What Makes A Seinen Manga?

Offline

Oct 2014

15239

Here are the seinen manga I've read:
K-On! College
K-On! Highschool
Comic Girls
Non Non Biyori
K-On!
New Game!

None of these may appear to be your gory and/or psychological "mature" seinen manga, but they're all still made for older male audiences. They could all easily be enjoyed by people in the shoujo demographic but that doesn't make them any less seinen. Love Live! is seinen and Aikatsu! is shoujo, but they're similar franchises and their audiences don't only consist of their targeted demographic. Yuru Yuri targets all four of the main demographics (shounen, shoujo, seinen, and josei) and all of the manga in Cookie remain in a superstate where they are either shoujo or josei, but never both at the same time.

If it helps, here's the shit I've written in the past about the subject:

1.
They were adapted from seinen anime so they get the seinen tag. Confusingly some anime that are simuladapted into shoujo manga such as Precure and Princess Tutu get the shoujo tag while Code Geass was not given this tag. Also, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure used to be shounen but is now seinen. Technically the parts of the anime that were adapted from source material from after 2005 would be seinen, but since the rest of the anime is shounen they use the shounen tag for all seasons. Attack on Titan is shounen while the anime adapted from its shoujo spinoff is tagged as shoujo. Haruhi Suzumiya is adapted from a light novel and therefore has no demographic tag while the Yuki Nagato spinoff anime is adapted from a seinen manga and has a seinen tag (although it does feel more like shoujo). Yama no Susume was considered seinen up until recently but is now considered shounen, while the MAL entries for both the manga and the anime have lost their demographic tags. Yuru Yuri was originally released in a shounen/seinen magazine which was discontinued and it continued publishing in a shoujo/josei magazine. Manga demographics are confusing and hard to keep track of so it's not surprising that MAL messes up sometimes, not that demographics are always objective anyway.

2.
Monthly Action has mostly seinen manga but on MAL one is josei and one is shoujo. Additionally they have published some shoujo ai and shounen ai manga.

Yuru Yuri was originally published in a mainly seinen magazine and was later continued in a mainly josei magazine. Many people on MAL tend to think that it's targeting the josei market anyway.

There are mahou shoujo anime like Madoka Magica, Nanatsu-iro★Drops, and Lyrical Nanoha which target the seinen demographic and sports anime like Free! and Chihayafuru which target the josei demographic. Demographics are about who the creators hope will read/watch their content.

3.
HanaIro was adapted from a shounen manga. It should be shounen, not shoujo or seinen.

There are plenty of anime that don't seem to fit their demographic. X is shoujo even though it has darker themes and may feel more like a seinen anime (it isn't actually labeled as shoujo on MAL, but the manga is).

Mahou Shoujo anime and SoL shounen anime also tend to have the cute art style that is common with seinen.

4.
Shounen itself isn't a genre but when it's combined with other genres it can describe what you will be watching. Action + shounen is "battle shounen" which tends to be mindless battles, but can some in-depth stuff. Slice of life + shounen tends to have silly humour geared towards young teenage boys, as you would expect. Action + seinen is "battle seinen" which is quite different from battle shounen as it tends to be more violent and bloody while also being of a more serious tone (not always the case as Fullmetal Alchemist, a battle shounen, was more serious than Elfen Lied, a battle seinen). Slice of life + seinen is usually referred to as either "cute girls doing cute things" or "moe anime" and it usually involves cute high school girls doing activities that most people would consider to be "cute". There are some more serious ones as well such as Bartender and Space Brothers which are not about cute girls.

5.
"Shounen slice of life" is a thing, but it seems that not enough people understand this. I've even heard people consider "seinen" to mean "battle seinen" when I personally view "seinen slice of life" as being more common (it isn't actually, but I see a lot more of it). Seinen slice of life is less likely to be tagged as being seinen than battle seinen is so MAL's search isn't too accurate for finding out which is more common.

Jul 2, 2016 12:09 PM

#8

Offline

Sep 2013

1346

zombie_pegasus said:
Here are the seinen manga I've read:
K-On! College
K-On! Highschool
Comic Girls
Non Non Biyori
K-On!
New Game!

None of these may appear to be your gory and/or psychological "mature" seinen manga, but they're all still made for older male audiences. They could all easily be enjoyed by people in the shoujo demographic but that doesn't make them any less seinen. Love Live! is seinen and Aikatsu! is shoujo, but they're similar franchises and their audiences don't only consist of their targeted demographic. Yuru Yuri targets all four of the main demographics (shounen, shoujo, seinen, and josei) and all of the manga in Cookie remain in a superstate where they are either shoujo or josei, but never both at the same time.

If it helps, here's the shit I've written in the past about the subject:

1.
They were adapted from seinen anime so they get the seinen tag. Confusingly some anime that are simuladapted into shoujo manga such as Precure and Princess Tutu get the shoujo tag while Code Geass was not given this tag. Also, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure used to be shounen but is now seinen. Technically the parts of the anime that were adapted from source material from after 2005 would be seinen, but since the rest of the anime is shounen they use the shounen tag for all seasons. Attack on Titan is shounen while the anime adapted from its shoujo spinoff is tagged as shoujo. Haruhi Suzumiya is adapted from a light novel and therefore has no demographic tag while the Yuki Nagato spinoff anime is adapted from a seinen manga and has a seinen tag (although it does feel more like shoujo). Yama no Susume was considered seinen up until recently but is now considered shounen, while the MAL entries for both the manga and the anime have lost their demographic tags. Yuru Yuri was originally released in a shounen/seinen magazine which was discontinued and it continued publishing in a shoujo/josei magazine. Manga demographics are confusing and hard to keep track of so it's not surprising that MAL messes up sometimes, not that demographics are always objective anyway.

2.
Monthly Action has mostly seinen manga but on MAL one is josei and one is shoujo. Additionally they have published some shoujo ai and shounen ai manga.

Yuru Yuri was originally published in a mainly seinen magazine and was later continued in a mainly josei magazine. Many people on MAL tend to think that it's targeting the josei market anyway.

There are mahou shoujo anime like Madoka Magica, Nanatsu-iro★Drops, and Lyrical Nanoha which target the seinen demographic and sports anime like Free! and Chihayafuru which target the josei demographic. Demographics are about who the creators hope will read/watch their content.

3.
HanaIro was adapted from a shounen manga. It should be shounen, not shoujo or seinen.

There are plenty of anime that don't seem to fit their demographic. X is shoujo even though it has darker themes and may feel more like a seinen anime (it isn't actually labeled as shoujo on MAL, but the manga is).

Mahou Shoujo anime and SoL shounen anime also tend to have the cute art style that is common with seinen.

