Cut, copy, paste. I have no intent of plagiarizing or whatsoever, this notes I've compiled into my phone and haven't read or written yet since I spent lots of time on wpad I decided to keep them here and pay attention once I realized I need to read...
Shonen When you think of anime, what comes to mind is likely shonen. My Hero Academia, Dragon Ball Z, Slam Dunk — all of it is comfortably shonen, despite how widely those titles might vary. That's because shonen really just means "for boys," making it more of a demographic category than a genre. In the age of anime as export, however, the term has gained genre connotations that cannot be ignored. When a kid loves Bleach and wants to read something else in that vein, he's going to end up searching for "shonen" — and generally speaking, he's going to find something new to love. Shonen anime encompasses an enormous variety of subgenres: Sports, fantasy, science fiction, and even horror stories are found beneath this umbrella. Compare something like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, a candy-colored giant robot story, against Eyeshield 21, which follows a high school football team on their way to sports stardom. They feature wildly different motifs, storylines, and settings, and yet they are both solidly shonen. What unites them, and all shonen anime, is a focus on young men, often seeking to become the best at what they do, to right a terrible wrong, and/or to protect the ones they love. These are passionate, idealistic stories about youth at its most zealous, full of action and heart. It's no wonder that shonen is the most popular genre of anime — who can resist a hot-blooded do-gooder, whether he's a rookie shortstop, pirate captain, or wannabe pilot?
Shoujo Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Fruits Basket, Nana: They might range far and wide in terms of story, but all of these series are shoujo.
An emphasis on relationships, for one thing, most obviously evidenced by shoujo's plethora of romance series. Yet this interest in what connects people goes beyond romantic love.
Seinen Technically, seinen just boils down to meaning "anime for young men." In practice, this translates to a wide variety of stories that can portray R-rated levels of violence and sexuality, murkier morals, and characters that are not promised any sort of absolution.
These aren't stories about people looking to save the world — in fact, they're often about people who tried, failed, and now live in the wreckage of that dream. But don't think it's all doom and gloom: Though crime, action, psychological horror, and particularly dark takes on science fiction and fantasy are often the order of the day, comedy falls under the seinen umbrella as well.
Josei manga for women who want to go beyond the schoolyard. Josei is where you'll find relationships examined beyond the initial kiss, lives after graduation, and a lot more action between the sheets.
But here, the starring couple really might end up being fully, finally incompatible, and the road to a better life might require brutal years of change, heartbreak, and disappointment.
But that's not to say that josei is an entirely melancholy affair — quite the opposite, in fact. Slice-of-life josei can find transcendent joy and laugh-out-loud humor in observing the rhythms of life.
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Another prominent thread in josei is that of (Yaoi) BL stories, or "Boys' Love": romances between male characters that can, within josei's more mature environs, be portrayed with far more explicit sexuality. Beyond josei anime lies the creatively fertile world of josei manga, much of it wildly experimental and unlike anything even seasoned anime and manga fans might be familiar with.
