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Almost Otaku: Is Shonen Worth Our Time Anymore?

Topic started by No_name_here on Aug. 18, 2010. Last post by djqj 2 years, 9 months ago.
Post by mysticboy (144 posts) See mini bio Level 5
Yes. Shonens got me into Anime in general. 
*points to DBZ poster*
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by lizcat (39 posts) See mini bio Level 12
I think this site in general is very shonen heavy. As I've mentioned before, look at the beginner's guide list. I think there's one seinen series and one shojo series and the rest are shonen. Not criticizing, merely noting. I think every show followed for Watch and Learn has been shonen, too. So I guess that a lot of people still consider shonen to be worth their time.  
  
As @JD said, Aenobashi's not shojo.  For shojo you'd be looking at something like Kare Kano (high school romance), Fruits Basket (supernatural quasi-romance), Fushigi Yuugi (high adventure/romance with a super annoying heroine), Ouran High Host Club (high school comedy), Vampire Knight (school drama with vampires), or for something more mature, NANA (which may actually be considered josei?).  For a little taste of shojo, Studio Ghibli's Whisper of the Heart is very shojo-ish.  
 
It's so much easier to get girls to watch shonen or seinen than to get guys to watch shojo. A shojo series for Watch and Learn would be... interesting. And probably funny. 
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by JD (46 posts) See mini bio Level 4
@lizcat:  The last paragraph seems to be most of why "boy's" shows are more available, the potential audience is often wider.  Shoujo can be profitable, but it can't have too many competitors at a given time.  I recall one time several years ago when something like six shoujo series were started on DVD at roughly the same time, and they were almost all magical girl shows to boot.  From what I remember, one did well, one or two barely broke even and the rest sunk like a rock, the dub was dropped from one just to to get it out at a cut rate.  I remember thinking from the outset that they could do a lot better if half the shows were delayed six months to a year.  Forcing the audience to choose from six shows of the same anime genera starting at the same time can't leave a lot of contestants standing.    
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by ramen_reimu (8 posts) See mini bio Level 5

As great as the anime has been lately I have been recently watching a few gems like Okamisan, Occult academy and recently ordered Toradora! on DVD. i have been watching a lot of great stuff but I don't really have a bias because a good anime comes in many shapes and forms, comedy, horror, slice of life, or excessive fanservice. But I have started to notice the linearity of certain anime plots that are to afraid to do something new, especially comedy. 
 
  A example of a unique comedy is Mitsumodoe which honostly has a unique of sense of humor a little refreshing especially when i've seen a woman comedically fall over after another charecter does something stupid which is fine, but starts grating on the anime nerd in me, and the japanese of japanese humor of Ton to Issho need to have a little knowledge to understand that humor.I haven't seen a lot of change in the formula that most anime has depended on no matter the genre. Some of the anime I've mentioned have tryed something unique even though I should admit Mitsumodoe isn't for everyone. All in all if you open your mind to new anime genres you'll find some pretty cool stuff.    
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by secretzfan (238 posts) See mini bio Level 18
If there is no shounen there is hardly any anime anymore.  Shounen is needed in anime. It is very great to watch and entertaining. Things like FMA, Bleach, One Piece, Naruto, DBZ, Yu Yu Hakusho are great anime that are shonens. Nearly half the anime made are shonens and if we didn't have them then what is there. I like to keep watching shonens for a long time. Saying is shonens worth our time is like saying is anime worth our time
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by agila61 (87 posts) See mini bio Level 4
@FoxxFireArt said:
" @sickVisionz:  If you know it's not needed, why did you encourage him to make it? It's a news site. It's not a company that produces anything. "
It does do streaming. Crunchyroll is a site that hasn't produced anything yet (they just announced they are financing a new US 5cm/sec release) ... they've got a page.
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by Roldan (71 posts) See mini bio Level 6
 i think we got to a bigger question here:
 
Is there a Shojo without a romance plot?
 
but yeah, shonen's so multi-genred that we can't really ask if it's worth or not.  i mean most got in to anime through shonen and shonen shows pays for the gems that  anime company's usually wouldn't want to gamble on.
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by agila61 (87 posts) See mini bio Level 4
Its hard to be 100% sure recommending a show in the middle of its run, but I'll add a vote to Occult Academy. Plus in the survey of the Anime Boom decade of the 90's, Cowboy Bebop.
Edited 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by FoxxFireArt (2,538 posts) See mini bio Level 25
Moderator
@agila61: 
While it seems frivolous that Crunchyroll was made a profile page, in my opinion. They would count as a distributor of anime. They are a broadcasting site of anime.
 
