Anime - Japanese animation with many drawn characters. It differs from cartoons in other countries by a wide age range. Most anime genres are for teenagers, teens, and adults. The anime has a follower called "manga", this is the same as the first, but in the form of comics - a kind of book edition that repeats the plots of cartoons on its pages.
Anime is divided into several categories, each of which is intended for an audience of different age groups:
- Komodo - for children under 12 years.
- Senen anime - for teens and boys from 12 to 18 years old.
- Shojo - anime and manga, intended for girls and girls 12-18 years old.
- Seinen - anime for adult men from 18 years.
- Josei - anime and manga for adult women from 18 years.
Komodo anime - what is it?
Komodo anime is a Japanese animation genre designed for children under 12 years old and characterized by the absence of ideological components. The drawing of the Komodo style is close to the European school of animated films, and in some films the imitation of American animated series is felt. The similarity is not limited to the style of the picture, the storyline of the anime-Komodo often copies events from the overseas life of cartoon characters. However, Japanese anime-comodo cartoons can always be distinguished by their lack of cruelty. They are usually kind and are entertaining in nature. Examples of such films are such films as “Speed Racer”, “Maya Bee”, “Grandizer”.
Senen - what is it?
The most popular and popular direction is anime-senen and manga-senen, which have the largest audience. The main features of the senen genre are dynamics in the development of the storyline, pronounced impulsiveness of the characters and high motility in their behavior. Artworks in the anime of the Senen genre are filled with humorous scenes, the ideas of male friendship pass through the plot in red thread. In addition, the entire cartoon (and sometimes it is a full-length one and a half hour picture) is imbued with the spirit of competition in anything: in sports or martial arts, in ordinary life or at work. The senen-anime style is immediately guessed, it is distinguished by bright female characters who are in the background in the script, but are amazingly beautiful and sexy. Femininity is opposed to the masculinity of heroes and emphasizes it favorably.
Varieties of the anime-senen genre
A common trick in Senen-anime films, as well as in manga comics, is the plot scheme, when a huge number of super-beautiful girls crave the attention of the protagonist. Applicants do not always receive it, but the plot, however, is developing. The senen genre has several branches: sentai, spokon and harem, each of which can be an independent genre taking into account popularity. Each genre has its own rather large audience. All subspecies of the genre answer the question: "Senen - what is it?" In the first subgenre, sentai, there is usually a permanent, close-knit team of five people who is struggling with something or someone. In the second, from time to time, the adventures of athletes of a fairly young age are reflected, achieving fantastic success at the cost of dedication and an unprecedented will to win. And finally, a harem in which the plot content is reduced to the worship of hundreds of women to the protagonist who is forced to live in their environment.
The best anime-senen are movies:
- Dragon Pearl (640 episodes).
- "With Love, Hina" (4 episodes).
- The Rosary and the Vampire (13 episodes).
- "Tramp Kenshin" (190 episodes).
Each cartoon is interesting in its own way, the number of shot episodes is an indicator of popularity, films are made in accordance with the demand. All of these films answer the question "Senen - what is it?" fully. The anime-senen genre has the largest audience. An audience that can watch hundreds of episodes, not just people who have come to the cinema, are fans of the “top anime-senen,” and they number in the millions.
The heroes of the senen are not surprised at their superpopularity among the fair sex, they feel like masters of life, help friends, are lucky and invincible. A typical image of the protagonist is a muscular optimist, an unwavering defender of everyone and everything, constantly saving someone.
Films in the anime-senen genre, list:
- "Air Track" (Air Gear).
- Beelzebub
- "Fairy Teil" (Fairy Teil).
- The Big Jackpot (One Piece).
- "Killer Reborn" (Reborn).
- "Soul Eater" (Soul Eater).
- "Torico" (Torico).
- "Fang" (Kiba).
- Silver Soul (Gintama).
Seinen
Another species of senen is seinen, an anime for men from 18 years old. Seinen is usually filmed according to a script with a shallow psychological implication, the plot is replete with satirical accents, and there are also erotic scenes. It is considered good practice among film directors in the Seinen genre to show a character in the process of self-improvement. Romance is usually not present, although there are plots with love stories. In some cases, anime films and manga comics contain criminal business stories, they are watched by business people 35-40 years old.
Female version of senen - what is it? This is shojo and josei. Shojo - anime for teenage girls and girls under 18 years old. Josei - anime and manga for adult women.
