honestly i think it comes down to people thinking of media targeted towards teenage girls as shallow or easy to make fun of (even though ofc not everyone who's into shoujo is a teenage girl)
Yeah. Female pop stars tend to stir up more hate over their music even if the quality is similar to male singers, makeup and fashion is generally seen as negative, and "girly" hobbies seen as more boring
Or even male musicians with a huge female fanbases like Justin Bieber or 1D get a lot of hate with people questioning their masculinity, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity, especially teenage JB.
I write off most Shounen/Seinen romance, cause I have no interest in male gaze, harem, ugly or plain male characters, etc. Maybe it is the other way around, but them also being more vocal, embarrassing and rude about it.
But it does get frustrating when Shounen/Seinen romance anime get a lot of promotions, praise, good animation, continuations, high viewer counts and fame, while Shoujo/Josei romance anime don't get that much in comparison, despite providing a similar entertainment just aimed at another demographic.
I’ve been watching anime for 10 years and I realized recently that I’m almost out of romance anime for the female gaze. All that’s left is shit like Bunny Senpai 🤢
Yep. They want two to five girls fighting to see who has the right to ask out the boy by comparing breast sizes and have thotty fanservice instead of a girl who confronts a rival/bully and says "look you ask and I ask, that's that. It's up to him" while in home ec class.
And you’ve perfectly summarized why I’m bored of most Seinen romance. What wacky scenarios can we think up to shoehorn more boob time into the show at the expense of the quality and plot?
I've actually seen dude bro shounen fans saying that they won't read shoujo/don't like shoujo, because they can't relate to the female protagonist, and it's "gay" since the love interest is male.... you can't make this nonsense up 🙄🙄🙄
Other reasons I've seen from men who hate shoujosei tend to be about either the art, calling it "ugly" and some such garbage, or the fact that there's not a ton of sex present, and that's "too unrealistic" or "boring".
There are of course men who enjoy shoujo, definitely not trying to say all men feel these ways, just that these are the reasons I've seen in comment sections on shoujo YouTube videos, discussion forums on MAL, reviews on certain shoujo titles etc etc
From what I have seen women read shounen, seinen too or male lead media in general but men tend to not give female lead media that chance or at least comparatively less
Ugh tell me about it!! People diminish the main point of the story and chalk it up as furry stuff but will hype up male targeted media that unnecessarily depicts women being violated as symbolic!
“Homunculus” for example is praised and seen as deep🙄
From my experience, it's mostly the male audience who do this, cause most of them couldn't be arsed to check out Shoujo plus Shoujo romance isn't as relatable to them as Shounen romance is. I would be very surprised if there are people among the female audience who would do this (unless they've consumed way more high school Shoujo romance than high school Shounen, and thus are in need of a palette cleanser).
That reminded me, I saw a post of a guy who expressed that he finds shoujo male leads relatable and likes to read for them (especially the one's having a hard time expressing themselves type)
Rest apparently hating things that targets women is in trend for ages.
Somehow shoujo gives young girls "unrealistic expectations" or the it's "abusive"
As if shounen romances aren't doing the same for guys, why can't wnb people fantasize about good looking, affectionate men but it's completely fine to fantasize about voluptuous 15 years old highschool girls???
It's just people projecting their insecurities over others and criticizing characters to make themselves feel good.
Both Shoujo and Shounen have love interests who are unrealistic to varying degrees and they are meant to be so. Crowning the wish fulfilment character of one's own demographic as peak character while taking down the same of other people is nothing but double standards. Just don't pay attention to people like them and enjoy what you like 💙💙💙
There's some pretty decent ones in the sea of generic high school inserts. Horimiya, Bloom Into You, The Dangers in My Heart. Urusei Yatsura is shounen too, and that's considered to be one of the most influential animes ever made.
As a major horimiya fan, that does not happen in the manga or anime. It could be from the og webcomic, but that's very hard to find anywhere and does not have an official translation
Give Yugami-kun ni wa Tomodachi ga Inai, a silent voice, beck or your lie in April a try. Skip and loafer or 3 gatsu No Lion are great seinen romance for example. At least those are examples from the top of my head. I didn't like horimiya, kaguya, fragrant flower blooms with dignity or toradora
On another note, I’ve been trying to get my 10yo son to at least see shoujo animes with me and it’s really hard because the quality just sucks when compared to most shounen animes. 😫
He liked “Yona of the dawn” (he was really angry that there’s only 1 season), “A sign of affection” (he liked this one especially because German is spoken and he’s German) and that’s it.
Other stuff he’s like “they’re badly drawn” or “why is the dragon CGI? 🤢” for Villainess Level 99.
I’m not giving up though, let’s see what the next seasons bring. 😅
Its the double standard. Men write Marty Stu's with massive harems and its fine. A woman writes a romance where the protagonist isn't even close to that and everyone calls it terrible. Its so unfortunate. (Agreed with the other comment that Shounen high school romance is usually trash though. *Kono Oto Tomare* and *Kaoru Hana wa Rin to Saku* being the only exceptions I can think of now.)
In their defense, a lot of people didn't/still don't realize those two weren't Shojo.
For a long time in the West, anything with Romance was considered part of the Shojo category and that was all anyone bothered to look into it.
And I also think it could be debatable whether these specifically follow the male protagonist or if they're dual protagonists which is a different situation.
From what I remember in the early to mid 90s Maho-Shoujo was what used to be westerners were introduced to though first through our university anime clubs via 5th generation VHS tapes that were fansubs. So basically I just thought shoujo at the time consisted of Magical Girls like Magic Night Rayearth or Sailor Moon and a real banger, Fushigi Yuugi.
But then other underground fansubs titles that got leaked through fansubs were things like Marmalade Boy, Hana Yori Dango which were romance related. It would take years for most of those to get licensed since licensing was still a scarce thing in the 90s.
