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Answerman - Do Salarymen Really Read Manga?


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Vaisaga



Joined: 07 Oct 2011
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 12:14 pm Reply with quote
When that whole healthy youth bill thingy happened years ago part of me didn't really see it as that big of a problem. Stuff like Aki Sora or Berserk, which has full on sex scenes, should be restricted to adults only. But I guess the problem lay more in this area, where salarymen wouldn't want to be seen in public reading something with an R-18 label slapped onto it.

Nothing really came out of that bill save for a few cancellations, so I guess these poor overworked joes can enjoy them some Golgo 13 on the train, imaging their boss's face on Golgo's target Laughing
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rizuchan
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Joined: 11 Mar 2007
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 12:26 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
It's unlikely that you'd see a bog-standard tournament fighting or harem romance manga series running in a seinen magazine.


Actually, I was under the impression that harem romance were almost entirely seinen? Of course, I think a lot of the magazines for boys in that age group are a little ambiguous and/or have a lot of crossover appeal, but Shounen Jump titles, for example, all seem the follow the "girls are icky" route by having almost if not all male characters and any romance is limited to blushing girls with crushes on the MC.
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 12:27 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
there are some major, major exceptions. One-Punch Man is seinen manga, as is Prison School, Ghost in the Shell, Planetes, Chobits, Tokyo Ghoul, Mushishi, Monster, Flowers of Evil, xxxHOLiC, Gantz, B Gata H Kei, Elfen Lied, Berserk, Akira and Blame!
That may cause some people to get rather mad. I often hear Tokyo Ghoul criticised as a "Seinen wannabe", so to point out that it actually is a Seinen is not going to go down well.
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Merida



Joined: 21 Feb 2012
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 12:45 pm Reply with quote
MarshalBanana wrote:
Quote:
there are some major, major exceptions. One-Punch Man is seinen manga, as is Prison School, Ghost in the Shell, Planetes, Chobits, Tokyo Ghoul, Mushishi, Monster, Flowers of Evil, xxxHOLiC, Gantz, B Gata H Kei, Elfen Lied, Berserk, Akira and Blame!
That may cause some people to get rather mad. I often hear Tokyo Ghoul criticised as a "Seinen wannabe", so to point out that it actually is a Seinen is not going to go down well.


If it runs in a seinen magazine, it is seinen, regardless of what "some people" may think...
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Tempest
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 12:46 pm Reply with quote
MarshalBanana wrote:
That may cause some people to get rather mad. I often hear Tokyo Ghoul criticised as a "Seinen wannabe", so to point out that it actually is a Seinen is not going to go down well.


Many manga are borderline. I guess Tokyo Ghoul could be considered "older shonen" or "younger seinen." Personally, I had never even questioned whether Tokyo Ghoul was seinen.

Anyway, it's in Young Jump, which is the #1 seinen anthology.

-t
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John Thacker



Joined: 28 Oct 2013
Posts: 1006
PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 12:47 pm Reply with quote
rizuchan wrote:
Quote:
It's unlikely that you'd see a bog-standard tournament fighting or harem romance manga series running in a seinen magazine.


Actually, I was under the impression that harem romance were almost entirely seinen? Of course, I think a lot of the magazines for boys in that age group are a little ambiguous and/or have a lot of crossover appeal, but Shounen Jump titles, for example, all seem the follow the "girls are icky" route by having almost if not all male characters and any romance is limited to blushing girls with crushes on the MC.


Well, Nisekoi is a Shōnen Jump title, so there are exceptions.
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Tempest
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 12:48 pm Reply with quote
Merida wrote:
If it runs in a seinen magazine, it is seinen, regardless of what "some people" may think...
That statement itself has been debated on this forum many times. Many people will point out that some magazines will include titles targeted at other demographics in order to widen the magazine's appeal.
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Tempest
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 12:51 pm Reply with quote
rizuchan wrote:
Actually, I was under the impression that harem romance were almost entirely seinen?


Most harem are very borderline. They're geared towards older teens.

Love Hina for example was published in Weekly Shōnen Magazine.
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Merida



Joined: 21 Feb 2012
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 12:56 pm Reply with quote
Tempest wrote:
Merida wrote:
If it runs in a seinen magazine, it is seinen, regardless of what "some people" may think...
That statement itself has been debated on this forum many times. Many people will point out that some magazines will include titles targeted at other demographics in order to widen the magazine's appeal.


