An essay for the question “What is your favourite anime/manga genre, and why?”
You probably have read this post on RK’s blog already, but since some paragraphs disappeared and I even announced it on this blog, I thought I might as well post it here too ^^
If I look at the numbers of manga I am currently reading, I see 35 shounen series, 49 seinen series, 64 shoujo series and 26 josei series. (In fact, I’m not sure whether I got the genres right because I don’t know all the magazines they’ve been published in. On top of that, I file some Afternoon series into shounen and others into seinen.) However, you get an idea of the distribution and probably notice that I basically read anything. At the same time, the anime I am watching go from science-fiction (Planetes, GiTS) to romance stories (Ouran, Paradise Kiss) to funny stuff (Azumanga Daioh) to “cute girls doing cute things with cute [**censored**]” series (Ichigo Mashimaro, Lucky Star).
However, quantity isn’t anything and I believe I only read 26 josei series because there isn’t anymore out there available for a
japanese-illerate like me. If I look at this list, I see that I have read basically everything in it. However, if I look at the nearly 2000 shoujo series listed on Baka-Updates, I don’t even read 5% of it. Since RunningKid said he wanted me to write a post because I’m female, I thought it might be a good idea to write about the genre where I am part of the targeted audience. And as I have already described already, I effectively seem to be the perfect target for this genre *hrr*
So what is josei exactly? The same site (Baka-Updates) says:
“Literally ‘Woman’. Targets women 18-30. Female equivalent to seinen. Unlike shoujo the romance is more realistic and less idealized. The storytelling is more explicit and mature.”
A lot of josei series are simply porn for women: A (most likely) blond girl falls in love with some (most likely) dark-haired alpha dog (mafia boss, student council president, president of some huge company) and lets herself get sexually abused and raped by said person. In reality, he’s paying a lot of attention to her and extends the foreplay so long that no healthy man could stand if it would be real. Other kinds of porn-like josei are yaoi, but I will not talk about it because I dislike yaoi to the extent that I have forgotten its existence while writing this post. (I got only reminded while I searched for some nice definitions of josei.) So these kinds of josei series actually are far from being realistic.
The really interesting josei series are those which actually are like the description above: Most of the time they are love stories or revolve around the pursuit of ‘love’ (or at least a healthy relationship), but whose main interest is the search for oneself, whether it is through love, work or friends. Josei manga tend to question the ‘why’ behind the things we do: Hataraki Man is a good and famous example, because it is freely available as fansub and scanlation - on top of that, I’ve read that it is very popular in Japan. No wonder, in my opinion, the series reflects the japanese world of work perfectly with all its different characters and their point of views of work and life.
Other very recommendable josei anime series: Honey & Clover, Paradise Kiss, Gokusen. (I won’t recommend Nodame Cantabile because I don’t like the anime *hrr* The manga is absolutely gorgeous though.)
On the artistic side, these series tend to be more ‘artsy’ and less conservative than most shoujo series. The drawings are more sketchy, the eyes are smaller and women tend to be more slender and look like some fashion magazine rather than a children’s book. Therefore, nudes aren’t particularily arousing, but still look provocative. Ai Yazawa (Nana, Paradise Kiss) is a good example, even though her drawings are still very mainstream.
If you’re interested, take a look at this page. It features a lot of good josei mangaka, such as George Asakura, Sakura Fujisue, Erika Sakurazawa, Kyoko Okazaki (who has won the Media Festival Award with “Helter Skelter”), Kiriko Nananan (my favourite!), Mitsukazu Mihara, Mari Okazaki and Yukari Ichijou.
PS. Yes, I know what the attentive reader will automatically think: Hataraki Man runs in Morning, a seinen magazine. That’s true, and for me it’s actually a sign that seinen and josei are much more similar to each other than shounen and shoujo. But aside from that, I do think that Hataraki Man, especially the anime, shows a rather female point of view of things.
Comments 8
“That’s true, and for me it’s actually a sign that seinen and josei are much more similar to each other than shounen and shoujo.”
You mean, Berserk or Tenjou tenge are more similar to Honey and Clover and Hataraki Man than say, Bleach to Ouran Host Club? ^^;; To me it seems that with the growing female readership of shounen manga, many shounen manga gets more and more “shoujo”-ish while seinen is getting more and more versatile.
In any case, josei manga rules. :3 As for josei anime, there have been few so far and they’re not always good adaptations (I’m looking at you, Paradise Kiss -__-) but I have much faith in the Noitamina slot.
Posted 30 May 2007 at 22:30 CE(S)T ¶Waah, the images are gorgeous! *__*
Well - Mitsukazu Mihara, Mari Okazaki, Moyoco Anno, Kyoko Okazaki and even Ai Yazawa are the avantgarde of josei manga. They all work for the magazine “Feel Young”, the only josei magazine that seems to support artsy manga.
But themost josei magazines (like You or Be Love) are conservative. The manga in these magazines are aimed at housewives and are about the traditional life of mothers raising their childs, living with their husbands and so on. (like Pokka Pokka! XD - http://www.tomodachi.de/html/archiv/funime/f23_kurz_6.html)
But the scanlation scene fortunately seems to concentrate on the avantgarde josei.
