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bigivel wrote:

What you define by relevant?
what would a series classification need to be relevant in your eyes?

The labels I consider relevant are the ones that provide enough reliable information to be a (or the only) criteria to make an educated guess of whether it might be of interest or not.

"This was made for young men" wouldn't provide so much information (and cause misunderstandings) if it didn't rely on/support the "wrong mentality" that each demographic segment likes only a determined set of elements and that other segments are discourages (or forbidden) from liking those same elements.
If such notions didn't exist to a greater or lesser extent in the collective mind of society, then the demographic label itself would become meaningless as it would fail to provide a set of elements and values since they would be more dispersed among the population.

This relevance is important because far too frequently the demographic label is used as the only piece of content information. And it is used because it does provide some information, clichéd and misleading as it might be.

(on a side note and in the line of what I've said earlier, demographic labels should only be provided as a secondary or even tertiary label. They should provide nuance, not primary information, and the less prominent they become the better for everyone)

Chrono1000 wrote:

The idea that categorization shouldn't exist because people might go along with it seems strange to me since it is just a word attached to it. The demographic police don't magically appear to arrest you if you buy manga of the "wrong" demographic. The problem isn't with categories it is with the mentality that they are absolutes and it would make more sense to change that mentality than trying to get rid of categories.

I do agree, though in practical terms it'd be easier to get rid of the category labels than it would be to convince even most of the (potential) fandom that it's okay to like things that they're not the target demographic for.
(edit:)Or, for that matter, convince them to stop telling people from outside of the target demographic (or perceived target demographic, in some cases) to bugger off.

Yuvelir wrote:

bigivel wrote:

What you define by relevant?
what would a series classification need to be relevant in your eyes?

The labels I consider relevant are the ones that provide enough reliable information to be a (or the only) criteria to make an educated guess of whether it might be of interest or not.

"This was made for young men" wouldn't provide so much information (and cause misunderstandings) if it didn't rely on/support the "wrong mentality" that each demographic segment likes only a determined set of elements and that other segments are discourages (or forbidden) from liking those same elements.
If such notions didn't exist to a greater or lesser extent in the collective mind of society, then the demographic label itself would become meaningless as it would fail to provide a set of elements and values since they would be more dispersed among the population.

This relevance is important because far too frequently the demographic label is used as the only piece of content information. And it is used because it does provide some information, clichéd and misleading as it might be.

(on a side note and in the line of what I've said earlier, demographic labels should only be provided as a secondary or even tertiary label. They should provide nuance, not primary information, and the less prominent they become the better for everyone)

The problem is that the things you say the demographic label does, it doens't do. Also you're basically limiting what should be good information. And while I would agree that you might think that "for you" the information that demographic label gives is not relevant, I don't agree that you should be on the center of things, and the one that makes what should the terciary, secondary or primary.

Demographic doesn't support the mentality that each segment of it likes only a determined set of elements, neither that other segments are discouraged, less forbidden from liking.
Again that is you not understanding what demographic is and what kind of information the label is giving to you. In fact the information that it is giving is rather simple, but you(and I might say a lot of people) like to complicate it and add stuff to it. You see that authors of shoujo write mostly romances, and you think the label is informing you that girls only like romances, and because it doesn't have many or any battle series, then that is forbidden/discouraged for girls to like battle manga. Though that is not at all the information that the label shoujo is giving you. The problem you're having is trying to overexplaining all the events that transpire together with the label, overthinking, and the problem of correlation vs causation.

First you want to explain everything that happens by the use of the label. You see shonen most times together with battle, so you think there must be a reason, an explanation, and you try to explain it.
This brings the problem of overthinking, you see a ton of things related with the label and so you think the label must mean more than what it means and is more important than in actuality is, and so you keep thinking about what it might be, even though failing the simplicity of the label. Note that is the simplicitly the reason why you have labels and classification at the first place. A Classification is just an abstraction, that means removing all the complexity of entities and only focusing at simple aspect of the thing. Example of the lamp, and only seeing it as turned on and off, instead of looking at its material, time of turning on, of off, the energy that it spends, the lifespan and so much more information you can take from just a lamp.
The overexplaining and thinking came about because of the correlation of things. Though that doesn't necessarily means causation. Shoujo series being mainly romances doesn't mean that the cause of them being mostly romances is the label Shoujo. Nor is the fact that society thinks that girls should only like romances and anything else. Normally for correlation vs causation problem you should look at the inverse causation and see if it makes any sense, and then always look for a good reason for the causation(inverse or the original).

