There's no need for a "neutral" option. The question has been amended (I'm going by lamb's word as I never saw the original question), and depending on how one chooses to interpret it it is actually possible to respond objectively without having to change the existing options.

Yeah, my previous two posts were in reference to the original question. I'm typically against neutral options as long as the question is worded in a flexible enough manner.

To respond to the actual poll, nowadays I read shoujo the least, though back when I first started manga it was shoujo, shoujo, and more shoujo. Now that I read less manga (I've gotten pickier), the series that I follow now are mostly ones I started years ago, and a lot of the shounen and seinen series I like have a habit of... not ending.

The poll may be called stupid/polarizing but "dislike" is a synonym for hate and even the 3rd addition hasn´t changed it as even the headline stayed. Some comments even prove that not all demographics are built equal or share a similar amount of respect and the communities provoked lack of prejudice against a major form of publications isn´t a given on otaku sites. Reddit, ANN or 4chan come to mind and my libraries new manga/comic lector further dislikes it if such tell a story. and if I got an Euro every time I heard that medium X (or even better fictitious writing) has no value...
Half the reason I came up with the question was to provoke a reaction and i further took my wording from the prequel on March 9th 2013 where the female targeted Yaoi won with 40% and hentai came next with 20%. Yaoi though also won the "Favorite Demographic?" poll from October 18th 2008 with 21%. "Demographic you read the most?" from April 25th 2014 had Yaoi as a runner up with 21% after Shonen with 27%. Fascinating but the respective forum is also a traffic tycoon.
Our downright schizophrenic poll mausoleum is certainly worth a look.

I suspect that the site has more female then male users (the margin could be small) or the Manga Fu Genre Filter / Highlight settings would look different amongst other hints which have been pointed out. Imercenary´s to the point breakdown of genres is spot on.

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

To hate something is to actively do it.
It's not the same as to find something less interesting or appealing.

Yaoi and hentai are much more common (wouldn't say reasonable) targets of hatred, because they depict, for the most part, explicit sex which remains more controversial than violence, for example.
Think of it more like the bara of demographics. A niche, if you will.

The main demographics, like the base colors, are much more varied in their depictions and themes, while being much less offensive to many, at least generally.
Which is also why I don't see the reason for your calling the poll results "schizophrenic".

You may suspect, but according to MU's own polls (unless you choose to disregard them), it's pretty equal.

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I mean the poll results over the years in general but the user base has been changing too. (I wonder if the poll data can be monetized.)

Violence is more controversial in big parts if western Europe as Blue Is the Warmest Color (the comic is superior) or Nymphomaniacis are 16+ over here. The Passion of the Christ though proved to be a flop in the very Christian Germany while America soaked it up.
All 3 are respectable film though.
Japan on the other hand started to turn away from both forms of extreme of content in the mass (that part is important) market and especially 80s manga are more wild then the ones of today. Hard content is further unheard off on nighttime tv (2/3+ of today´s anime) as Psycho-Pass 2 met with backlash when the new team decided to commit to the violent nature the story that predecessor didn´t show on screen and was even forbidden by the sponsors. The fact that the identical in story Psycho Pass anime (josei), manga (shonen) and novels (seinen) shows how pointless our categorizing monikers can be. Or should... but pleas do it right dear updaters.

US comics started to changed their tune as the 3rd biggest publisher Image now has 15+ rated books as East of West with non sexualised breasts, dismemberment and swearing. Their or Avatars 17+ books can´t even be published in Japan as is and the last 2 Eisner winners Saga and Sex Criminals are exceptionally sexual but both now have more female then male readers. Both are LGBT community darlings too.
Digital publishing should be the way to solve the inherent hypocrisy of the current state of manga as especially politic statements are nearly unheard of now but that is another topic and European comics have always embraced the sexual and violent (or homosexual / pornographic) content due to Frances rather liberal stance on such matters who are the driving force of that market. Back to manga.

