Battle Shonen Stuff

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I like a good fight scene as much as the next guy. If it takes a couple of episodes to get an epic one across and add some development in there, so be it, but when you end up padding them just to reach a specific episode order, that's when it gets a little annoying to watch. I don't think I have the patience in me to watch whole episodes of powering up like I did when I watched DBZ as a kid, even if the pay off is totally worth it.

Ah, Yes, one can't properly address the strengths and faults of battle shonen series without mentioning something about fight scenes, since (let's admit it, here) that is pretty much the main essence of any battle shonen series, even the really good ones. Great story and characters are of course the most important thing, but in battle shonen its all worked around the fights, so the idea is basically to try and make characters that you care about enough, but that you also want to see get into some action-packed situations, so that you will actually enjoy the action.

And, if you ask me, that is THE key element that most battle series miss these days. Let me give you an example by explaining my beef with Naruto, the reason why what honestly could have been a decent series is such drek to read/watch (IMO). The thing about that series is that I simply don't care about any of the characters, and in many cases I find them to be downright unlikable, and if a character is likable its ironically usually a villain who I can somehow unintentionally sympathize with more "relative" to the main cast. What the problem is with series like Naruto, Bleach, and many modern shonen in general is that they just try to "cram" in characters up the wazoo. Its all style over substance, with the author trying to add in as many "cool-looking" characters as he can, but the more characters you add into the story in a shorter amount of time gives the author much less time to expand on each of them, and in the instance that one character actually is starting to get interesting, the author annoys readers like me by switching focus to a different character when I still wanted to see the previous character expanded upon some more. Currently Naruto is in the middle of a war arc, sort of akin to how One Piece had one not too long ago, but the reason that Naruto's war is so much less enjoyable (yes, I actually do keep up with this series, but only out of habit rather than actually wanting to follow it) is because it has attempted to add in a lot of new figures to make the scope more epic, but the problem lies in the fact that as a viewer I have never seen these characters before and therefore have no reason to care about them, and the added in exposition to try and expand on each new one is not done very effectively so I just don't give a crap about what happens to any of them.

By contrast, One Piece actually was similar in that it brought in a lot of famous figures that the reader wasn't familiar with but who were only referred to before, but the difference is that Oda is actually pretty talented at good characterization in a short amount of time, but more than that the story kept moving and was mostly focused on the main characters that we did know, anyways, so as a reader I was still interested to see what was going to happen in all of the action.

Then there is also the case of making the battles themselves actually interesting with strategic elements of having the heroes in unfair handicaps which you want to see how they'll overcome. Togashi is a master of this style of battle manga, as can be seen in both YYH and HXH (and in addition to that you actually care about the characters, of course).

I can't really think of any specific cliches that annoy me besides padding. Humor I'm hit or miss on, I guess. I can laugh at some shounen if the series is honestly funny, like Dragon Ball, but constant pervert jokes and nagging like in Inuyasha gets on my nerves. I'm a little forgiving when it comes to fillers since the way the Japanese television market runs is a little different than over here, but unless the filler is worth watching, I'll tend to skip over it, at least during rewatching. And I guess that mostly relies on the staff and how they interpret the characters and story they're adapting.

Yeah, I have to say, if anything is my biggest beef with battle series, especially the anime for them, its constant padding. Its what makes DBZ so unbearable for me to watch for half of the series, since I have to struggle through tons of padding and drawn out scenes in order to get to the rewarding ones. Toei has also been doing this with One Piece for quite a while. Yu Yu Hakusho, Hunter X Hunter, and the Kyoto arc of Rurouni Kenshin are among the few shonen series that have managed to avoid this trope, and it really shows in how much more engaging the series are when they keep focused and on-track with their story and characters.

As for the last two questions, I don't really follow manga and I'd say YYH is my favorite battle manga. I do read Claymore, but I haven't been catching up with it lately, so I don't really know what to say about it right now, and I'll get to why Yu Yu is my personal choice later.

Of course you know I agree with YYH.

I have to continue reading Claymore at some point this summer.

Currently I follow One Piece and it has its highs and lows but overall its still miles above just about any other currently running battle manga that I have tried.

I'll speak more about shonen that tick me off, and especially about ones that could have been quite good if they had better writing and an author with a talent for characterization and story-telling, and in this case rather than talking about something so obvious like Bleach or something else, I'm going to go ahead and rant about why HSDK has infinitely pissed me off for the longest time, now.

