What this genre is
In 1959 Shonen Magazine and Shonen Sunday launched on the same day. The weekly serialisation system became the skeleton of the manga industry; Shonen Jump followed in 1968.
Shonen — about this band: What the weekly boys' magazines built: effort, friendship, victory — and the dark fantasy that came after.
Connections
Three kinds of line: direct evolution, influence, and born in reaction against.
↓ Flowed into this
↑ Grew out of this
Key works
Koichi, who inherits the power of a superhuman from ancient Babylon, fights Yomi's bid for world conquest with three servants at his side. It drew telekinesis and telepathy as techniques, and became the template for psychic battle manga.
Human malice drawn on an apocalyptic scale, pushing past what boys' manga was thought able to say. The ancestor of later dark fantasy.
An unlicensed genius surgeon asking what a life is worth — the origin of medical manga, and the major work of Tezuka's later years.
The chaos around Kankichi Ryotsu, an outrageous downtown policeman. Forty years and 200 volumes run to completion — a record-holding long-lived gag manga.
The hard-boiled comedy of Ryo Saeba, Shinjuku's crack sweeper. Adult glamour and gags in alternation brought seinen readers in too.
Eikichi Onizuka, an ex-biker turned unorthodox teacher, rebuilds a classroom that has fallen apart. A satisfying school drama with a following across generations.
Hachiken flees an academic high school for an agricultural one in Hokkaido. A coming-of-age story that faces food and life head-on, and opened up a new kind of school manga.
Time-leaping into the past to save his girlfriend and his best friend, through gang warfare. Delinquents plus time travel made it a phenomenon.
Shonen — walk the band
Genres in the same band, in order of year. You are at the highlighted one.
- 1950 Monthly Boys' Magazines↓
- 1959 Weekly Shonen Magazines（you are here）↓
- 1965 Yokai & Horror↓
- 1966 Sports & Guts↓
- 1978 Shonen Rom-Com↓
- 1984 Jump Golden Age↓
- 2003 Mind Games↓
- 2009 Dark Fantasy↓
- 2012 Isekai
All genres
About this entry
Genre boundaries are drawn where the network of manga happens to concentrate, not by decree. Years are approximate. Where opinions differ, this page says so rather than picking a winner.