troperville

tools

toys

Wiki Headlines
5th Feb: Echo Chamber Season 1 blooper reel on Youtube here
SubpagesMain
main index

Narrative

Genre

Media

Topical Tropes

Other Categories

TV Tropes Org
new edits
forum
reviews
YKTTW
tweets
random
to do
pm
add watch
drop watch
watchlist
profile
Seinen
Seinen (Japanese for "young man" or "young men") is a demographic designation of Anime and Manga targeted at male audiences aged 18 to 40. It is the older counterpart of Shōnen and effectively makes for the majority of anime in the older demographic, since major Josei manga titles rarely get adapted on screen. Compared to shonen, seinen caters to a much smaller viewing crowd, since younger audiences have much more time to spare on anime, which makes them a more attractive target, and thus is slightly less known.

Thanks to the older target audience, seinen shows tend to be much more sophisticated and mature than their shonen counterparts. While sharing many of the same sub-genres and themes, they are commonly more psychological, satirical, violent, and sexual. Much more attention is paid to the plot and the interaction between characters than to action and fights, which are the main attraction for the younger viewers, and the characters are well fleshed out. The latter trait often leads to confusion of seinen with Shojo Genre but the key difference is that seinen does not idealize romance, instead opting for more realistic and pragmatic approach to relationships. Realism is indeed the calling card of seinen shows, commonly earning them the acclaim for their depth and maturity and Multiple Demographic Appeal. On the other hand, one shouldn't forget that the vast majority of Hentai except Yaoi is aimed at older male viewers as well. This is the other side of the realism coin.

A typical seinen protagonist can be of any gender and age (in stark contrast to shonen, whose protagonists are almost exclusively young and male). Romance-wise, anything goes, from Romantic Two-Girl Friendship to obscure examples of Boys' Love Genre. In fact, Schoolgirl Lesbians are a distinctive trait of seinen, rarely if ever present in shonen shows. Relationships are portrayed in a less idealistic light than in shojo, with many grays and uncertainties like in Real Life, and don't tend to indulge the shonen over-simplification of "which heroine will be hooked up with the hero". There is a reverse side to this, too: ironically, seinen is most infamous for its sub-category of Improbably Female Cast and Harem Series that rely heavily on cutesy Moe Fanservice (again, juxtaposed to plain sex appeal of female characters in shonen; see Hot Shounen Mom, for example) to attract viewers.

Recently, there has been a considerable influx of shojo fans into the seinen demographic, thanks to the latter's traditional thoroughness in relationships and, more importantly, general retraction from blatant fanservice. This migration was particularly paved by such Gateway Series as Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Kanon, CLANNAD, and AIR.

Most of the stuff shown on [adult swim] is seinen, EXCLUDING the likes of Inu Yasha, Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, Kekkaishi, and (taking only the anime as reference) Neon Genesis Evangelion* which are shonen.

Compare Josei, which is aimed at females of the same age.

Before adding a new title please double check your sources, a Seinen manga has to be published in a Seinen magazine for it truly be part of the demographic, for an anime go check its usually late night time slot in Japan, or any slot if it airs in a satelite channel (again in Japan) and if it obviously has glaring mature imagery; especially if the anime is based from a Shonen work, the animation must be way more mature than its source material.

Titles:

Series sometimes mistaken for seinen

  • Akumetsu, a series which runs on heavy, yet well constructed, critics against a corrupt japanese government, protagonized by basically a young terrorist dead set on killing as many corrupt politicians as he can find. Yes, all of it ran in a shonen magazine from start to finish.
  • Apocalypse Zero, in spite of its infamously graphic violence, was published in Shonen Champion, which (if it weren't already obvious) is the sister magazine to Champion Red. The manga is actually more violent than the OVAs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's also by the author of Shigurui.
  • Barefoot Gen, a semi-autobiographical manga famous for its harrowing depiction of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima, originally ran in Shonen Jump.
  • BECK has many realistic aspects found in seinen, but it ran in Monthly Shonen Magazine.
  • Change123, it runs on the famous Champion RED magazine, so yeah, it features a lot of mature content like nudity, extreme violence, and lots of Fanservice.
  • Claymore: Despite its dark tone, violent content, and superficial resemblance to Berserk, it runs in Shonen Jump.
  • Deadman Wonderland - It has a dark storyline and some glaring gorn, it runs on many a Trauma Conga Line, yet it runs in a shonen magazine.
  • Death Note: Due to being a largely cynical crime story with a Villain Protagonist and What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?, it just has Multiple Demographic Appeal. It ran in Shonen Jump.
    • Sorta brought up in Bakuman。, a manga written by the same author. Most of the main mangaka characters in Bakuman seem to support the idea of running seinen-like stories in shonen magazines.
  • Fist of the North Star due to its violent content. Also ran in Shonen Jump. Fist of the Blue Sky, Jibo no Hoshi, and Hōkō no Kumo, among others are genuine seinen.
  • Franken Fran: Another horror manga that ran in a shonen magazine, despite having a lot of elements that appear seinen.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist contains a more complex plot and is less focused on fight scenes than typical shonen, and as such is occasionally mistaken for a seinen series; however, it ran in a shonen magazine and, at its core, still embodies most of the typical shonen elements.
  • Gunslinger Girl is a violent series with a dark, realistic tone and themes of child abuse and terrorism... that runs in a shonen magazine.
    • The first anime series, however, is much more seinen in focus.
  • InuYasha: ran in Shonen Sunday, like nearly all of Takahashi's works.
  • Lucky Star: Like Azumanga Daioh, they both ran in shonen magazines. The anime ran rather late at night though.
  • Mai Hime and Mai Otome both ran in Shonen Champion.
  • Red Eyes is shock full of Family Unfriendly Violence, the setting is all about war with many, many cases of Info Dump and All There in the Manual which is huge set off for younger readers or the general public who just don't like to read too much into the story to understand what's going on; the art is very realistic, no cases of Generic Cuteness and Fanservice to be seen here. All in all this series just screams it was made for mature readers, and yet it runs in a Shounen magazine.
  • Rosario+Vampire Season 2 at least after a few chapters. Despite gratuitous fanservice and increasingly dark plot elements, it ran in a shonen magazine.
  • Rurouni Kenshin is darker and more violent than most Shonen Jump series, but still unmistakably shonen. The OVAs, however, are seinen.
  • Shigurui, violent, horrific and containing exclusively adult themes and situations. It ran on Champion Red, a shonen magazine, the magazine that also runs Franken Fran. No, seriously.
  • Welcome to the NHK a wretched take on concepts of being a hikikomori, anime otaku, and having most of the characters experience intense feelings of depression and loneliness. The original novel and manga adaptation ran in a Shōnen magazine, while it's hard to indicate where the anime adaptation should be placed, it derived from two Shōnen works so it can't be seen as any different.
  • Yomeiro Choice, only the first few chapters were genuine Seinen as it was published in a fitting magazine, but the majority of the series (basically 5/6 of it) ran in a Shounen magazine till the very end, and yet the contents shown in the first chapters didn't change at all, actually it got more risque as it went along, stuff like extreme nudity, sexual innuendos, strong content abound.
  • Yotsuba&!: Like Azumanga Daioh, it runs in a shounen mangazine.
SeekersIndex IndexSelf-Demonstrating Article
Shōnen GenreAnime FanspeakShōjo Genre
KodomomukeMangaShōjo Genre
alternative title(s): Seinen Demographic
new edits
forum
page history
edit page
view source
random
This wiki is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Privacy Policy
74284
0