Is shounen a target market or a genre?

alshu said:

That sucks.


Yep, it's your search history to blame and not google's fault.


Will ask a Cambridge alumni about this.


The school which teaches you to take said dictionary and physically beat up your opponent with it.

CuteAssTiger said:

Google uses that Dictionary regardless of your search history xD

hentralca said:
ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm both

CuteAssTiger said:


really ?

as far as i know google always works like this whenever you ask it for a definition.

Gorochu said:

Google is not ultimate authorities. When you key in "define ______",their algorithm will find dictionary for the source. No quality check. The definition of anime given by google is wrong. In Japan,definition of "anime" is not limited to Japanese anime but also Disney cartoon such as Frozen.Google is a search engine,not an official dictionary. Perhaps in English language,definition of anime always refer to animation from Japan but in Japan,"anime" is not limited to just Japanese style anime only.

When the definition like "shounen" which has Japanese origin,it's best to refer using Japanese definition rather than how the English language community putting words into Japanese,even if it's Oxford who define it. Besides,does the official Oxford dictionary physical copies sold at bookstore even include shonen definition?Using English language dictionary to find the meaning of Japanese word is not credible. I can't even find the word shounen/shonen in Cambridge Dictionary.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/spellcheck/english/?q=shounen
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/spellcheck/english/?q=shonen

More importantly, above all others,we all know shonen is a demographic,not genre because there are Japanese manga magazine with shonen,shoujo demographic as target market. We are using Japanese term so it's best if we stick to definition given by Japanese themselves rather than whatever English dictionary putting words into Japanese mouth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_manga_magazines_by_circulation#Periodical_circulation

CuteAssTiger said:



When you search Definition in English Google will give you the definition in English.

So Google saying anime is Japanese animation is correct because that is how the English language uses the term.

I would also argue that it isn't a bad source at all. Google isn't a Dictionary and that is why it pulls these definitions from the Oxford dictionary of languages


"More importantly, above all others,we all know shonen is a demographic,not genre because there are Japanese manga magazine with shonen,shoujo demographic as target market. We are using Japanese term so it's best if we stick to definition given by Japanese themselves rather than whatever English dictionary putting words into Japanese mouth."

As I mentioned previously this train of logic runs into a linguistic problem.

The target audience of those manga are "shonen" aka "young boys" correct ?

But the manga themselves are not young boys , correct?

Frozen is a movie for kids.
But that does not mean that the category of "movie for kids" stops existing

So the type/category/genre of this manga is named after it's audience but the manga itself is not the audience

Being for a target demographic does not mean something stops being a genre.


I've gone in much more detail on this in post #44

Let's make this comparison


>>dark souls spawnd its own genre of games .
those are usually known as "soulsborne"games . games that are like darksouls or bloodborne ( or demons souls for that matter )

the target audience would be called something like " dark souls fans"
but lets just say that those people would become known as " soulsborne" people .
idk maybe they are so into it that they just want to sound like a religion thus they call themselves that .
potterheads prefer that term over harry potter fans ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

so now the term soulsborne is used to describe the target audience and the genre itself.
does either one of those stop existing because of that ?
no it doesnt<<

In the same way when the term shonen is used it is to describe anime or manga that fullfills certain conditions. And that is by definition a genre


If the linguistic function of something is exactly the same function as a genre then it is a genre

So in the English language at least it is definitely objectively a genre.

I don't know how the Japanese use the term but considering outside of being the word for young boys.
But considering how having magazines for each demographic is kind of a category in itself it could be argued that this fullfills everything that is needed to be a genre

CuteAssTiger said:
As a little addition.
Words have been adapted from many different languages in many different languages and some of those change their meaning in either language over time.

We should not reject a creditable definition just by virtue of being Japanese in origin

Otherwise the definition of kindergarten will always only be what the Germans think it is .
And that could change in theory over time in the English language

Being anonymous in English for example means to not reveal ones identity or name

But the original Greek meaning is to not have a name.

