[Discussion] What are some anime whose demographics fans tend to get wrong?

Comments

• lil_baka@ani.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  A target demographic for Frieren is like a target demographic for Lord of the Rings.

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• ReluctantlyZen@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Tbh, at least in the western side of the anime fandom the words shounen, shoujo, seinen and josei function as pretty decent genre descriptors rather than demographics.

  When we think shounen, we typically think action-focused anime with lots of screaming and younger protags (your Narutos, DBZs, MHAs etc). When we think shoujo, we think romance in high school settings. For seinen and josei pretty much the same, but with aged up characters and a bit more mature in general.

  I think it’s fine for those words to mean something else here. After all, we don’t have the reference of the magazines where this is all based on

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• Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

  What type is A Certain Scientific Railgun?

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• keimevo@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  If people think Frieren’s most important parts are the fights, they need to watch more media (and a variety of it, western and eastern).

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  • Endmaker@ani.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    If people think …, they need to watch more media

    AFAIK the target demographics are determined not by the eventual audience, but by the publishers. So if they think it would appeal to shounen, it gets classified as shounen.

    think Frieren’s most important parts are the fights

    Personally, I can see why Frieren gets classified as shounen even after discounting the fight scenes. I find that the characters’ thinking lack a certain depth / maturity / dimensionality of seinen and josei anime.

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    • missingno@fedia.io ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      The reason Frieren is classified as shounen is because the manga is serialized in Weekly Shounen Sunday.

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• missingno@fedia.io ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I think a common misconception comes from people assuming most romance is shoujo or josei, but a lot of the most popular romance series, like Horimiya, Kaguya-sama, Dress-up Darling, and You and I are Polar Opposites, are actually shonen or seinen. There's actually a pretty notable difference between shounen and shoujo romance if you compare them.

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• wjs018@ani.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The genre that I most often see people mix up is CGDCT. A lot of casuals that I have talked to don’t realize that the target audience for these series is almost always either boys or men. Instead, they kind of lump these series in with stuff like Precure, which is aimed at girls. To prove the point, AniList only has 13 series that are shoujo and CGDCT, and a grand total of 0 that are josei.

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  • Endmaker@ani.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    the target audience for these series is almost always either boys or men

    It makes sense once one think about it. Straight dudes would rather look at girls, and vice versa.

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    • NineSwords@ani.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      It makes sense once you think about it. Straight dudes would rather look at girls, and vice versa.

      I don’t think that is the appeal of CGDCT shows for the seinen audience. I think the appeal of CGDCT shows for the seinen demographic is the perceived innocence of girls. Not in the sense of “I’m a mindless, hormone-driven beast and want to ravage that innocent girl”, but in the sense of “I’m surrounded by constant anxiety, malice, and selfishness in my day-to-day life, and watching those innocent girls do whatever lets me forget this for 25 minutes”. Girls are generally perceived as nice and free of malice (before I had two of those myself, I thought the same), so that’s why there are no “cute boys doing cute things” shows. The general expectation for a show following boys would be for it to be more raunchy. Compare K-On! to Nijiiro Days, for example.

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• hitagi@ani.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I remember reading about Minky Momo in Patrick W. Galbraith’s book. I thought it was pretty funny:

  “In a personal interview, producer Satō Toshihiko recalled his surprise at encountering “male” shōjo fans attracted to Magical Princess Minky Momo and its eponymous heroine:

  ‘The anime started in spring 1982 and these guys started showing up after about six months. It was completely unexpected, but this guy came to our studio asking for permission to make something for his fan club. I was shocked! He told me that he was the head of this fan club, which was made up of members between eighteen and thirty years of age. He told me that he was attracted to the character Minky Momo. He thought that she was cute. It is still hard for me to understand. Minky Momo is cute, yes, and she is someone that everyone likes. I expected this response from five-year-old girls and their mothers, who might be watching the anime with them, but not adult men.’”

  Galbraith, Patrick W. Otaku and the Struggle for Imagination in Japan. Duke University Press, 2019. doi.org/10.1515/9781478007012.

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• Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I thought shounen was a genre not a demographic lol. Never even heard of the other 3.

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  • Endmaker@ani.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    XKCD: 10,000

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• e0qdk@reddthat.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  K-On - Expected: Shoujo - Actual: Seinen

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