The Executioner and Her Way of Life completely flipped the usual isekai formula and because of that, it was review bombed.
The first episode starts like every other isekai, with an overpowered male protagonist getting summoned to another world.
But just a few minutes later, he’s killed off by the real main character, Menou, a priestess whose job is to eliminate “Lost Ones” from Japan whose powers could destroy the world.
The story then follows Menou and her next target, Akari, a cheerful girl with mysterious time powers. As their journey continues, the series explores themes of morality, fate, and a slow-burn yuri (girls’ love) relationship between the two leads.
This unexpected twist didn’t sit well with some viewers who wanted a typical male power fantasy.
Before the second episode even aired, review sites like MyAnimeList and Crunchyroll were flooded with 1-star ratings and comments like “Killed the MC in episode 1, 0/10” or “Yuri trash.”
Many accounts had no prior activity, suggesting targeted review bombing against the show’s direction and queer undertones.
Despite that backlash, The Executioner and Her Way of Life has since somewhat recovered in ratings and built a loyal fanbase.
I mean, the fujoshi / himejoshi distinction probably wouldn't exist if yuri was only consumed by women. When i'm being honest, the whole yuri thing would be much more of a niche market if there was no male audience for it. Just look at fanfiction, which is in general overwhelmingly read by women and girls, and how much more common m/m pairings are compared to w/w pairings.
modern yuri as a genre was created by women for women and even today appears to still stay that way. most yuri stories are published on shojo/josei magazines (which statistically have very small male readership). while in recent years yuri stories have started to appear on shonen/seinen magazines and have shifted a bit into more "male gazey" or less serious type of stories, that still doesn't amount to a big amount of readership as many other type of works. yuri is still incredibly niche anyway, so male readers are very few statistically speaking
if we talk about anime and the english speaking internet, things might look a bit different since the stories that are adapted are very few and many tend to fall on works that are male-friendly (for a lack of a better term). anime producers tend to avoid shojo/josei works so there is some bias there. this appears to be slowly changing but it's very very slow and uncertain how things will look in the future
to be more clear, im asking in the "fictional lesbians are material for neckbeads' male gaze" i hear all over the place including the original comment which seems legitimately unsubstantiated. himejoshi/danshi as terms i am familiar with (my name is a pun on this actually)