4.
Shounen itself isn't a genre but when it's combined with other genres it can describe what you will be watching. Action + shounen is "battle shounen" which tends to be mindless battles, but can some in-depth stuff. Slice of life + shounen tends to have silly humour geared towards young teenage boys, as you would expect. Action + seinen is "battle seinen" which is quite different from battle shounen as it tends to be more violent and bloody while also being of a more serious tone (not always the case as Fullmetal Alchemist, a battle shounen, was more serious than Elfen Lied, a battle seinen). Slice of life + seinen is usually referred to as either "cute girls doing cute things" or "moe anime" and it usually involves cute high school girls doing activities that most people would consider to be "cute". There are some more serious ones as well such as Bartender and Space Brothers which are not about cute girls.

5.
"Shounen slice of life" is a thing, but it seems that not enough people understand this. I've even heard people consider "seinen" to mean "battle seinen" when I personally view "seinen slice of life" as being more common (it isn't actually, but I see a lot more of it). Seinen slice of life is less likely to be tagged as being seinen than battle seinen is so MAL's search isn't too accurate for finding out which is more common.

You are listing manga from MANGA time kirara which is not called Seinen manga in Japan even if it is targetting adult male.

Well some online manga shops classify it as seinen though.

umashikanekoJul 2, 2016 12:14 PM

Jul 2, 2016 12:25 PM

#9

Offline

Oct 2014

15239

umashikaneko said:

zombie_pegasus said:
Here are the seinen manga I've read:
K-On! College
K-On! Highschool
Comic Girls
Non Non Biyori
K-On!
New Game!

None of these may appear to be your gory and/or psychological "mature" seinen manga, but they're all still made for older male audiences. They could all easily be enjoyed by people in the shoujo demographic but that doesn't make them any less seinen. Love Live! is seinen and Aikatsu! is shoujo, but they're similar franchises and their audiences don't only consist of their targeted demographic. Yuru Yuri targets all four of the main demographics (shounen, shoujo, seinen, and josei) and all of the manga in Cookie remain in a superstate where they are either shoujo or josei, but never both at the same time.

If it helps, here's the shit I've written in the past about the subject:

1.
They were adapted from seinen anime so they get the seinen tag. Confusingly some anime that are simuladapted into shoujo manga such as Precure and Princess Tutu get the shoujo tag while Code Geass was not given this tag. Also, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure used to be shounen but is now seinen. Technically the parts of the anime that were adapted from source material from after 2005 would be seinen, but since the rest of the anime is shounen they use the shounen tag for all seasons. Attack on Titan is shounen while the anime adapted from its shoujo spinoff is tagged as shoujo. Haruhi Suzumiya is adapted from a light novel and therefore has no demographic tag while the Yuki Nagato spinoff anime is adapted from a seinen manga and has a seinen tag (although it does feel more like shoujo). Yama no Susume was considered seinen up until recently but is now considered shounen, while the MAL entries for both the manga and the anime have lost their demographic tags. Yuru Yuri was originally released in a shounen/seinen magazine which was discontinued and it continued publishing in a shoujo/josei magazine. Manga demographics are confusing and hard to keep track of so it's not surprising that MAL messes up sometimes, not that demographics are always objective anyway.

2.
Monthly Action has mostly seinen manga but on MAL one is josei and one is shoujo. Additionally they have published some shoujo ai and shounen ai manga.

Yuru Yuri was originally published in a mainly seinen magazine and was later continued in a mainly josei magazine. Many people on MAL tend to think that it's targeting the josei market anyway.

There are mahou shoujo anime like Madoka Magica, Nanatsu-iro★Drops, and Lyrical Nanoha which target the seinen demographic and sports anime like Free! and Chihayafuru which target the josei demographic. Demographics are about who the creators hope will read/watch their content.

3.
HanaIro was adapted from a shounen manga. It should be shounen, not shoujo or seinen.

There are plenty of anime that don't seem to fit their demographic. X is shoujo even though it has darker themes and may feel more like a seinen anime (it isn't actually labeled as shoujo on MAL, but the manga is).

Mahou Shoujo anime and SoL shounen anime also tend to have the cute art style that is common with seinen.

4.
Shounen itself isn't a genre but when it's combined with other genres it can describe what you will be watching. Action + shounen is "battle shounen" which tends to be mindless battles, but can some in-depth stuff. Slice of life + shounen tends to have silly humour geared towards young teenage boys, as you would expect. Action + seinen is "battle seinen" which is quite different from battle shounen as it tends to be more violent and bloody while also being of a more serious tone (not always the case as Fullmetal Alchemist, a battle shounen, was more serious than Elfen Lied, a battle seinen). Slice of life + seinen is usually referred to as either "cute girls doing cute things" or "moe anime" and it usually involves cute high school girls doing activities that most people would consider to be "cute". There are some more serious ones as well such as Bartender and Space Brothers which are not about cute girls.

5.
"Shounen slice of life" is a thing, but it seems that not enough people understand this. I've even heard people consider "seinen" to mean "battle seinen" when I personally view "seinen slice of life" as being more common (it isn't actually, but I see a lot more of it). Seinen slice of life is less likely to be tagged as being seinen than battle seinen is so MAL's search isn't too accurate for finding out which is more common.

You are listing manga from MANGA time kirara which is not called Seinen manga in Japan even if it is targetting adult male.

Well some online manga shops classify it as seinen though.

So does it just have no demographic in Japan? What are some examples of manga magazines that are aimed at a specific demographic but don't state the demographic in the title (young=seinen, BTW)? The only one I can think of would be Ciao which is shoujo but doesn't have the word "shoujo" in its title. Shounen Jump and Young Jump, and Shounen Gangan and Young Gangan have their demographic stated in their title. I can't personally think of any purely seinen magazines that don't state that they're seinen in their title, but I won't deny the possibility that they exist. I'm pretty sure most manga magazines don't specify what demographic they're for, which makes things confusing.

Jul 2, 2016 12:36 PM

#10

TheFreeMan

Offline

Jun 2016

5

zombie_pegasus said:
Slice of life + seinen is usually referred to as either "cute girls doing cute things" or "moe anime" and it usually involves cute high school girls doing activities that most people would consider to be "cute".

Okay. THIS is what has me confused. If seinen is aimed at older males, why is something like that considered seinen? Is this a cultural thing? Or is there actually something... wait. Is this about that weird "Big Brother Instinct" trope? Do they play on that instinct in people by having young, cute characters to endear people to them?

Jul 2, 2016 12:37 PM

#11

Offline

Sep 2013

1346

morning spiritz afternoon are called seinen manga without the word young.

