Comments | canis_m: No one else wants to play acafan okay fine

canis_m

No one else wants to play acafan okay fine

Oct 11, 2009 16:14

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 ( Read more... )

hachikuro, aoi hana

Comments 57

greenapple2004 October 12 2009, 01:11:04 UTC

I think the easy answer to why they don't have more fan activity is that most BL and shojo is specifically designed to satisfy the kinds of emotional and erotic needs that fan activity goes for. Why bother hooking up the characters yourself, or digging deeper for emotional connections, when the author's already doing that for you, right? The stuff that does get more activity are the series like Ouran and Fruits Basket, where there are lots of other side relationships to explore and/or the relationship that the author is developing isn't the one you're most interested in, or Saiyuki (or Peacemaker, or Loveless, etc.) that aren't your average shojo with your standard romance going on ( ... )

canis_m October 12 2009, 01:40:59 UTC

Yeah, I've been trying to account for the discrepancy in production levels of all types of fanwork, including gen stuff like character art, not just romance/erotica-based textual fanwork--but maybe you're right and it is more a question of readership numbers (although I had the vague impression, possibly wrong, that at least the really top bestselling shoujo series had readerships comparable to those of bestselling shounen series? ahaha the truth is I have no idea and am totally making this up based on fleeting glimpses of amazon.co.jp manga bestseller lists).

final_account October 12 2009, 02:12:02 UTC

No idea, but based on magazine circulation, the top selling shounen mag WJ has 2,778,750, the top selling seinen mag has 981,229 (per week)

The top selling shoujo magazine is Ciao, with 982,834, followed by Nakayoshi, 400,000 and Ribon, 376,666.

http://nebs66.livejournal.com/945878.html Also has some possibly relevant info.

canis_m October 12 2009, 03:37:05 UTC

Thanks for these! I was vaguely conscious that WJ led the pack, but had no idea about the rest.

Huh, so Nana's the only shoujo that made top 10 by volume....

Thread 5

pengiesama October 12 2009, 01:48:24 UTC

psst

are you doing riboku tonite or me

canis_m October 12 2009, 01:50:15 UTC

ME yeah sorry I'm late shit

pengiesama October 12 2009, 02:09:20 UTC

is okay ma'am

As for the lady-fandom question, I'd second the CLAMP suggestion.

canis_m October 12 2009, 02:16:27 UTC

Iz posted

CLAMP has been duly noted.

Thread 12

bwinter October 12 2009, 05:01:40 UTC

Rose of Versailles is an older example that I'm familiar with through Takarazuka - there's activity (fanart especially), though by now there's a large crossover between that and Takarazuka fandoms.

canis_m October 12 2009, 18:57:40 UTC

Good call, thanks.

ochame October 14 2009, 00:38:30 UTC

+1 on Ryoko Ikeda's stuff

I also saw Koko wa Greenwood doujinshi in the past. Please save my Earth, too - but I was looking for them.
Oh! And of (relatively) the more recent stuff, Kaikan Phrase djs.
But nothing as prolific as Sailor Moon, or Cardcaptor Sakura.

anonymous October 12 2009, 14:45:14 UTC

My guess on the why would be simply the age of the target audiences. There are relatively few japanese school girls that have the guts to produce dj for public consumption, and those that do don't always have supportive friends to help, (and say 'sure, why not' on the matter of bl and shoujo titles, lol). Nearly every school I taught at had rabid fangirls, but most of them weren't brave enough admit to liking shows like that. (Their friends were always willing to rat them out though, heh.) The majority of the fanworks here come from highschool and college age fans, and in Japan, at that age they don't have much free time outside of school, so they do a lot their fangirling on school property. And you can see the natural hesitation to squee too loudly about 'embarassing' topics, no matter how much they might be interested. (A cool art teacher goes a long way, lol ( ... )

yavieriel October 14 2009, 14:50:00 UTC

Mmm, after reading everyone's comments, I might also point out that a lot of strictly shoujo fangirls in Japan might be equivalent to, say, the OC or Mean Girls fandoms here in America. Which is to say, they don't consider themselves as part of a fandom or feel the need to produce fanworks. IDK, taking a shot in the dark here. But I suspect that there is that "mainstream"/non-otaku-non-fen demographic that reads and watches certain series over there same as there is here. So it's the same as why there's not much in the way of Mean Girls fanfic/art/other fanworks.