? I don't see how Ouran is a shoujou but Nozaki-kun isn't. I would have also thought Romance Killer, Horimiya, Tomo-chan is a Boy, and Fruits Baskets are all shoujou.
this was a very thoughtful video. i liked it even before finishing.
money..yep. unfortunately, in the pursuit of security/profit we lose diversity of stories.
as someone who fell in love with animanga becuz of shojo its sad
Thanks for watching Mono. I’m also sad to see the type of stories I loved from the 90s and 2000s no longer get a space to shine.
Anime studios can remake Maid-Sama and Ouran just like they did with Fruits Basket...
I didnt realize it before this video but damn, i miss shojo anime and it might been the reason i lessened watching anime and leaned more on the mangas
As a man who loves to hate anime but hasn't watched through very many of them
Fruits basket is one of my favorites.
I imagine I would generally like shoujo more because of the different character archetypes, not necessarily that they're better but that I haven't seen them a million times and thus they forge stories I haven't seen before
Read QQ Sweeper and Queen’s Quality. Best shoujo manga.
I'm a guy who watched all kinds of anime but also gotten into more romance and shoujo type anime. I have noticed a lot of anime currently are aimed heavily towards the male demographic with lots of action and violence. I am getting older and seem to gravitate towards stories in more shoujo, josei, and some seinen.
I'm really glad it isn't just me noticing this because the larger online anime community makes it seem like anime is as diverse and experimental as ever. I never thought I'd gravitate towards slice of life, but I really like some of them lol. Like other people have said, some of us are finding these kinds of stories elsewhere such as K-dramas, web-novels, or places we haven't really looked before.
I hate all the pointless fight scenes. That's because there is usually not even background going on or stakes to justify all the fights to make them meaningful. You can often skip over them in most series and it won't make a difference. Often you don't even need to really know the outcome. I'd much rather watch a bunch of misunderstandings which makes me angry because at least that means I'm invested.
That photoshop of Kamui gave me life! 🤣 I appreciate your take on this topic. I recently saw Colleen's Manga Recs' video about this and you added a good perspective about the economics of the situation. Also, it was great seeing all your references to series I enjoy. :) I didn't realize about the decline in shoujo anime until recently, and before that, I just thought that I was growing out of anime or that there was good anime coming out that I just wasn't finding. Shoujo is definitely my favorite so this explains why I've been having issues finding appealing anime. Question: what's your favorite CLAMP series? And do you like Tokyo Babylon too, on top of X/1999?
As a male anime fan, I just want Skip Beat to continue in anime format and had Oresama Teacher anime adaptation PLEASE!!!!
I'm putting all of my hopes and dreams on the Loving Yamada at Lv999 anime adaption and pretending that will save the genre 🙃
Something of note from my own experience in the figure collecting sphere is that there aren't really any figures from shojo/josei series to buy and they definitely don't get the extremely well done figures when they're made either. The female figures are always geared towards men/neutral and the male characters are also geared towards men/neutral. There's few figures of men and women that have a specific female audience in mind and it's a shame. I would love to get more figures and merch of my favorite shojo/josei characters (or even characters with a specific feminine gaze) but the merch industry is slow on the uptake that women have spending power too (if not more considering the gap in the market and the fan bases that are definitely hungry for it).
Love this breakdown. You can see the same in Western comics, where female-gaze fare like Rogue & Gambit is critically acclaimed but doesn't sell as well as putting Emma Frost on the cover, even from the same writer's room.
Something I've seen brought up a lot was how many below average shoujo manga had indulged in toxic romantic tropes for a long time, like abusive boyfriends and that sort of drama, so much that it's become a bit of a stereotype. Shounen romances are also pretty toxic, but I do wonder.
We even see it in the west - the blockbuster movies are ones that appeal to teenage boys first + everyone else second, and things like romances or specifically female aimed movies almost don't really exist on the mass scale, usually they're in more niche streaming services. This isn't really a good thing for either demographic but it's what marketers rely on as a crutch in the best of times.
Male audiences are far less willing to divulge in 'female' aimed media, while female audiences tend to take part in everything (hot topic merchandise for example has mainly shounen franchises, but tons of female shoppers). An average young female anime fan these days will probably like shounen action and sports series before ever getting into their first shoujo.
Fruit Baskets, Yona of the Dawn, and Kimi ni Todoke are so freakin precious to me. I’m still getting into the newer ones, but I keep getting turned off when I see tiktok edits. But I have watched recent movies that made me cry
Thank youuu! I noticed too that now they’re trying to sell us this version of “romance” anime where for example the underage girl is doing mad fanservice for this bland loser boy.
My Happy Marriage being made into an anime has me so happy❤️ finally a cute romance series that isn’t just all humor and tropes.
The fact that you mentioned Fushigi Yuugi shows that you're a veteran and you know what you're talking about! Subscribed✅! 9 out of 10 anime fans tell me they don't know this anime.. but then again they're mostly Gen Z lol no offense.
