Why do Girls Prefer Shounen to Shoujo?

[R4n]

My point is rather that romance tends to be limited because there are only so many things that can happen with a romance. On the other hand, action is limited, too, but it can be masked by having characters that use different, unique, original powers. If you look beneath the surface - yeah, most action shounen are the same. However, the differences on the surface are (at least for the better ones) enough to distract from the similarities they share at their core. On the other hand, I think it's a little harder to do that same distraction/masking when it comes to romance - the setting and premise can only lend so much of a distraction.

I disagree.
If you look deeper, you can do a lot of things with romance. There are a lot of things that can be done with it. All of those titles i mentioned (they are only a very small example among a large pool of choices) has very prominent romance theme in it, and yet they are all very different. Romance is not only about 'break up with A then hook up with B', there are a lot of things, various ways to create events that revolve around it. It's just like shounen is not only about 'beat A, then beat B next', there are a lot of events that revolve around it like what you said no? It is exactly the same with shoujo.

and the thing about shoujo is... not all shoujos are romance. I said romance is one important aspect of shoujos because i remember reading a shoujo manga omake where the author mentioned her editor requesting her to add love interests in the manga (which she doesn't really plan in the beginning). I likened it with how shounen editors request for cool power upgrades or battles.

Shoujos can have a lot of actions in it, but they still be considered shoujos. I think the amount of 'romance' and 'action' alone do not define whether a manga is shounen or shoujo. We can't say only because of a manga has a lot of action we should put it under shounen. No. I notice that shoujos deal with a lot with emotional aspects. For example, both Fushigi Yuugi, Genbu Kaiden and Appare Jipangu has a lot of action, adventure and slapstick jokes, but the storyline and the way it is presented is shoujo to the core. Four Daughters of Armian (it is a manwha, i dunno if i can put it under shoujo... OTL) has tons of political scheming, adventure and actions in it, and it is geared towards females. Banana Fish is shoujo.
i dunno, calling all shoujos are cliched romance is totally scraping on the surface of things.

and i was quite fond of a shounen (or seinen?) romance manga called 'Salad Days'. It is a everyday love stories that is geared towards males. The author is a male.

like i said, this forum is biased towards shounen and seinen. I don't know if i might be wasting my breath......... ^__^;;;;;

[saladesu]

I disagree.
If you look deeper, you can do a lot of things with romance. There are a lot of things that can be done with it. All of those titles i mentioned (they are only a very small example among a large pool of choices) has very prominent romance theme in it, and yet they are all very different. Romance is not only about 'break up with A then hook up with B', there are a lot of things, various ways to create events that revolve around it. It's just like shounen is not only about 'beat A, then beat B next', there are a lot of events that revolve around it like what you said no? It is exactly the same with shoujo.

They are. And in my previous posts I've made the same point myself The problem, imo, is that most tend to be cliched and largely the same (which is, actually, the same with shounen). Yes, there are indeed various ways to build the events that revolve around the romance. But, from my experience with shoujo at least, it seems not enough of them do that, or enough of it. That's why the really popular series are the ones that aren't so run of the mill - Skip Beat, Nana, Nodame Cantabile and the ilk. I still think it's easier to mask the underlying cliche action formula than it is for romance, though. But that also makes me enjoy a good shoujo a lot more

and the thing about shoujo is... not all shoujos are romance.

i dunno, calling all shoujos are cliched romance is totally scraping on the surface of things.

I agree. Which is why I never said "all"

like i said, this forum is biased towards shounen and seinen. I don't know if i might be wasting my breath......... ^__^;;;;;

I think we have a number of closet shoujo and josei readers, actually I know we have a sizable fanbase for series like Kimi ni Todoke, for example. A pity that it's nothing compared to the fanbase for most shounen or seinen series, but oh wells.

[BakaHaze]

Btw, Di(e)ce was classified as Josei.

But I think that possibly shounen is more attractive because most shounen manga's have "perfect" or at least very cool male characters, and even with all the hectic action, most of them require comedy as well as romance in order to break it up a bit, which appeals to girls just as well.

I mean, just look at how many HisokaXGon Yaoi doujins are out there

[R4n]

Btw, Di(e)ce was classified as Josei.

o really? 0___0
if this is true, then it makes more sense xD

Just out of curiosity, i wish there is a way to know how many yaoi doujinshis each series has within a year. I am sure some particular titles are more yaoi-bait than the others. xDDDD

[BakaHaze]

Ah, I totally forgot about this, but I reckon the Shoujo series that I enjoyed the most was Ghost Hunt ^^

Although I think some of the other stories by Fuyuki Ono are kinda shoujo-ish such as Junni Kokki...

