Blog post #5: Manga, Shounen versus Shojo

I think one very interesting point is that it can be somewhat difficult to apply a shounen or a shojo label to every manga. I originally had three mangas labeled shojo and shounen, the two were shojo and the other one is shounen. Somehow manga is hard to identify if its shounen or shojo. For example, Inuyasha is pretty hard to label, it has female lead and written by a woman, and has a lot of romance. Its also really violent and has tons of fan service, so is it shojo or shounen? I classify a manga as shojo or shounen by art style, i observed that the shojo art style has big eyes for girls and there is particularly difference between art in both genres. Shojo art tends to be more whispy and elegant, and has lighter, less defined lines. While shounen art tends to be bolder with very defined lines and isn't quite as elegant. There are expectations to every rule and many series don't fit this general classification. Inuyasha is a good example here. The art style is somewhere between the two. It isn't bold as Bleach, but its not as elegant as Kimi ni Todoke either. Inuyasha was one of those that I could never figure out of it was shounen or shojo because it had some major elements of each.

According to an article entitled "Difficulties when classifying a Manga as 'For Girls' or 'For Boys': A Browser's Guide", from the site www.graphic-novels-manga.suvudu.com, Thalia Sutton writes that, " This is a potential misnomer: "made for girls" and "made for boys" are not simple as "boys will like trucks" and "girls will like dolls"." Classifying a manga as "shojo" or "shounen" is more complicated than it first appears. In the interest of making it easy to navigate, a natural inclination is to split up the teen demographic releases into two sections: girls' (shojo) and boys' (shounen). Manga publishers in the U.S. use the Japanese terms in part of flavor, but also because there are nuances held within the terms that may not otherwise come across. In Japanese, shojo means youthful or young girl and shounen means youthful or young boy. Luckily in manga,  shojo and shounen are terms applied to books written for readers between the ages of about ten and twenty. They feature teenage characters as the leads almost exclusively, as that is the expected base. However, shojo and shounen can be also used as genres as well as age markers. As genres they have some identifying characteristics that play of girl and boy stereotypes.

Shojo manga focuses on romance and life issues growing up as a girl while shounen manga focuses more on action, adventure, contests, and fighting. Both tend to be coming of age stories in some form or another because of the age group but guess which one babies probably won't appear in. Shojo as it is today  has almost exclusively female main characters; likewise, shounen manga usually has male leads. In Japan, manga are classified as 'for girls'  or 'for boys' based not on what's inside the story, but by what magazine they are published in. Usually this proves an  an unremarkable distinction, but it has proven difficult in recent years. The most successful and enjoyable manga seem to mix elements, and so a manga that doesn't follow the tropes of either demographic can be classified arbitrarily. In Japan, it is labeled shounen because of the magazine's content while America labeled shounen because of its structure. Yet it is extremely popular among girls/women , because it has fully developed characters of both sexes, handles feelings and relationships realistically, and obcourse girls like explosions too. Shounen is sometimes easier to tell apart because the art will be blocky with hair that defies physics but this isn't always true.

In another article called, "Shojo showdown", from the site www.ign.com, Jessica Chobot writes that, "Quite a few readers felt it necessary to voice their displeasure over the fact that i reffered to Love Hina as a shojo manga, their argument  which, I must admit,  has some remit was that Love Hina is considered shounen." Anime fans are obsessive people. Your average "Otaku" is a fairly intelligent, highly emotional person that has developed  what some would call an unhealthy relationship with the animated works of our friends in the Far East. For this reason, when talking about what type of anime you like or have just watched, it's necessary to be armed with proper terms and knowledge. These shows are usually characterized by multitudes of action scenes, cool male lead characters, big robots, big swords, and a few unreasonably pretty girls with big boobs thrown in for good measure. While the shojo are meant to appeal to young girls, here female characters are more prevalent. The animation is more cute, bright colors and big glassy eyes are the order of the day. It looks like shojo, sounds like shojo, and yet there's so much fan service with the female characters that you think it has to be a shounen anime.

So, while the technical classification as shounen might make perfect sense to Japanese person or a fully qualified otaku, to others it could understandably be qualified as shojo or a series meant to appeal to both genders. So when you, dear reader want, if you want a romance or 'girls' empowerment, seek a shojo or a shounen written by a woman. If you're looking for something with action and adventure, and good doses of heroic angst and fight scenes regardless of your gender check through the shounen titles. That ninety percent of readers can connect to party line shojo are female; ninety percent of readers who will enjoy fan service, shounen manga are boys and socially-responsible are enjoyed equally by male and female readers.