Writing Adult vs Ecchi vs Mature vs Seinen vs Smut. Which tags?

[TPumpkin]

Hello everyone! I'm a new author on SH and I was curious about the definition of these tags. Quite frankly, ,most of these tags vaguely cover the same content and seem redundant as you can flag for Sexual Content when creating for a story. So the the experienced SHers out there, how would you rank these tags based on lewdness/sexual content level?

 

[Piisfun]

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Seinen: Seinen means ‘Young Man.’ Novels that specifically targets young adult males around the ages of 18 to 25 are Seinen titles. Typically the story lines deal with the issues of adulthood.

Ecchi: Possibly the line between hentai and non-hentai, ecchi usually refers to fanservice put in to attract a certain group of fans.

Mature: Contains subject matter which may be too extreme for a younger audience. Content that deals with mature themes such as gore, sex, or violence.

Adult: Contains mature content that is suitable only for adults. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.

Smut: Erotic work of fiction that’s mainly targeted toward females. Smut stories often gives heavy focus on love and relationships between the main characters.

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In general…
Sienen is not related to the presence or absence of sexual content.
Ecchi is the type of borderline "fanservice" that needs to die out.
Mature is for heavy stuff not directly showing sexual content (though it may be implied, such as a character having to deal with rape or similar).
Adult is for stories that show stuff, but don't make it the main focus.
Smut stories focus heavily on sexual content.

 

[Bimbanana]

Wait, does seinen considered sexual content too?
I put the tag on my work only thinking my demographic usually young male/adult

 

[JayMark]

Wait, does seinen considered sexual content too?
I put the tag on my work thinking because my demographic usually young male/adult

Seinen is action adventure content aimed at young male teen and adult. Think of it as writing teen lit. So no overt sex scenes and the violence is ussually controled. Heavy adult themes generally avoided. But it can have erotic and violent content of a controled level.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Wait, does seinen considered sexual content too?
I put the tag on my work thinking because my demographic usually young male/adult

From what I understand, Seinen, like Shounen/Shoujo/Josei, purely considers the target group. Kinda like YA books. Those aren't actually a genre by themselves either.


But is there any differentiation between mature and adult? Even on P(-game) sites those just show up and that's it.

 

[TPumpkin]

Mature: Contains subject matter which may be too extreme for a younger audience. Content that deals with mature themes such as gore, sex, or violence.

Adult: Contains mature content that is suitable only for adults. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.

Smut: Erotic work of fiction that’s mainly targeted toward females. Smut stories often gives heavy focus on love and relationships between the main characters.

So I guess we can exclude Seinen then since that's more straightforward. Ecchi seems like soft-lewd scenes but nothing too hardcore. But these 3 tags, Mature, Adult, and Smut seem like the same stuff. I guess one could argue Adult, can show nudity and not sex, but I think most stories would toss nudity into the same category as sex or near close to it. Mature and Smut both include sex, while Adult says "graphic sexual content" which could imply sexual scenes.

So is this just a gradient of intensity? From lowest lewdness to highest, Adult < Mature < Smut?

 

[Piisfun]

Mature < Adult < Smut
With the caveat that smut is only about sexual content, while the other two are more general.

Genre tags have always been weird and ambiguous, so that kind of overlap is to be expected.

 

[DarkCrinkle]

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I found this thread when I started here in SH~ I think it gives you a better idea on how to differentiate Adult/Mature/Smut Genres~

Imma just quote the description for each from the thread :

• Adult
  • This is a tricky one, and many threads have already defined it differently. So don't take my word as gospel here! Adult topics can range from sexuality to dealing with heavy, morally ambiguous questions or simply grotesque, gory descriptions. An adult tag does not mean you will get full-on porn, but it can include nudity and/or sex.

Mature

• Another tricky one, and many things true here that were true on the adult tag. But most importantly, in my humble opinion, authors using this tag expect their readers to come in with a mature attitude towards their story. To look at issues with an open mind.

Smut

• Porn. Nuff said.

Hmmm... I think there's more grey line between Mature and Adult imo. Tbh, I just used all three XD because why nottt

 

[TPumpkin]

But is there any differentiation between mature and adult? Even on P(-game) sites those just show up and that's it.

I also wonder, but there appears to be a gradient.

Mature < Adult < Smut
With the caveat that smut is only about sexual content, while the other two are more general.

Makes sense. I'll try using this going forward.

I found this thread when I started here in SH~ I think it gives you a better idea on how to differentiate Adult/Mature/Smut Genres~

This was very helpful too, thanks!

Thanks everyone for the replies!