abstract
| - Manga and anime aimed primarily at pre-teen and teenaged boys. Tends to be focused more on "action" than relationships, with romance generally either perfunctory or played for comedy. Fighting or combat -- even if it is sublimated into a form such as a sports competition -- is a common element. The title character, and most of the cast, is predominantly male. Shōnen series were the first to be brought over en masse to the Western world, and makes up much of the popular American perception of anime. However, it should be noted most anime is aimed at younger kids simply because they possess the most free time for TV, and nearly all popular western animation is either geared towards males or has Multiple Demographic Appeal. Pure Shojo bounces between the realms of cutesy and melodramatically scandalous for most Media Watchdogs, so it does not get shown in the West as much. Note that while Shonen tends to include a few standard genres, it is first of all an official designation of manga that were published in self-proclaimed shonen magazines, and anime that was based on such manga, rather than a label that is freely chosen to describe their content. That can lead to some series that are different from the typical shonen style but still count as an example, and series that follow all the typical shonen-like tropes, but aren't originating from a shonen magazine Don't list examples until you checked that they are officially shonen.
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