HELL YEAH!

But another battle is now starting...

Today's a good day to be a scumbag.

Ohh yeah, this is the good stuff! It's the secret dream of any red-blooded man to have a sex pro give everything to you for free because she can't resist your manliness! Replace "red-blooded man" with "scumbag filly" and "manliness" with "cuteness" and there you go.

Makino's living the dream! Go gurl!

^ I kind of had guessed that you were one of the few men in the forum, and now I've confirmation.

"one of the few men"

snrk

Probably way more than you think

^ No clue, but most manga on the reader are "for girls" in Japan.
Anyone knows if people in this forum were ever polled on gender, identity, etc.?

^ No clue, but most manga on the reader are "for girls" in Japan.
Anyone knows if people in this forum were ever polled on gender, identity, etc.?

Dynasty Scan demographics. even m/f, 60% queer, large trans component,
super young but maybe Discord bias
cis men, cis women, trans women, tiny trans men
het cis men 35%, cis lesbian 18%, trans les 6%
45.7% male, 44.5% female, 9% non-binary
https://dynasty-scans.com/forum/topics/15346-dynasty-specific-demographic-survey

last edited at Nov 14, 2023 12:27PM

^ No clue, but most manga on the reader are "for girls" in Japan.

Actually it's very much the opposite. Yuri manga are frequently labeled as shounen. Yuri Hime, for example, is considered a shounen publication. That's not to say girls don't read them or that all yuri is written for boys, but the target demographic for yuri focused publications is more often than not primarily male.

What that says about yuri as a genre I can't say, and as LGBTQ+ acceptance rises that might change, but as things are yuri manga are "intended" for boys (much like how most BL is, paradoxically, written by and for het women.)

I wouldn't be surprised if the western audience leaned more towards female than in Japan, but I don't have any information to base that on.

edit: We should do another dynasty demographic poll. Would be interesting to see if thats changed over the last few years, especially with covid having happened after the previous one was conducted.

last edited at Nov 15, 2023 1:26PM

Yuri Hime isn't shounen lol. It had a shounen spinoff in the past, Yuri Hime S, but the main mag is sold based on the niche interest, not an age/gender demographic. One of my pet peeves with general manga fandom in the West is how way too much emphasis is put on magazine advertising demographics being cast onto individual manga, especially since the "male" demographics are actually just "default," much like how we tend to see masculine clothes as gender neutral compared to feminine clothes. Shoujo and Josei have basically atrophied to the point of being genres more than general demographics (not that "Josei" really existed as a specific slice of manga publishing to begin with). "Shounen" and "Seinen" mags publish a ton of stuff you'd assume by stereotype should be in those categories, like how one of the big Shounen Jump manga is "young woman pursues a career in traditional Japanese stand up comedy".

last edited at Nov 15, 2023 3:41PM

Yuri Hime isn't shounen lol. It had a shounen spinoff in the past, Yuri Hime S, but the main mag is sold based on the niche interest, not an age/gender demographic. One of my pet peeves with general manga fandom in the West is how way too much emphasis is put on magazine advertising demographics being cast onto individual manga, especially since the "male" demographics are actually just "default," much like how we tend to see masculine clothes as gender neutral compared to feminine clothes. Shoujo and Josei have basically atrophied to the point of being genres more than general demographics (not that "Josei" really existed as a specific slice of manga publishing to begin with). "Shounen" and "Seinen" mags publish a ton of stuff you'd assume by stereotype should be in those categories, like how one of the big Shounen Jump manga is "young woman pursues a career in traditional Japanese stand up comedy".

Huh, that's news to me. Guess I was wrong. It was a while ago so I may have been misremembering something I had read in the past.

I'm still not so sure that Japanese yuri readers are mostly female, or that most yuri is written with female readers in mind, but I guess that's just a hunch based on nothing concrete.

edit: I did a tiny bit of reading up and as you say it seems like there's no real "target demographic", at least in terms of gender. That does strike me as odd considering the fact that there is such a thing for BL, but I suppose even then it's not so simple.

last edited at Nov 16, 2023 12:53AM

There's almost certainly more cishet men reading yuri than wlw, simply as a matter of demographics: they just outnumber us existing in society. But the manga themselves, at least in the case of any worth reading, are artistic works, not mere "content" made for "consumption". They are based on real interests and feelings, not simply a reflection of the audience demographics. I saw a review of a yuri manga made by a female author the other day where the reviewer, an American man, claimed that it's just "male gaze" material meant for guys who like "girl-on-girl" and I got so mad lol.

