I’ve been thinking about how portal fantasies - you know, where a character travels through some sort of portal into a fantasy world - often have girls as their main characters. Alice falls down the rabbit hole, Dorothy gets tornadoed to Oz, Coraline crawls through the secret door to the Other World, Lucy is the first Pevensie to go through the wardrobe, Wendy specifically is invited to accompany Peter to Neverland.

I know this is r/books but this trend seems to extend to movies too. Pan’s Labyrinth, Spirited Away, and Labyrinth all have girl protagonists. I’m having a hard time even thinking of boys in portal fantasies. Bastian (Neverending Story) is one, although the movie version doesn’t really show him portaling until the sequels. I guess The Pagemaster (1994 movie that maybe just rips off Neverending Story?) could count. And the other Pevensies and Darlings accompany their sisters through the portals, but they’re secondary to the girls.

I wondered if anyone here had any theories about why portals seem to draw in so many girls. I have some of my own but I’m curious what others think.

  • SlimShady116@alien.topBEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    Western countries don’t have many, true. I honestly think that it’s because boy portal fantasies are more isekai/tower genre related from manga/manhwa from Japan and South Korea rather than how mainstream portal stories are done in the west. Most of these are videogame related or have elements of Murim and Wuxia themes, though there are a few more based on fantasy worlds (Tensei Slime and Overlord are two popular ones).

    Like, out of all the isekai manga and manhwa I’ve read I can only think of less than a handful that are led by women MCs and not males off the top of my head.

    Women led (just from my anilist that fit closest):

    • The Duchess and Her 50 Tea Recipes
    • My New Life as a Villainess
    • Kowloon Generic Romance (kind of iffy)
    • Kumika No Mikaku (also kind of iffy)

    Male led:

    • Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint
    • Dungeon Odyssey
    • SSS-class Suicide Hero
    • Campfire Cooking in Another World
    • Isekai Apocalypse MYNOGHRA
    • Murim Login
    • Reincarnation of the Murim Clan’s Former Ranker
    • Pick Me Up, Infinite Gacha!
    • Greatest Estate Developer
    • The World After the Fall

    And there are more, but I’m not going to list every single one.

    • Lordfinrodfelagund@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Worth noting that this is a pretty modern, don’t have exact dates on me but I believe it’s some time in the mid two thousands trend. Earlier Japanese portal fantasy tended to also be female led Inuyasha, The Vision of Escaflowne, and Magical Knight Rayearth are the big names I can recall. These also didn’t tend to be nearly as tightly trope driven, but that’s probably a separate industry issue.