Ken Amatsu, creator of series such as Love Hina and Mahou Sensei Negima, has stated that harem and moe manga are well past their prime. He goes on to make a list of notable trends he observes in the manga industry today:
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.
He then mentions that a friend of his suggested that, perhaps, this would be the year of yuri manga (involving a romance between two women) but states that he personally doesn’t believe yuri to be all that popular.