So are we all using the English word wrong ?
No .it's just what that word means in English.

CuteAssTiger said:
So in the English language at least it is definitely objectively a genre.

Lucifrost said:

It is not. Shounen can include romantic comedies and even nonfiction according to this English language publisher.
https://www.viz.com/maison-ikkoku
https://www.viz.com/kaguya-sama-love-is-war
https://www.viz.com/manga-in-theory-and-practice

Jus1294 said:
Damn we got people writing whole ass essays because they think shonen is actually a genre. This is sad lol.

CuteAssTiger said:


mkaing a valid point for something with deductive reasoning > " this is like that because i say so "

wich one was the sad one again ?

CuteAssTiger said:


mkaing a valid point for something with deductive reasoning > " this is like that because i say so "

wich one was the sad one again ?

CuteAssTiger said:


how does that exclude it from being a genre ?

Gorochu said:




In Japan, definition of "anime" are not limited to Japanese style only,but also Disney cartoon are also count as anime by the Japanese. Back to definition of shounen,all the stuff pointed out only shows shounen has become a buzzword in the internet just like the word "elitist", "casual","feminist" and "SJW". If we use buzzword,it has no strict definition which is why it's very important to use official term by Japanese. We are not the higher authority to decide what "shounen" means. If you ask any Japanese person what does "shounen" mean,no one here in Japan will use the definition given by Lexico cited by Google. Usually among anime community,people will use the word battle shounen as genre while shounen as demographic. As an official definition, shounen manga refer to demographic, not genre.
Google translate.

Shounen means boy in Japanese so shounen as a genre it will translated to boy genre or battle boy genre. As far as I'm concern,unlike kindergarten, shounen has not been officially adopted into English language which is why such word is not found in Cambridge dictionary. I don't think the word "shounen" even exist one Oxford dictionary physical copies sold at bookstore.

Lucifrost said:

Are you suggesting that the titles I linked are all the same genre, along with One Piece and Detective Conan? Because they’re all labeled as shounen.

CuteAssTiger said:


it is not a buzzword by any means

it is a real word with a very real definition in a real dictionary published by a real university


"As an official definition, shounen manga refer to demographic, not genre."
google translate is a translation

not a defintion




"I don't think the word "shounen" even exist one Oxford dictionary physical copies sold at bookstore."

well you that is actually incorrect .
the term has been added to the physical dictionary in 2011

therefore it can be argued that it is "officially" adapted

https://public.oed.com/updates/new-words-list-september-2011/

Jus1294 said:


The real way to even fully categorize whether something is a shonen, seinen, shoujo or

Again like I said earlier on here, its a demographic with tropes. The only way to split the actual groups of these is by what magazine they were published in, not some faux definition online dictionaries came up with. Sure stuff like "battle shonen" has carved out its own niche and is distinguishable, that doesn't make it a genre. Matter of fact, if the lines of the demographics were so clear cut, explain to me why Nichijou is a shonen meanwhile K-On is a seinen. Literally the only way to distinguishably separate it is by what magazine they were published in.

Gorochu said:

So it's a demographic in Japanese language but a genre in English language? Either way,both definition seems the same and that is they are both for teenagers.

CuteAssTiger said:


as ive explained many times before .
its not a faux online dictionary .
it is the oxford dictionary of languages .
one would assume that you would inform yourself/read the points made before making condecending comments about those points

ive also explained that even if we disregard that definition we still come to the same conclusion if we check for the lingustig function of the term shonen and compare it to the lingustic function that is defined by genre .

one would assume that you would inform yourself/read the points made before making condecending comments about those points

"Matter of fact"(would not be bad to provide some btw ) whatever your target demographic is is decided by whoever created the item in question


as ive also previously explained being for a certain target audience does not exclude something from being part of a genre. The reason people are confused about this is because the genre is named after the term that is used for the demographic in its original language

one would assume that you would inform yourself/read the points made before making condecending comments about those points

Lucifrost said:
Guys, I figured it out. CuteAssTiger isn't trying to argue the definition of "shounen." The debate is whether or not demographics are genres. Now that the wall of texts have been deciphered, we can stop wasting time with irrelevant rebuttals.
Personally, I think it's condescending to treat "boys" "girls" "kids" "young adult" as genres.

