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Otaku Lounge:
Manga and Anime Demographics

anime, manga, jpop,
By Christy Gibbs

Happy new year, FOG! I’d like to dive into 2013 by going back to the roots of manga and anime and taking a look at the five core audience demographics of the medium – namely kodomo (children’s), shounen (boys), shoujo (girls), seinen (men’s), and josei (women’s) works. While manga as we understand it today came about during Japan’s Occupation and post-Occupation years (1945-1952 and onwards), it was not until the 1950s that the solidification of these main demographics began to occur – and although they do not necessarily adhere to one particular style of artwork, the obvious physical similarities within each of them speak for themselves.

Of course, there are certainly plenty of girls and women who read and watch shounen and seinen manga and anime, just as there are a number of males who read and watch shoujo or josei manga and anime (albeit, perhaps in private). However, the basic distinctions between these demographics have remained strong and largely unchallenged within the industry over the years.

Kodomo

anime, manga, kodomo, yaoi, shounen, shoujo, seinen, josei, Naruto, One Piece, Akira,

Since its earliest days, kodomo manga and anime has tended to use episodic stories that incorporate fantasy or science-fiction settings, often using fictional creatures and robots to appeal to their main audience – children in elementary school and under. At the same time, stories frequently have moralistic or otherwise educational subject matter encoded within them, and can be distinguished by their comparative lack of violence and sexual themes. The artwork is usually kept clear and simple, stylistically somewhat similar to shounen manga.

The kodomo demographic can be viewed as perhaps the first type of manga in terms of Japan’s pre-Occupation years. The genre has its roots in the late nineteenth century, where short cartoons were published in magazines in an attempt to encourage literacy among the Japanese youth. However, magazines focusing solely on kodomo manga were not circulated until the 1970s, when publications such as CoroCoro Comic were first released.

The Good:
This is where anime as a mainstream form of art and entertainment was born, and kodomo works continue to introduce some of the most recognisable characters of all time such as Doraemon.

The Bad:
It’s hard not to get cynical when anime gets made for the sole
purpose of adding to a cash-cow franchise, as with shows like Duel Masters. Not to mention those anime productions that go on for decades
and get progressively worse as the original fanbase grows up and moves
on, i.e. Pokemon.

Shounen

anime, manga, kodomo, yaoi, shounen, shoujo, seinen, josei, Naruto, One Piece, Akira,

The typical art style of shounen manga and anime is quite simple, with clean lines and bold, solid colouring. The panel layouts tend to be easy to follow, and character designs often stick to a few basic stereotypes; boys have big eyes and spiky hair, girls have bigger eyes and, if old enough, fairly obvious chests. Many of Tezuka Osamu’s works, as well as those by other big-name shounen artists such as Toriyama Akira (Dragonball) and Oda Eiichiro (One Piece) are good examples of this style. Tezuka’s Mighty Atom, probably better known to Western audiences as Astro Boy, began publication in 1952 and has become typical of the shounen style, which often adheres to an action/adventure approach to storytelling and utilises science-fiction as a common theme.

In the late 1960s, a magazine by Shueisha Publishing called Weekly Shounen Jump entered the game, and by the early 1970s it had become one of the leading shounen magazines of the day. It grew from a publication that circulated to roughly three million in 1980, to around double that in 1990 – the best-selling magazine of any kind in Japan. Shounen manga continues to be the highest selling demographic of manga to date, at least in part because of its accessibility to both younger and older readerships.

The Good: 
There’s a huge scope for storyline since the demographic as
a whole can encompass such a wide variety of genres, from serious
science-fiction and fantasy to comedic harem and moe. Occasionally we
also see shounen stories that break with convention and deliver the
unexpected like Evangelion did back in the day. More recently, manga and
anime lovers have also been gifted with one of the finest shounen
stories of all time, in the form of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.

The Bad:
The potential for ridiculously drawn-out fight scenes and a lot of filler episodes is high, especially with the longer series like Bleach and Naruto. Production values in long shounen anime also often tend to be much lower for this reason.

Shoujo

anime, manga, kodomo, yaoi, shounen, shoujo, seinen, josei, Naruto, One Piece, Akira,

As the birthplace of bishounen, magical girls, and other established archetypes, the artwork of shoujo manga and anime often portrays characters with large and expressive eyes, perfectly arranged wisps of hair, and sensual (but non-gratuitous) nudity. Because the main focus tends to be on emotional bonds of one type or another, the art style also leans much more towards the whimsical and the inexact than in any other demographic – usually by extensive use of varying screening tones and soft, fanciful colour palettes. Stories created by Ikeda Riyoko (Revolutionary Girl Utena), Takeuchi Naoko (Sailor Moon), and Watase Yuu (Ayashi no Ceres) demonstrate this to good effect.