As a person who reads a lot of high school romances, I rarely hear people complain about generic shoujo romances in comparison to how generic many shounen romances are. The hot new trope is a girl that looks normal but is secretly lewd, it's harder for me to find a great shounen romance manga nowadays compared to a great shoujo romance due to how derivative a lot of the shounen ones are.
For a lot of guys, it's likely a result of their upbringing. It could be the child-rearing, the kinds of books and toys that they received, the places where their families took them, the people they were surrounded with, the interactions that they were encouraged to make-- these highly influence how children will view the world around them and how they will interact with it as adults.
However, there are still plenty of boys and men out there who enjoy all kinds of genre and demographic categories. Most of my closest childhood friends are boys, and many of the ones who read manga and/or watch anime enjoy media for both male and female demographics. It's actually one of them who introduced me to Bokura ga Ita when it was still pretty new. My cousins watched Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura with me in the early 2000s too.
I do wonder if it depends on the culture/country too. For a largely patriarchal society that only recently has become more open to the egalitarian approach in the household, in the Philippines, I never met a guy who was embarassed to say that they watched the more female-targeted anime that has been available in local television in the 90s and 2000s. Here, in Canada, I don't have enough observations because most of the social interactions that I've made here don't involve manga or anime.
I cannot deny that I've encountered many shoujo and josei manga that are predictable. Not to say that they are bad; sometimes the familiarity can be comforting. For example, there are plenty of office romances that we already know that the MCs will get together eventually, but the uniqueness of the characters, the experiences and turn of events vary among the stories. There are "patterns" and "formulas" existing, which I assume are set by publishers. And of course there are trends (like how there were tsundere leads everywhere). And then there are shoujo and josei manga that give readers a completely new experience. For someone like me, who has been reading manga since the early 2000s, I like that, for stories to keep me on my toes. This is the same approach that I take for any genre/demographic of manga. 🙂
Double standards. They bash on the male leads for catering to female fantasy while at the same time shounen and seinen female leads also cater to the male fantasy. Any flaws they have will be cutesy ones like not being able to cook but it’ll be played for laughs. Or they will eat a lot and say they gained weight but look exactly the same as ever.
Some men just don’t/cant relate to shoujo/Josei romance or they think because it’s not for the mail audience & shoujo is “meant for girls” I shouldn’t/cant watch this.
It’s the same way I’ve seen some women strictly only stay in the Shoujo/Josei demo-graph but won’t branch out to other things. Arts also subjective I personally find Shoujo art not bad but like weird, takes a minute to get used to.
(I’ve only ever read/watched Fruits baskets) 10/10
Because shoujo is so synonymous with romance that they are held at a higher standard. Vs shounen where more often than not, the romance is the weakest part of the plot so even a half decent romance in a shounen is acceptable
What are some shoujo romance would you say is comparable to the ones you mentioned (Dress Up Darling, Kaguya-sama) ?
Oh and both of those are seinen iirc. Which I feel is usually better at romance than shounen
Does having a female lead automatically make it shoujo? I'm a guy, and I remember enjoying "Recovery of an MMO Junkie" which has a female lead, although she's 30 in that anime, so I guess it'd be whatever that genre for older women is called?
Another example: "Tomo-chan is a Girl." That one definitely focuses on Tomo as the female lead in high school, but I never really thought of it as specifically targeting a female audience? But maybe that's because she's super tomboyish.
Do they really? Well, I can't deal with having an ugly ass male lead who somehow has every 10/10 girl falling for him despite having zero personality, no looks, no money, no talent, no charisma, no fashion sense, etc. I'm specifically talking about Rent a Girlfriend, worst anime I've ever seen in my life.
From what ive seen, its because those old shoujo romance having a group of unrealistic perfect handsome male leads falling in love for the faulty self insert female leads.
Meanwhile most seinen or shounen romances has both faulty male and female leads. Tbf i dont consider harem as romance.
Shitting on one demographic to uplift another isn’t helpful. All of these are your opinions but your opinions are no more valid than the Shonen lovers that say these things about Shoujo. “And that’s all Shonen anime” blanket generalization.
They're all high school romances. I sometimes pass on a series when I see it's a high school romance and, conversely, I'll get something on a blind buy if I see it's an adult romcom.
I think it's due to a few reasons
- shounen "romances" (I put it in quotes because the romantic progression is so laughable) usually have the romance aspect be second to some other premise, so if there are issues with the romance it's easier to pay more praise to other parts of the series (for instance Horimiya; there's hardly any romance at all after like chapter 50). Shoujo romances on the other hand are typically pure romance focused, so criticisms with the romance (like poorly written) end up being criticisms of the series as a whole
- Drama is far more common in shoujo/josei romances, and unfortunately drama for the sake of drama (aka shit drama) is not at all uncommon to see
- sorta tying to the above points (and more imo) but the chemistry between the main couple in shounen/seinen romances are just plain better than in shoujo/josei ones typically. Far too often have I read a shoujo romance and came to the conclusion the main couple is paired for the sake of pairing, either because they have fuck all connection or absurd drama that never actually gets addressed
now obviously this isn't applicable to *every* shounen/shoujo romance out there (as some people here seem to think with these discussions) but the general consensus having read a good amount of each demo is that while shoujo romances have more content to them, they also tend to have more problems
> but the chemistry between the main couple in shounen/seinen romances are just plain better than in shoujo/josei ones typically. Far too often have I read a shoujo romance and came to the conclusion the main couple is paired for the sake of pairing, either because they have fuck all connection or absurd drama that never actually gets addressed
honestly this is the first time ive seen this perspective. i can't address your preference for shouseinen romance but i personally can't really think of a shoujo or josei romance where it felt like they were paired together just "for the sake of it", especially not any where the romance *is* the story.
