10 replies to this topic

[Quolete]

This has been bothering me. I come from a background of a bookworm and literature major, and it strikes me perplexing on why criticisms on the narrowness of japanese manga not wholly discussed such as the extreme obsession of mangakas over high school settings and why this setting is based mostly in high school. It seems that the only experience and inspiration mangakas have are high school and are not willing to go beyond such narrowness.

 

Is life after high school that uninteresting or uninspiring for mangakas? Even with that, it seems that the Japan committee on literature itself is the limiting factor because even Haruki Murakami, a novelist, is criticized for going beyond japanese norms.

Edited by Quolete, 13 July 2015 - 06:11 AM.

[2hot4you]

Highschool settings are just an excuse to draw cute girls in their school uniforms

[Meat]

There's lots of manga that isn't about high school. You should perhaps check out the seinen genre if you haven't done so yet.

 

Though there are indeed a lot of mangas about high school, but I think "extreme obsession" doesn't describe it well. They write about high school because it's interesting, because people like reading about stories with a high school settings etc. 

 

And I thought japanese people liked Haruki Murakami books? (talked with a japanese guy about the author and he liked it) + Murakami writes a bit about highschool in his own books..

[Aurum]

Same reason there are a lot of high school movies in the Western world. Almost everyone went to high school, so most people can relate to the topic. Plus everyone wants their high school life to be exciting, fun, etc., so seeing just that entertains us and fulfills our fantasies. Moreover, high school is pretty much the prime of our lives (for most people anyway). A lot of older adults wish they could go back to that time.
Additionally you have to remind yourself of the demographic of manga readers. It's often high schoolers and young adults who read manga (no statistics, just an educated guess) and high school is a hot topic for high schoolers, of course.

[Quolete]

There's lots of manga that isn't about high school. You should perhaps check out the seinen genre if you haven't done so yet.

 

Though there are indeed a lot of mangas about high school, but I think "extreme obsession" doesn't describe it well. They write about high school because it's interesting, because people like reading about stories with a high school settings etc. 

 

And I thought japanese people liked Haruki Murakami books? (talked with a japanese guy about the author and he liked it) + Murakami writes a bit about highschool in his own books..

 

http://www.japantoday.com/category/opinions/view/why-haruki-murakami-should-not-receive-the-nobel-prize-for-literature

[Mushiren]

If it's a shounen/shoujo, it'll most likely have a school setting because it's an environment the target demographic finds familiar and easy to relate to, and has proven to be a tried and true "safe" formula.

Harem series are almost always in a school setting specifically because it's easiest to be surrounded by the opposite sex in a school environment, like classes, than it is anywhere else.

This is all just a personal hypothesis though.

Edited by Mushiren, 13 July 2015 - 09:47 AM.

[Yaomo]

there are lots of mangas set in a college or work environment.

 

it's mostly a question of where people usually meet, which in most cases would be school or work.

 

when writing something which is not fantasy or historical, school really is the place with most young people.

and it's often better to write about young people, because they're more attractive.

there are very few who never had a high school crush after all.

 

it's probably just that much easier to make up a high school environment that is much more interesting than what most people experience, while still being easy to relate to.

[Angelo.]

Well most mangas actually just start at high school setting and then pogress it to college as the mc gets older but most of all i think most magakas do it to help us understand the life of the mc... Well dunno but not all mangas have high school setting.

[SystematicChaos]

Because people like reading about characters that they can identify with in settings that they are familiar with. That's true in any form of fiction across mediums, genres, and cultures, so it's not specifically a manga thing.

 

As mentioned above, most readers of shonen and shojo comics are high schoolers themselves, so high school students are characters they're going to identify with, who share their own problems or at least analogous problems. It's easier for them to put themselves in that character's shoes. And when the characters don't deal with problems that most high schoolers do, well, that's where wish fulfillment comes in. A high school student won't get as much wish fulfillment from reading about a yakuza don getting laid left, right, and center, as they would from a high school harem manga where a student their age has cute girls their age falling all over them, because it's easier for them to "become" the main character and vicariously experience their harem wishes through that kind of manga.

 

Meanwhile in magazines directed more towards businessmen, like Weekly Manga Goraku, for instance (which I myself read biweekly), you'll find manga that mainly have settings largely related to business or adult life in general, with problems and wish-fulfillment elements that those businessmen would be more likely to have. So you'd be more likely to see characters that cheat on their spouses than characters that wonder when their senpai will notice them, because that's more exciting for readers that have been married for a while and have a dull sex life.

 

These do exist and there are quite a few of them. But another problem compounding the issue is that in the West, your view of manga is more likely to be skewed due to the underrepresentation of certain genres and demographics. The common perception that "comics are for kids" keeps the majority of adults from reading comics, and among the minority that do, most stick to the comics and genres that they grew up with, rather than seeking out different genres that are more fitting to their stage of life. There is no market for the adult-oriented comics (and I don't mean hentai) in the West like there is in Japan, where there's not an insignificant number of businessmen who might pick up a manga magazine to read while riding the rush-hour train. So a financial manga like Emperor of Minami may be popular enough to run continuously since 1992 in Japan and be adapted to no less than 60 direct-to-video movies, but it would flop majorly if someone translated it into English. As a result, you see manga with high school settings as more represented than they actually are, because you're not seeing the full spectrum of manga available, only the tip of the iceberg that has been successfully marketed in the West. And that "tip" is mostly for high schoolers.

 

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go wash out my mouth for using the word "senpai" untranslated in an English post.

Edited by SystematicChaos, 16 July 2015 - 01:26 PM.

[Faederwulf]

Target audience, as well as youthful girls being the most attractive. It's relateable not only to people who are in high school, but to anyone who has been in high school.

[Final_Boss]

It depends on the genre and target audience.  If you spread out your search to different types of manga, then you see that highschool mangas are just one of many different cliche settings.

Edited by Final_Boss, 20 November 2017 - 02:16 AM.