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Periphery Demographic / Anime & Manga

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Periphery Demographic in Anime & Manga.


  • Fist of the North Star has a fandom that consists overwhelmingly of adults not only in the West but even in its homeland Japan despite the original manga being a Shonen series. This can be attributed to a combination of its relatively dark and brutal setting (even for a Shonen series being released in the Showa era, when censorship was relatively light), its mainstream popularity back in its original release, and its age (as most of its fans who were following it when it was still being published in Shonen Jump would now be in their 30s). Having plenty of brutal, gory battles and a complex relationship between the protagonist Kenshiro and the main villain for half the story Raoh cause it to reach Seinen levels of themes. It's so brutal that, even in modern Japan, bookstores hesitate to place Fist of the North Star in the Shonen section and it's quite common to see it placed in Seinen sections or other demographics aimed at adults. And all recent releases in the franchise, in particular Fist of the Blue Sky (which was written by the manga's original authors, Hara and Burunson), have been officially classified as Seinen and have been published in magazines aimed at adult audiences.
  • The bishounen cast of Gundam Wing was created specifically to attract female viewers, something mecha series typically lacked at the time. It worked, and nowadays it's rare for a mecha series not to have a Bishounen in the main cast. As for Gundam, with the partial exception of ∀ Gundam every show since Wing up until Iron Blooded Orphans followed the "pretty boys in mecha" formula.
    • Also used quite obviously in Code Geass
      • And taken to its logical conclusion with Star Driver, whose protagonist actually carries the title "Ginga Bishonen" ("Galactic Pretty-Boy").
      • Worth noting is that Gundam Wing was essentially the next logical step up from "pretty boys in armor" shows like Saint Seiya which likewise attracted female fans to Shonen fighting anime with attractive male leads; in fact, much of Wing's staff previously worked together on Ronin Warriors, another such series with a well-known demographic of female fans.
    • Loran Cehack, the protagonist of Turn A, crossdresses several times throughout, making a convincing enough girl.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, on the other hand, while also markedly different from previous series for having a female lead duo and aimed at teenagers, has also attracted LGBTQ viewers due to the series teasing the romance between Suletta Mercury and Miorine Rembran.
    • In Universal Century Garma, Quattro and Kamille are just as bishounen as Gundam Wing's main cast.
  • The Rose of Versailles has a substantial fanbase of men and older people who enjoy it for the drama of the 18th century and the charismatic Lady Oscar, though the original manga was aimed at teenage girls.
  • Sailor Moon:
    • Sailor Moon, which was aimed at a young female demographic but had a large male fandom. It still does, to the point where Hot Topic is selling male-specific Sailor Moon t-shirts.
    • The franchise also has a very large adult female fanbase. It's big enough that a lot of the merchandise for the 20th anniversary revival is clearly aimed at adult women, with items ranging from expensive makeup sets to Sailor Moon-themed bras and panties. Which makes sense. Given how popular the show was in the early 90's, there's likely a large number of women who fondly remember it from their childhood. Driving that home, a popular women's magazine in Japan actually held a high profile premier party for Sailor Moon Crystal, with men barred from attending unless they were brought by their wives, girlfriends, or female friends.
  • Black Butler:
    • Black Butler is labeled as Shōnen but seems to have more female fans due to the large amount of Bishōnen lurking among the crew. Not to mention all the Ho Yay.
    • The fact that Grell is Transgender helps for some people, particularly trans people looking for representation. Ditto for Haruhi from Ouran High School Host Club (see below), who comes off as genderfluid (she's more comfortable in masculine clothing, and seems to be pretty indifferent in regards to her own gender).
  • In another strange example, the "main target" of Pretty Cure is said to be females ages 4-12... and males ages 16-35. It's telling that the director of the original series, Futari wa Pretty Cure, has Dragon Ball Z on his resume. There's also blatant Yuri subtext between the two main characters that would go over the heads of younger viewers.
    • This is especially noticeable in the 2010 HeartCatch Pretty Cure!. Every episode has magical girl kung-fu fighting that rivals some Shounen fighting anime aired at the same time.
    • There are, some Periphery Demographic outside those demographics. According to Youtube, the viewership of the intros of the series has significant portion of men aged 35-55, way above what it was originally meant to. According to Deviantart, large amount of fanart drawers for the series are adult women.
    • The show's popularity with adult women was also acknowledged with Deluxe Make Up sets resembling the Smile Pact from Smile Pretty Cure!.
  • Happens to many series created by CLAMP, an artistic collective that primarly makes manga aimed towards girls, however...
    • CLAMP's X1999 is a shoujo series, yet its themes of humanitarianism, environmentalism and dualism, as well as its heavy doses of action, violence, death and other dark themes makes it very often mistaken for shonen or even seinen, and is popular among boys as well as girls.