Well, i don't really care either way, but those people from MarshalBanana's statement seem to consider "seinen" some kind of quality label which Tokyo Ghoul doesn't deserve in ther opionion and that's rather silly IMHO...
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Paiprince



Joined: 21 Dec 2013
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 12:59 pm Reply with quote
IMO based on what gets counted and categorized as seinen, a good catch all range of the age demographic constitutes males between 18 to around early thirties.
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Jonny Mendes



Joined: 17 Oct 2014
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Location: Europe
PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 1:51 pm Reply with quote
rizuchan wrote:

Actually, I was under the impression that harem romance were almost entirely seinen


in reality almost all harem romance is shonen.

Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero
Hayate the Combat Butler
Heaven's Lost Property
High School DxD
Highschool of the Dead
Hundred
Is This a Zombie?
Love Hina
Maken-ki!
Rosario + Vampire
So, I Can't Play H!
Strawberry 100%
To Love-Ru Darkness

Just to give some examples. All this are in shonen magazines.

Is reality demography is more about marketing than real age division.
Is more about the themes than to say that this or that is appropriate for that age group.

Unlike anime, manga is everywhere. From kids to older folks, many people read manga. When i was in Japan i say many people reading in public transportation. School boys/girls and salary men/woman.


Last edited by Jonny Mendes on Fri Aug 26, 2016 2:02 pm; edited 1 time in total
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vonPeterhof



Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Posts: 729
PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 1:57 pm Reply with quote
I remember that the first time I was buying a book in one of Japan's major bookstore chains the clerk pointed at a stack of bland-looking wrapping paper with the store's logo on it and asked me if I wanted the book wrapped. The book already had a jacket (in fact the book in question, the first novel in the Sound! Euphonium series, had two - the original one and one that featured the designs from the anime), so I was puzzled as to why that was necessary and declined, but noted that a lot of other customers were getting the covers of their manga and paperbacks wrapped with the extra paper. Only later did it occur to me that the purpose of those covers may have been not so much to protect the book as to conceal the actual cover, so that, for example, salarymen and housewives could enjoy manga and novels way outside of their demographic in public without attracting unnecessary attention.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15279
PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 2:43 pm Reply with quote
Man, how can this topic come up, with no mention of Salaryman Kintaro?
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 2:52 pm Reply with quote
MarshalBanana wrote:
Quote:
there are some major, major exceptions. One-Punch Man is seinen manga, as is Prison School, Ghost in the Shell, Planetes, Chobits, Tokyo Ghoul, Mushishi, Monster, Flowers of Evil, xxxHOLiC, Gantz, B Gata H Kei, Elfen Lied, Berserk, Akira and Blame!
That may cause some people to get rather mad. I often hear Tokyo Ghoul criticised as a "Seinen wannabe", so to point out that it actually is a Seinen is not going to go down well.

I was thinking much the same thing. To even suggest that there is a broad class into which those titles all fall is not without its controversy. It demonstrates the vast intersection between what typifies the adolescent and young adult audiences, given how some of those titles centrally appeal to both groups, their objectionable content perhaps notwithstanding.
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maximilianjenus



Joined: 29 Apr 2013
Posts: 2858
PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 4:19 pm Reply with quote
Vaisaga wrote:
When that whole healthy youth bill thingy happened years ago part of me didn't really see it as that big of a problem. Stuff like Aki Sora or Berserk, which has full on sex scenes, should be restricted to adults only. But I guess the problem lay more in this area, where salarymen wouldn't want to be seen in public reading something with an R-18 label slapped onto it.

Nothing really came out of that bill save for a few cancellations, so I guess these poor overworked joes can enjoy them some Golgo 13 on the train, imaging their boss's face on Golgo's target Laughing


well, they mostly targeted incest and even then the very explicit kind, so even stuff like toloveru got a pass.

Tempest wrote:

Many manga are borderline. I guess Tokyo Ghoul could be considered "older shonen" or "younger seinen." Personally, I had never even questioned whether Tokyo Ghoul was seinen.
-t


just call them baby's first seinen Razz it applies to attack on titan and terraformars amongst others.
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