Lucifrost said:
Guys, I figured it out. CuteAssTiger isn't trying to argue the definition of "shounen." The debate is whether or not demographics are genres. Now that the wall of texts have been deciphered, we can stop wasting time with irrelevant rebuttals.
Personally, I think it's condescending to treat "boys" "girls" "kids" "young adult" as genres.

Jus1294 said:


And how many times have people told you it's not the be all end all way to define these things? It's a genee when there's a clear cut way to define the things that fall into the categorization based on its content. There is no real definite way to throw these together, yet again, except by what these series were published in this is why you can't put originals and novel adaptations into those categories. You're taking colloquialisms too seriously, we can't dictate what something is by preconceived notions of what we were conditioned into believing. These terms come from a native language and trying to argue with Japanese with how their own language and creations work is purely asinine.


Tl;dr I'm not gonna bother replying to you again, keep making yourself look silly.

Gorochu said:
I will just stick to original Japanese definition which is shounen manga is a target demographic,not genre.

Same here. Horror,action, fantasy,adventure genre make sense but boys,kids,girls genre?

CuteAssTiger said:


you originally posted a translation .
not a definition .


if we stick to the definition then we arrive at the conclusion that " manga for the demographic of [insert whatever demographic here ] " is a categorization of art

thus it is a genre
because a genre is "a style or category of art, music, or literature"

Gorochu said:

Japanese define shonen manga as demographic, not genre. I will stick to the definition given by Japanese which make more sense.

CuteAssTiger said:


Could you provide the source for that definition then ?
That would be very helpful for this topic

Gorochu said:

I currently live in Japan. It's common knowledge here among manga readers that shoujo,seinen,shonen manga are all target market or demographic. Closest source is this one.

The "shounen" by English language has lost it's original meaning,different definition from the Japanese one. Next thing we know other countries might import the word shounen and define it as a manga for girls.

CuteAssTiger said:


well as i mentioned being for a certaind emographic does not exclude the possibility of being part of any given genre .

thats why im curious about the japanese definition of the term . ( outside of being the word for young boys of course . i know that one )

Gorochu said:

In Japan, shounen literally means boys ONLY. There is no other definition of shounen outside of being boys.

CuteAssTiger said:


fair point .
how do japanese people define genre ?

( btw your english is really good . were you born in japan ? ^^ )

Jus1294 said:
It's a genre when there's a clear cut way to define the things that fall into the categorization based on its content.

Lucifrost said:

It is not. Shounen can include romantic comedies and even nonfiction according to this English language publisher.

Gorochu said:
In Japan, shounen literally means boys ONLY. There is no other definition of shounen outside of being boys. Without it's demographic application as I posted in the image,no one would associate the word shonen with manga.

DrSexy said:
@UknwWhu here's your answer if you just google

"Shōnen, shonen, or shounen manga is manga aimed at a young teen male target-demographic. The age group varies with individual readers and different magazines, but it is primarily intended for boys between the ages of 12 and 18."

TheBerserker said:
Shōnen, shonen, or shounen manga (少年漫画, shōnen manga) is manga aimed at a young teen male target-demographic. The age group varies with individual readers and different magazines, but it is primarily intended for boys between the ages of 12 and 18. The kanji characters (少年) literally mean "boy" or "youth", and the characters (漫画) means "comic". Thus, the complete phrase means "young person's comic", or simply "boys' comic"; its female equivalent is shōjo manga. Shōnen manga is the most popular and best-selling form of manga.
Source
Battle Fantasy or Battle Shonen like the majority seems to call it is a genre, tho, such the likes of Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, etc.