    • Magic Knight Rayearth is a shoujo Magical Girl Warrior series about three girls that save a High Fantasy land with magical powers, frilly skirts... And Giant Robots. It has a considerably large male fanbase, most of them from the Mecha fandom. In Latin America, where the show was a big success, is one of the most beloved Shoujo anime among men, even by many diehard shonen fans. Part of the appeal is that while it looks like a typical 90's Magical Girl Warrior series, is mostly a Eastern RPG tribute with some Super Robot thrown in it.
      • The Mecha fandom that liked Rayearth also happen to be part of Super Robot Wars, and so the show ends up often being requested to enter the massive mecha crossover series, but it never made it there until Super Robot Wars T, 20+ years after the show finished airing (either CLAMP was pretty defensive on their 100% properties (unlike Code Geass, which was directed by Sunrise) or it didn't pass Banpresto's 'requirement' level, until Super Robot Wars X-Ω lowered their standards).
    • Cardcaptor Sakura is squarely aimed at young girls, but it's still well regarded by male anime fans who enjoy the lighthearted story with mixes of comedy, romance and action. You also have yaoi fangirls watching it for the pretty boys, older women who grew up watching it as kids, and a very strong LGBT fanbase.
    • Chobits is aimed towards adult men (having a fair amount of Fanservice and mature themes), but the romantic story and the character development make it very popular among younger female anime fans, and Chii, with her fantasy lolita wardrobe, is a girls-favorite cosplay.
  • GaoGaiGar was the final entry of the Braves series by Sunrise, and as such, aimed at children. The show didn't do very well with the main demographic, but was a smash hit with the older otaku who had grown up with the likes of Getter Robo. The same happened in the U.S., where the fanbase is almost entirely adult mecha-lovers. Oddly enough, the sequel OVA series, GaoGaiGar FINAL tried to bank on the older demographic with more fanservice and violence, and wasn't quite as well-received.
  • An anime series of Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics on Youtube has developed quite a significant teenaged and young adult fanbase — the demographic that has outgrown finding Happily Ever After satisfying but grown into finding the prince climbing out of the princess' bed fully-dressed hilarious.
  • Sports anime and manga like The Prince of Tennis, Kuroko's Basketball, Eyeshield 21, Big Windup!, and Yowamushi Pedal are shonen yet their fandoms consist almost entirely of screaming fangirls. Actually, pretty much all sports anime and manga is shonen and 9 out of 10 times there will be an all-male cast. Is it any wonder why this genre is the most popular one among female otaku in Japan? The Prince of Tennis even has Otome Game spinoffs!
  • Cutey Honey was a dyed-in-the-wool seinen superhero sci-fi series. The more tame TV series actually attracted younger female viewers, who by this time had equated her with their more familar Magical Girl, who themselves might have been inspired by her. Go Nagai admitted this side fandom surprised him, given the amount of racy humor in the original work. Re: Cutie Honey which upped the Les Yay between Natsuko and Honey gave the show a notable Lesbian fanbase as well.
    • Because of this, there was a spinoff series called Cutey Honey Flash, made by the same staff as Sailor Moon, aimed directly at a female audience.
      • Cutey Honey has sort of became an icon of feminine beauty in Japan, appearing in advertisements for things like weight loss drinks.
    • In general, a lot of fans are also into it because of their loyalty towarads Go Nagai, cameos from his other shows like Devilman certainly helping.
  • Digimon originally started out as a boys' alternative to Tamagotchi, but over the years has gained a massive teenage and adult fanbase of both genders, thanks to the anime's strong, mature and clever writing, as well as the more fanservice-y designs of some of the more humanoid Mons. Tamers is a common fan favorite among this audience due to its Darker and Edgier storyline.
    • It's also fairly common for most Digimon fanfics these days to have the human characters be in their late teens or adults rather than kids.
    • Bandai and Toei seemed to take notice of this after the franchise's popularity with kids started to fade and their recent incarnations, including the games, Digimon Adventure tri. and Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna have been marketed towards older teens and adult fans who grew up with the original series.
    • It works the other way around, too - its aforementioned female counterpart Tamagotchi (both the toys and the TV show) has several male and adult (and adult male) fans.
  • Hello! Sandybell is a show aimed at little girls, and has amassed a following of male fans for being comfy Sweet Dreams Fuel with an engaging plot and fair share of shocking moments. Part of this also comes from nostalgia, as it was part of many European and Mexican children's childhoods during The '80s.
  • One Piece is really, really popular with girls and women. It might have something to do with the ludicrously masculine male characters. According to this chart, there are more 50+ year old than people aged under 18 reading it.
