The Truth About Shounen Vs Seinen (Remastered) 

The main take away is that shounen fans and seinen fans will always be in a competitio to see whos more annoying

"We are always trying to compare things instead of appreciating things for what they are" this needs to be said more. I cant stand to be part of the anime community that much because people just want to say that manga X is better than manga Y because of reasons.

I think it’s still okay to say “I prefer Seinen to Shounen” or vise versa. You just have to understand you’re saying “you prefer manga target at an older audience”

I used to be a Seinen Elitist but now I opened up to Shounen shows/mangas and found them to be unique and interesting *in their own way.* People need to stop having comparing contests and just enjoy them

Seinen elitists having an identity crisis after reading Chainsaw Man. Fellas, I meant CM is typically enjoyed by seinen fans so it gives them a crisis since it's still categorically shonen. I never said it's closer in tone to a seinen or better than other shonen series.

Great Teacher Onizuka is a shonen yet it had brought up many important and debatable topics into its series while still being a comedy centred manga which many seinen didn't even thought of talking even nowadays. The demographic matters very little as long as the author fully utilizes the medium he's given

This is truly an eye opener for both shonen and seinen demographics. I remember reading Aot and CSM for the first time and I was like " how the hell are these shonen? Then I eventually read Kaguya sama and found out it was a seinen manga and I got confused. This just explains the fact there's little to no line between manga demographics so instead just look at the manga for what it is and if you like then you like it. Great video Masked man👍🏼

The Masked Man blessed us with 3 videos this week alone and I couldn't be more thankful 🙏🏻

So, Elitist vs Power scalers competing to see who’s the most annoying to deal with. They’re demographics and within said demographics there exists a variety of works of varying quality.

I find it funny that Shojo & Josei dont have this problem, from what I've seen at least, since they're targeted for teenage girls (shojo) & young women or older women (josei) Speaking of shojo & josei, I highly recommend reading nana, its considered a "shojo" but is more like a "josei" I believe you'll love it

Essentially just elitists vs powerscalers

My favorites type of manga are mostly original/dark shonens (hxh, Aot, CSM, JJk...) And dark and psychological seinen (berserk, gantz, Oyasumi punpun, Takopii no genzai...) But I'll never look down on ppl who like classic shonen, Josei, shojos, It's called taste

7:45 « slice of life comedy » Shows goodnight Punpun

There's a reason why Shonen jump speaks to SO MANY of us. And from so many different cultures. So To write it off as it were nothing is annoying. Bleach is a series that can glide from Shonen to seinen.

always a good day when the masked man uploads

Thank you for this wonderful video😁👍 I have observed the past year that people love comparing two different movies/shows/anime/manga or any entertainment source and boast about the show they like and critize the show they think is inverior to an extreme degree when most of the time i love both of the anime/manga etc Some people forget that we are consuming them for entertainment purposes and to enjoy and cherish them, not compare them so much that some people do not want to consume something because of the amount of hate that anime/manga gets even when that series is good And hate on a popular series because of the amount of love it gets or they want to separate themself from the crowd

The reason why ppl confuse shounen and Seinen is because the most popular shounen manga in the West is from shounen jump, which mainly mainly makes action comedy series. Which is why when shounen jump produces works outside said genre like death note, promised neverland, and chainsaw man they are seen as “unusual” for shounen manga. Same with other shounen manga like attack on titan which is published in Shōnen magazine who normally publishes more diverse works like sports, romance, comedy, and thriller on top of action

I just hate these terms so much. When people are talking about “Shonen” when they are literally just referring to battle manga. And when they are referring to Seinen they think historical fiction and dark fantasy. We should stop using these terms to categorize manga. Not to mention that a lot of Seinen get categorized in that demographic because it uses more complex symbols that only adults can read.

Glad to see you doing a remaster! Revisiting past perspectives can be very important, especially for someone like you who's fresh out of publishing his own manga. Im sure it'll be interesting looking back for you in the future. On another note, a great video as always. Comparisons like these are certainly interesting, especially in our modern environment where more varied stories seem to gain a lot more track. I'll be looking forward to your next upload, so keep at it!

I think the biggest thing is that Shounen often portrays it's themes through lense of a teenager whilst sienen does so through the lense of an adult, regardless of genre. I think a good example is how sexuality is portrayed, where shounen often shows it as something desirable but tabboo and mysterious, seinen won't shy away from outright showing sex since it's such a regular part of adult life. Character arcs in seinen are often coming of age stories whilst seinen character arcs often more exisitential, akin to the experience a young adult goes through. An argument can be made that younger/older audience demographics are formed by the perspectives of it's protagonists and the fundamental ideas portrayed within the narrative. Yes you can easily make a categorization based on which magazine it was published in but, I think if you broke down the age demographics of each manga/anime you'll see a much more accurate result on whether it falls within seinen or shounen.

