Like shonen and shojo manga (boys’ and girls’ comics), seinen manga is a category based on the comics’ primary target market.
Last winter, Animate Akihabara started an expansion and renovation project, with the grand opening of its new two-building facility having just taken place in April.
So it came as a shock to many when a photo taken inside Animate Akihabara started making the rounds of the Japanese Internet, in which the store said it had stopped selling a major category of manga altogether.
Animate is Japan’s biggest anime specialty merchandise retailer, and Tokyo’s Akihabara is Japan’s biggest otaku neighborhood.