Question about Seinen

[Ryan3141]

Hey, sorry if I put this in the wrong area seeing how I just signed up (and got into anime), but I was wondering what defines Seinen?

Like what aspects of their manga/shows draw the line between it and typical manga (I'm not sure if that's called Shounen or not). I apologize if this topic has been getting repetitive, but I just got curious. Like I know that Seinen can be a little perverse at times, but is there a clear distinction between the two, or do you just have to have that feeling that allows you to tell the two apart?

I started reading "High School of the Dead" and I'm not suurree if that's Seinen, but I have a good assumption it is, and I also read "Naruto", "Bleach", and "One Piece", which I know are (Shounen?).

Thanks for your help and for reading this.

[kewl0210]

It depends on what magazine it's in. Everything in a magazine that starts with "Shounen" is Shounen and everything that starts with "Young" is Seinen. Generally speaking, there could be a few exceptions. Though there are several seinen and shounen magazines that don't start with either. You could look them up on a place like this:
http://comipedia.com/

[Drmke]

There are no actual defining aspects other than who the targeted age group is. Seinen just means that it's manga targeted at old teens and nothing more really.

[kewl0210]

Well there are limits to what can be put in seinen. Like you can't have drug references and display sex in Shounen. There're probably more things you could make clear cut rules about.

[Roflkopt3r]

To my knowledge it's easier to define Shonen in the first place and to say that everything going beyond that is usually Seinen. Yet in the end it's not necessarily precise as the demographic rating only depends on the magazine a story is published in.

Shonen is limited in possibilities by the age of readers. Explicit graphics in terms of violence, nudity, sex, drugs etc. can't be shown because of that (there are a few borderline examples though) - so manga showing this explicitly are mostly Seinen.
Manga with more complex storylines and storytelling or heavy focus on characters (really heavy) mostly are Seinen as well, it's hard to get children read it when it's too complex.

A borderline example would be Death Note which contains a lot of killing and a rather complex storyline, yet is Shonen. A case of total confusion (for me at least) is Shigurui, which would be pretty explicit even for a Seinen (in terms of erotic and violence/gore), yet is rated Shonen because of the magazine it's published in.

[Ryan3141]

Thanks guys, this helped a lot.

[raikou]

Like kewl said, it depends on the magazine. And Roflkopt3r also right, mature things are mostly seinen. But slice of life manga could also included in seinen, because in my opinion seinen also portray reality. And manga with moe elements is usually seinen, because moe is targeted at older guys rather than teens.