I have a bit of an axe to grind with one of the 4 members of the manga god hand but that will come later as i have zero interest to derail my own discussion piece.
The notion that a target audience in inherently unhateable is already a good think piece and the way the percentages are staring to shake out is getting interesting.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 11:07 am, Jun 15 2015

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

i don't hate any of those. not even close. terrible poll.

Can't choose. I like all of them.

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So you're saying you read all four demographics in equal quantities? Lol.

I voted seinen just because it's the demographic I read the least of. Not really by choice -- it just kind of happened that way. I actually only started reading josei and seinen a few years ago, having already read a bunch of shounen and shoujo, and then I discovered Comic Zero-Sum (the general style of whose stories is very much up my alley), so josei went up a lot from that. But I definitely don't "hate" any demographic, since with really good series, who they're geared toward honestly says nothing about them. In general, I tend to stay away from the formulaic, regardless of demo, and many series I read, though categorized as one or the other, don't fit into a particular mold (i.e. josei-like shounen like Pandora Hearts, very neutral shoujo like Natsume's Book of Friends, family-friendly seinen like Chi's Sweet Home, and so on).

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writer | librarian | critic

Definitely shounen and shoujo although I still read more shoujo than shounen. As an older reader, I prefer to read about stories happening somewhere other than school grounds...

Sure but which society are your talking about? In "Western" societies, yeah. Thats a fair statement. But in Japanese society? Sorry, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Actually I've read a number of volumes of 7 Seeds, before I dropped it. Is it still ongoing? The only memories I really have of it are; theres more than 4 survivors and they find more, people were chronologically frozen( ), the plot is reminiscent of Fallout and it goes nowhere.



Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

I vote Josei off the island as it is the red headed stepchild of the market and the lack of strong fleeings on it during the discussion is already interesting.

Helter Skelter and Maihime Terepsikola won the Tezuka Grand Prize and A Cruel God Reigns the runner up award but this low amount of such wins for the highest critical honor a manga can get (yes Shoujo is underrepresented too) is telling.
Enough Josei works even win Shoujo awards or random essay/special prizes so the critics can´t care that much. A higher honor is to get an anime (long and during the day if possible) but Josei ones barely exist anymore (and most modern Shoujo shows are night time only ~sigh). Even Noitamina which was supposed to give us/me such has gone astray. They can very well get life action adaptions but my respect for these is rather low due to the no budget nature and none can get rich that way.
The clear goal for at least the publisher is to become a bestseller but best-selling manga only shows me Sazae-san that became a family targeted anime franchise and is thus Josei in the same way Shin Chan is Seinen, Nana (i tried fixing but wiki don´t care) and Nodame Cantabile that got a full anime by Noitamina so i will take it as an exception to the rule and crown it king even if Tomoko now joined the Seinen club.
Chihayafuru is currently having a good go at it too but both also won a Shoujo award. See how little this makes sense? As if the market doesn't care about putting publications into boxes that stop after one turns 30-ish. I am already too old to be targeted by traditional Seinen (it means youth) if i go by our definition alone but the older shewing Weekly Manga Times / Gorakudo exist, so does Like Shooting Stars in the Twilight (the Bande dessinée market is flooded with such tales) and the king of the mountain Golgo 13 is even read by high ranking politicians. Pointing out the reverse for Josei is way harder and recent major trend are all males casts and series that come of as Shonen so what is the point again?