    • May also have to do with One Piece being remarkably progressive, gender-wise, for a Shonen series. While there is still some disturbing characterization (Brook, we're looking at you!), the show compares very favorably to shows that attract far more accusations of sexism.
  • Naruto also has quite a large female fanbase, probably because the series includes several strong female characters, such as Sakura, Tsunade and Konan, and how a lot of the male characters are quite attractive good-looking, specifically Sasuke, Itachi, Kakashi, Gaara, Sasori, Deidara and Minato.
  • Bleach has quite a large female fanbase, probably because almost the entire cast is good-looking (both male and female) and the male characters suffer a gratuitous amount of Clothing Damage. And also the Ho Yay.
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is a weird example in that (possibly because of production team and copious amounts of Fanservice and suspiciously sexual things) a large number of people don't even realize that it was targeted to a younger audience with an early Sunday timeslot. There's also the fact that the American broadcast wasn't as it aired at 11 PM Pacific time on Mondays and the dub had a moderate amount of profanity.
  • Spotted Flower, a Josei manga chronicling the life of a hard working Husband taking care of his pregnant Wife; this work also happens to be a Spiritual Successor (if not a Sequel itself, see the page) to Genshiken, a Seinen seires; cue to males following a manga aimed to adult women.
  • One of the biggest foundations of Hetalia: Axis Powers is the Ho Yay among the Moe Anthropomorphisms of several countries, which the more history-based fans often find... weird. Hetalia is an odd case in that it started off as a webcomic, with no real demographic in mind. It's a Seinen manga by default, as it was picked up for serialization in the Seinen monthly magazine, Comic Birz.
  • The anime for K-On!, a moe series aimed at otaku, became so popular with young girls that it also airs on the Japanese Disney Channel, right alongside Hamtaro and Gakuen Alice.
    • Ditto for Love Live!. Some of the merchandise says it's intended for ages six and up (mainly the chocolate wafers collection) and in one of the recordings of the live concerts for Love Live! Sunshine!! (HAPPY PARTY TRAIN TOUR), when they cut to the audience, you can occasionally see a young girl or two with their parents. And in some countries, Love Live! is a kids' show: in Taiwan, it airs on the same channel as PriPara and is featured in Angel, a girl's magazine covering popular things for girls like My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Pretty Cure and Disney.
      • While Love Live! is firmly aimed at a male audience in Japan, outside of Japan it has a huge female following, much of it not exactly heterosexual; many of these girls and women aspire to sing, and some arguably match the quality of the original. Russian-speaking fandom is nearly exclusively female. It helps that the characters were originally designed by a female writer in Sakurako Kimino, who was also the creator of Strawberry Panic!. In addition, the series itself is fairly light on Male Gaze relative to other Idol Singer franchises, to the point fans unaware of the main demographic for the genre would see it as a typical girls' series.
  • Trigun (Shonen) and Trigun Maximum (Seinen) is very popular with women, something even the author has noted, likely due to the very attractive male characters and realistic and relatable female characters that aren't sexualized. Most fanart for the series, especially in Japan, is either BL slash or "cute guys doing cute things". This goes doubly so for the author's other shonen manga Blood Blockade Battlefront, which seemed to milk this for all its worth by having officially licensed body pillows of all things.
  • Rurouni Kenshin owes much of its success to female fans, despite being an often-violent action series published in an anthology aimed squarely at boys. The show's title character, a soft-spoken, gentle Bishōnen with a hidden, more violent dark side, most likely helped. The well-written romance between him and the female lead most likely helped too, especially since it was one of the few Shōnen manga relationships that had real development and a definite resolution, while most shonen couples get bogged down in an eternal game of "will they or won't they?". When the Kenshin movie premiered in Japan, something like 2/3rds of ticket-buyers were female — which was roughly the exact opposite of the gender split for a Shonen Jump film at the time.
  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba:
    • The series is an action-packed Shonen Jump title meant for preteen and teen boys which certainly delivers on the action, but the male cast (which is the majority by far) are quite handsome men of varying tastes who manage to stay beautiful either when delivering major and gruesome beatdowns or being on the receiving end of one. It has a sizeable female fanbase in Japan, resulting in most of the fan works being about the handsome dudes being even more fabulous to flat out being Yaoi pieces. At the other end of the spectrum, there are beautiful female characters as well, but they're generally outnumbered by the male characters.
    • There's also a surprisingly large number of children in Japan who are even younger than the target demographic who enjoy the series, despite how violent it can get. This contributed greatly to the record-smashing opening of the movie sequel in 2020. There was even a poll that revealed that some kids (mostly little girls) admire the main protagonist Tanjiro more than their own parents. Due to this, Bandai and Takara Tomy have made children's toys based on the series, including toy replicas of the swords seen on the show, fashion accessories and toy smartphones.