UknwWhu said:


Definitions are easy - all of us know the meaning of shounen on this site. The issue here is the blurring of the lines between demographic and genre. Shounen is being presented as a genre instead of a demographic. The phrase "battle shounen" is revealing, instead of referring to action. That is what the question was about

katsucats said:
In German, kindergarten means literally a children's garden, a schooling institution, ONLY. There is no other definition of kindergarten besides the schooling institution. Without it's schooling application, no one would associate the word kindergarten with a particular age of children.

Therefore, kindergarten either can or cannot be applied to mean a particular age of children.

Obviously, it can. Just because the etymology arrived from a kind of institution doesn't mean it could only be used in that context. That's not how words work. Kindergarten happen to also refer to a demographic of children who are too young to start 1st grade. It categorizes children. Male and female also categorize children. But hey, there are more than one way to categorize things. And just because kindergarten children can be both male or female, it doesn't preclude kindergarten as a category. Just because male children can be above or below 3 feet tall or be Asian or Black, it doesn't preclude maleness as a category.

It's okay if you don't personally find certain categories useful when you are looking for new children to adopt, but for you to assert that those categories aren't actually categories is a bit ridiculous, don't you think?

katsucats said:

No. They are time periods, but because they are time periods that confer some property to the art, they are also genres. If you don't think Baroque artwork confers properties to art in that period, then you don't think Baroque makes any sense to describe artwork. Likewise, you don't think Shounen makes any sense to describe anime. And yet, clearly people mean something when they say "Shounen anime". Clearly, Shounen confers some property upon the anime. Clearly, people can tell the difference between Shounen and Seinen manga at better than 50/50 chance.

So yeah, just like how you guys think @CuteAssTiger is silly, I consider this settled, myself. Demographics ARE genres even if that makes you guys uncomfortable.

Jus1294 said:
That's a stupid point and you know it, genres are self contained categorizations that have a set focal point.

Jus1294 said:
Demographics are vastly varied and contain several genres that the publisher of a magazine would think their readers would enjoy.

Jus1294 said:
Again, blame the people who've conditioned anime watchers to think shonen just means characters fighting each other. You guys grossly over-complicate something that's not hard to distinguish.

Gorochu said:
Genre is primarily use to describe the nature of the anime to give it's audience beforehand what kind of film,books,novels,anime they can expect but it is not use to describe it's target audience.

Gorochu said:

I cringe at the kindergarten example. Totally not related to what I said. You ignore my "demographic application" point.Kindergarten means school children institution,if kindergarten means school for people of all age,no one would associate kindergarten to children's age.

Gorochu said:
Anyway,you miss my point completely. Here's what I mean. If Japanese magazine never make a distinction of shounen,seinen,josei, and shoujo demographic,no one would bother associate those words with manga.

Gorochu said:
This is because there is such thing as action genre movie,horror genre movie,mystery genre movie but there isn't boy genre movie or girls genre movie,only demographic.

Gorochu said:
Don't you get it? The reason why battle shounen genre word exist,is because many popular manga,One Piece,Naruto ,Bleach are published in shounen demographic magazine hence we label them as battle shounen. Battle shounen also has one thing in common and that is they are all influenced by Dragon Ball,father of battle shounen.

Gorochu said:
If Japanese manga never make distinction of shounen,shoujo we would have ended up calling these type of manga, Dragon Ball like genre,just like Nioh and Lords of the Fallen being categorized as SoulsBorne game genre.

Gorochu said:
Shounen as a genre just mean battle shounen. Simple as that.

Gorochu said:
Sometimes,people are just lazy to add the word battle so they just use the word shounen as short term. When they says "shounen anime",they usually refer it as battle shounen genre.