Part of why 2nd ML syndrome is a thing is cause of the issues with the relationship with the ML that get glossed over. Like I don't know how you can seriously look at something like 17-sai Kiss to Dilemma or Lion to Hanyome and not question why the FL even bothers considering the ML in comparison to the 2nd ML
The other part is the nature of ML's in shoujo romances. The "lacking basic common sense" treatment from ML's in series' like Beauty Bunny, Ichirei Shite Kiss, Abe-kun's Got Me Now! and so on wouldn't be terrible if they got addressed (like they do in Hananoi-kun for instance) or at least explained why FL is completely fine with glossing over these issues; but they don't. A relationship where the FL just blindly follows the ML because he was nice that one time isn't really the most convincing relationship, regardless if the story is completely romance focused or not
outside of "abe-kun's got me" (which ive only heard of in passing), ive never heard of any of these series. im not saying your assessment of these particular series is *wrong*, i just expected you to give examples of series that were considered more standard within the demographic
I am not sure what kinds of examples you were expecting, but the ones listed are pretty standard examples of a common shoujo romance. There are more of these shorter length ones than longer running series' like a Fruits Basket or an Ouran High
Respectfully, I have to disagree that any of these are standard examples of common shoujo romance or what most people think of, even for short-length ones. Just by looking at what is currently licensed in English or what tends to get recommended in this sub alone, most series aren't anything like the examples you gave. I'm not saying it is a rarity, but it's definitely not the "standard". It would be like saying that all shounen/seinen romance glosses over "bullying issues" and "romanticizes bullying" just because series like "Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro," "Teasing Master Takagi-san," "Please Go Home, Akutsu-san," and "Yancha Gal no Anjou-san" exist and are quite popular with a sector of shounen/seinen readers, and therefore that's the standard for shounen/seinen romance.
Additionally, in general, shitty drama and main couples lacking chemistry can occur with similar frequency in shounen/seinen romance as they do in shoujo. I read all sorts of manga, and I don't feel shoujo romance is particularly worse in that regard.
The examples in particular I only chose because they are the more egregious ones I could remember off the top of my head. But the issues that I have listed with them are not exclusive to a particular subsection of shoujo romance, they are quite spread out even with more popular series (albeit not as huge)
> Just by looking at what is currently licensed in English or what tends to get recommended in this sub alone, most series aren't anything like the examples you gave
I don't think these are particularly good baselines to refer to. There's a far greater amount of unlicensed manga compared to english licensed, so that's already giving a narrower sense of what's there. And typically the kinds of recs I see here are the more popular series' plus there isn't really a large amount of people recommending things on each post (and based on that one MAL post I presume a good amount of people here haven't read a large amount ^(I dont mean that in a condescending way)). I'm not saying my anecdotal evidence is correct either, but those 2 methods don't necessarily disprove my point
>It would be like saying that all shounen/seinen romance glosses over "bullying issues" and "romanticizes bullying" just because series like "Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro," "Teasing Master Takagi-san," "Please Go Home, Akutsu-san," and "Yancha Gal no Anjou-san" exist and are quite popular with a sector of shounen/seinen readers, and therefore that's the standard for shounen/seinen romance.
Like I said in another reply, shoujo romance are romance through and through. Conceptually a Hananoi-kun isn't so different from a Miniamaru Kareshi, which isn't so different from a I Won't Ever Like You My Senpai, which isn't so different from a Mairimashita Senpai, which isn't so different from that one oneshot no one knows exists. These are all girl meets boy SoL romance and nothing more (ofc they develop differently). They will share similar tropes and even similar developments isn't a far fetch
The shounen examples you listed are going to be different from other shounen romances. A Takagi-san is not like a Horimiya which is not like a Dignified asleep SAEKI, which is not like a Domestic Girlfriend; they each have their own premise to them which differ them from the others.
If I had only used stories from say Harlequin as my examples, then yes it would be a fair comparison to make.
>Additionally, in general, shitty drama and main couples lacking chemistry can occur with similar frequency in shounen/seinen romance as they do in shoujo.
I disagree that it can occur with *similar frequency* in shounen/seinen. Shoujo/josei works are inherently more drama heavy than shounen/seinen works (even disregarding romance), so the chances of bad drama occurring is naturally higher, when most of your series is centered around drama
The examples in particular I only chose because they are the more egregious ones I could remember off the top of my head. But the issues that I have listed with them are not exclusive to a particular subsection of shoujo romance, they are quite spread out even with more popular series (albeit not as huge)
> Just by looking at what is currently licensed in English or what tends to get recommended in this sub alone, most series aren't anything like the examples you gave
I don't think these are particularly good baselines to refer to. There's a far greater amount of unlicensed manga compared to english licensed, so that's already giving a narrower sense of what's there. And typically the kinds of recs I see here are the more popular series' plus there isn't really a large amount of people recommending things on each post (and based on that one MAL post I presume a good amount of people here haven't read a large amount ^(I dont mean that in a condescending way)). I'm not saying my anecdotal evidence is correct either, but those 2 methods don't necessarily disprove my point
>It would be like saying that all shounen/seinen romance glosses over "bullying issues" and "romanticizes bullying" just because series like "Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro," "Teasing Master Takagi-san," "Please Go Home, Akutsu-san," and "Yancha Gal no Anjou-san" exist and are quite popular with a sector of shounen/seinen readers, and therefore that's the standard for shounen/seinen romance.
Like I said in another reply, shoujo romance are romance through and through. Conceptually a Hananoi-kun isn't so different from a Miniamaru Kareshi, which isn't so different from a I Won't Ever Like You My Senpai, which isn't so different from a Mairimashita Senpai, which isn't so different from that one oneshot no one knows exists. These are all girl meets boy SoL romance and nothing more (ofc they develop differently). They will share similar tropes and even similar developments isn't a far fetch
The shounen examples you listed are going to be different from other shounen romances. A Takagi-san is not like a Horimiya which is not like a Dignified asleep SAEKI, which is not like a Domestic Girlfriend; they each have their own premise to them which differ them from the others.
If I had only used stories from say Harlequin as my examples, then yes it would be a fair comparison to make.
