[ SECRET POST #2980 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2980 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Lots of multiple secrets in one comment this week, throwing off the count!

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 083 secrets from Secret Submission Post #426.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[iggy]

Neckbeards aren't into the show, yeah. Most of the fanbase for it is queer women, at least in Western circles. This show is like, the opposite of what neckbeards dig in so many ways. And yeah I do see a fair amount of straight women crusading against the show and pretending only neckbeards like it. Nice job silencing all the queer women watching it.

I'm cool with people not personally digging it for whatever reason or not being comfortable with it, but for a lot of girls this show has really spoken to them as one of the few series out there that deals with female sexuality without being S class. For me personally the nudity in it hasn't come across as male gaze? Maybe it's because it's being done in collaboration with a lesbian yuri mangaka and most of the staff is female, but I don't feel like Ikuhara is trying to write a show for moe obsessed otaku here. It also feels more like women's yuri to me as well.

For the record, Yuri Kuma Arashi is the same as Utena in that the anime is technically classified as seinen but the manga is published in a shoujo magazine. So there is a marked attempt to reach a female audience with this show.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes. You get it. Thank you.

[(Anonymous)]

who classified Utena as seinen? WTF?

[iggy]

Uh that's what it is? Princess Tutu is also seinen. Almost every magical girl show that isn't very clearly written for young girls is seinen. Seinen is just a corporate demographic; late night anime aimed more at otaku than mainstream audiences. As most vocal otaku are male, the company's goal audience is them. Josei and shoujo anime not geared toward young girls are uncommon because of this. That DOES NOT MEAN the creators or writers of the show are going "hmm let's make this FOR BOYS". They may very well be crafting a story that they hope appeals to girls or to both genders equally.

(Then you have the problem with magical girl fandom assuming their favorites i.e. Princess Tutu and Utena are shoujo, and condemning seinen shows like Madoka Magica, when in fact, their faves are under the same umbrella.)

Utena is seinen, Penguindrum is seinen, YKA is seinen. The only Ikuhara work that isn't is his work on Sailor Moon.

[(Anonymous)]

I'll give you Penguindrum as a late night anime (and YKA obviously), but Utena aired in prime time, bro.

[iggy]

I'm not a bro. Did not know that about Utena being not late night, but is six pm considered prime time? Anyway that doesn't make it not seinen. Most late night anime are seinen, but not all seinen airs late night.

[(Anonymous)]

anon from above. I really meant that question. I'd like to know who classified Utena as "seinen"(and where and when that happened). Because I've got this vague idea that this sort of demographic oriented thing is... just not as much a thing in japan as discussions about it would like it to be. that includes discussion about it in japan by (mostly male) critics.
see, I wrote a paper some time back when I had just started university and it was about how certain anime "chose" their audience, and having known what you apparently know might put my whole point in a different light, so I'm genuinely interested.

[iggy]

It totally ISN'T as much of a thing as discussions make it out to be. That's why it bugs me about people classifying whether magical girl shows, girl centered shows, etc. are acceptable or not by whether it's seinen or shoujo/josei.

A lot of people are saying I'm wrong about Utena being seinen, and that may be the case. I remember hearing it a long time ago and seeing it referenced several times since then, but I certainly can't provide like, an interview or something.

da

[(Anonymous)]

I don't agree with your catagorizations, I am afraid.

Shojo : Main target audience - Younger female fans.

Josei : Main target audience - Older female fans.

Shonen : Main target audience - Younger male fans.

Seinen : Main target audience - Older male fans.

"Late night anime aimed more at otaku than mainstream audiences" can be either seinen, josei or just intended for older fans in general.

Japanese creators are very much aware that female otaku exist, too, and many works have been created with female fans in mind.

Utena was marketed as a shojo manga and anime, and it wasn't a late night anime series. It is a series that is clearly intended to appeal to female fans.

Tutu was clearly created with female fans in mind (as well as male ones), though it is a late night anime.

Madoka was created for all fans who used to love Magical Girl shows when they were young, I believe, and was intended to appeal to both older female and older male fans.

Sailor Moon started out as a stereotypical Shojo but quickly shifted to including older females in it's target audience, too. It also aquired a fair amount of male fans, but they weren't the main target audience.

Works which are intended to appeal to both older female fans and older male fans sometimes get stuck in the Seinen catagory (because there isn't a specific catagory for that yet), but I do not think Utena fits there.

Re: da

[iggy]

Works which are intended to appeal to both older female fans and older male fans sometimes get stuck in the Seinen catagory

Well I did say in my reply that just because something is in the seinen category doesn't mean the writer goes into it going "this is FOR BOYS"? So that's kind of what I mean? Seinen ends up being almost a catch all for things that don't fit neatly in another category. Pretty much any anime that is meant to appeal to both adult males and adult females (Madoka, Tutu, etc.) is shoved under seinen. This is why it bugs me when magical girl fans act like a work is inferior or is 'otaku fap fodder' just because it's shoved under the seinen umbrella.

Companies are aware of female otaku, but unless a show is explicitly shoujo or josei, merchandise or marketing for it starts out as male aimed or at the very least unisex most of the time (and shoujo and josei shows rarely get much merch period). Marketing toward otaku is still very male slanted, and only in recent years have they really, really started creating a lot of stuff uniquely for the female marketplace (i.e. figures for shows popular among fujoshi, jewelry, fashionable clothes, etc.).

Re: da

[(Anonymous)]

> merchandise or marketing for it starts out as male aimed or at the very least unisex most of the time (and shoujo and josei shows rarely get much merch period).

Going, going by that logic, Utena is even less Seinen. Not much merch, most of it for women. There you go.
Also, I've been to Tokyo around 2004, and merch in animate-shops, at least, was already pretty girly.
(plus the whole "it's only for girls if it's for fujoshi or jewelry" really doesn't sit well with me. Yeah, that's the only thing "exclusively feminine", bacause the things boys or men would wear/want to own just aren't as limited as in europe or the US (srsly what guy would wear a keychain of a pink pokemon in the US and not either be gay or of a subculture thats about subverting masculinity)
But that just means there's a broader "mainstream" with smaller border areas. That includes the idea that the only thing "only for boys" is weapons and tits.)

Re: da

[iggy]

What about the merchandise when the series came out? As I recall it was mostly just flat merchandise (pencilboards, art books, etc). The re-surge of Utena merchandise in recent years has indeed been aimed more at women, because that's who the show had lasting popularity with.

plus the whole "it's only for girls if it's for fujoshi or jewelry" really doesn't sit well with me.

Um I said- or at the very least unisex most of the time and uniquely for the female marketplace

Stuff marketed exclusively to girls merchandise wise does tend to be what I mentioned. I would think that the usage of 'unisex' implies that girls do also buy products not marketed exclusively toward women because of course they do.

Re: da

[(Anonymous)]

Utena was marketed as a shoujo anime. The merchandise was targeted towards women - I have a wallet and a makeup bag and fashion software that I purchased back in 1998, these were all official merchandise.

[(Anonymous)]

The shoujo fandom is condemning madoka Magica? Why?

[iggy]

Because it's made by dudes for dudes and it's totally meant to be fap fodder for gross mouth-breathers who want to watch teenage girls suffer. Their evidence for this is simply that it is classified as seinen, but as noted above, corporate classification very often has little to do with what the writers and directors are aiming to create, and the people behind PMMM have outright said they wrote the show to be appealing to both women and men.

Also Urobuchi compared the girls to the Al Qaeda militants that participated in 9/11!*

*Not actually what he did, just them taking a quote he made wildly out of context.