  • Go to any anime group on Facebook, especially some groups that focuses on English dubs, and you'll find parents saying that their kids enjoyed anime that are above their demographic like My Hero Academia, Naruto, Fairy Tail, One Piece and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.
  • While Azumanga Daioh is aimed at the high-school crowd, it has a fair number of fans who have been out of school for quite a while, leading to confusion for seinen and What Do You Mean, It's for Kids? in some circles.
  • A fair number of guys like Fruits Basket. While they don't really care about the bishonen aspect, the story is well-structured enough for them to care, and its humor is pretty much universal. It doesn't hurt that the female characters are well developed and cute to boot, while the male leads Kyo and Yuki have a rivalry not unfamiliar to shonen audiences to the point where they almost act like they're a Genre Refugee duo with Kyo's Hot-Blooded tendencies and Yuki's The Stoic attitude. Even the female supporting duo Arisa and Saki have their male fans due to the former's Japanese Delinquents background and the latter's cute Goth girl aesthetic.
  • Since it's been out of style with little kids since about 2004, Yu-Gi-Oh!'s current fandom is composed almost entirely of teenagers and young adults for its surprisingly complex and layered storytelling that younger audiences may not be able to grasp.
  • Lady!! and it's anime adaptations Lady Lady and Hello! Lady Lynn are Shōjo stories about a little girl assimilating to her new life as an English noble. In the author commentary of the final volume of the manga, Yōko Hanabusa mentioned that she would hear groups of young boys sing the theme songs of the anime, finding it amusing since the series was planned with little girls in mind.
  • Lyrical Nanoha is an interesting case, taking the usual Periphery Demographic for Magical Girl series (16-35 year old men) and creating the series to appeal to them specifically. Even so, there are quite a few younger girls who enjoy it. So the "normal" demographic for Magical Girl shows is the Periphery Demographic for this one? *head explodes*
  • Ranma ½ is a shonen series meaning it is supposed to be popular for teenage boys. In Japan, according to and surprising creator Rumiko Takahashi, it was more popular amongst girls than guys and Animerica in the year 2000 said that it increased the number of female readers in the American manga market.
    • In fact, most of Takahashi's works count. She is a shonen author, and most of her series are a mix of action and comedy with a male protagonist surrounded by impossibly attractive girls in fanservice-ish outfits, but as she is a woman, the female characters are more than eye-candy and are well-rounded characters with actual ambitions and personalities and often take a central role in the story, they are also physically strong and quite skilled in battle. The series of Takahashi also features a lot of romance and gags that are enjoyed by males and females alike, and because of that, her series are extremely popular amongst women and that sure had helped her to become one of the best selling manga authors of all time.
  • Slayers is shonen, but it has a very dedicated female following, largely due to the Ship Teasing and female protagonist.
  • Reborn! (2004) is also a shonen series, but a fairly large minority of its readers are Yaoi Fangirls. The WAY too many bishounen characters in that series help, and yet it's adding more. Well, you can't make a show about a teenage boy who spends most of the first season running around in his underwear without atracting at least some female fans. Rebocon is a concert dedicated for this series; if you watch the video you will only hear girls screaming.
  • If you just look at the title of Maid-Sama! (The Student Council President Is A Maid!), it sounds like a moe series aimed at the male otaku crowd. In fact, it's a Shoujo series about the female student council president of a formerly all-boys school who has to work at a maid cafe to help her family put food on the table and attracts the attention of the school's resident bishounen. This doesn't stop guys from watching it, though. The series' equal focus on romance and wacky humor, not to mention the attractive female lead and likeable male lead, attract plenty of male fans.
    • The trope also carries over to the story's protagonist Misaki, as a character of the discipline-class Tsundere archetype who went through heaploads of Character Development thanks to her interactions with the rest of the cast, moreso with Usui.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi can be loosely described as a Harem Comedy-turned-fighting manga, with loads of fanservice and moe. The fanbase in Japan is 60% female, with a not-insignificant chunk being preteen girls. This makes more sense if you know the series. Starting from about the same time as the Genre Shift, Ken Akamatsu, the creator, began adding little hints of Ho Yay to the series. Whether this was a result of the Periphery Demographic or the cause of it is extremely debatable.
  • One Stormy Night: While the book and film were aimed at a family audience, the 2005 film gained a bigger following with teens and young adults in the west, mainly with the furry fandom, anime community, and especially the LGBT community.
  • Princess Tutu is about as girly as a Shōjo can get, but has nonetheless developed an adult male following that heralds it as an metafictional epic whose awesomeness can only be compared to ninjas engaged in a rock battle — Hence it's Fan Nickname: Guitar Ninjas.
  • Emma: A Victorian Romance is, rather surprisingly, a seinen series, but it enjoys attention from all other demographics. A great deal of the interest in the show is in the fact that it's a show about a maid, but it's not a Meido show.
