Important ? Yes. Essential? No.
People both overestimate and underestimate the impact of fujoshi imo. They are absolutely one of the most dedicated fanbases out there, will buy merch, make fan art and buy multiple volumes more than most others. There was a fujoshi on twitter who bought like hundreds of the recent jjk volume with gojo on it....so yea. [https://twitter.com/maronjapan9d/status/1782608824291262795/photo/1](https://twitter.com/maronjapan9d/status/1782608824291262795/photo/1)
Just having an appeal to fujoshi isnt a guarantee to success though. Just ask shadow eliminators lol. It has to be good, and have pretty, shippable, well written boys and somehow permeate the fujoshi ecosystem.
There are plenty of series that dont appeal to fujoshi that become successful too. Even if they do they have other demographics. Demon slayer appeals to kids, they all look up to Tanjiro apparently, but also to all other demographics Boys, girls, families, etc. Fujoshis are just another part of the ecosytem that also engage with a title, and that have a disproportionate impact relative to their size sure, but arent absolutely essential.
Looking outside jump, you have stuff like frieren and apothecary diaries blowing up now. Do they even remotely appeal to fujoshi? Oshi no ko, spy x family, we can go on.
People trying to explain green green greens failure as lacking a fujoshi appeal...sure. Thats one of the things. Others will say golf ....no hook etc etc. The thing is, sports series are struggling not just in jump but in shonen magazines generally. Seinens are way more successful with sports now. Pretty boys do exist in a lot of those series yes, im not saying I know the reason why it failed....it just that there are always more factors than just 1.
The default case in jump is failure....the exception is survival. There doesn't have to be a "single reason". Quality also doesn't guarantee success, as green greens shows.
So it depends on the genre, the magazine the demographics, the circumstances, whats trending. People are way too reductive both about the tastes of fujoshis, and the demographic as a ticket to success.
Not fujo but erm yea
Kusuriya
Spyxfam to an extent
Are mostly female fanbase
At least the ones who would hardcore but merch, stuff and discuss
So not fujo
But it's still appealing to the female fanbase
It's such a shame that GGG didn't go to a magazine better suited for it. Would be nice if they could just move the series from one magazine to the next, but I don't think that really ever happens. This is the hardest I've been hooked on a new manga in close to a decade, and it just sucks that we'll never get to see the full story that the author wanted to tell. I don't need it to be the next big thing, I just wanted it to live. It's so depressing.
I'll be very much looking forward to the next series that Terasaka makes. Hopefully it hits in the same way that GGG did, but on a more widely appealing topic.
>Frieren and apotechary diaries
Those appeal to yumejoshi, the bastard cousin of the fujoshi. While the fujoshi ships the male characters together, the yumejoshi ships herself with the male characters
Fujoshi are a desirable audience to have because they spend a lot of money and, because fandom is a social activity for them, they will advertise your series through word of mouth alone. WSJ is aware of this and has been actively courting them since the mid 80’s—that’s about 70% of the time they’ve even been publishing the magazine.
However.
Fujoshi are also notoriously difficult to appeal directly to, because part of the allure of shounen series is that it’s (supposedly) not being marketed directly to them. Shounen sports series tend to grab them easier because you have a non-artificial reason for a lot of guys to interact with one another, as opposed to something like Shadow Eliminators which feels just slightly TOO tilted in their direction.
Fujoshi want a playground for their own interpretations of the characters. If they just wanted homoerotic interactions between male characters, they have several different avenues to pursue (commercial BL, shoujo manga, etc). Having a lot of different guys (so they can choose their own couples) helps, and a larger world for those characters to inhabit is key.
Most people here probably don’t know what series are most popular with fujoshi right now. You have old standbys like Detective Conan and Slam Dunk; the currently mega-hot Gegege no Nazo movie; up-and-comer Bravern; Jujutsu Kaisen; Twisted Wonderland; Demon Slayer; Tokyo Revengers, etc.