A good example for the correlation causation problem is shown in the following example:

It was noted that houses that had many ashtrays had a bigger probability for the inhabitants to get lung cancer. The fewer the ashtrays in the house the more the probability of cancer plummet.
Looking at that correlation people came to the conclusion that having ashtrays at home causes lung cancer(Shonen means/causes the series to be battle series with a set of cliches) and so the solution to stop lung cancer to spread was to get ou of the house ashtrays(Series without less of the cliches and different genres mean is not of the certain demographic).
Obviously that conclusion is totally wrong, for both cases, lung cancer and shonen, because it only shows a relation not the cause. Obviously the lung cancer is due to smoking, not the ashtrays. As well shonen doesn't mean Battle manga with Hero journey plot(and the ton of other cliches), that is because the authors that are targeting shonen think that is an aspect that attratcs them and a sure success(You can think that your wife will always love flowers, and so always give it as a gift, that not only doesn't mean that she must like them and dislike anything else, nor that flowers mean wife present.

Why is important to know about demographic and why is it a primary label. you has the target, you would like to know to whom the shooter is aiming, if at you or at anyone else. When you're trying to look for books, or when you get the book and still undecided, or if you don't like other to see reading something that is targeted to other people or even to you(you know the edgy and the people outside the norm). If you know the author, is interesting to see his take when aiming to different people. Even while reading the book, is interesting to know who is the target, even if only to see if the author is doing a good job at it.
Just like Demographics aren't about content of the work, it isn't supposed for you to read a book without knowing anything about who it was being targetted and then by the content that you read be able to take which demographic it is. You can do to some works, many even, majorly due to the "lazyness" of authors by loving to follow the herd and trends, and just do derivatives of other things, gender and cliche wise. But note that is understanding the "rationale" of the author about what it means to target the audience, and not about the actual targeting of the audience. And so the cases where you totally fail, like thinking Attack on Titan is Seinen or Shin-chan is Kodomo, don't mean that they are exceptions to the rule, just that the author didn't go to the heard and trend mentality.

Sakagami Tomoyo wrote:

Chrono1000 wrote:

The idea that categorization shouldn't exist because people might go along with it seems strange to me since it is just a word attached to it. The demographic police don't magically appear to arrest you if you buy manga of the "wrong" demographic. The problem isn't with categories it is with the mentality that they are absolutes and it would make more sense to change that mentality than trying to get rid of categories.

I do agree, though in practical terms it'd be easier to get rid of the category labels than it would be to convince even most of the (potential) fandom that it's okay to like things that they're not the target demographic for.
(edit:)Or, for that matter, convince them to stop telling people from outside of the target demographic (or perceived target demographic, in some cases) to bugger off.

It would e easier to get rid of the category labels? Why do you think that. Is totally the opposite. From the start of mass production of books to now, it was never achievable not desired to remove the category labels, but even today and this second someone is being convinced that it's okay to like things outside their target demographic.

How do you think that you have series that have a general public when they are target at just one demographic? What do you think was the success of Nana, and One Piece and Prince of Tennis.

Also when you have people that thing that any category means genre and that it means that is related with content, is one of the most ingrained and most difficult concept to make people get out of, you think that removing categories would be easier than having no problem of going to other categories?

What was the rationale about your sentence?

Lord Oink wrote:

I know its cultural difference, but these are still kids shows.

When they come to America, they no longer are kids' shows. Is what I'm saying.

@bigivel: I'm pointing out that Harry Potter was written for everyone so I don't know why you would label it "for young boys". Unlike Japan, there is no "set demographic" when it comes to gender of the readers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter

Quote:

Fantasy, drama, young adult fiction, mystery, thriller

Doesn't say anything about gender?

I'm sorry but I'm not about to read that essay, not at this hour <.<

but to reiterate since I did read the beginning, I'm not saying that demographic labels support the mentality but that it is supported by the mentality. The cause-effect relationship is the opposite

Sakagami Tomoyo wrote:

Many seem to assume, for one reason or another, that anime is all aimed at adult men, so get a bit of shock when they see something that actually and obviously isn't. They're not shocked that the show aimed at young girls doesn't have lots of T&A, they're shocked that the show turns out to be aimed at young girls. That men assume that everything is made for them is not odd, because it's so bloody common in general, but it is stupid and self-centered.

I see. As for it not being odd, the reason it's odd for me is because its a line of thinking I don't come across often if at all. I believe you in that this kind of thinking is a common thing in this space, or whatever one calls it.

Yuvelir wrote:

I'm sorry but I'm not about to read that essay, not at this hour <.<

but to reiterate since I did read the beginning, I'm not saying that demographic labels support the mentality but that it is supported by the mentality. The cause-effect relationship is the opposite

let me get it clear. You're saying that is the society that thinks that women only must like romance and nothing else that causes the existence of the label Shoujo(for girls)?

