Boy Manga Overview
Guys are the major audience of comics translated from Japanese and generally known as manga. Despite their omnivorousness, they are targeted by several genres like seinen, shonen, ecchi and hentai. Any of them can contain some comedy, drama, fantasy, mysticism and others.
Shonen manga usually features male protagonists in high-action humorous plots about friendship in teams. Sometimes attractive girls appear - check Dragon Ball Z. Shonen style is typically more reserved than shojo, though some artists are engaged in both. The best shounen are:
- Air Gear by Oh! Great
- Beck by Harold Sakuishi
- Bleach by Tite Kubo
- Captain Tsubasa by Takahashi Yoichi
- Fairy Tail by Mashima Hiro
- Gintama by Hideaki Sorachi
- Hayate the Combat Butler by Kenjirou Hata
- Hunter X Hunter by Togashi Yoshihiro
- Mahou Sensei Negima! by Ken Akamatsu
- O-Parts Hunter by Seishi Kishimoto
- Rosario+Vampire by Ikeda Akihisa
- Rurouni Kenshin by Nobuhiro Watsuki
- School Rumble by Jin Kobayashi
Men (18-30 years old and even 40-year-old businessmen) are served by seinen manga with many art styles (from avant-garde to pornographic) and themes. Seinen means guys and is the male equivalent to josei manga. The best seinen are:
- 3x3 Eyes by Yuuzou Takada
- Addicted To Curry by Funatsu Kazuki
- Berserk by Kentaro Miura
- Black Lagoon by Hiroe Rei
- Chobits by CLAMP
- Genshiken by Kio Shimoku
- Hellsing by Kouta Hirano
- Maison Ikkoku by Rumiko Takahashi
- Oh My Goddess! by Kosuke Fujishima
- Psychic Academy by KATSU Aki
- Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou by Ashinano Hitoshi
Western fans know little of seinen manga for its scarce publishing outside Japan and hardly distinguish it from shonen. Old Japanese men often read convenient shonen magazines in commuter trains.
Ecchi manga is famous for eroticism. Unlike hentai with its explicit sex, ecchi shows erotic scenes with a hint at sexual relations varying in openness depending on the target audience age.
The main art device in ecchi is a fun service (a free bonus). It uses hints at eroticism like showing characters (primarily girls for the male target audience) in ambiguous poses, foreshortening for viewers to see the character's underwear (pantsu shot), exaggerating breasts and buttocks, various awkward situations for a male character like accidentally appearing at a women bath or checkroom or falling on a girl, etc.
The most well-known ecchi manga are:
- AIKI by Isutoshi
- DNA 2 by Masakazu Katsura
- Futaba-kun Change by Hiroshi Aro
- Girl Saurus by Kei Kusunoki
- Ichigo 100% by Mizuki Kawashita
- I's by Katsura Masakazu
- Love Hina by Ken Akamatsu
- Mx0 by Yasuhiro Kano
- Pastel by Toshihiko Kobayashi
- To-LOVE-Ru ~Trouble~ by Saki Hasemi and Kentaro Yabuki
As a whole, apart from a fun service, ecchi aims to give the plotline certain scenes and angles that don't create the plot but ask for some feedback from the target audience to increase its interest and/or attract potential viewers.
Ecchi and fun service elements are present virtually in all anime and manga targeting juvenile audience of 16-25. For example, a usual fun service for seinen anime are erotic hints (ecchi) or colorful battle scenes.
Hentai manga features erotic and porn scenes. The softest hentai version without explicit sex is ecchi above. Underlying ecchi, a fun service has nothing to do with hentai though.
Hentai (ugliness or pervert in Japanese) pornographic scenes can be of different content and type. The variations include yaoi, yuri, horrors and other. But classifying hentai only by erotic content would be wrong since like any other anime hentai can include comedy, mysticism, fiction, fantasy, romance, etc.
Japanese hentai makers have to censor their opuses like any other porn. However American anime releases have no inguinal region curtains thus enjoying great popularity in Europe.
The most famous hentai are:
- God of black tights by Hiroki Tsukiyoshi
- Dawn of the Silver Dragon by Masayoshi Mukai
- Love Selection by Gunma Kisaragi
- My Lovely Ghost Kana by Yutaka Tanaka
- My Slave by Distance
- Shoujo Material by Hanaharu Naruko
Japanese manga differs greatly from American comics in drawing style and plot. Supermen and zombies are rather rare in manga. It mostly has a complicated but appealing plot and a lot of a fun service doesn't leave its audience indifferent.
