It certainly feels like it, at least.
Summary:
- With anime like Frieren and The Apothecary Diaries, it feels like series with female protagonists are getting more popular now.
- A few years ago, female protagonists used to be uncommon in genres like isekai.
- While there have always been series with female protagonists, we are getting more of them in mainstream genres now.
This season’s biggest new hit is undoubtedly Solo Leveling (Ore dake Level Up na Ken). However, that doesn’t take into account series that have been running since Fall: among them, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (Sousou no Frieren) and The Apothecary Diaries (Kusuriya no Hitorigoto) can definitely give it a run for its money.
The rise of popularity of series like Friren and The Apothecary Diaries raises another question, however. Between these two and other currently airing series centering on female characters, like Metallic Rouge, are anime with female protagonists getting more popular now?
In some genres, we are getting more female protagonists
The question is actually trickier than it seems at first glance. For example, A Sign of Affection (Yubisaki to Renren) has a female protagonist — but it’s an adaptation of a shoujo manga. While shoujo romance anime are somewhat of a rarity now, there used to be a lot of them, especially in the 00s.
That said, we are getting more series with female protagonists in genres where we haven’t seen them for a while. For example, female-centric isekai anime seem to be on the rise: while there were quite a lot of them in the 90s and early 00s, we haven’t seen many until the villainess isekai boom of the last few years.
Overall, there’s no actual upward trend
It’s not like we haven’t had any female protagonists before the current big hits, though. The genre of “cute girls doing cute things” exists for a reason, and there have been a lot of anime about idols in the past decade since Love Live! School Idol Project got popular.
These anime, while not entirely mainstream, have always been around. Yes, they might not have been mainstream, but they were always there — it’s not really correct to say there are more anime with female protagonists nowadays.
General prospects
Of course, there’s some truth to the general sentiment. Anime with female protagonists are getting more mainstream now. That might be a good thing: a lot of otaku have complained about the generic high school student male protagonists.
Series featuring female MCs might feel like a breath of fresh air after that — especially in the mainstream genres where we don’t usually see them.
The trends come and go. Anime isn’t exactly different from anything else, and there have been periods of popularity of female protagonists in the past. The mid-00s come to mind, with the anime Moribito – Guardian of the Spirit (Seirei no Moribito) and Claymore.
Overall, it’s hard to say whether the current popularity of female protagonists is here to stay or just a passing fad.