Why are there more harem anime than reverse harem anime?


Harem anime's target audiences are mainly males while reverse harem anime's
target audiences are mainly females. So, it makes sense for the producers to
make as many reverse harem anime as harem anime, since the number of females
roughly equals that of males. However, there are a lot more harem anime than
reverse harem anime.

I know that some females also enjoy some harem anime, like _Detective Conan_
and _Inuyasha_ , just to name a few. Yet this kind of harem anime attracting
females are rare, so this can't be the main reason for that phenomenon.

Besides, it's said that in Japan, many females are housewives, which allows
them more time to watch anime, and that males often need to work day and
night. That said, it seems that there should be more reverse harem anime than
harem anime; in fact, the reverse is true.

The above being said, it's natural for one to wonder:

Why are there more harem anime than reverse harem anime?




You are missing the fact that the market for shonen/shoujo comic are very
unsymmetric. That is, there are much fewer girls who read comics in the first
place, accordingly fewer female anime consumers.

Just to give an idea, in [the list ordered by the number of copies
sold](https://www.mangazenkan.com/r/rekidai/total/), the most selling shojo
comic _Hana yori Dango_ is ranked the 33rd. Also [this](https://nendai-
ryuukou.com/article/057.html) is a similar list exclusively shojo. You can see
how smaller the shojo comic market is.

* * *

From [this questionnaire](https://kiq-report.com/Item/461), below suggests
that the difference is less drastic than comic sales, but female anime
watchers are consistently less.

**Do you watch anime often?** The manually underlined columns are for women.

[![watch
anime?](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ke8IV.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ke8IV.png)

**Do you like anime movies better than those with human actors?** (The pink-
ish bar indicates human actor movie; the blue for aime)

[![like anime
better?](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9jOQ0.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9jOQ0.png)

