Girls like shoujo, guys like shounen..tastes in anime/manga?

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Jake
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Re: Girls like shoujo, guys like shounen..tastes in anime/manga?

#16 Post by Jake »

chronoluminaire wrote:And then there are series which kind-of transcend the shounen/shoujo division. Escaflowne has a shoujo manga and a shounen manga ( :shock: ); there are a number of shoujo romances that have mecha and fighting; and how would you classify something like Serial Experiments Lain, Read or Die, .hack//SIGN or Jungle wa Itsumo Hare Nochi Guu?
Aside: I'd have trouble classifying Death Note, to be honest. What does that count as, then?
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Re: Girls like shoujo, guys like shounen..tastes in anime/manga?

#17 Post by JQuartz »

Jake wrote:Aside: I'd have trouble classifying Death Note, to be honest. What does that count as, then?
The general consensus (ie. wikipedia) seems to indicate that Death Note is shonen.
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Re: Girls like shoujo, guys like shounen..tastes in anime/manga?

#18 Post by Jake »

JQuartz wrote:The general consensus (ie. wikipedia) seems to indicate that Death Note is shonen.
Wikipedia counts as the general consensus now? ;-)

I have the same general understanding of 'shonen' as Chrono, really; I know that technically it should just mean "for boys", but generally speaking it seems to translate to "shallow crap" most of the time. :/
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Re: Girls like shoujo, guys like shounen..tastes in anime/manga?

#19 Post by GLACIER »

I have the same general understanding of 'shonen' as Chrono, really; I know that technically it should just mean "for boys", but generally speaking it seems to translate to "shallow crap" most of the time. :/
That's probably because a lot of "shallow crap" is directed toward boys then. I don't read manga, but the classification simply indicates target audience (and not content. For instance, if a publisher were to aim a shoujo-style romance toward men, the genre classification would be seinen), which is something determined by authors and publishers. They feel that this is what the young male wants to read.

Death Note was serialized in Shonen Jump, so the target audience is clear, even if the series might appeal to older readers as well. Remember that we're welcome to enjoy works aimed at other demographics.

NANA is actually a shoujo manga (aimed at older teen girls and not the twenty-something crowd), even if it's more complex and down to earth than your typical series.

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Re: Girls like shoujo, guys like shounen..tastes in anime/manga?

#20 Post by Jake »

GLACIER wrote:That's probably because a lot of "shallow crap" is directed toward boys then. I don't read manga, but the classification simply indicates target audience (and not content.
Yeah, I'm well aware. All the same: while technically speaking, according to what the words mean, it's true that 'shonen' just means 'directed towards boys' - realistically, the magazine Shonen Jump has a particular kind of audience, and they'll market to that audience and pick up titles which would appeal to that audience, because that's how they get sales... and at least as far as what I've seen of the English-language version goes, that audience mostly wants shallow crap, and thus the stuff they publish - and to an extent the perception and expectation of the word 'shonen', especially in the west - will take on trends other than just 'aimed at boys'.

From my limited perspective, I could easily see Death Note being published in Afternoon, which would mean people would label it 'seinen' instead - but it'd be the same story; I couldn't so easily see Blame! being published in Shonen Jump.
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Re: Girls like shoujo, guys like shounen..tastes in anime/manga?

#21 Post by Adorya »

I don't recall where I got this info, but the 1st chapters or the chapter 0 of DN was published in a Jump section for an adult audience (Super Jump? Ultra Jump? maybe) but due its success it went to Weekly Shonen Jump.

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Re: Girls like shoujo, guys like shounen..tastes in anime/manga?

#22 Post by JQuartz »

Jake wrote:Wikipedia counts as the general consensus now? ;-)
At least that's what I believe it seems to be since wikipedia wasn't allowed to be used as reference material during my school days. The teachers say that it merely reflects what most people believe about a subject rather than what the truth is. Still this is during my school days so maybe it no longer applies anymore.

As for shonen vs seinen, I think it's more like Teen rating vs Mature rating. Something to prevent the younger audience from reading rather than saying who it's targeted audience are. So in terms of audience, I think shonen and seinen are quite interchangeble with shonen being the more desirable one.
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Re: Girls like shoujo, guys like shounen..tastes in anime/manga?

#23 Post by DaFool »

JQuartz wrote: As for shonen vs seinen, I think it's more like Teen rating vs Mature rating. Something to prevent the younger audience from reading rather than saying who it's targeted audience are. So in terms of audience, I think shonen and seinen are quite interchangeble with shonen being the more desirable one.
I don't want to believe so, necessarily. Because otherwise then seinen would just mean hentai (which hentai is apparently), but I prefer the convention that seinen is stuff that's published in Afternoon, among other things.

I'll admit though that Ah! My Goddess! was one of the properties that first got me into anime, and if it wasn't for the publication outlet I'd thought it was a blueblooded shounen romance, which I thought for many years.

But in recent years, with things that are at least, supposed to be more intellectual -- like Blame!, Mushishi, Kino no Tabi, stuff published by Dengeki, as well as the pure essence of moe, like Haruhi et al. Things in Shonen Jump Advance like Claymore should technically be the true seinen.

