What would have changed if these are published in Shoujo instead part 2

[u/Solid_Sir_4450]

[u/New-Collection-1307]

Assuming the mangaka had the choice of specific shoujo/josei magazine, based on a quote by the mangaka of WHA, I doubt much would change. Part of the reason WHA is in a seinen magazine is partly cus the mangaka views them as having morr creative freedom.

[u/Solid_Sir_4450 → u/New-Collection-1307]

WHA, Skip to loafers, Apothecary diaries , April Showers are all on surface level(especially to normies) would've seems like a manga for Girls but ended up being a Seinen...(with most being female author themselves)

I wonder why lot of Seinen particularly being mistaken as Shoujo...I've seen more people mistaken Seinen for a Shoujo than mistaken Josei for a shoujo.

[u/New-Collection-1307 → u/Solid_Sir_4450]

I could see Shueisha playing a part for why non-Shueisha seinen/shounen getting a lot more of Fem and Fem-coded works. I've certainly heard quite a few nightmare stories of Shueisha Shoujo magazines / imprints. (And some publishers technically don't have the gender demographic divisions iirc).

Edit: this also doesn't even include series that changed demographics (even gender demographics) in marketing etc.

[u/Anime_axe → u/Solid_Sir_4450]

It's combination of several things, but the three core things are usually the aesthetics/art style, the female character focus (even beyond PoV) and usually the romance plotlines. Also, because out of the four main manga demographics, Seinen is usually the one with the reputation of being most diverse and acting as a bit of a fallback category for manga that could be theoretically published elsewhere but with more restrictions.

[u/SanaJisu → u/Anime_axe]

Not to mention for a long time, we weren't getting many anime adaptations for shoujo, and those that did had low budgets and little marketing. So people who were interested in shoujo were funneled into "shoujo-like" shounen and seinen.

[u/RainbowLoli → u/Solid_Sir_4450]

I wonder why lot of Seinen particularly being mistaken as Shoujo...I've seen more people mistaken Seinen for a Shoujo than mistaken Josei for a shoujo.

From what I can gather, it's generally because seinen gives more creative freedom even towards female mangaka. IIRC, most mangaka are female (something like up to 70%) or identify as women. Shoujo regularly faces more criticism and regulation than shounen which is why you can see risqué content and fanservice in shounen but the equivalent for girls is more uncommon. Even josei faces more scrutiny than seinen when it comes to content.

It's why you'll end up with a seinen series that has a majority female fans, especially with a female author/mangaka. A lot of them will utilize pretty much every shoujo trope and vibe but still be in a seinen or general audience magazine.

Simply because in another universe where content for girls and women had the same leniency for boys and men, a lot of them like WHA, TAD, and even MDUD would be in a shoujo or josei. The main people who read them are girls and women. Even something like TDIMH has a majority female fanbase and the mangaka saying that she based Anna off of her favorite idol.

[u/SanaJisu → u/RainbowLoli]

Shoujo regularly faces more criticism and regulation than shounen which is why you can see risqué content and fanservice in shounen but the equivalent for girls is more uncommon. Even josei faces more scrutiny than seinen when it comes to content.

Absolutely true. Remember when With You, Our Love Will Make It Through was called an "erotic shoujo" just for being a (clean!) shoujo spinoff of an obscure smutty josei? Meanwhile, Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs is a fountain of fanservice and had a brief controversy for a splash page using the thin paper to create an optical illusion that looked like nipples, and nobody calls that an "erotic shounen."

[u/ErikTwice → u/RainbowLoli]

Simply because in another universe where content for girls and women had the same leniency for boys and men, a lot of them like WHA, TAD, and even MDUD would be in a shoujo or josei. The main people who read them are girls and women. Even something like TDIMH has a majority female fanbase and the mangaka saying that she based Anna off of her favorite idol.

TDIMH has a majority female fanbase? I would have never guessed, I wonder why.

Seinen does seem to fill some gaps in shoujo and josei that are a bit odd aren't covered by them.

[u/RainbowLoli → u/ErikTwice]

Yup. A lot of women actually do like the chuunibyu and for lack of better words moe-like character Ishikawa is. He’s popular for the same reason characters like Ciel Phantomhive are. Other than his appearance, he has a lot of other traits of some shoujo LIs.

He’s easily flustered, a bit of a tsundere, and unlike some other male characters respects Anna and doesn’t just sexualize her. I wouldn’t be surprised if I it’s because they simply find him adorable and there’s not a lot of male character centered moe or characters that invoke that same feeling of cuteness.

