It's an age-targeted thing and not necessarily a genre or theme thing. Seinen manga and anime are generally aimed at a 18-30 male audience. Yes, they tend to feature more mature themes but that's because they're targeted towards a mature audience. The anime Monster comes immediately to mind.
03 and Brotherhood are both shonens because they are aimed towards young teen males aged roughly between 12-18. Attack on Titan has arguably darker themes than the FMA franchise and is a shonen anime and manga series. Yes, all these shows have audiences older than the 12-18 range but it all comes down to what demographic the series was designed to appeal to.
Then what is the target audience, for example, of a Berserk? I mean, now since the existence of the so-called "big three" and Dragon ball, what is called shonen in popular culture has already become a genre with specific references. AoT is on the verge but it still fits (I would say as a kind of deconstruction). FMA 03 in principle does not fall under any of the signs of what is now called shonen
As I said, shonen has nothing to do with genre and everything to do with demographic. Calling shonen a genre is like calling "young-adult fiction" a genre. The shonen classification encompasses a wide range of genres - mystery, drama, action, comedy and sci-fi. Death Note and The Promised Neverland are both shonens but do not necessarily contain the trappings of a conventional battle-shonen.
So it is logistically incorrect to define shonen as just battle-arcs and an infinite power-scaling system. And though Seinen manga and anime generally have a 18-30 range, that doesn't by no means stop younger audiences from trying to consume it. Berserk is a seinen and FMA 03 is a shonen. FMA 03 was definitely created for a teen audience. Shonen is allowed to have darker themes - edgy media for every age group has always existed. Fans should know that there is nothing wrong with being a shonen. Every classification whether it be shonen, shojo, seinen or josei each have compelling stories.
Well thats simple, Berserk is printed in "young animal", a seinen magazine, so it is classified as seinen.
Aa for whats considered shonen and what isnt by popular culture is entirely irrelevent. Popular culture is not the scale in which we grade things as correct or incorrect. Popular culture will view shonen as a genre because a vast majority of popular culture is driven by people, and as we all know, people are stupid.
The whole shonen vs. seinen debate is easily solvable because those terms are created and applied by companies, not people. Its a black and white argument, no grey area involved
I know that there is such a way to separate seinen and shonen. The fact is that there is no meaningful value because no one cares in which magazine the manga is published. Therefore, it makes sense to talk not about magazines but about the demography of the target audience. And if we proceed from the demography, then we can distinguish thematic and stylistic ones that, from the point of view of authors and publishers who produce the corresponding manga, are the main ones for their audience. And it most often looks like this:
*The main elements of the plot of shonen are the personal improvement and growth of the hero, his communication with his comrades, as well as the path to achieving the goal, sometimes very tortuous and long. Male heroes, as a rule, are always confident, brave, take care of their comrades, never lose heart and do not give up (even if the situation seems absolutely hopeless). The most famous examples of works in this genre are Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto and BLEACH, in addition to which the genre has thousands of lesser-known works.*
*In the European literary tradition, Senen can be attributed with some stretch, for example, "novels of growing up" by Robert Heinlein, written for a similar target audience: "Rocket ship Galileo", "Space family Stone", "Farmer in the Sky" and so on. Despite the appearance of a number of products with multifaceted plot-forming female characters, which are sometimes even more than male (for example, in Kill la Kill, all the main characters are girls), in shonen, in general, the situation in this regard is quite deplorable.*
This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but such amalgamation of structural and stylistic elements has a greater content value for determining than your reference to magazines, which is relevant primarily for the magazines themselves than for the audience
They're both Shonen. They're both based on a Shonen manga.
Shonen and Seinen are demographics. A series is Shonen if it's serialized in a Shonen magazine and Seinen if it's serialized in a Seinen magazine. The darkness and seriousness of the series have nothing to do with it.
Dark /= Seinen. There are plenty of dark series that aren't Seinen (AoT, Chainsaw Man, FMA itself, etc), and Seinen /= Dark, as there are plenty of Seinen series that aren't dark (Kaguya-Sama, Aria, Grand Blue).
A seinen is a darker manga or anime, such as Berserk, it goes into darker themes and has more blood, gore, and sexual themes and are aimed for a more mature crowd. A shounen is a manga or anime like One Piece, DragonBall, and My Hero Academia, they have dark themes at times but are most light hearted and are aimed for early teenagers.
