I was reading a manga where a character’s box says Shonen in kanji and the english version translates it to Young Man.
I understand it means boy so is this accurate or not?
Further his age is not said but likely late teens around 18 or so
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Absolutely.
You’d call an 18-year-old “young man” in English, no?
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Since the kanji literally means “small year,” I think “young man” would be a decent translation if the character is within the teen range - i.e. the “small years” of a male human being’s life.
I can confirm from my recent experience playing Shin Megami Tensei 5 in Japanese that, having done a quick comparison, the localizers of that game certainly thought so.
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Also, this is now the fifth forum thread you’ve created which is asking a question about translation of an age related term. Maybe just have one thread rather than a new one each time?
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Or maybe they could just ask in the appropriate “Short Questions” thread? 
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Not necessarily. My friends an I grew up being referred to as “young men” from the time we were 12.
I’m unclear as to why this post starts with “not necessarily”. How does your second sentence contradict my point?
My bad. My eyes glossed over the “absolutely” part and I just assumed that you were saying that you didn’t call people “young men” until they were 18. My thought was that 少年 refers to the 11-18 demographic, though this may be a misconception on my part. I just missed your first sentence and assumed you were saying something you weren’t. My apologies.
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Even in English there are no clear-cut rules of when to use boy vs. man. It can vary by context, where in the English speaking world you are, the relative ages of the speaker and the person they are referring to, the generation that the speaker is from, whether the speaker is intending to emphasis something about the person they are referring to, etc.
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