I was wondering whether shonen or shojo was more popular, so I scraped genre information from Animenfo's list of anime titles from 1958-2005 and dumped it into a bar graph (large version).
The results speak for themselves, but just as a caveat, it's important to note that AnimeNfo assigns multiple genre classifications to each anime title -- for example, Naruto is classified as 'Action', 'Adventure', 'Comedy', 'Magic', and 'Martial Arts'. Additionally, Animenfo's database includes OVAs and movies in addition to TV series, so popular titles with lots of ancillary products (*cough* Macross) can heavily skew a particular genre.
Anyway, AnimeNfo has support for APIs and whatnot, so it ought to be possible to run queries from Perl to generate more insightful statistics -- for example, one could run a chi-square trend test to see whether the mecha subgenre is *really* in decline (T_T).
In any case, very amusing stuff -- as a last note, here's a list of the numbers & descriptions of each genre (cited from AnimeNfo)
Action = 928
"Thrilling action-packed stories for example high-speed car chases, fierce battles, people running around a lot, and gun-shooting."
Adventure = 540
"Daring tales of people having adventures, journeying to far off and exotic places."
Comedy = 840
"This genre tends to make you laugh. However absurd and insider jokes will sometimes just confuse you."
Cooking = 7
"Anime series that mostly revolve around cooking."
Drama = 568
"Anime with emotional and dramatic story, conveys a wide range of emotion."
Ecchi = 83
"Ecchi anime contains very light sexual themes, such as sexual comedy, transvestites, lecherous grandparents, the occasional bare breast, but never any actual sex. Lots of nosebleeds and potty humor."
Family = 96
"Story about family or just perfect for the entire family."
Fantasy = 498
"Many anime creators draw ideas from the folklore and mythology of many different cultures, using everything from unicorns to umbrella monsters, from the great cosmic sea turtle to Santa Claus."
Game = 197
"Anime series based on a game"
HistoricalSettings = 110
"A look back at stories and events that just might have taken place during the Edo period of Japan, the French Revolution, or other times past. But probably not with total historical accuracy."
Horror = 72
"Creepy tales of ghosts, demons, vengeful ex-girlfriends and other frightening creatures."
Love-Romance = 227
Romantic story about boys falls in love with girls or vice versa.
Magic = 237
"Evil sorcerers bent on world conquest, fairies from another world seeking the magic gems to save humanity, flying unicorns, enchanted swords, there's magic on the air."
MartialArts = 40
"Anime that falls into this category has a lot of bare hand fightings, from normal kicking and punching to awesome finishing moves."
Mature = 371
"Parental discretion is advised."
Mecha = 338
"From fifty-foot robots to form-fitting battlesuits with high heels, anime is probably best known in the western world for mecha."
Music = 32
"From the hardcore heavy metal band to the sweetly tinkling melody of a fairy song, music can often play an integral role in anime. Even a few of the stories about singing idols contain music."
Mystery = 56
"Cops, private detectives, and troubleshooters searching for the clues to solve the great puzzles. Lots of intrigue and conspiracy."
Parody = 32
"As a well-established field, anime has earned its share of parody. From titles which parody the common themes to titles which use well-known anime characters from other titles in humorous guest cameos."
SchoolLife = 285
"Story revolves around school life. From kindergarden to college kids, with all the adventures, it's a wonder they ever have time for classes."
Science-Fiction = 577
"From the whimsical adventures of a boy and his robot to the dramatic plight of a race of cyborg slaves, science fiction plays a common role in anime."
ShounenAi = 5
"Relationships dealing with male & male"
Sports = 127
"This genre conveys a wide range of sports from traditional martial arts like judo to western style sports like baseball or even fictional sports."
SuperPower = 47
"Be it an ancient greek Hercules, a cybernetic muscle-man, or a fourteen year-old girl in a mini-skirted sailor suit. As long as they have super power, they're in the show."
Yuri = 5
"Relationships dealing with female & female. Also known as Shojo-ai"
