Japanese Twitter Debate on Women Consuming Male-Oriented Otaku Content Goes Viral
On May 22, a simple tweet generated 2.5 million views and sparked a discussion on Japanese Twitter about women who consume otaku content aimed at men and feel uncomfortable because their preferences are not reflected.
The original tweet was posted by m0__2u, who said:
“I see women consuming content made for men like Idolmaster and Blue Archive and feeling uncomfortable because there is no ‘female perspective’, but I don’t see men feeling the same way about female-oriented content like Ensemble Stars or Touken Ranbu. In the end, I think that already says a lot about the situation.”
The tweet above reached 2.5 million views and started a debate about women who begin consuming content aimed at men and then start demanding changes.
Let’s look at some reactions:
“I completely agree, women are very quick to complain that there is no female perspective, but men just see it and accept it was made for women and ignore it, it’s a different state of mind.”
“Isn’t it kind of arrogant for people to start demanding that a clearly male-oriented game also considers female players?”
“Well, these are the same people who get annoyed at shonen manga for not considering women.”
“Yeah… I wish women would just stay in their own little world.”
“There really are almost no men consuming content aimed at women.”
“Like, Precure is popular among adult men, but if they started catering too much to that ‘old man’ audience, it feels like something important would be lost.”
“There are quite a lot of women who like female idols. But men who like male idols are almost nonexistent.”
“Conan is like that too. I reread it after 20 years and it had completely turned into a manga aimed at women.”
“I went to a Conan popup store and understood everything. I expected merchandise of Haibara or Ran, but it was all just ‘middle-aged cop’ merch.”
The discussion began when a woman played an Idolmaster game. In this game, you take the role of a producer who manages idols, and the producer is male. This player went viral after complaining that she could not choose a female producer role.
What do you think?