There's this thing with Japanese manga: comics for boys are mostly created by male authors, comics for girls by female authors. Usually, when you read the notes and comments where the authors talk to their readers, it becomes evident that they expect the readers to be of a certain gender. Look at the yuri manga in this website: a large majority are authored by ladies, and when they talk to their readers they call them "cute" and discuss with them female fashion and makeup and what to do if you fall in love with another girl. Sometimes they give them tips about how to find clubs or brothels that cater to lesbians!

The easiest way to find which is the intended readership for a work of manga is to find what the mangaka has to say about that. They almost always have a very definite idea on the subject. Sometimes they add "oh but it's ok if other people also want to read my stories!" but this of course also makes clear who they're actually making manga for.

Right now, it seems to me like all the authors whose works I read write primarily for girls—both Chinese authors like Xian Jun or Tracy Hu, and Japanese authors like Morishima Akiko, Shimura Takako, Morinaga Milk, Yatosaki Haru, Odoroo Dorothy, Yurikago, Hijiki, Iwami Kiyoko, Kosuzume, Tamamusi, etc.

https://floatingintobliss.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/yuri-isnt-made-for-men-an-analysis-of-the-demographics-of-yuri-mangaka-and-fans/

Authors:

I found that out of the 150 mangaka, 91 were female, 20 were male, and 39 did not have a listed gender. This means that 60.66% of mangaka were female, 13.33% were male, and 26% were unknown. Of those with known genders, 81.98% were female and 18.01% were male. This means that at least 60% of these mangaka were female as a whole, and at most 87% of these mangaka were female as a whole, depending on the genders of those not listed.

Readers:

The first is the Comic Yuri Hime survey. According to a 2007 poll by the magazine, 70% of Comic Yuri Hime readers were female. This poll has a response bias and it’s worth noting that this was before the magazine merged with the more male-oriented Comic Yuri Hime S, but it is notable. According to The File on Yuri Works, only 62% of Yuri Hime S readers were male in 2008, before the merging of the magazines.

And:

In her unscientific survey of Japanese yuri fans online she found very interesting results. According to this survey of 1352 people, 52.4% identified as female, 46.1% identified as male, and 1.6% identified as other.

According to her survey, 30.0% of respondents were non-heterosexual women, while only 15.2% were heterosexual women(a significant number of people chose ‘don’t know’ for this section.) As a result, we can conclude that roughly 66% of women taking this survey were women who are attracted to other women. In this survey, non-heterosexual women outnumbered every group other than heterosexual men. Non-heterosexual men accounted for around 2-3% of the total survey.

I note that the 'unscientific' survey of Japanese fans has results fairly similar to the equally unscientific Dynasty survey, at least in M/F ratio. She notes an English-language survey also with similar M/F, though much higher 'other' gender and non-straight (male and female) percentages.

Exact numbers are unknowable but it seems pretty likely that male/female is roughly even, in and out of Japan.

It would be interesting to know if Yuri Hime and Yuri Hime S had a notable difference in their types of yuri, like soft romance vs. "tribbing by page 3" smut, or something.

last edited at Nov 16, 2023 12:52PM

It's easier to tell with some artists like Odoroo Dorothy because she draws in classic shoujo manga style with finer and lighter lines, and super slender girls with enormous eyes, and frills and ribbons and shiny sparkly things. In the notes for Aizawa-san vol2 she even wrote that maybe she had gone overboard with the cuteness in the cover!

It's more difficult to tell with others like Flowerchild who draws things like A Face You Shouldn't Show or It's a Detached Relationship... lmao you really wonder who are the readers she's aiming to!

Flowerchild is just aiming at the Flowerchild demographic lol. Although "A Face You Shouldn't Show" feels incredibly yaoi to me personally.
A Scummy Gap Student With a Hard Life Calls Upon a Lady of the Night meanwhile is obviously made with an audience in mind that transcends both age and gender: scumbags. :P

last edited at Nov 16, 2023 1:37PM

https://floatingintobliss.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/yuri-isnt-made-for-men-an-analysis-of-the-demographics-of-yuri-mangaka-and-fans/

Very good article. It's an important point to note that yuri was born in shoujo manga magazines, ie periodicals notoriously made for girls by girls! I remember another useful resource, a guide of yuri from the 70s to the 90s, and indeed all the stories listed come from shoujo mags:

https://www.yuricon.com/oldessays/shoujo-yuri-manga-guide/

The conclusion from the demographical analysis in your article is as expected:

Yuri manga is primarily made by women and primarily consumed by women.

