Shounen animosity towards Seinen &the perception of Seinen roles issue

[Honey_and_Cleaver]

******SPOILER WARNING******

Youll probrably wondering what this means. First Shounen means boy and Shounen animes are projected in satisfying young boy viewers, Shounen is also a boy character in animes.

For more about Shounen can be found in this link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Dnen

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Seinen describes men who are no more boys, usually used for describing young men who are around 20 to 35. In animes, Seinen genre are usually more adult and storyline complex and need a lot of intellect to understand it. Not all this animes have Seinen characters,sometimes they can be like Rozen Maiden, Serial Experiments Lain and thus far.

some references.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinen

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First thing i want to point out about the general issues about animes. Most Shounen character in animes have a sort of animosity towards Seinen characters.

Usually the Seinen character would become the villain or a rival figure. Most often this Seinens are dark and cool looking. But like most shounen animes, they die in the hands of the Shounen hero.

Take for instance Final Fantasy 7, Cloud vs Sephiroth. Ys you got the same thing,Shining Force EXA. Animes like Naruto,Bleach,Digimon, and all those small kids shounen animes. Usually the Seinen are targeted as evil villains or rival.

Shounen characters are most often the theme of a good ending and a harem anime. Most often, Shounen gets the girls in animes. And its boy meets girl. Shakugan no Shana,Zero no Tsukaima, Negima and etc.

However, Seinen characters is for animes with horrible ending. Usually get no girl or less than one girl. And that girl isnt beautiful or highly designed compared to what the Shounen have.

Sometimes you might get Seinens in a harem anime, but very little, i can only recall one and thats probrably AIR TV, because the character's voice is manly.

Spoiler:

But later he was already dead in the series and hes a walking ghostly entity formed by the magical feather.

Usually the Seinen characters get horrible endings. Take for instance Gungrave,Sadamitsu and Yukikaze. And Seinen characters usually die in an anime or they have very little parts but defeated. Ex Elementar Gerald etc.

For when the theme for Shounen, its mostly Boy meets Girl. But when it comes to Seinen, its Man meets Death.

If a seinen that acts like a Shounen has more chances of living while those who act like Seinen, their chances of dying is very very high.

Shounen can ally with men very old with beared, usually brute and very old, either married and content. But usually not with average young men.

Seinen can appear very easily in Yaoi anime. The perception of Seinen characters is projected at being Yaoi. The chances of a Seinen getting a girl is very small, if hes a dark and cool guy, the chances is almost next to nothing.This perception is think is very odd and wrong.

So whats the deal?

[bayoab]

The problem is your hypothesis are incorrect and therefore your conclusions are trivially proved. Moe romance and similar crap is "Seinen" for the most part. Zero no Tsukaima, Shana, etc are all seinen targeted, not shounen. A lot of the harem stuff is too as it originates from h-games which clearly are targeted at the 18+ crowd. Seinen does not mean its more complex or requires more thought. It just means that the intended audience is older age wise. Thus, the series tend to have characters that people can relate to based on what the target audience is and what they want.

The majority of shounen manga are about fighting (Without death) of some sort, not boy meets girl. Seinen are more free to explore death with the older audience and therefore you find that more in the genre. Therefore, its more frequent that a seinen will die and that shounen won't. It's more typical since shounen don't die that they will eventually run into a girl and of course you can always run a plot line by having some psuedo-romance. Also, a lot of the seinen targeted series will have shounen who run into girls and thus produce harem and moe romance crap.

As for the character conflict, you are over exaggurating a few series to the entire genre. (I don't even know where you get this shounen/seinen thing in bleach.) Beside, its typical for 13 yr old males to have conflicts with college age students in the sort you describe, but they really don't make the series plot for the most part.

It's all about what the genre wants. Shounen manga wants shounen guys kicking everyone's butt for the most part. Seinen manga wants older people dead and younger people with harems (which they could never have).

