The Paradox of Manga Demographics
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- Опубліковано 18 вер 2024
- Hello and welcome ladies and gentlemen, today we're taking a look at one of the oldest discussions in the anime and manga community! The manga demographics. What are they? And more importantly... Why are they?
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ooooh great vid, very interesting points all around. i was moving past my "demos dont matter" phase when i was thinking about this topic a lot recently and this video just came up on my feed lol.
i really like that last point you brought up where "genres" in general are used more as inherent indicators of quality rather than genuine descriptors. perhaps in a search for a sense of belonging we draw lines in the sand in the places we shouldnt be.
i think the one thing that would benefit all of us is to step outside our comfort zone every once in a while and give that thing you've been avoiding a try, or at the very least, let go of whatever assumption you have of something you never bothered getting into yet. let's all be a little less "genrephobic" lol
Yes! I understand people liking to stay in their confort zone, but honestly, there's so many cool stuff to find once you boarden your horizons!
I believe demographics have a reason to exist, so that authors can find the audience that they are aiming for. With that said, it should NOT be a factor when deciding which series to read, over the actual content of the manga. I read series that interest me, if the premise/art/characters look up my alley, I shouldn't care if it was written with children or women in mind. I think that's the problem, people using the demographics to judge or invalidate a series they may like if they tried it, they treat it as a sort of barrier. The series itself matters more than which magazine it was published in. I have no shame in admitting I enjoy series made for kids, and that there are series for adults that didn't click with me.
i dont think demographics MATTER, but they are helpful for you to get a vague idea on what ur getting urself into.
Yeah, they can be a good guide, if you know how to use them. Same thing for genres.
Great video, Crash! I was really looking forward to this one, as I love talking about manga demographics and can easily write a book on the topic, but I won't do that here lol, just some of my thoughts:
Most of the confusion overseas manga fans' have about demographic labels is due to their distance from manga magazines and the japanese publishing industry in general. Each magazine has its own identity, audience, and circumstances, that's why you get such a wide range of stories in each demographic. Additonally, when you buy manga in Japan whether online or in bookstores, it's often sorted by what publisher/ label/magazine it's published under, so you're more aware of these things.
I agree with your point that the problem isn't people treating demographics like genres, but them treating certain genres as superior than others, but I also think that people's attitudes would improve if they just understood that demographic labels occupy a grey-middle area between "target audience" and "genre".
It should be noted that in Japanese, demographic labels are referred to as genres, but that the way they use them differs depending on the context. That's how you get magazines like Melody, which is a shoujo magazine for adult women, and G Fantasy, a shounen magazine targeted at male and female teens. On the flipside, it also explains why K-On is a seinen (because its magazine specialized in Moe 4-koma to appeal to men who had grown up with tv anime).
One thing that you didn't talk about is the number of online manga platforms that don't use demographic labels. Pixiv Comic, for example, doesn't use any, it only uses genre labels like "romance". I think it's because people can pick and choose what they want to read online, so they're trying to appeal to a wider audience.
Thank you for your words!
I never even thought about the digital platforms like Pixiv, but that's also a really good point, specially nowadays that digital is starting to overcome printed manga.
sorry for messing you up by privating that old one, lmao
Lmao, that's alright.
The funniest part to me is that you did it while I was working on the video, so I re-watched it, recorded my video and when I went to edit the video it was gone. For a bit there I thought I had just imagined it.
These demographics make me feel bad for unintentionally, exclusively reading Shonen and Seinen 😅
Time to Change that!
@@MangaCrash Absolutely!
I believe the demographic terms are better served describing the magazine than the series published within. As a practice, I never say “battle Shonen”, I just say “battle manga”. It’s simpler and easier for beginners of manga to understand, which is what genre labels should be.
Yeah, I think so too!
A similar thing happens in American comics. There is a shocking amount of tribalism when it comics to different types of comics depending on genre and demographic in the mainstream. There are people who legitimately think that Children's or YA comics are not comics and there are people who only read Alternative comics aimed at an artsy crowd. You also have people who refuse to read Japanese comics and vice versa, even when they have the same type of material. the wildest thing is the fact that comics aimed at girls like Archie comics still lack series attention. I like everything but i am a nerd haha
It's definitely a problem present in all media, I think. People don't like leaving their bubble
I've been on a real Shojo/Josei kick for the last year or two enjoying so much of those stories they offer. I wish I read them years ago now, lol 😅
I loved almost every Josei manga I've read so far. Shoujo has been more of a hit or miss. But honestly, I'll admit I need to read more from each demographic, hopefully some videos that I have planned will actually help me on that.
I think a good way to think about it is that there's the way the terms are used by editors and publishers in Japan: very focused on maximising magazine sales and prone to completely change as sales strategies change (is WSJ even a "shounen" magazine any more or a multi-demographic magazine? As hyper-specialise magazines sell more does it make more money when you de-specialise them?).
And then there is the way the terms are used by western fans: as sets of sort of super-genres. I think with the western use it's important to note that a large number of manga don't really fit into any super-genre, and people shouldn't try to force it. And equally, don't take what Japanese publishers say as gospel because they are using the terms in a very different way.
The publishers are interested in making money, the fans are interested in being able to find the stuff they like (or think they like, as you pointed out).
"As hyper-specialise magazines sell more does it make more money when you de-specialise them?"
That's interesting, because that's more or less what I see people say is the best technique to do well on UA-cam. You start very niche to gain the initial audience as it's easier to grab them if you're one of the few channels on the topic, and as you grow you can eventually start to be more broad to grab more and more people. I assume manga magazines can work in similar ways.
Love that song choice brother, great decision and great video
Thank you!
