No one else wants to play acafan okay fine

[canis_m]

Can anyone think of shoujo series or other by-women, marketed-to-women anime/manga (including BL, josei, and yuri) that have generated substantial fandom activity in Japan? By "substantial fandom activity" I mean not just discussion or attention but a decent body of doujinshi or other fanwork, fansites, etc. (edit: NOT limited to textual fanwork

Comments

[nyonyo]

Watase Yuu is the big one jumping to mind...

I haven't really looked at Japanese fandom for it, but I would think Yazawa Ai must be inspiring some level of fannish activity considering the popularity of her series.

Oh and probably Hanadan.

Tanemura Arina's older works at least, too. I've stopped following her series since, but at least Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne was getting some fannish love.

[canis_m]

Watase Yuu, really? Was there a lot of Fushigi Yuugi doujin?

I'm dubious about Yazawa Ai. Cursory Googling finds a Nana doumei comprised of...five websites, and the two of those I glanced at had no fanwork. Pixiv has approx. 60 Nana fanarts total, compared to 8000 for (just for instance) FMA. Nana probably sells just as well as FMA does, but popularity doesn't necessarily imply fanwork production, that's the point I'm struggling with here. Even when shoujo series become bestsellers, their "fandoms" don't seem to generate more than a trickle of fanwork, compared to the flood(s) for shounen series. I'd expect Hanadan to be similar, even with all its dorama incarnations.

HachiKuro is like this, too. Almost no fanwork.

[nyonyo]

I haven't really ever looked for any, but I at least remember the English-speaking FY fandom being reaaaally active back in the day, and I swear Watase Yuu once talked about Tasuki/Tamahome doujin once? I doubt there's much fannish stuff for the current FY series now, just because the focus is entirely on the main couple with little to no shameless seishi fanservice (except for the obligatory Crossdressing For Great Justice arc). But yeah, oldskool FY, definitely.

I'm kind of surprised about Nana not having much activity, because the cast is so big that you'd think people would get more of a kick out of mixing and matching...

I have seen Hanadan doujin but not mass amounts of it, though I think what's there is more because the actors are so popular and it basically amounts to drama RPF XD;

I actually don't know that I've ever seen one single pairing produce a mountain of fanwork and porn the way Roy/Ed has, though. FMA seems kind of unique even among shounen series that way.

[tokyofish]

There was A LOT of Full Moon o Sagashite doujin, FYI. And a decent amount of Time Stranger Kyoko doujinshi. Of course, the fact that Tanemura Arina's assistants were doing lots of doujin probably helped. Haven't seen anything for Shinshi Doumei Cross, though.

As for Watase Yuu, if there isn't some kind of fandom for Sakura Gari, I would be shocked.

[spywindow]

I think Terra e had a semi-substantial fandom in Japan? At any rate I did see doujinshi, though I haven't at all investigated the frequency of fansites or anything. I guess it's also a tricky point whether one wants to classify the series as shoujo or not, since it was originally published in a shonen magazine, but Takemiya Keiko herself was a major pioneer of shoujo manga (and I feel the series, like most of her others, did appeal primarily if not exclusively to female readers).

Other than that, I don't know . . . could there be stuff for, like, Yami no Matsuei? Ouran High School Host Club? It does feel like the overwhelming majority of Japanese girl-generated fan content is for Jump series and Gundam and so on.

[spywindow]

Also, your talking about Aoi Hana reminds me: I've been wanting to give the series a try for a while now (anything endorsed by Umino Chika and Natsume Ono sounds good to me!), but I'm not sure whether to go with the anime or the manga first. Do you have a recommendation?

[canis_m]

I'd say manga? although I'm not sure on what grounds, exactly. Standard old-fashioned book-before-movie principles? The anime's a beautiful adaptation, but I'm a "read the original first" sort of schmoe in general. The manga is ongoing, if that makes any difference. Scanlations are current right up to the latest chapter.

[spywindow]

That's just as well, because manga also has convenience in its favor: I don't have to carve 30-minute blocks of time out of my day! Awesome. (Although if I do enjoy the manga, chances are I'll loop back around to the anime eventually.) Thanks for your opinion.

[keelieinblack]

All I can think is stuff that's not-newish and dying at this point. Yami no Matsuei? Kyou Kara Maou? (I know KKM has a decent amount of doujinshi because some of them are sitting on my bookshelf, ha ha.) And even those series had a specific aimed-for-the-fangirls setup/feel.

[canis_m]

Fangirl bait is OK! And I suppose if I'm counting KKM I better count 12K after all (both being novel fandoms really).

[worldserpent]

Ouran Host Club seems to have a lot of fanfic at ff.net. Vampire Knight also has a substantial amount. I'm not sure at all about the Japanese fandoms, though. As for BL, IIRC there were quite a few Viewfinder fanworks in the English language fandom

[worldserpent]

Looking at the fanfic.net anime fanfic page (which is of course not representative)

But if we take out all the shounen/seinen titles:
Sailor Moon
Card Captor Sakura
Fruits Basket
Ouran Host Club
Gravitation
Saiyuki (dubiously shoujo)
Gakuen Alice
Fushigi Yuugi
DN Angel
Vampire Knight

I suspect somewhere there is Comiket data, but I don't know where.

[canis_m]

Yeah, I suppose my inquiry is more into J-fandom; amount of English-language fanfic isn't necessarily a good gauge of J-fandom size or productivity at all

[worldserpent]

Ah, okay. I think you'd get better responses if you limited to J-fandom in the post

[moonsheen]

I'll get back to you on lady fandoms but yeah! The Hetalia author's a design student at NYU! He frequently blogged candid shots of New York for awhile, I'm not sure if he's still there but I distinctly remember going "....yup still in NYC, those are the Holiday lights" post-New Years last year.

[canis_m]

I wonder whether his friends know what he does on the internets XD;