Negima Mangaka Ken Akamatsu: “Moe & Harems are Dead”
- Categories: Manga, News
- Date: Aug 24, 2010 05:14 JST
- Tags: Character Design, K-ON!, Ken Akamatsu, Marketing, Moe, Negima, Otaku
Ken Akamatsu, the mangaka behind such classic harem titles as Negima and Love Hina, has stated that both harem and moe titles seem to have had their day.
Responding to the results of industry research into the state of the anime market suggesting that the formerly dominant position of moe and late-night anime has declined precipitously, he sums up his thoughts on the state of the market:
Certainly, the moe boom is finished, and from last year on I think we’re seeing the following phenomena:
1. Male protagonists are absent
Many anime are now nothing but girls, and the role of the “male character being excited by female characters for viewers to empathise with” has disappeared.
2. Male buying power has reduced
Now women buyers of both anime and manga are predominant. Oricon comic rankings show most of the top titles are women-oriented.
3. Male viewers can now empathise with female characters
The number of male fans who simply don’t view female characters as objects of sexual desire at all is increasing, even in titles like “K-ON!”. No more are they just thinking “I want to be part of that circle,” now they are getting into the characters themselves.
A friend of mine was saying “this will be the year of yuri!” thanks to number 3, but unfortunately I get the feeling the popularity of yuri is not quite that great…
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What people don't want manga thats almost purely fan service anymore? Man I can't imagine how anyone could have called something like that.
As an aside, harem manga could still have its own place (Mahou sensei negima ironically comes to mind) so long as both male and female characters stand out.
aye when are we going to get a third season of negima!?!
read the manga, 10X better.
+1 Anon knows his goodies.
I can't actually speak for the second season of negima, but the first one definetly fucking blew.
The second was better from what I saw, but it still paled in comparison to the manga.
Everyone wants to see girls.
And pretend males don't exist in this world?
Darkrockslizer
No wai. The one thing that annoys me in harem manga/anime more than anything else is the generic indecisive lead character, who only ever possesses two distinctive qualities and one of them is always "kind".
I'm sick of those generic characters meant only to be mentally replaced. The 2D world needs more Negi and less Keitaru.
I don't get why Negima manga fans hate the 2005 Xebec series so much more than the 2006 SHAFT version. If "faithfulness to the manga" is a criterion, '06 has barely anything to do with the manga, and is more of PaniPoni Dash sequel with Negima girls.
Basically Negima fans want a GOOD third season.
To Anon03:37
Fans hated the Xebec anime because the animation quality was made of lose, suck and fail.
I love KA's work but i disagree a bit here, the reason i love Love Hina was for the romance and because it had a decent enough plot FOR a harem manga to keep your attention, even the anime was pretty good. Now you get garbage that literally has zero plot almost. For example Nyankoi not to long ago was pretty good but it had a comical story and a fairly reasonable plot i enjoyed it. Same goes for Nagaserete Airantou and various others, but then princess lover for example, had a great first episode then was completely shit, the new OVA looks 1000x better than the series as well, at least it's more realistic.
Kyon Theorist
Then again, almost everything pales in comparison to the manga...
The OVAs are great, but cover only a little from the manga... wanted to see a lot more.
@Darkrockslicer "And pretend males don't exist in this world?"
I don't have a DAMN problem with that AT-FUCKING-ALL.
The role of the male lead who gets exited about girls can be perfectly filled by a lesbian as Miyafuji Yoshika as show to the world.
Unfortunately the year of yuri was 2009, so I agree with Ken, but I keep my hopes for a yuriful year 2011.
actualy negima!? (season 2) was more or less based off negima neo.
and lets be honest, neo was better than the first season by a fucking long shot, the animation i thought was at least on par with the mangas, and it was entertaining. id love to see a season 2 of that one.
"read the manga, 1000000000X better." ..fixed.
The anime was uber horrible compared to the manga. If one hasn't read the manga though, he may appreciate the anime.
The manga is superior in plot, character design, and EVERY OTHER GENRE there is.
Negima's been one of my favorite (if not already my favorite) manga I've ever read. Akamatsu's a genius.
Asuna's seiyuu sucks hard too.
Thats the best part of a tentacle rape, isnt it? You get the full penetration, cumshots, gang rape, and bondage without the unpleasantness of having to look at a guy.
you also get that with futanari... god i wish there were more non porn futas as main characters. i only know of one.
Ah, what title would that be Alidan?
Convenient as I was pondering this earlier.
Boku no Futatsu no Tsubasa
OVA episodes are given whit the negima mangas nowadays, they are up to when Negi meets Rakan now and started right as the school festival ended.
Also negima's theme gradually changed from romance anime to action.
and yet its more harem now than it was before.
heres hopeing for a master ku ending or nodokas 3some ending.
it was said that if the OVAs of Negima did well after X releases, then theyre gonna start releasing Negima via movie versions.
Im pretty sure i read it from an official source, just cant remember the exact place, probably ANN.
I love your avatar. Hime-sama. It had to be said :)
thank you, she's my wife =)
Forgive my ignorance but who is that? Looks familiar but I couldn't place a name or anime to save my life.
Hime, the mayor of whatever the town was called in the manga/show Yozakura Quartet
Hime from Yozakura Quartet.
shes from Yozakura Quartet and shes always called hime^^
Negima anime and live-action both suck cock. Read the manga or GTFO.
Negima is a horrible series. No one over 10 years of age could watch that. The same for love hina.
What is finished is ken akamatsu. And for good measure too.
The anime? Maybe.
The manga? Hell no.
