Thread by @saffronapplepie

Hello! Colleen asked me to weigh in :)

First off, there are various factors that go into why a publisher labels a manga a certain way (combination of art style, story content, etc).

There’s also a difference between how publishers in Japan and abroad do things. 1/

Shoujosei/shounen/seinen categorization obviously is a Japanese thing. In America, there’s different but sometimes similar labels (young adult, for example) but it’s not a one-to-one imo.

Overseas publishers probably have more leeway on how they market things because of this. 2/

It’s a different market from Japan. EN publishers use imprints and this is meant to replace JP publishers using magazines (also printed on vols).

In America, bookstores arrange manga by alphabetical order, no regard for demos. That was so weird to me the first time I saw it. 3/

Even EN novels are organized in categories and then alphabetical order (by title or author).

In Japan, it’s organized by demographic > magazine/publisher > then alphabetical order. Same for ebooks. 4/

You’ll have the shounen section, but Jump titles are labeled on the shelf, and Square Enix titles are grouped together, then arranged by alphabetical order. This goes for both new and used. Even when there’s a separate table for new releases, they tend to group them this way. 5/

To the left, I can see signs that say “seinen comics”, “Shueisha”, “Shogakukan”, and “Kodansha” in the back.

New releases are usually end-caps. The blue sign says “New Release Comics”. They tend to keep the demos together for these too. 6/

Selling bundles of used series is common, so you can see in these pictures, the one on the left has signs on the shelves that say “Kodansha seinen comics”.

Right pic is my local bookoff. It’s not explicitly labeled, but they grouped all the shoujo bundles on the same shelf 7/

Left: “shoujo comics/lady’s comics” (Josei is often referred to as “lady’s comics” in Japan). “BL-lady’s comics”.

Right: the shelves are labeled “Champion”, “Sunday”, “Magazine”, “Jump” which are all shounen magazines. 8/

Colleen had asked me about this for their video (my comment at the 32:04 mark, but watch the whole vid because it’s good!)

I wouldn’t be surprised if the thing with Renta JP in the vid was similar to physical bookstores too, because of marketing 9/

Since the magazines are sold in Japan and not just the tankobon volumes, readers there are likely more familiar with what series are published together under what demographic and what makes them fall under that demographic. 10/

If they switched up what a manga is labeled as in the bookstore versus the magazine, that would muddle things and confuse readers.

I can imagine they’d want readers shopping for one title to see their other titles next to it so they buy it. It’s all a part of their brand. 11/

But since the magazines aren’t sold outside Japan and the market is different, foreign publishers take liberties. Sometimes I wonder if they should’ve even used JP demos tbh.

I compared Japan and America because that’s what I’m most familiar with, but yeah, hope that helps! 12/

@DJ_SSumares so they labeled it as such. In brick and mortar shops, like I said, the publisher would want their titles together so people buy more of their stuff. Online, ebooks don’t have a physical shelf they’re on so the way you’re searching for it is different so perhaps they changed-

@DJ_SSumares the label for online searches for what gets the most hits.

Horimiya is also labeled shoujo here and I’ve seen it in the shoujo section at bookoff, but I don’t think I’ve seen it in shoujo at new bookstores.

@DJ_SSumares Again, they might be playing around with the labels to optimize marketing for digital versus brick and mortar.

@DJ_SSumares I just came up with this, but I’m going to refer to this as “gerrymandering but for comics” LOL

EDIT: some extra stuff I didn't include in the thread that's relevant!

ANOTHER THING! Colleen and I were talking and they reminded me that Kinokuniya USA locations also organize both JP and EN manga in their brick and mortar stores the Japanese way since they are a Japanese bookstore. Barnes and Noble, on the other hand, does not.

@Druser0 If these are professional translators you’re talking about, then I could make a whole other thread about things to consider that I feel most people aren’t aware of.

But again, words have meanings, so if you’re talking about bilingual fans, don’t refer to them as translators.