To be honest this video really opened my eyes alot, I was victim of the shonen and seinen comparison but after this video especially that final quote bit I will view things in a better light.

Personally, I’m more into shonen, as I find that’s often what attracts me the most. I’ve noticed how most of my favorites list compose of shonen. However, seinen definitely surpasses most shonen manga, and its chock full of the best manga/anime I’ve read like Berserk, Vagabond, Vinland Saga, Punpun, Monster, Pluto, Jojo’s, Holyland, Cowboy Bebop, Trigun (I’m pretty sure it’s a seinen), but even shonen has some of the best imo like GTO, Rurouni Kenshin, Slam Dunk, D. Gray-Man, One Piece, Fullmetal Alchemist, Yu Yu Hakusho, Mob Psycho, Bleach, etc. Honestly, it’s an annoying comparison. They each have strengths and flaws, but they’re each enjoyable in their own way. Just have fun reading and watching what you like.

I'm so glad you mentioned josei in this video because out of the four main manga demographics (five if you count kodomo), josei is easily the most unknown one. The fact that josei is so obscure makes me interested in reading mangas that fall under that demographic and it doesn't seem to ever get much love.

You've been cooking so much lately you're now a master chef and cool to see this one get a redux

Amen, brother! Well stated points all throughout!

Beautifully done masked

Thank you for elaborating the difference of Genre and Demographic. This video help a lot and h9pefully th3 misconseption gets fixed in the future.

cheeseburgers and hamburgers work well with fries

“They are both good” -🗿

Thanks dude, I really needed that clarification. And in 10 minutes at that.

love the background music. The music you used for the Darth Vader video also slapped

Both sides have elitists yet people think seinen only has elitists

subscribed appreciate u breakin it down mad knowledgeable

Bocchi The Rock is a seinen manga (along with a lot of other cute girls do cute things manga). Funny thing is one of the dudes from the Trash Taste podcast went to a Bocchi The Rock themed cafe in Japan and majority of the people there were adult men in suits, reflecting the manga's target demographic. Ironically he also said that when he went to a Berserk themed cafe it was majority girls lol.

Yeah, I used to have the misconception of Shonen, Seinen, etc. being a genre rather than a target demographic because of how the term is being used as if it were a genre, but now I understand it's just that a large portion of Shonen and Seinen have similar themes or story structures that some classify it as a shounen/seinen genre, making it confusing to others.

Gear 5 + one piece art, animation ,and storytelling keeps getting better every episode, and new berserk adaptation

Thanks masked for the shout out and i have been watching your videos since 2019. 🙂

That nike slippers you just showed 5:28 was just criminal bro. The uefa logo is so damn funny i cant 💀😂

Great vid bro.😺

What your favorite movie genre? Me : PG-13 movies 😮

It's interesting to see how the masked man's vision and perspective bout mangas changed and evolved a lot overtime and how different it is from the masked from back 3 years ago "who used to be that typical asshole of seinen elitist" XD (of course I'm exaggerating), everyone has done mistakes, but not everyone can accept them to grow. That being said. Great video as usual, masked.

Regardless if the series is a Shonen or seinen, if it delivers more than what it promised its readers on its introduction it becomes a favourite of my

As a someone who have read both berserk and one piece many many times i can confirm that i am into fantasy adventure action and mystery. I already stopped choosing series by shonnen shojo or senin after the revel of doffy and vilot relationship in one piece and berserk suddenly showing alot of fantasy type world building and mysteries.

