So, just finished up the last episode of Claymore. Without giving too much away, they’ve left it open for a second season, but of course it’s not continuing immediately.

Which is amazing! I mean, this is basically a shounen show..except with more chicks, and a bit darker and more violent. Can you imagine what would have happened if Naruto or Bleach had simply ended and then started back up again later, instead of a bunch of filler crap being produced? (Not that you could really do much by way of filler in Claymore, since there isn’t a lot of opportunity for comedic relief…in-character, anyway.)

I guess we’ll see exactly what happens when Claymore returns…and I’m pretty confident it will.

…But then, anyone who has noticed that girls are more happy to watch “shounen” series than guys are to watch “shoujo” stuff already knew that. Or those of us who have noticed all the yaoi (and near-yaoi) titles doing so well. Or anyone who has ever had the thought “geez, why is there slash of lke EVERYTHING EVER on the Internet?” And people who– well, you get the idea.

Still, the Daily Yomiuri had a talk with Trulee Karahashi, the new CEO of the SPJA (the group that runs Anime Expo). She notes that in the U.S. particularly, the aforementioned “shounen” series like Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece have more female fans than male.

I’d just like to note that it seems to me that women are more involved in fandom than men in the U.S. Not that the guys aren’t there, but when it comes to creating fanfiction and fanart and the like are more female-dominated. And those are fandom subsets that I think play a huge role in getting and keeping people interested in a series– hell, sometimes a series’ fanfic world becomes more popular than the series itself. (Again, not that there aren’t plenty of male fanartists and fanfic writers; I just tend to see more vagina-havers doing it.)