Shojo
Shojo is an anime for older girls, from 12 to 16 years old, and girls from 16 to 18. Anime-shojo plots usually have a theme of love relationships, the degree of proximity of young people according to the script is different, depending on the age of the potential audience, for the smallest only kisses on the cheek, and for the audience older love scenes of a more frank nature, although also quite chaste. Shojo is distinguished by an emphasized grotesque design, with a humorous subtext, and if the script develops deep love relationships, the film is drawn in a manner of romantic sophistication. Male heroes in shojo films are necessarily endowed with outstanding external data and a heroic character. An offshoot of an anime shojo is "Maho," a style that describes girls with magical powers who are not looking for adventure, but who find adventure themselves. Sometimes a shojo film is made in the “harem” style, when a girl lives surrounded by young guys who are completely subordinate to her.
Josei
Anime for older women is a josei, a calm narrative movie without action-packed conflicts, telling about the everyday life of a simple Japanese woman. The story begins, as a rule, from the school years of the heroine, with her acquaintance with other characters. Then there is a further development of the plot, in which the characters of the film do nothing unusual, and nothing special happens to them either. At first glance, the genre is boring, but you should remember that josei is an anime for adult women, in most housewives who love movies about nothing, without any shocks. The style of the josei drawing is more realistic in comparison with the shojo, it is characterized by careful elaboration of details, especially if the plot contains a love story. Artists in this case prefer the sad expression on the face of the heroine, who will never smile throughout the film. Examples of films in the anime josei style are Paradise Kiss and Honey and Clover.
Manga-senen - what is it?
Manga - stories in pictures, or comics. Manga is part of Japanese culture and occupies 25 percent of the country's printed matter. Often, the anime-senen plots go into the manga format (although it happens much more often the other way around when the manga gives the theme for the script of the film) and then the manga comics are published in huge numbers, an endless chain of episodes. Like fiction, manga-senen is published in separate books, and in the case of a large amount of material it is combined into volumes, the so-called tankobons. The manga is distinguished by its characteristic style of drawing, in most cases the image is black and white, the drawings are as semantic as possible, without requiring extensive explanations, this is their difference from American comics.
Manga industry
In the last decades, the manga industry has formed, the popularity of book anime is so high that the projects for publishing stories in pictures are bought from Japan by the largest publishers in the USA and Canada, France, Great Britain and other countries. In 2007, the International Manga Award was established, for which artists from around the world now compete annually.
Manga magazines
For the general public, the manga is published in a magazine version, printed on good paper, printing for comics is of the highest quality, millions of copies. List of the best manga magazines:
- Shonen Magazine Weekly, available since 1959, prints manga in the Senen genre.
- Weekly Shonen Jamp, released since 1968, Senen genre.
- ShonenJump Monthly, published in the Senen genre since 1970.
- Weekly Shonen Sunday, beginning in 1959, the Senen and Seinen genre.
- Jump Square Monthly, released since 2007 in the Senen genre.
- Monthly Shonen Ace, issue since 1994, senen genre.
- Magazine Special Monthly, released since 1983 in the Senen and Shojo genres.
- Weekly Sunday Gene-X, launch in 2000, Senen.
- Weekly Shonen Rival, released since 2008 in the genre of senen, shojo and josei.
Anime-senen on TV
The senen mega-genre is distributed among the reading and viewers and in other versions, for example, broadcasting anime-senen, as well as other subgenres, is widely practiced in the format of a television series. To date, anime television series have the highest viewing ratings among television programs. Japanese TV channels set aside some specific time for showing the next anime series, and this watch becomes "sacred", no one can cancel it. The series are mostly short, within half an hour, so the viewers do not get addicted to the anime on the TV screen - I watched the next series and went on to go about their business. As a rule, a television series is a film adaptation of a popular manga.
Usually a seasonal show consists of 12-14 episodes that fit organically into a 12-week broadcast. The series are long, in which the number of episodes for a hundred or more is evenly distributed over several seasons, this practice has long been practiced on television, using the example of cinematic series. The duration of the anime series directly depends on the level of its popularity. Doraemon, which consists of more than two thousand episodes, became a record one, and this is not the only example.
Anime-senen and computer games
Recently, with the development of computer technology, the number of games in the genre of Visual novel has increased. These computer entertainments became the basis for creating anime on the plots of games, action films, "shooters" and other interesting developments of programmers. Today, films in the anime genre are not only an adaptation of the manga, but also a direct adaptation of computer games. The regulation of innovation was immediately determined, most of the digital entertainment has no plot as such, except for a simple alternation of episodes. Therefore, the director who arranges the game from a computer to anime-senen is limited in material. But then the audience’s interest in the senens taken from the game is huge, everyone wants to see their favorite characters on the big screen.