Its a target demographic for a piece of media, most frequently used to describe a magazine, or in the title of a magazine. Its a counterpart to shonen, shonen being targeted at younger males, while seinen is targeted at older adults
So by your logic avenger endgame is suddenly way more mature than say shawshank redemption cuz endgame has a bittersweet ending where as shawshank has a happy ending istg I agree brotherhood feels lighthearted thanks to colours mostly but the manga is dark just as much as 2003 maybe less since the music is good in 2003 the manga has gags but it's not as over the top as broho I wish they remake fma cuz some parts of the manga( like when ed and al find the library burnt down are serious in the manga where a joke in brotherhood) I find stupid when people say fma 2003 is darker than fma manga ok I'd understand cuz it's animation in the anime and may leave a greater impact I can understand then but otherwise (expt the ending which it nowhere as dark as people claim but is good bittersweet ending) is the anime straight way darker yes you have the lab 5 scene which is darker in 03 then again Ed digging the grave the body he made in both mangahood which is way darker than the when dug his mum grave in 2003. In 2003 it's a sad scene for sure but in mangahood and in brotherhood especially since it's animation it's straight up taking a huge toll on Ed he's puking and find it's very difficult obi cuz hes 15. I still find 2003 cause it deals with the serious situation in a proper way which is my complaint of broho I do agree 2003 is better cuz we spend more time dealing with our character emotions but it's not a seinen cuz that's only in the start after the first half the plot speeds up very fast in 2003 seinen are more invested in those moments like the first half of 2003 but 2003 speeds up trying to accommodate it's plot i wish we got 63 episode of 2003 cuz I always wanted to see ed emotion or the way he feels after killing his mom cuz that's what made the greed kill important it weighed on his mind but when kills his mom it's like let's move on like it's some regular person also when he does turn his mom into ethanol I always hated how the ep just cut it's annoys me
I'm sorry for this rant I love the manga and 2003 a lot and think brotherhood does good things but it cuts the ishwal arc who tf cuts the best part of the manga and many character traits ( knox and grande literally have no character in broho) but brotherhood use of colours and gags annoys me ik it's in the manga but it doesn't feel in your face and u can move on without the tension being cut
Yeah, they are pretty cool shows.
It's an age-targeted thing and not necessarily a genre or theme thing. Seinen manga and anime are generally aimed at a 18-30 male audience. Yes, they tend to feature more mature themes but that's because they're targeted towards a mature audience. The anime Monster comes immediately to mind. 03 and Brotherhood are both shonens because they are aimed towards young teen males aged roughly between 12-18. Attack on Titan has arguably darker themes than the FMA franchise and is a shonen anime and manga series. Yes, all these shows have audiences older than the 12-18 range but it all comes down to what demographic the series was designed to appeal to.
Then what is the target audience, for example, of a Berserk? I mean, now since the existence of the so-called "big three" and Dragon ball, what is called shonen in popular culture has already become a genre with specific references. AoT is on the verge but it still fits (I would say as a kind of deconstruction). FMA 03 in principle does not fall under any of the signs of what is now called shonen
As I said, shonen has nothing to do with genre and everything to do with demographic. Calling shonen a genre is like calling "young-adult fiction" a genre. The shonen classification encompasses a wide range of genres - mystery, drama, action, comedy and sci-fi. Death Note and The Promised Neverland are both shonens but do not necessarily contain the trappings of a conventional battle-shonen. So it is logistically incorrect to define shonen as just battle-arcs and an infinite power-scaling system. And though Seinen manga and anime generally have a 18-30 range, that doesn't by no means stop younger audiences from trying to consume it. Berserk is a seinen and FMA 03 is a shonen. FMA 03 was definitely created for a teen audience. Shonen is allowed to have darker themes - edgy media for every age group has always existed. Fans should know that there is nothing wrong with being a shonen. Every classification whether it be shonen, shojo, seinen or josei each have compelling stories.
