SHOUNEN vs SHOJO...DOES IT MATTER?

[TEKnician]

There are some good shounen anime, there are some good shojo anime. Need we be concerned about what kind it is before watching it?

Name some anime that would be considered Shounen/Shojo that is good enough to watch despite its category (does not have to only be these two; it can be genre as well)

P.S. For all my fellow Eureka Seven fans, what would Eureka Seven be categorized as? Personally, I think it's Shojo.

[EkaCoralian]

E7's a mixture of both shonen and shoujo. For the aspect of doing things for the sake of love, that would be shoujo. However there are giant mechs, fighting, killer aliens and limbs being severed from the dead, so thats the shonen aspect. xD; To me, its not really prodominent in one category, but an equal mixture of both.

And knowing what category anime are is important. Like seriously important. xD
I have friends who can't stand mecha. Personally I can't stand anything involving gratuitous amounts of fanservice, so obviously I'm not going to watch stuff with that in it.

[Qyot27]

No, one needn't worry about what a show is classified as before watching it. However, I'd default to saying that knowing what it is makes it easier to articulate a critique or describe what goes on.

Most of my opinions on the divide occur along art style deviations and the way particular elements are treated. Not having seen Eureka Seven except for a couple of episodes, I can't really talk about the treatment inside it, but my gut impulse is thoroughly shounen or light seinen. The art style is decidedly shounen, though.

Romantic elements in shounen are often given the harem or comedy-over-romance angle, whereas in seinen it can get much more dramatic/mature and less harem-y (sometimes; most visual novel adaptations I'd peg as seinen, but may or may not fall into the harem trap regardless of all the route jumping...and unlike some, I don't consider a show with a large female cast and prominent male lead to automatically be a harem). My impression of shoujo is much more inside 'saccharine/displacement fantasy romance' territory and fall into many of their own distinct tropes. Most times these tropes tend to appear in shounen series it's often by way of parodying shoujo works, not by taking them seriously.

For instance, despite X/1999's placement in the shoujo category by value of its art style and some of its undertones, the level and nature of the violence in it makes it an extremely odd duck amidst other works, and so I tend to view it - especially the movie - more as seinen (to be fair, though, CLAMP often does straddle between shoujo/josei and shounen/seinen very frequently, and often in the same series). On the flip side, I'd place Toradora! or Oh My Goddess! in the shounen or seinen area.

Part of this divide is reader perspective. Dare I say that despite the often-fantastic or idyllic circumstances involved in the series' setup, shounen and seinen tend to have more real-life character interaction from the way males (at least, anyway; there are plenty of females that don't like stereotypical chick flick setups too) perceive romantic situations or desire such for themselves. Shoujo tends to align with the more stereotypical schoolage female desires and setups of romantic scenarios - the associated art styles (soft, curved lines on gangly character designs, a propensity for the 'bishounen sparkle' effect) don't cause it to happen, but they usually coincide quite a bit. Art styles used in shounen/seinen series tend to make use of the sharper lines or 'action motion'* present in most series targeted at those demographics, nor are there a horde of anorexically-thin-looking characters.

*i.e. look at just about anything Kyoto Animation or GAINAX do and how the frames themselves get animated.

What doesn't particularly help is what occurs when American distributors get a hold of these series - they get shoujo demographics and shounen action series just about right, but shounen or seinen romance (and some comedy) series are often remarketed. Go on Anime Network on Demand or whatnot and see how many blatantly harem/ecchi shows end up put in the 'Girl Power' section simply because of a large female cast that usually includes at least some portrayal of the male lead being beat to a pulp or being otherwise fought over with some sort of antics (Love Hina, Mahoromatic), comedic series that place the female characters in tomboyish or strong/independent frameworks that could also coincide with the harem-beatdown trope (Galaxy Angel), or that go the pure romantic (Kanon, Clannad) or moe route (K-ON!). These types of series were, 90-99% of the time, originally targeted for males in the 13+ or 15+, sometimes 17+/18+, demographics.

[BasharOfTheAges]

That last bit is showing the cultural disconnect that currently exists between the US and Japan with regards to gender equality. In the US you get a lot of misguided pidgin-holing to fill quotas because they see a market segment untapped or underdeveloped and someone doesn't want to explain that to the higher-ups. In Japan there's centuries of sexism saying there isn't a market worth catering to.

[TEKnician]

I regards to what Eka said, shojo does seem to promote more emotional dramas, and lovy-duvy-wuvy stuff whereas Shounen promotes more action (dramas?) and fighty-tighty-whitey stuff. Is the action content really the determining factor in labeling an anime as Shounen? Is it the same for Shojo? Are there not Shojos with some pretty good action in it? Are there not Shounens with a decent/tragic love story? What separates the two if not action or drama?

