>>30219
>Do they even know that it exists? the lack of coverage from SoJ plays a role.
They do know. I gotta point out that western shipbaiting only started after like 20 years. Shadamy shippers went off SA2 and Shadow's game before then, which both the west and east had access to.
I think Japan just doesn't like ships without a ton of canon basis for it. They like the characters that were made for each other in a meta sense. They'll fawn over Sonamy, Silvaze, Shadria, Knuxouge, and you'll almost never see them deviate from those. Sonaze shippers are almost nonexistent over in Japan even though there's a sizable Sonaze fanbase in the west. Although, this could be because it's a ship mostly preferred by men, and almost all Japanese Sonic shipping fanartists are female.
Shadouge is also preferred primarily by the west, just less so than Shadamy, there's definitely a few asian Shadouge shippers.
>and they see Shadow from Maria's PoV.
Shadmari is extremely female-dominated, you're right. Although I've seen the occasional male Shadmari fan self-inserting as Shadow, they're usually found in the rule34 comment sections. ...I wonder if Maekawa self-inserts as Shadow to some extent.
>The best Shadamy fics/comics I've read so far were slowburns and they go that way you mentioned.
Yep, Shadamy is 100% a slowburn ship, but there aren't many people with the drive to create an entire fancomic or 100000 word fanfiction (not that I blame them). So they skip straight to the end part where they're together, she fixed him, and they're a happy wholesome family or something. I'm too autistic to believe it.