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Kimi ni Todoke - From Me to You (TV / ONA).

2) in shojo, not even guys seem to want sex.

Kazehaya is another matter. He doesn't have her affliction. All of Maxsouth's and my own older comments apply to him specifically.

One of the annoying things in this anime, including second season, is that heroes use "sankyu" and other Anglicisms instead of actual words. I know that in some subset of young audience in Japan it is supposed to be "cool" to make a gibberish of their own language, but for anime to use it is so cheap. Authors, have some dignity, have some taste.

Kazehaya has some sort of problem though, something that makes him draw away in his own fashion and something that had him abandoning baseball. It's hinted at multiple times with all that 'nobody knows me' sort of talk he does. That seems to be another feature of Shojou. The girl's issues are dealt with first and then it's her turn to help the seemingly confident and apparently almost perfect guy get through his problems. The thing is, these shows only seem to get around to adapting the part that deals with the girl.

MaxSouth wrote:

2) in shojo, not even guys seem to want sex.

No, the guys just want to rape the girls instead.

Your experience with Shoujo is pretty limited if you don't know about the huge subset where the main guy is extremely forceful and the lead girl must protect her chastity by all means necessary.

Keep in mind that in addition to the cultural differences, a large portion of the target demographic in Japan consists of middle and high school students - pubescent teenagers who still live with their parents. They first see most of these series as "family-fare" TV shows broadcast by outlets like TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System, or something like that).

Thus they're our rough equivalent to network TV series "suitable for family viewing." Granted, some network TV in the USA has gotten a little more liberal in the sex department since "Love, American Style". But here the shows specifically targeted to families is pretty much as morally strictured as Japanese family-fare anime.

Try Hentai. It often goes to the other extreme, containing little more than sex (of all kinds). It's not the type of thing that TBS will typically broadcast during "family viewing" hours.

Right. Like middle schoolers who still live with their parents, and whose stories are being told in the "Family-Fare" genre to the same kinds of families. What would you expect?

Now I know that American high-schoolers, and possibly even middle schoolers, are a lot more promiscuous than they were decades ago. But that still doesn't mean you're going to see an accurate rendition of their behavior in "Family" TV shows.

The thing I can easily complain about and still be fair:

1) in shonen, guys sometimes shown to want sex, but basically never allowed to have it because girls do not allow even if they pretend to want it for teasing purposes;

2) in shojo, not even guys seem to want sex.

Either way, status of sex as something "indecent" or, on the contrary, "sacred", is kept as firm as ever -- those "morals" are as fresh and modern as 19th Century.