Those categorizations are demographic terms, but they are categorizations of MAGAZINES too. Japan have, or have had, a prominent magazine/publisher-dominated culture. Certain manga magazine cultivates certain kind of content, just like Japanese literary magazines share new award-winners like sharing a gold mine. So when we talk about Shonen, Shojo, Seinen and Josei, we're talking about the field magazines operate. The weekly-magazine-reading habitus is really not like how we read manga online these days. And I think, aesthetically speaking, Shonen "field" is the most balanced one. Shojo is largely pattern and repeat, and Seinen and Josei are very creative and largely don't follow tropes. Shonen has the creativity and patterned tropes. That's part of why wide anime media is dominated by Shonen. The other part is selling point. The selling point of Shojo is the character design. Seinen and Josei are closer to traditional storytelling than the others. But Shonen? Shonen's selling point is hype. So when it comes down to marketing, Shojo are consumed by audience and that's probably the end of it, unless you're counting BL. Seinen and Josei are as hard (or easy) as traditional literature to sell, and not everyone is Shakespeare. And when someone fucked up their story? Normies might say it's author's fault, but otakus often say it's editors' fault: we can talk about and compare these fields, because they are actual process of making manga media, editors have weekly meeting discussing which or what kind of manga would be published. Editors only have two jobs: make authors' stories become good (selling) stories, and make them serialized non-stop (unless you're Oda and you're making One Piece, then you should really stop the serialization sometime soon). So when a certain kind of magazines produce a certain kind of stories? That's publishers' manipulation showing up. That's the production of "genre". I guess it might be too hard for someone who don't read manga magazines to understand this, but it's true. Or at the very least, it's true for Japanese and Taiwanese readers.

I wasn't expecting a shoutout to india in a " Truth About shounen vs seinen" but nice

a lot of the most popular shonen appeal to basically everyone i watched one piece at 3 and im sure imma gonna be watching it well into my 20s, depending how long it goes on.

Well, My Favorite Mangas are literally the combination of Shonen and Seinen My Top 15 rn 15. Baki Series 14. Tekken Chinmi 13. Gamaran 12. Clover 11. Bleach 10. Hajime no Ippo 9. Toriko 8. Attack on Titan 7. Naruto 6. Magi+Sinbad 5. Vagabond 4. Crows+Worst series 3. 20th+21st Century Boys 2. One Piece 1. Berserk and Kingdom

Dude i don't even watch anime cartoons yet I still sat thru the whole thing. Grats man, you've clearly got something to keep people engaged

Thank U for this one, helped a lot, for I did know this difference, I just didn't know how to phrase them properly ;)

I thought this was a really good and well thought out video

wow you really looked into this lol im glad that people put this much effort in anime

Im convinced that shonen and seinen are just the name of the magazines.

fun fact eizouken and akebi's sailor uniform are both seinen

I still remember reading a seinen that was just a wholesome kid friendly highschool romance.

I'm just here to say "I'm a consumer of media", thank you very much

1:31 that "YAOI" came out of nowhere 😂

Good thing that I was watching peak shonen like the first of the north star and slam dunk when I was young

I don't think that comparing different genres and titles is a bad thing at all. In the same way, comparing different players with different styles in football can give you a different perspective of the way the game is played, comparing how different authors approach the same topic in different ways can give you different perspectives on the same problem without actually taking away the credit these authors deserve in the first place.

Omg thanks bro u literally said everything i had in my mind i remember seeing some people refuses to believe that its demographic 😅

I really love your videos lots of love from India🇮🇳

My favorite seinin and shonen in the same thumbnail nice

I look at how entertaining the seires is regardless of the good writing or category the series belong. That is why for me series like One Punch Man and Prison School is up there with PunPun and berserk as they all achieve greatness in their category and are great medium of entertainment

THIS VIDEO IS NICE :)

8:31 Thanks for the shoutout. I'm from India but I'm more into Manga then Visual Novels.

All the usual arguments that people on both sides make for their case can immediately be shattered to tiny little pieces when you tell them that stuff like K-On! (which is quite honestly amazing, imo, especially the second season) and quite a lot of other CGDCT or GL entries are seinen, gets them to properly shut up most of the time ^^

Sometimes I feel it's hard to differenciate the two anime. For example anime like AOT, Deathnote and Promised Neverland can be considered shonen while anime like Kill la Kill, Kaguya Sama and One Punch man are considered to be seinen

Hey, can you do a video about Golden Kamuy? It's pretty underrated and it'll be interesting to make a deep dive into this manga.

5am bangers

Thank u for shout out😂

Delinquent Manga Reccomendation: Crows, Worst, Out, Clover, Rokudenashi Blues, Kyou kara ore wa, Sun Ken Rock, GTO, A-bout, Change Guy, QP, Drop, Bouncer, Sugarless etc

Very informative to a manga newb like me. Thanks.

5 stars for pairing the best example of a seinen with the best example of a shonen in your thumbnail.

My personal favorites are scattered all over places. There are shonen, seinen and shojo (haven't found something in josei yet, but it's only a matter of time). I love something when it's well done. The intended demographic doesn't really matter.