I think they need to be defined by publisher as seinen or widely called as seinen manga by masses preferably both.neither apply to kirara,even though some online shops define it as seinen,other sites define it as shounen manga.

If You can read Japanese,you may well go to Japanese wiki of magazine.kirara page only stating it targets male and avoiding the word seinen nor shounen because it is not refferd to that way

umashikanekoJul 2, 2016 12:43 PM

Jul 2, 2016 1:10 PM

#12

Offline

Oct 2014

15239

TheFreeMan said:

zombie_pegasus said:
Slice of life + seinen is usually referred to as either "cute girls doing cute things" or "moe anime" and it usually involves cute high school girls doing activities that most people would consider to be "cute".

Okay. THIS is what has me confused. If seinen is aimed at older males, why is something like that considered seinen? Is this a cultural thing? Or is there actually something... wait. Is this about that weird "Big Brother Instinct" trope? Do they play on that instinct in people by having young, cute characters to endear people to them?

Big brothers and parents alike, we all have the natural instinct to protect our family members. Since males are far stronger than females and people are stronger when they're older it is the duty of older males to protect others in their family. Testosterone levels drop drastically in males when their wife is pregnant, but it also drops when they adopt a child or even when seeing a cute child or animal. This instinct is much stronger when males get older, which is why the concentration of cute girl shows is higher with seinen manga than with shounen manga (there are shounen moe manga such as Lucky Star and Joshiraku, but they're not quite as common as seinen moe manga).

Jul 2, 2016 1:11 PM

#13

Offline

Sep 2013

1346

zombie_pegasus said:

umashikaneko said:

zombie_pegasus said:
Here are the seinen manga I've read:
K-On! College
K-On! Highschool
Comic Girls
Non Non Biyori
K-On!
New Game!

None of these may appear to be your gory and/or psychological "mature" seinen manga, but they're all still made for older male audiences. They could all easily be enjoyed by people in the shoujo demographic but that doesn't make them any less seinen. Love Live! is seinen and Aikatsu! is shoujo, but they're similar franchises and their audiences don't only consist of their targeted demographic. Yuru Yuri targets all four of the main demographics (shounen, shoujo, seinen, and josei) and all of the manga in Cookie remain in a superstate where they are either shoujo or josei, but never both at the same time.

If it helps, here's the shit I've written in the past about the subject:

1.
They were adapted from seinen anime so they get the seinen tag. Confusingly some anime that are simuladapted into shoujo manga such as Precure and Princess Tutu get the shoujo tag while Code Geass was not given this tag. Also, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure used to be shounen but is now seinen. Technically the parts of the anime that were adapted from source material from after 2005 would be seinen, but since the rest of the anime is shounen they use the shounen tag for all seasons. Attack on Titan is shounen while the anime adapted from its shoujo spinoff is tagged as shoujo. Haruhi Suzumiya is adapted from a light novel and therefore has no demographic tag while the Yuki Nagato spinoff anime is adapted from a seinen manga and has a seinen tag (although it does feel more like shoujo). Yama no Susume was considered seinen up until recently but is now considered shounen, while the MAL entries for both the manga and the anime have lost their demographic tags. Yuru Yuri was originally released in a shounen/seinen magazine which was discontinued and it continued publishing in a shoujo/josei magazine. Manga demographics are confusing and hard to keep track of so it's not surprising that MAL messes up sometimes, not that demographics are always objective anyway.

2.
Monthly Action has mostly seinen manga but on MAL one is josei and one is shoujo. Additionally they have published some shoujo ai and shounen ai manga.

Yuru Yuri was originally published in a mainly seinen magazine and was later continued in a mainly josei magazine. Many people on MAL tend to think that it's targeting the josei market anyway.

There are mahou shoujo anime like Madoka Magica, Nanatsu-iro★Drops, and Lyrical Nanoha which target the seinen demographic and sports anime like Free! and Chihayafuru which target the josei demographic. Demographics are about who the creators hope will read/watch their content.

3.
HanaIro was adapted from a shounen manga. It should be shounen, not shoujo or seinen.

There are plenty of anime that don't seem to fit their demographic. X is shoujo even though it has darker themes and may feel more like a seinen anime (it isn't actually labeled as shoujo on MAL, but the manga is).

Mahou Shoujo anime and SoL shounen anime also tend to have the cute art style that is common with seinen.

4.
Shounen itself isn't a genre but when it's combined with other genres it can describe what you will be watching. Action + shounen is "battle shounen" which tends to be mindless battles, but can some in-depth stuff. Slice of life + shounen tends to have silly humour geared towards young teenage boys, as you would expect. Action + seinen is "battle seinen" which is quite different from battle shounen as it tends to be more violent and bloody while also being of a more serious tone (not always the case as Fullmetal Alchemist, a battle shounen, was more serious than Elfen Lied, a battle seinen). Slice of life + seinen is usually referred to as either "cute girls doing cute things" or "moe anime" and it usually involves cute high school girls doing activities that most people would consider to be "cute". There are some more serious ones as well such as Bartender and Space Brothers which are not about cute girls.

5.
"Shounen slice of life" is a thing, but it seems that not enough people understand this. I've even heard people consider "seinen" to mean "battle seinen" when I personally view "seinen slice of life" as being more common (it isn't actually, but I see a lot more of it). Seinen slice of life is less likely to be tagged as being seinen than battle seinen is so MAL's search isn't too accurate for finding out which is more common.

You are listing manga from MANGA time kirara which is not called Seinen manga in Japan even if it is targetting adult male.

Well some online manga shops classify it as seinen though.

So does it just have no demographic in Japan? What are some examples of manga magazines that are aimed at a specific demographic but don't state the demographic in the title (young=seinen, BTW)? The only one I can think of would be Ciao which is shoujo but doesn't have the word "shoujo" in its title. Shounen Jump and Young Jump, and Shounen Gangan and Young Gangan have their demographic stated in their title. I can't personally think of any purely seinen magazines that don't state that they're seinen in their title, but I won't deny the possibility that they exist. I'm pretty sure most manga magazines don't specify what demographic they're for, which makes things confusing.

Are you living in Japan?You are pretty familiar with Japanese language.
If You are that much familiar with Japanese usage of the term,You should have avoided name kirara manga as example of Seinen.

Jul 2, 2016 1:50 PM

#14

Offline

Oct 2014

15239

umashikaneko said:

zombie_pegasus said:

umashikaneko said:

zombie_pegasus said:
Here are the seinen manga I've read:
K-On! College
K-On! Highschool
Comic Girls
Non Non Biyori
K-On!
New Game!

