What is a bishoujo anime series? Is Gundam Seed one?
…Couldn’t you have asked that before double-posting your thread? rolls eyes
Anime inspired by bishoujo games.
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Originally posted by Benoit:
...Couldn't you have asked that before double-posting your thread? *rolls eyes*
Anime inspired by bishoujo games.
Wouldn't animes like To Heart and Comic Party then be considered bishoujo anime series? That doesn't seem right to call them that though, if they are called by that title.
[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 07-01-2004).]
What would be wrong with calling them bishoujo anime?
Nothing as far as I am concerned, other then it could limit the potential audience the same as calling a game a Bishoujo Game has people label them as porn.
It could be different since there would be no sex scenes in the anime and yes I know that is not what bishoujo implies but as has been discussed it seems not many others realize it. Still you have to watch that to perhaps learn the meaning of the word and see those scenes are not present. Then there is the stigma that we all know goes with the word bishoujo which likely would lead people to jump to false conclusions without ever watching the anime.
[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 07-01-2004).]
quote:
Originally posted by Benoit:
Anime inspired by bishoujo games.
Actually no. Because there are bishoujo anime that do not come from games. It's a general genre, like "horror" or "drama", that not medium specific, it's just most commonly associated with the games. So there are manga and anime out there that have no association whatsoever with a game but are still considered "bishoujo".
As for what actually constitutes "bishoujo" is a bit more tricky. Some feel if the focus is on one or more "pretty girls", then it's "bishoujo" while others feel that just having a large quantity of "pretty girls" is enough to qualify. I'm sure if you dig around a little, you'll find a couple of threads where we argued over the definition.
quote:
Originally posted by SCDawg:
It could be different since there would be no sex scenes in the anime and yes I know that is not what bishoujo implies but as has been discussed it seems not many others realize it. Still you have to watch that to perhaps learn the meaning of the word and see those scenes are not present. Then there is the stigma that we all know goes with the word bishoujo which likely would lead people to jump to false conclusions without ever watching the anime.
Ugh... one of my growing pet peeves--I wish there were a way to tie people down and make them watch a bishoujo anything with no sex in it, just so you could say that was bishoujo, okay?
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Originally posted by ekylo:
As for what actually constitutes "bishoujo" is a bit more tricky. Some feel if the focus is on one or more "pretty girls", then it's "bishoujo" while others feel that just having a large quantity of "pretty girls" is enough to qualify. I'm sure if you dig around a little, you'll find a couple of threads where we argued over the definition.
Well, I don't want to get into a deep discussion of semantics, since no one can seem to agree anyway, and I'm no expert [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img] but the understanding that I had was that, if the focus was actually on the girls themselves, then it was usually simply a shoujo medium, while if it was focused on something else, but showcasing several "pretty girls," it was bishoujo.
Bishoujo means pretty girl so basically anime with pretty girls would be bishoujo anime. At least that’s how i usually put it. It may or may not be based on a game and it may or may not have nudity.
Wakarimashita… I just figured that if it was actually focusing on the girls, it probably fell into the shoujo genre. As far as the nudity goes, that’s something I’ve been stressing all along–all it takes to make bishoujo is “pretty girls,” not nudity (Although, Wolfson is kind of fond of a little nudity )
Shoujo and Bishoujo are essentially antithetical. Not always but close enough. Shoujo is AIMED at girls. Bishoujo focuses on girl characters (and thus is aimed, usually, at men).
It’s confusing because the terms are so similar but they’re really completely unrelated…
Although sometimes the lines of shoujo and shounen are a little blurred these days… but that’s why I was emphasizing the word “focus.” If the story is focusing on the girls, it’s usually telling a girl’s story–though not always, I realize, since I can think of a scattering of bishoujo games that tell the story from a woman’s standpoint. I guess it all depends on how the story is told…
Actually if the story is focusing on the girls usually it’s shonen. Love Hina, for example, is NOT shoujo. It is bishoujo.
Anime that focus on lots of pretty boys and 1 main girl are ususually shoujo. Anime that focus on one main boy and lots of pretty girls is usually shounen. “Focus” is not quite the right word, I think, for what you mean.
Heh… okay, I see what you’re saying. We’re actually visualizing two seperate kinds of shoujo: you’re talking about the ren’ai stories, and I’m thinking more along the lines of something like a sentai story (like Sailor Moon, for example). The problem is that all of the categories are broad (just like bishoujo), so one has to paint with a wide brush, making it hard to come up with a clean definition for anything. I will agree with you on one point that you made earlier, however, and that is that, broadly speaking, shoujo is aimed at girls, and bishoujo is aimed at men.
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Originally posted by Sakamoto:
But you're always going to have some shows that are a bit mixed between the two like Escaflowne. The people that kind of irritate me are the ones that think that "bishoujo anime" always means shallow "harem anime" by default.
Well, as I mentioned, the biggest problem with all of these terms is that they are really being applied broadly, while a lot of people have a very narrow veiw of what each one means. It creates a lot of confusion in communication. The only problem I have is with the people who want to apply the "sex" label to bishoujo.
[This message has been edited by Wolfson (edited 07-02-2004).]
The trouble is how they learn the word. I think most people learn Bishoujo as being linked to harem shows becuase someone will point to a show like Love Hina or Tenchi Muyo and say they are examples of harem shows. Next they meet someone that calls the same shows Bishoujo shows, so in their minds the word is now linked it means the same thing, along with everything else they hear it means from these games being called Bishoujo games. At least that is my thinking, since if it were not for this board and learning the truth about these words the harem show, bishoujo show idea mentioned is the link that would have formed by now in my mind.
[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 07-01-2004).]
quote:
Originally posted by Sakamoto:
I would like to hope that anime fans would even know the difference between a bishoujo and a bishounen.There was one guy that thought I watched Gravitation and Ai no Kusabi because I told him I watch a lot of bishoujo anime. o_O'
Hopefully they would, but how many people do you think play these games, legally bought or not, that actually know what Bishoujo means?
I honestly think so few people know of all these terms or if they do, it is somehow attached to Bishoujo or Hentai, which they already say are the same.
Obviously the trouble is so few of these terms are used in this nation, as far as I can tell, for anything but the games considered “adult” that people automatically leap to assumptions since “adult” carries a whole bunch of definitions at, least in this country, that have no real connection to being fixed to any of those definitions. Sometimes I have seen them as linked to anime, but mostly only on this board.
[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 07-01-2004).]
quote:
Originally posted by Sakamoto:
Usually it's fairly easy to tell if an anime is shounen or shoujo. First of all eighty percent of the time if the main character is a guy it's shounen and if it's a girl it's shoujo. Sometimes you have girl lead in a shounen series (like Inuyasha) or a male lead in a shoujo series (like Ashiteru ze Baby or D.N.Angel), but it happens a lot less often.
[This message has been edited by Sakamoto (edited 07-01-2004).]
This is probably because it's harder to do. It is going to be more difficult to get girls to relate to a boy main character (and vice versa). It's not impossible - it can certainly be done. It is just harder, and so the creators of the show have to work harder at it.
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Love Hina, for example, is NOT shoujo. It is bishoujo.
It's a shonen.
On a side note, we passed the 33000 posts mark. It’s now 33002, and when I click on the Submit Reply button, it’s 33003. Yours is the 33002th.