Death Note is very Shonen just a bit darker than usual.Or todays Jump if it ran back in 1990 people would say oh Jump has another cool series.They wouldn't be SEINEN DARK.
I could tell you how its very Shonen but it might ruin Shonen for you and Weekly Jump series in general these days if I tell you.
Weekly Jump use to be more mature more manly.
City Hunter,Jojo's Bizarre Adventure,Rokudenashi Blues,Fist Of The North Star,Video Girl Ai and some others wouldn't even likely be allowed in Weekly Shonen Jump these days.
Weekly Jump has got soft,and more lighthearted over the last 10 years.
Their sales also plummeted hard after many big series ended in the 1990s.
Rurouni Kenshin got much hate from Weekly Readers during the Jinchu arc for being so dark.
So maybe its just the new generation of young punks making Shonen so tame.
And making the age of characters younger and younger you don't even have an adult man as a main character for Shonen anymore.
Shonen Sunday and Shonen Magazine are more relaxed though compared to Weekly Jump.
Monthly Shonen magazines are even more relaxed than their weekly counterparts.
Maybe the other thing is for a long time everything ran in Shonen Magazines especially the 70's and 80's you have to have some extreme violence and sex to not be in a Shonen publication and more Seinen publications were created.
Quote from gringe
If it ran in a shounen magazine, then it's shounen. Simple as that. People have the false impression that "seinen" automatically means something is more intelligent and mature, but this isn't necessarily true.
Exactly.
But even then some things are still Shonen.
Even though they moved to Seinen publications.
Gantz might be in a Shonen magazine if it was the 70's or 80's.
Last edited by lambchopsil at 12:19 am, Apr 9 2009