Categories:Audience: Difference between revisions

<span style="color: #00007F">A subset of anime or manga that is generally targeted at a 18 - 25 year old male audience, but the audience can be much older with some manga aimed at businessmen well into their 40s.

Sometimes it is classified as shojo or shonen, but it has distinct features, usually classified by a wider variety of art styles (particularly in manga) and more variation in subject matter, ranging from the avant garde to the pornographic.

The female equivalent to seinen is josei.</span>

<span style="color: #00007F">A style of anime and manga intended for girls which may have some crossover appeal to boys as well.

Typically, "pure shoujo" manga revolves around love stories and strong female protagonists, however, some "shoujo anime/manga" are more plot/action oriented to attract a wider audience. For instance a lot of older salarymen were drawn to a manga called Banana Fish for its hard edged yakuza action (which is more often found in seinen manga). What kept female audiences interested in this work was a gentle relationship between two gay bishounen lovers amongst all the violence.

Shoujo anime and manga often contain elements of shounen ai or even yaoi (sexual relationship between male characters) not to mention shoujo ai and, recently, yuri (sexual relationship between female characters). The aesthetic of the bishounen is very prominent. Another very popular genre is Magical Girl of which the famous series Sailor Moon is part of.</span>

<span style="color: #00007F">A style of anime and manga intended for boys. Shounen anime and manga is characterized by high-action, often humorous plots featuring male protagonists. The camaraderie between boys or men on sports teams, fighting squads, etc. is often emphasized. Unrealistically attractive female characters are also common (see fanservice), but are not a requirement—Dragon Ball Z for example has only a few unremarkable female characters. The art style of shounen also tends to be less flowery than that of shoujo, although there is significant variability by artist.

In contrast to shounen, anime and manga for men (college age and up) is called seinen. Despite a number of significant differences, many Western fans don't make a distinction between shounen and seinen. This is due to the fact that very few seinen manga have been published outside of Japan. On the other hand, many older men in Japan read shounen magazines because of their ease of reading during commutes to and from work on trains. Consequently shounen magazines (including Shonen Jump) are the most popular manga magazines in Japan.</span>