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INTEREST: 'Money is a Girl's Best Friend': Otaku Women Are a Major Fandom Financial Force

I too would like to think that roughly half the population has a comparative amount of money.

Seems to me that "women otaku exist, have money, and are becoming a force in the marketplace" is something that is discovered and breathlessly pronounced radical and important.... about three or four times a year.

Seems to me that "women otaku exist, have money, and are becoming a force in the marketplace" is something that is discovered and breathlessly pronounced radical and important.... about three or four times a year.

It’s been a year and a half since Yuri on Ice became a money printing machine, and almost six years since Free!, and people are still surprised that women have money?

Perhaps there will be less of a need to state the obvious when the obvious is finally treated as such by fandom.

Yuri on Ice? Free? Don’t you know we have male fans to thank for the overwhelming success those two found in disc sales?

musouka wrote:

Perhaps there will be less of a need to state the obvious when the obvious is finally treated as such by fandom.

I think most people are alright with people spending money on the type of anime that they like. The problem is with the western feminist approach of trying to censor the anime that they dislike. That is the issue that people have problems with since it treats anime as a zero sum game.

Agreeing with above sentiments. It's funny how they keep rediscovering this. You'd think after the many female-oriented and aim shows that take the Blue-Rays charts and rise in merch sales, they'd stop finding this surprising. Certainly, a look at why can be kind of eye-opening, but still.

It's funny how this pattern works though. Sure, the male fandom has always bought Gunpla more than the female fandom. But Tomino himself and one of the other older, creative leads have talked before about how the female side of fandom was more actively engaged with the show and helped keep the series going.

And for gaming, while the female audience seems to buy the games less (supposedly?), the Tales team has stated that they buy the most merch. And you can kind of see it in the kind of material they make to cater the merch (and even the phone games).

Female fandom is getting more open in their support of series with male characters, but also female characters. Love Live, Aikatsu! and Cinderella Girls all have huge, older, female fanbases. (Aikatsu! and CG especially, it seems.)

I never heard of the particular book that's referenced in the article, but I need to hunt it down more to see what other elaborations it makes.

Receipts?

I dislike a lot of T&A anime and I don't censor it in any way, shape, or form. I don't have that kind of power to stop somebody else from watching something they like. So you either prove "the western feminist approach of trying to censor the anime that they dislike" or you can start censoring yourself. Teehee.

Peebs wrote:

Receipts? I dislike a lot of T&A anime and I don't censor it in any way, shape, or form. I don't have that kind of power to stop somebody else from watching something they like. So you either prove "the western feminist approach of trying to censor the anime that they dislike" or you can start censoring yourself. Teehee.

AnimeFeminist would be the easy example. One of the main goals of that website is to make anime more inclusive which of course means to exclude fanservice that is made for men. They also hate Puella Magi Madoka Magica since it is not suitable for children and for some reason they believe that anime that is made for men must also be suitable for children. Note that this baffling requirement doesn't apply to anime that is made for women. The double standards are somewhat noticeable on that website.