Here in America, we seem to have shows that are labeled either kids shows or just regular shows. Of course no boy watches barbie or tinkerbell, and no girl watches...um...well...nevermind. The point is, does an anime really need to be labeled Shounen or Shojo at all? Why point out if it's for boys or girls? I can guarantee you, people are going to be embarrassed or teased for inadvertently watching not intended for their gender. Why not just keep the genre?

the cultural disconnect that currently exists between the US and Japan with regards to gender equality

Indeed, I think the gender bias' can be put off.

[EkaCoralian]

While I do find it a bit silly that they are separated by Japanese words for gender, the general concept is a good idea. Most shonens nowadays have a slight mixture of shoujo, and some shoujos have slight mixtures of shonen.
As far as teensy amounts being added to shows, I guess the title of shoujo/shonen doesn't really matter. However the ones which have major prodominance in one genre are important to this concept. I mean Gurren Lagann has romance in it, but there's no way I'd ever call it a shoujo.

I do think that the names of boy and girl separated by genres is mighty pointless though. Just say 'Romance' and 'Action' or something. :\

[Qyot27]

The root of the 'problem' (which I don't think is a problem at all) is that using 'shounen' or 'shoujo' for genre titles has nothing at all to do with what's in the series. The reason they get called that is because of the magazines they were originally run in. Those magazines cater to certain demographics, of which 'shounen' (young males; usually the 10-15 crowd), 'shoujo' (young females; again, likely the 10-15 crowd), 'seinen' (older teen/adult males), and 'josei' (older teen/adult females) are the magazine's target audience. Sometimes the demographic name is in the magazine name, but often times it's not. Not that I think I needed to say it, but magazines are how manga and light novels are largely first run in Japan, with single-series tankoban compilations coming later. The racks in the store separating the selections by age and gender is most likely where the rigid idea of this all originates. Heck, you'll even see this happen in regard to American bookstores. When was the last time you saw Ladies' Home Journal or Shape or Cosmo interspersed among Men's Health, GQ, or Maxim that wasn't on a grocery store endcap? And I really mean interspersed, where there is no distinct 'here are the women's in one grouped section, and the men's are in another group right next to them or maybe a section down'.

Segregating the series into magazines for a specific age/gender grouping tends to cause a positive feedback loop where certain common elements and themes may develop amongst the magazines' culture (a case of authors knowing their audiences, too), but even at that the overarching idea of 'romance series', 'action series', 'comedy series', 'drama series', and so on are not relevant at all to what demographic it was meant for. What distinguishes them is usually how they do it, not that they do it. My point about what happens when it jumps the Pacific is that American culture generally highly stratifies along plot elements (i.e. boys don't want romance stories, only action; girls don't want high action, only romance*), and we don't have a large magazine comic syndication market that would recreate the Japanese divisions in content (and even if we did, it might still fall prey to the aforementioned plot segregation).

*Despite all the evidence to the contrary, really. My sister goes after action stuff 95% of the time.


Basically, I draw my definitions for 'shounen', 'shoujo', 'seinen', and 'josei' from the original sources and from the accepted categories they get filed under on ANN and Wikipedia (which again, usually use the original sources to determine their categories).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Dnen_manga
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Djo_manga, especially the Western adoption section
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinen_manga
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josei_manga

[Nya-chan Production]

Shounen kicks ass

Literally

:<

[TEKnician]

Shounen kicks ass

Quite...

The reason they get called that is because of the magazines they were originally run in

Tru...

Oh...I completely forgot about seinen and josei. You know, now that I look at all four categories...it's beginning to make some sense. Actually, it would be advisable to warn of mature content in some seinen or josei so the it wards off the underaged. Even though that probably brings me back to an earlier forum.

I do think that the names of boy and girl separated by genres is mighty pointless though. Just say 'Romance' and 'Action' or something. :\

Ultimately, that's what people are going to call them. I just never got used to saying shounen, shojo, seinen, or josei at all. What got to me was that they separate them based on genre and content that seem to appear (all at once) in nearly any anime.

I mean Gurren Lagann has romance in it, but there's no way I'd ever call it a shoujo.

Ha! yeah, that's tru.

Can ther be a genre that is a mix of shonen/shojo?

yeah, it's called comedy...

NOBODY ASKED YOU! GTFO!

N E wayz, my suggestion is for a universal name for action-romances. Unify the boys and the girls.