I don't know who keeps editing every series on the Champion RED list to seinen and I don't care since I'm not here to point fingers, but the magazine is considered a "shounen" magazine. If the furigana over EVERY SINGLE KANJI doesn't have you convinced, consider that authors refer to it as shounen when talking about it. An easy reference point is the little extra comic at the end of Mono Kuro... though it's untranslated so you'll have to look at a raw. There are other cases I've seen this as well, but I don't recall them off the top of my head.



It may be true that young boys are not who it really appeals or sells to, but that's what it's marketed and classified as. Compare Champion RED to its sister publication Champion RED Ichigo, which IS marketed as "seinen", and also lacks furigana and tends to border on hardcore pornography. If you really don't want to call RED's series shounen, then I don't really care, as I dislike the demographic classification anyway since a lot of stuff is impossible to classify, but the point is, they're not adult series and they're NOT seinen.

I apologize if I sound whiny, but a number of series I've translated and am working on are published in Champion RED, and it annoys me to see that "Seinen" continually added back when I remove it.

Also, sorry if this is the wrong section, but it seemed right. <_<

Well, it does say Shonen manga.
The person that keeps changing it probably got the issues confused?

Thanks for pointing it out in any case!

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still, the series in the magazine are sometimes messed up e.g franken fran(good manga but bordering on guru) and mark of quesar(very bad manga and bordering on hentai)
so i would prefere to keep the seinen ranking

while we are at it Sho-Comi is not a shojo book eater even if marketed as such becasue this one is glorifying sex and has rape scenes (mothers in japan tried to get it banned, look it up on google)



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Well then residentgrigo, the person could add "mature" and/or "adult" to the genre tags instead, because the terms shojo, josei, shounen, and seinen are strictly determined from the label of the magazine no matter what the contents of a series are. Therefore, the aforementioned genres would only be based on the magazine from whence it came. Though I, and maybe others as well, appreciate the thought that you were looking out for the general population, even if you were not the one to change the genre.

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(NOTE: I ignore pms regarding rejected unscanalted oneshots/doujinshis. Far too many people don't bother reading the FAQ, hence I won't bother replying anymore.)

So this means that champion red ichigo is also by default shonen because the publishers sais so. Interesting.
Their takabon version of maid in japan (one of the worst harem mangas i have ever looked at) can be found in the porn section of some shops(http://en.akibablog.net/archives/2008/07/50701139.html).

So my question is, is it in japan that simple to slap an shonen label on "adult orineted" manga/or magazines and publish them as such?

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

Champion RED Ichigo is a different magazine from Champion RED. Ichigo IS advertised as seinen, but it's not R18. The whole point of that Akiba Blog article you linked to is that the manga is not R18, but because of the extreme content, that store put it with the erotic books, which was somewhat amusing. I actually mentioned that in my first post: the series running in it come very close to pornography very frequently.

To answer your question: frankly, yes, but that doesn't mean everyone will be happy about it. On Akiba Blog lately there have been a lot of articles about Champion RED and Champion RED Ichigo, since they really push the limits of non-R18 magazines. Ichigo's Yomeiro-Choice even moved to RED, and the infamous Akisora had a couple chapters published in RED as well.

But that's why genre classifications like Adult and Mature exist here on MU. Check out the Yomeiro-Choice page. Since it's running in Champion RED it's classified as Shounen, but still, its material is obviously (if you've read it) rather extreme, so the Mature tag is included as well.

Last edited by gringe at 7:11 am, Apr 5 2009

thanks gringe for your reply

I have one more censorship question about to-love-ru(i am not reading this manga, have just read some chapters and internet coveredge).

The blog i metioned has a lot of coveredge of to love ru and the manga is serialised in shonen jump. Their takabon version have nipples readded like for example spice and wolf (i am reading and linking this one).

Spice and Wolf is seinen, so no problem there, but is shone jump is
realy so relaxed about putting out and "aged up" version of their weekly book(not monthly)?
Their weekly magazine is pretty strict with the no nipple policy. (I know thas YQ is allowing nudety,eg claymore but their magazine is a shonen/seinen hybrid so a different market).

Don´t missundend me i am no prude by and means (i am 20, from germany and my favourite manga is berserk) but japans stands on censorship is just confusing me.

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Nipples aren't that big of a deal for a shounen series, especially since To-Love-ru never does anything incredibly shocking or controversial. Just a lot of nipple flashing and some light suggestive themes. Shounen Jump has published plenty of series with nipples in the past (I"s, Dragon Ball), and they didn't used to have such strict policies for the magazine. They wouldn't put out something like Yomeiro-Choice or Maid in Japan under the Shounen Jump name most likely, but who knows. Shounen Jump aims for different audiences than Champion RED, which I think is the biggest factor in what they allow (SJ targets boys and tries to be accessible to all ages, RED targets the otaku market primarily).

"Censorship" of manga in Japan and policies of publishers are difficult to explain. In general, it seems that suggestive material is not restricted as much from young people as in other parts of the world, until it becomes straight-up porn and gets the R18 label. The question is where the line between R18 and non-R18 is, but that's somewhat blurry and in the end is up to the publisher.

Let's take Akisora as an example. Although the whole story is about sex and every chapter is about some sexual adventure of some kind, because they don't explicitly show genitals (though if they did, they'd still have to censor it), they can get away with having it be non-R18. It could probably also pass as R18 though, since there are R18 series that don't show genitals either.