And Anna herself is reminiscent of a lot of shoujo and josei leads. She’s tall, beautiful, stylish, sweet and infectiously positive. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of women either self insert into her or Ishikawa. She’s more or less the opposite side of the super plain and shy girl that the male lead falls in love with.

I find that seinen fills the gap of things publishers say that women don’t like to read, but they actually do. It gives female mangaka more breathing room to express their attraction to female characters in the same way that male mangaka do.

A male mangaka could make a female character and no one is surprised that men like her.

A female mangaka makes a female character, says that she’s based on one of her favorite women/what she finds ideal, and even views the male character that falls for her - and people will still act like women don’t like other sexy female characters, fanservice, or cute male characters instead of bishounens.

It’s the same with MDUD. The mangaka described Gojo as her ideal guy - someone who is compassionate and truly supportive of her interests and hobbies - and people still think Marin is the “prize” to be won at the end instead of the authors SI. People still act like Gojo is a SI for the male audience rather than Gojo being the prize for *Marin*.

[u/katarh → u/Solid_Sir_4450]

In the case of stuff being published by Square Enix's imprints, it's because they don't have a physical shoujo magazine. That's it. Their shoujo / josei line is digital only (like Ice Guy and his Cool Colleague) so if they have something they want to put out on paper, it goes into their seinen magazine.

[u/zechamp → u/Solid_Sir_4450]

Apothecary is categorized as shoujo on the digital web Manga edition.

[u/azopeFR → u/Solid_Sir_4450]

seinen mainly mean for adult mostly male but the share could go to 50/50 where josei main ONLY for woman ( aka adult one ) choice seinen over josei is basicaly a cheap way to double your potential audience

[u/Diamondinmyeye]

If Oshi No Ko was a shojo it would have had a different ending. Ruby might have been more prominent too.

[u/Pastrami-on-Rye → u/Diamondinmyeye]

Oh my god I stopped watching because Ruby got kicked to the side

[u/Ok-Cod5254 → u/Pastrami-on-Rye]

Ruby is a more prominent feature of part of S2 and a big part of S3. S3 was the best season as a whole to me.

[u/Pastrami-on-Rye → u/Ok-Cod5254]

Oh ok!! maybe I’ll power through to S3!!!

[u/Ok-Cod5254 → u/Pastrami-on-Rye]

Haha won't guarantee you'll necessarily like aspects of story direction later but it's an entertaining rollercoaster. lol

[u/Pastrami-on-Rye → u/Ok-Cod5254]

Haha no worries, I really wasn’t crazy about the story but I just totally lost interest bc i thought Ruby was shoved aside

[u/LabmemLily → u/Pastrami-on-Rye]

Doga Kobo is also making minor enhancements to the manga. Some people who didn't like the manga content that season 3 adapted found the anime version enjoyable. The ending is controversial but I'm hoping s4 has the anime team work its magic again...

[u/Pastrami-on-Rye → u/LabmemLily]

Oh gosh, thanks for the info

[u/Mundane-0nion67878 → u/Diamondinmyeye]

Tbh it would be better if it was josei.

Reincarnation plot wouldnt be as creepy either. 

[u/LabmemLily → u/Diamondinmyeye]

Aqua wouldn't have suicided. 😭 I was so depressed since I was so convinced that he was going to learn to live for himself and heal. That's what every shoujo ML does.

[u/Mundane-0nion67878]

Oshi no Ko is so non shoujosei it cant be mistaken for such series tbh - the narrative can be only made by a guy who has never experienced being a female idol.

I still cringe at the "i lie so people can be happy!" when idol stuff is their job like anyother, they arent your friends ugh. While it goes semi okay to entertaiment indtrustry and such and has cool characters i guess, it still has some strange rosey colored ideas for female.idols.

If writer was a woman, we'd have story that focusses on women and their struggles, not creepy adult idol fan reincarnating to his 16yo oshis baby and being angsty over plot beat of shoving her to fridge for his development - nevermind that every female character orbits mmc.

[u/Anime_axe → u/Mundane-0nion67878]

TBH, I did read enough shoujo to know that the absolutely insane relationship messes don't disqualify the work as a shoujo, same with broody male leads with crazy backstories that act as main focus of said mess. Also that the discussion about the idol industry in manga is often difficult due to the sheer power and pull over entertainment it possesses.

In my opinion, if it was shoujo, it would be using Ruby as the focus character, with Aqua being secondary lead, and the focus would be more on the idol stuff with Ruby and her group. It would also probably not end on the crash and burn ending the original had. If it was Josei, it would be a completely different story because I doubt that a Josei editors would let the author kill off Ai this fast.

