What Demographics Do You Read?

[Mushashi]

well obviously josei does. its mainly aimed at older females.

[Kaiten]

I've read plenty of shojo that handle romance well. Lovely Complex and KimiTodo depict high school dating very realistically. BokuKimi is an incredible love story.

[shaheer]

even though i dont like shojo in general but i liked Lovely Com, and BokuKimi

[Kaiten]

How do you not like "shojo in general" but like those two? They are about as shojo as possible. I can't imagine a fan of those particular series not liking other shojo.

[shaheer]

well i dont like the artwork to be particular it pisses me off esp i hate Bishonen , and many other elements which surprisingly falls in shojo demography,i listed those two because i liked those from your above list senpai.
well when i said i like i meant i can withstand those and enjoy.(when i read a manga i give a lot pref to the artwork,if it doesnt suite me then the manga is 2 nd graded in my eyes)

[Crude]

If there is one thing I dislike in shoujo, it would definitely be the panel arrangement. I get the fact that its supposed to be artistic in a sense, but vertical panels really irk me. I prefer page layouts that are easy to read. Naruto seems to do this very well, along with a few other shounen (and some shoujo) series.

[Kusachu]

I'm not a big fan of Shoujo, but I really liked Fruits Basket, Vampire Knight and Shinobi Life. The biggest turn off for me with the shoujo stuff is the artwork. Not usually my cup of tea, but if I like the art of the story it usually gets me by long enough to get into the plot at which point the art doesn't matter so much any more (though I do tend to enjoy it more as the story matures). i tend to prefer more adult themes, which I've noticed that some shoujo (like the ones I actually like) sort of grow into, instead of staying with the childish middle school/high school drama or the kiddie fairytale stuff.


EDIT:
I just have to give huge props to Shinobi Life though. It's considered shoujo, but there's so much about it that stands apart from other stories. The premise seems generic but it's really not. It's a very involed and inticate story that really pays off in the romance department. Since the characters are adults for the most part there's a lot of serious sexuality, even if raw sex isn't shown. It certainly helps that the guys in the story are all freakishly good looking (without being vampires lol). The girls are cute too, and likable enough. I also love the dark psychological undertones as well as the adherence to historical fact (as in the case of the ninjas, social status, rank, honoring one's code, etc.) I would recommend this story to anyone who likes romance, psychological drama, action, and...hot ninjas.

[Pantsutastic]

Stereotypical Shoujo art style can be an eyesore. The wavy lines that make up chracter desings and lack of hard Sharp lines like in Shounen makes it hard to enjoy. Ouran High host club is an example.

[R4n]

aah.. well... Shoujo and shounen is different. It is not very fair to compare them ^^
It is like comparing a male and a female... it doesn't make sense to argue which one is superior etc etc. Taste matters...

some people who are very used to shounen artwork might despise "the pretty artwork"... let's keep the bashing minimum...

some of the "fairytale kiddie sparkly princess-y stuff" stories are meant for elementary and middle school girls. That's why sometimes the older girls (and boys) are very turned off by them. I am kinda comparing them to the barbie stories or Disney Princesses comics. It is not very fair to judge (aka stereotype) shoujo genre in general only by looking at them.

I read many shounen; Shoujo is definetely one of my favourite genre. Plenty of them really are worth reading. Sunodokei by Ashihara Hinako for example. I love her work, her way of handling romance genre tend to be more realistic with some slice of life.

I read an essay sometime ago that argued Shoujo's abstract panel arrangement is meant to be a canvas for feeling and emotion. It is just a different approach of storytelling.

[shaheer]

sorry i didnt mean to bash or insult any one(or their taste) when i said that i didnt like the artwork, its just my personal taste. I am mainly into seinen and like Gore and stuffs so the unique artwork thats usually seen in shojo doesnt suite me much ,hope i didnt offend any one

[Kusachu]

Yeah I'm not dissing the art in shoujo really, I just don't normally like it. To me a lot of it isn't pleasing to look at, so I never even take the time to read the story. Though, the ones i do like the art in I generally love the story. It's a visual medium after all, and the visuals are important to tastes. Unfortunately a good story isn't a prerequisite for good art and visa versa, but the art is "the foot in the door". At least, for me.

