Seinen
Seinen is manga written for adult men, published in magazines such as Young Magazine and Big Comic, and home to much of manga's most mature and complex storytelling.
Where the word comes from
Japanese 青年, "young man".
In depth
Seinen magazines target men from their late teens upward. They include Kodansha's Young Magazine and Morning, Shogakukan's Big Comic family and Hakusensha's Young Animal.
What it covers
Seinen spans science fiction, historical epics, crime, horror, drama and everyday life. It tends toward complex plots, moral ambiguity and explicit violence where the story calls for it. Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira ran in Young Magazine; Kentaro Miura's Berserk in Young Animal; Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond in Morning.
On the label
As with all demographics, the label describes the magazine's audience. Many seinen series are read just as widely by women and by older teenagers.
Seinen and genre
Seinen covers every genre, from action and science fiction to cooking, history and quiet drama. What unites it is the assumed reader: an adult who can follow long arcs, ambiguous morality and slow pacing. Many seinen series run for decades, and their volumes are among the most collected manga.
Mature content
Some seinen series contain graphic violence or sexual content, while many contain neither. English publishers mark mature titles with a rating on the back cover, which is the most reliable guide for buyers.
Where it appears
Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo. seinen science fiction, serialized in Young Magazine
Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue. historical seinen about the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi
What it means today
Readers who want manga with the density of a literary novel or a prestige drama usually find it in seinen.