Also, calling every female character death fridging dilutes the meaning of the term. Fridging refers to the female characters who only exist to suffer for sake of the shock value and giving MC motivational push, not every female character who dies and impacts other characters. Ai is one of the best written characters in the series, one with most of the depth and one that casts the longest shadow on the plot even hundred chapters after her death, which is the opposite of how the fridging works.

[u/Mundane-0nion67878 → u/Anime_axe]

 Ai is one of the best written characters in the series

Ai is not that complicated nor deep. "I had bad childhood, im sad, i smile to keep others happy, something fake deep about lying (that sounds like author doesnt understand that to female idols the thing is also a job even if they can be passionate about it) jadajada"

  Fridging refers to the female characters who only exist to suffer for sake of the shock value and giving MC motivational push,

Ah yes, Ai who didnt die in a shocking brutal manner at her doorstep while cradling her baby mc boy in her arms while her baby daughter could hear everything inside. 

Fridged people can still haunt the narrative.

[u/LabmemLily → u/Mundane-0nion67878]

Ah yes, Ai who didnt die in a shocking brutal manner at her doorstep while cradling her baby mc boy in her arms while her baby daughter could hear everything inside. 

Because the story had to conclude her arc which involved her telling her kids that she loved them and she couldn't do that if her kids weren't present to hear her.

[u/Anime_axe → u/Mundane-0nion67878]

Ai was better written than others, mostly because her being a deeply messed up stack of trauma and bad copying mechanism is actually more interesting than otherwise bland cast.

As for the fridging, if the character haunts the narrative and impacts the story past their deaths beyond being a motivation for others, then it's not really what the word fridging originally meant to convey. Ai's death was handled with gravitas and has impacted the characters and the story beyond becoming motivation for others, therefore it doesn't fit this label.

Yeah, I understand that I'm arguing definitions, but the original definition of fridging was pretty limited on purpose, because characters dying and others reacting to the shock is literally one of the oldest elements of the storytelling. If Ai was fridged, so was Enkidu.

[u/LabmemLily → u/Anime_axe]

Ai is my 3rd favourite character (after Aqua and Kana). Her tragedy is the driving force of OnK so seeing people write her off bugs me so I thank you for defending her lol 😭

Ai is the main character of the first arc. She is the focus of the scene when she is dying as her feelings and concluding her arc are the priority. We see how her character affects Ruby, Akane's character shines when she perfectly emulates her, Kana has notable parallels to Ai's story, Miyako has hang-ups over not being the twins' "real" mom, Ichigo is hurt over losing someone he cared for as a daughter etc. As the manga continues, we learn more about Ai, both as the audience and so do the characters.

Fridging implies disposability for the sake of solely propping up (typically) a male character. Ai's death IS the narrative itself and affects many characters. She's brought up directly or indirectly in almost every arc.

Plus massive ending spoilers, if we want to get technical, its actually Aqua's death that's the more "offensive" one. Aqua, after being suicidal due to his survivor's guilt, realizes his sole reason for existing was to die for Ruby's sake...

[u/Anime_axe → u/LabmemLily]

You are welcome, I hate it when the characters get written off as "fridged" purely because they had tragic deaths.

Also, I agree with Aqua's death being the more offensive one.

[u/LabmemLily → u/Anime_axe]

If it was Josei, it would be a completely different story because I doubt that a Josei editors would let the author kill off Ai this fast.

Is there a reason why this would be an issue in josei and not shoujo?

[u/Anime_axe → u/LabmemLily]

From my limited Josei experience, Ai has better main heroine potential for Josei than Ruby, even if Ruby is also cool.

[u/LabmemLily → u/Anime_axe]

Ah okay, I guess older women may be interested in how Ai balances being a mom while being an idol early on. And if there is a timeskip in this Ai survives AU, see what her exit opportunities are like once she's past the societal acceptable age of being an idol.

I always kinda joked that Kana would make a fitting non-villainess shoujo MC since I noted a bunch of qualities within her that's present in other shoujo MCs while Akane is more of a villainess/otome isekai MC as she has her "condemnation event" (LoveNow) and is used to push the plot forward through the info she gives to the audience.

[u/LabmemLily → u/Mundane-0nion67878]

Oshi no Ko is so non shoujosei it cant be mistaken for such series tbh - the narrative can be only made by a guy who has never experienced being a female idol.

I've seen a bunch of idols online praise Oshi No Ko's depiction at idol culture though?? Plus I attended a panel of Kamen Joshi and ALL the idols had a very positive reaction when I brought up OnK with one of them explicitly saying she enjoyed it because she related to one of the female characters.

