Girls Want Flowers, Boys Want Swords

There are several bloggers lamenting the lack of sophistication of manga buyers in the USA. We're not seeing sales outside of the Shounen and Shoujo genres, which are two areas readers eventually grow out of.

Of course, with BL I find readers from jr. high to retirement homes. The eroticism satisfies a drive that doesn't dissipate all that much with age. That said, how many 30 year olds continue reading works like Card Captor Sakura? The thought is that older readers leave manga for other forms of entertainment, never discovering the thought-provoking works that would satisfy their intellectual growth.

I see something happening here that I've noticed before. Younger people are being attracted to the gender-specific manga and anime 'candy' because this candy is no longer available in other mediums.

It stems from the change in North American children cartoons. They've stopped targeting a specific gender for their audience. Shows like 'Strawberry Shortcake' got replaced by 'Fairly Odd Parents,' 'GI Joe' got bumped for 'Courage the Cowardly Dog.'

I'm convinced this shift has the goal of preventing children from being pigeon-holed into societal roles that might stifle them. Boys shouldn't have to be macho, and girls shouldn't have to be dainty, etc. This is well-meaning enough, but the fact is: Girls want flowers, and boys want swords.

The cartoons from Canada and the US weren't meeting their needs. Japanese anime was. The cartoons for girls are flowery and poofy enough to make any modern child psychologist block them from the TV set. The boy shows are a bit less macho than the ones from my generation, but still has the hero(s) kicking ass and taking names.

Anime that separated the genders is indeed the gateway to manga. I believe the North American manga boom correlates with the 'gender-neutral' cartoon trend. Although I did read the Ranma floppies from Viz when I was a girl, it wasn't because my girly needs weren't already being met by cartoons like Jem and Rainbow Brite. (Ranma and Donna Barr's 'Desert Peach' comic was the closest thing to yaoi I could find in the 1980s, actually).

This doesn't change the pessimistic outlook for future manga. I just feel it should be noted. If it weren't for the shounen and shoujo candy consumers there wouldn't be any manga-boom at all. Also, so long as our cartoon makers keep with their current agenda there will always be a need for gender-specific fiction. The decline in sales will be seen in the stagnating population growth. Fewer new kids to replace the ones that grow out of the stuff, but still--an audience.