Posted 30 May 2007 at 23:03 CE(S)T ¶My god, I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about these comments *hrr*
@kuromitsu: I think your point is good - indeed, there are a lot of male shoujo readers and especially female shounen readers, but that doesn’t really affect my impression that shounen and shoujo (mostly) work after quite specific rules. One says that the protagonist of a shounen generally is male and the protagonist of a shoujo is generally female. In seinen and josei, it isn’t as strict.
Second, erm, like I’ve mentioned in the post already, Hataraki Man is a seinen manga, even though it does look a lot like a josei. On the other hand, I think that Gokusen (and River’s Edge, in case you know about it) really look like seinen, but it’s josei. It never occured me that I have mistaken a shounen manga for a shoujo and vice-versa. Therefore, I think that the variety of seinen and josei manga is much higher so that you can’t really distinguish them. Shounen and shoujo are (usually) much easier to separate from each other without knowing which magazine they come from (and thus, which audience they really are targeting at).
@Shii: Haha, I’ve actually expected somebody to comment on the second picture. On top of that, it’s by the mangaka of Kimi wa Pet!
Well, you got me. Now that I think of it, I really should have distinguished between ‘avantgarde’ josei like Kiriko Nananan and Kyoko Okazaki and ‘conservative’ josei like Clover and Hachikuro. But then again, it’s quite difficult to say where to draw the line. Is Nodame Cantabile ‘avantgarde’? Most definitely not, it’s way too popular - but it’s not particularily conservative either, with those weird characters and sketchy drawing style. Same goes for Yukari Ichijou’s (newer) works. I even think that Hachikuro looks quite unusual (then again it’s widely opular!), so in the end, my image of josei is dominated by the thought of ‘artsiness’ XD
Not only the scanlation scene, the overseas releases of josei are also rather concentrating on the avantgarde ones. I think there are several reasons for that:
Posted 31 May 2007 at 00:05 CE(S)T ¶First, avantgarde series are likely to find a niche. Works like Hachikuro tend to get forgotten between all the mainstream stuff, but at the same time unnoticed by the sophisticated reader who would rather buy Sakka than Tokyopop series.
A second possible reason lies in the cultural differencies: Avantgarde series are rather open-minded and culturally independent, while conservative series are highly influenced by the close-mindedness of their readers and their culture. It’s the same reason why popular movies in China would never get popular outside of China while strongly artistical, non-mainstream titles become very popular in the western world: There aren’t chinese jokes, there is a wrong or absolutely no image of chinese culture in these movies at all. So the western audience probably can’t enjoy heavily ‘japanese’ stories, but they might like Mitsukazu Mihara’s shocking designs.
some paragraphs went missing?! oh dear, what have I done wrong?! Sorry Sasa, I try not to muck up next time >.
Posted 31 May 2007 at 01:12 CE(S)T ¶Oh, I’m sorry that this was so misleading, RK. Actually it’s not the paragraphs themselves that are missing but the break between them. For example, the paragraph for more realistic josei comes directly after the one for smutty josei/yaoi. I thought it kind of disturbs the reading flow, so I reposted it ^^ It’s nothing major, really, so don’t worry.
Posted 31 May 2007 at 11:14 CE(S)T ¶“Shounen and shoujo are (usually) much easier to separate from each other without knowing which magazine they come from (and thus, which audience they really are targeting at).” Hmhm, not always. There are works like “Aria”, “Mozart Doesn’t Sing Lullabies” and “Saiyuki”. It’s often said that Saiyuki is shôjo and Aria shônen. (And I really have no idea, if Mozart Doesn’t Sing Lullabies is shôjo or shônen.)
BTW: Keiko Takemiya’s “To Terra” was published in a magazine that had the line “The Comic Monthly For Boys And Girls” on its cover and it carried shônen and shôjo mangaka. ^^ (I’m talking about Duo: http://www.aniki.info/Duo)
“Haha, I’ve actually expected somebody to comment on the second picture. On top of that, it’s by the mangaka of Kimi wa Pet!” I really like the atmosphere of the picture! *__*
I also don’t think that Nodame Cantabile and Hachikuro are avant-garde, but somehow I don’t feel like they are conservative or something. ^^;
And I totally agree with what you said about avant-garde josei in Europe and America.
Posted 31 May 2007 at 17:10 CE(S)T ¶Josei is one area of manga I know nearly nothing about (so thanks for writing this). What I was wondering is, are there josei japanese literature as well? I had to read Yoshimoto Banana’s “A Strange Tale from Down by the River” for Issues in Post Modern Japan, and it was defined as a shojo comsumerism/cult of kawai in the academic literature about it, but I saw it more as a ‘josei/cult of kawai’ cross because of the more pessimisic adult themes mixed with naivety. however, i wasn’t really sure what differentiates josei from shojo so I couldn’t be sure. Anyway, I shall definitely check out some josei manga you mention! Thanks
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 11:04 CE(S)T ¶Ah, the confusing world of genres and subgenres. It’s all clear cut with certain series, but when the genres merge, it’s all one big mess. (Like what happened with the music industry. Metal, Death Metal, Grindcore, Noisecore, etc. You get the drift.)
Alas, I can’t namedrop any authors or series, but I certainly know where to get my fix of josei and senin, thanks to various scan-translation groups.
Important thing is, if it’s good manga/anime, all is well. And in this instance, ignorance is bliss.
In any case, thanks for explanation. It’s a helper.
Posted 03 Jun 2007 at 08:06 CE(S)T ¶Post a Comment