None of these may appear to be your gory and/or psychological "mature" seinen manga, but they're all still made for older male audiences. They could all easily be enjoyed by people in the shoujo demographic but that doesn't make them any less seinen. Love Live! is seinen and Aikatsu! is shoujo, but they're similar franchises and their audiences don't only consist of their targeted demographic. Yuru Yuri targets all four of the main demographics (shounen, shoujo, seinen, and josei) and all of the manga in Cookie remain in a superstate where they are either shoujo or josei, but never both at the same time.

If it helps, here's the shit I've written in the past about the subject:

1.
They were adapted from seinen anime so they get the seinen tag. Confusingly some anime that are simuladapted into shoujo manga such as Precure and Princess Tutu get the shoujo tag while Code Geass was not given this tag. Also, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure used to be shounen but is now seinen. Technically the parts of the anime that were adapted from source material from after 2005 would be seinen, but since the rest of the anime is shounen they use the shounen tag for all seasons. Attack on Titan is shounen while the anime adapted from its shoujo spinoff is tagged as shoujo. Haruhi Suzumiya is adapted from a light novel and therefore has no demographic tag while the Yuki Nagato spinoff anime is adapted from a seinen manga and has a seinen tag (although it does feel more like shoujo). Yama no Susume was considered seinen up until recently but is now considered shounen, while the MAL entries for both the manga and the anime have lost their demographic tags. Yuru Yuri was originally released in a shounen/seinen magazine which was discontinued and it continued publishing in a shoujo/josei magazine. Manga demographics are confusing and hard to keep track of so it's not surprising that MAL messes up sometimes, not that demographics are always objective anyway.

2.
Monthly Action has mostly seinen manga but on MAL one is josei and one is shoujo. Additionally they have published some shoujo ai and shounen ai manga.

Yuru Yuri was originally published in a mainly seinen magazine and was later continued in a mainly josei magazine. Many people on MAL tend to think that it's targeting the josei market anyway.

There are mahou shoujo anime like Madoka Magica, Nanatsu-iro★Drops, and Lyrical Nanoha which target the seinen demographic and sports anime like Free! and Chihayafuru which target the josei demographic. Demographics are about who the creators hope will read/watch their content.

3.
HanaIro was adapted from a shounen manga. It should be shounen, not shoujo or seinen.

There are plenty of anime that don't seem to fit their demographic. X is shoujo even though it has darker themes and may feel more like a seinen anime (it isn't actually labeled as shoujo on MAL, but the manga is).

Mahou Shoujo anime and SoL shounen anime also tend to have the cute art style that is common with seinen.

4.
Shounen itself isn't a genre but when it's combined with other genres it can describe what you will be watching. Action + shounen is "battle shounen" which tends to be mindless battles, but can some in-depth stuff. Slice of life + shounen tends to have silly humour geared towards young teenage boys, as you would expect. Action + seinen is "battle seinen" which is quite different from battle shounen as it tends to be more violent and bloody while also being of a more serious tone (not always the case as Fullmetal Alchemist, a battle shounen, was more serious than Elfen Lied, a battle seinen). Slice of life + seinen is usually referred to as either "cute girls doing cute things" or "moe anime" and it usually involves cute high school girls doing activities that most people would consider to be "cute". There are some more serious ones as well such as Bartender and Space Brothers which are not about cute girls.

5.
"Shounen slice of life" is a thing, but it seems that not enough people understand this. I've even heard people consider "seinen" to mean "battle seinen" when I personally view "seinen slice of life" as being more common (it isn't actually, but I see a lot more of it). Seinen slice of life is less likely to be tagged as being seinen than battle seinen is so MAL's search isn't too accurate for finding out which is more common.

You are listing manga from MANGA time kirara which is not called Seinen manga in Japan even if it is targetting adult male.

Well some online manga shops classify it as seinen though.

So does it just have no demographic in Japan? What are some examples of manga magazines that are aimed at a specific demographic but don't state the demographic in the title (young=seinen, BTW)? The only one I can think of would be Ciao which is shoujo but doesn't have the word "shoujo" in its title. Shounen Jump and Young Jump, and Shounen Gangan and Young Gangan have their demographic stated in their title. I can't personally think of any purely seinen magazines that don't state that they're seinen in their title, but I won't deny the possibility that they exist. I'm pretty sure most manga magazines don't specify what demographic they're for, which makes things confusing.

Are you living in Japan?You are pretty familiar with Japanese language.
If You are that much familiar with Japanese usage of the term,You should have avoided name kirara manga as example of Seinen.

I'm not living in Japan, I've just picked up a fair bit of Japanese from anime/manga and online. Because the Japanese definition is so abstract and doesn't even apply to that high a percentage of manga I prefer to just use the Western definitions of the demographics (ie. if it's targeted at the seinen demographic then the manga is seinen regardless of how the magazine presents itself).

Jul 2, 2016 2:47 PM

#15

ichii_1

Offline

Sep 2013

22818

Shounen is for young boys.
Shoujo is for young girls.
Josei is for older females (18-50).
Seinen is for older males (18-50).

Moe needs to be separated from seinen and form it's own demographic, it's gotten too big and diverse to be grouped in with just "seinen".

ichii_1Jul 2, 2016 2:53 PM

Jul 3, 2016 5:07 PM

#16

Kurt_Irving

Offline

Jul 2013

2336

That's also similar to asking "what makes Lupin III different than most manga?". What makes Golgo 13 different than most manga is that it's obviously made for men, it's got an anti-heroic character assassinating rich and powerful bad guys for a living (The Punisher can be considered seinen by Japan's standards) and it's got sexuality.

Jul 4, 2016 1:57 PM

#17

TFO1013

Offline

Jul 2014

866

Rastamepas said:
When it's in a seinen publication...

Seinen is a demographic not a genre.

This. To assume that seinen means a certain type of manga is ridiculous. All it means is that it is targeted towards older males.

Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary
Spice and Wolf
The Other Side Of Secret
Ai Yori Aoshi
Franken Fran
Suikoden III
Kanojo wo Mamoru 51 no Houhou
Kurozuka
Mushishi
Mysterious Girlfriend X
Read or Dream
Venus Versus Virus
Draw

All of these are seinen (according to MAL) that I have read or am currently reading and they certainly aren't all the same.

Jul 4, 2016 2:59 PM

#18

Offline

May 2015

2360

TheFreeMan said:
Okay, but why would it be in that publication? Why not Shounen? Is it because of the sexual themes?

That and maybe the gore, I remember Bastard!! was shounen for a while though, and it sold very well there too so. *shrug*

ゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴ

Jul 4, 2016 11:00 PM

#19

Rastamepas

Offline

Mar 2011

515

ashfrliebert said:

TheFreeMan said:
Okay, but why would it be in that publication? Why not Shounen? Is it because of the sexual themes?

