This is a static copy of In the Rose Garden, which existed as the center of the western Utena fandom for years. Enjoy. :)
#1 | Back to Top10-30-2008 10:09:27 AM
SKU: Shoujo or/and Seinen?
In this days I am watching Boogiepop Phantom and Paranoia Agent, two seinen anime series(very very cool, watch them!). Sure you know that seinen means "adult", I thought that also SKU was a seinen, but in the internet no one says that it is. The main theme of SKU is "adolescense" but I don't think that it can be sufficient to label it as "a simply Shoujo Anime". This is strange, I hope you can help me with my quastion(maybe with a documentation or quotations from other sites).
So, is SKU only a shuojo? Only seinen? or both?
Your lovely "That's Amore" IRG User.
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#2 | Back to Top10-30-2008 10:47:29 AM
Re: SKU: Shoujo or/and Seinen?
You know, I was wondering that too. Problem is it seems to have elements from both, and then if you take into account the darker tone of the later arcs (not to mention the filler episodes of the earlier ones XO).
Soooo....my personal opinion would be that it's probably 'shojo' in that it's aimed at girls (the fanservice 
) but it has maybe a higher viewing age than your usual shojo stuff.
Or I could be completely wrong, which is also quite likely. 
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#3 | Back to Top10-30-2008 12:13:42 PM
Re: SKU: Shoujo or/and Seinen?
Labels are for soup cans. Seriously, it's just as good as trying to appoint a specific genre for this series (or for any other series, for that matter). Most series are not only "romances" or "dramas", or whatever have you, there's so much more in them. Just as girls can watch SKU, so can adult men. ;)
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#4 | Back to Top10-30-2008 07:08:59 PM
- Riri-kins
- World's End
- From: Cloud Nine
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Re: SKU: Shoujo or/and Seinen?
It's neither. SKU is one of those anime gems that transcends labels like Princess Knight.
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#5 | Back to Top10-30-2008 08:10:37 PM
- Hedgehogey
- Framed Landscaper
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Re: SKU: Shoujo or/and Seinen?
Shoujo aimed at an older demographic is called Josei. Works like NANA and Happy Mania fall into this category.
Yet all existing evidence, incredibly, points to Utena being a straight up Shoujo series. The japanese simply seem to have a higher opinion of what teenage girls can handle.
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#6 | Back to Top10-30-2008 10:09:26 PM
- ashura
- New Student
- Registered: 10-25-2008
- Posts: 4
Re: SKU: Shoujo or/and Seinen?
Hedgehogey wrote:
Shoujo aimed at an older demographic is called Josei. Works like NANA and Happy Mania fall into this category.
Yet all existing evidence, incredibly, points to Utena being a straight up Shoujo series. The japanese simply seem to have a higher opinion of what teenage girls can handle.
yes,Utena is a shoujo manga but the anime has non-shoujo elements.
Offtopic:
some Shoujo type stories are published on neutral or shounen magazine like inu yasha and kobato,so they were not classified as shoujo.
Last edited by ashura (10-30-2008 10:38:02 PM)
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#7 | Back to Top10-31-2008 06:44:41 AM
Re: SKU: Shoujo or/and Seinen?
Shoujo aimed at an older demographic is called Josei. Works like NANA and Happy Mania fall into this category.
Yet all existing evidence, incredibly, points to Utena being a straight up Shoujo series. The japanese simply seem to have a higher opinion of what teenage girls can handle.
Ah! I tought that seinen animes where aimed for an older audiance regardless of Shuojo or Shounen elements.
Labels are for soup cans. Seriously, it's just as good as trying to appoint a specific genre for this series (or for any other series, for that matter). Most series are not only "romances" or "dramas", or whatever have you, there's so much more in them. Just as girls can watch SKU, so can adult men. ;)
In some cases, labels are very important. Maybe not in this particular case, but since this is the topic where we talk about labels, we may discuss about it :)
Your lovely "That's Amore" IRG User.
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#8 | Back to Top11-11-2008 11:35:28 PM
Re: SKU: Shoujo or/and Seinen?
Ha ha. Boogiepop Phantom was the first anime I ever saw, and also the first anime I ever loved. Utena was the second anime I loved. The two appeal to me for many of the same reasons -- suspense, mystery, characterization, use of the supernatural without turning into Jigoku Shoujo, and a dark tone (albeit much darker in Boogiepop than in early Utena) -- but I wouldn't put them in the same genre.
Not that genre is a set of discrete categories in the first place, as anyone who has ever tried to define "rock music" knows. Genre is more like a multidimensional space where some items sit closer together than others. Boogiepop Phantom is clearly a lot more like Paranoia Agent than either anime is like Shoujo Kakumei Utena. Utena is the only one of the three that uses comic relief, and it has by far the highest color saturation. It is arguably the most intensely symbolic, but at the same time it's the easiest to follow for someone who's not interested in interpreting stuff. So if we absolutely must pretend that "seinen" is one bin and "shoujo" is another, I'd throw Boogiepop Phantom and Paranoia Agent in "seinen" -- along with Serial Experiments Lain, Ima Soko ni Iru Boku, and perhaps Kino no Tabi -- and throw Utena into the shoujo bin, but positioning it as close to seinen as possible within that bin. 
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#9 | Back to Top11-12-2008 07:13:29 PM
- Imaginary Bad Bug
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Re: SKU: Shoujo or/and Seinen?
Clearly the only correct category for SKU is Ikunism! 
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#11 | Back to Top11-12-2008 11:49:00 PM
Re: SKU: Shoujo or/and Seinen?
You could say that it is a shoujo with features only older or more learned viewers could begin to understand.
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