So, in episode seven of Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei, a few of the class (and sensei) wound up at one of them GIANT DOUJINSHI CONVENTION thingers. (Natsu Comi.)

It feels like I’ve seen a LOT of Comiket eps in anime lately, and that’s not including the occasional show where doujinshi is a significant part of the plot (e.g. DoujinWork).

There was, of course, plenty of Comiket in Lucky Star. And even Darker than Black paid homage to the world’s biggest comics convention. Admittedly, this isn’t a TON of samples, but it still feels like considerably more than I used to see– while the con would pop up in comics-centric series (like Comic Party and I might even add Genshiken to that category), it’s now popping up in series where comics and doujinshi have absolutely NO role, like DtB and Zetsubou-sensei.

Am I way off? (Or am I forgetting other Comiket eps?) Anyone? Bueller?

…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.)