From Book Riot:
High school kids fill the pages of many manga series. In fact, it’s a common complaint from readers. Aren’t there any older protagonists? But it makes sense that teen characters dominate the format because this is such a pivotal time in life. This is never more apparent than in manga about school life. Discovering yourself. Remaking your personal image. Forging lifelong friendships. First loves. All these themes, and more, can be found in manga set in school.
But despite the seemingly limited setting, there’s still a lot of variety in the genre. To that end, here are some recommendations for manga about school life:
HORIMIYA BY HERO AND DAISUKE HAGIWARA
Anime fans have probably heard of this series, thanks to the adaptation that aired earlier this year. It introduces us to Kyoko Hori, a pretty and popular high school student, and Izumi Miyamura, her nerdy classmate. But that’s only in school! At home, Kyoko takes care of her little brother and kind of has a bossy and terrible personality. By contrast, despite his in-school reputation, Izumi has multiple tattoos and piercings. And one fateful day, their two paths cross outside of school.
BLUE PERIOD BY TSUBASA YAMAGUCHI
At first glance, Yatora has no reason to complain about his high school career. He’s well-liked by his classmates. He has good grades. What’s there to complain about? But he feels empty inside. That is, he does until a painting catches his eye and he joins the school art club. We’ve all had the experience of going through the motions to please other people at some point in our life, and this really hits that note—and how everything can change when you find your one true driving passion.
Link to the rest at Book Riot
PG knows nothing about Manga other than they are immensely popular in Japan. He will rely on those more knowledgeable than he is for further information.
If you click on the Amazon affiliate links above, you can use look inside on Amazon to see English-language versions of a lot of different Manga, but the Amazon WordPress embed app that allows PG to include look inside capability on TPV isn’t working.
This is a problem he’s encountering on a more frequent basis with a variety of different Amazon ebooks. He’s not certain whether the WordPress app needs an upgrade or if some publishers are doing something to prevent the app from working. He’s seen this problem even when the Look Inside function works fine on Amazon.
Japanese reader demographics for manga are a lot broader, with age and gender distribution different than Western readership. If the manga have a romance plot, my gut feeling is that they would be aimed at female readers, and perhaps from an older demographic than you might imagine.
Alot of manga with the romance plot falls into the category called shoujo, which does indeed get aimed at female readers. Most fighty stories are shounen. There are even distinct art style differences and conventions for each (shoujo often has alot of pretty tones and flowers and such). I don’t know about reader demographics over in Japan, but my general impression is that readers are much like the YA audience here, older than expected (as you said)
WE have a manga reader (and a half) in the family. I sort of read, so I can follow the kid’s discussions about it.
The kid, who one would think is in the target demographic, has NO interest in high school stories. School is bad enough to live through, after all. Adventure, character, intriguing stories are what fill those shelves in this house.
When I was a teenager, people used to ask me why I didn’t read books set in the real world. Answer is the same now as it was then: I live in it, why would I want to spend more time there?