Why is it that almost every anime I watch is about School kids?


Sure, there are a few exceptions, but very few. Every anime I watch is about
School kids and/or usually takes place in a school. Why is that so? Is it
about the general audience, or something else?

**Edit:** Oh yeah, also School Clubs. Schools and school clubs. Seriously.

**Edit 2:** [I found this](http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-anime-
series-NOT-about-high-school), I've already seen quite a few of the mentioned.
I don't know if recommendations are allowed on this Stack site but I wanted to
get your opinion in the comments.




My feeling is that [Hakase's answer](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/16703)
is half-correct. I agree that characters are generally chosen so that the
target audience can relate to them. However, I disagree that means that
they're necessarily the _same_ age as the target audience. That is to say,
people don't necessarily relate best (as a group) to people who are of the
same age as them. What people do relate well to are characters who are in a
situation that is at least somewhat similar to what they have experienced, but
this generally only means that the characters need to be _younger than_ the
target audience, not the same age.

* * *

To understand this in more depth, we need to know a bit about anime/manga
demographics. You may already know this, but I'll write it here for
completeness. There are five key demographic groups. The youngest group is
called "kodomo", literally meaning "child". The target age range is something
like 3-7 years old. It is not typically segregated by gender. The most famous
show targeting this group is probably
[Doraemon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doraemon), but there are actually a
large number of shows aimed at this group. You probably don't watch many of
them, though, so I'll ignore it. Next, there are shounen and shoujo, for
(respectively) boys and girls. These target school-age children in the range
of 8-17 years old or so. Most of the most famous anime are shounen, including
[Dragon Ball](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Ball), [One
Piece](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Piece), and
[Naruto](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naruto). There are some famous shoujo
series like [Sailor Moon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailor_Moon), but fewer
than shounen. Above that, there are the seinen and josei groups, targeting
(respectively) men and women in the 18-34 age range. By volume, seinen is
probably the largest demographic group, but certainly not by viewership. You
can probably find more information here in a number of other questions about
the relative sizes of these and what counts as what. All the ages quoted are
approximate, but they're at least moderately accurate.

These demographic groups aren't as flexible as you might think. Most anime is
pigeonholed into one of them. Children's anime typically airs during the
daytime and is sponsored by the station directly. Most of these aim to be at
least marginally educational. Shounen and shoujo anime mostly airs during
primetime hours or in the mornings, when they aren't at school. The successful
ones are able to secure some external sponsorship and rely on this as their
primary source of revenue. Adult anime usually airs in late night time slots
(or on special anime stations), when broadcast restrictions are lessened and
stations are willing to sell out their airtime. These are usually not
sponsored in any way, and actually have to buy their airtime. They rely on
merchandise sales, including DVDs and increased manga sales, to break even,
and hence are forced into targeting consumers with enough money to purchase
the expensive DVDs (typically approximately 6000 - 8000 yen for 2 or 3
episodes) and merchandise. While it's possible for a show to air at a
different time than this would indicate (e.g. shounen shows airing in late
night slots), it is much harder for various reasons, so it's not that common.

* * *

For now, I'll restrict to the male audiences, which are significantly larger
than their female counterparts (and with which I have significantly more
experience). Among shounen shows, it's actually rather easy to find examples
where school is nowhere to be found or irrelevant. All the famous examples I
listed above don't have school settings. On the other hand, many seinen shows
are set in schools. My personal feeling is that it's probably more common for
seinen shows than shounen to be set in a school. I don't claim to have
anything like a representative sample, and it may be that the two rates are
actually about equal. But even still, the fact that _any_ seinen shows are set
in schools casts doubt on the theory that the characters are meant to be the
same age as the viewers, since very few members of the seinen target audience
are still in high school (and none would be in middle school or lower). By my
very cursory counting of my own (not at all representative list), of 16 seinen
shows I'm watching this season 11 are set at least partially in schools, which
is far more than can be explained by the age of the target audience alone.

Instead, I think the driving force here is _nostalgia_. Shounen shows
generally try to appeal to younger kids desire to be older and more mature
(for which they may use physical strength as a proxy). Hence you see a lot of
"adult" characters. By contrast, seinen shows aim to appeal to the desire of
adults to return to a more carefree and easy-going lifestyle which they
experienced when they were younger. Such shows typically present an idealized
depiction of school life. It's a school life very few people actually
experienced, but it's at least close enough that it serves the purposes of
creating a nostalgic setting on top of which the story and characters can be
developed. Of course, making the characters younger means they have more room
to develop as well, at least if they are realistic.

