Well the thing is the last few... alright, the last
two big doroku hits, SEED and FMA, were described as being not just guys' anime but being appealing to girls as well (=fangirl factor). Even in other Asian countries there are so many female anime fans who may have otherwise disliked action/mecha anime but loved the human drama that was also present in the two shows. And hey, they're bishie and angsty and there was a lot of delightful stuff going on between Kira and Athrun...
I remember reading reports about how at the events for these shows there was a
really significant portion of girls showing up. And about how some who were fans of T.M. Revolution and whatnot would just watch the show and then kind of grow to like it themselves.
And that is why you have something like this
Spoiler for saving space: interview with one of Blood+'s producers, Yutaka Omatsu:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by I.G. website
Q: How about the characters surrounding Saya?
A: I think it's important to make the male characters, Hagi and Kai, attractive and appealing. I attended an event called "Fullmetal Alchemist Festival - Tales of Another" last December and then the big event on July 30th called "MBS Anime Festival 2005 - Osaka Castle Experiment: Midsummer Night's Dream" in Osaka, in which the first footage of Blood+ had its world premiere. The power of high school girls is just unbelievable. It might simply have to do with the time slots in which they're aired [*]. I realized that I just couldn't ignore those girls. In Osaka, characters from Fullmetal Alchemist and Gundam Seed Destiny appearing on stage were enough to make them scream. To be honest, seeing them woke me up. It was a good experience to see the fans' reactions myself. Of course, there are fans that belong to audience demographics that never go to these events.
I feel Blood+ should achieve that kind of success as well. In this time slot, Blood+ is the only anime with a girl as the main character. Some people said that we were taking a big risk. Yes, if we were to target the young girls who watched Fullmetal Alchemist and Gundam Seed Destiny only, then having a girl as the main character might ruin our ratings. But Saya was the main character and we couldn't change that, so we sat down and contemplated this.
And what we came up with was that we had no choice but to make male characters as appealing as possible, but at the same time, such attractive characters must act following a solid dramatization. This may sound quite obvious, but if we succeed in our purpose, then we can be more confident in presenting the show to the entire audience.
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From
here
I added the red bolded emphasis.
Also I have a feeling the girls he was talking about didn't just include your female otaku/fujoshis...
Which brings me to note that this show seems to be doing a bit of the same thing
Just look at angsty Lelouch and Suzaku... and the CLAMP designs cleaned up by Kimura. Maybe I'm wrong but it certainly feels very much like that... (helps that in 2ch threads people are billing it as a fujoshi anime as well)
If Bones is going on the same tack as FMA though, they're probably going to try and make Ayakashi Ayashi appeal to girls as well, though.