I have a question regarding the rule of 'demography' labels on this website. I am wondering about this because of Comic Bridge magazine and Webmanga original, especially Pixiv Comic.

Baka-Updates contains labelling information about the so-called demography: shounen, shoujo, josei, and seinen manga. But these labeling are often oversimplified or misunderstood "for boys", "for girls", "for women", and "for men".

AFAIK, that's not really shounen shoujo manga definition. Shounen manga is simply manga published in shounen manga magazine (Weekly Shounen JUMP for example) or have shounen manga imprint label when it is published as a volume (JUMP Comics). Whether it is called shounen or shoujo manga is determined by publisher/editorial department. Target audience is a separate matter.

Most BL manga is shoujo-muke or josei-muke (target girls or female readers) but they are not shoujo nor josei manga. Some GL manga are published in seinen manga magazine. Comic Bridge is a "seinen magazine read by female readers" (女性が読む青年誌) as stated on the official website of Comic Bridge and Kadokawa press release. Morning is "a seinen magazine for adult men and women" (オトナ男女向け本格青年誌) as stated on Kodansha website. There are a considerable amount of other magazines that don't follow the "shounen = for boys" etc, or just don't have such a label and just a manga magazine.

If we want to dissect deeper, manga category can be officially different with the magazine, especially webmanga.

Most Comic Bridge's manga for example, are tagged as seinen manga in its official NicoNico Seiga channel, but a few of them are tagged as "Other manga" (その他マンガ). Then, Pixiv Comic doesn't employ shounen/shoujo label. Gangan Pixiv for example, is just a collaboration between Square Enix and Pixiv to publish Pixiv original manga. The manga published there various tags in NicoNico Seiga official channel, but when it is printed as a book, they are Gangan Comic Pixiv, which is often put under shounen manga because Gangan Comic is Square Enix's shounen manga brand.

So, my question is, what is the labelling stance in this website?:

1. Does it follow the publisher/editorial department, such as Comic Bridge and Morning are tagged as seinen? Or does it follow the target audience of the magazine, such as Comic Bridge is tagged as josei, while Morning is tagged as seinen and josei?

2. What about original webcomic? Does it follow other official channel, imprint label, or just no tag? AFAIK, there is a webcomic category in Japan Magazine and Publishers Association, but Baka Updates doesn't have this tag.

Thank you!

Last edited by AkatsukiKawa at 2:25 pm, May 17 2023

The site's rule was always magazine-based before. They've honestly become a mess with the flood of Korean Webtoons and other mixed online publishing though.

Yes, but by magazine-based, is it the target audience of the magazine or as what the publisher said about the magazine?

Comic Bridge is seinen magazine for female readers as stated in its official website, Kadokawa press release, and its official NicoNico Seiga channel. Baka Updates tagged manga published in Comic Bridge as josei. If we follow magazine, should not it be seinen? But then Baka Updates tagged Jump Kai, a seinen manga magazine focused on female readers, as seinen manga. So it is very confusing and inconsistent.

Korean webtoons, AFAIK, doesn't really have shounen/shoujo tag. However, when they are published in Japan, they got such tag. For example, many romance fantasy manhwa is published under FLOS Comic label, a shoujo manga label. So for me, it makes sense to tag it as shoujo.

I cannot say anything about manhwa and manhua that were not published in Japan though...

ETA: To add more example, Koisuru Soiree (NTT Solmare) targets women in their 20-30ish, but it is a shoujo manga brand, as stated in the company website. So, should this kind of magazine be tagged as shoujo manga or josei manga?

Last edited by AkatsukiKawa at 3:14 pm, May 17 2023

there are other factors that influence labels/genre as they're officially supported

any factor that could reduce purchasing will be eliminated
why advertise something as 'for older women' and influence a large market share to NOT buy the product

will a 12yr old relate to the bleak dating wasteland of a 30yr old MC?? obviously this is shoujo entertainment at it's finest!
and even if they only buy 1 issue; that's 1 issue more than they would have bought if they labelled it josei

Magazines that carry manga with no demographic as Newtype exist and I remember Manga Erotics F simply targeting adults for example so this issue is way older. The site isn´t quite designed for manhua where gender divides can be found but the rest becomes a mess. No one is solving that issue though...

Morning is still an interesting case worth discussing. It should have been a Seinen magazine until some point. But when? All sorts of Wikipedia language options have it as Seinen with sources from the 00s but it seems to be gender neutral now and its Japanese wiki sites reflect that. Champion Red also went from Shounen (that caused controversy even in Japan) to Seinen at some point so we have legacy Shounen manga and newer works as Seinen with no clear divide. The fun of putting literature into boxes but Japan´s focus on demographics remains strong.
It´s easier for bookstores to arrange shelves due to that for example and Western fans rarely bother to look up what is what. Skip to Loafer being Seinen is the most recent kerfuffle.

If YOU notice that demographic X magazine carries as a manga as Y as a bound release or digitally then post in that´s mangas forum with a link. Make it a teachable moment.

