Maddies Manga

It’s a common misconception that shoujo manga = romance manga. While romance is a very popular genre in the shoujo manga demographic, it’s just one genre! It’s important to understand the difference between a demographic and a genre.

I would also like to note that just because a story may have romance in it, it doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a romance story. So many shounen series have bits of romance here and there, but still aren’t considered “romance series”. Why, then, does shoujo so often get typecast as a “romance series” the second a bit of romance is involved?

What is a demographic?

A demographic is the target audience of a particular story. This is who the author has in mind as their audience when they write their story. There are four main demographics used in manga: shoujo (young women), josei (adult women), shounen (young men), and seinen (adult men).

Just because a manga is of a certain demographic, that doesn’t mean it’s only allowed to be enjoyed by those that find themselves in that demographic. It turns out, sometimes a shounen (for young men) series will actually be most popular with young women—Haikyuu for example.

We see demographics being most important when it comes to the publication of a certain series. That is, what manga magazine it will be published in.

What is a genre?

A genre is a type of story. We can see genres not just in books but also in almost every type of media—it’s a way to group similar stories together.

In every demographic of manga, we can see many different genres. Certain genres may be more popular depending on the demographic, but there will always be a wide variety of genres found in each demographic.

In my experience, here are some popular genres found in each demographic:

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Even within the shoujo manga that have romance as one of their genres (many series have multiple), I believe it’s important not to let this overshadow the other genres. Take Yona of the Dawn for instance. Sure, there’s some romance to be found in this series. Yona’s romantic feelings for a certain character are made relevant near the very beginning of the story. But, does the existence of romantic feelings = “this is a romance story”?

I think if readers who are averse to romance series were to see the “romance” tag in Yona of the Dawn, and write it off as “just a romance series” would be doing a great disservice to themselves. As while it does indeed have a romance subplot, it’s by large and above an epic fantasy adventure series.

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Now, let’s flip the demographics to shounen. If I were to ask you whether The Seven Deadly Sins was a romance series, what would you say? Meliodas is clearly shown to have romantic feelings for a certain character right from their first encounter, and his feelings for her are a vital part of his story. I don’t want to spoil too much of the story here; however just like Yona of the Dawn, The Seven Deadly Sins has a rather significant romantic subplot.

When I look up the genre for The Seven Deadly Sins, however, it’s only listed as fantasy. Compared to Yona of the Dawn, which comes up as adventure, fantasy, and romance.

I find this to be rather peculiar. It almost feels as though certain demographics shy away from admitting that their stories do indeed often have romance in them. While the demographics that embrace the fact that they have romance in it, are punished for doing so. And that punishment is overgeneralization.