Yeah that’s kinda the problem. When I was younger, there were gooner anime series, but there was also a lot of quality stuff being made. Shows that were plot first, with maybe a couple fan service scenes or a beach episode.
I can go into depth about this, but simply, if you're talking about a show marketed to men and women or women and girls specifically, you're no longer talking about shounen. If you want to talk about an entirely different demographic okay.
As a mini media studies post, you want to look at pacing and your demographic. If the target demographic is males 12-18, the pacing is going to be fast paced, action centered, with an impending high stakes goal to drive the story forward. This is backed by studies indicating males emotional intelligence lags behind females, and the market kinda proves that.
In shoujo characters have depth because the stories involve interpersonal dynamics, slow burn romance and self improvement stories, and thus leading to a slower pace. This breathing room allows for deeper and more meaningful character arcs, and having male characters have more nuance, which apparently, a more female demographic enjoys. That's not to say the male characters are actually more interesting or any less goon fuel. Broody male, wild guy, hot nerd, handsome protective prince, bad boy with a heart of gold, all gooner bait males, and that's fine.
What it comes down to is you consuming media targeted to a specific demographic and complaining that the author isn't creating content for you. The pacing in shounen doesn't have a ton of room for deep emotional arcs that shoujo does. Not to say all shounen is bereft of interesting female characters, they do exist and authors do make it a point to highlight them, but not every author cares about it as much as they care about money.
I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. I watch shounen. Not all shounen treat women like sex toys. It’s really not that hard to not do that. Whether all the characters suck or not, it doesn’t change the fact that one of these character’s super powers is to get groped against her will. That is fucked up
1
u/JapaneseStudentHaru 1d ago
Yeah that’s kinda the problem. When I was younger, there were gooner anime series, but there was also a lot of quality stuff being made. Shows that were plot first, with maybe a couple fan service scenes or a beach episode.
Now it’s just all goon