I don't think I noticed until after...

Actually, how does this relate to the topic

[Ju-da-su]

...Well, I'm a girl, but I don't "read" Shoujo. I might watch them though...

A point is, I hate romantic stuff in general anyway. What the fuck? Love? Yuck! I never understand why romantic love is so important (just a note. I never intend to have boyfriend, never intend to have any romantic relationship and never intend to get married either...since I don't see why would anyone need those, unless you want to have children... .-. ) So, I prefer shounen by far. If the shoujo or josei have some cool action and something good, like themes or motifs, in them other than some girl chasing after some guy, then I might get interested (since some manga that I like, to my surprise, were classified as josei while I never seem to see why is that so, like 07-Ghost, Amatsuki, Saiyuki, etc. I bet there are some mangas that was classified as shoujo when it's somewhere in the midline rather than pure love and romances as well)

Don't know if it's just because of my judgment that shoujo means manga that's made up of 99% romantic love and 1% others that I prefer shounen by that definition though. Shounen is exciting. Many shounen manga have good themes and motifs in them, like Gintama (just have to say. I find Gintama as the silliest and most nonsense manga and at the same time, the most profound manga in the three big weekly mags. Yeah, it's so packed with dirty jokes, but it's probably the only weekly manga that I think is very philosophical).

But again, at the same time, I like to watch some josei, BL anime, mostly for seiyuu purposes. Don't know if it's just their trend, trademark or something, but on average, josei, especially anime with BL or otome type, always have the best seiyuus doing the voices. I'm a seiyuu frantic, so no way I'm missing out on those.

[Asarii]

When I was younger I read a lot of shoujo, but my taste slowly developed to shounen as I became older. Part of that was due to peer influence since a lot of people were into Yu-Gi-Oh or Inuyasha at the time; another part was because although shoujo and shounen have their own clichés (which I assume is so young readers would know what to expect), shounen tropes appealed to me more. It's like how I'd rather watch an action film instead of comedy or listen to rock instead of pop- all a matter of preference.

Superficially, it was also hard for me to get into artwork à la Tanemura Arina because the sparkly eyed characters and overuse of tones never really appealed to me that much. However, I've since encountered tamer styles like those found in flat and Kimi Ni Todoke which I assume is for older shoujo readers. I know artwork isn't everything, but it all comes down to personal preference.

[MisaoFan]

I prefer shounen over shoujo cause it contains a lot of interesting elements for me, such as battles, characters' variety and personnality and fanservice ! Shounen doesn't only contain action stuff, but there's a lot more (such as romantic comedies and sports) ! Elements that I like in shounen is the elements that I already mentionned previously, but elements that I don't like is there's some shounen action series that doesn't even have a bit of romance (my favorite genre) ! As for shoujo side, I don't watch much that stuff (it's not because that I don't like, I don't know why there's lot of titles that sounds...girly?), so I'll vote the shounen stuff !

When I was younger I read a lot of shoujo, but my taste slowly developed to shounen as I became older. Part of that was due to peer influence since a lot of people were into Yu-Gi-Oh or Inuyasha at the time; another part was because although shoujo and shounen have their own clichés (which I assume is so young readers would know what to expect), shounen tropes appealed to me more. It's like how I'd rather watch an action film instead of comedy or listen to rock instead of pop- all a matter of preference.

Like saladesu said, I will suggest you reading shoujo action stuff, such as X and this genre contain a lot of shounen action-like elements. If you want variety in shounen, I will suggest you Toradora! (a shounen romantic comedy when a kind boy meets a cold and somewhat-tomboy petite girl in highschool setting) and Cross Game (a shounen sporty slice-of-life about a young baseball player and his childhood friend).

[Asarii]

Like saladesu said, I will suggest you reading shoujo action stuff, such as X and this genre contain a lot of shounen action-like elements. If you want variety in shounen, I will suggest you Toradora! (a shounen romantic comedy when a kind boy meets a cold and somewhat-tomboy petite girl in highschool setting) and Cross Game (a shounen sporty slice-of-life about a young baseball player and his childhood friend).

I'll give the manga you recommended in mind. Speaking of action, I remember liking Suga Suga Rune because it stood out from other shoujo I was reading at the time.

[MisaoFan]

Another thing about shounen... [...] and of course romance. Although romance isn't the focus of the series usually, it's there.