Again, the label is not about content, so something that it isn't can't be caused.
What you're against isn't even the label, but how the ones that are targeting a given audience go generally doing it, being them influenced by society. So basically what you want is a change in the way authors target their audience, not the targeting of the audience.

bigivel wrote:

let me get it clear. You're saying that is the society that thinks that women only must like romance and nothing else that causes the existence of the label Shoujo(for girls)?

Again, the label is not about content, so something that it isn't can't be caused.
What you're against isn't even the label, but how the ones that are targeting a given audience go generally doing it, being them influenced by society. So basically what you want is a change in the way authors target their audience, not the targeting of the audience.

More or less. Not only romance but some permutations of it and other series of tropes.
If you couldn't assume that "girls like emotional works, bubbly stuff and pretty people" or that "boys like violence, people shouting, dirty jokes and a little perviness" (of course the tropes associated to each demographic are more extense, abstract and complex than these, but it's an example) then what information would the labels "shounen" and "shoujo" provide? What would the point of including them if both boys and girls young and adult were expected to like "emotional works, bubbly stuff and pretty people" about equally?

The "prejudices" existing and being enforced to some extent by society is why those four demographic terms are so widespread - and its simplistic use causing so many misunderstandings.

As for what I want, rather than how authors target their works (I'm sure many of them aren't that laser-focused in the age+sex demographic anyway) I want the demographic label to not be used above genres as the sole source of information.
As they're now they're a hot mess since they've been abused to refer to very specific genres so much that we get people refusing to acknowledge K-ON as a seinen or Mahoutsukai no Yome as a shounen and they later get confused when they look up another "shounen" title and what they find isn't at all what they expected.

Yuvelir wrote:

More or less. Not only romance but some permutations of it and other series of tropes.
If you couldn't assume that "girls like emotional works, bubbly stuff and pretty people" or that "boys like violence, people shouting, dirty jokes and a little perviness" (of course the tropes associated to each demographic are more extense, abstract and complex than these, but it's an example) then what information would the labels "shounen" and "shoujo" provide? What would the point of including them if both boys and girls young and adult were expected to like "emotional works, bubbly stuff and pretty people" about equally?

The "prejudices" existing and being enforced to some extent by society is why those four demographic terms are so widespread - and its simplistic use causing so many misunderstandings.

As for what I want, rather than how authors target their works (I'm sure many of them aren't that laser-focused in the age+sex demographic anyway) I want the demographic label to not be used above genres as the sole source of information.
As they're now they're a hot mess since they've been abused to refer to very specific genres so much that we get people refusing to acknowledge K-ON as a seinen or Mahoutsukai no Yome as a shounen and they later get confused when they look up another "shounen" title and what they find isn't at all what they expected.

The misunderstandings isn't what creates the demographics label.

Your question basically means you don't understand what demographic exists for, and think it exist for something, something that doesn't make sense to exist. So you don't want it to exist, but that isn't demographics. Again demographics isn't about content.

Do you agree that female and male is different? And that ages are different? Do you agree about abstraction? And about classification? For example do you agree that makes any sense to divide animals between birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, and so on? Do you agree that you're putting together this species just because you're only focusing in certain characteristics and devaluing all the others? Do you agree that a mammal in infancy is different to himself when he is juvenile and when he is adult? And do you agree that a female bird is different from a male bird?

If you agree about that you surely must agree that dividing people into demographics have its merit.

Then you have the question of target audience. Do you agree that the reason of existence of a product is to provide value to someone else? And as a product creator you can't just make something and let to luck to give value to someone, but that from the beginning you have to think about whom you giving value to. And so you have to target someone.
And obviously the products we are talking aren't meant for a specific person, but instead to a group of people, people that have some characteristics in common, in other words, a demographic.
Given the above, you have that target audience is something highly important, if not the most important thing.

About the audience being targeted and the knowledge of the target. Given the fact that the author(all the creators of the "product". This include producer, editor, distributor, marketer, ...) is targeting an audience and that is important, don't you think that is a good information for you to know?

The major confusing comes from genre being internal to the work and external to the creators, and demographics being external to the work and internal to the creators.

bigivel wrote:

The misunderstandings isn't what creates the demographics label.

Your question basically means you don't understand what demographic exists for, and think it exist for something, something that doesn't make sense to exist. So you don't want it to exist, but that isn't demographics. Again demographics isn't about content.

[...]

If you agree about that you surely must agree that dividing people into demographics have its merit.

Then you have the question of target audience. Do you agree that the reason of existence of a product is to provide value to someone else? And as a product creator you can't just make something and let to luck to give value to someone, but that from the beginning you have to think about whom you giving value to. And so you have to target someone.
And obviously the products we are talking aren't meant for a specific person, but instead to a group of people, people that have some characteristics in common, in other words, a demographic.
[...]
The major confusing comes from genre being internal to the work and external to the creators, and demographics being external to the work and internal to the creators.

We're comign with quite a few misunderstandings ourselves without demographic labels...

