Anime has never been just a monotone art piece, it is a symphony of a lot of colors consisting of love, anger , drama, breakdown, sorrow , joy etc. it is an excellent way to tell a story and most preferred medium to represent a lot of emotions to the audiences. You might have heard of “Your lie in April”, “ A silent voice”, “Naruto”, “ Fruit Basket”, “death note”, etc. these are not just anime shows, they are objectively collections of emotions. Love, sorrow, betrayal, anger, tragedy etc. all of them you will find in anime. It is therefore important to understand why you should choose a particular type of genre to start with, that eventually will become the base of exciting anime shows you will love ahead.
So without further delay let just start with different Genre of anime:
- KODOMO
It is one of genres targeted to the young audiences aged between 8 to 10 or less. These shows are themselves dedicated to raw emotions of innocence, friendship, love etc. they are only focused on morals and teachings of being good, learning to be self-reliant, learning to admit mistakes and overcoming them by solving them.
E.g. Ninja hattori, Doraremon, Kitresu, Crayon Shinchan and a lot more.
- SHONEN
If i correctly say what defines the current anime world, this is the genre of the choice. This genre is far more popular and it is targeted to young teens especially boys.
It is also a collection of sub – genre like sports, fantasy ,sci-fi and even horror. Generally, plot in this genre revolves around the protagonist, leading life just like rags to riches, overcoming odds to achieve his goal. This is the main USP of most shows.
E.g. Dragon Ball Z, Tokyo Ghoul, Naruto Shippuden, Bleach, One Piece etc.
This genre irrespective of teens attracts crowds of all ages.
- SHOUJO
If you enjoy the genre that is about cute female characters, then you will love shojo anime! The word shoujo is literally the Japanese word for girl , shoujo anime are typically targeted for young teenage girls.
Shojo anime typically features romance as part of the main story line , with themes based mostly on high school romance or giving idealism love at first sight or many it is called Hatsukoi.
If you are carefully watching these anime ,you will find that they are very much responsible for prominent art and design of the modern anime world , for example female characters with big eyes similar to Disney characters, which helps to make these anime characters more expressive and likable. For e.g. Your lie in April, Fruit basket, Domestic Girlfriend, Rent a Girlfriend etc. are some of popular references.
- SEINEN
A lot of anime will be covered by the above mentioned genres but the genre which includes the golden times of anime viewer demographics is the seinen genre. As seinen covers the audience of age 18-40, targeted to the men’s population. The literal meaning of seinen is “Youth” which can also be seen as an adult.The fans which fall in this category are mostly attached to the anime from the time of One Piece, Naruto, Dragon Ball which was back in the 80’s. And though these anime fall into shounen category it binds the viewer with the essence of growing up which in turn makes the viewer feel their own growing up journey. And with age the behavior also changes so to cater these loyal fans, anime’s like Vinland Saga, Cowboy Bebop, Parasyte, Ghost in the shell, etc have some solid storyline with cool action scenes which are able to hold these fans and keep making them fall in love with anime again in their adulthood.
- SLICE OF LIFE
So this genre is for those who complain that the anime is far from reality. This genre brings the reality of life in animation, it is more natural and emotionally attached to the real world, think of it as a theater play that is animated. There is not much to explain why this must be the choice of anime because in fact it is more like a daily soap opera than fantasy. For E.g. GTO, Horimiya, Saikik, Classroom of elite etc are some of the great shows to enjoy.
- ECCHI
Let us dive into the naughty section of the anime world. Ecchi loosely defined as in the context of prevertness,suggestive flirting but not sex. It is a thin line of pervert or naughty anime but not entirely sexual or uncensored XXX. But still this genre holds some of the great storytelling shows , of course not without panties shot or slip ups ( yeah it is there, a lot of them). E.g. Kill a Kill, Highschool of the Dead, Prison school, High School DxD, etc. are some of popular choices of this genre. It has a sub genre of comedy, horror and sometimes it is coupled with genres like Shoujo or Shounen for a change. There is a lot to discover with this genre of anime but still not recommended to sit around and watch without earphones, that can be lethal.
- ISEKAI
Okay so after all the real life resemblance and some eroticness there’s also a genre of anime which is based on a fantasy world. Fantasy world means the story will take place in a world where magic, demons, angels are present unlike the real world where people are going to 9-5 jobs and hanging out in karaoke centers before heading to a bar and repeating it on a daily basis. Jokes apart, the Isekai world is an imaginary world just like Harry Potter’s Hogwards where you can see people flying cars and traveling at the speed of light. This imaginary world takes all the tiredness and hustle of a viewer and entertains them perfectly.
Isekai is one of the most loved anime genres of all time, be it Sword-Art Online, Re-Zero, No game No Life, The Devil as a part timer, HighSchool DxD or the recent hit of the town ARCANE. Every anime in the list shares a very common factor which is comedy and fun to watch. And after all, comedy is the best stress reliever.
So if you like to watch fun & entertaining anime where you don’t want to hit your head all the time to understand what’s happening then dive deep into ISEKAI.
- SPORTS
One more genre I would like to mention is sports. Well you can argue that sports might not be a genre but this category of anime is filled with all the other genres that we talked about earlier. Afterall sports bind us all together. Normally you will find that an anime is marked as shounen/seinen/shoujo etc but when it comes down to sports it’s said that age is mere a number and all the viewer can enjoy the motivation, joy, sadness and energy that a sports anime can provide to its viewers and fans. The most famous sports anime’s are Haikyuu, Kuroko’s Basketball, Free! Iwatobi Swim Club, Captain Tsubasa, etc.
Well these are some of the major anime genres you may come across, also there are some other genres like Samurai, josei, Harem,Parody,Mecha etc. may be published later in future in our blog .
We hope that you have an awesome journey with new and fun shows coming ahead.
Happy watching !!!