Shounen or Shoujo

I have a quandary. Shounen manga is by far the most popular. With serious like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Toriko, Sket Dance, etc. So why classify something as shounen when it's target audience is obviously girls or women? The series I will point out are Kuroshitsuji and Reborn (I am not a fan of either of these so there will be a little bias here). With there overly pretty characters and gratuitous amounts of Ho Yay they are obviously targeting girls. Yet they are described as shounen. Why is that?

A pretty art style isn't necessarily targeting girls, it just may be the style of the author. Reborn is Shounen all the way... mainly from the constant battles and the plot.

You want Shoujo, read something like Vampire Knight, compare to reborn!

Shounen is more popular because its mostly action, Shoujo is a bit too lovey dube for my tastes

Let me expand on this a little. At the end of the Daemon Spade we got a flashback the made an unsympathetic villain sympathetic, a tool commonly used in media targeted at females. In Kuroshitsuji you see a demon bishounen and a little boy being a little to close for there so called master/servant relationship. These series are obviously aimed at girls.

Shounen is good as long as it doesn't fall into the pattern of: Enemy 1 arises, hero trains/gains new power 1 and defeats enemy 1, Enemy 2 arises and hero's power 1 is defeated, Hero trains/gains new power 2 and defeats enemy 2, Enemy 3 arises and hero's power 2 is defeated, hero trains/gains power 3 and defeats enemy 3. Repeat!

I <3 Shoujo if the series is complete, romantic cliffhangers piss me the hell off; I won't touch any in progress if I can help it.

Who cares? As long as the manga's good it shouldn't matter if it's Shounen, Shoujo, Seinen, or Josei.

I like to find the middle ground where good action is combined with non-harem romance.

I think it's we're so fixated on what guys/girls should read is why we make this a problem. Sexism ans sex borders blah blah blah, I know all that jazz,but I'm not gonna go deep into that. And people are confused about the bishie character being in the wrong genre (K-on![in a way], Kuroshitsuji, Lucky Star, and etc and etc), which I think it's natural to be but shouldn't dwell on that factor alone.

You know that there are people who Identify interests for demographics as a living right? The people that make media whether it be anime, manga or anything else do research on what people in that demographic would want to see. These people are professionals. Even though not every shounen will appeal to everyone in that demographic it will appeal to the vast majority of them.

pretty much anything by clamp is shouno/shoujnen

I like Shoujo more then Shounen because it's more romance in them. I dont like action so much. this is just my opinion.

No, almost everything by CLAMP is just Shoujo because the target audience is girls, 10 to 18 years old. Don't get me wrong, I love CLAMP but they are still mainly shoujo producers.

When it comes to manga, I read almost nothing but Shoujo. I adore the art and the style of it, and often Shoujo manga (especially the short romances/one shots) tend to be much more pleasurable per volume than shounen. In the end, I don't think it matters as long as you enjoy what you're going through instead of categorising it in an almost chore-like manner by labelling it so.

I mostly read shounen, but sometimes I find some good shoujo as well, like W Change. Still can't stomach the too lovey dovey ones though.

i see youre point. I was just thinking the art looks like shoujo, but some of the stories are also shounen.(which now that i think about it is mainly tsubasa D: unless you count rg veda, which i dont)

Are you serious? Is that all it takes for you to decide something is aimed at girls? Who in their right mind prefers unsympathetic villains to sympathetic ones anyway?

Then again, who cares if its aimed for girls or boys? Are you going to stop reading because it is supposed to be aimed for girls? There are some excellent shoujos out there, same with shounen. Limiting yourself to your gender its not really the way to go, in my opinion.

Don't me wrong. There are Shoujo manga I absolutely adore. Skip Beat, Ouran, and Tsubasa are just a few. But me enjoying the doesn't make them any less Shoujo.

Shoujo for me.
I just love romance ~