It seems that a lot of girls read more shounen than shoujo

[Vexx]

A metaphor might be that you really can't call someone who has read one book a "book reader" even if that book is a multi-part series.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by MisaoFan

People who ONLY watch shoujo romance and shounen action is what I call them "the noobs" and I hate them. Many of them can be found in my country of Tower of Eiffel. If "the noobs" think of shounen harem romance, they treat it as shoujo but if they thinks of shoujo fantasy like Angel Sanctuary, they mistreat it as shounen.

Little intolerant, aren't we?

Who really cares if someone thinks a show is "shounen" or "shoujo" other than obsessive categorizers? How exactly does what is nothing more than a marketing category affect whether one enjoys a show or not? To me, it's all about the content; who cares which segment of the audience the Japanese production committee thinks they should target?

I'm always pretty sure they're not targeting me!

[Chiibi]

I'm with SeijiSensei on this. It's kind of...well, mean to hate on the viewers just because they watch only one genre of shoujo/shounen.....^^; They'll broaden their horizons sooner or later. I know it certainly took ME a while to understand all the different demographics!

[Vexx]

Actually, it seems like the "hate" mostly showers in the other direction in general. I've seen far too many "one act" fans being very mean to anyone who watches something besides their "one act".

If Bob likes tacos and only tacos, does that make Bob a "Mexican food fan"? No, it really only makes Bob a taco fan. We can only hope Bob branches out later except that he seems to be really intolerant of any other mexican food.

[Krono]

Originally Posted by MisaoFan

In shounen side, there's also titles like Slayers ... when the female lead is a weak/medium-level fighter...

Since when was Lina Inverse a weak/medium-level fighter? She's one of the most powerful humans in her world, and done more damage to the demonic pantheon of her world than her world's gods have.

[MisaoFan]

Originally Posted by Krono

Since when was Lina Inverse a weak/medium-level fighter? She's one of the most powerful humans in her world, and done more damage to the demonic pantheon of her world than her world's gods have.

I was accidentally thinking of it, but Lina is still a strong girl, right. I'm edit my previous post now.

[Undertaker]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Actually, it seems like the "hate" mostly showers in the other direction in general. I've seen far too many "one act" fans being very mean to anyone who watches something besides their "one act".

If Bob likes tacos and only tacos, does that make Bob a "Mexican food fan"? No, it really only makes Bob a taco fan. We can only hope Bob branches out later except that he seems to be really intolerant of any other mexican food.

I agree with that to extent, but again that only applies if Misao Fan says that he/she considers people who only read "JUMP action" or "Ribbon Romance" a noob, which she did not.

What I don't agree with MisaoFan is that as we already covered, and I sure you knew, Shonen, Shojo are demographic terms only. So by claiming that everyone who only read Shonen and Shojo are noob does that mean that you have to read Seinen and Josei to be consider a real fan by MisaoFan?

BTW, last time I checked Misao Fan is extremely prejudice on fan-service series, guess which demographic has the most fan-service works? That's right Seinen, and let's not even get into all the H-manga magazines are technically labeled as Seinen as well.

Really, instead of keep using demographic terms as separation, why not using actual GENRES to made point.

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Little intolerant, aren't we?

Who really cares if someone thinks a show is "shounen" or "shoujo" other than obsessive categorizers? How exactly does what is nothing more than a marketing category affect whether one enjoys a show or not? To me, it's all about the content; who cares which segment of the audience the Japanese production committee thinks they should target?

I'm always pretty sure they're not targeting me!

I don't hate people who misclassify harem shows as shoujo, but I do have to wonder who they think the copious amounts of fanservice are for.

[MisaoFan]

Originally Posted by Undertaker

BTW, last time I checked Misao Fan is extremely prejudice on fan-service series, guess which demographic has the most fan-service works? That's right Seinen

Some of the fanservice series that I watched like Seikon no Qwaser were shounen, according to the magazine it was serialized. I watched a lot of shounen (especially harem/fanservice) shows and a couple of seinen series, especially those who have moe design and aspect (Angel Beats!, Yosuga no Sora, Madoka Magica).