  • Maria Watches Over Us is officially shoujo, as the original light novels are aimed at a female audience and the manga adaptation ran in the shoujo magazine Margaret, and its melodramatic tone is also fairly common to shoujo works. But due to its heavy Yuri undertones, it also has a strong fanbase of adult male Yuri Fans, to the point that the anime adaptation first aired at Otaku O'Clock. The author herself has satirized this phenomenon many times in the story. This even crosses into Multiple Demographic Appeal, as evident with the OVA release. The ending song was also performed by KOTOKO, who is known for performing opening and ending of Eroge aimed at men.
  • Hamtaro is a Kodomomuke series but it still has a significant teenage and adult female fanbase.
  • Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt has a rather significant female fanbase, despite it very obviously pandering to guys; Panty and Stocking are seen as good feminist icons by some, because they're both badass without falling into the "we can't portray any females with flaws, lest it be a bad representation of women" cliche, they're badass, they never have to be saved by men, and Panty's obsession with sex is only portrayed as bad because it gets in the way of her work (and because she has terrible taste in men), not because sex itself is inherently bad. Panty and Stocking are also sisters who worry about each other, and enjoy hanging out with each other.
  • Chi's Sweet Home was originally a Seinen manga. Since Ridiculously Cute Critter was in play, it seems to attract pretty much any audience.
  • Nobuyuki Fukumoto, who writes series geared at adult men with a rather unusual artstyle, has a surprisingly big female fanbase. This may be due to the infamous lack of female characters in his work, which provides fodder for Yaoi Fangirls. And, of course, Kaiji is Moe.
  • Viz mentioned that Tiger & Bunny is intended for 14-25-year old males. This brought on many laughs from the rather large, very female fandom that's formed around it. It's also very popular with Bara Genre Guys.
  • Speaking of the madness of female fans, Inazuma Eleven falls victim for this trope hard. How hard? Consider this: in Pixiv (kinda like DeviantArt, but Japanese), a separate tag was made just to separate the more risque, fujoshi-oriented Inazuma Eleven pictures from the ones that the target audience can look at. Statistically speaking, the risque pictures comprise more than 20% of all Inazuma Eleven illustrations submitted to Pixiv.
  • Still on Pixiv, Nintama Rantarou, of all anime, also has its own separate tag for exactly the same reason. You'd never guess that from the content of the anime, which is day to day adventure of a band of goofy Ninja kids. Maybe it's the women who watched it in their childhood.
  • Pani Poni Dash! was quite popular for children, despite aiming for the more cultural audience to get the pop culture reference. It does help how crazy and all over the place the anime is, though, which would guarantee tons of laughs.
  • Kanamemo has its share of female fans appreciating the yuri context for the sake of cuteness.
  • Ouran High School Host Club, despite being a bishonen-ridden reverse-harem series, is well-written and hilarious enough to attract a sizeable male audience as well. Another appealing aspect is that the female protagonist is a cute but sensible girl who's refreshingly more realistic than most shoujo heroines and how much focus and development is given on the host club members.
  • The household name boy-targeted game/card animes: Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Digimon, Beyblade, Bakugan, and ESPECIALLY Cardfight!! Vanguard have large amounts of female fans who either watch it for the bishounen or the bishounen getting naughty. This would explain all the fanfiction on Fanfiction.net. Although other reasons are on this page, this one is to explain why teenage girls watch young boy anime.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a weird example. Like the Nanoha example above, it took the cutesy character designs (by Hidamari Sketch's own Ume Aoki) and marketed it to the usual Periphery Demographic (adult men) of the Magical Girl genre. Then episode 3 rolled around and fans realized that the creators were doing something else altogether. However, this has not stopped the series from having both male and female fans. Mostly adults, though. This... really isn't a show for your little sister.
    • Except that in Australia, Puella Magi Madoka Magica has indeed developed a fanbase of young girls, thanks to children's channel ABC3 airing it in full, almost entirely uncut,note  targeted at that demographic.
  • A notable portion of the Kimi ni Todoke fandom consists of older males. Reasons for this include the series in many ways breaking the shoujo mold, such as favoring Single Woman Seeks Good Man over All Girls Want Bad Boys and focusing a good portion of the story on the non-romantic relationships between characters. Plus, Sawako is pretty relatable to a lot of timid manga/anime fans of both genders, and when she's not unintentionally scary, she's actually really cute.
  • Pokémon Adventures is published in magazines aimed for elementary school kids, but its strong sense of character and continuity draws in older readers, especially those nostalgic for the games but got tired of the anime.