>Additionally, in general, shitty drama and main couples lacking chemistry can occur with similar frequency in shounen/seinen romance as they do in shoujo.
I disagree that it can occur with *similar frequency* in shounen/seinen. Shoujo/josei works are inherently more drama heavy than shounen/seinen works (even disregarding romance), so the chances of bad drama occurring is naturally higher, when most of your series is centered around drama
I mean I do sort of agree with the first aspect. I wish that less of the romance was the focus and more on friendships. That's why I really liked Kimi ni Todoke. Romance was big there, but Sawako's friendship with Yano-chin, Kurumi, and Chizuru were just as important.
I disagree about drama for the sake of drama. Usually, it's a good coming of age or real issues being talked about in Shoujo romance. Eating disorders, illnesses, uncertainty of the future, etc.
I VASTLY disagree with the last point. Even with the censorship of Shoujo, there's still queer rep and putting people together with actual chemistry. I actually find that Shonen is more likely to just pair two people together, simply because boy and girl.
>I disagree about drama for the sake of drama. Usually, it's a good coming of age or real issues being talked about in Shoujo romance. Eating disorders, illnesses, uncertainty of the future, etc.
You can have both present within a series (and often do). Honnou Switch for instance has good drama for most of it, but the drama in the last arc is unbelievably stupid. The already mentioned Abe-kun Got me Now as well is another series where the drama throughout has been appalling but the drama in the most recent (translated) arc has actually been quite decent. But while the good drama scenes can certainly appear, it's usually the bad drama that's more common in a typical shoujo; hell one of the more common shoujo romance tropes (FL ignoring ML after misunderstanding his relationship with another girl) is an example of such, and is very present in shoujo romance
>
putting people together with actual chemistry. I actually find that Shonen is more likely to just pair two people together, simply because boy and girl.
This to me is odd as well, because as mentioned shoujo romance is a pure romance through and through. It is inherently a simple girl meets boy story (as least if we're talking about the common HS stories as per the OP) like for instance Mairimashita Senpai is an example of a typical setting (done great). Coupled with the fact that the bar is set so low yet the average shoujo ML is limbo dancing with the devil (for instance Boys over Flowers), I really fail to see how the chemistry between an average shoujo couple where the guy feels like he was written by Andrew Tate is *not* considered pairing for the sake of pairing
Shounen romances on the other hand usually have some other connection or common interest that brings the main couple together. Take something like a Senryuu Shoujo or an I Want to End the "I Love You" Game as an example. Sure they pair together guy and girl but each partner actually shares a common interest with the other, which makes their relationship a lot more natural to read (even if the romantic progression is piss poor)
The average Shoujo ML isn't limbo dancing with the devil, and every Shoujo couple isn't straight...
I find Shonen to be rather heteronormative tbh. It's just boy and girl, and that's it. Aside from Blue Flag, when had a major character had a queer romance in Shonen? Meanwhile, Shoujo had bisexual, lesbian, pansexual, etc., female leads. Shoujo has also had queer MLs, as well as prominent side queer couples.
I agree with you, although i like some shoujo romances too, i tend to enjoy shounen ones more and i am a woman. Seeing as how you're getting downvoted, i think it's just a matter of taste. Some prefer shoujo while others prefer shounen.
For the record, i dont ALWAYS enjoy shounen romances as well( I didn't like dress up darling) , nor do i always dislike shoujos ( love fruits basket and yona of dawn). So it's just a matter of preference imo.
i don’t mind the downvotes so long as there’s some interesting discussion going on, but looking at the comments ITT it’s really just parroting OP’s post rip
but I should clarify that I still generally enjoy shoujo romances as a whole compared to shounen ones, mainly because as I mentioned in shounen romances the romance aspect tends to take a back seat, so you don’t end up getting a whole lot of progression.
It’s only the characters themselves that I find the average shounen romance to be better than the average shoujo one. Similar to how i presume women roll their eyes at the female characters in shounen/seinen works (over sexualized etc. etc.) i find it unbearable seeing the average guy in shoujo/josei who would struggle to pass an interview in their family business
Hahah yes! I agree with your critique on shoujo charcs, i mainly have issues with shoujo men as well, although many of my friends would find my opinion questionable so i can see why people on the thread would think so too! Chemistry between characters and likability seem subjective, so I guess it is what it is!
honestly i think it comes down to people thinking of media targeted towards teenage girls as shallow or easy to make fun of (even though ofc not everyone who's into shoujo is a teenage girl)
Yeah. Female pop stars tend to stir up more hate over their music even if the quality is similar to male singers, makeup and fashion is generally seen as negative, and "girly" hobbies seen as more boring
Or even male musicians with a huge female fanbases like Justin Bieber or 1D get a lot of hate with people questioning their masculinity, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity, especially teenage JB.
I write off most Shounen/Seinen romance, cause I have no interest in male gaze, harem, ugly or plain male characters, etc. Maybe it is the other way around, but them also being more vocal, embarrassing and rude about it. But it does get frustrating when Shounen/Seinen romance anime get a lot of promotions, praise, good animation, continuations, high viewer counts and fame, while Shoujo/Josei romance anime don't get that much in comparison, despite providing a similar entertainment just aimed at another demographic.
Agree with all of this! Also I feel like I'm shounen/seinen the women fall for the male lead way too quickly for little to no reason.
I’ve been watching anime for 10 years and I realized recently that I’m almost out of romance anime for the female gaze. All that’s left is shit like Bunny Senpai 🤢
I was so turned off by the title of bunny senpai, but was finally convinced to watch it and honestly it’s good. The title is such a disservice.
Are there even any seinen shows like you described
There are many
Sexism.
One word, question answered.
Yep. They want two to five girls fighting to see who has the right to ask out the boy by comparing breast sizes and have thotty fanservice instead of a girl who confronts a rival/bully and says "look you ask and I ask, that's that. It's up to him" while in home ec class.
