hm... i would have to disagree with Nanoha not being shoujo. granted it's got enough fanservice to keep the guys happy much like sailor moon and others do (gotta pander some to that male demographic), but Nanoha is most definitely mahou and shoujo. it just puts some refreshing new twists on an old standard by melding technology with magic.

after all, the title is Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha. last time i checked my japanese, Mahou Shoujo translates as magical girl.

its target audience is girls. the main characters are girls. they have magical powers, magical beasts, and our heroine Nanoha must battle MOTD (Monsters of the Day) to save the world and her new-found friend.

as for being a loose spin-off of an H game or OVA, Nanoha isn't the first anime to do this. what counts is what the anime producers intended which was a new, fresh, and very good imo mahou shoujo series

lol!!! ~patpat~ daijobu. i will love kawaii and shoujo enough for both of us

But... you'd be wrong. Demonstrably, objectively wrong. Both in the sense of the literal definition ("shoujo anime" is an anime based off a manga that ran in a shoujo manga anthology like Nakayoshi or Ribbon) and in terms of the fanbase that actually develops (which is utterly, overwhelmingly male both in Japan and elsewhere).


I'm really hoping this is a joke. =P

A barrage of fanservicey spreads in Japanese magazines, risque figures and pillowcases and artbooks aplenty, influences closer to mecha/space/sci-fi than magical girl, epic high action beamspam, spinoff of a spinoff of an h-game, manga adaptation serialized in Megami Magazine of all places... there's nothing remotely shoujo about the show. It's magical girl in nothing but name after like... episode three (of, currently, about 52).

I know there's a tendency to try and apply western definitions of feminine and masculine to Japanese anime (which doesn't work), but even allowing for that, the actual content of the show is entirely unambiguous. When you move into A's and especially Strikers, it's just completely beyond debate.

Strikers is aimed at fans of Super Robot Wars before Sailor Moon or Card Captor Sakura. In fact, it went so far in the former direction that I came out very conflicted if not downright disappointed over it, and personally prefer 1st and A's immensely more.

Nanoha is not shoujo, and having the words "Mahou Shoujo" in the title means absolutely nothing so far as categorization. Likewise, a cast being mostly female is not a sign of shoujo either. Because, go figure, a lot of guys like watching shows with strong girls. Look at Chrono Crusade or Black Lagoon. Hell, casts in non-shoujo series can be almost 100% female - look at Azumanga Daioh. Almost all my favorite shows feature a predominantly female cast, and only a minority of them are shoujo or generally targeted at females.

I mean... sorry, but you're just, well, incorrect here. Nanoha is not aimed at girls.

I'm wondering if you would also consider bishoujo (not to be confused with shoujo) romance shows like Clannad or To Heart or Chobits or Kanon or Shuffle to be shoujo? If so, then that would definitely explain your misunderstanding of the concept of shoujo.

If it's just the "magical girl" in the title that confuses you, then I'll also point to the Sasami: Mahou Shoujo Club series from 2006, which is not shoujo either. Same with Okusama wa Mahou Shoujo from 2005. Mahou Shoujo Meruru is a '96 hentai OVA. As is 2003's Mahou Shoujo Ai.

Even more head exploding (or just bizarre): Tiny Snow Fairy Sugar isn't shoujo either. It aired after midnight. It's based on a manga that ran in Dragon AGE, the same place that Chrono Crusade, Full Metal Panic and Maburaho do or did run in.

Japan != North America. Their tastes and target audiences don't always translate well to the assumed cultural norms over here. But even if you take that into effect, Nanoha would still appeal to males much more than females in R1 (if it were ever released...) as long as people got past the title and gave it a chance (which is why Geneon was allegedly just going to call it "Lyrical Nanoha").

i'm not confused, and i still stand by my informed conclusion based on know-how, research, and viewing pleasure. we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one

i'm not the only one who thinks/classifies Nanoha as mahou shoujo:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=4576
http://www.animenfo.com/animetitle,1494,ttzxdj,maho_shojo_lyri.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahou_Shoujo_Lyrical_Nanoha
(genre: adventure. magical girl)

See, this is your fundamental mistake.

Mahou shoujo is not the same thing as shoujo. Okusama wa Mahou Shoujo can be classified (superficially) as "mahou shoujo" as well, but that doesn't make it shoujo. I really wish you'd seen that show, it would clear up a lot for you to see "mahou shoujo" in the title of something like that.

"shoujo" appears in many, many word combinations. Jousei used the same character but means a series aimed at older teen to adult women, as opposed to shoujo's target being young girls. Bishoujo also has "shoujo" in it, but the whole bishoujo movement arose from eroge, visual novels, harem, and that wide, varied subset of manga and games aimed squarely at males.

Mahou shoujo means it has magical girls. Period. Shoujo means it's targeted at girls based on the pre-anime source material and/or intentionally marketed at girls where such source does not exist. Nanoha has magical girls (though as I point out, they pretty much cease to do traditional magical girl things within a few episodes), but it is not shoujo.