Saladesu, I'm saying that not every shounen have the same action plot with little to no romance. There's also a bunch of romantic comedies (like Love Hina, Toradora!), romance-driven action series (Negima!, Qwaser of Stigmata), sport series (Slam Dunk) and slice-of-life-driven shounen series (Bakuman) to name a few. Because I read/watch plenty of shounen series, I learn everything, not just with action-driven series but also other genres I mentionned above. Personally, I watched a lot of shounen series in which romance is the main genre alongside action/adventure genre. I personally thought that shounen has more realistic, less sparkly romance compared to the more girly, sparkly-heavy shoujo romance.

---------- Post added January 24, 2012 at 07:21 AM ---------- Previous post was January 13, 2012 at 09:43 AM ----------

And it's really interesting to read shounen because I like to read a story from male's perspective.

There's plenty of shounen manga with female leads instead of male leads. Look at Claymore, Medaka Box and Double Arts !

[faintsmile1992]

This could be largely a generalization, but here's an article that quotes a Japanese news show that talked about how girls prefer shounen manga to shoujo manga.

As you can see from the pictures there, all the girls who were asked, answered that they prefer shounen manga to shoujo manga.

As a girl myself, I'll admit that I read a lot more shounen manga than I do shoujo manga (and for that matter I read a number of seinen but zero josei). But that doesn't mean that I dislike shoujo manga, or necessarily prefer shounen to shoujo. Then again, a lot of people call me a tomboy, so I'm not so sure using myself as an example is that valid here

One of the girls on the show mentioned that most shoujo manga tell rather cliched romance stories. I do agree. There is greater variety in shounen series, though of course beneath it all many of them are largely the same (main character trying to reach a goal, defeat stronger and stronger enemies and make new nakama along the way).

What do you think? Why do girls prefer shounen manga to shoujo manga? If you are a girl, do you prefer shounen manga to shoujo manga? Why do you even read shounen? Is it a change in the mindset of us girls nowadays, or a change in the shounen genre itself, that attracts so many girls to read what is supposedly meant for "young boys"?

Well here in the UK where most fans are females, most of the manga tankobon that are available commercially are shounen not shoujo titles, so shounen manga top the sales charts here with the exception of Fruits Basket. When more shoujo manga became available here the sales of shoujo manga went up though.

And girls do like the female characters in shounen manga... not to mention the hot boys...

Mangaka like Ken Akamatsu have tried on purpose to expand the fan base of shounen manga beyond young boys, but the appeal of shounen manga has always extended beyond their official target audience across gender and age boundaries. I read most sales of SJ are to salarymen and disposable copies of that manga litter Japan's trains.

And the only boyish thing I do is play danmaku games!

[Erimia]

pff is there even a need to compare??? there's nothing like good looking (or even plain looking) sweaty guys after an epic battle, esp. if they give each other bro love, not in a perverted sense. Oh and when they lose it's actually 100 times hotter, because you wanna rush over and comfort XD

Take for example Yamamoto from KHR. He has 2 swords which is a major turn-on, he plays with water and occasionally gets wet (=hot), and also his casual clothes get torn sometimes. What else a girl has to ask for? That series was definitely drawn by a woman and I don't complain Oh yeah and there's also that super sexy spread of all the bishies drawn by the author for the popularity results *drools a river*

Take Kazehaya from Kimi ni Todoke (a popular shoujo). Like vast majority of shoujo males he rarely takes his shirt off, and NEVER gets it torn to shreds with blood all over it. All he does is smile, get sad, get nervous, get happy, and sometimes serious. THAT'S IT!!! Well, there are sex scenes in shoujo, much more than in shounen I should say unless it's "mature" shounen, definitely not Jump type. So sometimes it gets heated. But still, if you want to please a girl's eye, give her blood covered hunks fighting with swords or big guns.

Another reason is just the same as for the guys: shounen is simply interesting and engaging. I, for example, like strategy-led fights like some fights in Naruto to tickle my brains (or was it naked Naruto covered in frog oil...?). Most other shounen show strategy, I liked Psyren for that especially in the beginning. Also, the set is usually somewhere in an alternate universe with engaging plots. You enjoy seeing how that world is unraveled in front of the eyes (Toriko for example or One Piece), hasn't adventure been attracting readers/watchers since long ago? All the different and unique characters with cool designs, I mean who wouldn't like that? Beautiful art is another good aspect which is usually lacking in shoujo. Ah, and the women! The women are attractive and many of them have great personalities that you either identify with or idolize. Shounen can also bring forth an atmosphere, like in Battle Angel Alita. I also like shounen series about romance, though it's often ecchi, but sometimes it's not annoying and in your face. Many shounen also include romance into their plot which is nice.