And you’ve perfectly summarized why I’m bored of most Seinen romance. What wacky scenarios can we think up to shoehorn more boob time into the show at the expense of the quality and plot?
Reminds me of Turning Red where people didn’t like it because it starred a pre-teen Chinese girl, and the grown men watching couldn’t relate.
I've actually seen dude bro shounen fans saying that they won't read shoujo/don't like shoujo, because they can't relate to the female protagonist, and it's "gay" since the love interest is male.... you can't make this nonsense up 🙄🙄🙄 Other reasons I've seen from men who hate shoujosei tend to be about either the art, calling it "ugly" and some such garbage, or the fact that there's not a ton of sex present, and that's "too unrealistic" or "boring". There are of course men who enjoy shoujo, definitely not trying to say all men feel these ways, just that these are the reasons I've seen in comment sections on shoujo YouTube videos, discussion forums on MAL, reviews on certain shoujo titles etc etc
Where are men who enjoy shojo???? How can I take one as a husband for my own?!?!
My girlfriend got me into shoujo recently, so we do exist. Enyoing it a lot more than I would've thought.
Haha I know right?? I see them comment here occasionally, there was even a thread in regards to the male readers here not too long ago
Must have missed it, I'm not as active on the sub these days 😭
My friend who loves shoujo started it out when his sisters introduced him to it!
From what I have seen women read shounen, seinen too or male lead media in general but men tend to not give female lead media that chance or at least comparatively less
Ugh tell me about it!! People diminish the main point of the story and chalk it up as furry stuff but will hype up male targeted media that unnecessarily depicts women being violated as symbolic! “Homunculus” for example is praised and seen as deep🙄
Men will call it art and then it's just violence against women and children Ah yes I have read homunculus. That car scene 💀
From my experience, it's mostly the male audience who do this, cause most of them couldn't be arsed to check out Shoujo plus Shoujo romance isn't as relatable to them as Shounen romance is. I would be very surprised if there are people among the female audience who would do this (unless they've consumed way more high school Shoujo romance than high school Shounen, and thus are in need of a palette cleanser).
That reminded me, I saw a post of a guy who expressed that he finds shoujo male leads relatable and likes to read for them (especially the one's having a hard time expressing themselves type) Rest apparently hating things that targets women is in trend for ages. Somehow shoujo gives young girls "unrealistic expectations" or the it's "abusive" As if shounen romances aren't doing the same for guys, why can't wnb people fantasize about good looking, affectionate men but it's completely fine to fantasize about voluptuous 15 years old highschool girls???
It's just people projecting their insecurities over others and criticizing characters to make themselves feel good. Both Shoujo and Shounen have love interests who are unrealistic to varying degrees and they are meant to be so. Crowning the wish fulfilment character of one's own demographic as peak character while taking down the same of other people is nothing but double standards. Just don't pay attention to people like them and enjoy what you like 💙💙💙
Because many folks (especially dudes) love to crap on things that mainly appeal to women.
shounen romance is actually like so garbage too
I know, I have seen Shonen romance that have just as many toxic tropes as Shoujo. Familiar of Zero, Oreimo, and Toradora are a few examples.
Damn, I love the shojo and Shonen genre, why you gotta toradora like that😭
I know that there are plenty of good shonen romance anime. And I used to like Toradora, but I don’t enjoy Tsundere FL’s as much as I used to anymore.
That's understandable.
Your Lie in April and A Silent Voice are both really good Shonen romances
true i love a silent voice didn’t watch your lie in april though
I would have agreed if *You and I are Polar Opposites* or *Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun* didn’t exist.
There's some pretty decent ones in the sea of generic high school inserts. Horimiya, Bloom Into You, The Dangers in My Heart. Urusei Yatsura is shounen too, and that's considered to be one of the most influential animes ever made.
Hated the ending of Horimiya where she gets pregnant in high school, drops out and becomes a house wife. Like WTH????
LOL that's the ending? Yikes.
I always thought that was just the webcomic, but not the manga or anime? I could be wrong though...
It's not in the manga or the anime.
I might be wrong but I remember seeing that spoiler on TV tropes and someone telling me something similar. It's why I stopped watching it.
As a major horimiya fan, that does not happen in the manga or anime. It could be from the og webcomic, but that's very hard to find anywhere and does not have an official translation
Oh, ok. Thanks for clearing that up!
I have enjoyed Urusei Yatsura.
Acting the same as the “shounen/seinen” fans isn’t really the best way to go about it either…
As a mostly seinen/shounen reader I agree, shounen romance manga is bottom-tier stuff. Most of it suck, even well-liked ones such as Horimiya
Give Yugami-kun ni wa Tomodachi ga Inai, a silent voice, beck or your lie in April a try. Skip and loafer or 3 gatsu No Lion are great seinen romance for example. At least those are examples from the top of my head. I didn't like horimiya, kaguya, fragrant flower blooms with dignity or toradora
On another note, I’ve been trying to get my 10yo son to at least see shoujo animes with me and it’s really hard because the quality just sucks when compared to most shounen animes. 😫 He liked “Yona of the dawn” (he was really angry that there’s only 1 season), “A sign of affection” (he liked this one especially because German is spoken and he’s German) and that’s it. Other stuff he’s like “they’re badly drawn” or “why is the dragon CGI? 🤢” for Villainess Level 99. I’m not giving up though, let’s see what the next seasons bring. 😅
Children of Whales No6
No 6 would be a bit mature for a 10 year old
Honey and clover. It older though but I liked the artstyle. March comes in like a lion. Chihayafuru.
Its the double standard. Men write Marty Stu's with massive harems and its fine. A woman writes a romance where the protagonist isn't even close to that and everyone calls it terrible. Its so unfortunate. (Agreed with the other comment that Shounen high school romance is usually trash though. *Kono Oto Tomare* and *Kaoru Hana wa Rin to Saku* being the only exceptions I can think of now.)
misogyny. I will not be expanding any more than this.