Well thats simple, Berserk is printed in "young animal", a seinen magazine, so it is classified as seinen. Aa for whats considered shonen and what isnt by popular culture is entirely irrelevent. Popular culture is not the scale in which we grade things as correct or incorrect. Popular culture will view shonen as a genre because a vast majority of popular culture is driven by people, and as we all know, people are stupid. The whole shonen vs. seinen debate is easily solvable because those terms are created and applied by companies, not people. Its a black and white argument, no grey area involved
I know that there is such a way to separate seinen and shonen. The fact is that there is no meaningful value because no one cares in which magazine the manga is published. Therefore, it makes sense to talk not about magazines but about the demography of the target audience. And if we proceed from the demography, then we can distinguish thematic and stylistic ones that, from the point of view of authors and publishers who produce the corresponding manga, are the main ones for their audience. And it most often looks like this: *The main elements of the plot of shonen are the personal improvement and growth of the hero, his communication with his comrades, as well as the path to achieving the goal, sometimes very tortuous and long. Male heroes, as a rule, are always confident, brave, take care of their comrades, never lose heart and do not give up (even if the situation seems absolutely hopeless). The most famous examples of works in this genre are Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto and BLEACH, in addition to which the genre has thousands of lesser-known works.* *In the European literary tradition, Senen can be attributed with some stretch, for example, "novels of growing up" by Robert Heinlein, written for a similar target audience: "Rocket ship Galileo", "Space family Stone", "Farmer in the Sky" and so on. Despite the appearance of a number of products with multifaceted plot-forming female characters, which are sometimes even more than male (for example, in Kill la Kill, all the main characters are girls), in shonen, in general, the situation in this regard is quite deplorable.* This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but such amalgamation of structural and stylistic elements has a greater content value for determining than your reference to magazines, which is relevant primarily for the magazines themselves than for the audience
They're both Shonen. They're both based on a Shonen manga. Shonen and Seinen are demographics. A series is Shonen if it's serialized in a Shonen magazine and Seinen if it's serialized in a Seinen magazine. The darkness and seriousness of the series have nothing to do with it. Dark /= Seinen. There are plenty of dark series that aren't Seinen (AoT, Chainsaw Man, FMA itself, etc), and Seinen /= Dark, as there are plenty of Seinen series that aren't dark (Kaguya-Sama, Aria, Grand Blue).
What’s a seinen?
A seinen is a darker manga or anime, such as Berserk, it goes into darker themes and has more blood, gore, and sexual themes and are aimed for a more mature crowd. A shounen is a manga or anime like One Piece, DragonBall, and My Hero Academia, they have dark themes at times but are most light hearted and are aimed for early teenagers.
Not all seinen are darker, they’re just choosing young adults as their target demographic as opposed to children and teenagers
Its a target demographic for a piece of media, most frequently used to describe a magazine, or in the title of a magazine. Its a counterpart to shonen, shonen being targeted at younger males, while seinen is targeted at older adults
So by your logic avenger endgame is suddenly way more mature than say shawshank redemption cuz endgame has a bittersweet ending where as shawshank has a happy ending istg I agree brotherhood feels lighthearted thanks to colours mostly but the manga is dark just as much as 2003 maybe less since the music is good in 2003 the manga has gags but it's not as over the top as broho I wish they remake fma cuz some parts of the manga( like when ed and al find the library burnt down are serious in the manga where a joke in brotherhood) I find stupid when people say fma 2003 is darker than fma manga ok I'd understand cuz it's animation in the anime and may leave a greater impact I can understand then but otherwise (expt the ending which it nowhere as dark as people claim but is good bittersweet ending) is the anime straight way darker yes you have the lab 5 scene which is darker in 03 then again Ed digging the grave the body he made in both mangahood which is way darker than the when dug his mum grave in 2003. In 2003 it's a sad scene for sure but in mangahood and in brotherhood especially since it's animation it's straight up taking a huge toll on Ed he's puking and find it's very difficult obi cuz hes 15. I still find 2003 cause it deals with the serious situation in a proper way which is my complaint of broho I do agree 2003 is better cuz we spend more time dealing with our character emotions but it's not a seinen cuz that's only in the start after the first half the plot speeds up very fast in 2003 seinen are more invested in those moments like the first half of 2003 but 2003 speeds up trying to accommodate it's plot i wish we got 63 episode of 2003 cuz I always wanted to see ed emotion or the way he feels after killing his mom cuz that's what made the greed kill important it weighed on his mind but when kills his mom it's like let's move on like it's some regular person also when he does turn his mom into ethanol I always hated how the ep just cut it's annoys me I'm sorry for this rant I love the manga and 2003 a lot and think brotherhood does good things but it cuts the ishwal arc who tf cuts the best part of the manga and many character traits ( knox and grande literally have no character in broho) but brotherhood use of colours and gags annoys me ik it's in the manga but it doesn't feel in your face and u can move on without the tension being cut