There's a second, related reason. It's much easier to appeal to the lowest
common denominator than to aim for the middle of the road. Putting the
characters in high school is not going to demoralize anyone or make them feel
inferior. Most Japanese people go to (and graduate) high school; the
graduation rate is approximately 95%, [tied for third place
worldwide](https://www.aneki.com/oecd_countries_high_school_graduation_rates.html).
There's little worry that setting an anime in high school will alienate
viewers. On the other hand, Japan's college graduation rate is only about 53%;
while that's still very high compared to most other countries, anime producers
often won't risk alienating 47% of their audience by setting shows in college.
Likewise, setting shows in a workplace environment risks alienating
[NEETs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEET) who are, at least stereotypically,
often anime fans, as well as people working in very different kinds of jobs.
While some series drop this entirely and aim for a completely unfamiliar
setting, this is somewhat more common in shounen series that aim to appeal to
the viewer's sense of adventure. Incidentally, for much the same reasons,
[shounen protagonists aren't the brightest
lot](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/2178/why-are-the-shounen-lead-
protagonists-usually-shown-to-be-stupid) either. This is absolutely not to say
that anime are never set in workplaces or in colleges (see, for instance,
[Servant x Service](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_x_Service) or [Golden
Time](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Time_\(novel_series\))), but it's
far less common.

* * *

Let's take a case study. One of the most successful anime in history is
[K-On!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-On!), a seinen slice of life series
about girls in a high school light music club. The 2009 anime was highly
successful and drew a number of readers to the manga, which before that point
was relatively unknown. The 2010 sequel concluded the series with four of the
five main girls graduating high school and going off to college, while the
fifth entered her final year of high school.

At the conclusion of the anime, the manga was basically at the same point.
However, as something of a surprise, the manga author did not decide to
conclude the manga there. Rather, he decided to continue it with two series.
One would focus on the main four girls in college. The other continued the
story of the remaining high school student in her last year and promoted two
previously minor characters to members of the club.

The reaction to this was almost altogether negative. Most die-hard fans did
not want a continuation in college. On various internet fora, comments were
made. Some people said things like "I don't want to read about a bunch of
college girls when I didn't graduate college". Others said "there is no way
this can continue to be believable, as now that they're in college, they'll
have to get boyfriends, and would not have the time to be in a band together".
People just didn't want to read about a bunch of college-aged adult women
sitting around and eating cakes, even when they were quite happy with it when
the girls were just a year younger. The high-school part wasn't plagued with
the same level of negative commentary, but it didn't do particularly well on
its own, having lost many of the good characters. Readership dropped
drastically, and the manga concluded just a year later, the mangaka apparently
having decided too that continuing any further wasn't worth it.

* * *

I'm returning to the female demographics because they provide some interesting
contrast. At least stereotypically, many shoujo series are romances, set in
school. This is perhaps understandable. In fantasy, action/adventure genre
shows which are common among shounen series, the unusual setting is a large
part of the appeal. However, for a romance show, the appeal is in the
characters, and as a result setting it in a familiar place like a school is
probably the best option. Indeed, for most viewers in the target audience, the
majority of all of their social interactions would take place at school. As a
result, many (probably more than for shounen) shoujo series are set in
schools.

However, an interesting thing happens with josei anime. Josei is significantly
smaller than any of the other three demographics I've talked about here. It's
actually quite difficult for josei shows to be successful. But as a result,
josei series are, in many cases, forced to be more experimental. These series
often feature adults in the workforce or college students, sometimes in
unusual or difficult situations. Josei is known for being particularly drama-
based; romance is present, but often just to emphasize the interpersonal
conflicts. Some examples of successful josei anime which do this are [Usagi
Drop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_Drop) and [Hachimitsu to
Clover](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_and_Clover). One can find even more
experimental works in manga, though very few make it to anime. Thus, if you
want to find some anime that is really broadly different from the mainstream
shounen/seinen/shoujo stuff, you can probably find josei works which will
appeal to you.

* * *

So, at the end of the day, yes, school settings are chosen because viewers can
relate to them. However, that is _not_ because the viewers are expected to be
in school themselves, at least not always. Rather, in many cases, it's because
the viewers are expected to _have been in_ schools at some point, and hence
can relate. There are few options as broadly applicable as primary/secondary
education for that purpose. Such settings also often are chosen to invoke some
nostalgic feelings, and because they won't alienate most viewers. While one
can find anime which are not set in schools, they're necessarily more
experimental as such settings are not as well developed and appeal to smaller
viewerships. If course most anime is not meant to be experimental, and even
most experimental shows don't experiment with everything, so the majority of
shows nowadays are set in schools, but there are exceptions if you look for
them.