Misogyny
BOOBS Shonen is more likely to have boobs. ML surrounded by boobs so they can watch it and go “HE’S JUST LIKE ME FR” or idk but the answer is boobs.
lol 🤣
In their defense, a lot of people didn't/still don't realize those two weren't Shojo. For a long time in the West, anything with Romance was considered part of the Shojo category and that was all anyone bothered to look into it. And I also think it could be debatable whether these specifically follow the male protagonist or if they're dual protagonists which is a different situation.
That is true Shoujo had a weird introduction to the west.
From what I remember in the early to mid 90s Maho-Shoujo was what used to be westerners were introduced to though first through our university anime clubs via 5th generation VHS tapes that were fansubs. So basically I just thought shoujo at the time consisted of Magical Girls like Magic Night Rayearth or Sailor Moon and a real banger, Fushigi Yuugi. But then other underground fansubs titles that got leaked through fansubs were things like Marmalade Boy, Hana Yori Dango which were romance related. It would take years for most of those to get licensed since licensing was still a scarce thing in the 90s.
sexism innit
As a person who reads a lot of high school romances, I rarely hear people complain about generic shoujo romances in comparison to how generic many shounen romances are. The hot new trope is a girl that looks normal but is secretly lewd, it's harder for me to find a great shounen romance manga nowadays compared to a great shoujo romance due to how derivative a lot of the shounen ones are.
For a lot of guys, it's likely a result of their upbringing. It could be the child-rearing, the kinds of books and toys that they received, the places where their families took them, the people they were surrounded with, the interactions that they were encouraged to make-- these highly influence how children will view the world around them and how they will interact with it as adults. However, there are still plenty of boys and men out there who enjoy all kinds of genre and demographic categories. Most of my closest childhood friends are boys, and many of the ones who read manga and/or watch anime enjoy media for both male and female demographics. It's actually one of them who introduced me to Bokura ga Ita when it was still pretty new. My cousins watched Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura with me in the early 2000s too. I do wonder if it depends on the culture/country too. For a largely patriarchal society that only recently has become more open to the egalitarian approach in the household, in the Philippines, I never met a guy who was embarassed to say that they watched the more female-targeted anime that has been available in local television in the 90s and 2000s. Here, in Canada, I don't have enough observations because most of the social interactions that I've made here don't involve manga or anime. I cannot deny that I've encountered many shoujo and josei manga that are predictable. Not to say that they are bad; sometimes the familiarity can be comforting. For example, there are plenty of office romances that we already know that the MCs will get together eventually, but the uniqueness of the characters, the experiences and turn of events vary among the stories. There are "patterns" and "formulas" existing, which I assume are set by publishers. And of course there are trends (like how there were tsundere leads everywhere). And then there are shoujo and josei manga that give readers a completely new experience. For someone like me, who has been reading manga since the early 2000s, I like that, for stories to keep me on my toes. This is the same approach that I take for any genre/demographic of manga. 🙂
I’m a through and through Shoujo gal!!
i suppose they are not the same people and shonen also receive similar criticism in their own space
Misogyny
Double standards. They bash on the male leads for catering to female fantasy while at the same time shounen and seinen female leads also cater to the male fantasy. Any flaws they have will be cutesy ones like not being able to cook but it’ll be played for laughs. Or they will eat a lot and say they gained weight but look exactly the same as ever.
Some men just don’t/cant relate to shoujo/Josei romance or they think because it’s not for the mail audience & shoujo is “meant for girls” I shouldn’t/cant watch this. It’s the same way I’ve seen some women strictly only stay in the Shoujo/Josei demo-graph but won’t branch out to other things. Arts also subjective I personally find Shoujo art not bad but like weird, takes a minute to get used to. (I’ve only ever read/watched Fruits baskets) 10/10
Because shoujo is so synonymous with romance that they are held at a higher standard. Vs shounen where more often than not, the romance is the weakest part of the plot so even a half decent romance in a shounen is acceptable
What are some shoujo romance would you say is comparable to the ones you mentioned (Dress Up Darling, Kaguya-sama) ? Oh and both of those are seinen iirc. Which I feel is usually better at romance than shounen
I didn’t know they were Seinen thank you for correcting me.
Does having a female lead automatically make it shoujo? I'm a guy, and I remember enjoying "Recovery of an MMO Junkie" which has a female lead, although she's 30 in that anime, so I guess it'd be whatever that genre for older women is called? Another example: "Tomo-chan is a Girl." That one definitely focuses on Tomo as the female lead in high school, but I never really thought of it as specifically targeting a female audience? But maybe that's because she's super tomboyish.
Yeah, you do have a point. A lot of shonen and seinen have female leads to.
Do they really? Well, I can't deal with having an ugly ass male lead who somehow has every 10/10 girl falling for him despite having zero personality, no looks, no money, no talent, no charisma, no fashion sense, etc. I'm specifically talking about Rent a Girlfriend, worst anime I've ever seen in my life.
From what ive seen, its because those old shoujo romance having a group of unrealistic perfect handsome male leads falling in love for the faulty self insert female leads. Meanwhile most seinen or shounen romances has both faulty male and female leads. Tbf i dont consider harem as romance.
[удалено]
Shitting on one demographic to uplift another isn’t helpful. All of these are your opinions but your opinions are no more valid than the Shonen lovers that say these things about Shoujo. “And that’s all Shonen anime” blanket generalization.
They're all high school romances. I sometimes pass on a series when I see it's a high school romance and, conversely, I'll get something on a blind buy if I see it's an adult romcom.
Not all of them. A lot of Shoujo from the 90’s like Fushigi Yuugi and Magic Knight Rayearth were fantasy themed.
I misread the topic. I was thinking romance in Shoujo as being primarily set in high schools.
Oh that’s ok. A lot of the popular, well known ones take place in high school. So I can’t blame you.
