Chapter 3: Summary

SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS

AND RECOMMENDATIONS

SUMMARY

      This paper attempted to determine on why some boys prefer shojo while some girls prefer shounen. The research used in this study is the descriptive method on how gathered data from online sources such as articles and sites were used to answer the research question posed. The research findings are the following:

1. Girls preferred stories with male leads while boys preferred stories with female leads. They wanted the role of their preferred gender lead being the main protagonist of the story. That shounen’s main theme is competitive fighting while shojo’s theme is simply love through a process of overcoming obstacles.

2. There are many genres of manga yet some girls prefer shounen over certain genres while some guys prefer shojo instead of shounen. Regardless of the subject, that shounen manga are marketed for boys while shojo manga are marketed for girls. Both genders prefer each other’s genre when it comes to manga, this is how they find it great in knowing each other’s genre’s limitations and strengths over other certain genre of manga.

3. Shounen and shojo manga are also classified by art style. In classifying a female’s manga as shojo or male’s manga as shounen by art style, is to observe how the art styles differ between 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 defined lines and isn’t quite elegant as the shojo has.

CONCLUSIONS

      Based on the findings of this study, the following conclusions are drawn:

1. Girls prefer shounen that are stories with male leads when it comes to plot, that shounen plots are pretty diversed compared to shojo plots. At times, when female fans saw too much fighting in shounen manga makes it usually more exciting. Also the male charcater of perfection, it seems nowadays female read shounen manga just to see attractive looking male characters that were hot. Another reason is that they’re less concerned of their feminism compared to guys who are trying to be hot and manly.

2. Boys prefer shojo that are stories with female leads when it comes to romance, that shojo romances aren’t shallow for guys compared to shounen romances does. Both teenagers are much closer on displaying the idea of true love over lust. They’re all heart instead of sexual tension built from fan service and awkward touching. Generally more are drawn to shounen, but the emotions and romance of most shojo is always a counterpart to machoness and strength over average shounen. Another reason is that male readers just read shojo as long as it’s not boring yet is interesting, because boys are usually into action, fighting scenes, and hero like characters. And able to know more about teenage love of what it is.

RECOMMENDATIONS

     After analyzing the conclusions of the study, the researcher hereby make the following suggestions/recommendations:

1.  Otakus in classifying a manga whether to tell its genre, it is better that one has consideration in considering one certain type of manga and genre. That whether girl or boy has to prefer each other’s genre, it will still depend on how they will understand throughout by classifying it. That today’s generation, both genres like shojo and shounen are popular yet there are still individuals of both genders preferring each other’s genre.

2.  Scholars or for future researchers should design a research on possible future innovations in the process to cite possible articles or information gathered from electronic media. For future preferences and can be used of sources in both genres of manga to based upon.

3.  Manga artists should observe their audiences review on making their mangas. They should be clear on their art styles and define what absolute genre it is. So readers don’t have to be confused whether to classify that manga as shounen or shojo.

4. Manga readers in understanding its emphasis on manga of a certain genre, they should determine if its shojo and shounen in art style, story and its character leads.

References:

A. Electronic Media

"Difficulties when classifying a Manga as 'For Girls' or 'For Boys': A Browser's Guide." Retrieved March 22, 2014 from http://graphic-novels-manga.suvudu.com/2012/04/difficulties-when-classifying-a-manga-as-for-girls-or-for-boys-a-browsers-guide.html

"Shojo showdown." Retrieved March 24, 2014 from           

http://www.ign.com/articles/2005/12/13/shojo-showdown

“Gender Ambiguity of manga.” Retrieved March 26, 2014 from   http://whatismanga.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/5b-shojo-boys-and-shounen-girls-the-gender-ambiguity-of-manga-children/

“Oh Shojo.” Retrieved March 26, 2014 from  http://www.sequentialtart.com/archive/feb02/ao_0202_1.shtml

“Shojo Demographic.” Retrieved March 29, 2014 from  http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShoujoDemographic?from=Main.Shojo