Damn the ending was philosophical

I got a question first have you read Tomodachi game if so are you gonna make a video on it because the recent chapters are amazing and it needs more recognition

I think a part of it is that at least when it comes to things like specifically battle shounen, they tend to share tropes and conventions, so people end looking at it as a genre cuz it kinda ends up feeling like one. I even remember one guy saying something along the lines of "shonen is a demographic; battle shonen is a genre" which is certainly an interesting take. You also end up with terms like "battle shonen adjacent" for none battle series that end up feeling very similar to battle shonen like Food Wars or Dr. Stone. To add to the point of the video, UQ Holder is a shonen and has 3 full blown sex scenes within the span of like 5-7 chapters. Tsugumomo is a seinen that's straight-up softcore hentai, but otherwise feels like a typical battle shonen. Then there's Bungo Stray Dogs, which is the most battle shonen ass seinen I've ever seen.

Seinen fans explaining how HxH, Full Metal Alchemist, and AOT aren’t “real shonen” and are actually just “soft seinen”

"We, as people, tend to see little, and tend to say and think much." ~The Masked Man, 2023 -- what a line

It never comes to my mind if it's Senin or Shonen when reading the manga or watching the anime. It's just about the quality and genre i want to enjoy at the time.

I often stick in the shounen demographic mainly because that's what is readily available to me. I'm a casual of casuals, and I don't necessarily have the time to delve into the annals of manga to find enjoyable stories. But I have explored a few Seinen. Mostly, I'm a meat head (blame it on DBZ), so if fists are flying or weaponry is involved, I'll probably enjoy it.

finally i found the truth about shonen and seinen i finally can rest in peace now

You literally changed my perspective dude, even tho I've never been an elitist and I enjoyed both shonen-seinen anime, it's not that I prefer seinen, it's just that seinen tend to have themes of my interest more.

7:52 no way you put oyasumi punpun when talking about "slice of life comedy" 💀💀💀

Nice history lesson. There is always room for improvement.

This video is 90% redundant. It could be summed up by saying people who “like seinen” instead like themes more often appreciated by a seinen or mature male audience and conversely for shonen. I guess he need video length for add revenue, I respect it.

The idea that Homonculus and One Punch Man have the same target audience is sort of hilarious.

The obvious must be said again and again,as new people enter this hobby of watching anime. Don't feel frustrated,is just what happens as new people come in,it just means the fandom is getting bigger.

Now that I think about it, most of my favorite anime/manga are shounen. Gintama, Hunter X Hunter, Fullmetal Alchemist, Attack on Titan, Jojo's Bizarre adventure, Death Note, Slam Dunk, Hajime no Ippo, Dragon Ball, Cromartie High School, One Piece, Mob Psycho, Detective Conan, School Rumble, Bleach, Nurarihyon no Mago, D-Grey Man, Yu Yu Hakusho, Naruto, Jujutsu Kaisen, Frieren, Great Teacher Onizuka, Kyou Kara Ore Wa, Rookies, Crows, Claymore, My Hero Academia, Angel Densetsu, Fist of the North Star, Rokudenashi Blues, etc.

Okay so someone explain the difference between a for example a shonen horror genre and a seinen horror genre or shonen mystery genre or a seinen myster genre

I've been saying the same thing for YEARS about In N Out vs Whataburger. The two literally have nothing in common. In N Out is a classic burger joint with a simplistic menu that does a very good job at one thing. Whataburger has a large complex menu with new/seasonal menu items with an overall goal of competing as a modern-day fast-food restaurant. I swear every time I say to someone "I love In N Out" they almost always say "I prefer Whataburger" or "Which do you like better? Whata or In N Out?" To which I say, "I PREFER RED LOBSTER TO IN N OUT BUT WE"RE TALKING ABOUT OLD FASHIONED BURGER CHAINS" Thanks for the video Masked, I'm glad to know I'm not alone in my plight.

I'll always remember the reaction of my friend when I told her that Kaguya sama and My Dress up Darling were a seinen and other anime and manga like Banana Fish, Claymore, Devilman, etc. wasn't

What’s the background music used! Love it

It’s really a pointless argument that has more to do with personal taste than objective quality, you can even find manga that would be considered Seinen being released by Shonen Jump anyway, so arguing about which is better is a waste of time.

brilliant

Love your videos from India 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳

8:30 interesting , never watched/read any vn yet , the only vn adaptation i watched was steins gate's anime , so this was quite a fun fact

Yoo shout out to my people from my favourite youtuber, appreciate it bro.

7:46 ‘slice of life comedy’ 😭😭

Hey , im from india and i was watching you since long time ago

8:23 i could’ve sworn you used to said consumer of media a lot in your older vids … masked is a pa-jeet 😱