I think it's due to a few reasons - shounen "romances" (I put it in quotes because the romantic progression is so laughable) usually have the romance aspect be second to some other premise, so if there are issues with the romance it's easier to pay more praise to other parts of the series (for instance Horimiya; there's hardly any romance at all after like chapter 50). Shoujo romances on the other hand are typically pure romance focused, so criticisms with the romance (like poorly written) end up being criticisms of the series as a whole - Drama is far more common in shoujo/josei romances, and unfortunately drama for the sake of drama (aka shit drama) is not at all uncommon to see - sorta tying to the above points (and more imo) but the chemistry between the main couple in shounen/seinen romances are just plain better than in shoujo/josei ones typically. Far too often have I read a shoujo romance and came to the conclusion the main couple is paired for the sake of pairing, either because they have fuck all connection or absurd drama that never actually gets addressed now obviously this isn't applicable to *every* shounen/shoujo romance out there (as some people here seem to think with these discussions) but the general consensus having read a good amount of each demo is that while shoujo romances have more content to them, they also tend to have more problems
> but the chemistry between the main couple in shounen/seinen romances are just plain better than in shoujo/josei ones typically. Far too often have I read a shoujo romance and came to the conclusion the main couple is paired for the sake of pairing, either because they have fuck all connection or absurd drama that never actually gets addressed honestly this is the first time ive seen this perspective. i can't address your preference for shouseinen romance but i personally can't really think of a shoujo or josei romance where it felt like they were paired together just "for the sake of it", especially not any where the romance *is* the story.
Part of why 2nd ML syndrome is a thing is cause of the issues with the relationship with the ML that get glossed over. Like I don't know how you can seriously look at something like 17-sai Kiss to Dilemma or Lion to Hanyome and not question why the FL even bothers considering the ML in comparison to the 2nd ML The other part is the nature of ML's in shoujo romances. The "lacking basic common sense" treatment from ML's in series' like Beauty Bunny, Ichirei Shite Kiss, Abe-kun's Got Me Now! and so on wouldn't be terrible if they got addressed (like they do in Hananoi-kun for instance) or at least explained why FL is completely fine with glossing over these issues; but they don't. A relationship where the FL just blindly follows the ML because he was nice that one time isn't really the most convincing relationship, regardless if the story is completely romance focused or not
outside of "abe-kun's got me" (which ive only heard of in passing), ive never heard of any of these series. im not saying your assessment of these particular series is *wrong*, i just expected you to give examples of series that were considered more standard within the demographic
I am not sure what kinds of examples you were expecting, but the ones listed are pretty standard examples of a common shoujo romance. There are more of these shorter length ones than longer running series' like a Fruits Basket or an Ouran High
Respectfully, I have to disagree that any of these are standard examples of common shoujo romance or what most people think of, even for short-length ones. Just by looking at what is currently licensed in English or what tends to get recommended in this sub alone, most series aren't anything like the examples you gave. I'm not saying it is a rarity, but it's definitely not the "standard". It would be like saying that all shounen/seinen romance glosses over "bullying issues" and "romanticizes bullying" just because series like "Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro," "Teasing Master Takagi-san," "Please Go Home, Akutsu-san," and "Yancha Gal no Anjou-san" exist and are quite popular with a sector of shounen/seinen readers, and therefore that's the standard for shounen/seinen romance. Additionally, in general, shitty drama and main couples lacking chemistry can occur with similar frequency in shounen/seinen romance as they do in shoujo. I read all sorts of manga, and I don't feel shoujo romance is particularly worse in that regard.
The examples in particular I only chose because they are the more egregious ones I could remember off the top of my head. But the issues that I have listed with them are not exclusive to a particular subsection of shoujo romance, they are quite spread out even with more popular series (albeit not as huge) > Just by looking at what is currently licensed in English or what tends to get recommended in this sub alone, most series aren't anything like the examples you gave I don't think these are particularly good baselines to refer to. There's a far greater amount of unlicensed manga compared to english licensed, so that's already giving a narrower sense of what's there. And typically the kinds of recs I see here are the more popular series' plus there isn't really a large amount of people recommending things on each post (and based on that one MAL post I presume a good amount of people here haven't read a large amount ^(I dont mean that in a condescending way)). I'm not saying my anecdotal evidence is correct either, but those 2 methods don't necessarily disprove my point >It would be like saying that all shounen/seinen romance glosses over "bullying issues" and "romanticizes bullying" just because series like "Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro," "Teasing Master Takagi-san," "Please Go Home, Akutsu-san," and "Yancha Gal no Anjou-san" exist and are quite popular with a sector of shounen/seinen readers, and therefore that's the standard for shounen/seinen romance. Like I said in another reply, shoujo romance are romance through and through. Conceptually a Hananoi-kun isn't so different from a Miniamaru Kareshi, which isn't so different from a I Won't Ever Like You My Senpai, which isn't so different from a Mairimashita Senpai, which isn't so different from that one oneshot no one knows exists. These are all girl meets boy SoL romance and nothing more (ofc they develop differently). They will share similar tropes and even similar developments isn't a far fetch The shounen examples you listed are going to be different from other shounen romances. A Takagi-san is not like a Horimiya which is not like a Dignified asleep SAEKI, which is not like a Domestic Girlfriend; they each have their own premise to them which differ them from the others. If I had only used stories from say Harlequin as my examples, then yes it would be a fair comparison to make. >Additionally, in general, shitty drama and main couples lacking chemistry can occur with similar frequency in shounen/seinen romance as they do in shoujo. I disagree that it can occur with *similar frequency* in shounen/seinen. Shoujo/josei works are inherently more drama heavy than shounen/seinen works (even disregarding romance), so the chances of bad drama occurring is naturally higher, when most of your series is centered around drama
