Mainichi Daily News recently reported on Comic Yell, a new men's manga being published by Houbunsha. It's an attempt to draw more men into the world of shoujo by making it less about loli maids and more about real women.
"We created Comic Yell because we figured that there was a need for a guy's girl's manga. We figured if we made it easier for guy's to buy girl's manga, they would be delighted to do so," Houbunsha's Sachiko Mita tells Cyzo. "Reaction to our inaugural issue has ranged from 'it needs a bit more zing' from the hardcore otaku geek faction to the 'thank god there's no pandering to geek tastes' from regular readers.
The funny thing is, many of the men who responded to a survey said that it wasn't girly enough. No surprises there.
"We've done a few pictures guys like and added some gags to make the comics more in tune with guys' tastes. But we thought if [we] made the whole thing exactly like a regular girls' manga, the guys wouldn't like it," Mita says. "Amazingly, a lot of male readers contacted us and said they want it more like a girls' manga. We're going to listen to them and make it more like a girls' manga from now on in."
So they've gone from trying to blaze a new trail into the manga wilderness to accepting defeat and doing what the masses ask?
Yeah, sounds real manly.
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