Demographics

From Animepedia

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Revision as of 22:37, 9 September 2008

Demographics refer to the target audience of a particular form of media. In relevance to anime and manga series, there are several popular demographics, most based on age groupings, as well as several based on content.

Contents 1 Major Demographics 1.1 Shounen 1.2 Shoujo 1.3 Seinen 1.4 Josei 1.5 Shounen-Ai 1.6 Yaoi 1.7 Yuri 1.7.1 Shoujo-Ai

Major Demographics

Several large demographics include the following:

Shounen

For the main article, see: Shounen

Shounen anime and manga series are targetted toward males in their younger teens and childhood years. Such series often contain action, adventure, and violence, and real world stories from a male point of view.

Shoujo

For the main article, see: Shoujo

Shoujo anime and manga series are targetted toward females in their younger teens and childhood years. Such series often contain fantasy, magic, and romance, and real world stories from a female point of view.

Seinen

For the main article, see: Seinen

Seinen anime and manga series are targetted toward males in their late teens and adult years. Such series often include action, adventure, and real life stories from an adult male's point of view, as well as coming-of-age stories.

Josei

For the main article, see: Josei

Josei anime and manga series are targetted toward females in their late teens and adult years. Such series often include romance, real world stories from an adult female's point of view, as well as coming-of-age stories.

Shounen-Ai

For the main article, see: Shounen-Ai

Literally meaning "Boy Love", Shounen-Ai series are original series featuring male characters often in homoerotic situations, and are targetted at teenage female readers. It is also known as June. To Western audiences, Shounen-Ai is used particularly with Boy Love series dealing with emotional love rather than physical.

Yaoi

For the main article, see: Yaoi

Created as an acronym of "Yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi", meaning "No climax, no purpose, no meaning", Yaoi contains non-original male characters (i.e. as doujinishi based on other series) in homoerotic situations. To Western audiences, Yaoi is used as an all-encompassing term for all male homoerotic manga with explicit content.

Yuri

For the main article, see: Yuri

More of a jargon, fan-created word, it has come into common usage in reference to manga series that focus on love between two girls. Unlike Yaoi and Shounen-Ai, the word refers to both the romantic and explicit ends of the spectrum. In Western usage it has taken a similar meaning to Yaoi, as a term refering strictly to explicit content between female characters.

Shoujo-Ai

For the main article, see: Shoujo-Ai

Literally meaning "Girl Love", is used by Western audiences to describe series that feature attractive female characters often in homoerotic situations, that focus more on the emotional aspect. In Japan, the term means something typically unrelated to anime and manga.