Editing Shōnen manga (section)

===Role of women===
Historically, the protagonists of {{Transliteration|ja|shōnen}} manga were almost exclusively men and boys; women and girls appeared primarily in supporting roles as sisters, mothers, or girlfriends, if at all. This was especially true of {{Transliteration|ja|[[ecchi]]}} stories that developed out of {{Transliteration|ja|shōnen}} manga beginning in the 1970s, with ''[[The Abashiri Family]]'' by Go Nagai as one of the earliest representative works of this development, as well as an early example of a {{Transliteration|ja|shōnen}} manga with a female protagonist. Since the 1980s, women and girls have played a more active role in {{Transliteration|ja|shōnen}} manga, fighting alongside male characters and not merely as passive support.{{sfn|Schodt|1983|p=75}} ''[[Dr. Slump]]'' by [[Akira Toriyama]] was an early representative work of this development, with its mischievous child protagonist [[Arale Norimaki]] being among the first {{Transliteration|ja|shōnen}} manga to depict this type of archetypal character as a girl rather than a boy. The 1980s also saw female {{Transliteration|ja|shōnen}} manga artists rise to greater prominence: notably horror manga artist [[Kei Kusunoki]], and [[Rumiko Takahashi]] with her romantic comedies ''[[Urusei Yatsura]]'' and ''[[Ranma ½]]''.{{Sfn|Ledoux|Ranney|1995|p=56}}

Especially in {{Transliteration|ja|shōnen}} series that are aimed at an older audience, female characters are often presented in a manner that is attractive to the male target audience as {{Transliteration|ja|[[bishōjo]]s}} (literally "beautiful young girls"). They exist as objects of romantic or sexual desire not merely for the male characters, but also for the ostensibly heterosexual male reader as a form of [[fan service]].{{sfn|Lamarre|2009|p=216}} While these objectifying tropes have persisted in {{Transliteration|ja|shōnen}} manga, women have also developed more active roles in these fan service-oriented stories. A common romantic comedy trope in {{Transliteration|ja|shōnen}} manga since the 1980s has been to pair a weak male protagonist with a strong female love interest who is not only the target of his romantic and sexual desire, but also his good friend and confidante.{{sfn|Schodt|1983|p=75}} In the [[Harem (genre)|harem]] genre, which originated from {{Transliteration|ja|shōnen}} manga, a male protagonist is surrounded by several female characters who desire him, and who are often more confident and assertive than he is; examples include ''[[Negima! Magister Negi Magi]]'' by [[Ken Akamatsu]] and ''[[Hanaukyo Maid Team]]'' by [[Morishige]]. In other cases, the male protagonist is unsuccessful in his attempts to woo the female character, or the story is focused around the originally naïve and infantile male protagonist maturing and learning how to develop healthy relationships with women.{{sfn|Perper|Cornog|2007|pp=201–214}}

For certain {{Transliteration|ja|shōnen}} series, a female readership who read in or interpret subtextual [[homoerotic]] relationships between canonically heterosexual male characters constitute a significant proportion of the series' audience; this is especially true of series featuring male characters who are {{Transliteration|ja|[[bishōnen]]}} (literally "beautiful boys"), or who are perceived as such by readers. This reading of {{Transliteration|ja|shōnen}} manga is expressed in the form of [[fan works]] such as {{Transliteration|ja|[[dōjinshi]]}} (self-published amateur manga) and the [[boys' love]] (BL) genre of manga and anime, which includes both original and [[derivative works]]. Manga scholar [[Yukari Fujimoto]] notes in her analysis of the female readership of the {{Transliteration|ja|shōnen}} titles ''One Piece'', ''Naruto'', and ''[[The Prince of Tennis]]'' that homoerotic interpretations of {{Transliteration|ja|shōnen}} manga tend to be most common among titles that do not include prominent female characters that a female readership is able to identify with.{{sfn|Fujimoto|2013|pp=172, 184}}