Agreed, I love the manga.
The anime made me cry blood.
The manga is one of the best out there
I agree, the manga was worth it even if you buy it all in 1 go... and that's saying something what with it reaching volume 20+ now
Question: Do they go further then kissing in the manga or did you just get my hopes up for nothing?
better question : what are you hoping for?
I just hope I don't have to read dozens of volumes just to get finally to a kiss scene and then it's THE END. Like.. with the love hina anime,... I dropped negima-anime cause it was that awful.
Actually,.. I'm reading the manga right now - and it is pretty much like the anime, just without colors and animation.
oh no, it's much better... tho really, the most they reach for now is, well, tongues...
on the other hand, the tongues in question are of the lesbians...
Except that Negima evolves into a Love Hina / Magic-version DBZ with just the right mix of battle and fanservice.
By Volume 8-10 (somewhere in there) you should realize you're hooked for life. Not for those alone, but it should be about there you notice how fast you read through everything before it.
Yeah, I tried some of the later volumes,too. But still no fanservice, no fun and no action. It's for, let's face it, little kids. Children that love stories like dragon ball, kenichi strongest history, naruto, bleach etc.
But once you turn into an adult you realize how crappy those are.
Comment only AFTER you read all, not BEFORE.
Love hina was okay.Negima was horrible.I can't believe he spent all these years drawing lolis and shota.
if you dont like negima theres something wrong with your brian
Don't know anybody named Brian.Guess I'm A-ok.
I guess Key/VisualArt's set the bar too high for upcoming harem/moe.
Since when did Key ever make a harem?
You obviously never read the manga.
A lot of anime remakes are just shitty in general.
I'm reading just now, only 'cause people here said it was good. But it isn't. In fact it fails. On many different levels. And the first fail is the personality of every character. Then.. without a real story to go it's just fail after fail. Not even fanservice was included in the first five chapters. Normally we get that.. in place of a real story. Or sometimes we get comedy in place of a real story. But not with the negima manga. No story, no comedy, no action, no fanservice, no romance, nothing, excpet for the fail. It's not even epic fail. Just your mediocre book for little kids..
@Chen-04
"...without a real story to go..."
"No story, no comedy, no action, no fanservice,..."
After I read that you lost all your credibility to me. The story in Negima is one of the best out there. Not to mention, it's full of fanservice if you should like that and it contains lots of action, though mostly later on in the manga. I agree that it -starts off- as just your mediocre harem manga but it is really worth reading through.
That, or you're just trolling.
So he lost all credibility but you admit he's right based on his initial review?
@ Chen-04
How far have you read it, anyway. I think even the most rabid fans would agree that the story doesn't begin to get interesting until at least volume 3. And the action doesn't begin to take off until volume 5. Beginning at around volume 10, though, it's just pure ZOMGamazing all the way through.
Chapter 5. I don't like reading boring stuff longer than five chapters. But, didn't I mention this before?
So,.. where do I have to start? Chapter 100? 300? 500? I tried something around Ch 300, just to be sure. Maybe it's just not strong enough fanservice for my tastes? I like manga like Nana to Kaoru (SM) or Prunus Girl (Trap-Romance) or Honeymoon Salad (two women, one guy, one house, sex happens). Just your average kids story simply won't entertain me anymore. And without a real story not even fanservice can do much. If there isn't an interesting story, I may as well read real porn.
And the direction negima takes in current chapters (read about 3 sites from the most recent available chapter) felt awkwardly like your average fighting shounen.
actually ironically theyre releasing a one shot manga of Love Hina in Shonen Jump magazine in september
burn in hell Akamatsu hater
LOVE HINA ..nuff said
Negima manga is great, the anime and live-action are shit.
Live Hina manga was great til after volume 8 and the anime sucks dicks.
yes, harem has been dead for some time now
but moe dying out this year or so?
that i gotta see first to believe
i must say im lookin forward to it tho
i have nothing against moe, yet nothing but moe characters doing nothing but moe things, thats too much and has to stop as soon as possible
IMHO Moe and fanservice is fine and all, but if you just use it excessively then people get bored of it. Look at To-Loveru. They just threw the story out the window and just stuck with nothing but moe and fan service and it just died out.
It's getting a new anime season and getting re-serialised. I think that proves that the market is still there for excessive Moe/fanservice w/o story.
Yeah, but I'm sure if they keep it up the manga would just die off again.
manga died because of his cunt of a wife kidnapping his daughter and holding her hostage.
To Love-Ru was a DearS rippof, I'm glad that POS is over.
how was it a dears ripoff?
did you read it all or did you watch the anime completely?
well the whole Kono/Set-chan thing is huge now but it didn't start out with lesyay which proves his comments even more.
nNo Ex-Wife and rankings killed to love ru.
rankings had little to do with it, it was his cunt of a wife that did the most damage and sued them what, 3 times?
Which is all fine for me. Too many action and moe anime made for men have become too formulaic and the best ones of their type are the ones that innovate and tries to approach it in a new angle or go for broke in terms of visual action like many BONES shows.
That and I was huge Marimite and Junichi Satou (Sailor Moon, Kaleido Star, Aria) fan to begin with and I do feel for-girls anime are some of the best and most underappreciated by anime fans. I'm actually glad they're getting bigger. And I'm a fan of purely yuri anime too. I do hope they have some bigger, more 'epic' Yuri series to come.
Negima is amazing stuff. The art is solid, the story/action addictive, and despite the large cast, most of the characters are fleshed out and easy to attach to.
Probably my favorite shonen series today, defiantly in my top 10 manga of the last decade.