If you can see the trends of the growing Anime or Otaku community, you will notice the apparent use of different terminologies that may or may not confused the beginners whom may have just stumbled their way there for a single specific anime. Even when you check the comment sections, inside jokes are apparent from one fandom to another and terms like the different “dere” types to the complaints from the variety of genres has been widely used. This is a list of the terms used for anime and manga categories in the community:

*Categories



Aside from the usual types of genres such as romance, horror, action, comedy, historical, drama, game, fantasy, and adventure, Animes and Mangas have other categories that explains what kind of love story it is (if romance), what characters are in it, and of what environment the characters are in. Here are the other categories for the genres:



-Demographic Specific

These kind of genres are categorized through what the material is targeted for.
>Shoujo -is an anime or manga targeted for young women. This usually includes characters that are drawn femininely (beautifully) and may use exaggerated background (flowers as an example) to emphasize a character’s physique. Huge and cute eyes are also one of the commonly attributes of a shoujo genre character.

>Shounen-anime or manga tailor made for young men. Although sometimes still drawn femininely, their characters have variations of portrayal depending upon the artist taste. Like shoujo, they are a part of the general genres that can be liked by anyone outside their demographics but shounen genre usually appeals to a larger crowd and most of the time tends to be mainstream.

>Seinen- is an anime or manga targeted for a much mature male crowd. This usually contain nudity and mature topics that may or may not appeal to the younger audience.

>Josei-is an anime or manga for mature women. These includes mature romance and fantasies.

>Kodomo-Although, it rarely appeals to single crowd, it is specifically aimed for children 12 years old below.


-Story Specific

These kind of genres are categorized through knowing who are the characters, their relationship and their environments are.

> Mecha-focuses on a story line of which technology and robots are already normal. Sometimes it is used together with a post-apocalyptic theme with a little romance or a comedy/harem/action genre (thinking of infinite stratos).

>Harem- this is a genre where the main male character is surrounded by more than two love interest. You can usually see this as either the typical story line for romance or as a comic relief.

>Reverse Harem- this is a genre that is totally opposite to Harem (as it name suggest) instead of a male lead, this genre stars a female lead character. Unlike Harem, this is usually never used as a comic relief but a source of drama instead.

>Shoujo-ai-(Girls love) features lesbian relationship. It is usually set up at an earlier stage of romance where love is still pure and is just about to bloom. It is milder that other genres that displays girl to girl relationship.

>Shounen-ai-as a counter part of shoujo-ai featuring a boy to boy blooming relationship.

>Yaoi-displays a male to male relationship including nsfw contents. Often censored or implied, yaoi expresses a love story with a formula (one being more dominant personality wise than the other) and goes in depth with intimacy. Yaoi is also the most popular genres (yes more than shoujo) for female as of the moment.

>Yuri-presents the counter part of yaoi that features explicit display of romance and intimacy of a female to female relationship.

>Ecchi-flashing some body parts with censorship, sexual innuendos and implied or short sexual scenes (as much as Japan can allow to be viewed by public audience), this genre is widespread and popular on both female and male crowd. Ecchi theme is usually used as a comic relief but it can still turn serious (hilariously serious I mean) depending upon the story line.

>Hentai-NSFW at its finest. There is no censorship here and it displays sexual intercourse. Basically its an anime porn. Hentai’s story line (in my opinion) tends to be lacking as they just really focus on their shenanigans than the character development. Also, you wouldn’t see this on a typical anime site but on another pervet-specific sites (you-should-know-what-I-mean).


So why is it important to know these things? I think its mainly because you don't want to go watch something just because of the title and be shocked of what it really is about. For example, you're a guy and you decided to watch Super Lovers because you thought it was something about brotherly love and be shocked that its a Yaoi and you wouldn't want to touch any anime anymore. See the picture? Knowing genres are important specially for pre selection of anime or mangas.


Mashiiro xoxo