“Shojo vs Shounen What’s the difference.” Retrieved March 28, 2014 from http://mustang87.hubpages.com/hub/Shonen-Vs-Shojo-Whats-The-Difference

“Shounen vs Shojo.” Retrieved March 27, 2014 from http://mangacoma.com/70/shounen-vs-shojo

“How to tell between shojo vs shounen.” Retrieved April 6, 2014 from http://mangacoma.com/70/shounen-vs-shojo

“Shonen Vs Shojo: What’s the Difference?” Retrieved April 7, 2014 from http://mustang87.hubpages.com/hub/Shonen-Vs-Shojo-Whats-The-Difference

“Why girls are liking shounen manga” Retrieved April 7, 2014 from http://www.mangatherapy.com/post/6654607074/girls-like-shonen-manga

“Guys who read shojo manga” Retrieved April 7, 2014 from http://quickshoujomangareviews.blogspot.com/2011/02/guys-who-read-shoujo-manga.html

“The Dreaming: On Girls reading Shounen” Retrieved April 8, 2014 from http://www.queeniechan.com/2011/05/16/the-dreaming-on-girls-reading-shounen/

Chapter 2: Discussion

Chapter 2

DISCUSSION

     Why some boys prefer shojo while some girls prefer shounen?

Definition and Differences between Shojo and Shounen

Definitions of shojo include the differences of one another. Shojo is literally translated into English means “little girl” or “young girl”. They are aimed towards the female audiences. These mangas always contain romance, sometimes with a touch of fantasy with a heroine as a protagonist. Shojo are also called slice of life manga, as they portray the human life and emotions. However, manga and anime can also be called shojo by its art style.

The Manga Coma has an online page simply titled “How to tell between Shounen vs Shojo” which was intended to help the readers in shounen and shojo. The written page states, “Shounen and Shojo can be sometimes hard to tell apart, but once you realize exactly what they are, you will get it.”(http://mangacoma.com/70/shounen-vs-shojo). This proves that sometimes it’s hard to tell apart each genre, but soon you will just realize what kind of genre it 

is.

Most shojo manga and anime focuses more on the people, and draw little to no background in most of the scenes. Female characters have large eyes and long legs while the males have longer faces, narrower eyes and usually have spiky or longer hair. Thus, the characters can also have long slightly pointed fingers that often lack finger nails.

Fortunately shounen is aimed towards the male audience the plots of shounen manga are usually full of action, sometimes with funny plots, with the male hero as the protagonist. In fact, shounen is the most popular genre of manga in Japan, and it makes up almost 40% of the world’s total sale of manga magazines. Most shounen manga out there have been transformed into an anime, or vice versa due to the popularity. But, popular shounen manga don’t always stop at anime.

Therefore, these are the differences between shojo and shounen. First is its plot, shounen is typically characterized by high action, humorous plots and importantly featuring a male protagonist. It is also common to have attractive female characters with exaggerated features. Shounen magazines are extremely popular in Japan, with the most popular of them being Shonen Jump. This is a monthly magazine that is translated directly from Japanese. It can be found at any book store and in time to grab one before they are all gone.

A writer who goes by, “Mustang” has an online page simply titled, “Shonen Vs Shojo: What’s the Difference?” which discusses shounen and shojo’s differences. The written page says, “There are also more categories that go towards kids, and much older adults. The world of anime is full of of many different categories, from shounen to shojo.” (http://mustang87.hubpages.com/hub/Shonen-Vs-Shojo-Whats-The-Difference)

In Japan, it is not uncommon to see several people reading the newest edition of Shonen Jump in a train or subway. Like what is stated earlier, shounen manga don’t always stop at anime. A lot of shounen manga have been transformed into video games, and were snapped up by awaiting fans. However, shojo does not usually make it to the video game level.

As with shounen, many shojo manga have been made into anime. D.N angel and Fruits Basket were made into anime after being manga. There are hardly any video games out there that are based from a shojo manga or anime. Since shojo does not have much action as shounen does to base a game off of. However, there are some shojo games that are not based off anything such as Princess Debut.