I watched ayashi no ceres last year and it was so refreshing! I've been hoping yuu watase's alice 19th and absolute boyfriend manga's would get anime's too. Fushigi yuugi is still soo fun to watch and read!
There are way too many animes nowadays. Therefore it doesn't give time to boys something different to watch.
I've watched shoujo/josei animes with my big brother and I can tell he enjoyed them (obviously he likes shounen/seinen more).
The only difference between him and me was that for him to be interested, the story had to be a little bit engaging. I mean the story had to have an upper purpose that just 2 teenagers falling in love and watching them interact.
That is why he enjoyed animes like Nana, Sailor Moon, Fruit Basket and Violet Evergarden (especially this one XD).
However he didn't like Maid-Sama or Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun since for him nothing was happening.
Another aspect might be that a lot of shoujo anime is slice of life, which doesn't draw in a lot of people who are more interested in action, comedy, fantasy, etc. Slice of life shows don't inspire the sort of fandoms that shows with more worldbuilding have. For example, I really enjoyed Yona of the Dawn and Ouran High School Host Club because they had more than just romance; Yona had fantasy, and Ouran had fantastic comedy. I think it's pretty telling that a lot of recent shoujo are isekai with more complicated conflicts and storylines. I really enjoyed the show about the girl who gets reincarnated as the villainess in a dating sim and gets a bisexual harem. That one even got a second season.
Reincarnated as a Villainess is a shoujou? It never even crossed my mind that it was. Probably because it didn't even cross my mind that it's actually a love story lol.
@@DKNguyen3.1415 I'd say so. It's aimed primarily at girls and young women.
Everytime women like something it is mocked into oblivion 💀
I hard disagree with Shoujosei being not profitable outside of the manga sales. Figures and merchandise outside of, maybe some buttons and file holders, are just not made at all. You can't say that women aren't buying figures, dakimakuras and other merch if merch is not made to begin with. Goodsmile has only just started releasing nendoroids of shoujo characters and I preordered all of them.
Lets also not forget bluray sales as well. Even though not technically a shoujo, Yuri on Ice was definitely made for a female audience and that series sold 50k copies of the bluray in it's first week. When you compare that to Mappa's other work Chainsaw Man. CSM only sold 1.7k copies in it's first week. Women have just the same spending capabilities as men, it's just that companies do not make the merchandise.
On top of all that, think about all the artist allies or artists online as well. People who sell shoujo merch make good money like Ocean in Space. We are so desperate for merch we turn to each other for it.
this is such a great made video i appreciate your information it was entertaining for people to talk about this topic more! shoujo 4 ever
Thank you so much for watching Jass! Shojo is near and dear to my heart and I loved making this video.
korean has been prompant in giving us shoujos. There are so many amazing shoujo webtoons. For ex : (The way to protect the female's older brother, shadow Queen, villians are destined to die etc)
Ahh... I just died a little inside when I saw "Ascendance of a Bookworm" threw in among the seasonal isekai anime trash... please, if you don't know what it is, give it a try! And I would strongly suggest the Light Novel over the anime. That is also perfect, because you could call Bookworm a "shoujo" slice of life isekai. The author is a woman and she did an amazing job with worldbuilding and characters, I would strongly recommend it.
I had the same reaction as you and I also highly recommend the series. I think Bookworm has universal appeal in addition to shoujo elements, since there's a lot of male fans as well, but yeah, the world building is amazing despite the author's hate for worldbuilding, and the characters are great due to the author's love for character development.
Honestly, the reason I tried the Light Novel in the first place was because the anime drew me in. I mean, yeah the Light Novel always beats the anime, but also books are far less accessible than anime, so I highly recommend both.
Same here! The anime is by no means bad, but think it does suffer later on into its run. I don't read many light novels at all, but AoaB is right up there with S&W for me.
I am a isekai hater but Ascendance of a Bookworm is something else. You can just think of it more as a little girl trying to make her way in a magical, medieval world. The anime does not do it justice to be honest. I can't watch the anime after reading the LN. You need the LN. Zero fan service. If there is fan service it's probably Ferdinand due to how the show portrays his strength of character. I say that as a guy so it must be pretty strong for me to pick up on it.
This got me thinking about something only tangentially related: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a shoujo story with sci-fi elements. I’m sure there exists time travel shoujo stories, but I can’t name them off the top of my head.
They definitely exist, but just aren't as talked about and don't get as many adaptations as fantasy shoujo. One of the most iconic shoujo scifi series is 7SEEDS (it received an anime, but the fandom generally agrees that it's terrible). It starts off with this 16 year old girl waking up on a ship in the middle of the ocean, with no idea how she got there. She's with three others who also seem to have no idea what's going on, they go to a nearby island that has something kind of off about it. There's much more to it than that, but I don't want to spoil anything for you if you decide to check it out.
