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Comment by Merem | Hacker News Reader

> Shoujo manga is not popularized / suppressed by the western community.

Really, do you have some numbers? Here in Germany, Shoujo/Shounen Ai are the most popular genres. I would imagine that those are pretty popular in France as well for example.

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Almost no one besides the publishers have numbers, but it is rare for more than 1 or 2 (probably sailor moon or fruits basket) shoujo books to be in the Amazon top 100 manga titles at a time. And that cool Josei title everyone is talking about was no where near that list.

When the Manga boom was at it's height in the US (like 2005 or so) IIRC the consumers of Manga were something like almost 60% women or girls, and I doubt it has changed drastically. And while I remember Peach Girl and Nana and Hana Yori Dango (and the aforementioned fruits basket!) being popular at the time, I don't think they were 60% of the sales. And Shoujo is less successful in the US today than 15 years ago.

(There are plenty of theories for why, elaborated elsewhere.)

I do not have the numbers unfortunately, this is just my impression from being in New York. I know that some of my female friends feel forced to read stuff like One Piece (which is great) to fit in with the "community". I don't know how it is in Europe but I would suspect that it's still male dominated with shoujo/shounen ai being maybe 30% of sales if at that? I'm pretty sure here in the US it's like 15%.

Absolutely not. I unfortunately don't have sales numbers like it's the case in Japan but the Shoujo/Shounen Ai/Yaoi manga consistently rank very well. If you aren't into those, going to a bookstore is basically pointless since they occupy most of the shelf space. As an example, the top 20 Tokyopop manga in the month of March 2019 [1] had 8 Shoujo, 4 Shounen-Ai/Yaoi, 5 Other and 3 non-defined in it with one Yaoi manga selling the most. It wouldn't surprise me if the sales are actually around 65-70% of the total number, and that's with One Piece still being around.

[1] https://www.japaniac.de/tokyopops-meistverkaufte-manga-im-ma...

Here is also the top 15 of 2017 for KAZÉ (the covers say it all): https://www.anime2you.de/news/183746/die-top-15-meistverkauf...

Hmm I guess I'm wrong, or maybe Germany is just different. Do you know if that's reflected in the overall community including piracy? Do people in Germany not like Attack on Titan and One Piece?

How does your source compare with this: https://www.amazon.de/gp/bestsellers/books/698198

The list is about what I'd expect with mostly shounen near the top but there is decent yaoi representation. Not a single what I would consider normal shoujo though.

American: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Manga/zgbs/...

I would say this more about reflects my guess. 30% for the DE site and 15% for the American one.

Hm, it would be a hard guess but in my opinion, readers of Shounen likely read the manga online on some reader or website (at least comparatively more than Shoujo fans). As mentioned in the earlier post, One Piece is absolutely relevant, being the last one of the Big Three still ongoing. SnK is ok, as are other Shounen. Sword Art Online is weirdly popular, although it's hard to classify that as Shounen/Shoujo, it attracts a rather large female audience for some reason.

I wouldn't necessarily give an Amazon list too much weight. Bookstores here in Germany are everywhere and people like to buy there, especially because you can take a quick look into the manga you are buying. So the lists from publishers tend to be worth more. The good part about the Amazon bestseller list is that it includes Carlsen manga where I couldn't find any info from the publisher regarding sales.

Another publisher I couldn't find anything on is Egmont Manga. The list for spring 2019 says it all though: https://www.egmont-manga.de/fruehjahr-2019/

So no, 30% is definitely wrong.

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