Are you sure these are shounen?

Leknaat said:
Hi, Pat_To_Do-List.

Anime entries often share the same tags as manga they were adapted from. This goes not only for genre tags but for demographic tags also.

And apparently, sometimes it might confuse users...
See, while genres could be narrowed and restrictive, demographics would usually include much broader field of material mixing different themes and approaches. It's just this detail often gets forgotten.

You might also avoid comparing older shounen series with modern ones or some minor shounen series with likes of One Piece, Naruto, etc... They often differ a lot, but this doesn't make modern series (say, "The Devil is a Part-Timer" you've mentioned) less shounen. All four series you have posted do list shounen tag correctly.

But i agree, it would rise less questions if there was for example a Demographics: field under Genres:. Separating them from each other would be a good way to deal with this problem.

Aesther said:
I see he's making the same thread again.

Aesther said:
>shounen
>implying it's not a male audience

Leknaat said:
But i agree, it would rise less questions if there was for example a Demographics: field under Genres:. Separating them from each other would be a good way to deal with this problem.

EratiK said:
This would be great.

Leknaat said:
Pat_To_Do-List, >But as stated in Wikipedia, none of their demographics are specifically for shounen...

Pardon me if i possibly missed you point, but removing demographics tags completely or replacing them with male/female is out of the question. MAL always aims to apply the same demographic separation for anime/manga that is used in Japan. I dont see this changing anytime soon, if ever.

Leknaat said:
Pat_To_Do-List, For various reasons. Usually, because of the lack of information on the series.
Inclusion of the demographic tags doesn't automatically means that every single entry should be tagged right away.

Adding tags in general often could be a tough task.

Pat_To_Do-List said:

Then could you give me any proof on why all of those anime shows tagged with shounen tag?

Leknaat said:
As i hinted before. Manga this series were adapted from was serialized in magazines aimed at shounen demographic. Simple as that.

Leknaat said:
Well, most recent IS: manga http://myanimelist.net/manga/51461/IS:_Infinite_Stratos is tagged shounen, so i guess its finally found the right category it belongs to.

I didn't mentioned that sometimes manga adaptations may be adapted in a way that is more aimed/suited for younger audience. Inheriting demographic tags is the usual way, but there is always a room for consideration and arguing.

Also, most often seinen magazines publish shounen works too, or seinen works are borderlining on shounen. In the end its up to our audience and Manga moderators to keep seinen tag or consider it to be a shounen.

EratiK said:
Aren't light novels intended for highschoolers though? There you go, shounen/shoujo.

Leknaat said:
Pat_To_Do-List, I believe, the difference between LN's, manga and anime adaptation was already explained to you in that another thread.

In my personal opinion, most of the anime adaptations nowdays are aimed at shounen demographic indeed, even if the source is a seinen LN. Thats why you get such an impression of everything tagged shounen. Thats how things are now. Could as well complain why there is always numerous moe girls in every title.

Pat_To_Do-List said:

No, I have not been explained by anyone about "the difference between LN's, manga and anime adaptation."
As I said before, in the end, it is all about the anime DB moderators personal opinions? So all of those proofs that I have presented are useless?

worldeditor11 said:


Yes.

Leknaat said:
Pat_To_Do-List, The only advice i could give you is to stop bothering yourself with this matter.
I admit that such practice of adding demographic tags to anime entries could be confusing to someone or justification of the tag moderator had chosen could be argued.

But there is not much i can do to help you. We have a set of rules and guidelines with general understanding of the matter. And series you've asked about are tagged correctly.

Leknaat said:
Thats true, to some extent. I am not excited about long talks regarding tags, but i do wish it could be in my powers to successfully resolve your concerns. :)

I didn't tagged any of this series personally, but i would not go removing or replacing shounen with seinen either.

>Where is this rules & guidelines about this matter? Could you show me?
Apart from anime and manga guidelines (and inheritance i mentioned earlier) there is nothing in particular on tags other than this - http://myanimelist.net/info.php?go=genre . But it should be reworked someday, so that users could find it actually useful.

saka said:
Just on the Genre/Demographic thing, it has been suggested before and acknowledged. It is understood that shounen is a demographic and not a genre. There is just no other spot for it on the anime page currently. It's on a long list of issues that were passed to developers but is a low priority after more immediate fixes.

As for how demographics are selected and labeled, I think it has been explained... and generally there is weight given to the source rather than subjective appraisal of the contents of the show.

symbv said:
Actually I would say it is confusing to attach tags like shounen, seinen for anime because in Japan nobody says "shounen anime" or "seinen anime". Shounen and seinen tags apply only to manga (and it is getting increasingly blurred too), so for anime adapted from manga there may still some meaning to call it shounen or seinen but even so in Japan people would say "anime adapted from shounen manga" instead of "shounen anime".

And in the examples Pat_To_Do-List mentioned, the anime were adapted from Light Novels, and there is no tags like "shounen" or "seinen" there. One thing that keeps me puzzled is how often posters here in MAL call an anime adapted from LN as "shounen" and "seinen" when such labels do not exist at all in Japan, and I can see how the tags in MAL DB could have contributed to the confusion.

Personally I would prefer that tags like "shounen" and "seinen" to be used in the DB only for anime adapted from manga, and not LN.

The fact that IS manga is a shounen manga says little about whether the anime is shounen or not because the manga is not what the anime was adapted from. Otherwise, just because the manga of AKB0048 is serialized in shoujo manga magazine, should we thus call AKB0048 a shoujo anime?

symbv said:
Actually I would say it is confusing to attach tags like shounen, seinen for anime because in Japan nobody says "shounen anime" or "seinen anime". Shounen and seinen tags apply only to manga (and it is getting increasingly blurred too), so for anime adapted from manga there may still some meaning to call it shounen or seinen but even so in Japan people would say "anime adapted from shounen manga" instead of "shounen anime".

And in the examples Pat_To_Do-List mentioned, the anime were adapted from Light Novels, and there is no tag like "shounen" or "seinen" used for LN in Japan . One thing that always keeps me puzzled is how often posters here in MAL call an anime adapted from LN as "shounen" and "seinen" (and even debate keenly about it) when such labels do not exist for LNs at all in Japan, and I can see how the tags in MAL DB could have contributed to the confusion.

Personally I would prefer that tags like "shounen" and "seinen" to be used in the DB only for anime adapted from manga, and not LN.

The fact that IS manga is a shounen manga says little about whether the anime is shounen or not because the manga is not what the anime was adapted from. Otherwise, just because the manga of AKB0048 is serialized in shoujo manga magazine, should we thus call AKB0048 a shoujo anime?