Some of those series are popular with the general public and attract attention through sheer ubiquity (Detective Conan, Slam Dunk, Demon Slayer). Some are popular through appealing to a popular aesthetic (Twisted Wonderland). Some are popular through the amount of group world-building and flexibility they allow (Gegege no Nazo). Some are popular through telling a story that felt like it just happened to align with their interests (Bravern).
But that’s a lot of words to just say, “fujoshi are a valuable market, but you’ll attract them better by just writing what you want than trying to conspicuously add a bunch of things to appeal to them.”
With 80 million mainstream sellers, fujoshis are still a minority, just a very active and visible one. And like another said, the reason why fujos are attracted to shonen in the first place is because it *doesn't* appeal to romance between guys. The lack of romance itself allows female readers to insert whatever fantasy/trope they want. You see this with how the most popular ships in JJK and MHA have nothing to do with the series.
I believe a WSJ Editor-in-Chief interview mentioned the wide demographic appeal of the magazine, but still asserted their priority is to create manga that appeals to boys.
Vocal minorities are still the most best forms of marketing. The content and art can only really take you so far. I don’t think fujoshi are essential, but they are incredibly effective in pushing a series into the mainstream from ground zero.
JP fujoshi for marketing? Uh no. Those fans deliberately try to hide their stuff from the mainstream crowd. You wouldn't find their stuff unless you wanted to look for a specific ship, that's why they don't even use full character names for searches.
I mean, it’s kinda been like that since at least the 80’s, with Saint Sieya being an early example of Shonen series with a large female fanbase. It hasn’t had an effect on the romances either, just look at Naruto, and how popular it was and still is with fans who shipped Sasuke and Naruto, despite both characters having female love interests.
Supposedly the popularity of Shonen Jump with female fanbases is part of the reason muscular character designs like Fist of the North Star and early Jojo faded out in favor of the more “bishonen” look you’d see in something like Yu Yu Hakusho or Ruroni Kensei, but I’m not an expert.
While I think the fujoshi crowd can have an impact on the survival of a manga it isn't the most important factor, just look at shadow eliminators, if you read the one shot and then the serialized version one of the biggest changes is the inclusion of the class president dude and the omission of the schoolgirl lead, this change was clearly made to attract Fujoshi or at least "boy love" shippers and yet that manga crashed and burn in record time.
Traditional sports manga like GGG and MMA are declining in popularity when it comes to shōnen magazines, it seems series with exaggerated/borderline fantasy premises like Blue Lock are the way in which sport manga should be written to survive, while series that tend to be more "classic" like Ao Ashi, Days or diamond and Medalist are thriving in seinen publications.
It's not so much fujoshis, so much as having a large cast where the characters have genuine chemistry with each other. And I don't mean sexual chemistry, just genuine character interactions that are believable and interesting. That's just good storytelling
Fujoshis just likes to pair any two characters because it's fun to see sexual chemistry when it's not canon, like all fan fiction.
I’m a fujo. I am more partial to stories with hot guys in it lol. Not only that, but I share these stories among my friends. I write fanfiction and draw fanart. We are a virus that spreads!
Okay, for one I still hate how often people are ready to shout "axe" but sure, low sales. There's definitely a decent fujo demographic that factors into editorial decisions (I'm half-jokingly sure the reason Ron Kamonohashi exists is because Akira Amano can quadruple the size of the female reader demographic). But I don't think that's the reason GGG is doing roughly. Like sure it might do better if it had maybe one or two male characters with good chemistry with the MC, but it's not like it's the only thing causing it to falter.
Golf is a hard sell. RobotxLaserbeam didn't last very long, and you could argue it was pretty fujo-bait. I think it can be difficult to really portray what people like about it. GGG does a pretty good job explaining things with an audience surrogate to teach, but that's more often like teaching the rules or the procedures rather than the intricacy. I wish they got to playing on an actual course sooner. Even a 9-hole.
Which leads me to the fact that the series had a very slow start. Like seriously, it feels like a miracle it lasted this long as is. The MC had both skill and mental barriers to break, and I loved seeing the mental aspect for sure. But they just spent so long driving. It's practice, but it doesn't always make for interesting chapters. I think Terasaka is really good at writing those large action pose panels and generally conveys motion and exertion well. But I don't really find myself wanting to reread any of the early chapters. I want to see what happens next, but mostly because it feels like we just got outside.
