Seinen or Josei

Pretty sure seinen is for teen girls not boys or are you saying this specific magazine caters more to boys despite being a seinen?

Man, I have been thinking about asking the same question for a while already xD

Yes, it has lots of Josei and also Shoujo tropes, the Seinen tag seems so unreal.

Shounen = Young men
Seinen = Adult men
Shoujo = Young women
Josei = Adult women

I believe those are the translations for the Japanese words. I think it could be categorized as either Seinen or Josei

But why do the magazine editors allow this? Doesn't it undermine the entire concept of manga demographics?

@Zarutaku

Simple, in the past 15 years or so seinen manga became sort of "general audience" manga when it comes to awards. It's about how they label their awards and how they label their manga to get to a wider public: women tend to read both shounen and shoujo, both seinen and josei while most men tend to just stick to reading shounen and seinen, targeted towards the male demographic. Since it's like that, female mangaka feel boxed in, they feel that publishing just in a shoujo or josei magazine, their manga won't reach a wider audience. Also keep in mind, feminine seinen like Raise wa are an exception, there are seinen manga like Mushishi, Dorohedoro etc created by female mangaka that targeted the male audience. Also female mangaka that created shounen manga like Magi, Full Metal Alchemist etc. (I created entire stacks of seinen and shounen manga created by female mangaka).

Y’all have to stop taking magazine target demographics seriously they don’t reflect who actually reads them and outside of the biggest magazines most readers won’t even notice for a given series because they’re reading the volume releases.

@tormaid
Agreed!
I generally look at shojo/shonen and Josie/senien as intended for younger or older audiences and worry less about gender. Ultimately though, even younger/older doesn't make much difference. It’s not something I pay attention to when I'm looking at a new story. If it sounds interesting, I’ll try it- the target demographic is an afterthought.

Demographics are a suggestion but not a hard guideline. You can enjoy things not in your demographic, so I don’t see why it’s that big of a deal.

@samspot8r8s

You exemplify exactly what I was talking about, women read any demographic manga series that targets both men and women but men like @Zarutaku want the demographics separation to be very clear because he only reads manga series that target the male demographic.

@-Hotaru_ And there's nothing wrong with that. I also support the opinion that seinen/josei/shounen/shoujo shouldn't mix

Some of my favorite anime have been Shounen that many viewers and fans of comment are in actuality more like Shoujo in the substance and general approach to storytelling.

So, I don't exactly know what would make this series come off as more of a Josei than a Seinen in substance as some of those commenting in this thread have made clear they hold to be true, other than having a female protagonist and at least two attractive guys (Kirishima and Shoma) who could be seen as romantic interest competitors for her attention and affection. Maybe street gangs composed of lots of young males fighting in general? Is that also a Josei thing?

But my point is that considering the Shounen/Shoujo thing I mentioned, it wouldn't surprise me if a stealth Josei posing as a Seinen became by a significant margin my favorite series of the autumn 2024 season, which is the case. I've found that women, usually a demographic you would expect to be underrepresented in a field like this, in prominence if not in numbers, have written some of the most emotionally rich and riveting stories in all of anime/manga.

As someone who was in the Seinen demographic when I started watching anime eight years ago and still am now, it's incredible to me that, not all my favorites, but many and my very very top favorite series and stories in anime are female-authored. They do seem to bring a certain perspective which seems noticeably different or lacking in at least many of the Shounen and Seinen which are male-authored or which don't even try to appeal to both sexes and demographics - specifically they feel much more in touch with and cognizant of the minutiae of human relationships.

@WatchTillTandava
That’s a good insight, and I especially agree with you that women authors generally have stronger competency writing relationships.

As you, @-Hotaru_, and others have said, women authors create broadly appealing stories because the industry prioritizes seinen. They often mix tropes from each demographic.

I think the blurring of demographic lines is good for art/storytelling as well. Being exposed to the different strengths of each genre boosts creativity and leads to more complex stories.

