

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?


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anime-production culture
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)


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tldr;

> Q: Why are there more animes focused on harem in comparison to reverse
> harem?
>
> **A: Because of how much difficult it would be for the industry to profit
> from making reverse harems.**

* * *

I like how @sundower answers the question with numbers that bring light to the
comparatively low number of female anime consumers (and even lower number of
female anime consumers that watch reverse harems). Profit companies must try
to cater to the bigger audience groups, and anime studios are also companies.

_That said, I would like to try to provide **some of the reasons** behind the
numbers with the following two points:_

## Response to visual stimuli

> (...) men still had higher ratings than women even for women-selected films.
> Together, these data demonstrated that men responded more to visual sexual
> stimuli than did women, and this sex differences was strengthened if the
> stimuli were chosen by a male. [1]

This shows two sides of the same coin:

  1. Male interest is an **easier target to capture through visual media** (harems).
  2. Female audience will be harder to please with visuals.

## Culture focused in catering to male audience

Culture is another factor that contributes to the situation. [This wikipedia
entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_harem_anime_and_manga) shows a
fairly complete list of harems and reverse harems in existence; 272 vs 35 as
of 11/2022. This implies that anime studio employees and directors are at
least 7 times more familiar, experienced and confident making and selling
harem content than doing it with its counterpart. **Going against a deep-
rooted culture is hard.**

Given this culture (or inertia) mostly pushes towards the creation of more
harem animes, there is less interest, talent and funding for making reverse
harems.

* * *

  
[1](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2739403) Rupp HA, Wallen K.
Sex differences in response to visual sexual stimuli: a review. doi:
10.1007/s10508-007-9217-9. Epub 2007 Aug 1. PMID: 17668311; PMCID: PMC2739403.


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As @Ocean aptly said that Reverse harem as a subgenre of shoujo doesn't seem
to be that popular and that women does watch shounen anime but the vice versa
is not true. Because of this viewership difference, it is much more difficult
for the industry to make profit out of them. @sundowner provided some
statistics on Japan viewership and this is more or less similar when extended
globally.

A 2020 survey conducted in the United States found that anime movies were
generally more popular among men than women, with 13 percent of male
respondents reporting that they found anime to be very favorable, compared to
nine percent of women who said the same. Women were also less likely to have
heard of anime in general or to have any particular opinion on the genre.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YEvFd.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YEvFd.jpg)

If we consider country wise, this skew towards male viewership is far more
pronounced in English-speaking markets like the US, the UK, and Australia.
Only some markets like Vietnam, Russia, and France see female majorities and
in countries like Korea, China and India, the statistics is even.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/icUjd.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/icUjd.jpg)

**References**

  1. [Frequency of watching anime among high school students in Japan in 2021, by gender](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1315512/japan-anime-watching-frequency-high-school-students-by-gender/) (According to a survey conducted in Japan in from October to November 2021, 57 percent of male high school students watch anime at least once per week or more, compared to 50 percent of female high school students. The share of respondents who stated not to watch anime at all was slightly higher among girls than among boys)
  2. [Attitudes to anime movies among adults the United States as of January 2020, by gender](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1095810/anime-movie-opinions-us-by-gender/)
  3. <https://project-anime.org/tag/demographics/>


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