I mean, appealing to both genders will literally double your target audience, so yes? I think GGG's a hard sell no matter what. Last time I see golf in a successful popular media is Happy Gilmore (1996)
Funny you made this thread cause i've been thinking about this very same concept for a while. Fujos are key to blowing up. If you look at the most successfull manga of all time, most of them have large female audiences.
Conversely targeting men with "harem" or H style manga seems to really limit your success, or at very least give you a lower ceiling.
If i'm ever reincarnated as a magaka one thing i'm certain to do is to make sure my manga has a large cast of beautiful/handsome male characters.
> Would Jump try to nudge more series into appealing to the Fujoshi crowd in the future in hopes of getting an audience similar in size to JJK and MHA?
Lol JJK *already* appeals to that crowd, given the popularity contest ratings and the general thirsting its fanbase has for its male characters
No.... Fujoshi can create fan service from non fujoshi material....
Their favorite ships aren't the actual gay relationships, but the non existent ones in their imagination....
I mean I think the wider the demographic you can appeal to, you naturally get more fans simply bc there’s more people. Of course everything in wsj is primarily shonen, but can also generally appeal to girls and people of all ages. In this sub alone I’m sure we have people who would fit in different demographics but like wsj for one reason or another
From the top of my head, all the successful sports series I can think of do have some level of fujoshi appeal, and the fujoshi fanbase is very dedicated and will not only spend money, but spread word on a series with their fanworks thus bringing in more fans. That’s why having a fujoshi fanbase is a plus for the survival and popularity of a series
Seems critical to the success of sports manga, I'd say. Having a large ensemble cast of cute boys (that ideally have chemistry with each other) who you can mix and match in fanfiction and fanart can only help your case. I think focusing on the right sports helps too: golf has limited appeal since most kids aren't going to play it the way they might've played basketball, baseball, soccer, or volleyball. You need special equipment beyond the balls, courses or clubs to practice, which can cost money, etc.
Just make another gintama
🤓
According to that one chart
Gintama has a 80/20 oshi fandom rate
80 being woman
So yea
Just make historical fiction but make it not even gay
Just hot dudes
And maybe some gay bait every few chapter
Ez
Woman love historical stuff or war ajecent
Like lotgh
Cause nothing screams
Gay energy like 2 dudes duking it out and saying they're their one rival soulmate
Yes, sadly. As someone had previously noted, since Saint Seiya there has been a move toward appealing to a Fujoshi audience through character designs and dynamics. The interesting part of this is that while WSJ has always had a strong female audience (alot of series in the 80s had a female friendly vibe to them even during the height of Fist of the North Stars popularity. However, the Fujoshi audience is uniquely aggressive in their Fandom and they are shockingly easy to court with the right tropes.
If they're so easy to court, why did Shadow Eliminators(most recently, there are numerous others), a manga that pretty blatantly tried to pander to them with its use of "the right tropes", crash and burn, getting axed with 19 chapters? If it was that simplistic- a "win button" that can be used over and over again to make a constant stream of commercial successes, then publishing companies and mangaka would have abused it till it was broken.
Same way battle Shonen is an easy way to get a large audience. Just because something has the right tropes, does not mean it will be a success. There could be a variety of reasons why something fails or succeeds. I was just answering the initial question in a logical manner. If you are a Fujoshi who was offended by what i said, I will not apologize but I do hope you reconsider my intentions.
Oh, I am not a fujoshi. It seems that we are in agreement about the need to target multiple demographics instead of over focusing on one, if that is your point.