Honestly I really dislike Seinen fans because they’re so insecure about what they like 😕
They really are, Joe Biden... They really are.
We're definitely the same type of nerd as I often think to myself about how fellow English speaking(or non Japanese rather) manga & anime fans interpret the meaning of these demographics, I would have initially answered that the demo does not matter to me and that the themes of an individual story are all that matter but your example of how one relates to a theme really shows why demographics are used in the first place. I guess its important for use readers to understand that a demo that you do not fall into is not a barrier to entry.
Yes! I think on an individual manga basis, it isn't that relevant, more so in general.
To me when it comes to manga, I don't think demographic *labels* matter, but what I think does matters (at least moreso) is demographic *popularity.* I'm making this distinction because I believe what's being labeled vs what's popular play different roles from each other.
I don't think demographic labels matter because whatever demographic a manga is simply boils down to the magazine it's published in. That basically means any manga can fall under literally any demographic regardless of what content it has, which makes the label meaningless imo. Like for the longest time, I thought Deadman Wonderland was a seinen after seeing the anime only to recently find out the manga is actually published in a shonen magazine. I also have a friend who believes The Apothecary Diaries is a shojo when in reality, the manga is published in a seinen magazine. There's many manga with adult content that fall under the teen demographics (shojo and shonen) and there are also plenty of family friendly manga that fall under adult demographics (seinen and josei), so an individual manga's demographic doesn't really mean much to me.
On the other hand, I do see the importance in demographic popularity mainly because of the lack of recognition shojo and josei mangas get. Manga aimed towards women and girls simply isn't on equal footing to manga aimed towards men and boys, and that leads to many shojo and josei mangas not getting anime adaptations or even getting licensed in English. They often get ignored compared to their male counterparts, and I think that's a damn shame because I know there are a lot of great shojo and josei mangas out there that get overlooked due to the lack of advertising. Josei especially gets the short and of the stick because not even that many anime fans have even heard of the word "josei." Not only that, but I do sometimes wonder if the seinen mangas with large female audiences (like Emma, Witch Hat Atelier, or In This Corner of the World) would have been published in josei magazines instead, had the josei demographic itself become much more popular.
These are just my personal feelings towards manga demographics after learning more about them and the discourse surrounding the topics. On a sidenote, I can relate to your tangent about music genres because I'm also a music fan, and I've seen many people having purist mentalities towards certain genres I like such as emo music (which is a massive can of worms full of disourse in and of itself).
Demographics dont really matter but they are useful to guide people to things they could like. That guide matters less once you start reading a lot more manga and search for things to read, or just read random shit in the main page of the place you read, no matter the genre or demo.
Any recommendations for 2024? Can we get an update on what u are reading this year
I'm not really the person who reads many ongoings, I rather just read completed series. So I'm only following the Weekly Shonen Jump series.
@@MangaCrashdid u like Kaiju no.8? It’s pretty cool. Do u follow jujutsu kaisen? I’ve read the first 30 chapters and feels a lil boring
Haven't read Kaiju n.8 yet.
I follow JJK yeah, but honestly I find it a bit boring still. It does get better past chap 30, so you might enjoy it, but personally there are times where it's kind of a drag to read to me.
@@MangaCrash thank you, I turned on notifications. Great videos
Thank you!!
Hell yeah RTJ!
I am a fellow fan of NIN as well as throbbing gristle. have you listened to Metal Machine Music? I was a right of passage for me as a teen. I never want to listen to it all the way through again though haha
I've only listened to it once. Wasn't a big fan of it, but it's interesting as a piece of music history
The Real Issues Among Us Western Folks Which Make The Question About the Demographic is "It's Not the Magazine to Decide Who is Aimed but What the Author Express His Story for His Audience" Which Most Elite Manga UA-camrs Don't Understand What The Average Manga/Anime Fan intended to Saying. Of Course a Magazine Periodically Change his Age Bracket When Time Pass Faster and the Audience Want a More Diverse Storyline That Reach a Different Age, Nintendo as a antithesis for Non-Manga is a Videogame Company that invest More Money To Make Franchises that Follow The Same Formula In Storyline But Remaking in Different Ways, Icon Kid-Friendly Games Such Mario, Kirby and Pokémon are Shounen Games Because Both The Authority Speak and The Company Itself are The Key for that Demographic, In Comparison With Titles That are Still Part of this Company but It's not aimed at the Same Age Bracket Such Xenoblade Chronicles and Fire Emblem Which are Parts of the Seinen Demographic of Gaming just Because of the Author's Word.
Following This Logic if Death note Was Writed for a Younger Age Group by the Authorial Choice, Most of us Westerner can be Agree Too Much That this Manga is Shounen but It didn't go so sadly and the Anime Got a R-15+ Rating in Japan.
in other words
Magazine < Medium of Communication
Author < Real Demographics Carved in Stone
Isn’t it more of a marketing tactic? If things are categorized in a way that the audience that’s more likely to read them can find them it’s more efficient. You could put Berserk in a Shounen magazine but then you’re missing out on the whole group of people that go exactly to the seinen magazine to read these things and are more likely to like and relate to them.
Yes, at the end of the day, it's useful to the companies more for marketting purposes.
Ill still stick with saying they dont matter. Thats not to say the magazines themselves need to stop having dedicated audience like shojo or shonen. But in the western world practically no one consumes manga based in the magzine format besides shonen jump so trying to use the labels when we consume it in a completely seperate format is pointless and just leads to really dumb debates on what series should qualify as on a bunch of categories that have no actual deffinition
I can agree with this. For the western audience, the demographics don't hold much meaning