And also:

But this is not to exclude the presence of men in the creation of yuri manga and in its fandom. Men certainly are present.

Yeah they are present but in the way Playboy and Penthouse also had a female readership lol. The cishet men readership of yuri manga: not the target but it's there.

cishet men not the target

Yuri Hime S was an obvious exception. Wiki mentions 'moe' rather than 'smut'

I recognize only one of the titles mentioned in it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Yuri_Hime_S
(Wife and Wife)

An old forum comment says "I have to say most of the plots found in Yuri Hime S tend to be a mixture of cutesy moe antics with schoolgirl crushes that may or may not go anywhere"

last edited at Nov 16, 2023 4:42PM

https://floatingintobliss.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/yuri-isnt-made-for-men-an-analysis-of-the-demographics-of-yuri-mangaka-and-fans/

Very good article. It's an important point to note that yuri was born in shoujo manga magazines, ie periodicals notoriously made for girls by girls! I remember another useful resource, a guide of yuri from the 70s to the 90s, and indeed all the stories listed come from shoujo mags:

https://www.yuricon.com/oldessays/shoujo-yuri-manga-guide/

The conclusion from the demographical analysis in your article is as expected:

Yuri manga is primarily made by women and primarily consumed by women.

And also:

But this is not to exclude the presence of men in the creation of yuri manga and in its fandom. Men certainly are present.

Yeah they are present but in the way Playboy and Penthouse also had a female readership lol. The cishet men readership of yuri manga: not the target but it's there.

I don't know what the point of overstating it like this is. Both that 2019 Dynasty demographics poll and that "unscientific survey of Japanese yuri fans" cited in that wordpress post find men to be about ~45% of readership, because that's basically the percent of the whole ass human population I'd expect to be straight men. If I assume Yuri Hime and S had roughly equal readership (a huge assumption lol) then their polls show the same thing, 30+62/2=46%. These are very interesting results, because they indicate that men are not disproportionately represented among the readers of lesbian fiction as some might claim, but that's not an insignificant slice of the population either.
There are indeed men among us, and as long as they behave themselves I don't personally see a problem with that lol.

The cishet men readership of yuri manga: not the target but it's there.

I don't know what the point of overstating it like this is.

Didn't you read Zeria's article? The point is that there's a fuckton of people out there who claim that yuri is made for the MALE GAZE. And it's a BIG FAT LIE!

This discussion has made it abundantly clear that the vast majority of yuri is created for girls by girls. Men can read it if they feel so inclined, but they're not the target segment.

This discussion has made it abundantly clear that the vast majority of yuri is created for girls by girls. Men can read it if they feel so inclined, but they're not the target segment.

It made it clear the vast majority seems to be made by women, yes. Saying the vast majority is for women is a very different claim, and not substantiated. When there are literally as many men as women reading, it would behoove mangaka or their editors to consider tapping that audience.

"Yuri is only made for male gaze" is false, but "men are rarely the target audience" seems unlikely too.

"men are rarely the target audience" seems unlikely too.

Do you read the notes for the readers? I mean the ones the mangaka ladies write in their yuri manga?
I remember a truckload that are adressed to girls. I can't remember even one that's adressed to boys.

They tend not to be all that gendered in my experience? I can't actually remember seeing one off the top of my head that specifically assumes all the readers are women

They tend not to be all that gendered in my experience? I can't actually remember seeing one off the top of my head that specifically assumes all the readers are women

In my experience The only real gendering that pops up across Yuri works is a lack of real male characters, usually no more than one not counting antagonists, they are usually absent or cardboard annoyances

The easiest way to find which is the intended readership for a work of manga is to find what the mangaka has to say about that.

This makes me think of the afterword in the first volume of The saga of Tanya the Evil. Which is something to the effect of: "What are you doing here? Why did you buy this book? And who in their right mind decided to publish it? My Book is strange and unusual ,The world is upside down! But now that you are here, welcome and enjoy the ride