I don’t mean to oversimplify and say that women write better stories, but something can be said about the influence gained by being comfortable reading broadly. I think men face more pressure not to read feminine work, and their stories can reflect that.

Therefor, the more women blur the lines and expand the definition of seinen, the more men can be influenced to craft more interesting stories as well.

And as readers don’t we want more interesting stories?

@WatchTillTandava
That’s a good insight, and I especially agree with you that women authors generally have stronger competency writing relationships.

As you, @-Hotaru_, and others have said, women authors create broadly appealing stories because the industry prioritizes seinen. They often mix tropes from each demographic.

I think the blurring of demographic lines is good for art/storytelling as well. Being exposed to the different strengths of each genre boosts creativity and leads to more complex stories.

I don’t mean to oversimplify and say that women write better stories, but something can be said about the influence gained by being comfortable reading broadly. I think men face more pressure not to read feminine work, and their stories can reflect that.

Therefor, the more women blur the lines and expand the definition of seinen, the more men can be influenced to craft more interesting stories as well.

And as readers don’t we want more interesting stories?

Some of my favorite anime have been Shounen that many viewers and fans of comment are in actuality more like Shoujo in the substance and general approach to storytelling.

So, I don't exactly know what would make this series come off as more of a Josei than a Seinen in substance as some of those commenting in this thread have made clear they hold to be true, other than having a female protagonist and at least two attractive guys (Kirishima and Shoma) who could be seen as romantic interest competitors for her attention and affection. Maybe street gangs composed of lots of young males fighting in general? Is that also a Josei thing?

But my point is that considering the Shounen/Shoujo thing I mentioned, it wouldn't surprise me if a stealth Josei posing as a Seinen became by a significant margin my favorite series of the autumn 2024 season, which is the case. I've found that women, usually a demographic you would expect to be underrepresented in a field like this, in prominence if not in numbers, have written some of the most emotionally rich and riveting stories in all of anime/manga.

As someone who was in the Seinen demographic when I started watching anime eight years ago and still am now, it's incredible to me that, not all my favorites, but many and my very very top favorite series and stories in anime are female-authored. They do seem to bring a certain perspective which seems noticeably different or lacking in at least many of the Shounen and Seinen which are male-authored or which don't even try to appeal to both sexes and demographics - specifically they feel much more in touch with and cognizant of the minutiae of human relationships.

umm...yeah...? If this doesn't make the show more Josei I don't know what does. And she trying to take revenge on the guy being a girl boss 24/7. And surprise, the author is a woman, so...

With all due respect, I really don't like this clichéd overview of the anime industry. It's not as though most female-authored or female-targeted works try to appeal to both sexes either. And when people say that male authored works don't appeal to both sexes, I'll bet they usually say that because there's some ecchi in some animes? But is that really a good argument? If that was true, shounen wouldn't be so popular with the male AND female demographic. I would even say that shounen tries to appeal to both audiences way more than shoujo does. The same thing can be said for seinen.

In summary, people should stop with the stereotype of "men don't appeal to both sexes" and "men don't write emotionally rich stories". Like, come on.

@samspot8r8s I might be wrong but, isn't Kaguya Sama's author a man? And that is one of the best romances out there. Even if it's less drama and more comedy which isn't a bad thing by any means, imo

@Himmels22

You misunderstood me, more female authors create shounen or seinen manga targeting the male demographic and it happens that many girls & women read those shounen and seinen manga as well. I didn't mean female authors create a shoujo-shounen hybrid, Full Metal Alchemist isn't a shoujo-shounen hybrid, it's pure shounen, same goes for Magi.

In comparison to male authors that don't usually create shoujo or josei manga with the exception of the 50's and 60's with versatile mangaka like Osamu Tezuka that created both shoujo and shounen manga. Since the 70's-80's very few male authors created shoujo manga.