  • This also applies to Pokémon: The Series, although to a lesser extent than the games and (possibly) the manga. This may be because unlike the games and manga, the anime's writers very rarely cater to the Periphery Demographic itself for a long time, although complaints of this sort have dampened over time.
  • Bakugan is a typical Merchandise-Driven Mons anime, generally aimed at 6-11-year-old boys. The character designs of the humans, both male and female attract teenagers and 20-somethings who could care less about the story. There are also all manner of adults who buy the figures and cards and have long discussions about the mechanics of the game.
  • Inuyasha:
  • Berserk:
    • The show has a much larger female audience than you would logically expect from its well-earned fame as one of the goriest, most disturbing stories in existence. This is because its female characters are non-stereotypical, not to mention that it is perhaps one of the few works of fiction that treats rape and its psychological repercussions with realism and, what do you know, respect. And that, as fans will quickly tell you, the main story is based on more universal and epic themes than "tits and gore", infamy be damned.
    • Berserk has also attracted a number of Yaoi Fangirls due to the heavy, heavy Homoerotic Subtext between Guts and Griffith. That's not to say that all or even most of Berserk's female fans are there for the Ho Yay, though; Berserk just has a lot of Multiple Demographic Appeal, as mentioned above.
  • Daily Lives of High School Boys is targeted to the demographic, but like most works in this genre it has a sizable female readership—due to the fact that most of the cast is male. The ending credits message for Episode 6, aired on the midnight before Valentine's Day, lampshaded this:
    It may be Valentine's Day, but don't send the characters chocolate or anything. If you're sending it anyway, please send it to the studio, not the TV station.
  • Although Fate/Zero comes from a franchise famous for Eroge and Ms Fanservices, and is about as Seinen as it can get, it has gained quite the devoted Estrogen Brigade due to the predominantly male cast and large amounts of Ho Yay in the anime adaptation.
  • Fairy Tail: Another case of a male-targeted shonen series that females fell in love with. Natsu's chest is on full display under his vest, and Gray Fullbuster has as many female fans in real life as he does in-universe. It's to be expected when one has a habit of stripping down to his boxers (albeit unwittingly). There are strong female leads in Wendy and Erza as well; though a fair number of women also happen to be fantasy fans.
  • MÄR, the anime anyway, got hit with this pretty hard. That’s e manga is a relatively gory shonen, aimed at an 11-16 male audience; the anime toned down the violence to make it more suitable for children, so it was probably aiming for a 9-14 gender-neutral audience. However, the anime also ramped up the Fanservice, but only really in terms of Yuri and Yaoi fanservice, which attracted a HUGE audience of Yaoi fans that pretty much overtook the fandom. The show's biggest broken bases are all caused by what the Yaoi fans liked or didn't like and what everyone else liked or didn't like. Poor Snow has become The Scrappy to many for being caught in the middle. (As she's the only girl NOT exploited for fanservice but whose emotional connection to the protagonist interferes with possible Yaoi pairings.)
  • Highschool of the Dead has a very large female following despite being packed to the brim with gratuitous fanservice and Rule of Cool.
  • Free! or "Swimming Anime" was originally only a 30-second commercial featuring school boys on a swim team. Naturally, fujoshi picked it up immediately and caused Tumblr to explode. The news of it becoming a reality in July caused multiple fangasms. Though, it is popular with men too albeit to less an extreme sense. Of course, KyoAni doesn't ignore the male fanbase as well as it tosses in Matsuoka Gou.
  • March Comes in Like a Lion is a Seinen series about a teenage who also happens to be a kishi, a professional player of Shōgi. Despite being about a relatively unknown game outside of Japan, the series' heavy focus on character development allows the series fanbase to both genders and a wide age range, something that's even subtly implied to be one of its selling points in the commercials for its volume releases.
  • Kill la Kill is popular among the shonen demographic. It is meant for the seinen crowd but it can easily be confused for shonen upon first glance since it basically has all of the themes one would expect a typical shonen to have. Of course it also has lots of nudity and explores topics such as sexual assault and incest which would definitely not be in any shonen series.
  • Attack on Titan conversely is aimed at the shonen demographic, but thanks to its dark themes is popular with the seinen demographic. The series has also attracted a strong female audience, mainly due to the number of Action Girls with relatable and assertive personalities and numerous Bishonens as well (particularly Levi).
  • It's not uncommon to hear viewers of Aldnoah.Zero saying things like "I wouldn't normally watch a Mecha Show, but this is pretty interesting." This title pulled in a lot of non-mecha fans for a variety of reasons, such as the use of a calm, collected main character (as opposed to a Hot-Blooded protagonist the genre gets overly accused of using) and the fact that the good guys have to use actual tactics in their standard army mechs instead of relying on a Super Prototype. One also cannot discount the star power of big name creators like Gen Urobuchi and Hiroyuki Sawano, whose names alone generated a lot of interest in the show even before anyone knew what it was going to be about.
