Forum - View topicWhat Manga is Unisex?
|
Goto page 1, 2, 3 Next |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
munee
 Posts: 16 Location: Texas |
|
|||
|
Hello ANN viewers! I was wondering what animes you believe are unisex in nature.
 I know there's striaght Shoujo  and Shounen anime. But what about the grey area of anime  Let me know your thoughts and opinions.
This topic came up when i was discussing animes with another member, in particular InuYasha. is InuYasha a straight Shoujo anime or could it be categorized as a Shounen anime as well? Again let me know what you think. This disscussion has no limits except if there's a lack of interest. And who wouldn't be interested in knowing which animes could 'go-both-ways' in a sense. Last edited by munee on Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:33 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||
|
||||
|
che_guevara
Posts: 102 Location: Near Boston |
|
|||
|
Wrong forum. This forum is just for manga.
It doesn't matter. These labels are fabricated by the fans themselves. If you like an anime, you shouldn't really care about the shounen or shoujo label. But generally, there are lots of shows that have solid female and male fanbases - shows like Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Saiyuki, .hack, Wolf's Rain, Witch hunter Robin, most animve movies (Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon, etc...), Lain... And a lot, a lor more. |
||||
|
||||
|
munee
Posts: 16 Location: Texas |
|
|||
|
oh i understand this forum is straight for manga. thank you though. i meant for this topic to be about manga. Most Anime has manga of course so i was just mentioning some mangas that had animes as well. sorry for the mis communication.
|
||||
|
||||
|
hakootoko
Posts: 74 |
|
|||
|
Shoujo and Shounen are Japanese marketing terms. Don't let a guy in a suit tell you what to like.
Read it all, and decide for yourself 
hakootoko |
||||
|
||||
|
munee
Posts: 16 Location: Texas |
|
|||
|
that is a very good point. i agree with you on that standing. manga is all in the eye of the beholder. i'd like to see an arugument for the manga marketers to get a friendly debate going. again that was a very good point, thank you.
|
||||
|
||||
darkhunter
 Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
|
|||
Easy for you to say because your'e some annoynomous person online, but it's harder to do in real life when you're more self-conscious about your image. |
||||
|
||||
|
munee
Posts: 16 Location: Texas |
|
|||
Wait now. you're that worried about what other people think of you that much that you'd sooner pick a manga you don't like just to look a certain way in front of people? thats a lame excuse thats cheating you out of getting what you want. it really shouldn't matter what other people think. people that look down on other people for picking certain manga should examine themselves first. they dont know the reason why you picked, lets say a shoujo manga, and you're a boy. you could just admire the artists work or the aurthor themself. |
||||
|
||||
|
darkhunter
Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
|
|||
Well you're new here but most of the guys here read shoujo. All I'm saying it's easy for us to talk about shojo online but it's generally soemthing we tend to keep to ourself in real life. In japan, boys read shojo, but they wouldn't be caught browsing it at the bookstore. There are guys who like to play with barbie but that doesn't mean they're going to tell everyone they do, it's just too sissy. Oh yea I do read and collecting some shojo, but it's just not something I'm really interested in. You can't say that shojo is a manga that both guys and girls will enjoy equally. Shojo will cater more the female audience. |
||||
|
||||
|
alice20th
Posts: 74 |
|
|||
|
Shounen, shoujo, seinen, josei, salaryman, etc. are terms related to the intended demographic of the magazine in which the manga were originally published. For a true unisex manga, you would need a manga published in a magazine that doesn't sell to a gender-specific audience...
So something like Nausicaa or Five Star Stories might qualify since they were originally published in anime magazines, and although the natural audience for those in Japan is mostly male, I think the magazines make an effort to stay appealing to both genders. That being said, once a manga becomes tankobon, and to a greater extent when it becomes anime, the lines start to blur and you get what in American pop-culture terms might be called a cross-over hit. Inu Yasha is a good example of a shounen manga that was a cross-over hit with the female audience. Sailor Moon and Fushigi Yuugi would be considered shoujo cross-over hits with the male audience. An interesting variation is Saint Seiya which is a shounen manga that, in the end, seemed to become more popular with the female audience than with the male audience. (Sorry, I don't know a shoujo manga that did the same.) Artists who do work for more than one demographic include Rumiko Takahashi (never did shoujo that I know of, but shounen, seinen and josei), CLAMP, Kia Asamiya, Mitsuru Adachi, and Moyoco Anno. I'm sure the fans here can think of more examples. A20 |
||||
|
||||
|
munee
Posts: 16 Location: Texas |
|
|||
is Nausicaa and Five Star Stories any good? i've never read these manga before. considering a name like Five Star though it sounds like it should be good(it would be false advertisment if it wasn't, right?  ). Anyway thank you alice20th for your input.
|
||||
|
||||
|
hakootoko
Posts: 74 |
|
|||
|
Um, I read shoujo and shounen manga in public, and buy them in Japanese bookstores.
If you're worried about protecting your image, you shouldn't be doing something as geeky as reading comic books at all. hakootoko |
||||
|
||||
|
alice20th
Posts: 74 |
|
|||
Nausicaa is one of the best graphic novels (not just manga) that's ever been written. It has a Tolkein-esque "epic" fantasy feel without borrowing elves, dwarves, or other fantasy cliches. While at the same time it has believable characters that you care about. It's the only long-form manga written by Hayao Miyazaki, the director of Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. The story is of a princess of a small kingdom that is in danger of being overrun by a continental war on the one hand and an environmental crisis on the other. Because of ancient treaties, she must go to war for one side (neither side being particularly the "good guys") while also trying to figure out what made large areas of the world toxic for man to live in and the beds of giant insects of varying levels of intellegence and agression. Just so everyone gets the joke, I'll point out that the "five stars" refers to stars in a constellation, and not to it's triple-A rating. Five Star Stories is a space fantasy epic with a complex world, interesting political situations, and beautiful artwork by Mamoru Nagano. The English version, as far as I know, is a sort-of vanity press by Nagano himself and is sold only at Kinokuniya books. It's been years since I looked at the books or saw the movie, so I can't give you an up-to-date accounting of the story. (But the artwork is stunning.)
|
||||
|
||||
|
munee
Posts: 16 Location: Texas |
|
|||
|
Thank you again alice20th. Both mangas sound very interesting to me. I like the themes of Five Star the most. i guess i'll have to check out Five Star in the near future...
|
||||
|
||||
cboudreau
 Posts: 69 Location: Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada |
|
|||
|
I find this thread very interesting, especially some posters' response to shojo and shonen, and other genre/marketing terms of manga. One of the things that really attracts me to manga is the fact that I perceive it to be accessible by all demographics of readers. Unlike North American mainstream comics, which tend to be marketed and read by males (in a limited age group), manga seems to appeal to both boys, girls, men and women. I've always been under the impression that even though terms like shonen, shojo, etc, exist that readers tend to crossover with regularity. I'm getting a sense from this forum discussion that that might not generally be the case.
Speaking from personal experience (27-year old male), I read and have enjoyed shonen, seinen, shojo and haven't hesitated to read either on the bus on the way to work. |
||||
|
||||
bnewhall
 Posts: 110 Location: USA |
|
|||
I would say that manga is (potentially) accessible by all American demographics of readers. It's different in Japan. |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group