That and maybe the gore, I remember Bastard!! was shounen for a while though, and it sold very well there too so. *shrug*

Except there are Seinen manga that are not violent or sexual.. It's not any specific thing. It's literally just aimed at an older group of people no matter what genre.

Jul 4, 2016 11:58 PM

#20

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May 2015

2360

Rastamepas said:

Except there are Seinen manga that are not violent or sexual.. It's not any specific thing. It's literally just aimed at an older group of people no matter what genre.

Well I know, but it's about elements that attract an older demographic, but if anything I'd figure it's the other way around.

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Jul 5, 2016 12:09 AM

#21

UnoPuntoCinco

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Oct 2013

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Being the kind of thing an adult male would read.

Jul 11, 2016 6:26 AM

#22

Woggo

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It's kind hat to explain since if look the dark stuff shoeon had back in the old days like for example Devilman and Fist of the Nottn Star would be classified as seinen if they came out today. Series like Tokyo Ghoul would be consider Shoeon if it came in 1970-1990s. Usually anything these days that show sex scene, a lot of volience, rape, characters going through really dark pasts would classify as seinen. It also due the fact of censorship is getting more strict over the years so really if think about their only like three true seinen series that are still ongoing with are Vagabond, Berserk, and Vinland Saga.

Jul 11, 2016 8:23 AM

#23

Xarvyn

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Aug 2011

533

Seinen has to do with the content. Mature themes and complicated storylines don't make manga a Seinen demographic, just look at Hunter x Hunter. It's mostly blood, gore, and uncensored tits that gives it the demographic.

Jul 11, 2016 8:57 AM

#24

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As far as In understand demogrpahics - they aren't genres, they're defined solely by the magazine of serialization. I do think however that there're qualities that you may expect from each demographic, but while there're core manga that have this common qualities, the rest may be whatever.
Also some magazines are undefined, and manga may move.

From my experience the three core qualities of seinen are violence, sexual content, psychologism. + some characteristic traits in visual style.

Bastard!! was initially serialized as shonen, btw.

Not sure what's your problem with Maria.

Jul 11, 2016 11:28 AM

#25

RichtheLionheart

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In a lot of ways it just means more blood, gore, and sex but it's more than that as well. http://myanimelist.net/manga/genre/41/Seinen

Some manga are Seinen because the subjects they discuss or themes are simply better targeted towards an older audience.

Jul 11, 2016 11:32 AM

#26

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Jul 2018

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deadoptimist said:
As far as In understand demogrpahics - they aren't genres, they're defined solely by the magazine of serialization. I do think however that there're qualities that you may expect from each demographic, but while there're core manga that have this common qualities, the rest may be whatever.

It depends of what is your definition of "genre". It's like the settings (like Fantasy, Science-fiction) that are generally considered as genres.

Because like you said, those demographics have distinct traits; they have canons, thematics, types of story-telling, archetypes, visual styles…

For example I can take the demographic that I know the best, the shōjo one: They tend to be romantic (!= romance genre), they focus on characters psychology/emotions/development/relationship, they have a story-telling that is more focused on emotional building rather than action (as succession of events), which affect the layout of the pages which is more destructured than in the other demographics.
As for the archetypes, outside the bishōnen which is a prominent figure of the shōjo demographic, the otokoyaku archetype (or the "prince girl") is a rarity outside the shōjo demographic.

And because of those distinctive traits, the demographics can be considered as genres. But a different type of genre : it's just another way to classify stuffs.
They're indeed not the same type of genre than "action", "romance" et cætera. Like the setting is also a third kind of genre.

Though technically, a "shōjo manga is a manga published in a shōjo magazine". Which means that not all shōjo follow the "shōjo traits" and manga from other demographics can follow the "shōjo traits". And most manga tend to blend the typical traits of different demographics.
You even have some magazines that are atypical, like "Comic High!" which says to publish "shōjo manga for men", and thus is technically a seinen magazine but its manga tend to follow shōjo traits.

removed-userJul 11, 2016 11:43 AM

Jul 11, 2016 2:17 PM

#27

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lady_freyja said:

From my pov, shoujo is the best defined or, at least, one with the biggest core component (for which all the traits you've listed are true), but then there is Banana Fish. And Chang Ge Xing was pubslished both as shoujo and seinen.
The point of my comment was that the OP won't find strict uniformity inside the demographics. And no matter what our definition of a genre is it would demand some common trends, while, I believe, there're none that would be true for all works published under a demographic. And it is even harder to find ones, that would differentiate between them. There're school love stories both in shoujo, josei, shonen, and probably seinen.

I decided to settle for the field mentality when thinking about demographics, with the core, that can be summarized somwhat, and the perifery, which cannot.

Though, as far as I see, manga can move from a magazine of one type to another, it probably doesn't mean that it has changed. There're shonen and seinen works, clearly aimed at women. (Btw, would you know some examples of opposite cases, perchance?) And Manga Erotics F, for example, doesn't have a demography, -ai magazines don't seem to have them too.

While discussion of whether something belongs to a demographic it's published under have their merit, I think it's better to treat demogrpahics as sort of technical terms, that have their meaning, but also depend on real life factors and circumstances, and the final say is the reality of the magazine not our speculation.

Thanks for the details on otokoyaku (didn't know the term) and Comic High!!

Jul 11, 2016 7:03 PM

#28

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The discussion is interesting, and I think both lady_freyja and deadoptimist made some good point about all that.

RichtheLionheart said:
In a lot of ways it just means more blood, gore, and sex but it's more than that as well. http://myanimelist.net/manga/genre/41/Seinen

The moment when you discover that Girl Friends is tagged as Seinen on MAL, you can start asking yourself question, indeed. Huhuhu

deadoptimist said:
There're shonen and seinen works, clearly aimed at women

You have exemple for that ? (I don't say it as "I don't believe you", I say it because it interest me and make me curious about what specific manga you were thinking about when saying that)

It's true that Seinen manga seems more "inclusive" than Josei manga , wich feel more "exclusive", for exemple.
Normaly, if we would be to take it as only a demograhic, you would think that the two would be equaly represented or share the same ground at least (manga for young adult/adult), but it doesn't seems and feel to be the case, if we take a look at reality.
Josei seems way more "strongly typed" for woman , meaning by that , manga "by woman and for woman", than Seinen is for men.
Thinking of it, I don't really think people would be that surprised if they discover that a Seinen manga is made by a female author, but if it was a Josei manga made by a man...
Surely there is a sort of sexist or at least socio- historical aspect to it, but it's kind of hard to put the finger on what the problem is, if problem there is.
But I do feel that there is something that doesn't feel right, when I see the difference of entries in the manga database here right now( Seinen = 4881 / Josei = 1510).