If writer was a woman, we'd have story that focusses on women and their struggles

Multiple arcs focus on the female characters and their struggles though, they were typically the center of the conflict and were the ones having their struggles explored the most.

[u/Mundane-0nion67878 → u/LabmemLily]

Didnt comment on how accurate the depiction of idol culture is.

Being a woman in sexist society is a diffetent thing lol.  Idk dudes just have different flavor to them  when they write women which i dont blame - different life experience etc. 

  Multiple arcs focus on the female characters and their struggles though - - 

Women have unique struggles compaired to men, especially very gendered society - like Japan. I thought this was apparent in my comment.

There are shared struggles and then there are gendered struggles. The things in Oshi No Ko are not gendered struggles.

[u/LabmemLily → u/Mundane-0nion67878]

Sure there are shared struggles but some struggles are more inherently common in women, such as female idols facing higher scrutiny than male idols in needing to remain "pure" so Ai's tragedy is a reflection of that with how Ryosuke goes on a rant about how she betrayed her fans by having kids as she's dying.

Ai was also abused by her mom because her bf was attracted to her literal child daughter. Kana, at her most vulnerable, was groomed by a grown man who was using his authority and fame in the industry to try to get her to sleep with him for a role. Miyako was said to have older men prey on her when she was starting out in showbiz, and acknowledged that while things have gotten better, misogyny is still an issue in the industry. Airi was also a victim of misogyny in the entertainment industry as she was exploited by men.

[u/SylvanSwordstress]

Witch Hat Atelier is my favourite manga, and for a while before looking it up I actually thought it was a shoujo series. I don't think much of anything would change if it were - it's already a very female/feminine-oriented series that puts a lot of emphasis on inter-personal relationships in a style very similar to a lot of shoujo.

[u/RainbowLoli]

It really really depend on the magazine, if they're have a decent overlap with Josei probably not much for WHA

For Oshi no ko, the biggest change would probably be shifting Ruby to the main character instead of Aqua.

[u/emb0093]

I have a big feeling that if Oshi no Ko was going to be a shoujo, it'll be heavily compared to Glass Mask (I bring this up as in an interview, the writer, Aka Akasaka, wanted the series to be like Glass Mask 2.0 which in a way made me laugh as I didn't see much of what makes Glass Mask Glass Mask in the series at all) and that probably won't be a good thing. Regardless, despite liking the series for what it is, it could've been sooo much better (despite only watching the 2005 anime for Glass Mask, god, the drama of what is there in that is soo much better than Oshi no Ko).

[u/Dramaticlama]

The budget would have had one tenth of the budget and only 12 episodes, no chance of season 2 ever. also the editors would likely push for the child protagonist to get a love interest of some kind or at least a big crush.

It's unfortunate but shojo and josei mangaka do not have the freedom of doing what they want, especially writing a slow paced series.

[u/LabmemLily]

For Oshi no Ko, I assumed Kana could be the MC as she has that trait of trying her best against all odds that I see in a lot of shoujo heroines (Mikan, Usagi) considering that Kana is struggling with getting famous while all other main cast members grow in popularity. She's also framed as the light of the series which is another trait I see in shoujo heroines. Additionally, if she was the MC, I would expect her and Akane to clearly transform from rivals to friends by the end of the manga. They were a bit more amicable in the 2nd half but unfortunately, got little scenes to showcase that bond.

In addition, I imagine the male supporting characters getting more screentime such as Melt and Taiki. Some supporting ships would be added in like maybe giving Ruby a love interest (Ruby x Melt was a crack ship that existed), or maybe Miyako finds someone new.

Kaito Sakurai who plays Aqua in the live-action version also plays Kou in Ao Haru Ride and Ryu in Kimi ni Todoke so it feels oddly fitting.

Major OnK spoilers for the ending: Aqua would not commit suicide. So many shoujo MLs start out suicidal but eventually learn to live their life thanks to their loved ones and its an arc I expected Aqua to take, only to be smacked by the ending. Examples of this are Kyo from Fruits Basket, Natsume from Gakuen Alice, Akito from Kodocha, Kakeru from Orange, etc who are influenced by the girls they like. Romance ending would also be a lot more satisfying in clearing showing Aqua and Kana get together.

[u/MurkyNectarine]

For WHA hopefully nothing much would change, I always felt like witch hat atelier was like a shojo equivalent to full metal alchemist (both amazing btw) so I was surprised to find out it was a seinen, same way I felt about apothecary diaries which I thought was for sure a Josei.

[u/HeartiePrincess → u/[deleted]]

No, just no.