Power Of Friendship: Why is this prevalent is shonen?

I don't mind either.

It's a pet peeve of mine when people put way too much stock into these broad demographic labels. Death Note is Shounen. Lucky Star is Seinen. As a general rule, the demographics have roughly nothing to do with the content.

Except they do, as it's about how much of the content they can get away with.

Seinen, the writers can choose just not to do much, or put in as much mature content as they want, while with Shonen, they have to put only a certain amount of mature content into something or risk having to switch to a Seinen Magazine.

It also depends on what Shonen Magazine the series in published in.

edited 24th Dec '12 3:50:44 AM by Demongodofchaos2

And of course who writes it.

Obviously the best works are the ones that push the bounds of their demographic. Which doesn't change the fact that those boundaries of are there in the first place.

I like those, but I also don't mind Standard Shonen fare either. In fact, I think they tend to get a bad rap on a whole, when without them, many edgy demographic pushing manga and anime wouldn't exist.

edited 24th Dec '12 3:57:17 AM by Demongodofchaos2

Well I can't really disagree with you there.

Gintama loses half it's jokes without someone playing them straight somewhere.

And of course, the absolute worst kind series is a grimdark one that thinks it's being edgy but is actually probably less intelligent than the works it's taken most of it's cues from.

Cough Cough Gen Urobuchi with Psycho-Pass Cough Cough

edited 24th Dec '12 4:08:11 AM by Demongodofchaos2

Personaly think NGE is one of them

What the writer can get away with depends on an awful lot of factors, of which the demographic is only one. Hunter X Hunter is one of the most brutal series I've ever read, with graphic depictions of violent things like little kids getting eaten alive, and then turning around and making that same cannibal character into a sympathetic anti-villain, and Togashi gets away with it in Shounen Jump because they know he'll sell well regardless of anything else. When series like To Love Ru get too raunchy for Shounen Jump, they move to Jump Square... which is also a shounen magazine. Flame Of Recca had a villain who liked to rape and eat people at the same time. Seriously.

I know listing "atrocities" is hardly the best way to sell a series, but it's a simple fact that there are no hard and fast limits on what a shounen series can convey, and furthermore it's certainly not a general rule that seinen series are any darker. It's my experience that the kinds of people who say things like: "if you're tired of shounen sappiness you should totally check out seinen, man" are the kinds of people who don't have a clue what they're talking about. Or rather, have half a clue and are abusing that to make themselves look smarter. Hipsters, if you will.

edited 24th Dec '12 4:13:05 AM by Clarste

Shonens are targeting young teens (in most cases).

Seinen targeting Older teens and young adult (or anyone who read it).

As resutlt it isn't mistake consider Seinen generaly more adult. Exeptions doesn't makes rules

Which would make sense if the series themselves were labeled that way, but they're not. The magazines are. And what magazine a writer writes for depends on plenty of other things, like prestige or salary or simply having worked with them before and not wanting to look for a new employer. Not to mention a series changing tone over its lifespan. It's not like there's a "seinen police" looking through each work bumping up shounen works that are too edgy and bumping down seinen works that are too light-hearted. And of course otaku are themselves "seinen" so works pandering to them would be classified as such despite not having an edgy bone in their body.

Two titles that largely laid foundation to modern battle oriented shounens, First Of The North Star and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, are full of violence and gore yet they are considered classic shounens. Level of brutality certainly doesn't define what is shounen and what is seinen.

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Neither does the intelligence of the writing, although that's certainly harder to quantify.

Except those would be considered Seinen today (And most spinoffs and Jojo ffrom steel Ball run onwards are all published in Seinen. That's because they were published in the Late Showa era, where violence was a lot more tolerable back then.

In any kind of detail shounen and seinen are not acurate measures of what someone will like.

I see no problem in telling people of the existence of a demographic that targets people who have outgrown shounen though.

Though Clarste is right about it not being a sliding scale of darkness nor cynicism and idealism or even being more mature.

But generally they are different.

Most of us could easily pidgeon-hole most things we watched at random.

edited 24th Dec '12 4:23:10 AM by UltimatelySubjective

And now you're just moving the goalposts in order to define shounen and seinen in a way that supports your conclusion, despite that not actually being how any of the publishers have ever defined them.

edited 24th Dec '12 4:23:49 AM by Clarste

Repeating: exeptions doesn't makes rules. Most times labels are right. Yes it might 60:40 or something, but it's nonsense look for mature content in shonen series. Though you can enfćounter it by chance or through other people recommedition. But if you look intentionaly for it you would go for seinen instead.

edited 24th Dec '12 4:25:05 AM by Tenzen12

You think 60:40 makes it nonsense to look for something? Word of advice: never gamble.

.........No, I'm not.

I'm stating the facts, because that is how it worked for all japanese media back then, not just Manga.

And I was trying to talk to Captain Katsura, not you when you Ninja'd me.

edited 24th Dec '12 4:28:03 AM by Demongodofchaos2

You're telling us what would be seinen despite all evidence to the contrary. Ergo, you're trying to define the terms yourself. Also, I knew who you were talking to.

edited 24th Dec '12 4:29:16 AM by Clarste

Exactly cause I don't like gambling I read seinen if I look for something more mature (and shonen if I want just kill time.) Anyway if I were gambling after all I would go rather for 60 over 40...

edited 24th Dec '12 4:32:03 AM by Tenzen12

My point is that Gorn for the Sake Gorn, in Modern Japan, is not tolerable in any Shonen series today, and is why Berserk and Hellsing are seinen, not just because of the dark themes they have

edited 24th Dec '12 4:30:54 AM by Demongodofchaos2

Lower odds can have better payouts. The point is simply that this isn't like buying a lottery ticket.

More to the point, each series is idiosyncratic. If the odds actually are 60:40, then by reading only seinen manga when you're in the mood for something more mature, then 40% of the time you'll be disappointed. Frankly, those are terrible odds, considering how much time it takes to read a series. You're far better off ignoring demographics entirely and, I don't know, asking for a recommendation on the internet? Talk to people who have similar tastes? There are plenty of ways to find what you're looking for, but only reading stories that happened to be published in magazines with a certain keyword in their description is among the worst of them.

The guy in Hunter X Hunter seriously killed an innocent little girl and ate her brain. And he's one of the good guys. This was published in Shounen Jump within the past decade.

edited 24th Dec '12 4:37:09 AM by Clarste

Technically non-manga works aren't even actually shounen or seinen right?

...

But it's such a useful distinction!

Technically. Or at least it's impossible to say for sure.