It doesn't seem like a stretch to imagine the possibility of some boy getting bullied for reading Shoujo during lunchtime, and what would his defence be against the bullies, the title of the magazine is telling him he shouldn't be reading it. And why do the current batch of Gundam shows enjoy less popularity with women than the original (if they do)?
Interesting to hear your experiences of conventions in Japan, thanks for sharing. Anyone else have any experiences in Japanese anime conventions? Is it unity or is there a feeling of a sexual divide?
Firstly, I totally agree that grouping by target audience is a bit dumb. It's also becoming less and less relevant; any western fan would assume something like Black Butler is aimed at women, yet it's ostensibly shounen (actually, most of the content in the magazine from which it originates falls into this category). There have been essays upon essays written about how it's the end of days now that Shounen Jump is popular with female readers and how female fans are 'taking over' male nerdspace at Comiket, and it's all silly nonsense because female fans have been at doujinshi events as customers and sellers ever since doujinshi events were first conceived.
I see it as a guide when choosing something. If I want to read a romance title, I might opt for a josei manga if I want a thought-provoking approach to the subject matter (this is usually what I do, in fact, want) or a shounen romance if I want something that will never resolve but include a lot of panty shots (thanks, Katsura Masakazu). If I want it to have sex in it I'll shift my eyes to the seinen/josei titles; if I want it to have harem or comedy elements then a shounen/shoujo title might be better. I don't care if I'm reading the 'wrong' titles for my real gender/age configuration at all and I'd laugh if anyone judged me for it. Most western fans can't even work out what the intended audience was in the first place; I've had people swear blind that Ah My Goddess is aimed at young girls (haha, no) 'because it's romantic, and girls like romance'. That's a far dumber simplification of the human experience than simply acknowledging that a title was originally pitched to girls then became popular with a wider audience because it was good.
Furthermore, I think the danger of being mocked for reading the wrong titles is skewed. Nobody sane is going to make fun of a girl who reads shounen manga. It's normal. If you're a girl in the UK and you're seen reading manga, and teased for it, it's simply because you're reading comics. Not because the comics were originally pitched at guys. The idea that a guy might be bullied by his mates for liking shoujo manga, then, exposes a mess of problems with how men view themselves and other men in our society, and also how female-orientated media is viewed as 'lesser' or 'embarrassing' in general. There is a slight difference in culture, too; think of a male Pretty Cure fan in Japan and most people will visualise a typical otaku with no social skills, waving a glowstick and collecting cute things. Whereas a female One Piece fan is... an ordinary person, most likely. Content aimed at men is 'normal', so female fans aren't penalised so heavily for liking it unless they go into pretty extreme territory and push people out of their comfort zone. You can see this throughout the media; if a geeky guy comes up to a girl in the UK and asks for her favourite movie, he'll openly laugh in her face if she says Twilight (and probably offer tips on better movies) but ask for her phone number if she names The Avengers. Even though both films are objectively terrible - I'm allowed to say this as I enjoyed both - it's more ok to like the male-orientated one than the other. Even if the person in question isn't male in the first place. I've had this over and over again in social interactions over the years. All of my male friends are sensible and read shoujo manga freely if they like the look of it, and their lives are much better for it.
Even romance manga has a spin on this bias; girls historically (and indeed currently) enjoy girl x girl titles as well as BL. Classic 'yuri' manga was originally made for, and by, women. Male fans of BL are presumed to be oddballs or, in the west, presumed to be gay. And while they certainly might be, I don't see why the assumption that straight men can't read BL is baked in so heavily when the opposite scenario doesn't exist. I don't expect anyone to raise an eyebrow when I say I'm reading a girl x girl title; why would they? Don't they have anything better to do? But a male BL fan can often feel shamed by their preferences.
I'll answer the other points too with my own experiences.
Honestly, most Gundam titles are probably even more popular with women than men nowadays. 00, Seed, Wing and Iron-Blooded Orphans were all hugely loved by the female fanbase; I think people still produce doujinshi for Wing and Seed now and they're ancient by today's standards. The industry has tried to adapt to the obvious demand by pitching more products directly to the female audience, which is great; one thing Japanese companies do well is merchandise the heck out of popular titles, and you can often tell how a series is doing by watching the kind of items that get released for it. Sometimes there will be titles which start off with merchandise clearly pitched at male fans, then over time they'll give up and start releasing items focusing on the female audience instead because for whatever reason the title made more of a splash with a different crowd and they acknowledge that. I like the fluidity, and generally everyone wins because with Gundam in particular there are Gunpla models for one crowd and character CDs for the other. It's big enough to support everyone. There's sometimes pushback where people complain that recent Gundam titles are too girly with things like emotions and non-ugly characters detracting from the action, but Gundam has always been a bit of a hot mess in that respect. And ultimately, it's the interesting characters, muddy politics, pessimistic view of war and interpersonal rivalries which keep the female audience coming back to things like Gundam. They can't get rid of it that easily without tearing the whole heart of the series out.
I've been to a few conventions in Japan with huge gender divide, but it seems to be fairly one-way. You simply do not get many men at festivals for otome games, or historical fantasy, or stage plays, or BL doujinshi markets, or even male seiyuu events. However, the tiny clumps of males (often - but by no means exclusively - attending with girlfriends rather than alone) tend to integrate well enough and there's no 'us and them' feeling; everyone is there to have fun. Events for general anime/manga/game content/genres tend to have both genders in abundant attendance, especially doujinshi events and concerts. Even idol concerts tend to have a fair few impassioned female fans shouting along with the guys (though I avoid these myself, so I'm only able to testify about idol events which happened as part of larger music festivals).
There is curiosity if you go too far out of your lane though. If you're female and go into a male-orientated shop (the easy go-to example would be adult doujinshi shops aimed at men, but there are plenty of game/figure shops in Akiba with a male bent) there are a lot of stares and sometimes strange interactions. I could tell many stories. Similarly, if you're a manly-looking guy at a BL fair and you start leafing through some saucy Raphael x Donatello TMNT sample books, you'll likely be the victim of some very overexcited artists wanting to ask questions which they wouldn't to an ordinary-looking female fan (this is a real anecdote). But even then, the
hostility and gatekeeping which exists in western geek spaces is relatively rare; people will feel it sometimes, I'm sure, but you won't get people coming up to you and sneering openly the way some people with poor social skills often do at conventions in the UK (again, personal experiences...) if you don't match their image of a fan. It's mostly genuine curiosity.
(Though I do also enjoy the protection of being foreign, which magnifies my natural intimidation factor a thousandfold, I enjoy the similar entertainment of being able to understand the frenzied stage whispers behind my back and tweets about the 'foreigner at the event!!' which appear sometimes in my wake because people tend to forget that non-Japanese people still have ears/eyes. So I think I have a fairly good idea of what people really think about me, haha.)
R