Shoujo manga usually are infested by plot bunnies. Example: the protagonist runs around a corner and bumps into her love interest, falls on him and their lips in some impossible way HAVE to connect, after which she gets embarrassed and runs away leaving the equally embarrassed guy with lingering feelings of guilt and memories of her soft lips (or pain from the fall). Most shoujo employ the "fall trick + accidental kiss" and the "head on collision with your love interest in the most embarrassing way" sometimes even multiple times throughout the series, which is beyond me. It's like the authors can't think creatively at all -_- I think 95% of shoujo have been guilty of using the accidental kiss and 99.99% use the happy coincidence trick which is SUPER annoying. Most of shoujo is usually very predictable. You already know the end, it's usually how the story gets to that end is how mangaka show their skill or lack of it. The end is also always the same in shoujo: everyone gets laid. Oh yeah and the world usually revolves around the protagonist, she's sometimes very self-centered and doesn't realize that there are people around her. These are some of the annoying issues in a lot of shoujo, and only some of them are truly gems. I mostly like Josei or some mature or unique shoujo for this reason. Most shoujo is incredibly cheesy and the protagonist is an incapable, unattractive, stupid, flat chested insecure girl who ruins everything and can't make a step without a guy. Not often you see a pretty girl with a nice body and strong personality being a protagonist.

[MisaoFan]

Shoujo manga usually are infested by plot bunnies. Example: the protagonist runs around a corner and bumps into her love interest, falls on him and their lips in some impossible way HAVE to connect, after which she gets embarrassed and runs away leaving the equally embarrassed guy with lingering feelings of guilt and memories of her soft lips (or pain from the fall). Most shoujo employ the "fall trick + accidental kiss" and the "head on collision with your love interest in the most embarrassing way" sometimes even multiple times throughout the series, which is beyond me. It's like the authors can't think creatively at all -_- I think 95% of shoujo have been guilty of using the accidental kiss and 99.99% use the happy coincidence trick which is SUPER annoying. Most of shoujo is usually very predictable. You already know the end, it's usually how the story gets to that end is how mangaka show their skill or lack of it. The end is also always the same in shoujo: everyone gets laid. Oh yeah and the world usually revolves around the protagonist, she's sometimes very self-centered and doesn't realize that there are people around her. These are some of the annoying issues in a lot of shoujo, and only some of them are truly gems. I mostly like Josei or some mature or unique shoujo for this reason. Most shoujo is incredibly cheesy and the protagonist is an incapable, unattractive, stupid, flat chested insecure girl who ruins everything and can't make a step without a guy. Not often you see a pretty girl with a nice body and strong personality being a protagonist.

Actually, for what I see on Animesuki's post, 43% of shoujo sets in school, while 83% are romantic. There's plenty of unique shoujo with shounen-like plot, male protagonist and sometimes a very attractive, capable, cool and big-breasted heroine in unique school romance (like Maid-Sama!, Special A, Skip Beat!...). However, it's harder to find a shoujo without romance than a shounen with romance (which is pretty easy to find one).

THAT'S IT!!! Well, there are sex scenes in shoujo, much more than in shounen I should say unless it's "mature" shounen, definitely not Jump type. So sometimes it gets heated.

Actually, male-oriented stories (like shounen or seinen) have more sex than shoujo, and also more graphic than shoujo. Some shounen like Seikon no Qwaser have some rape in it, while many seinen (Berserk, Holy Knight) have loads of rape. But I can't say seinen is all about mature themes, there's plenty of seinen without mature themes in it (Chi's Sweet Home, K-ON!...)

[matzik1212]

Oh nice thread .
Yeah i also like Shounen more than Shoujo that's for sure . My reasons are quite simple .
A Shounen manga has a good devised story , is more exciting and has it all :adventure , comedy , romance while Shoujo mangas are usually kinda stupid to watch (not all Shoujo mangas of course , i for example like Dengeki Daisy very much , Kimi ni Todoke, Love so Life and there are others as well). I don't like those types of Shoujo mangas where the girls are practically pitiful to watch and the guy in question treats girls like crap
Plus i can say that i'm more attracted to mangas that involve martial arts , supernatural and also slice of life

[scav]

pff is there even a need to compare??? there's nothing like good looking (or even plain looking) sweaty guys after an epic battle, esp. if they give each other bro love, not in a perverted sense. Oh and when they lose it's actually 100 times hotter, because you wanna rush over and comfort XD

But still, if you want to please a girl's eye, give her blood covered hunks fighting with swords or big guns.

WTF did i just read?

anyways i'm not a girl but i'll give my opinion. I think it's the "plot". Shounen plot are way deeper than shoujo plot.Most of Shoujo are always the same ( one girl, one guy, a school, and Romance). I like romance, but a good story need something else in addition to the romance.
The other point is the art, there is no originality: always sparkling eyes ( well nowadays we even see sparkling Vampires )