Edit: Skip and Loafer´s anime is listed as Shoujo on Crychroll US and Germany. 🙄 🙄 🙄 This is why we can´t have nice things. It won an award in the category for adults right as the anime started.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 3:02 am, May 18 2023

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Morning is still a seinen manga magazine to this point. The problem is the definition of seinen magazine that the English community thought as manga for adult men.

Straight from Japanese Wikipedia, these are the definition of shounen, shoujo, josei, and seinen manga:

少年漫画（小学生 - 高校生中心の漫画）
少女漫画（小学生 - 高校生、一部大人の女性向けの漫画を含む）
青年漫画（高校生以上）
女性漫画 - 大人の女性を対象とする漫画。 ヤング・レディースを含む。

Only shoujo and josei manga are gender specific. Shounen and seinen manga are categorization based on age group. And AFAIK shounen and seinen as a word are gender neutral. At least, I am pretty sure that shounen in the legal definition refers to both girls and boys. It just means juvenile.

That's why we have shounen and seinen manga that target female readers or both male and female readers. Aside from Comic Bridge that I mentioned in the beginning, there is also Jump Kai, a seinen manga magazine, that targets female readers since it launched. Then we have Monthly Comic Gene, a shounen manga for female readers (少女のための少年誌), that literally said it is a shounen manga for girls who are not satisfied with shoujo manga that is devoted to romance (source: editorial department interview)). If you read the Kadokawa press release I linked at first, Comic Bridge was also made with that concept.

Newtype is not a manga magazine. You see in Kadokawa website it is under anime magazines, that's why it is not a shounen/shoujo/josei/seinen manga. But yes, manga magazine can simply not carrying any demographic. Harta is one I am thinking of atm, there is also Comic Ruelle.

But anyway, my question was, what is the meaning of 'demography' tag in Manga Updates? Does it follow how the Japan magazine calls itself, follow what English community thinks of shounen/shoujo manga (target audience), or does it follow how foreign publishers market their manga, as it can be different with Japan?

ETA: Even Weekly Shounen JUMP is marketed toward female readers nowsaday. From Shueisha Media Guide 2021, Shounen JUMP is: 老若男女問わずみんなが楽しめる世界No.1少年マンガ誌. To make it clear though, there are also shounen manga that targets specifically boys, on top of my head: Comic Rex.

Last edited by AkatsukiKawa at 3:40 am, May 18 2023

What did you mean by officially supported? What I was talking about was the 'labeling' directly from the publishing company (Kadokawa, Kodansha, Shueisha, etc) or their official channel and interviews, and not from how the manga stores, such as C'moA, EbookJapan, Rakuten Kobo, etc, label the manga in their stores.

Those from the publisher website, official channels, or editorial departments, should be official, aren't they? Or is there more official source than that? I can only think of labelling from Japanese Magazine and Publisher Association (JMPA), but not all magazines are registered in this JMPA.

ETA: And about what you said, is it what actually happens (has sources such as press release or interview) or is it just what you think? If that's the case, there is no reason to advertise something that target everyone as seinen manga. Shounen manga would be much better as it is the mainstream and seinen manga has those 'gritty, sexual violence, and dark' images, especially with Berserk.

Last edited by AkatsukiKawa at 4:38 am, May 18 2023

I have no idea if this premise holds true for boys comics
the contrast between girls comics is startling
it's like reading fiction vs non-fiction

I'm glad I don't read seinen if that's all they're offering

The Seinen magazines (and some Shounen) that have gravure covers tend to be those that really go for men. A men´s magazine in the same way Playboy was but with comics. Basically what Heavy Metal Magazine did the 80s in America and Europe. Morning is again the perfect example of the opposite due to pushing itself as a comic's magazine. Manga on the cover at all times. The opposite would be Young Animal. Some sort of idol on the cover, 10+ pages of a nude photoshoot at the start and 1 to 2 Sex manga magazine spin-offs from YA in the title as the publisher is too chicken to publish a hentai magazine. "Male gaze" to the max. The 2 faces of Seinen. Yet it still caries 3-gatsu no Lion, the one everyone thinks is Josei.
Shounen Jump+ and Jump Square (the old Monthly Jump) are pretty good examples of no overarching demographic to figure out at this point if one would go by the wrong impression that content = demographic. The Psycho-Pass IP is another perfect example of going for either all demographics or none specifically as all 4 have been covered by releases. My Little Pony and way too many Magical Girls shows were a hit with men in their 20s to 30s. Etc.

OP is correct that the female demographic is basically a ghetto. Things for women are for them exclusively and not just in Japan but male publications are wide releases. I remember the author of My Dress-Up Darling giving an interview about how she tries to balance out the opposing expectations of her gender-divided audience.

