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OTW Signal, May 2025

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Every month in OTW Signal, we take a look at stories that connect to the OTW’s mission and projects, including issues related to legal matters, technology, academia, fannish history and preservation issues of fandom, fan culture, and transformative works.

In the News

An article by Publishers Weekly notes how demographic changes in readership have influenced publishing houses to diversify the titles they publish. Female readers are at the forefront of this change.

Most top-selling manga titles, though classified as shonen manga, also boast huge female followings. Some are also the work of women, like the hit series Delicious in Dungeon by Ryoko Kui, translated by Taylor Engel (Yen). But girls’ manga is growing in popularity, especially subgenres exploring LGBTQ+ themes. And as the manga audience ages, following a decade-long boom in young adult readership (according to the Beat’s annual BookScan analysis, graphic novel sales reached an all-time peak in 2022, with tween-to-teen manga titles consistently among the top sellers), publishers report that female readers in particular seek out more mature and diverse subject matter.

This diversity is reflected in titles published under subgenres such as BL and GL. BL, short for Boys’ Love, is notable for having a particularly high readership retention rate, prompting publishers to explore a variety of themes. Some of these themes, such as omegaverse, trace their origins to fanfiction.
GL, short for Girls’ Love, draws a much more varied demographic – the article notes that the genre boasts a mixture of male, female, straight and queer fans and creators. A 2020 essay exploring the genre’s readership demographic attests that “yuri is made for a diverse audience by an equally varied group of creators.” Studies, such as Verena Maser’s 2013 survey of Japanese yuri readership found that the gender and sexuality of GL audiences was vastly varied. A 2017 survey by Zeria, aptly titled Yuri isn’t Made for Men, studied the international audience and found that a majority of GL fans are women, who do not identify as heterosexual.
Themes too are pushing the boundaries of what defines a work as manga or literary graphic novel. Female creators are at the helm of this change, creating mature, personal stories that reflect the desire for manga that feels relatable and represents the diversity of its growing audience.

My Friend Kim Jong Un (Feb. 2026), a graphic memoir manhwa by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, also translated by Janet Hong, describes life with another level of bad neighbor: Gendry-Kim lives on a small island within sight of North Korea.

With such mature topics, Hurren finds, there’s also more crossover with audiences that don’t usually read manga. The titles “belong with our other literary graphic novels. We’re reaching out to manga-specific press, but it’s not a manga-specific trade campaign.”

This evolving landscape of manga readership is not just a trend but a reflection of deeper cultural changes towards a more diverse and inclusive literary future.


Parallel to the rise of female manga readership is the increasing popularity of Chinese web literature in Japan. A recent article by The Star noted that platforms like WebNovel, under China’s Yuewen Group, have seen significant growth, with a 180% surge in Japanese users in 2024 alone. This expansion is not just in readership but also in cultural exchange. Japanese creators and fans are actively engaging with Chinese web novels, translating works, and even co-developing new intellectual properties.
One such example is the Chinese web novel Apocalyptic Forecast, a fantasy fiction that deals with the supernatural and secret societies. Japanese screenwriter and director Hikaru Takeuchi became an avid fan of the novel, translating over 200 chapters into Japanese and sharing them with friends. Her efforts highlight the deep cultural resonance and potential for cross-cultural collaboration such stories hold in the literary world.

When the novel ended, Takeuchi felt compelled to write a letter to its author, Feng Yue. The cross-border fan mail became a symbolic bridge between cultures. In a recent interview, she expressed her hope of introducing more Japanese readers to the rich and emotional world of Chinese web literature.

The success of Chinese web novels like The King’s Avatar and Dragon Raja further illustrates this trend. The King’s Avatar has been downloaded over 30 million times in Japanese, and its anime adaptation has been screened in multiple countries, including Japan. These works are not just gaining popularity, but are also influencing Japanese creators, leading to a blending of cultural elements and shared narratives that appeal to a global audience.

OTW Tips

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We want your suggestions for the next OTW Signal post! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or news story you think we should know about, send us a link. We are looking for content in all languages! Submitting a link doesn’t guarantee that it will be included in an OTW post, and inclusion of a link doesn’t mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.


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