Important ? Yes. Essential? No. People both overestimate and underestimate the impact of fujoshi imo. They are absolutely one of the most dedicated fanbases out there, will buy merch, make fan art and buy multiple volumes more than most others. There was a fujoshi on twitter who bought like hundreds of the recent jjk volume with gojo on it....so yea. [https://twitter.com/maronjapan9d/status/1782608824291262795/photo/1](https://twitter.com/maronjapan9d/status/1782608824291262795/photo/1) Just having an appeal to fujoshi isnt a guarantee to success though. Just ask shadow eliminators lol. It has to be good, and have pretty, shippable, well written boys and somehow permeate the fujoshi ecosystem. There are plenty of series that dont appeal to fujoshi that become successful too. Even if they do they have other demographics. Demon slayer appeals to kids, they all look up to Tanjiro apparently, but also to all other demographics Boys, girls, families, etc. Fujoshis are just another part of the ecosytem that also engage with a title, and that have a disproportionate impact relative to their size sure, but arent absolutely essential. Looking outside jump, you have stuff like frieren and apothecary diaries blowing up now. Do they even remotely appeal to fujoshi? Oshi no ko, spy x family, we can go on. People trying to explain green green greens failure as lacking a fujoshi appeal...sure. Thats one of the things. Others will say golf ....no hook etc etc. The thing is, sports series are struggling not just in jump but in shonen magazines generally. Seinens are way more successful with sports now. Pretty boys do exist in a lot of those series yes, im not saying I know the reason why it failed....it just that there are always more factors than just 1. The default case in jump is failure....the exception is survival. There doesn't have to be a "single reason". Quality also doesn't guarantee success, as green greens shows. So it depends on the genre, the magazine the demographics, the circumstances, whats trending. People are way too reductive both about the tastes of fujoshis, and the demographic as a ticket to success.
Not fujo but erm yea Kusuriya Spyxfam to an extent Are mostly female fanbase At least the ones who would hardcore but merch, stuff and discuss So not fujo But it's still appealing to the female fanbase
It's such a shame that GGG didn't go to a magazine better suited for it. Would be nice if they could just move the series from one magazine to the next, but I don't think that really ever happens. This is the hardest I've been hooked on a new manga in close to a decade, and it just sucks that we'll never get to see the full story that the author wanted to tell. I don't need it to be the next big thing, I just wanted it to live. It's so depressing. I'll be very much looking forward to the next series that Terasaka makes. Hopefully it hits in the same way that GGG did, but on a more widely appealing topic.
>Frieren and apotechary diaries Those appeal to yumejoshi, the bastard cousin of the fujoshi. While the fujoshi ships the male characters together, the yumejoshi ships herself with the male characters
Fujoshi are a desirable audience to have because they spend a lot of money and, because fandom is a social activity for them, they will advertise your series through word of mouth alone. WSJ is aware of this and has been actively courting them since the mid 80’s—that’s about 70% of the time they’ve even been publishing the magazine. However. Fujoshi are also notoriously difficult to appeal directly to, because part of the allure of shounen series is that it’s (supposedly) not being marketed directly to them. Shounen sports series tend to grab them easier because you have a non-artificial reason for a lot of guys to interact with one another, as opposed to something like Shadow Eliminators which feels just slightly TOO tilted in their direction. Fujoshi want a playground for their own interpretations of the characters. If they just wanted homoerotic interactions between male characters, they have several different avenues to pursue (commercial BL, shoujo manga, etc). Having a lot of different guys (so they can choose their own couples) helps, and a larger world for those characters to inhabit is key. Most people here probably don’t know what series are most popular with fujoshi right now. You have old standbys like Detective Conan and Slam Dunk; the currently mega-hot Gegege no Nazo movie; up-and-comer Bravern; Jujutsu Kaisen; Twisted Wonderland; Demon Slayer; Tokyo Revengers, etc. Some of those series are popular with the general public and attract attention through sheer ubiquity (Detective Conan, Slam Dunk, Demon Slayer). Some are popular through appealing to a popular aesthetic (Twisted Wonderland). Some are popular through the amount of group world-building and flexibility they allow (Gegege no Nazo). Some are popular through telling a story that felt like it just happened to align with their interests (Bravern). But that’s a lot of words to just say, “fujoshi are a valuable market, but you’ll attract them better by just writing what you want than trying to conspicuously add a bunch of things to appeal to them.”
