Forum - View topicSeinen definition
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9835 Location: Virginia |
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Why not post the demographic information on the page dedicated to the magazine? The specific manga titles could then be linked to the magazine by a "published in" reference. If a given manga title has been serialized in two or more magazines that can be indicated.
That way you are not providing misleading information about the manga yet people who are interested in the demographics can find it and draw their own conclusions. With anime, I wouldn't even hint at demographics. K-On is a good example. You state it was published in a Seinen magazine but the anime was reported to be very popular with high school age girls. Again, since the anime will be linked to the source material people who really care can trace that to the magazine. For those manga where we do not have a magazine listed we probably don't have the demographics information anyway. |
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Dessa
 Posts: 4438 |
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Since this kinda got lost in the discussion of adding demographic info to the magazines, I thought I'd make a suggestion for an addendum:
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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I'm not sure how it can be misleading to provide accurate info upfront.
About requiring the user to hunt it down: It's about encyclopedia user friendliness and efficiency. You would have to hunt it down via two extra page traversals. anidb provides it in each entry for example. I also don't see why K-On being popular with girls is a problem since the magazine demographics does not preclude a wider audience. You could say the same with Kuroko's Basketball which is even more popular with girls. I mentioned how demographics shouldn't be conflated or assumed from content, but I should also mention that demographics shouldn't also be assumed based on resulting audience either. If Kurobas or Haikyuu or some other shounen anime turned out to have a majority female fanbase, would it not be more misleading to assume it was shoujo by preventing "any hint" of demographics info as you say? Heck, going by the merchandise alone, one would certainly think so, but that would be misleading would it not? Coming back to K-On despite the show's popularity with girls, publishing it in a Seinen magazine is like the publisher's way of saying "Hey all you college dudes, part time workers and salarymen, relax and take a break from your daily grind on train ride back home with this manga about cute girls doing cute things". Another similar example is Otome Youkai Zakuro. Again, people assume it's shoujo anime/manga as it meets every classic archetype of "shoujo romance", female lead with a reverse harem of bishounen and all, but turns out it's a Seinen title. You can flip the coin and have examples from the other end of the spectrum like Sabagebu! where one might assume it's shounen--and many people did in the ANN threads for its PV, when it's actually shoujo. Likewise, you can find many it's not-what-you-think examples for age related demographics. This something that Rebecca even remarked on in her Sankarea review:
(.. and Sankarea is one of the less egregious examples of this) |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9835 Location: Virginia |
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@configspace
All of your examples are kind of making my point for me. Correct information can be misleading when it implies something that is not true. If someone hears of a title and comes to the encyclopedia to find out what it is about the demographic information of the magazine may cause them to pass on something they would like. It doesn't bother me that Seinen magazines publish stories of cute girls doing cute things. What does bother me is the idea that such a label might prevent people who do not fall in the seinen demographic from also enjoying these. When it comes to an anime adaption of a manga, those are made by a different group of people. It is very likely that they may not even attempt to tailor it to the same demographic as the original. I would further like to point out that Japanese demographics do not necessarily match those of North America. What is strictly tailored for one group in Japan may appeal to a different group or to multiple groups here. You make it sound as though clicking a couple of links to find this information is a major undertaking. TLDR: The original demographic categorization of a manga or subsequent anime is minor incidental information of limited use. It applies most directly to the magazine and should be left there. |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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The point that I'm trying to make is that what it implies IS true. K-On like many other 4-koma really do target the Seinen demographics initially. It doesn't mean it can't appeal to others (which most often do), nor does it mean it can't be written to appeal to a wider base. It's just that the editors and mangaka made a deliberate decision to publish in a magazine that should at least appeal to their chosen demographics or attempt to bring in a different audience to their magazine (usually the former, sometimes the later). The demographics i.e. the decision to serialize in a particular magazine is actually very significant because if it doesn't bring in the readership, or if the serialization rankings tank, then it won't survive! Therefore regarding "incidental" information, it is the the resulting audience that is incidental rather than the targeted demographics. The particular magazine is deliberate and has some influence on content. This is very apparent in the fact that the audience a title appeals to varies greatly by region and culture and sub-culture, Whereas the initial demographics is a fixed, historical fact of the manga. I don't think ANN is simply "the N. American Encyclopedia", as ANN covers all titles, even