Anime News Network is another news/encyclopedia site. That's the job of this site. They report on manga and anime. They don't create or distribute.
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by daikari (8 posts) See mini bio Level 8
Ofcourse it is... as long as there is enough action
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by ShadowKnight508 (5,317 posts) See mini bio Level 19
Moderator
I still enjoy most Shonen titles (I am currently at Bleach: Ep. 91 of the Bount Arc and One Piece: Ep. 32), but I have moved into the harem and ecchi shows over the past year or so. FMA: Brotherhood is becoming more enjoyable for me over the past 10 episodes (After Episode 13, the story and plot started improving by leaps and bounds compared to the previous 13 episodes and this show became a blast to watch) and I am trying to get going and watch more One Piece (stopped after 32 episodes to watch Angel Beats! along with Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou, To Love-Ru, and Okami-san).
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by lizcat (39 posts) See mini bio Level 12
@JD: That makes a lot of sense. Shojo has a more limited audience, so it's much easier to inundate with too many shows. Since the shojo audience generally also likes other genres, shojo shows have to out-compete those of other genres as well.  Hm, I don't think I've thought this out before. Generally I just whine about boys being close-minded. :)
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by SamJaz (4,366 posts) See mini bio Level 18
 Credit to Zach Weiner of SMBC comics
 Credit to Zach Weiner of SMBC comics
 
I think it comes from the massive mis-conception that all girls care about is romance, and boys are open to comedy, battles, intellect, slice-of-life, or whatever.
This is why I usually avoid shojo. I've actually enjoyed a few shojo series, like Special A, but most I tend to avoid like the plague because they don't have the same... whatever about it.
As ShadowKnight508 just said, Fullmetal Alchemist (Brotherhood and Manga), is an amazing series, written and drawn for a woman, who initially wanted to go into soujo, but then made a shounen because it gave her more freedom to write a story.
See, those who distribute for girls are pretty closed-minded, whereas those who distribute for boys will publish anything that anyone would enjoy.
See, it's not just applied to manga and anime. Compare My Little Pony to Transformers.
It's because the people up top think "Hmm... what do girls like... pink, love hearts, boys, ponies!", but when they think of stuff for boys, the list is much longer. 
I'm not saying that soujo is crap mind you. I'm saying that the people who publish soujo don't try as hard or offer as much variety as shounen publishers do. Consider Fullmetal Alchemist, which is probably the most gender equality I have seen in any anime so far, is classed as a shounen, despite the fact that a large portion of its fanbase are female.
In fact, that's something that came up in Bakuman. More than a third of Shounen Jump's readers are female, suggesting that soujo manga magazines aren't doing their job. 
Shounen, on the other hand, is the one keeping us all together with a decent manga. 
Me? I'm waiting for a Psyren anime. If you don't know what that is, think Bleach meets Law of Ueki, only smarter. No shouting for a deus ex machina power-up, just clever usage of your evolving abilities.
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by Shibumi (24 posts) See mini bio Level 7
As a genre, sure...it depends on the individual storyline as to whether it is worth watching/reading or not. I personally prefer Seinen, but thats the age group I'm in any way. 
The real question is where's the line between Shonen and Seinen? Is Gundam shonen? What about Macross? GITS? I think it all really feeds into each other and the line can get occasionally blurry.
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by MonsignorGabriel (6 posts) See mini bio Level 2

My niche is anime that's good. :) 
 
