Worlds Within Worlds...

So, there has been an interesting thread about Shoujo (manga aimed at girls) versus Shonen (boys), along with Josei (young ladies to older) and Seinen (young men to older). In it, witega did a nice research attempt:

Okay, so out of boredom, I used the Manga comparison chart to see how much of what was currently being published and here's what I got:

josei: 3
seinen: 48
shoujo: 98
shounen: 158

Notes:
1) I left out the Chinese Manhua but included Korean Manwha because my circumstantial observation is that the market for colored Kung-fu comics is distinct from the general manga buying pool.
2) I can't swear that I identified everything correctly--I'm particularly shaky on some whether some series fall to seinen or shounen, but I think the overal trend is pretty accurate.
3) I included only series that are currently publishing (in 1st or 2nd editions) or completed within the last 6 months.

Observations:
Clearly shounen does still outnumber shoujo and when you see it as shounen+seinen vs shoujo+josei, the originally male-targeted series greatly outnumber the originally female targeted series.

Many thanks to witega for taking the time to count these out, and it was a good idea to focus on the currently going or recently ended series. So, while the two still aren't equal, it is nice to see some real evidence of how far shoujo has come in the market. It seems like the real area we need some growth is josei. We have a fair amount of seinen like Berserk, Battle Royale, City Hunter, etc. but it seems like most josei has been limited to stuff from Erica Sakurazawa, Junko, and some of the steamier shonen ai stuff. Let's hope we can keep on in this direction and get even more diversity into the marketplace..