2012-05-17, 05:51 | Link #41 | ||
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It doesn't include romantic comedies or slice of life shows.
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2012-05-17, 07:27 | Link #43 | |
Romanticist
Join Date: Aug 2009
Age: 33
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A lot of people tend to refer to the "shounen battle genre" as just "shounen", but I can easily see how its usage might be a cause for misunderstanding when certain romantic comedy titles also fall within the shounen demographic. But parroting the old "shounen is a demographic" line doesn't really say much to address the problem. It's just a different way of using a term. Nowadays, it's as much a collection of genres as it is a demographic anyway.
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2012-05-17, 12:39 | Link #44 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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Its not an "old line" - its the definition of the term. Misusing it is not "just a different way" any more than is using "peanut-butter users" to describe "peanut-butter" is. It just shows that some western fans aren't using the word correctly.
I don't think anyone claiming there's been a shift in focus in what shounen publishers put out has done the numbers to support the feeling. However, qualitatively, there does seem to have been a shift in storylines and art styles in the entire field of anime. The "young boys action" subsection of what shounen publishers produce has also been affected by that. Is it a problem or is it just a natural evolution? It certainly is what current japanese consumers (the ones spending the lion's share of money) seem to want.
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2012-05-17, 12:53 | Link #45 |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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While Shonen is certainly a demographic indicator first and foremost, there is certainly a shonen "Genre" that spans both Action and Sport Manga. You can't necessarily call it "Action" or adventure either, because sometimes the formula comes up without any real action at all (EG all those Shonen cooking manga).
Likewise, you can argue that Shojo romance is a genre of it's own too, it's quite different from non-Shojo Romance, and tends to use the same story elements repeatedly. Really, the issue comes down to the fact that we're using Western Genre labels, for Japanese media. I doubt the Japanese have any trouble with this. |
2012-05-17, 13:27 | Link #46 | |
Autistic NEET bath lover
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: France
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2012-05-17, 18:20 | Link #47 |
Banned
Join Date: Oct 2011
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Sorry for not taking part in a discussion that I started but I just couldn't get online if my wife is around. Thanks for replying though.
My only reason to made this thread is I worry when someday(not today) the anime that intended for male audiences would be filled with teenage girls behaving like kindergarten kids or crazy yandere bitches with blood splattering all over place. Female ones would be nothing but ambiguously or obvious gay bishies making out with each other or horny bishies raping plain-looking girl. Just like some other members point out, it is really scary when fanservice is preferred over substance. |
2012-05-17, 20:16 | Link #49 | |
Romanticist
Join Date: Aug 2009
Age: 33
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The thing is, meanings change over time. They are dependent on society and context, so the change is somewhat inevitable. The more pressing objection concerning this issue I can see is the confusion between the contemporary definition and the traditional definition of the term that may arise, but I don't think I've seen anyone approach the matter from that point. I mean, as far as I know, so many people these days use the word "incorrectly", perhaps to the point of exceeding those who care to "ed?cate" them on the "correct" meaning. Would it still make it wrong usage in that case.
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2012-05-17, 22:35 | Link #50 | |
Sayaka★Magica
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Under the piercing blue sky
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You are right that meanings change over time, but it doesn't change the fact that the corruption of the word stems from incorrect usage. Also, I don't think usage of the term "shounen" in English warrants splitting it into "traditional" and "contemporary" definitions. There is only one definition. The other is a corruption of the definition.
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2012-05-17, 22:54 | Link #51 | |
Romanticist
Join Date: Aug 2009
Age: 33
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Bringing up argumentum ad populum here doesn't change a thing. Consensus is the very mechanism by which word meanings are agreed upon after all. Meanings evolve over time according the context they are developed in. In the first place, language is arbitrary by nature, so the only thing that matters is that the equivalent meanings attached to a word are shared among a large group of people. How the change in meaning came about is irrelevant. The important thing is that it catches on and becomes a common symbol for a group of people.
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2012-05-17, 23:36 | Link #52 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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Except that the audience from whom the term comes from still constitute the vast majority of users -> the japanese. The term has only "changed" with outlier groups.
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2012-05-17, 23:57 | Link #53 | |
Romanticist
Join Date: Aug 2009
Age: 33
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Obviously, if you juxtapose how the Japanese and English communities use their terms, the two would be very different. However, that is likely indicative of the fact that the two communities hardly have opportunities to interact with each other. In that case, why should one group change how they use a term on account of another group, which they seldom communicate with?
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2012-05-17, 23:57 | Link #54 | ||
Sayaka★Magica
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Under the piercing blue sky
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2012-05-18, 00:13 | Link #55 | |
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Besides, like Coldlight points out, there's some value in standarization. It's good for people to be on the same page when it comes to the understood meanings of commonly used words. One thing that I think has really harmed anime fan discussion is too much term drift and/or lack of agreement on what a term means. "Tsundere", "Slice of Life", "Moe", lots of discussions on these are really hindered by people not being on the same page with them.
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2012-05-18, 00:34 | Link #56 | ||||
Romanticist
Join Date: Aug 2009
Age: 33
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Words in themselves are meaningless. They only gain meaning through how people use it. In a sense, they are merely symbols with mutually agreed representations. Quote:
The usage of language changes according to the changes in its context. The context by itself can change in different ways. One way that I mentioned through the passage of time, which you've covered. However, there are other ways for it to change. One significant change the term has experienced, for example, is how the term's usage began to spread outside the Japanese community and how it began to be interpreted across different cultures and contexts. Quote:
Respect? What are you talking about? They don't own the word. Languages adopt words from other languages all the time, then subsequently indigenizing the meaning to fit its culture. Is that wrong too? Quote:
Standardization is indeed important, but only within a group. There's no reason to adopt similar representations as other groups you hardly interact with.
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2012-05-18, 01:32 | Link #57 | |
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But we're still somewhat in the same general vicinity.Meanwhile people only associating shonens with action/sports/harems leads to absurd stuff like me having to look for stuff like Azumanga Daioh,Yotsuba&,K-on in the shojo part of the manga store instead of the shonen or seinen part and when I ask the people working at the store what the hell they're doing there they tell me those can't possibly be shonens so by elimination they must be shoujos. That's happened to me quite a few times.
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2012-05-18, 01:56 | Link #58 | |||
Sayaka★Magica
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Under the piercing blue sky
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I am also sorry for not being clear with this part. I used those terms because I thought those were the most precise terms to best describe our opposing viewpoints. Watering it down a bit, one could take descriptivist to mean liberal, and prescriptivist as conservative, in the context of language usage.
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2012-05-18, 02:03 | Link #59 |
Japanese Culture Fan
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Planet Earth
Age: 33
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There are already words which aptly describe the kind of manga that the ignorant English-speaking masses tend to relate shounen to. Examples would be "battle manga", "competitive manga", and "shounen battle manga". The paramount question for those who wish to change the meaning of "shounen" in English: what word do you propose to replace the original Japanese meaning which is a manga that is published in a shounen magazine?
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2012-05-18, 03:04 | Link #60 | |||
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I'm also pretty sure there's some Japanese anime fans on this site who are more or less fluent in both English and Japanese. Quote:
We English-speakers don't take "déjà vu" from the French and do whatever we want with it. That's because the French language is still alive and well and using "déjà vu" itself. So English-speakers understand "déjà vu" the same way the French do. And so shounen is a demographic. If we're talking about a type of anime that's more specific than "aimed at teenage boys" then we probably should use a more specific term than shounen. Quote:
I don't see a lot of people agreeing with you on the idea that we can basically just disregard what the term "shounen" means to the Japanese people themselves.
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