Magical girl is a show theme or genre. Shoujo is a target demographic. "Magical girl" is closer to "romance" or "slice-of-life" or "sci-fi" or "bishoujo" or "mecha" or "sports" or "comedy". They're elements that are, by themselves, independent of the target demographic of the show. Some are narrower, some are broader, and they mix and match in various combinations.

You can have a magical girl slice of life shounen show, a sci-fi romance shoujo show, a sports jousei show, a space-based bishoujo comedy seinen show and so on forever. (Remember that shounen and shoujo are only 2 of the 4 main demographics).

Are most anime and manga with magical girls intended for a female audience? Yes. Just like most baseball anime and manga are intended for a male audience, but you'd be just as incorrect to assume that an anime centered around baseball has to be aimed at males.

If you try to put mahou shoujo on par with shoujo, you'd be making the former a demographic. You'd be saying "this show is targeted towards girls with magical powers", and as much as we'd love to believe otherwise, there is a distinct lack of real magical girls in modern day Japan. Their purchasing power would not make Nanoha the success it's been =P

I understand that Japanese terminology can be confusing to those not used to it, but I really don't appreciate how you read my entire post and then plugged your ears and went "Nope, I'm going to make my own definition up against all evidence to the contrary"? Why didn't you address any of my points? You can't just end every argument with "agree to disagree" to avoid admitting you were mixed up.

That's really not cool, especially since you seem to run some sort of review site. I think you take on a little more responsibility in that case, because you being misinformed is one thing, while misinforming tens, hundreds, thousands (however popular it is) of others is quite another.

So, tl;dr: Do you now see that mahou shoujo and shoujo are two different sorts of concepts, and the existence of girls wielding magic in a series does not mean said series is automatically targeted at a female Japanese population?

Edit: here's a good example, since you like Wikipedia:


Note, Go Nagai is the *creator*. Cutey Honey would never, ever be called shoujo. By anyone. Well, anyone sane. But she is undeniably a magical girl. One of the most historically important ones at that!

To clarify: I *like* shoujo. I'm not trying to make Nanoha "not shoujo" out of some misguided attempt to deny being into shoujo. But the facts are the facts: Nanoha is not a shoujo series. I'm sorry. It's just the truth.

And if you're determined to think I'm untrustworthy, here's someone else commenting on the trend of magical girls made to appeal to male audiences.

I don't always agree with him or even everything he says in this article, but the main point is wuite relevant and correct: http://www.animenation.net/blog/2007/10/...rs-a-new-trend/

i don't think u're unworthy i actually rather enjoy intellectual neutral anime discussions.

for one, i always come to my own conclusion on my own. information is just information. what we do with it, much like science and many other things, is what really counts. or at the very least, produces the end result. u have some very good points and some food to mull over. i understand ur differentiation tween mahou shoujo and shoujo. a lot of them are highly sensual to garner the male audience, but as much as it has said intentions, it is also meant to garner a female audience, so the line for which it is meant for gets blurred and hence the unending debate. the same could be argued for sailor moon and many others. the conclusion i have come to over the years is that mahou shoujo is its own genre, both for females and for males. it all depends on the material within whether it leans more towards the shounen or shoujo side. therefor, mahou shoujo as a genre in general, is neither strictly shoujo nor shounen, and yet, sometimes both.

it's a complex world out there

That's all well and good, but I can't tell from your response if you're finally admitting that Nanoha is not, in fact, a shoujo show. That is, it is not in fact aimed at a primary audience of young Japanese girls. Or, on the other hand, if you're just kind of dodging the original subject now. >_>

I just don't like when a show that is not at all shoujo is called shoujo, because it's hard enough to get attention paid to *actual* shoujo in R1. Lumping a bunch of clearly non-shoujo shows in with the few real shoujo shows we get just confuses things. It also gives people a weird misconception of shoujo that makes it harder to figure out who actually likes shoujo and who is just mistaken.

I thought I knew where he stood on that, but then I re-read it and I'm not sure.



Sure, but that doesn't mean that the end result you choose to embrace cannot be objectively wrong. You can say "Screw you, the north pole is made of cheese!" but that doesn't mean you are right.



But those cases are very rare and the ones that are aimed at both are generally family shows like Sazae-san. Sure, some try to get a bit of a crossover audience but they are still aimed mainly at one group. Nanoha has some female fans but it makes no attempt at all to cater to them and is unquestionably, undeniably aimed at males.

you mean She. i don't know any He named "otakuden" so y'all must be talking about someone else :P

i stand on both sides. Nanoha is both mahou shoujo for girls and for guys, targeting both audiences. i know many a male otaku anime fan who won't lay one finger or eyeball on nanoha, fanservice or not. too girly for them :P

Sure, some guys write it off simply because its a magical girl series. But that has no bearing on what the actual demographics are. Anyone who says its too girly obviously hasn't seen much, if any, of it and is basing their opinion on what magical girl shows typically are. It's aimed at adult men. Period. Some females may like it, but it is not targeted at them at all nor even makes the slightest attempt at a crossover audience.