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Re: Girls like shoujo, guys like shounen..tastes in anime/manga?

#24 Post by Jake »

Total aside, but:
JQuartz wrote:At least that's what I believe it seems to be since wikipedia wasn't allowed to be used as reference material during my school days. The teachers say that it merely reflects what most people believe about a subject rather than what the truth is. Still this is during my school days so maybe it no longer applies anymore.
Well, the Wikipedia project is still run the same way. ;-)

The problem with using Wikipedia as a reference for academic works isn't that it "just reflects common belief" rather than truth - if nothing else, there are many Wikipedia articles which are perfectly factual. I've been making use of some of their maths articles recently for working out collision detection routines, and I've had no problem with them at all, for example. (I have learned all the relevant maths, but it's so long ago I have to remind myself which one of dot or cross product is the scalar, and so on. ;-)

Instead, it's simply that there's no guarantee that the content on Wikipedia is true, simply because some jerk could have come along five minutes previously and written that Damascus is the capital of Delaware. It's not a 'reliable' source because there's nobody who can be held accountable if it's wrong, there's no assertion of veracity like there is with a printed encyclopaedia or an academic textbook. So it's not a good source, but it's still often worth looking at when doing research so that you can follow up on the sources listed in the Wikipedia article, which often will be more-acceptable publications.


And yeah, I agree with DaFool on the shounen/seinen thing. Seinen typically seems to mean "mature" in the real sense of the word, rather than as a euphemism; "things adults will want to see" rather than "things that non-adults shouldn't see". Hence, I wouldn't be surprised to see Death Note in a 'seinen' publication, because it's not a particularly immature story - unlike something like, say, DBZ.
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Re: Girls like shoujo, guys like shounen..tastes in anime/manga?

#25 Post by Hime »

Jake wrote: And yeah, I agree with DaFool on the shounen/seinen thing. Seinen typically seems to mean "mature" in the real sense of the word, rather than as a euphemism; "things adults will want to see" rather than "things that non-adults shouldn't see". Hence, I wouldn't be surprised to see Death Note in a 'seinen' publication, because it's not a particularly immature story - unlike something like, say, DBZ.
But from what I've seen, Death Note the manga has furigana -> it is made understandable for those who don't know kanji = young people -> it is aimed at younger people and thus is shounen. This might sound a little funny way to categorize it, but note that all comics in Japan don't have furigana, usually just the ones that are aimed at children/younger teens.
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Re: Girls like shoujo, guys like shounen..tastes in anime/manga?

#26 Post by Jake »

Hime wrote:But from what I've seen, Death Note the manga has furigana -> it is made understandable for those who don't know kanji = young people -> it is aimed at younger people and thus is shounen.
Yes, but this is just as likely because it's in Shonen Jump than the reason it's in Shonen Jump. My point was that the story, the characters, the interactions in Death Note don't exclude it from adult interest - in fact, I enjoyed quite a bit of it, and so did most of my similarly-aged friends; I'm 27, and I know people twice my age who've enjoyed the story. It could likely have been published in a seinen magazine written entirely in kanji and still been successful.
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Re: Girls like shoujo, guys like shounen..tastes in anime/manga?

#27 Post by azureXtwilight »

Mirena wrote:Okay, the theme for this is the dividing of anime and manga into gender-based categories (shoujo-girl manga, shounen-boy manga, seinen- men manga).

Myself, I think it's okay with a division like that, since it'll tell what you're in for in most cases.. However, I think it's rather odd having them divided by gender.

I'm a girl and I can't STAND most of shoujo, be it anime or manga. Most of the time, it bores me to death.
Shounen and seinen manga, on the other hand, are usually more to my taste (though of course I can't like everything in that department as well). My sister likes both shoujo and shounen.

What are your preferences? Do they fit the gender stereotype? Your thoughts on this way of dividing things?
I agree with the dividing.
But I disagree that shounen is for boys!
Noooo!!!!
How about my favorite death note, bleach and naruto!?
They're in shounen jump!
Actually, my fave is more to shounen, buuut....
I realized thet I'm a girl, so I read shoujo too, tough only some of them made me....
..........Uh, enthusiastic
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Re: Girls like shoujo, guys like shounen..tastes in anime/manga?

#28 Post by LVUER »

There is no real border between manga/anime for boys or girls. Although there is words "shoujo", "Shounen", "Seinen", etc, I think it's just the intention of the author to target a specific market or just as a guide for readers.

I think I remember that the author of Rurouni Kenshin intend to make Rurouni Kenshin for boys, but much to his (or her... oh my bad memories) surprises, there are many girls like Kenshin (or it vice-versa?).

Really, don't bother with the shoujo, shounen, or those gender things. Just watch any manga you like and watch any anime you want.

Personally, I love Gun Slinger Girls and Phantom. I enjoy Gear Fighter Dendoh, SailorMoon, and Tokyo Mew Mew. I read Hayate the Combat Butler, Elfen Lied, Magister Negi Magi, Aqua Age, and lots lots more. What a diverse choice ^_^

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