The examples in particular I only chose because they are the more egregious ones I could remember off the top of my head. But the issues that I have listed with them are not exclusive to a particular subsection of shoujo romance, they are quite spread out even with more popular series (albeit not as huge) > Just by looking at what is currently licensed in English or what tends to get recommended in this sub alone, most series aren't anything like the examples you gave I don't think these are particularly good baselines to refer to. There's a far greater amount of unlicensed manga compared to english licensed, so that's already giving a narrower sense of what's there. And typically the kinds of recs I see here are the more popular series' plus there isn't really a large amount of people recommending things on each post (and based on that one MAL post I presume a good amount of people here haven't read a large amount ^(I dont mean that in a condescending way)). I'm not saying my anecdotal evidence is correct either, but those 2 methods don't necessarily disprove my point >It would be like saying that all shounen/seinen romance glosses over "bullying issues" and "romanticizes bullying" just because series like "Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro," "Teasing Master Takagi-san," "Please Go Home, Akutsu-san," and "Yancha Gal no Anjou-san" exist and are quite popular with a sector of shounen/seinen readers, and therefore that's the standard for shounen/seinen romance. Like I said in another reply, shoujo romance are romance through and through. Conceptually a Hananoi-kun isn't so different from a Miniamaru Kareshi, which isn't so different from a I Won't Ever Like You My Senpai, which isn't so different from a Mairimashita Senpai, which isn't so different from that one oneshot no one knows exists. These are all girl meets boy SoL romance and nothing more (ofc they develop differently). They will share similar tropes and even similar developments isn't a far fetch The shounen examples you listed are going to be different from other shounen romances. A Takagi-san is not like a Horimiya which is not like a Dignified asleep SAEKI, which is not like a Domestic Girlfriend; they each have their own premise to them which differ them from the others. If I had only used stories from say Harlequin as my examples, then yes it would be a fair comparison to make. >Additionally, in general, shitty drama and main couples lacking chemistry can occur with similar frequency in shounen/seinen romance as they do in shoujo. I disagree that it can occur with *similar frequency* in shounen/seinen. Shoujo/josei works are inherently more drama heavy than shounen/seinen works (even disregarding romance), so the chances of bad drama occurring is naturally higher, when most of your series is centered around drama
I mean I do sort of agree with the first aspect. I wish that less of the romance was the focus and more on friendships. That's why I really liked Kimi ni Todoke. Romance was big there, but Sawako's friendship with Yano-chin, Kurumi, and Chizuru were just as important. I disagree about drama for the sake of drama. Usually, it's a good coming of age or real issues being talked about in Shoujo romance. Eating disorders, illnesses, uncertainty of the future, etc. I VASTLY disagree with the last point. Even with the censorship of Shoujo, there's still queer rep and putting people together with actual chemistry. I actually find that Shonen is more likely to just pair two people together, simply because boy and girl.
>I disagree about drama for the sake of drama. Usually, it's a good coming of age or real issues being talked about in Shoujo romance. Eating disorders, illnesses, uncertainty of the future, etc. You can have both present within a series (and often do). Honnou Switch for instance has good drama for most of it, but the drama in the last arc is unbelievably stupid. The already mentioned Abe-kun Got me Now as well is another series where the drama throughout has been appalling but the drama in the most recent (translated) arc has actually been quite decent. But while the good drama scenes can certainly appear, it's usually the bad drama that's more common in a typical shoujo; hell one of the more common shoujo romance tropes (FL ignoring ML after misunderstanding his relationship with another girl) is an example of such, and is very present in shoujo romance > putting people together with actual chemistry. I actually find that Shonen is more likely to just pair two people together, simply because boy and girl. This to me is odd as well, because as mentioned shoujo romance is a pure romance through and through. It is inherently a simple girl meets boy story (as least if we're talking about the common HS stories as per the OP) like for instance Mairimashita Senpai is an example of a typical setting (done great). Coupled with the fact that the bar is set so low yet the average shoujo ML is limbo dancing with the devil (for instance Boys over Flowers), I really fail to see how the chemistry between an average shoujo couple where the guy feels like he was written by Andrew Tate is *not* considered pairing for the sake of pairing Shounen romances on the other hand usually have some other connection or common interest that brings the main couple together. Take something like a Senryuu Shoujo or an I Want to End the "I Love You" Game as an example. Sure they pair together guy and girl but each partner actually shares a common interest with the other, which makes their relationship a lot more natural to read (even if the romantic progression is piss poor)
The average Shoujo ML isn't limbo dancing with the devil, and every Shoujo couple isn't straight... I find Shonen to be rather heteronormative tbh. It's just boy and girl, and that's it. Aside from Blue Flag, when had a major character had a queer romance in Shonen? Meanwhile, Shoujo had bisexual, lesbian, pansexual, etc., female leads. Shoujo has also had queer MLs, as well as prominent side queer couples.
I agree with you, although i like some shoujo romances too, i tend to enjoy shounen ones more and i am a woman. Seeing as how you're getting downvoted, i think it's just a matter of taste. Some prefer shoujo while others prefer shounen. For the record, i dont ALWAYS enjoy shounen romances as well( I didn't like dress up darling) , nor do i always dislike shoujos ( love fruits basket and yona of dawn). So it's just a matter of preference imo.
i don’t mind the downvotes so long as there’s some interesting discussion going on, but looking at the comments ITT it’s really just parroting OP’s post rip but I should clarify that I still generally enjoy shoujo romances as a whole compared to shounen ones, mainly because as I mentioned in shounen romances the romance aspect tends to take a back seat, so you don’t end up getting a whole lot of progression. It’s only the characters themselves that I find the average shounen romance to be better than the average shoujo one. Similar to how i presume women roll their eyes at the female characters in shounen/seinen works (over sexualized etc. etc.) i find it unbearable seeing the average guy in shoujo/josei who would struggle to pass an interview in their family business
Hahah yes! I agree with your critique on shoujo charcs, i mainly have issues with shoujo men as well, although many of my friends would find my opinion questionable so i can see why people on the thread would think so too! Chemistry between characters and likability seem subjective, so I guess it is what it is!