Prior to the 1960s, boys and young men was the primary demographic of manga in general, and shoujo manga was created primarily by males. However, increasingly large and varied readerships began to emerge during the mid-1960s when a flood of female manga artists began transforming modern manga. A group of female manga artists, later named the Year 24 Group, made their debut in 1969, marking the first major entry of female manga creators. While earlier shoujo manga almost always featured pre-adolescent girl heroines and little or no romance, shoujo manga from the 1970s and onwards focused much more on romantic relationships, and the demographic is now written almost exclusively by women.
 
The Good: 
Characterisation can be extremely nuanced and sophisticated,
even with larger casts as in Cardcaptor Sakura. There’s also been a
recent trend of shoujo productions openly satirising their own
conventions while still managing to present extremely strong narratives,
for example Ouran High School Host Club.

The Bad: 
It’s easy for things to become too dramatic and overshadow what could otherwise be strong stories. The lean towards romance, while not bad in and of itself, can also sometimes result in several hours of characters screeching out each other’s names – I’m looking at you, Fushigi Yuugi.

Seinen

anime, manga, kodomo, yaoi, shounen, shoujo, seinen, josei, Naruto, One Piece, Akira,

The overall art style of seinen stories is especially difficult to pin down. To some extent, seinen manga more closely resembles Western comic book or graphic novel artwork than any other demographic – characters commonly have smaller eyes and more realistic proportions in general, while lining and shading can have an enormous amount of subtlety and detail. Otomo Katsuhiro’s Akira and Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell can both be considered distinctively seinen pieces for instance, both in terms of content and art style. On the other hand, Crayon Shin-chan is an example of a seinen story that sometimes gets mistaken for a kodomo production due to its very unconventional art style, which really does look as though a child might have drawn everything with a crayon.

As an eventual offshoot of shounen manga, the seinen demographic has a history dating back to 1960s – the time when shounen audiences of the previous decade were growing up and looking for more serious comic book fare. Weekly Manga Action and Monthly Big Comic are both seinen magazines that began publication in the late 1960s, targeted primarily towards males aged eighteen and upwards. While not necessarily particularly sexual or violent in nature, seinen stories do often tend to be more explicit, and focus more on plot and character development than exclusively action.

The Good: 
When the focus remains on the narrative the outcome can be
spectacular, especially when combined with a talented art team.
Productions like Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Wolf’s Rain have become
classics for this very reason, while Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo and Mushishi are feasts for any anime fan that enjoys outstanding
visuals and atmosphere.

The Bad: 
Titles that are obviously trying too hard to be either deep and thought-provoking, or else dark and gritty, sometimes result in shows that are more pretentious, convoluted, or just plain oversexed than anything else. The Gantz anime and parts of Elfen Lied are good examples of this.

Josei

anime, manga, kodomo, yaoi, shounen, shoujo, seinen, josei, Naruto, One Piece, Akira,

Since josei stories are often simply about the everyday experiences of young adult women living in Japan, conventional josei artwork is like a more restrained version of that seen in shoujo works. Extremely large and sparkly eyes are not as common, and while colours often remain soft with flowing lines and a gentle, graceful feel, the usual style is more realistic and refined. These points can easily be seen in series such as Paradise Kiss and Nodame Cantabile.

As seinen manga was to shouen, so was josei manga an offshoot of shoujo manga. The previously mentioned Year 24 group also consisted of women such as Moto Hagio and Takemiya Keiko, two of the founding mothers of the boys love/yaoi genre – a significant genre of josei manga. Historically the latest of the manga demographics, josei magazines did not appear until the 1980s, when the first ladies comic publication called Be-Love began circulation. However, by the end of the decade there were over fifty of these magazines, many of which were especially heavy on themes of sex and sexuality. Others focused more on portraying realistic romance, still highly stylised but not as idealistic as some of the relationships depicted in shoujo manga.

The Good: 
When done right, josei works are perhaps the most
emotionally effective of the lot. Despite its clichés for example,
Sakamichi no Apollon (Kids on the Slope) brought both realism and
nostalgia to a story that would otherwise have been just another teenage
drama, and I challenge anyone with a heart not to fall in love with the
Usagi Drop anime.

The Bad: 
Because the focus is often heavily skewed towards character development and the subtly emotional, pacing can be a particular issue. This is what occasionally lets down otherwise excellent shows like Honey and Clover, and why Natsuyuki Rendezvous has zero re-watchability despite its many merits.

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