Shonen is defined as a genre of anime and manga from Japan that targets young male audiences. However, though they target a young male audience, they are often enjoyable for all ages and genders. Generally, they are usually a little cleaner and focus on action, adventure, and fighting storylines. They most often also have a male character for the main character, but that isn't always the case.

Shonen is quite a large genre, and there are hundreds of anime released that focus on that audience group. These are some of the best ones out there.

20 Dragon Ball Z

Dragon Ball Z is often considered one of the shonen anime that really defined the genre. While it isn't the first shonen ever created, it did basically create what we know of the genre today. It's a pretty simple show full of fighting, training montages, and transformations (and a lot of yelling), with just under 300 episodes and plenty of spin-offs and movies as well.

Even among shonen lovers, it isn't everyone's cup of tea, but many people love it. It is also considered one of the most popular series of all time.

19 Attack on Titan

Attack on Titan is a more recent anime than Dragon Ball and is a much more modern take on the shonen genre. It is a lot darker too, with blood, gore, and death with every episode.

A city is surrounded by walls to keep out the titans, which are giant-looking people that will eat anyone they come into contact with and bring destruction in their wake. Though there are teams of people to attack them and walls to keep them out, it often isn't enough, and people are killed often due to mistakes and lack of skill.

18 Demon Slayer

Demon Slayer is another shonen anime. The series is still ongoing, with several arcs still to be covered before it catches up to the manga. In the show, we follow Tanjiro Kamado who is on the hunt to save his sister and kill the demon that killed his family.

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Along the way, we meet other demon hunters and see them all struggle to survive, fight, and overcome their weaknesses and fears. Though it focuses a lot on the male main characters, there are plenty of powerful female characters as well to make it more welcoming for all fans. It's also an anime that is prized for its animation, with a beautiful and unique style not matched anywhere else.

17 Death Note

Death Note is a little bit darker of a take on the genre, focusing on morality and death. A boy in high school finds a notebook that, when a name is written in it, will kill people. The boy decides to use it in an attempt to become his own version of god and express his morality upon the world.

However, he faces opposition from a smart but slightly socially lacking detective, that goes by the name of L, and later two other detectives that come to lend a hand. The show follows the story of the detectives as they try to catch the killer before they can hurt anyone else, even as he is aided by supernatural beings.

16 Chainsaw Man

Chainsaw Man is kind of in the middle of genres. While some consider it a shonen, others would call it a seinen. A seinen is similar to a shonen but aimed at slightly older men, usually young adults instead. So this anime seems to be targeted at people in that middle age where they aren't quite younger boys, and they aren't quite young adults.

Because of this, it pushes the boundary a bit. It is a little more lewd than your typical anime, with a lot of focus on women's anatomy. But there is still plenty of action and an interesting storyline to break up the fan service. There are demons and fighting, and some pretty epic characters that almost anyone will enjoy watching.

15 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is definitely a shonen that places heavy emphasis on a male audience, though other genders can still enjoy it. Each season focuses on another generation of the Joestar family and their fight against evil forces. A fun take on the show as the characters age, they come back in the next seasons as older, and sometimes sillier, versions of themselves.

While it originally was a classic shonen anime with some interesting elements to it, it continued to grow until it became its own unique version of shonen that no other anime has been able to compare to. With amazing fight scenes and storylines, you will remember this show long after you finish watching it.

14 Hunter X Hunter

Hunter X Hunter is one of the best-selling manga series, and a huge anime as well, not just in the shonen genre. Many younger people grew up watching this long anime series, and have found no other show quite like it, no matter how many others they watched. Like Dragon Ball, it managed to influence a whole generation, if not several generations of anime watchers.

Essentially, it tells the story of Gon Freecss, who found that his father whom he grew up without is a hunter, and he decides to follow in his footsteps. There are actually a couple of different Hunter X Hunter animes that were made over the years, though every story follows the manga to some degree.

13 Jujutsu Kaisen

Jujutsu Kaisen is another manga in the shonen genre that quickly rose to the top of all manga sales. The anime didn't let fans down either, and quickly became loved by old and new fans alike. It was produced by studio MAPPA, a well-known and loved anime producer that has had many big hits like Yuri!!! On Ice, Banana Fish, Zombie Land Saga, Attack on Titan: The Final Season, and Chainsaw Man.

The manga and the anime revolve around a character called Yuji, who was an ordinary student until he became possessed by a powerful creature. He manages to mostly control the creature, however, and goes on to fight other curses.

12 One Piece

Whether you're big into anime or not, pretty much everyone has heard of One Piece. The anime was originally supposed to last no more than five years but went on to go over 25 years. The manga itself isn't just one of the best-selling manga of all time, but actually topped the list and received an award for it in 2014. Also, remember how we mentioned that Dragon Ball influenced a lot of the shonen genre? Well, One Piece was heavily inspired by the manga.

The anime is full of arcs and the main story, as well as characters that are deep and emotional with tragic backstories. While it was originally aimed at younger male audiences, there are powerful characters of every shape and size that anyone can relate to.

11 Blue Lock

Sports animes became a big thing in the shonen genre, and dozens were released focusing on a range of sports from swimming to basketball. Like isekai anime, they quickly became overdone and avoided by much of the anime community for being repetitive and predictable.

But Blue Lock looked to break that stigma and managed to do so. It quickly became one of the most anticipated anime in 2022, when it was released. Instead of a typical team sport where everyone works together, Blue Lock was about becoming the absolute best soccer player, even if that meant betraying the rest of your team.

