Action: Tends to involve scenes of violence, fighting and general chaos.
Adult: As it’s titled, Adult animes/mangas are to be viewed by an adult audience as content may contain graphic depictions of violence, nudity or sexual content.
Adventure: The main character(s) will be shown making a journey to a destination of importance or significance. Usually involves many obstacles within their path to overcome.
Comedy: A often dramatic light hearted and fast paced work, intending to humour. Some circumstances may deem the work as sarcastic.
Doujinshi: Fan based work inspired by an existing anime or manga.
Drama: Work involving this genre tends to involve plot twists after plot twists, aiming to entertain, shock and thrill.
Ecchi: Fanservice aimed at a certain audience. Ecchi is similar to yet not quite hentai.
Fantasy: Work that involves magic, dreamworlds, magical creatures and other similar themes.
Gender Bender: The main character may, for whatever reason or purpose, genderswap. From male to female or female to male for a period of time.
Harem: The protagonist will be surrounded by a group of the opposite gender. Multiple romantic interests may occur.
Hentai: A subgenre which happens to explicitely sexualise characters often through images and/or plot.
Historical: Work is set in an old or ancient time of any possible era. Make sure to read that possible anime or mangas description for better detail.
Horror: Work is either frightening and/or shocking.
Josei: Can be translated as meaning “Woman”. This genre is aimed at a female audience from 18-30 though this is NOT shoujo anime/manga. It aims to be realistic rather than ideal and can involve mature and explicit scenes or plot.
Lolicon: Lolicon presents a sexual attraction to young or even underage girls.
Martial Arts: Involves any martial arts related sport, such as tae kwon do and karate.
Mature: Not to be viewed by anyone under the age of 17. May contain acts of violence, gore, scenes of nudity, excessive swearing or a sexualized content.
Mecha: Work revolving around large robotics.
Mystery: Usually involves a plot where the main protagonist has to solve something unexplainable.
Psychological: Tends to deal with the philosophy of someones state of mind, for example the views of Light Yagami in Death Note.
Romance: Any story which involves love or a romantic relationship.
School Life: This is an anime which may be based solely or partly within a school environment.
Sci-fi: Science Fiction happens to involve a mixture of science and technology. The anime may sometimes be inspired by modern day knowledge or a far fetched notion.
Seinen: Meaning “Young Man”, an anime in this genre is aimed at a male audience aged between 18-25.
Shotacon: Shotacon, like lolicon but reversed, represents a sexual attraction towards young or underage boys.
Shoujo: Shoujo is known as being focused, mainly, towards a female audience with it’s romantic plot lines and character developments.
Shoujo Ai: Synonymous with Yuri, Shoujo Ai is known as “Girls Love”. This shows a light, romantic relationship between two woman.
Shounen: Shounen is the genre which aims to please a young male audience with some violence and fighting amongst the plot.
Shounen Ai: This genre shows a light, romantic relationship between two men.
Slice of Life: This anime/manga happens to aim to keep the plot as realistic as possible. It may feature talk of first world problems or interests, like in Lucky Star.
Smut: Deals with a large amount of sexual content that may be considered offensive for some viewers.
Sports: Any sport which can’t go under the ‘Martial Arts’ genre will usually go under this sub genre. Such as Prince of Tennis and Kuroko no Basket.
Supernatural: Anything unexplainable, which defies the laws of physics, even within the anime/manga world it is featured in.
Tragedy: Events which show large mounts of misfortune and/or loss. May include character death.
Yaoi: Will show a much more intimate or explicit relationship between two men.
Yuri: Will show a much more intimate or explicit relationship between two woman.
Feel free to comment whether you found this helpful or tips on improving the list. I will consider any and all genres/subgenres that you recommend should be added.
Information found through google, baka-updates and five years of anime viewing. Image from Flickr
AnneAssassin 