  • The Little Women Ai no Wakakusa Monogatari 1987 anime, made as part of the World Masterpiece Theater series, was originally intended for little girls but when the LWAAS fandom started, old fans and newcomer teenagers and adults start to remember how tragic it was. No Wonder Smile of a child TV airs it at 10 pm.
  • Princess Princess is a shojo manga featuring a trio of bishonens cross-dressing as the titular princesses in their One-Gender School. Despite the heavy dose of shonen ai it is sprinkled with, it is quite popular among guys because of the sheer hilarity of the main characters' antics.
  • Death Note was geared towards a shonen audience, but it has also attracted a large female audience as well, more or less thanks to Light Yagami. And much like 'Attack on Titan, the series has also attracted an older male audience (seinen) as well due to numerous dark themes in the series as well as moral ambiguity of the main characters.
  • High School D×D is marketed as a Fanservice with a lot of huge breasts involved. To the surprise of Ishibumi, there are a lot of female fans of the series with an even split between the fanbase that some bookstores sell the series in the women's section of light novels. Probably thanks to a lot of Action Girls, very masculine men, and some implied Ho Yay moments with the main character and various male characters involved.
  • This trope can apply any anime with an all male cast that was adapted a shonen title, yet has a sizable female fandom. For male audiences, this example is zigzagged as there have been anime featuring a pretty boys cast that still manage to attract a male audience despite being intended for women (with Free! being the best example).
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure sometimes attracts the attention of classic rock fans who are not normally into anime or manga, due naming many of its characters after classic rock songs or musicians (although more modern rock, rap, and pop music is also referenced later). Unfortunately, a lot of these references are omitted in the English translations, due to fear of copyright infringement lawsuits, but it's easy to do a quick Google search and see what the original name was supposed to be.
  • Many Idol Singer anime aimed at children, such as Aikatsu! and the Pretty Series tend to have fans who are grown men that do everything from hog the arcade games upon which the shows are based to attending screenings of the film in which fans of the shows are encouraged to cheer and sing along with their favorite idols.
    • Older otaku girls ended up getting into Pretty Rhythm as much as their younger counterparts. In fact, the King of Prism franchise was made specifically for those older girls to enjoy.
  • Raideen is a mecha anime aimed at pre-teen boys (the main character Akira is intended to be an Escapist Character for them), but ended up amassing a large amount of female fans because of the Pretty Boy main villain, Prince Charkin. Charkin/Akira Slash Fics were a common pairing for them, and Tadao Nagahama recalls that when he killed Charkin off, he received messages with razorblades from angry female fans.
  • Suzy's Zoo: Daisuki! Witzy: Has a sizable periphery demographic, since it actually resulted in the release of cellphone trinkets, electronic photo-frames and virtual stickers, none of which are useful to the target demographic.
  • Sgt. Frog: Some of the Asian countries with a substantial Keroro fanbase actually have mandatory national service, like Taiwan and Singapore. Do the math on that, and you've got a generation of otaku fanboys who have served in the army - rather like Keroro himself.
  • The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. is published on Weekly Shonen Jump, but it's more popular with older girls. Shueisha even had the author to create an original special chapter for publication in the Josei magazine Cocohana as a way for advertisement.
    • The morning four minutes anime adaptation is aimed at an even younger crowd, but according a poll run by the Japanese site Charapedia it was the most highly anticipated anime for the summer of 2016 among the female voters, ranking 3rd in the overall rank even though it was not even in the top 10 between male voters. The nightly broadcast of twenty minutes compilation episodes with a more serious opening theme is probably geared towards this public.
  • Yuri!!! on Ice has a large following of Yaoi Fangirls. Due to the relationship between Yuri and Victor taking several romantic undertones, culminating in their kiss and becoming the show's Official Couple, it also gathered a large LGBT Fanbase. There are also a lot of straight guys that enjoy the show due to its portrayal of a romance between the two male leads without relying on Boys' Love tropes, as well as many real-life professional figure skaters (which is notable since most sports anime and manga rarely gain any kind of following from actual athletes) making the series one of the few attracting a very diverse audience.
  • Predating G1 My Little Pony, Heidi, Girl of the Alps had quite the boy fanbases in many countries, especially Germany and Italy, partly due to the adorable, innocent little Heidi herself, as well as things like focusing on gender-netural topics, like conformity, friendship, nature, town buisness and so on.
  • Kemono Friends aired at Otaku O'Clock, but the director, who had previously worked on shows aimed at children, decided to keep the show suitable for kids (who would presumably be watching it via streaming rather than in the late night timeslot). This demographic became so prominent that a reairing of the show starting from August 2017 put it directly in an early morning timeslot aimed at children.
