Comic Yell serves up girly manga for manly men

[Anchorman]

Following the crossover success of such girls' stories as "Nana" and "Honey and Clover," Japanese male manga fans are about to get their own girls' manga, according to Cyzo (July).

The success of the girl-oriented manga amongst male manga fans prompted the release of Comic Yell, Japan's first girl's manga for men.

With men's manga like Shonen Jump attracting a 50 percent female readership, Comic Yell's publishers Hobunsha figured it was time to give guys an opening into the world of shojo, or girl's, manga.

"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," Hobunsha'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."

Otaku staples like little girls in maid uniforms, glasses and wearing animal ears are largely missing from Comic Yell. But women's bodylines are strongly emphasized and there is the occasional scene where the reader is offered a flashing glimpse of a female character's panties, gestures obviously aimed at a male audience.

"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 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."

Comic Yell is currently a quarterly and sells for 580 yen an issue.

"Our target audience is men from their 20s to 40s," Mita tells Cyzo. "And the responses we got to the questionnaire in our inaugural issue were 100 percent from men." (By Ryann Connell)