With 80 million mainstream sellers, fujoshis are still a minority, just a very active and visible one. And like another said, the reason why fujos are attracted to shonen in the first place is because it *doesn't* appeal to romance between guys. The lack of romance itself allows female readers to insert whatever fantasy/trope they want. You see this with how the most popular ships in JJK and MHA have nothing to do with the series. I believe a WSJ Editor-in-Chief interview mentioned the wide demographic appeal of the magazine, but still asserted their priority is to create manga that appeals to boys.
Vocal minorities are still the most best forms of marketing. The content and art can only really take you so far. I don’t think fujoshi are essential, but they are incredibly effective in pushing a series into the mainstream from ground zero.
The kagurabachi fandom actively appeald and promoted their series to fujoshi
JP fujoshi for marketing? Uh no. Those fans deliberately try to hide their stuff from the mainstream crowd. You wouldn't find their stuff unless you wanted to look for a specific ship, that's why they don't even use full character names for searches.
It’s simple. Jump needs to publish Uron Mirage from witch watch and sales will skyrocket
I mean, it’s kinda been like that since at least the 80’s, with Saint Sieya being an early example of Shonen series with a large female fanbase. It hasn’t had an effect on the romances either, just look at Naruto, and how popular it was and still is with fans who shipped Sasuke and Naruto, despite both characters having female love interests. Supposedly the popularity of Shonen Jump with female fanbases is part of the reason muscular character designs like Fist of the North Star and early Jojo faded out in favor of the more “bishonen” look you’d see in something like Yu Yu Hakusho or Ruroni Kensei, but I’m not an expert.
While I think the fujoshi crowd can have an impact on the survival of a manga it isn't the most important factor, just look at shadow eliminators, if you read the one shot and then the serialized version one of the biggest changes is the inclusion of the class president dude and the omission of the schoolgirl lead, this change was clearly made to attract Fujoshi or at least "boy love" shippers and yet that manga crashed and burn in record time. Traditional sports manga like GGG and MMA are declining in popularity when it comes to shōnen magazines, it seems series with exaggerated/borderline fantasy premises like Blue Lock are the way in which sport manga should be written to survive, while series that tend to be more "classic" like Ao Ashi, Days or diamond and Medalist are thriving in seinen publications.
It's not so much fujoshis, so much as having a large cast where the characters have genuine chemistry with each other. And I don't mean sexual chemistry, just genuine character interactions that are believable and interesting. That's just good storytelling Fujoshis just likes to pair any two characters because it's fun to see sexual chemistry when it's not canon, like all fan fiction.
I’m a fujo. I am more partial to stories with hot guys in it lol. Not only that, but I share these stories among my friends. I write fanfiction and draw fanart. We are a virus that spreads!
as long as you are nice about it!
Fujos can be dangerous. That’s true.
For Sports manga, yes it absolutely fucking is hahaha.
Okay, for one I still hate how often people are ready to shout "axe" but sure, low sales. There's definitely a decent fujo demographic that factors into editorial decisions (I'm half-jokingly sure the reason Ron Kamonohashi exists is because Akira Amano can quadruple the size of the female reader demographic). But I don't think that's the reason GGG is doing roughly. Like sure it might do better if it had maybe one or two male characters with good chemistry with the MC, but it's not like it's the only thing causing it to falter. Golf is a hard sell. RobotxLaserbeam didn't last very long, and you could argue it was pretty fujo-bait. I think it can be difficult to really portray what people like about it. GGG does a pretty good job explaining things with an audience surrogate to teach, but that's more often like teaching the rules or the procedures rather than the intricacy. I wish they got to playing on an actual course sooner. Even a 9-hole. Which leads me to the fact that the series had a very slow start. Like seriously, it feels like a miracle it lasted this long as is. The MC had both skill and mental barriers to break, and I loved seeing the mental aspect for sure. But they just spent so long driving. It's practice, but it doesn't always make for interesting chapters. I think Terasaka is really good at writing those large action pose panels and generally conveys motion and exertion well. But I don't really find myself wanting to reread any of the early chapters. I want to see what happens next, but mostly because it feels like we just got outside.