10 My Hero Academia

Of course, superheroes are the classic young boy focus. Many kids wanted to grow up to be heroes like Batman or Superman, and we see a similar attraction to heroes in other countries like Japan.

My Hero Academia is a great example of this. The story focuses on a handful of teenagers aiming to be the best of the best heroes in a world where people with supernatural abilities are common. However, there are some people that have no abilities, and our main character, Midoriya, is one of them. Despite his lack of power, he is determined to become a superhero and save the people he cares about.

9 Yu Yu Hakusho

Yu Yu Hakusho is another classic anime that helps to define the shonen genre. It is defined as a battle genre and focuses on our main character that loses his life while trying to save a little girl. He then goes on to fight other ghosts.

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The show is full of interesting and unique fights, fun characters, and humor in every episode. Though it is a long series, there aren't boring filler arcs like in many other animes of the same length, so you get to follow along with the story the whole time. Despite its popularity, it didn't spread much outside of Japan, so it isn't known well by a lot of casual American anime watchers.

8 Beelzebub

Beelzebub is a hilarious shonen anime about a juvenile delinquent. He is the strongest of all students in the high school for delinquents like himself, and he looks like he is on a path to continue his behavior until he comes across a baby.

Unfortunately, this isn't just any baby. The baby is Beelzebub, who is the son of a demon on the path to taking over the world. All sorts of hilarity ensues when they are put together, especially when the strongest delinquent has to find someone stronger than him to take over the baby, or he will face death.

7 Assassination Classroom

Assassination Classroom was turned into a live-action, but before that, it was a shonen anime and manga. It is an absurdly comedic anime about an alien octopus that wants to destroy the world. In order to stop him, he is teaching a group of students how to fight him in the hopes that one will succeed before time is up.

Despite this strange setup, he becomes one of the best teachers that the class has ever had, making sure everyone has the chance to learn and grow. It is an interesting story that has a quite deep plot under all the crazy shenanigans that ensue.

6 Silver Spoon

Silver Spoon is a shonen, but a very calm one, It is also considered a slice-of-life anime. There isn't anything particularly dramatic about the show, or a lot of action. Instead, it is just a cute anime about people learning about the farming and cooking world.

The main character joins a farming school out in the countryside, expecting it to be easy and hoping that it will get him away from the pressure of life and his family, but he finds that isn't the case. There is actually a lot of hard work involved, and the main character is far behind the rest of the students that have been farming their whole lives. While it isn't full of action and fighting scenes, it is a great anime that everyone should watch once.

5 Gintama

Gintama is an anime set in the feudal era of Japan. A samurai is our main character, but he doesn't care much for the new rules their land is set in, and focuses on the promises he made when he became a swordsman.

It is another classic anime and a really long one at that. There are a total of nine seasons and a whopping 367 episodes. While it isn't the longest anime of all time, it compares with Bleach, which had 366 episodes when it ended. Despite the long length, however, there is plenty of new content and it doesn't get stale as it takes you through the tale of a swordsman willing to do almost anything to survive the new world, except change his morals.

4 Noragami

Noragami was unfortunately an anime canceled after season two, Noragami Aragoto, despite its quite impressive fan base. It follows the story of a god who doesn't have even a single shrine and who is trying to get as many followers as possible.

To try and get followers, he sets out to solve problems for people by scrawling his name all over walls and buildings. It's a fun shonen that has an amusing surface story with darker tones underneath for those that look. Unfortunately, you don't get a chance to look much with only two seasons, but if you are obsessed enough to want to learn more about this deity, there is a manga as well, which does look like it will be finished.

3 Food Wars

Food Wars is a somewhat unorthodox shonen. Though it is considered a battle shonen, it is a little different, as no actual fight scenes take place. Instead, characters fight by cooking the absolute best food. The winner is determined uniquely as well, as it is based on who can cause the most clothes to explode off of the judges.

Yes, that's right, when people eat delicious food in this anime, their clothes explode. While nothing is directly shown, you get a lot of suggestive images and bras and panty shots. So although this is a shonen, it is a little much for some of the younger people in the category, and may not be for everyone.

2 Spy Family

Spy Family is a shonen anime animated by the much-loved studio CloverWorks. Though it is a shonen, it is also quite a unique one as a young male is not the main character. Instead, we have a little girl who is a telepath, with her adoptive parents; a spy, and an assassin. If that isn't enough, their dog can see the future.

The story follows the family along, as they try to appear normal to blend in, while following their duties. The father, masquerading as a doctor, constantly runs off to be a spy, while the mother often uses her strength and power to stop purse snatchers and people trying to hurt her adopted daughter. It's a mix of funny, interesting, and heartwarming, as we see the importance of found family.

1 Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, not to be confused with Fullmetal Alchemist, is considered one of the best anime of all time. It has been at the top of the charts, often in the number one slot, since it was aired. It is a shonen anime that closely follows the Fullmetal Alchemist manga. It focuses on two brothers that end up entangled in all sorts of plots and problems as they work to try and save each other and replace what they have lost.

It is one of the best animes because it manages to pull off the perfect mix of comedy, tragedy, and action in one anime, without any section ever feeling overused or forced. Even those that generally do not enjoy animation of this type will find that there is some part of this story they enjoy. Whether it is the brotherly love, the unique characters, the strong female characters, or the unique alchemical world, there is much to like about this TV show.