My feeling is that [Hakase's answer](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/16703)
is half-correct. I agree that characters are generally chosen so that the
target audience can relate to them. However, I disagree that means that
they're necessarily the _same_ age as the target audience. That is to say,
people don't necessarily relate best (as a group) to people who are of the
same age as them. What people do relate well to are characters who are in a
situation that is at least somewhat similar to what they have experienced, but
this generally only means that the characters need to be _younger than_ the
target audience, not the same age.

* * *

To understand this in more depth, we need to know a bit about anime/manga
demographics. You may already know this, but I'll write it here for
completeness. There are five key demographic groups. The youngest group is
called "kodomo", literally meaning "child". The target age range is something
like 3-7 years old. It is not typically segregated by gender. The most famous
show targeting this group is probably
[Doraemon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doraemon), but there are actually a
large number of shows aimed at this group. You probably don't watch many of
them, though, so I'll ignore it. Next, there are shounen and shoujo, for
(respectively) boys and girls. These target school-age children in the range
of 8-17 years old or so. Most of the most famous anime are shounen, including
[Dragon Ball](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Ball), [One
Piece](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Piece), and
[Naruto](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naruto). There are some famous shoujo
series like [Sailor Moon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailor_Moon), but fewer
than shounen. Above that, there are the seinen and josei groups, targeting
(respectively) men and women in the 18-34 age range. By volume, seinen is
probably the largest demographic group, but certainly not by viewership. You
can probably find more information here in a number of other questions about
the relative sizes of these and what counts as what. All the ages quoted are
approximate, but they're at least moderately accurate.

These demographic groups aren't as flexible as you might think. Most anime is
pigeonholed into one of them. Children's anime typically airs during the
daytime and is sponsored by the station directly. Most of these aim to be at
least marginally educational. Shounen and shoujo anime mostly airs during
primetime hours or in the mornings, when they aren't at school. The successful
ones are able to secure some external sponsorship and rely on this as their
primary source of revenue. Adult anime usually airs in late night time slots
(or on special anime stations), when broadcast restrictions are lessened and
stations are willing to sell out their airtime. These are usually not
sponsored in any way, and actually have to buy their airtime. They rely on
merchandise sales, including DVDs and increased manga sales, to break even,
and hence are forced into targeting consumers with enough money to purchase
the expensive DVDs (typically approximately 6000 - 8000 yen for 2 or 3
episodes) and merchandise. While it's possible for a show to air at a
different time than this would indicate (e.g. shounen shows airing in late
night slots), it is much harder for various reasons, so it's not that common.

* * *

For now, I'll restrict to the male audiences, which are significantly larger
than their female counterparts (and with which I have significantly more
experience). Among shounen shows, it's actually rather easy to find examples
where school is nowhere to be found or irrelevant. All the famous examples I
listed above don't have school settings. On the other hand, many seinen shows
are set in schools. My personal feeling is that it's probably more common for
seinen shows than shounen to be set in a school. I don't claim to have
anything like a representative sample, and it may be that the two rates are
actually about equal. But even still, the fact that _any_ seinen shows are set
in schools casts doubt on the theory that the characters are meant to be the
same age as the viewers, since very few members of the seinen target audience
are still in high school (and none would be in middle school or lower). By my
very cursory counting of my own (not at all representative list), of 16 seinen
shows I'm watching this season 11 are set at least partially in schools, which
is far more than can be explained by the age of the target audience alone.

Instead, I think the driving force here is _nostalgia_. Shounen shows
generally try to appeal to younger kids desire to be older and more mature
(for which they may use physical strength as a proxy). Hence you see a lot of
"adult" characters. By contrast, seinen shows aim to appeal to the desire of
adults to return to a more carefree and easy-going lifestyle which they
experienced when they were younger. Such shows typically present an idealized
depiction of school life. It's a school life very few people actually
experienced, but it's at least close enough that it serves the purposes of
creating a nostalgic setting on top of which the story and characters can be
developed. Of course, making the characters younger means they have more room
to develop as well, at least if they are realistic.