But I believe that the shounen romance isn't as obvious as the shoujo ones.

As well, some highly complicated and/or guro shounen series like Death Note and Deadman Wonderland are badly misclassified as seinen.

[MisaoFan]

Look at this.

[risingstar3110]

Originally Posted by MisaoFan

Some of the fanservice series that I watched like Seikon no Qwaser were shounen, according to the magazine it was serialized. I watched a lot of shounen (especially harem/fanservice) shows and a couple of seinen series, especially those who have moe design and aspect (Angel Beats!, Yosuga no Sora, Madoka Magica).

But I believe that the shounen romance isn't as obvious as the shoujo ones.

As well, some highly complicated and/or guro shounen series like Death Note and Deadman Wonderland are badly misclassified as seinen.

I think there was a theory on that. About how guys (the innocent anime-loving ones) found themselves real strong on responsibility when enter the relationship. So lots and lots of romance shounen anime ended with the main character after overcoming everything, started the relationship with the girl. Maybe with some time skip, but basically if the couple enter the relationship, they will live happy ever after.

Don't read lots of shoujo manga, but i personally can recall a few tittle where the couple enter relationships, then face problems with the family, her career, new rivals...etc...I'm not saying it's all like that through, but applied so far with what i read


Secondly, probably need everyone opinion on this. But we don't have the equivalence of "bromance" in shounen with girls in shoujo (yuri aside), isn't it? There are lots of sidekick girl friend, but they will only enter the plot line, if they somehow relate to an evil/jealous plot against the main girl character.

[Chanbara]

Answering the OP:

I think the biggest reason is the fact that the terms are so confused. They originate from the intended demographics of manga publications which leads to a great deal of confusion by itself, for example Yotsuba to! and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan are both Shounen because they run in Dengenki Daioh but have nothing else in common whatsoever. When an anime is original, however, it still gets put in one of the four categories which can make things even more confusing then, for example Cowboy Bebop was regarded as a Seinen anime, but the manga ran in a Shoujo publication, so now it gets the Shoujo label in various places. I think a large part of why so many girls read Shounen manga and watch Shounen anime these days is because the Shounen publications have realised that they only need one or two "girly" titles to attract female readers, and that it makes sense to attract these readers who are also likely to then read and purchase titles with a large amount of crossover appeal. The concept works both ways, a lot of adult males bought Feel Young while Usagi Drop was running in it.

The other major, and more obvious reason is that society has changed and women not only want to read more male-oriented material, it's also finally socially acceptable as well. And it's also changed what women want from female-targeted publications as well. Personally speaking I don't want to read outdated stuff like Itazura na Kiss or Bokura ga Ita which feels like it's from the 60's, and as far as I know these kinds of publications aren't doing so well any more, and a lot of female readers are switching over to less sexist stuff with greater crossover appeal like Kimi ni Todoke (again, this is my subjective speculation). Whatever it is though, it's not for bishies, that's what yaoi is for...

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

Secondly, probably need everyone opinion on this. But we don't have the equivalence of "bromance" in shounen with girls in shoujo (yuri aside), isn't it? There are lots of sidekick girl friend, but they will only enter the plot line, if they somehow relate to an evil/jealous plot against the main girl character.

On the contrary, there are a lot of non-malicious female "friend" characters in even a typical shoujo manga.

Take for example, Hiyokoi's Ricchan, the main character's precious best friend, or Kimi ni Todoke's lovely threesome. In fact Kazehaya, Mr. Prince Charming, is less important to Sawako's early development as a character than the two friends she made.

There is, however, often a sense that the main character's love relationship is more important than friendship. This might be a reflection of perceived realities of girl friendships (as opposed to the men's code: bros before hoes). How true that is in reality depends on the person. I hope.