I do think that demographic labels has its merits as it helps differentiate the style of the drama/romance in Marmalade Boy vs the drama/romance in Kimi no Iru Machi, for instance.
However, I think the way it's being abused as a content description instead of a style nuance aid is nefarious as it doesn't help a potential customer understand what to expect and instead leads them to wrong assumptions - if this confusion didn't happen the article's question wouldn't have been asked in the first place.

These specific demographic labels are very much necessary in Japan where there's a huge array ios products for a huge audience as well as quite extensive marketing, such a broad categorization is necessary both for the publishers to be able to get their product noticed and readers to get some guidance.
Overseas, where both the audience and the selection of series is a couple of orders of magnitude smaller and marketing is more modest (and proportionately more direct to the readers), demographic labels being used as the only distinction (on top of its implied and wrong correlation with content) are causing a lot of harm and barely any good.

I feel like Japan needs a better demographic for the middle ground between Shonen and Seinen. Shonen stuff like Dragon Ball, One Piece, My Hero Academia, Naruto, Shaman King, Yu-Gi-Oh, Black Clover, Soul Hunter and Detective Conan do feel like they are written for kids. However some Shonen and even some Seinen do feel like they are not as kid friendly, but not really mature for adults like Attack on Titan, Death Note, Tokyo Ghoul and Bungo Stray Dogs.

I view something like Devilman as faux-Shonen and Tokyo Ghoul as faux-Seinen.

Spawn29 wrote:

I feel like Japan needs a better demographic for the middle ground between Shonen and Seinen. Shonen stuff like Dragon Ball, One Piece, My Hero Academia, Naruto, Shaman King, Yu-Gi-Oh, Black Clover, Soul Hunter and Detective Conan do feel like they are written for kids. However some Shonen and even some Seinen do feel like they are not as kid friendly, but not really mature for adults like Attack on Titan, Death Note, Tokyo Ghoul and Bungo Stray Dogs.

I view something like Devilman as faux-Shonen and Tokyo Ghoul as faux-Seinen.

Seinen action manga that reads like its shounen counterpart both in terms of art and story plus mild gore (sometimes light; as seen in titles from my previous post) are much more likely to get anime adaptations (and happen many times since the turn of the millenium) than serious business thriller seinen manga. However like shounen manga with darker stories, their anime adaptations often do not sell well and even suffer critical failure at the same time. It surprised me a little that they still happen to get anime adaptations from time to time even now.

Spawn29 wrote:

Seinen titles around that time are more grounded to reality like Golgo 13, Lupin the 3rd, Lone Wolf and Cub and Lady Snowblood.

...two of these things are not like the others and two of these things don't belong in the discussion of a story being grounded in reality.

Chrono1000 wrote:

To say the least the US comic book industry has gone overboard on the propaganda and even China has realized that most people want entertaining stories.

While not churning in the actual propaganda the chinese are known for propagating?

Spawn29 wrote:

I wish that animated TV shows were doing better in the western world but the current state of the industry can be summed up with the words Teen Titans Go.

I wasn't aware that Teen Titans Go has been on cable since 1999 like Spongebob or has suffered from Seasonal Rot as a consequence.....especially as the trending argument against TTG is that it was never good and that CN shoud've never canceled Young Justice for it eventhough they didn't or that they should've made Teen Titans Season 6 eventhough they never had any intention of doing so.

Lord Oink wrote:

Of course they are. I've always laughed how ADULT Swim is riddled with children's shows.

This is interesting as neither Cowboy Bebop, Reign The Conqueror, Home Movies, Outlaw Star, Tenchi Muyo, Sealab 2021, Aqua Teen, The Boondocks, Tom Goes To The Mayor, Squidbillies, King Of The Hill, Code Geass, Family Guy, Venture Bros, Lupin the 3rd, Wolf's Rain, or Hellsing Ultimate were children shows.

BadNewsBlues wrote:

Spawn29 wrote:

Seinen titles around that time are more grounded to reality like Golgo 13, Lupin the 3rd, Lone Wolf and Cub and Lady Snowblood.

...two of these things are not like the others and two of these things don't belong in the discussion of a story being grounded in reality.

I brought them up when comparing them to Shonen & Shojo to Seinen. During the 60's, 70's and 80's, kids manga with mature content was able to get away with it if they are more fantasy orient. Devilman is a very violent manga, but it does deal with demons that appeals to kids and teens during the 70's while something like Lone Wolf and Cub in the 70's appeal more to adults due to being more grounded. Even Lupin was popular 20+ year olds when it was originally airing on TV. Same goes with Fist of the North Star which probably got away with the violence and gore in a kids magazine due to it being so over the top.

BadNewsBlues wrote:

Tenchi Muyo were not children shows.

Tenchi Muyo is Shonen.

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