There's a second, related reason. It's much easier to appeal to the lowest
common denominator than to aim for the middle of the road. Putting the
characters in high school is not going to demoralize anyone or make them feel
inferior. Most Japanese people go to (and graduate) high school; the
graduation rate is approximately 95%, [tied for third place
worldwide](https://www.aneki.com/oecd_countries_high_school_graduation_rates.html).
There's little worry that setting an anime in high school will alienate
viewers. On the other hand, Japan's college graduation rate is only about 53%;
while that's still very high compared to most other countries, anime producers
often won't risk alienating 47% of their audience by setting shows in college.
Likewise, setting shows in a workplace environment risks alienating
[NEETs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEET) who are, at least stereotypically,
often anime fans, as well as people working in very different kinds of jobs.
While some series drop this entirely and aim for a completely unfamiliar
setting, this is somewhat more common in shounen series that aim to appeal to
the viewer's sense of adventure. Incidentally, for much the same reasons,
[shounen protagonists aren't the brightest
lot](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/2178/why-are-the-shounen-lead-
protagonists-usually-shown-to-be-stupid) either. This is absolutely not to say
that anime are never set in workplaces or in colleges (see, for instance,
[Servant x Service](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_x_Service) or [Golden
Time](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Time_\(novel_series\))), but it's
far less common.

* * *

Let's take a case study. One of the most successful anime in history is
[K-On!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-On!), a seinen slice of life series
about girls in a high school light music club. The 2009 anime was highly
successful and drew a number of readers to the manga, which before that point
was relatively unknown. The 2010 sequel concluded the series with four of the
five main girls graduating high school and going off to college, while the
fifth entered her final year of high school.

At the conclusion of the anime, the manga was basically at the same point.
However, as something of a surprise, the manga author did not decide to
conclude the manga there. Rather, he decided to continue it with two series.
One would focus on the main four girls in college. The other continued the
story of the remaining high school student in her last year and promoted two
previously minor characters to members of the club.

The reaction to this was almost altogether negative. Most die-hard fans did
not want a continuation in college. On various internet fora, comments were
made. Some people said things like "I don't want to read about a bunch of
college girls when I didn't graduate college". Others said "there is no way
this can continue to be believable, as now that they're in college, they'll
have to get boyfriends, and would not have the time to be in a band together".
People just didn't want to read about a bunch of college-aged adult women
sitting around and eating cakes, even when they were quite happy with it when
the girls were just a year younger. The high-school part wasn't plagued with
the same level of negative commentary, but it didn't do particularly well on
its own, having lost many of the good characters. Readership dropped
drastically, and the manga concluded just a year later, the mangaka apparently
having decided too that continuing any further wasn't worth it.

* * *

I'm returning to the female demographics because they provide some interesting
contrast. At least stereotypically, many shoujo series are romances, set in
school. This is perhaps understandable. In fantasy, action/adventure genre
shows which are common among shounen series, the unusual setting is a large
part of the appeal. However, for a romance show, the appeal is in the
characters, and as a result setting it in a familiar place like a school is
probably the best option. Indeed, for most viewers in the target audience, the
majority of all of their social interactions would take place at school. As a
result, many (probably more than for shounen) shoujo series are set in
schools.

However, an interesting thing happens with josei anime. Josei is significantly
smaller than any of the other three demographics I've talked about here. It's
actually quite difficult for josei shows to be successful. But as a result,
josei series are, in many cases, forced to be more experimental. These series
often feature adults in the workforce or college students, sometimes in
unusual or difficult situations. Josei is known for being particularly drama-
based; romance is present, but often just to emphasize the interpersonal
conflicts. Some examples of successful josei anime which do this are [Usagi
Drop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_Drop) and [Hachimitsu to
Clover](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_and_Clover). One can find even more
experimental works in manga, though very few make it to anime. Thus, if you
want to find some anime that is really broadly different from the mainstream
shounen/seinen/shoujo stuff, you can probably find josei works which will
appeal to you.

* * *

So, at the end of the day, yes, school settings are chosen because viewers can
relate to them. However, that is _not_ because the viewers are expected to be
in school themselves, at least not always. Rather, in many cases, it's because
the viewers are expected to _have been in_ schools at some point, and hence
can relate. There are few options as broadly applicable as primary/secondary
education for that purpose. Such settings also often are chosen to invoke some
nostalgic feelings, and because they won't alienate most viewers. While one
can find anime which are not set in schools, they're necessarily more
experimental as such settings are not as well developed and appeal to smaller
viewerships. If course most anime is not meant to be experimental, and even
most experimental shows don't experiment with everything, so the majority of
shows nowadays are set in schools, but there are exceptions if you look for
them.