So yeah, it's confusing. I remember reading somewhere that the line between porn and not-porn can be a bit blurrier in Japan than the rest of the world, and that seems to be the case.

i know that dragon ball and video girl ai (by the IS guy) had nudety but i thought that weekly jump changed their policy in the last years.
(In the early 90 they censored their own stuff because of the otaku murderer but retained breasts.) IS (heavent read it because i musliked video girl ai a little) started in 1997 so maybe they changed their policy durig its serialisation, who know. But i am shure that the current jump has a no nipple policy going on. (They talk in bakuman a little about or around it )

So Yomeiro-Choice (have now looked at all the chapters and am hating it) went from chapion to red because it got too steamy ?
I have also looked at akisora and the works of the autor in general. Akisora is basicly all his hentai series in one(the same plot and situations) without the genetals so its now seinen and not r18. Hm the lines are blurry indead.

Are the takabon of akita shoten also all marked as shonen or are some of them switched to seinen when printed ? And are (young) teens realy the guys who by akumetsu(very good jet very adult "shonen") or claymore(good berserk ripoff with more girls and less rape) in takabon format or are the publishers playing to two markets at once ?

(For example the playboy is in germany 16+ so teens can get it legaly. My favourite is "bravo magazine" about fashion, stars and so on for teens. They have a 6? page "doctor summmer" section where teen eg 15 year old girls/boys can show their nude body in nature and it is not regarded as childporn because it has educational/artistic value or something. Because of this males of all ages like the bravo and not only tees are the tardet market javascript:insert(' ') )


ah and thank you for the akiba blog. The blog itself and the articles about akita shoten ichigo are very interesting. They give liberal character dolls which turn naked with heat or 24/7 swimmwear. Funny indead.

Last edited by lambchopsil at 12:35 pm, Apr 5 2009

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
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I'm sorry you don't like it. But no, Champion RED is marketed as being for younger audiences than Ichigo. Why it was moved to a magazine for younger people is anyone's guess, but the content of the series only seems to have gotten more extreme. This only shows that content =/= demographic.


Publishers publish different magazines targeted at different demographics (they aren't "marked" as anything), and the demographic wouldn't change from the magazine to the tankoubon. Akita Shoten does not publish only shounen series, just as Shueisha (which owns Shounen Jump) doesn't only publish shounen series. There's also Business Jump, Young Jump (which runs Gantz and other stuff), and other magazines published by Shueisha which target other demographics. Publishers tend to focus on a range of demographics rather than just one.

Let's look at some examples. Akita Shoten publishes the following magazines:
Shounen Champion - SHOUNEN
Young Champion - SEINEN
Young Champion Retsu - SEINEN
Champion RED - SHOUNEN
Champion RED Ichigo - SEINEN
Princess - SHOUJO

They publish even more magazines than this, but as you can see, they encompass a wide range of demographics.

I'm not sure where this discussion is even going now. Hopefully you understand that demographic categorization isn't always clear-cut, since a lot of series will sell to people outside of its target demographic. Demographic is ultimately unimportant in categorizing a series' genres and is only really useful for organizing by magazines it was originally published in.

Champion Red is actually neither strictly Seinen nor strictly Shounen magazine. It's in gray zone.

Champion RED derived from Monthly Shonen Champion and was to be aimed for audience older than this particular shounen magazine. And while in the beginning it seemed to hold up to the initial set up, currently it has gone more toward shonen. The change occurred in 2006 when new main editor was introduced. Champion RED Ichigo was meant to be Champion RED extra number. Well, technically it still is Champion RED extra number, as it is stated that any particularly popular series in Champion RED Ichigo may be transferred to Champion RED.


Hi gringe, I was just made aware of this thread, you seem to be very knowledgeable about demographics, which makes me very happy, you are welcome to check this thread:

http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=9924

for any further objections/discussions in regard to the demographics of the magazines listed on MU. All correction and suggestions are welcome, though i'm not sure how many people actually follow it.


Now that I'm checking it both Comipedia and Mangacast list Champion RED as Seinen/Young Seinen


Personally, I remember putting both magazine on seinen scale, prior adopting a more liquid scale for josei, just to be on safe side, because Ichigo is mainly moe, bishoujo. Since I'm still a bit chocked with rl, I'm just going to move Champion RED to the gray zone shonen side to avoid any further confusion (or perhaps this will create even more confusion, not sure yet)

It doesn't matter what content it is. If it's marketed at girls, it's a girls' magazine. Sho-comi is a shoujo magazine because that's what the publisher calls it. It's as simple as that. It's NOT a 'young girls' (Nakayosi, Ciao, Ribon) comic magazine.

Shoujo can be marketed to different ages. Cookie and Margaret are shoujo, but they're meant for maybe 14+ year old girls, whereas Nakaoyosi, Ciao, and Ribon are catered to a younger demographic. (9~12?)

Nakayosi ran the smutty Kedamono Damono.

Sho-comi/Cheese! are probably meant for girls my age. 16-17 and older. Then, once a girl gets into her 20's, she reads Josei manga. Or something like that.


The same goes for shounen. It can be marketed at different age groups, but it doesn't make it seinen.

(Interestingly enough...Chi's Sweet Home is a seinen comic, which should tell you that the content of a comic DOES NOT MATTER. It's the magazine it's published in)

Since an admin already stated the stance MU takes on this issue, there isn't really much need to keep going with this topic.

If you're really concerned about the people messing with the tags then provide the information and reason necessary and request it to be locked.

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