[Honey_and_Cleaver]

Yeah but the eroge/Hentai harem are mostly school boys. I wrote about the themes used. Shounen characters and Seinen characters. Not just programes projected at viewers.

[Kaioshin Sama]

I might be able to add something if I had an idea of what you are getting at. You kind of just list some definition and start stating some facts and then ask the question. Work through them on your own and present a synthesized hypothesis based on all of your evidence and then I can talk about it with you.

In making an argument you need your theory, which you have (There is Shounen animosity towards Seinen seems to be your theory) then the evidence to back it up (Which you have attempted to provide), then you must synthesize your evidence so that you can present and hopefully prove your hypothesis as to why your theory is correct. You're one step short of an argument here. Clearly explain why you feel there is this animosity and why is this animosity of concern (i.e what are you getting at with this argument?).

[jedinat]

Your use of seinen and shounen is kind of confusing, when most people use them as genres in reference to the target audience. Your basically saying younger boys get the girls and happy ending, while older guys don't?

Well, there are quite a few where that is not the case... Ah! My Goddess, Chobits, Koi Kaze (), Maison Ikkoku, Rec, etc. all have "seinen" aged characters who get the girl.

[blueorange]

@OP
As you correctly recognised, the protagonist of the series is meant to reflect the age group of the intended audience. So, in shounen, the hero is usually an immature, annoying prick.

I suppose that the creators feel that the audience (little kids) will derive satisfaction from seeing the little brat that they identify with, beating up the cool seinen character. Don't ask me why.

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I believe that the idea that 'kids' shows should have 'kid' heroes is a mistaken one. It is something that anime needs to shake off. It really detracts from the concept that anime is better than x because it has strong story lines and tackles more grown-up themes.

If I see another mecha show where the pilots are school kids I think I will cry.

It's just rubbish.

[wingdarkness]

Oooh...Interesting thread...I'd like to post more once I get off from work, but one suggestion I'd give is that you are indirectly spoiling the outcome of some of these animes with your premise...It might be wise to alert the readers of what shows you are using for your examples in your first post...For people like myself who still intend to watch something like Gungrave, knowing the Seinen character's fate could potentially spoil...

[Honey_and_Cleaver]

Well after watching countless animes. I have gotten an impression that a main component of an anime are generally composed of somewhat like this.

Shounen character and theme

-Boy hero which usually have different kinds of characters. Most of them are either nerd,immature,egoistic,impatient, bad tempered, and etc.

-Basic Boy meets Girl story. And this Boy might encounter various other girls in the story. Meeting another male boy is a sub component of the anime. And if theres a cooler male rival, he would usually appear very little in the anime.

-Villains, compose of mainly the Seinen figure. Most of this seinens look very manly and age to around 18 to 24. The usually have long hair, very cool looking and dark. Their characters are sometimes very chaotic and their perception of the world can be very sharp and painful. This characters seems to be either pychotic case, but more like theyre an impression you get while a young man is going through adolescence.

-Boy beats man using simple philosophy such as love conquers all,hope and innocence.

-Seinen characters in this anime come very rare, and much rarer when they are cooler.

Animes(spoilers):

Black cat- Train who looks like a young boy seeks out revenge from a white hair Seinen named Creed.

Fate Stay/Night- Young boy defeats all the seinen warriors and hes an orphan staying in a house full of girls.

Tsukihime- Same

Last Exile- Alex dies in the end.

Tenjou Tenge- Blond hair kid fights with manly Seinen character.

Burst Angel- Kohei lives and his friend dies.

Sousei no Aquarion- Red hair boy fights with Seinen guy.

Ragnarok the Animation- Boy fights with Curropt Seinen Knight.

Soukou no Strain- Ralph Werec dies in the end.

History's Strongerst Disciple Keinichi- Keiinichi beats up his best friend Rukito who is the main villain later in the story.

Kannazuki no Miko- Young boy fights against his cool seinen brother.

Kyoushiro to towa no sora- Kyoushiro fights against his Seinen brother Kazuya.

Mamoru- kun ni shukufuku wo- Johan is a villain and Mamoru and his girlfriend fights him.

