Romance genre: Shonen/Seinen VS Shoujo/Josei (2024)

tsudecimo

My favorite Seinen romance manga is

I generally don't like Shoujo, because the cliches and tropes in it, annoy me more than others, and the art usually is terrible and an eye sore. Few exceptions to that are Dengeki Daisy, Hirunaka no Ryuusei and Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun.

Shiratori99

No, not at all. Typical shoujo manga are actually more superficial than shounen ones. If you exclude harems, it skews even more into the favor of shounen/seinen. No idea about josei, but I doubt it's much different to shoujo tbh.

yazio

DateYutaka

tsudecimo

DateYutaka

Shiratori99

What I mean is: The love interest in shoujo is usually either the most popular guy in school or a dangerous delinquent whom everyone fears and who somewhen into the story becomes super popular when people realize that he's actually not dangerous. I mean, they have these aloof beauties in shounen and seinen too, but it's not in every freaking manga.

yazio

We read different shojos. Most of the love interests I've seen are about a "regular" girl, that everyone wants, who either falls in love with the most popular guy in school or refuses to fall in love with the guy that everyone says is a good guy yet she thinks otherwise.

SaSa-Zoldyck

Nana is my favorite romance manga/anime, heard that its Josei so I voted for that.

''We don't know what kind of people we truly are until the moment before our deaths. As death comes to embrace you, you will realise what you are. That's what death is, don't you think?'' - Uchiha Itachi

tsudecimo

MeOtaku

For example

Seinen: ΕΜΜΑ (http://myanimelist.net/manga/729/Emma).

Shounen: Koe no katachi (http://myanimelist.net/manga/56805/Koe_no_Katachi). As someone already mentioned above me, strangely enough, it's theme is pretty mature if you consider its' target audience.

Josei: Mars (http://myanimelist.net/manga/443/Mars)

Shoujo: Lovely Complex
(http://myanimelist.net/anime/2034/Lovely%E2%98%85Complex)

I'd highly reccomend anyone giving any of these manga a chance. I'd admit that it's generally hard to find a good romance.

allflying

In case you don't get it. Both of you are talking about the same thing. Love interest: ikemen/bishounen type.

Well, it also work reversely in Shonen/Seinen. Love interest: bishoujo type (specifically: long dark hair type).

shinkeikaku

I guess it's good that the gross generalization of entire demographics didn't occur until a few posts in?

UnoPuntoCinco

sentiarii

I can't stand shoujo with drama though. As I get older than the targeted demographic, I can't take that stuff seriously, and as such have no patience for it.

Landmines

My list.

allflying

Otherwise it won't get serialization. I only read One-Shot's so I don't know how the romance played out in the serialized chapters.

Ichigo 100% is one of the trending factor for today's shonen romance (Heck Toradora just copied one of the famous scene in Ichigo 100%). But, shonen romance mostly (not always) horribly done. Its full of 'unpopular guys joke' and muh drama. Well, its not like shojo did any better either. If we want to be cynical about it.

On brighter side. Shonen and Seinen romance can be pretty nicely done. Since it was written by male (mostly, but I never deny female writer in shonen/seinen manga), it has some set of rules. Often the (male) protagonist character is more fleshed out and believable/relate-able (inb4 demographic) without dumbing down the heroine. There is always some sort of 'adoration' towards heroine, without resorting into... 'dominating moves' (I don't know whether you understand this term, basically male MC tries to hit on the girl with very explicit moves (with handsomey looks) and sometimes makes her backing off). In a very nice shonen/seinen manga, it can be very poetic and very beautiful to read/to look at.

In shoujo and josei, of course there are some set of rules similar to shonen/seinen. Though, I don't exactly 'read' them but often 'watch' them. Reversely from seinen/shonen part. Since it was written by female (again, I never deny male writing shoujo manga), so it can explore more tiny bits of emotions which in seinen/shonen seems oblivious about. In a good shoujo/josei, the affection point can be built without resorting towards sexual harassment or 'famous one-liner' (you're cute, ect). In a very good ones, characters can be very 'creative' in showing their affection without resorting to bubbles and flower.

Shiratori99

As I said, it's much easier to find regular girls as love interests in shounen/seinen than regular guys in shoujo.

I skimmed through the whole translated shoujo database to find series that I like and I read the synopses of pretty much every new shoujo series that gets uploaded at batoto. It's almost all the same shit. There simply is not much variation in school life shoujo, even shoujo fans themselves admit this.

You need to read some good shounen if you really see a horrible series like Ichigo 100% as a positive trendsetter.

allflying

shinkeikaku

I enjoy romance titles from either shoujo or josei demographic. There's a few more publishers/authors dedicated to featuring older characters in josei publications, so maybe I skew that way. However, the shoujo mags have caught onto that trend and are catching up.

Shiratori99

Well, what are you gonna do if you cannot read Japanese and/or have no access to magazines? The common fan can just judge from what is translated and available. If there is indeed so much shoujo that defies the common tropes, one can ask why only the stereotypical series get translated then.

That being said, I'd like to see more from Nakayoshi and Ciao magazines get translated. Many of those kids' series are refreshingly different.

shinkeikaku

Shiratori99

Might as well close this whole thread then, since I doubt anyone here is knowledgeable about the whole manga market. Also, if you read carefully, I talked about typical shoujo, which I can safely assume to be common from the amount that is translated.
And not all stuff from Nakayoshi and Ciao is good of course, I just enjoyed some series from them.

minimiau

acorns

As for Shounen manga, after a certain point, its all the same; basically just a jumble of things guys like in girls thrown into a manga. And for Josei, its just plain boring and I find it hard to find one that I like.

UnoPuntoCinco

I mean, Umibe no Onnanoko and Oyasumi Punpun are very cynical and dark manga, but in the end we are told that not everything is shit and there's always something good.

allflying

And Shoujo could also inflict a lot of damage too.

Shiratori99

For some reason many people seem to think that Seinen = DARK AND EDGY eherhjerhj