Chobits is josei, but it's sci-fi with romance on it. The Gundam series, especially the earliest ones have romance surrounding the characters. Soul Link has romance on it although it is tragic, My Absolute Boyfriend is also a good one involving a cyborg dude and a human girl (writer is the one who made Fushigi Yuugi). There are so many more if you try to watch past era animes.
There's a shojo manga series called "Please Save my Earth" which is a 21 volume manga series that ran from 1986 to 1993/94 (you can read it on Kindle from Viz Media, but physical copies are out of print) about high school teenagers and a little boy who have recurring dreams about their past lives on the moon. It's very fascinating and there's even a six episode mini series made in 1994 and you can watch it here on TH-cam!
A.,A Prime by Moto Hagio has some scifi elements. It's quite old but a great read.
@@tkraid2575 chobits is seinen, gundam is shounen (romance =/= shoujo), soul link looks like an adaptation of a nsfw vn, so its seinen. my absolute boyfriend is shoujo! so that's the only one that qualifies on this list.
For the longest time, I thought I had outgrown anime. A while ago I realized it I hadn't, I just wasn't being shown anime aimed at me, so I had moved on. I'm a little more interested in comics, webtoons, and mawha now and I think this is why.
I see a lot of sentiment about how shounen/seinen fans are super resistant to shojo/josei so I tried seeking some critically acclaimed shojo/josei manga out because I wanted to have better perspective as a dude who has mainly consumed seinen/shounen up until now. Since then I've tried around 7 or 8 shojosei manga but I haven't been pulled in by any of them. My best guess as to why this happened (Besides just unfortunate luck in finding stories I didn't personally enjoy) is that there is something fundamentally off about the way they write and develop characters as a whole that I don't find particularly interesting or get downright annoyed by. The way some male characters behave also comes off as downright cringe to me sometimes.
I'm someone who has read an OK amount of romance already and many of my favorite manga borrow stereotypically shoujo elements all the time. Now since series like Horimiya borrow from Shojo people start bringing up the idea that Shounen fans are just stubborn idiots who don't want associate with something labeled shojo because its too girly but will happily consume content that falls under a different label, and while there certainly ARE shounen fans who are up their own ass about their masculinity this entire sentiment comes off as a weird scapegoat mentality for shojo fans wanting something to blame for the downfall of their favorite style of manga on anything they can get their hands on.
Simply put I think its literally just something to do with Female Gaze vs Male Gaze. A lot of elements of the Female Gaze just aren't interesting for a male audience. You can't help what you're interested in, as much as I'd like to broaden my perspective there are some stories I fundamentally wont like and I think for men its simply that. Almost all these shounen/seinen manga that "borrow" shojo elements do so in a way that male readers can get invested in their characters FIRST through ways that appeal to THEM. Men are going to generally prioritize things like capability or surface level behavior when expressing what characters they like while I feel like female authors and readers push for much more introspection into the characters personality and values. Its all about how the individual is CONNECTING to these characters that matter, not once through my read of those 7 manga was I ever particularly fond of any male characters, probably because my view on male characters is tainted to expect power and capability rather than emotional vulnerability and values.
This all goes to say that I think men are being screwed over by internalized toxic masculinity that actively prevents them from enjoying certain kinds of media, nothing we can really do but push for more emotional vulnerability moving forward.
So….you admit you’re the reason you can’t get into shoujo? 😂
God if only Harry Potter was a girl.
I have paid attention to SO MANY stories that Are About Dudes and have The Cringiest Ever writing for all their female characters, in so many media.
Even put up with the gratuitous male gaze random body descriptions of like, the postlady.
Grow up, fren.
Have you read/watched Fruits Basket or Nana? I'm not into shoujo/josei neither, but those two are my expectations of what the genre should achieve.
It sucks that toxic masculinity screws everyone over, including men. Says something about society how half of the population can't comfortably show off emotions without being called a sissy or getting targeted.
(as for recommedations the ones above me are solid if you're up for experimenting again. nana is a personal favourite, because I'm more into edgier dramas than I am slice-of-life.)
@@zkme2734 I did and they were boring the men are to much of simps to the FMC in shoujo that if just pisses me off it’s so unrealistic men hate those type of men and those men who white knight and do the things that shoujo men do are considered to be creeps by men and also idiots as they act like they are above every other man it also creates a ridiculous expectation that women have for men about both physical features and how they should behave one of the reason why men hate stuff such as kdrama’s and shoujo is because it’s so unrealistic in how the main male character is portrayed the difference Being men can distinguish reality from fiction much more easily than women so these stupid dramas, shoujo and movies have poisoned females expectations about men when no men will act like in those media’s and most men would even recommend to friends and family to stay away from them as either they are creeps or they are trying to get you to sleep with them most of the time
Sorry for the rant
@@shizukuhajime2392 just say you dont get laid, jeez
Webcomics and fanfiction fill my romance void
Yes, fanfiction is female-dominated!