I mean, Honey & Clover was a josei series, and look how well it was received by both genders. Regarding shoujo specifically I think the reason for Fruits Basket and Ouran being so successful with the guys was how it was hilarious — the strong comedic bent of both ensured that regardless of how many bishies were thrown at the heroine, you didn’t blink an eyelid because.. one would be a pseudo-homo, another a crossdresser, another a maniacal genius, and so on.

Ultimately the shell, or setting in which characters are placed don’t matter so much as what’s inside the shell or setting. That, at least, I think, is what Key bases its characters on, and which also fails quite badly till Clannad, where they’ve sort-of got it right. Key fails in that respect for making both the shell and the character so foreign that you can’t identify with either — a huge contrast from soft sci-fi, where despite the presence of aliens (or time-travellers, or ESPers) or settings so far removed from the present you still can relate to them due to the elements of humanity presented by the characters themselves.