Jump

The matching set to Shojo Beat is Jump. Jump is the magazine that publishes shounen mangas; that is, manga directed at boys age 8 to 18. This company has had such success with its product that it is translated in English and available in the United States. Also, Jump has produced some manga that developed to a cult-like status such as Naruto and Bleach.

In contrast to the detailed work of shojo manga shounen is much more minimalist in both the plot and art work. The characters as a whole are much more basic in design, both with their bodies and there clothing. More of the focus is placed on the weapons and battle scenes rather than the regular, everyday content. An extreme amount of detail is added to gore, weapons and fight scenes in comparison to the rest of the work.

Shounen plot line usually centers around battling of one form or another in order to resolve some sort of greater problem directly related or not. The number of genres contained within it are just as great as with shojo only with less focus on romance. They also have some genres that streotipcly are more shounen such as mecha (gaint robots or machine based) and harem (main male character with multiple female perusers).

A common tool of mangakas is to use girls to lure their readers in. The reason why there are so many mangas with female characters that are well endowed, hardly clothed or frequently exposed is because statistically this helps bringing in male readers. It doesn't take much explanation as to why shots up girls skirts would be interesting to an adolescent boy.