Compared to shounen magazines, shojo also have manga magazines, the most popular of which is Shojo Beat, which was published by Shounen Jump’s sister. Varities of manga magazines can be found at bookstores and online like shounen does.

Factors influencing in preferring Shounen and Shojo

A. Plot

Most shojo manga these days typically seems to be all the same like high school girls trying to date a cool guy they like and that emotional drama ensues. Shounen plots can be pretty diversed compared to shojo plots. At times, there may be too much fighting in shounen manga that are usually more exciting to most fans. Also look at a series Bleach, which has a huge number of both male and female fans.

The Animesuki created a forum simply entitled, “It seems that a lot of girls read shounen manga.” which was intended in clarifying girls reading shounen manga. Misao fan says that, “Though it could just come down to this: shounen plots are just plain better than shojo plots.” (http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=109107) This proves that shounen manga seems to have a fair share of teenage characters that appeal to a wide audience that more and more girls are interested in reading shounen manga than shojo manga.

 The rising appreciation of shounen type stories by girls due to the increasing number of bishounen type characters in those, not to mention the proliferation of cool guys doing cool things in such stories. For instance, Black Butler is a shounen manga but at the same time it also quite marketed towards female readers over male ones that sells better as shounen rather than shojo.

B. Perfection

It seems nowadays, many females read shounen manga just to see attractive looking male characters were looked hot.  Another supposed reason is that females are less concerned being feminine compared to males who are trying to be hot and manly.

The Animesuki created a forum simply entitled, “It seems that a lot of girls read shounen manga.” which was intended in clarifying girls reading shounen manga. Lc says that, “The focus on attractiveness and overall perfection of the male lead leaves me a bad taste in my mouth.” (http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=109107) This proves that most shounen stories seem to capture others attention more than shojo does.

Jealousy and possessiveness are idealized a lot. These are often found in the relationships in shounen and seinen to be more crafted and interesting rather than shojo relationships. But obviously, not all shounen are good and not all shojo are bad.

C. Romance

Shounen romances are much deeper than ones in shounen while shojo romances are anything but shallow – they are much closer of the two on displaying the idea of true love over true lust. They’re all about heart instead of sexual tension built from fan service and awkward touching. Generally, more are drawn to shounen, but the romance and emotions of most shojo is always a fun counterpart to machoness and strength of average shounen.  

The Animesuki created a forum simply entitled, “It seems that a lot of girls read shounen manga.” which was intended in clarifying girls reading shounen manga. Chiibi says that, “I dare say, shounen love comedies are shameless when it comes to being ‘shallow’ with their ‘romance’.” (http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=109107#) That’s what lots of shounen romances do.

They are plenty of shojo series with a ton depth, character growth, and gripping plots. When someone states something as outrageous as shojo is about shallow romances, be prepared to get a rant back, especially from someone who takes romantic writing very seriously. Some relationships in action manga like Naruto and Bleach are very well developed, even if they aren’t explicitly considered romantic yet.

D. Boredom

Many male readers just read shojo manga as long as it’s not boring. They say that those big googly eyes and fairies or florals all over the place are too much for their manly eyes. They read shojo manga as long it’s interesting, not making them bored at the same time. Because boys are usually into action, fighting scenes, hero like characters. But some boys prefer shojo because they find it interesting and able to know more about teenage love that is.

The MyAnimelist created a forum simply entitled, “For the guys: Do you ever read shojo manga?” which was intended for guys who read shojo manga. Corleone says that, “One time in my life I’ve read shojo, and it was a cliché one shot, but anyways I got nothing against shojo and I do not put a cross on it.” (http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=299700) This explains that he find it interesting and just discovered by accident that it’s shojo, but that will not bother as long he’s not a shounen fag declaring that the boys who are enjoying shojo are gay.

Males admit that bubles and flowers are sorta grate on their nerves but hankfully they aren’t used in too much excess. The art styles never bothered them as long as it’s not boring they’ll just read it because they find it good also able to know a good love story that includes shojo.