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shonen
Last week, we took a look at some of the most common scenarios in shojo manga, Japan’s subset of comics aimed at young female readers. And yes, sometimes it seems like you can pick up just about any shojo manga, flip to a random page, and stand a pretty good chance of finding a scene where a guy with an impossibly tall nose, incredibly thin waist, tearfully tragic backstory, and enviably huge inheritance is moving in next door to the heroine.
But turnabout is fair play, and shonen manga, or boys’ comics, also have a set of storytelling conventions that get used repeatedly, so today we’re looking at the top 10 most instantly recognizable.