I'll even admit that I would never have read Fruits Basket, no matter how many times I heard how good it was, until after I had watched the anime, which I didn't really like and only watched because it was free and nothing else was on Anime Netwok On Demand. I skipped the first 30 or chapters because I didn't like it, but i was curious how it was continued after the anime, so i trudged on, and around chapter 60 or so I really got into it and the pretty art style grew on me.

The early story was just too "kiddy" for me and it didn't get interesting until

Kyou turned into the cat demon.

I also forund many of the characters to be extremely annoying and would skip over whole pages with them because I didn't like them and didn't care about their roles in the story, but when those characters matured I grew to really like most of them.

Maybe it's just because I'm an adult who hated high school drama that I don't find high school drama manga very interesting.

[LilaChan]

A couple of years ago, all I read was shoujo manga, especially the elementary school ones. I adore the sparklely artwork that's all pretty and detailed. Even now, I usually prefer shoujo artwork then shounen artwork despite I complain alot about shoujo artwork.

Many shounen fans love the artwork in Naruto and One Piece, I couldn't get myself to read them because the art felt very bland (they are good artist and have unique art style) compared to what I was used to. I managed to read about 100 chapters of Bleach but got bored. I managed to read the Tsubasa after chapter 100 to the end. Finally, there's one long running shounen I read the whole thing through. Reborn, reason being the art was 'pretty' (Bleach and Tsubasa already had prettier artwork then typical shounen manga). It had the details of shoujo manga but also the clean lines from shounen. The pretty art made me forgive some of the flaws it has, hence I managed to finish it to the newest chapter.

Both shounen and shoujo have their flaws, it depends whether you can cope with their flaws. I can barely finish a manga that's longer then 3 volumes, shounen's long length is a definite flaw for me that I can't get over. I can get over the sparkly eyes of shoujo and the army of screen tones that makes the page looks too busy.

*I'm using the word 'pretty' to describe artwork. Meaning they're detailed and look 'shiny'. Pretty =/= good unique artwork

I want to shoot myself for enjoying Moe Kare and Suki Desu Suzuki-kun, both being wishfullfillment shoujo manga. They are corny and unoriginal and medicore artwork. I'm also reading Watashi XX Shinasai, which I want to bang my head on the wall for liking it

unique artwork thats usually seen in shojo

Eh? Shoujo? Unique artwork? Does not make sense...The only shoujo artwork I actually found original is Ai Yazawa. Maybe I have read too much shoujo...

[shaheer]

@ LilaChan i was speaking of the slender male, flower petals here,esp in anime the walls pink colored . and every panel tidied up and you know the Bi shonen stuffs , there is a difference betwn the shojo artwork and shonen artwork (not always) i dont like most of the the elements that makes the difference ...well hard to explain

[LilaChan]

@ LilaChan i was speaking of the slender male, flower petals here,esp in anime the walls pink colored . and every panel tidied up and you know the Bi shonen stuffs , there is a difference betwn the shojo artwork and shonen artwork (not always) i dont like most of the the elements that makes the difference ...well hard to explain

Ah, you meant the bishie sparkles and the pink bubbles backgrounds? Unfortunately that's shoujo artwork for you, I think it has been used at least from the 80's. I guess that is what makes a shoujo manga a shoujo manga. Girls like pretty stuff .

But I think there a poll couple of years ago, that girls' favourite manga magazine is Shounen Jump. I don't think demographics really mean much nowadays. Just like clothes, it's quite common for girls to read shounen manga but it's slightly unusual that a guy reads shoujo manga.

[Kaiten]

Sparkles and bubbles are a shojo stereotype. Most of the newer material released by the three big publishers (Shueisha, Shogakukan, Hakusensha) keep them to a minimum. Stereotypical shojo art went out of style years ago. There's still some, where it serves a narrative purpose. The very skinny bishie is also going out of style. The way the men in Skip Beat and Fruits Basket look is hardly typical. And like every other demographic, each magazine has it's own style.