Shounen manga =demographic
Battle shounen(short term,shounen) = genre

Gorochu said:
Pokemon is an anime primarily for children = demographic/target market
Pokemon is an action anime = genre

Gorochu said:
Genre is primarily use to describe the nature of the anime to give it's audience beforehand what kind of film,books,novels,anime they can expect but it is not use to describe it's target audience.

Gorochu said:
Now that I mention it,I think the definition given by Lexico is meant for battle shounen shortened as shounen.

Lucifrost said:

I have seen people outside anime fandoms treat demographics as genres. It's not just shounen.

katsucats said:
Exactly. And shounen means young teens. And if shounen meant people of all ages, no one would associate shounen to all ages. Wait... what? lol

And if no one ever made the distinction of horror, comedy, mystery, drama, then no one would bother to associate those words to anime... Wait... what? Is that really true? Think about it. You actually think the manga industry invented the concept of a narrative voice. People have been writing with the audience in mind ever since people started writing.

Yes there is, but there wouldn't if there wasn't -- is your point. And that is cringe. Like, if the sun doesn't exist, it would be dark every day. And the sun wouldn't exist. Oh, you....

I'm not even talking about battle shounen, but that is its own genre.

Dragon Ball is loosely based on Journey to the West, which was written hundreds of years ago before video games existed. Suppose mangas were simultaneously marketed to everyone, first of all they would all sell poorly because they would lack a niche, unlike literally every single other product in the world. Second, just because the target market is poorly defined doesn't mean that there would be no similarities between manga of the "battle shounen" genre, even if it's called something else.

So the name isn't important here. What's important is what it is, what properties it has. And some manga has the properties of targeting young males -- the genre.

That's called a semantic shift, an equivocation fallacy. Simple as that.

I mean like congratulations. You can make arbitrary rules for categorization. I can do that too. Watch!

Pokemon is an anime primarily for children = demographic and genre
Pokemon is an action anime = narrative structure and genre

The target audience is a nature of the anime to give it's audience beforehand so they know what to expect. Listen to yourself.

Lucifrost said:

I have seen people outside anime fandoms treat demographics as genres. It's not just shounen.

katsucats said:
The focal point is that it targets children.

And it itself is a genre. Every genre is vastly varied. That's why it's a categorization and not an individual. It wouldn't be very helpful if there are a million bins with only a few anime in each, but people who organize categories into subcategories and so on. Having subcategories does not make a category invalid, and it is stupid to think so.

Nope. That's not what shounen means, although there is a battle genre, but that's not what we're talking about. It isn't hard to distinguish because there's nothing to distinguish. You've made no point in your argument besides arbitrarily calling one varied and one not. Who sets that threshold? You?

ChartTopper60 said:
Every time people conflate shounen as an "action-adventure" series is every time I want to have an exchange of fists. lol

To Love-Ru is shounen. Yuragi no Yuuna-san is shounen. Rosario-Vampire is shounen. Tokyo Ghoul is seinen. Attack on Titan is shounen. Hayate no Gotoku is shounen. It is demographic. Just as Josei and Shoujo are.

It's sort of similar to how people say animation is a genre, when it is really a medium because of how vast animation is, what it can do and what forms it can take on. To say animation is a genre is to say that live-action is also a genre, when it is also its own medium that has entirely different methods of production and ideas as to what it can perform.
Shounen is a word from Japanese that is used for said demographic magazines. Taking a word from a totally different language and reclaiming it for a different purpose due to an accessible preconceived notions in the west, I find, to be very ignorant of not only its origins but its original and current foreign usage. Because then we begin to rule romcoms such as BokuBen from being shounen, and force The Promised Neverland to be seinen. To say a demographic is a genre is to say that a demographic cannot perform its own methods of existing genres, or that it is a genre coexisting with other genres, OR that a specific series that originates from a shounen magazine cannot be shounen due to not having, once again, preconceived notions of which shounen contain existing tropes, which again, is totally wrong. Because KochiKame stops being shounen should we follow the rules of not its origin country but rather its better-known usage in the west.