Tokko- Young boy lives and his partner, seinen man with sun glasses die.Hero gets all the girls attention.

Inuyasha- Struggling between the two girls he likes and his rival is his Seinen brother Sesshoumaru who comes very little.

List goes on and on

Seinen character and theme

-Usually the more manlier and seinen looking they are. The possibility of them dying are very much next to nothing.

-Usually the anime ends in ambiguity.

-Cool seinens are mostly gotten an impression that they are more for Yaoi themes.

-This seinens dont get very well designed female companions.

Animes(spoilers):

Texhnolyze- Whole town people dies and hero last to live but alone.

Yukikaze- Hero dissapears with his plane.

Fist of the North Star- Guy just goes around serving justice but a loner all his life.

Hellsing- Vampire who will just go around and treats Victoria like his daughter and loyal to Hellsing.

Final Fantasy Unlimited- Kaze in the end just end in ambiguity.

Samurai 7- Fight for justice and die.

Monster- Tenma seeks out Johan but not much love story between him and his girlfriend is a bitch.

Argento Soma- In the end he just ends ambiguous

Captain Harlock- Goes around in a cool way but in the end, its ambigous too.

Gankutsuo- Edmund dies the end, boy lives.

Gakuen Heaven- Manly Seinens only tend to be in this Yaoi anime.

List goes on and on.

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So you kind of get the impression.

Well, there are quite a few where that is not the case... Ah! My Goddess, Chobits, Koi Kaze (), Maison Ikkoku, Rec, etc. all have "seinen" aged characters who get the girl.

Yeah all this characters you speak in this animes are not very seinen looking. And they are all very much nerdy. This animes are very well and dont come out much at all. Female character designs are very simple. Oh My Goddess!, the guy looks like a kid.This sort of animes are rare as hell too,

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I think its very cruel to create this impression. Its not good and its very wrong. Is society very cruel to a man who is usually in his adolescence age. This kind of ideas are too stereotypicall and general.

They should know how to bring up the best in this characters and dont potray them so morbid in society. A man in discovery should be potrayed accepted in society.

Its not good potraying things like this, it leaves a negetive impact on peoples minds. Either the people who write this stories dont like this kind of people or majority of viewers, even men, like watching young boys and they feel themselves attached to a young boy.

In the end, you have people feeling unattached to seinens, leaving this people with weak and unmanly type character. Theyll be nothing but muscle head bound men with egoistic kids mentality.

[jedinat]

Originally Posted by Honey_and_Cleaver

Yeah all this characters you speak in this animes are not very seinen looking. And they are all very much nerdy. This animes are very well and dont come out much at all. Female character designs are very simple. Oh My Goddess!, the guy looks like a kid.This sort of animes are rare as hell too,

You are just taking a character type and calling it "seinen". The word refers to an age group, not their appearance or personality.

Originally Posted by Honey_and_Cleaver

In the end, you have people feeling unattached to seinens, leaving this people with weak and unmanly type character. Theyll be nothing but muscle head bound men with egoistic kids mentality.

lol. The reason this character type you refer to is cool looking and cold/distant is because the writers don't necessarily want you to relate to the villain. And I think your argument is rather ridiculous. Are these characters some minority that are being misunderstood or something? lol

[Honey_and_Cleaver]

Originally Posted by jedinat

You are just taking a character type and calling it "seinen". The word refers to an age group, not their appearance or personality.

Seinens have different types too. Im just using the likelyhood of a seinen type character that would usually end up dying,having a bad or an ambiguous ending. The more Seinen i mean is,the more manly looking and handsome ,and, the more serious,mature and deep thinking a man has become.

Meaning also pychologically and not just appearence. Everything all together.

. Are these characters some minority that are being misunderstood or something? lol

Exactly.

[Mirrinus]

You know, when I first read the title I think I mis-interpretted it as saying there's animosity between Shounen fans and Seinen fans...and I was just about to agree with you on that too, lol.