  • Kanokon, a very racy seinen/ecchi series, actually was pulled from free Japanese streaming due to this trope. Particularly, a Japanese news outlet reported that according to statistics from a video service, full episodes of Kanokon were the most popular videos with elementary school aged boys and girls.
  • Osomatsu-san: Because this show is a sequel to one of Japan's most well-known manga series, the show quickly gathered up a wide audience, but what most people were surprised about was the large fujoshi fanbase.
  • Despite being a shonen series, Yotsuba&! is often read by both boys and girls in the kodomo demographic in America - the series has appeared on many recommendation lists for young children, elementary and middle school libraries, and the kids' section of most public libraries.
  • Let's see. Attractive male characters? Many prominent, competent and well-written female characters (majority of whom are Action Girl)? Numerous romance subplots? No wonder Case Closed has a large female demographic that typically doesn't follow a mystery shonen.
  • Wandering Son is a seinen aimed at adult men, but its focus on the life of two transgender preteens as they grow into adults makes it very popular with trans youths. Its English translation has even been given an award for teenage-aimed media.
  • Due to its discussion of religion and Edward being a Nay-Theist Fullmetal Alchemist has a lot of religious (especially Christian) fans who interpret the story having spiritual themes. This includes Edward's own English VA. It also has a lot of atheist fans because Edward's nay-theism is confused for atheism (and because Roy is explicitly an atheist).
  • Kado: The Right Answer is a seinen series, but also attracted an Estrogen Brigade with its cute and handsome male cast, especially Yaha-kui zaShunina, and their Ho Yay.
  • My Hero Academia is a shounen series that nevertheless has a large female following, due to its respectful portrayal of female characters by shounen standards. The bodies of the girls in Class 1-A are both realistic and their character designs equally as varied as those of the males, with mostly downplayed fanservice and no one getting the Faux Action Girl treatment. It also helps that the series has a fair amount of manservice.
  • SSSS.GRIDMAN is clearly aimed at those who watched the source material (and its American adaptation) as kids, as well as Kaiju fans and Tokusatsu fans. And there are those who watch the show for the "waifus" Rikka and Akane.
  • Despite being aimed more for people with an interest in learning about anime production, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! has garnered a surprisingly large following among the neurodivergent community, especially once the anime adaptation began airing, thanks to two of its lead characters, Midori Asakusa and Tsubame Mizusaki, embodying a large number of characteristics common among autistic people and people with ADHD (particularly the former). The fact that author Sumito Owara revealed in 2019 and 2020 that he's autistic and has ADHD also factors into this to an extent.
  • Although Black Clover is a Shōnen marketed primarily for young boys, it has amassed a fairly large number of female fans due to its more respectful handling of women for the genre, with the third popularity poll having half its top ten characters being female. Noelle is the Deuteragonist and gets a lot of Character Focus on her becoming a powerful mage and growing out of her insecurities. The other female Black Bulls — Charmy, Vanessa, Grey, and Nero — all get important moments and aren't overshadowed by their male squadmates. Mereoleona is an inhumanly powerful mage who believes in the strength of female determination.
  • Kaiju Girl Caramelise was written first and foremost as a Shoujo manga aimed at women, and the focus of the story is a high school romance. However, while there are still some female readers, a large majority of the fans are male, something that surprised yet elated Spica Aoki. The fact that the eponymous lead character can turn into a Kaiju, with references to various Kaiju and other Tokusatsu franchises sprinkled throughout, probably influenced things.
  • Although Redo of Healer is aimed at men, the anime adaptation has more female viewers than male ones, ignoring the fact that the anime (and the original light novel) only show Kayal/Keyaru raping and torturing his sex slaves and his enemies, both of which are all female, while the latter are brainwashed by him. Must be seen to be believed.
  • Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs, is another example of a work targeted at what was originally a periphery demographic (men who enjoy works in the female-aiming Otome Isekai subgenre), attracting the original female audience. The series has a balance of attractive men and women, with Ho Yay (especially interpreted between Leon and Luxion), and the female leads of the franchise are well developed, with The Rival... also being female. The protagonist, Leon, has a lot of female fans, in part due to being a handsome bad boy, which is the focus of the series’ television ads, despite the series being designated Shounen.
  • At first, the entire Jewelpet franchise appealed to girls only. It was with the release of Twinkle, followed by Sunshine, that the series started appealing to older demographics, including otakus.
  • Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel is a Magical Girl anime aimed at young girls, but it also gained a notable increase of older male fans after it first aired. It was to such an extent that male mecha fans, of all people, became big fans; several doujinshi fanzines of an AU Mami as a Robot Girl in a sc-fi setting were made. A promo short for a video game of this fan version was made by some of the fans who were just entering the anime industry at the time.

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