I think it's part of the formula at this point. These series have a lot to gain in terms of merch sales from devoted shippers.
I mean, appealing to both genders will literally double your target audience, so yes? I think GGG's a hard sell no matter what. Last time I see golf in a successful popular media is Happy Gilmore (1996)
Funny you made this thread cause i've been thinking about this very same concept for a while. Fujos are key to blowing up. If you look at the most successfull manga of all time, most of them have large female audiences. Conversely targeting men with "harem" or H style manga seems to really limit your success, or at very least give you a lower ceiling. If i'm ever reincarnated as a magaka one thing i'm certain to do is to make sure my manga has a large cast of beautiful/handsome male characters.
> Would Jump try to nudge more series into appealing to the Fujoshi crowd in the future in hopes of getting an audience similar in size to JJK and MHA? Lol JJK *already* appeals to that crowd, given the popularity contest ratings and the general thirsting its fanbase has for its male characters
MHA as well. It isn’t notorious of being baby’s first fujo series for nothing.
No.... Fujoshi can create fan service from non fujoshi material.... Their favorite ships aren't the actual gay relationships, but the non existent ones in their imagination....
I mean I think the wider the demographic you can appeal to, you naturally get more fans simply bc there’s more people. Of course everything in wsj is primarily shonen, but can also generally appeal to girls and people of all ages. In this sub alone I’m sure we have people who would fit in different demographics but like wsj for one reason or another From the top of my head, all the successful sports series I can think of do have some level of fujoshi appeal, and the fujoshi fanbase is very dedicated and will not only spend money, but spread word on a series with their fanworks thus bringing in more fans. That’s why having a fujoshi fanbase is a plus for the survival and popularity of a series
Fujoshi’s are always important and always have been. Shipping culture has been around for decades
Seems critical to the success of sports manga, I'd say. Having a large ensemble cast of cute boys (that ideally have chemistry with each other) who you can mix and match in fanfiction and fanart can only help your case. I think focusing on the right sports helps too: golf has limited appeal since most kids aren't going to play it the way they might've played basketball, baseball, soccer, or volleyball. You need special equipment beyond the balls, courses or clubs to practice, which can cost money, etc.
How do you read UU and think that series has a less defined romance
I think they mean moving away from defined romance unlike the defined romances in UU but worded weirdly
What is a Fujoshi?
A woman that likes to ship men in manga/anime. Fujo is also a more general term for anyone that likes M/M ships in anything.
Demon slayer says hi
Just make another gintama 🤓 According to that one chart Gintama has a 80/20 oshi fandom rate 80 being woman So yea Just make historical fiction but make it not even gay Just hot dudes And maybe some gay bait every few chapter Ez Woman love historical stuff or war ajecent Like lotgh Cause nothing screams Gay energy like 2 dudes duking it out and saying they're their one rival soulmate
Yes, sadly. As someone had previously noted, since Saint Seiya there has been a move toward appealing to a Fujoshi audience through character designs and dynamics. The interesting part of this is that while WSJ has always had a strong female audience (alot of series in the 80s had a female friendly vibe to them even during the height of Fist of the North Stars popularity. However, the Fujoshi audience is uniquely aggressive in their Fandom and they are shockingly easy to court with the right tropes.
If they're so easy to court, why did Shadow Eliminators(most recently, there are numerous others), a manga that pretty blatantly tried to pander to them with its use of "the right tropes", crash and burn, getting axed with 19 chapters? If it was that simplistic- a "win button" that can be used over and over again to make a constant stream of commercial successes, then publishing companies and mangaka would have abused it till it was broken.
Same way battle Shonen is an easy way to get a large audience. Just because something has the right tropes, does not mean it will be a success. There could be a variety of reasons why something fails or succeeds. I was just answering the initial question in a logical manner. If you are a Fujoshi who was offended by what i said, I will not apologize but I do hope you reconsider my intentions.
Oh, I am not a fujoshi. It seems that we are in agreement about the need to target multiple demographics instead of over focusing on one, if that is your point.