those that are unlicensed and unreleased in the US. Also regarding anime, I don't it's as separate as you think. All adaptations need the mangaka's and the original publisher's approval. Most of the time, the audience here can be even more incidental. For example Kuroko's Basketball like virtually all sports titles, is a nearly exact faithful adaptation of the manga. Yet the female fanbase absolutely exploded with the anime adaption. It would misleading to say, "Well, then that means the anime must be made for girls!" This also demonstrates that people won't be as dissuaded as you think just by some label, especially in an ANN encyclopedia entry. If you want to make the argument Justin makes about NOT being pigeonholed, then in an ironic twist, making the original categorization by the mangaka and editors more apparent for anyone who wants to do research or something that can be easily reference (i.e. pointing it out to someone else) is actually the better way to do this. In other words, putting it upfront is not only more handy reference but provides a better educational experience. Those who even bother to come to the ANN Encyclopedia (or listen to someone else's reference to it) instead sticking to their usual sites, misc. reviews and social media and social circles should already be open enough to a mind-changing experience about what the age and gender targeted by the creators can entail as far as content goes. This also would have been helpful to Brian, the previous handler of the Answerman column, and potentially other contributors to ANN going forward. He often mistook Shounen titles for Seinen in his answers based on his assumptions about blood and boobs. It really discredited him in my eyes, because it indicated he was answering some questions by the seat of his pants, presenting opinion as fact e.g. Highschool of the Dead is like this because it's Seinen! (uh, no, it's not). |
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist
 Posts: 3782 Location: Montreal |
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configspace, if I understandly correctly, you think that having demographic information for each title would allow people to realize something like:
But I'm convinced it would have the opposite result:
For most people, marking a title as shōjo implies that it's a love story, and marking a title as shōnen implies it's a battle/action story. In the end it's a matter of semantics. Those who understand "shōjo" as a demographic would be enlightened by the information, but it tells you almost nothing about what kind of work it is. On the other hand those who understand "shōjo" as a genre would be confused, and totally misunderstand what kind of work it is. So in balance the enlightenment gained is very small compared to the confusion created. Attaching the demographic information to the magazine is a good way to satisfy A while avoiding B and C. |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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Yes that's what I mean. I know some western people confuse demographics with genre, but if they even stepped back to think about it, not only does the Japanese term not have anything to do with genre (and B-san and C-san would understand that shounen means boys), that couldn't possible be the case since not every shounen is like Naruto and so on. There will many titles that don't fall into any category whatsoever if one mistakenly defines demographics as a specific genre.
I suppose your suggestion of a compromise is better than having no demographics info at all, but I would hope ANN Encyclopedia, as authoritative source, could help in enlightening folks instead of perpetuation preconceived notions. I totally understand those type of reactions from B-san and C-san but If they looked up the publication info, I think B and C would still be confused. For what it's worth, anidb.net and wikipedia puts demographics info upfront. Examples that would probably get the same reaction from B-san and C-san: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yurikuma_Arashi (Seinen) http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=10811 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inu_x_Boku_SS (Shounen) http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=8564 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabagebu! (Shoujo) http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=10041 and if you just google these titles, its wikipedia entry will be in the top results, if not the #1 result. At the same token, you could get the B-san and C-sans of the world to check out something they otherwise wouldn't check out based on the same premise of confusion, like Inu x Boku SS (Shounen), a romance title that could be mistaken for shoujo 
I won't push it any further than this, but one last suggestion: perhaps to be more clear, you could present the same info as wikipedia does? Instead of stating the anime has demographics of X or Y, you could reference the original serialization info in its anime and manga entry and show the demographics in that table / field. |
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athenox
Posts: 10 |
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So what i'm seeing here is that the word "seinen" has a different meaning when it comes to anime/manga. In the ANN Encyclopedia definition the word seinen is explained through its general meaning which is "young adult male" (college age) and not through its other meaning. So a seinen manga/magazine can be aimed towards young males but a seinen manga/magazine can also be aimed towards males in their 40s. Did i get it right? |
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athenox
Posts: 10 |
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Maybe you can update the Seinen definition to include other definitions and that seinen anime/manga are aimed at a wider adult audience rather than just college aged kids. I think that would confuse less people.
Also what did you mean by " are not accurate in this usage"? |
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