I felt the same way, probably because it's like you're reading the same exact synopsis and same exact plot over and over again just with characters that look a little different. "Oh look this one is about a girl that's really normal but this super popular guy looked at her - HOLY SHIT!!!! WHAT A PLOT TWIST!!! Oh and look under that one is a recommendation? This completely plain and ordinary girl suddenly has the student council president look at her - HOLY SHIT!!!!" It's just overwhelming to learn that the reason this broken record is permitted is because there is an actual audience out there eating up the same gunk. But Shounen is really no better, the only difference is it's a boy with no defining characteristics (except for maybe he's magically special for really no reason at all) who gains a harem of busty alien/demon hunting/ vampire schoolgirls. So when it comes to romance found in shounen/shoujo manga it's actually not romance at all - just baseless attraction between pretty characters. Not at all worth wasting ten minutes of your time let alone the commitment to buying 50+ volumes of crap. So it's wise just to skip over the romance shoujo/shounen pieces - when you've read one you've read'em all. Josei and Seinen are where it's at but even then you still have to be somewhat picky because patterns can be found in them as well though not nearly as often. Thank God for that.

07-Ghost is probably one of my fav shoujo mangas for it breaks the traditional barrier of replacing the female lead with a male and I still very much enjoy it without the horrific blood splatters that are often displayed on most traditional shounen or more fighting mangas in which I can not read.

Its hard to find a male lead shoujo, there are a few but not a lot.

I myself tend to find slow romance shoujos a lot better, Skip Beat and Hana Kimi (although its quite girly its still a slow romance) have a solid plot. I find it quite unrealistic that a girl or a guy falls head over heels in love in less than three chapters, its like, I wonder how long their relationship would last in real life <.<... ^-^'

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High above the tree tops.

I know what you mean...
Try [m]Flat(NATSU Aogiri)[/m]
My Girl (SAHARA Mizu)
Silver Diamond -some slight bl context
I second Golden Days and Banana Fish(and Natsume Yuujinchou<--there's a anime too btw)
1/2 Prince
Are You Alice?
...I think nearly all of them are still in the shoujo genre.

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I hear you say "Why?" Always "Why?" You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"

Same with me. I think I'm starting to get bored with the simple, shoujo romance thing. Since I think I've seen a lot of them. I'm also looking for some action. Though I think I'm still getting used to Seinen stuff. I think it would be fun if a manga concentrates on one or more genre with just a tad bit of romance in it. (Personally, I really liked the beginning of Klan, the ending is, ugh.)

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I second Banana Fish and Banana Bread Pudding! Also recommend Akimi Yoshida's other works: Longer and Slower than a River, and Kisshou Tennyo. The former is has two male leads and a few minor female characters, and there's very little romance. The latter is like a cross between Banana Fish and Longer..., featuring a very cunning and dangerous female MC.

A lot of the Year 24 group mangakas have works that don't focus on romance such as Heart of Thomas, Hanshin, Across a Golden Prairie, They Were Eleven, etc.

Then there's Kyouko Okazaki's harsh, misanthropic psychological dramas like Helter Skelter and River's Edge.

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