Gender divisions in Japanese anime and manga marketing

Japanese Anime/Manga

A Division of Gender Culture: The Shojo and the Sh-nen

Countless arguments have risen about the dividing line of Japanese animation and comics marketing, especially regarding the age and gender groups. When looking at a specific comic or animation on a shelf, one usually examines it and decided then and there whether it is a work specifically geared to girls (shojo) or one targeting an audience of boys (sh-nen). Sometimes it takes more than just a quick glance at the artwork, perhaps even leafing through the contents of the story, the action sequences of the pages in the comics, and the elements included within the work. For the enthusiast, this careful look at the divide also means examining magazines that publish specifically for boys or girls, or even a gender-neutral aspect.

Still, there is no denying that there will be a divide. Female and/or male authors might be writing specifically for women; and the same can be said about authors writing specifically with a male audience in mind. Not to mention that thematic interests in stories also tend to hover along specific age groups almost as often as gender differences. The major classification, however, still points to the shojo and sh-nen divide, and while this division can easily be said to be a matter of which magazines are publishing the works, there is no helping that one can definitely find constant patterns to tell between the two techniques of boy and girl marketing.

2. Sh-nen, Boys' Comics

Having Tezuka at the helm and with the beginning magazines targeted specifically to males, it is no surprise that sh-nen manga, or boys' comics, makes up the largest denomination in the manga and anime sector. Sh-nen are "read by boys, men, girls, and women alike," and are "stories [that] reflect the fantasies and social history of an evolving Japan" (Drummond-Matthews, Angela). While demographics are certainly varied, the initial mindset is that this particular sector is aimed at boys, usually around their teenage years up to their late-20s. Themes range from a straight-up adventure story to a more complicated, more adult set of themes. Some are typically characterized by the drawing style -- rougher-looking males, overly voluptuous females; others are typified by their content -- violence, sexual gratifications, male fantasies; and yet others point out that one can easily tell the boys' content by the fact that almost no females come up as main characters in the stories (Ito, Kinko). This is, of course, not always true on certain manga and anime, but there are numerous amounts that fit these criteria.

Sh-nen are more easily categorized in subgenres, as opposed to shojo, which is much harder to discern with regards to genres. Typical boys' comics usually get split up into sports categories such as Takeshi Konomi's The Prince of Tennis, action/adventure such as Oda Eichirou's One Piece, horror such as Tsugumi Oba's Death Note, historical such as Nobuhiro Watsuki's Rur-uni Kenshin, mecha or giant robot such as Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Gigantor, and non-standard action series such as Yasuhiro Nightow's Trigun (Drummond-Matthews, Angela). For older male audiences, the seinen genre is also an option; these contain more adult themes, an example being Kouta Hirano's Hellsing.

Perhaps what further separate sh-nen from shojo, however, are the narrative and the storytelling of such works. For Drummond-Matthews, boys' comics follow a typical outline of a hero's adventure. There is the process of a "hero's journey," a set of stages illustrated in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Drummond-Matthews, Angela). In this journey, the hero gets the call to adventure, initially refusing said call, crosses the threshold anyway, is initiated by many trials, and then returns victorious. A great example of this journey can be found in Eichirou's One Piece, where the main character and his friends undergo what can be characterized as the hero's journey. Monkey D. Luffy, a young man with unnatural powers, dreams of recruiting ten powerful crew members to his cause on his way to becoming a pirate king (call to adventure). While on his travels, Luffy is reluctant to act as a typical pirate, but retaliates and shows his powers to defend his friends (refusal of the call). Through his adventures, he enters unnatural islands across the world (crossing of the threshold), and thereby faces many opponents on the way (initiation). After every battle, Luffy and his crew members gain a considerable amount of knowledge about their strengths, as well as a degree of notoriety to boot (return). This type of story is similar to sh-nen manga across the genres.