The site's edict for print manga is pretty clear in the end and remains steadfast. If it ran in demographic X magazine and you have no other info that tag with X. If you "need and adult" then open up a forum question. If the manga changed magazines then go with the most recent. Is your manga in a male and female publication at the same time and isn´t a spin-off of a work with a clear demographic for itself then may god be with you...
Dorohedoro was one of the few when I pushed it up to the admins due to how messy its end-of-life publication got. They decided to keep it Seinen due to how ultimately unintentional the switch down to Shounen was for the last 2 of 23 volumes.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 4:36 pm, May 18 2023

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As bad as it is, I go with the original. Gfantasy clearly is mostly aimed at women now but is Shounen because that was the original audience. I wish publications could have some sort of wiki page, so people could detail what they are and be able to search for manga within a magazine etc. And gene is Shoujo, it is in the Shoujo section of bookstores and gene has been around for awhile, Shounen but for girls is still aimed at girls. The concept of Shounen or Seinen for females is simply because of female being a ghetto, Shoujo/Josei being a sort of bad word.

For Shoujo and Josei I don't care as much as long as it's in the female demographic. It's pretty vague with how there are a lot of Shoujo but for women type magazines.

Last edited by A Manga Anon at 1:47 am, May 19 2023

It almost sounds like we'd be better off with tags that specified the target audience (boys 8-12, girls 8-12, YA General, YA Female, YA Male, etc. Or 4-8, 8-12, 13-17, 18+, males, females, other, etc.) instead of what the magazine was/targeted/labelled itself as/ended up as. Maybe a website update can do this?

Or maybe it's a terrible idea and everyone just has to spend time to learn what each of the labels means. I mean, a senien and a shonen read very distinctly once you get it. But... then they sometimes feel like the other and I don't know what to call them.

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GFantasy is still registered as shounen-muke magazine in Japan Magazine Advertising Association. It is still a shounen magazine.

And Gene is by press release and editor-in-chief interview, is a shounen magazine for female readers. The philosophy of the magazine was because shoujo manga magazine is devoted to romance so many female has been looking stories that doesn't focus on romance in shounen manga. They created the magazine to fill the gap, especially because they were a newly founded company and they need something to sell.

So, why would Gene a shoujo manga magazine, or Comic Bridge a josei manga, if they call themselves a shounen and seinen magazine? And Gene tags their manga with various tags (shounen manga, shoujo manga, other manga, 4-koma manga) in its official NicoNico Seiga channel.

Third party mangastores (C'moA, EbookJapan, Rakuten Kobo, etc) labels the magazine as they want. GFantasy is labeled as shoujo manga magazine in C'moA for example. Why would it override the statement from the publisher companies, editorial department, or official channels?

Way too complicated and way too much work. I don't think even Japanese website does this. The closest manga database I could find is Mangapedia, but it only listed the magazine where the manga is published. Target demo is very complicated, fluid, and heavy. I mean, it should refer to official statement or it would be a misinformation. It is a paid job lol.

Personally, I think people should learn shounen doesn't just mean for boys, and so on, like you said. And yes, I also find that 'genre' have different 'flavors' and characteristic depending on the magazine. Shounen etc is not really demography just like what English community believes, but a genre. Most Japanese websites, including JP Wikipedia, list them under genre xD

Last edited by AkatsukiKawa at 9:21 pm, May 19 2023

CMIIW, Monthly Action sometimes feature big boobs idols or cosplayers on their covers, but they target everyone according to the editorial department interview. And it published "Holmes of Kyoto" and "Orange". Orange was published in shoujo manga magazine, and Holmes of Kyoto is an adaptation of a josei-muke novel.

So, I don't think those cover can be used to determine the target audiences of the magazine. Young Animal IIRC targets men though, at least JP Wikipedia said that.



Even if the publishers, the press release, official channel, and the editor-in-chief themselves said that they are seinen or shounen manga, if they target women, they are josei and shoujo manga in this website? Such as, Gene is a shoujo/josei manga, Comic Bridge is a josei manga, and Jump Kai is a josei manga? Very weird disrespectful to the said magazine.

And I am really wondering, do you know where did the Web Comic 'demo' tags came from? Pixiv Comic especially... AFAIK, Pixiv Comic doesn't employ such tag...

Sure, the exact thing I used as an example was complicated. But the way it is now is just as—if not, more—complicated because "shounen", "senien", "josei" etc. aren't even proper demographics anymore.

Official statements aren't reliable, and just because something is a paid job, doesn't mean it's done right. There's a reason users can edit information on this website.

A demographic is a group of people defined by a specific set of concrete descriptors. If the definition of the descriptors shift, the demographic in question becomes unreliable and is therefore not as useful. And there is absolutely stuff coming out of Shounen Jump I refuse to call shounen.

So let me simplify my idea using FictionRatings, something many websites use, including FictionPress/Fanfiction. net:

Rating: K, K+, T, M, MA

For the definitions (https://rating-system.fandom.com/wiki/FictionRatings).

That's it. We already have tags for just about everything under the sun so let's just make use of those.

Yes, it's nice to have recognized groupings for kinds of content for ease of discoverability. But having categories with fluid definitions just seems like a good way to become irrelevant. And, to be honest, for me, those categories are irrelevant just because I can't trust them to be consistent the way they used to be.

Last edited by LazyReviewer at 4:04 am, May 20 2023

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I'm a jack of all trades but master of none. Too many jars and not enough hands.