Emma, Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms, Working Man or magazines as Fellow! could/should be Josei and who knows how the readership shakes out but the publishers will have a reason for the marketing decision. I further gave perfect scores to Honey and Clover where the author is now a Seinen girl (a lot of quality female writers tend to go for the male market after establishing themselves) and Kids on the Slope but the manga still hasn´t come to America and only the rushed Watanabe anime.
Josei magazines tend to further be niche (have fun listing a few without a database) and manga as Paradise Kiss can even be published in lifestyle or fashion magazines which is fine but that brings me to my last and most severe reason. Josei is the demographic that covers the least amount of topics with the male publications winning with a landslide here. Content limitations differences between Shoujo and Josei tend to be less severe when compared to male ones due to the lesser amount of themes covered (e.g. Death Note refused to get political and sociological) and girls get enough Smut and Shonen-ai instead of Yaoi. The perfect Mars or Please Save My Earth wouldn?t have improved if they got to run in a more grown up magazine and Nana straight out breaks the system.
The difference between both is that they are placed in different corners in book stores (remember those?) and one is predominantly about high school freshmen finding the love of their life while the other is about OL´s below the age of 27 finding the husband of their dreams if one is honest. I may understand that Japan considers comics and games a children?s hobby that one is supposed to outgrow but i frankly expect more.
Variety isn´t quality too but the much derailed girls manga have more reach of genre content despite the obvious negative contractions and they are a gateway drug in a way that the older sister isn´t. Josei is even the least represented amongst my reading list as it is statistically the rarest one. Agree or not but Mikako17 gave it the moniker Shoujo 2.0 and math doesn´t lie as scanlators can´t be "blamed" alone here.

Thus i dislike, nay hate that the demographic isn´t getting a time to shine but these are a sham anyway (please note my job and i have been a comic/anime guy since the 90s) and i highly suggest to look at the respective magazine when you next consider a manga´s demographic as Seinen by Young Animal isn´t the one even Young Animal Arashi will give you to keep it simple. Printed magazines are furthermore Dinosaurs and not a good format to begin with so I, For One, Welcome Our New Digital Overlords.
Bleach was mentioned so i will note that One Piece is now technically a Seinen manga with healthy amount of female readers. Even at my library and our Madoka manga are in constant rotation by girl between 12-16 but aren´t these for serious adult men only?
NBC´s ultra-gory Hannibal gained more female then male viewers which now influenced the show runner´s decision to not go into the sexual violence aspect of the source material and how many porn sites use My Little Pony as mascots as modern day Meo is more of a Seinen phenomenon than anything. Even veterans of the I'm Looking For board don´t take demographic only requests that strictly.
Berserk was lastly envisioned as Shonen once upon a time . Thank god Hakusensha snapped him up and not Akita Shoten but Vinland Saga was published as a boys manga for a bit in 2005 too. Of course! I wouldn´t even call male targeted manga that much more sexist as the one´s for women but that is another topic.
I just know that female targeted publication are easier to spot then male ones and my respect for girls manga as a medium is only marginally lower the the ones for boys if i had to line up all 4 in order of quality. Japan also takes the girl comic market way more serious then any other nation currently so that one has my respect overall.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 12:30 pm, Jun 18 2015

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

Why in the world would I be referring to Japanese society? We've had previous polls that confirm the majority of the users on this site are from North America and Europe.



It sounds like you dropped 7 Seeds fairly early. Tamura-sensei tends to flesh out the characters before throwing lots of plot at you. Which is the order I prefer (I'd rather care about the characters I'm reading about). Kudos for giving it a shot, though. I remember reading 1 volume and dropping it for over a year before I picked it up again and marathoned the heck out of it.




Sorry, I don't understand your reaction to the part you bolded, unless your experiences in the matter have been completely different. I was never ridiculed for being into RC cars, liking DBZ, getting into fights, or having mostly male friends when I was younger. Can't say the same for the boys who admitted they liked pink or playing with dolls.

Fast forward several years and now I have male friends who I have to pester before they admit they did something "girly" like cry during Angel Beats.

Josei
Shoujo
Seinen
Shounen

I have nothing against Shounen but it just so happens to be the type I read the least of.

Because theres no point in comparing Western gender expectations in something that was originally designed for Japanese audiences. All it does is reveal the fact that you're an ignorant fool. For all you know, MU might have had a massive influx of male Japanese manga readers who voted for Shoujo because they're afraid to admit they hate the genre publicly.



Because neither of us knows each other's background, your initial statement is meaningless.