The comparison you've made also made me think of an important distiction: between shounen action/adventure series (where Friendship is Magic! And Power! Nakama*, bitches!) and shounen romance series. We need no introduction to the former, but as a whole the treatment of guy-friends in the latter genre of works is, in truth, dismal. We've seen it everywhere: that one worthless pervert friend, those two jealous guys, irrelevant annoyances there only to complain about the main character's luck with romance. They rarely get fair treatment as rounded characters, their own beta couple romances (as shoujo is wont to give), they are not main characters of their own stories, unlike what can be said of the girl-friend character in the better sort of shoujo literature.

*Despite weeaboo assertions to the contrary, this term can be translated quite well enough: friendship, comradeship, etc.*

[AnimeUltimate]

There's few shoujo series when the female lead is stronger than the male lead. Ex : Lovely Complex

[NeoChan]

Originally Posted by AnimeUltimate

There's few shoujo series when the female lead is stronger than the male lead. Ex : Lovely Complex

Yet, at the same time, their weakness emotionally...I love that

[AnimeUltimate]

There's plenty of shoujo series with shounen-ish action-ish plot (look at 07-Ghost !), however western fans mis-thinks of these titles as shounen series. Because of this, fans often declared that "particularly violent", "sexually explicit" and/or "gory" works cannot possibly be "shoujo".

[kitten320]

Still don't get what exactly they are so I'll just summarize the whole thing:

I personally love action with bunch of fights and well though out plot where characters go through a lot of different experiences. I hate when girls are treated as pushing bags and housewives but I also hate when girls are super strong and guys suck badly.

I hate when girls boobs are of a size of a watermelon and are bouncing like mad tennis balls and are shown on whole screen, HOTD is a good example. However, I also don't like when guys are all sparkly. Guys in Vampire Knight were really boring since all they did was mostly talking sweetly and sparkling like mad. Having tons of fans running after them only made me face palm. The fights in Vampire Knight were weak too since no one really did anything. However, shounen tends to over do it by making constant power ups.

Actually now that I compare Vampire Knight to lets say FMA, I see the difference... shounen has better developed character and more entertaining fights and it's not stuck on romance so much. Like I do like some romance in between but when it becomes the main focus, it starts to bore me. If I want romance, I can always watch romance show. If I watch action, then I want action with some romance as an addition, not the main focus.

[Kameruka]

Originally Posted by AnimeUltimate

There's plenty of shoujo series with shounen-ish action-ish plot (look at 07-Ghost !), however western fans mis-thinks of these titles as shounen series. Because of this, fans often declared that "particularly violent", "sexually explicit" and/or "gory" works cannot possibly be "shoujo".

Quoted for truth. While Kuroshitsuji and Hitman Reborn were serialized in shounen magazines but it is obvious that their target readers are teenage girls. For HR the author herself already said it is for female readers instead of male ones, as they already have Naruto, One Piece and Bleach.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by AnimeUltimate

There's plenty of shoujo series with shounen-ish action-ish plot (look at 07-Ghost !), however western fans mis-thinks of these titles as shounen series. Because of this, fans often declared that "particularly violent", "sexually explicit" and/or "gory" works cannot possibly be "shoujo".

That's because too many western fans cluelessly associate the labels with the content rather than what kind of publishing house produced it. If a "shoujo" house publishes it, its shoujo -whether its puppies&kittens or snuff-shredder-art.

[MUAHAHAHAHAHA]

When I was introduced to manga, shoujo was my treasure. But after a few years, when you keep reading similar plots over and over, you tend to get bored. Well, I guess I used to like shoujo because I imagined myself as the heroine and la-la-la, you know, that sort of girly stuff. But as the years go passing by, I started to wish for something....say deeper.

I didn't realise that girls may prefer shounen over shoujo until I came across this thread. Now that I think about it, a lot of my girlfriends do prefer shounen. A few of them read shounen because they jumped on the bandwagon, but others prefer action scenes that might seem more engaging than dialogues