Anyway, I'd just like to add a little aspect to the conversation, from my experience:
Here in France, I know that it can frequently happen for manga that are labeled as Shonen in Japan to be changed to Seinen in the stores, or Shonen to Shoujo, etc..
Basically, it's up to the actual store that sell it to decide where he put it on it's different shelf.
Typicaly, if the manga have a specific art style with slender faces and "sparkles backgrounds", it could make the vendor think that it would appeal more to female reader and attract them, so he would put it in the Shoujo departement, thinking it would sell better like that. (I'm exagerating of course, and maybe nowaday it doesn't really work like I said, but still)
So, let's say that different countries can have different way of demographicaly categorize a manga, to what should we refer then ?
Is a Seinen manga inherently a Seinen, or is it the actual majority of consumer that buy and read it; or the vendor that sell it; or even the culture where it have been created/translated; that make it a Seinen ?

DullboyJul 12, 2016 8:06 AM

Jul 11, 2016 11:18 PM

#29

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lady_freyja said:

It depends of what is your definition of "genre". It's like the settings (like Fantasy, Science-fiction) that are generally considered as genres.

Because like you said, those demographics have distinct traits; they have canons, thematics, types of story-telling, archetypes, visual styles…

For example I can take the demographic that I know the best, the shōjo one: They tend to be romantic (!= romance genre), they focus on characters psychology/emotions/development/relationship, they have a story-telling that is more focused on emotional building rather than action (as succession of events), which affect the layout of the pages which is more destructured than in the other demographics.
As for the archetypes, outside the bishōnen which is a prominent figure of the shōjo demographic, the otokoyaku archetype (or the "prince girl") is a rarity outside the shōjo demographic.

And because of those distinctive traits, the demographics can be considered as genres. But a different type of genre : it's just another way to classify stuffs.
They're indeed not the same type of genre than "action", "romance" et cætera. Like the setting is also a third kind of genre.

Not sure how you could consider demographics genres, certain demographics usually have certain genres for obvious reasons - that's the genre that attracts the target group. It's *usually* a certain genre because of it's demographic. Pretty sure setting also isn't a genre.
E: Idk, I'd just consider both categories. *Specific Demographic* tend to be of *specific genre*, still not exactly one in the same.

UnoPuntoCinco said:
Being the kind of thing an adult male would read.

b-but..

ashfrliebertJul 12, 2016 1:41 AM

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Jul 11, 2016 11:37 PM

#30

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Oct 2014

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RichtheLionheart said:
In a lot of ways it just means more blood, gore, and sex but it's more than that as well. http://myanimelist.net/manga/genre/41/Seinen

Some manga are Seinen because the subjects they discuss or themes are simply better targeted towards an older audience.

Xarvyn said:
Seinen has to do with the content. Mature themes and complicated storylines don't make manga a Seinen demographic, just look at Hunter x Hunter. It's mostly blood, gore, and uncensored tits that gives it the demographic.

Sure. Bartender, Mushishi, Girlfriends, and Byousoku 5 Centimeter say "hi". If you look through the most popular seinen manga you'll notice that most of them aren't from Young Jump meaning that they aren't simply shounen jump for adults. Although some seinen manga will be aimed at the "blood and gore" fans and others will be aimed at the "cutesy loli" fans, there are still plenty of seinen manga out there that are truly only for mature audiences and will not appeal to edgy teens or little girls.

Jul 12, 2016 1:39 AM

#31

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Basically it's being aimed at young male adults, manga aimed at young male adults are in senien magazines. Doesn't seem anymore complicated than that.

ゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴロゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴ

Jul 12, 2016 2:48 AM

#32

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ashfrliebert said:
Basically it's being aimed at young male adults, manga aimed at young male adults are in senien magazines. Doesn't seem anymore complicated than that.

This.

Also I noticed that some people on Mal think all the manga magazines must be classified either shonen/seinen/shoujo/josei.This is misconception.

Most general major magazines(Weekly shonen jump and young jump for examples) fall into these but minor/specialized magazines often don't have designed demographic.

Jul 12, 2016 5:18 AM

#33

ziggy_Z

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Mar 2014

4596

When you comprehend the pre-school fact that Shounen & Seinen are not genres, then you will realise the answer to "What exactly qualifies a manga as Seinen?"

Jul 12, 2016 5:44 AM

#34

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Dullboy said:

I think the detail that you’ve mentioned, that seinen is more inclusive, is important. Like in the language male genus doesn’t mean only male, but also is used for neutral, male is the default, culturally, and female marked. Josei is also the latest demographic to be established, I’ve seen somewhere that josei magazines comprise only 7% of magazines, this demographic is small.

My conjecture is that probably both males and females read seinen and shounen, these demographics are bigger, so, if something can be sold to both sexes, the author would aim at that.

And yeah, there’re popular seinen and shounen female authors. Hayashida Q is a woman and Rumiko is hard to ignore. While I sure don’t know a male author who works on shoujo currently.

As for the shounen aimed at women, I meant Mag Garden, which has, apparently, a thing for it, and such its publications as Mahoutsukai no Yome or Totsukuni no Shoujo. Didn’t think much about seinen, but Gangsta is labeled as seinen, but it has those characteristic traits of josei stories about beautiful men.

Jul 12, 2016 8:47 AM

#35

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Apr 2014

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deadoptimist said:
Like in the language male genus doesn’t mean only male, but also is used for neutral, male is the default, culturally, and female marked

Very true.
But on the other hand, the Japan language have the particularity to be strongly "gendered" . Like there is a true neutral form, and then a clear distinction of words and formula used either by male or female , but not both (the most simple exemple : Watashi = neutral / Boku;Ore = male / Atashi = female).
Considering the strong "gender identity and distinction" that run in the japanese language and culture, it sound about right that they are the one that clearly came up with demographic categories like Seinen or Shoujo, while in other culture there is not really such things to divide the comics readers (seems it's more "imply" that clearly said, sometime)

deadoptimist said:

As for the shounen aimed at women, I meant Mag Garden, which has, apparently, a thing for it, and such its publications as Mahoutsukai no Yome or Totsukuni no Shoujo

Oh, it didn't came to mind when I asked, but I see it now yes. Since I'm familiar with both those manga, it's funny it didn't came to my mind.

If I had an exemple for a Josei manga that could be said as targeting both male and female reader, I would think of Usagi Drop. The paternity aspect of the manga seems to really be made to strike a chord for the male reader (I personaly felt it when watching the anime. I know about the manga controversy though, but let's put that aside ^^) , somehow.
It's only supposition, but it seems that it might be the reason why it's the first manga that come up when clicking on the Josei tag on MAL.