3. Shojo, Girls' Comics

Shojo, or girl's comics, was on a rise during the 1960s and 1970s, a period that gave female artists the opportunity to express their views on various themes. Girls' comics gave "female artists and their viewers [a] sphere where they could openly resist, subvert, and re-appropriate the limited social participatory roles to which they were confined" (Choo, Kukhee). In this sense, then, shojo became important as a means of female ambition, one that most did not necessarily get in their society. In the manga and anime industry, girls' comics corner at least 30% of the global market, and the highest-grossing manga in Japanese history happens to be Yoko Kamio's Hana Yori Dango, or Boys Over Flowers (Choo, Kukhee). The age groups of shojo usually take the same form as that of sh-nen; most shojo manga are tailored toward teenage girls to young women (though most likely, older women are also typical demographics of this sector), with separate branches for a much younger and a much older audience. The style and artwork that shojo artists employ are softer, prettier men and women -- characterized most of the time with huge eyes on both males and females and feminine features on males; in sh-nen ai (a branch of shojo, meaning "boys' love"), these men are called bish-nen, or "beautiful boy" (Welker, James).

Subgenres are much more difficult to find in a set of girls' comic, though there did seem to be a trend on particular generations of manga artists. The 1960s and 1970s gave Japanese culture a plethora of girls' comics that focused on cross-dressing girls taking on the roles of males. Once more, Tezuka has inspired the onslaught of this type of work, penning Ribon no kishi (Princess Knight), a tale about a girl "with a boy's heart," raised "as a boy so that s/he can ascend to the throne of a kingdom" (Welker, James). Another popular cross-dressing work -- with a similar type of story -- is Riyoko Ikeda's The Rose of Versailles. Taking on the role of males -- and perhaps even surpassing and leaving said males behind in light of better careers and a greater ambition -- was mostly a movement during the particular time period. However, cross-dressing females are not lost in contemporary shojo culture, what with works such as Bisco Hatori's Ouran High School Host Club and Hisaya Nakajo's Hanazakari no Kimitachi e (For You in Full Blossom), both of which have the main characters dressing up as male high school students in private schools.

This is, of course, not exclusively all of girls' comics. By the 1990s, there seems to be a "shift towards a more domestic portrayal of femininity that seems to suggest a new formation of gender relationships" (Choo, Kukhee). Suddenly, heroines in manga are more interested in the aspect of falling in and finding love than furthering careers. Sure, there is still that particular aspect and measure of success for the female, but for the most part, shojo gained its fame for the kawaii (cute) "fairy tale ending" -- tragic or otherwise -- that usually results. One perfect example of such a "prince charming" story would be Masami Tsuda's Kare Kano (His or Her Circumstances), which details the narrative of seemingly "perfect" Yukino Miyazawa. At her high school, Yukino meets the handsome Soichiro Arima, the seemingly "perfect" boy. The two travel down a road of a comedic and romantic relationship, discovering and opening up their true selves along the way. Through rough patches, the two manage to resolve differences and even end up together many years after high school.

4. Gray Matter, a Blurring of the Lines

This is not to say, however, that boys' comics and girls' comics are always going to be easy to tell apart. There will always be manga and anime that blur the lines between a girls or boys story; the mangaka group CLAMP has a large repertoire of varied works that are largely ambiguous when it comes to the shojo-sh-nen distinction. There will always be a number of males reading manga or watching anime that's usually denominated as shojo; for example a male might find the same amount of enjoyment in watching Hana Yori Dango that females do. Additionally, there will always be female enthusiasts who love watching and reading sh-nen than anything else; one can be female and enjoy the fascinating story told in Death Note. Of course, there are both types of people who love to delve into shojo and sh-nen, and everything else in between; one can enjoy One Piece and Ouran High School Host Club with equal fervor, remembering that both stories are distinctly different from each other.

No matter the inclination of the audience, it is important to note the dividing line of two of the manga and anime industry's major factions: the shojo and the sh-nen. The general styles of both factions differ greatly from each other in terms of aesthetics, narratives, and thematic elements. They differ in character roles and stereotypes, and they definitely tell different stories to endear themselves to particular audiences. Thus the culture of Japanese animation and comic books is more than just a matter of entertainment. This culture has a great amount of complexity, led by a marketing designation that caters to specific demographics.