Admittedly, Shonen was my stepping stone to anime, along with shoujo (DBZ and Sailor Moon, :O I'm so original). But it's so goddamn repetitive it's annoying. I'm sick and tired of some repackaging that's basically The Wacky and Ninja-Filled Adventures of Nazi Boy all over again.
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by Mezmero (69 posts) See mini bio Level 10
Never an easy question is there?  It just depends on individual taste and quality of the production.  I'll admit I've taken a pass on the time sink that certain shows have to offer.  The epic shonens are the shows that this question is most relevant.  Episodes that range in the hundreds are worth a cautious approach.  I've sat through plenty of crap that I regret seeing so I try to be more selective recently.  Even stuff that's apparently popular I often found boring.  But again, I don't know what everyone's tastes are so who can say what's worth your attention.  I've made some concessions so that some of this stuff takes up less of my time like skipping filler episodes, reading the mangas instead of watching, but I sometimes indulge in revisiting the shows that I'm really fond of.  If you find a story and style that really click with you then you should follow it at your leisure.
 
If it came to choosing one it would be One Piece, because it has a "One" in the title.  But seriously I've gravitated toward the theory that you'll be hooked in a dozen episodes or less.  If you don't like it then let us never speak of this again.  The zany art style can be appreciated by long time fans of cartoons in general but I'm not too keen on what kids think about it.  It's one thing to just animate the characters from the manga, but just about everything in the television production makes it a true masterpiece.  A fantastic score, Japanese voice acting at it's most expressive, a beautifully crafted story, and some of the most satisfying action scenes I've ever seen.  Even the filler is tolerable!  I can't say that about most shows.  It's really long though.  Perhaps too long.  Try not to think about it too much and watch it at your own pace.
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by blaakmawf (59 posts) See mini bio Level 5
My only problem with Shonen is how childish the characters are. I just cant relate anymore -then again, shonen isn't really for me.
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by agila61 (87 posts) See mini bio Level 4
@FoxxFireArt said:
" @agila61: 
While it seems frivolous that Crunchyroll was made a profile page, in my opinion. They would count as a distributor of anime. They are a broadcasting site of anime.
 
Anime News Network is another news/encyclopedia site. That's the job of this site. They report on manga and anime. They don't create or distribute. "
If Crunchyroll qualifies as a distributor because they stream, then ANN qualifies as a distributor, because of course they also stream.
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by FoxxFireArt (2,538 posts) See mini bio Level 25
Moderator
@agila61: 
What Anime News Network links to on their site is more often just links from Crunchyroll or other sites. I just checked out their video section. One of their Naruto episodes is a direct link from Crunchyroll. That's not distribution. It's linking. If Anime Vice started video links from Crunchyroll, HULU, or FUNimation. That wouldn't make Anime Vice a distributor.
 
Sites such as  Crunchyroll, HULU, or FUNimation often have exclusive contracts to be the main distribution points of animes and other assorted video.
I don't see why Anime Vice should be promoting another anime news and encyclopedia site. That's the job of this site. I don't think they would be promoting Anime Vice.
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
Post by lizcat (39 posts) See mini bio Level 12
@SamJaz: Haha, that's a great comic, and it's sadly pretty true to life.  
 
I think that a series being shonen can be just as limiting as being shojo sometimes, though, since most are ultimately are produced with teen boys in mind ("Hm, what do boys like? Robots, adventure, fighting"). Even FMA, which I agree is awesome, is sometimes limited by its shonen-ness. 
 I mean, despite the fact that romance is a major factor in pretty much all shojo series, they still fall into all sorts of genres (adventure, fantasy, comedy, scifi, school drama, etc) and can be very diverse.  Shojo series also have an equal chance of being good... in their own way. Many fall victim to being insultingly tailored to supposed feminine tastes, yes. But shonen series can similarly try too hard to pander to an immature male audience. 
  
Maybe it's kind of unfortunate that a series must be classified according to gender, just as it's unfortunate that there is a blindingly pink "girl's aisle" and normal-colored "boys aisle" for toys. Really, seinen may be the least limiting genre (maybe?). Chi's Sweet Home, Emma, Gantz. Now that's diversity. 
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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