DullboyJul 12, 2016 8:50 AM

Jul 12, 2016 10:28 AM

#36

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ashfrliebert said:
Not sure how you could consider demographics genres, certain demographics usually have certain genres for obvious reasons - that's the genre that attracts the target group. It's *usually* a certain genre because of it's demographic. Pretty sure setting also isn't a genre.
E: Idk, I'd just consider both categories. *Specific Demographic* tend to be of *specific genre*, still not exactly one in the same.

I never said that the demographic imply a content.

Because the basic definition of the word "genre", and that will probably interest @ziggy_Z too, is "Genre is any category of literature, music, or other forms of art or entertainment". Meaning that the demographic and the setting are two types of genre.

People usually use the word "genre" as a synonym of "type of content".

And if you take a look at the genre theory, you'll see that a genre is discursively constructed by regrouping different works because they share common characteristics.

Personally I read some academic publications about manga, and it's common to find the expression "shōjo genre". Because the authors are usually versed in the genre theory (I mean, they study art or literature…).

That's why I begun my message by:

lady_freyja said:
It depends of what is your definition of "genre".

But anyway, I never said that a demographic imply a content (romance, action for very basic ones… or "magical girl", "yuri", "mecha" for very specific ones). When the demographic influences the manga, it influences the "decoration"; the art-style, the way things are presented… in some extreme cases, it can even influence the content in some ways.

Because I don't know a genre-content that isn't present in a demographic. Hell, there is even shōnen yaoi, they're a rarity, but still exist.
And in fact, all shōnen/seinen yaoi that I read feature at least one cross-dresser. That's why I meant while saying "in some extreme cases, it can even influence the content in some ways.", because it seems that cross-dressing is a distinctive traits of "yaoi for males". While "yaoi for females" can feature or not feature cross-dressers.

If I take the example of the yuri, that is a genre that I know pretty well, I can identify "subtypes" of yuri for each demographics:
Shōjo: Class S-yuri (romantic friendship) or feature an otokoyaku.
Josei: Are realistic and more true to the "lesbian life".
Shōnen & Seinen: Soft-yuri, aka the ambiguous "cute girls doing cute things".

Although you can find any "subtypes" of yuri in any demographic, meaning that you can find a Class S-yuri in the Seinen demographic, or a Josei soft-yuri, there is still big tendencies.

Although:

deadoptimist said:
From my pov, shoujo is the best defined or, at least, one with the biggest core component

My position is influenced by the fact that shōjo is my "home demographic", somehow. And thus I can identify the "shōjo traits" and I appreciate them.

But:

Yeah. Considering how the demographics are constructed in Japan (a seinen is a manga published in a seinen magazine…). It makes harder to determine the traits (and by extension creating a canon), because it dilutes the corpus, and some works simply don't fit the established canon.
Because there is some works that seems to be targeting females/males but are published in an opposite magazine.
Some authors try to target different demographics at once.
Some manga change demographic (by changing the magazine). And sometime the same franchise can be published in different magazines (and by extension different demographic). I think that the different Simoun manga were published in a female magazine and a male magazine.
And like others said, the Seinen demographic seems to be the "catch-all" demographic.

deadoptimist said:
There're shonen and seinen works, clearly aimed at women. (Btw, would you know some examples of opposite cases, perchance?)

Maybe. For the fun I tagged my manga list with the demographic (depending on the magazine), and sometime I found some surprising stuffs.

I don't have any josei that feels misplaced, but I have one shōjo: Akane-chan Overdrive.
When I read that thing, I though it was a seinen, and then I saw that it was published in Margaret.

Esthetically, there is nothing "shōjo-ish" in it, but it's not unusual, a lot of shōjo are like that.
What surprised me more was the way it deals with the eroticism (or "ecchi" like people on MAL tend to says).
Very stupidly-perverted protagonists, panty-shots, big boobs… those are things that I usually found in shōnen/seinen manga.
The erotiscied shōjo/josei that I read aren't like that.

Although my impression can be wrong, because it was categorized as a "smut" manga on the reader, and I read very, very, very few smutty shōjo/josei, and thus I don't have a sufficient sample for comparison. Even if the smutty manga that I read weren't like that.

Dullboy said:
The moment when you discover that Girl Friends is tagged as Seinen on MAL, you can start asking yourself question, indeed. Huhuhu

Actually, Girl Friend is a Comic High manga, one of those "shōjo for men". Because yeah, that manga is very girly.

deadoptimist said:
While I sure don’t know a male author who works on shoujo currently.

Mineo Maya.
That guy does exclusively shōjo and yaoi manga.
He's the only male mangaka that I know doing shōjo stuffs in the recent days.

removed-userJul 12, 2016 12:17 PM

Jul 12, 2016 2:43 PM

#37

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Dullboy said:

I meant what I said about the language in the more broad way. I think that in most cultures you won't think of female markers, when talking about things in genereal, which leaves male stuff as being the default. Though, probaly, there're exceptions.

Usage Drop sure can attract a wide selection of readers, and it is slice of life - slice of life can transcend demographics in a way . It also has that sheer quality that can break genre walls, but still I think that some male readers may reject it, if they are interested in the topic of paternity. And let's not forget that a cute dad + a cute kid is a double kill for women. I am afraid that the fact that male readers can superimpose may be a side effect of sorts.

lady_freyja said:

Thanks a lot for the examples! Also the details about yuri and shonen yaoi are very interesting. In your opinion, it yuri aimed primarily at one group of readers after all or not? It’s been bugging me for ages. Yaoi and BL are aimed at women, even if their influence is so big that BL undertones can get everywhere. But the place of yuri is totally unclear to me.

By the way, old-school shoujo seems to be different from the new stuff too. Do you think that the core traits are the same in both? At least stylistically newer and older series may look very different.
Speaking about seinen – for a longest time I thought that it didn’t have common traits, but after I saw a person mention “spirit of seinen” I thought about it, and I think it also has its core, which at its worst drives manga to be sensationalist and pseudo-deep. Seinen mangaka do like to make emphasis on violence, often sexual, and on psychological problems.

Frankly, I am not sure that seinen is omnivorous, as in taking everything that couldn’t fit. There seem to be some laws too.

Jul 13, 2016 9:49 AM

#38

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deadoptimist said:
In your opinion, it yuri aimed primarily at one group of readers after all or not? It’s been bugging me for ages.

It was primarily targeting women.
Today, not that much, still pandering slightly toward women, but the genre managed to diversify its audience quite a lot. Like you said in one of your previous post, the yuri magazines don't have a clear demographic, the few (one, from what I know) attempts of dividing the readership into two magazines (one female-oriented and one male-oriented) failed, causing the fusion of the two magazines into one, because the editor saw in its survey that the readers read both magazines…
Ironically, on the manga side, it seems that the female-audience is still the main target (slightly, like I said), while on the anime side, it's the male-audience.