Women tend to read both shounen/seinen and shoujo/josei but men tend to read just shounen/seinen. That makes men more close-minded, them refusing to read great stories just because of the shoujo/josei demographic. No wonder publishers started to request former josei mangaka like the author of Raise wa to publish in seinen magazines, so that more female mangaka will have their works read by a wider audience, not just female authors like the ones who created FMA and Magi that exclusively create shounen.

@Himmels22

I think so!

I’ll just say here for clarification because what I wrote above sounded a lot like, ‘I'm not saying women write better stories…but wink wink, I'm saying they write better stories.’

I'm saying that because of societal norms, many men may not pick up works or magazines that are overtly targeted at women. But because seinen is seen socially as something both women and men can read, becoming one of the reasons women publish under the seinen publishers, there’s a higher chance that men will read series that have themes once limited to “girls only.”
This is because women have likey read both, due to less strict societal pressure, and so their work will likely be influenced by both. Ultimately, I like to imagine this softens the pressure not to read feminine themes.

Perhaps then, this is at least partly why more male authors can feel comfortable writing shojo and etc.

I’m not saying that all women write this and all men write that, but that rigid lines are changing because authors challenge them overtime. The demographic titles mean less as a result.

@-Hotaru_ I agree with you. But I don't think men read less shoujo/josei just because it's supposedly "for women". As a guy myself, I've watched a fair share of shoujos/shounen/seinen (though admittedly not much josei) and my favorite ones tend to be shounen/seinen (what a surprise lol) so nowadays I tend to give preference to shounen/seinen because of my limited time. I think the only shoujo that I really liked and never forget is Fruits Basket. So that's one of the reasons men read/watch less shoujo/josei (in my opinion there's nothing wrong with that).

Another thing I would like to mention, and many people don't take this into consideration when talking about this topic, as I once read in an article, some men stopped writing for females because women didn't accept a man writing for women. I can absolutely see this happening. I'm not saying that women don't suffer prejudice but people tend to overlook that it also happens to men when writing for women as well.

No, I'm a man, and while I like a number of much more exclusively/selectively female-targeted Shoujo and Josei series and even have some in my favorites, I agree that many are very much as "exclusively" female-targeted as some Shounen and Seinen are for boys and men (some equally, some less so, and some moreso). And that applies to both those in my favorites and those I largely disliked or even dropped. As a male I still love some of those series probably just because I don't have a lot of typically masculine interests and like that other perspective, but it's not as if I'm unaware of that being the demographic audience who those ones are mainly targeting and appealing to.

But more than is the case than with a lot of Shoujo and Josei, that's why I mentioned in my previous comment the situation surrounding numerous of my most favorites. I think that the anime which personally have moved, gripped, and spoken to me the most, even as a male, have been female-authored Shounen and Seinen. More than female-authored Shoujo and Josei or male-authored Shounen and Seinen.

Demographics are independent of the author's gender, anyone can write stories for any demographic, it only describes the target audience, so demographics don't become any less meaningful if the author is the opposite gender.

@Zarutaku
I think you’re misunderstanding me, but i’m not sure how you’re interpreting what i said.

@Himmels22

Fruits Basket is my favorite shoujo manga as well, you might be surprised but there are dozens and dozens of both shoujo and josei manga with male main characters. I even made stacks with this theme:

Shoujo manga with a Male Protagonist:
https://myanimelist.net/stacks/41090

Josei manga with a Male Protagonist:
https://myanimelist.net/stacks/42856

It's not like EVERY shoujo or josei manga has a female MC. If you find it hard to identify or emphatize with a female MC, there are plenty shoujo/josei manga with male MC.

About the alleged discrimination of male authors writing for a female demographic, I don't condone it at all. But I never heard of such a case, if I would have heard of it, I would be against any type of discrimination, male authors being discriminated against included. But I suspect this happens for male authors in the West, never heard of such a case for male mangaka. Osamu Tezuka created both shoujo and shounen, the same for Junji Ito (he published horror manga in horror shoujo magazines) and they're both celebrated authors.