As for the yaoi, the Western editors and the Japanese librarians note a sensible rise of the male readership, but not the Japanese editors (though their magazines) which still see a very low percentage of male readers in their surveys.
That evolution is interesting, but it's somewhat detrimental, because as long as the male readership of the yaoi magazines stay low, the diversification is unlikely.

deadoptimist said:
By the way, old-school shoujo seems to be different from the new stuff too. Do you think that the core traits are the same in both? At least stylistically newer and older series may look very different.

Yes, esthetically, the evolution is blatant, sadly (I'm fond of the old-school artstyle). There is still flowers, sparkling stuffs, more or less androgynous physiognomy (sometimes) and of course, more detailed/sophisticated eyes, but it seems less pronounced.

As for the more romantic and characters focus, I don't think so.

What I would say, is that the it is more diversified than before, and thus there is some sort of dilution, "weakening" of those core traits. And thus works that don't follow them are more common.

deadoptimist said:
Speaking about seinen – for a longest time I thought that it didn’t have common traits, but after I saw a person mention “spirit of seinen” I thought about it, and I think it also has its core, which at its worst drives manga to be sensationalist and pseudo-deep. Seinen mangaka do like to make emphasis on violence, often sexual, and on psychological problems.

Honestly, I would be very interested by knowing the main traits of each demographics, the canon.
But for that "seinen spirit", wouldn't be more or less what was constituent of the Gekiga? The ancestor of the seinen if I'm not wrong.
Like the Redikomi which is the ancestor of the josei.

Jul 13, 2016 6:07 PM

#39

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Apr 2014

369

There is something that is kind of troubling me, about what you say about Yuri, @lady_freyja.
You seems to be using the word "Yuri" as what would also be tagged as "shoujo-ai" here on MAL.
I do think that you might be right saying so, in the end, as I think the word "Yuri" can extend to both "strong friendship/bond/love imply" and "sexual attraction" between woman. But then for the first, it seems common to talk about "shoujo-ai", and for the later, "Yuri".

lady_freyja said:
Shōjo: Class S-yuri (romantic friendship) or feature an otokoyaku.
Josei: Are realistic and more true to the "lesbian life".
Shōnen & Seinen: Soft-yuri, aka the ambiguous "cute girls doing cute things".

I agree for the first two one, but I must say I disagree for the last one.

While the "cute girls doing cute things" do exist (but seems way more common in anime than manga, though) , to me , and talking from my experience as a reader, I always viewed "Seinen Yuri" as the most sexualised Yuri, and the more incline to show sex scene and focus on physical attraction between woman. The difference with "Josei Yuri" being that it is a lot more fantasize than realistic, just like most Yaoi are too, in general.
For an exemple, Octave is tagged as a Yuri and Seinen manga here.
As said before, Girlfriend is too, but it also go pass the "cute things" , in my opinion.
They are not complete fantasy, for sure, but I don't think they could either be said to be realistic, when it come to depicting true lesbian couples and love life.
And let's not forget all the borderline, if not completely assumed Hentai Yuri too, that, I think, are targeted toward men (or at least for both male and lesbian readers).

lady_freyja said:

But for that "seinen spirit", wouldn't be more or less what was constituent of the Gekiga? The ancestor of the seinen if I'm not wrong

I'm no near an expert in the department, but since I do hold interest and read a certain amount of gekiga, I'd like to respond.

The question is complicate, but after some thought I came to the personal conclusion that, while Seinen as a hole sure must have received some influence from "gekiga manga", gekiga could be more view as a peculiar genre of Seinen (to make it simple, even if it's not exactly correct to say so) that existed in the past, than a direct ancestor.

The things is, "gekiga" are pretty specific, as they are very bound to the time periode they were made in.
They are stongly "socio-historical" manga (second time I use the word, I'm going to pass as an annoying pretentious guy, I fear ^^) , they were made in reaction of what the gekiga author were perceiving of manga back then: wich is too say, too childish and far away from the reality of everyday (just like the "Nouvelle Vague" was created, to take a cinema exemple).
Some author of gekiga were even more prone to talk about themselve as "gekigaka" than "mangaka", that they rejected.

So basically, gekiga were conceived as work to be read and made for adults and young adults, taking a look at the reality of their time periode, and often with a lot of drama, talking about subject like unmarried couple living together, abortion, reject of the old society and norm, etc., that were all real taboo subject back then.
As such, sci-fi or fantasy gekiga simply don't exist (the only thing some gekiga can have are supernatural creatures from the japanese traditional folklor like Kappa and Tanuki).
All that to say, if we look today at what Seinen manga seems to be in general, I think it is far to fit as "spiritual successor" of gekiga.

The only living mangaka I can think of, that do seinen manga and is sometime view as the "gekiga spiritual succesor" by people, is Jiro Taniguchi. Some people (and particulary in France), even often say that his work are gekiga, but I would be incline to disagree, since, as I said, I think gekiga was bound to a certain time periode, and is a historical movement of manga. The fact that it can be revived sometime, with work clearly inspired by that movement, doesn't change the fact that it is a thing of the past.

DullboyJul 13, 2016 6:22 PM

Jul 14, 2016 2:25 AM

#40

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@Dullboy I don't really know the Gekiga, so thank for the explanation.

As for the yuri.
Yup, I don't use the expression "shōjo-ai", nor "shōnen'ai" for that matter, because in Japanese they refer to pedophilia, not manga (almost, the word "shōnen'ai" was used during a certain period, but it didn't have the same meaning that on MAL*). 少年愛 and 少女愛.
Those two words aren't synonymous to "Girls' Love" or "Boys' Love" for the Japanese.

And it's not what I meant: I can associate a yuri sub-type to each demographic, not the other way around.
Meaning that most soft-yuri (like Yuru Yuri, Kin'iro Mosaic…) are found in the male demographics, not that the male demographics contains mostly soft-yuri.

*On MAL, "shōnen'ai" refers to yaoi manga without sex nor eroticism.
While there were two main shōnen'ai magazines, June and Allan. They said that the manga and light novels they publish was a mixture between Tanbi (high aestheticism) and pornography. Thus were highly sexualized. And obviously used a lot of very young boys, because young bishōnen are "tanbi".

removed-userJul 14, 2016 2:30 AM

Jul 14, 2016 2:25 AM

#41

Joms

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Feb 2015

2796

When it's published on a seinen magazine or something...

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Jul 14, 2016 3:48 AM

#42