[Avaitor]

I have to agree with you about characters making extended fighting storyarcs worth sitting through. I probably wouldn't enjoy the Dark Tournament arc as much as I do if the main characters weren't so well-developed and a lot of the supporting fighters also were fleshed out. I mean, you compare that to the tournament arcs in the Dragon Ball franchise, and it's like day and night. Granted, I don't think the tournament arcs in DB/DBZ were meant to be taken as seriously or were as crucial to the series, but it's still a valid comparison.

I knew you would agree with YYH. That's why I didn't get into detail as to why I chose it, since either you knew why or would just talk about it anyway. And I'm still working on something related to it, anyway.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I have to agree with you about characters making extended fighting storyarcs worth sitting through. I probably wouldn't enjoy the Dark Tournament arc as much as I do if the main characters weren't so well-developed and a lot of the supporting fighters also were fleshed out. I mean, you compare that to the tournament arcs in the Dragon Ball franchise, and it's like day and night. Granted, I don't think the tournament arcs in DB/DBZ were meant to be taken as seriously or were as crucial to the series, but it's still a valid comparison.

Well, during the first tournament arc, Dragon Ball was still a gag manga for the most part, so it was still more full of humor than serious action. By the 2nd tournament arc DB had adopted a tad bit of serious elements, but it was still primarily focused on humor, and the tournament was a good combination of humor and a little bit of serious character moments, and I actually like how Tien, who was originally introduced as a villain, actually wasn't treated as a 1-dimensional character and started disagreeing with his master's teachings and seeing that Roshi wasn't the evil martial artist that his master had made him out to be. Also the fight between him and Goku was done extremely well since Toriyama is a master of crafting both fun and intense fights, which is why with DB its the rare case in which I actually even enjoyed the fights of the minor characters, even if I didn't give a crap about whether they lived, died, won, or lost. A good example of how good the fight between Goku and Tien was can be easily represented in certain scenes, such as one gag-based scene that was actually making fun of the whole "so fast that you leave after-images" cliche, in which Goku did an after-image technique and ended up behind Tien only for Tien to reveal that he also did it to once again end up behind Goku, only for Goku to reveal that he did a double-after-image technique only for Tien to reveal that he did a double, and so on until they each got behind each other about 4 or 5 times until Tien goes "crap" (he basically ran out of after-images ) and Goku lands a hit on him. That's brilliant comedy right there. Then there was a more intense moment where Tien warns Goku that if he doesn't dodge his next attack it will certainly kill him, and the attack encompasses the area of the entire ring floor, so the only way Goku can seemingly avoid it is by jumping out of the ring which would be the same as forfeiting the match (remember, this is well before Goku learned the ability to fly), so this creates a pretty interesting scenario in which the viewer will wonder how Goku will manage to get out of this situation. Stuff like this is a big reason for why Toriyama is considered a genius. He basically just pulled stuff out of his ass on a weekly basis (he even pretty much admitted this, and wasn't the least bit bothered by it), but no matter what he did it still usually turned out to be entertaining. So I'd actually kind of use Dragon Ball (the first anime series, without the Z, of course, and also the manga) as another example of how to do good fights, but in the case of having weaker characters.

That said, I agree that its not quite as good as something you'd see in YYH because Togashi is better in terms of making you actually take most of the fights more seriously, and you actually want to see the good guys win.

I knew you would agree with YYH. That's why I didn't get into detail as to why I chose it, since either you knew why or would just talk about it anyway. And I'm still working on something related to it, anyway.

Heh, Well I'd feel offended if you didn't know that much about me by now, obviously.

[Spark Of Spirit]

One thing that turns me off is when the main character is basically a Goku or Naruto character. Simplistic and dumb but hot blooded and tough, you know? It might be because I've seen that character done so many times, but I'm just tired of it. Same thing with the mysterious emo character that is a rival that turns teammate. Rival characters are supposed to be badass like Saito, weird like Kuwabara, or fucking evil like Char. Not pussy characters whose only motivation is because they aren't man enough to do anything about their problems.

So yeah, with me, it's characters. I think even a cliche plot can be good enough if the characters are watchable.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

One thing that turns me off is when the main character is basically a Goku or Naruto character. Simplistic and dumb but hot blooded and tough, you know? It might be because I've seen that character done so many times, but I'm just tired of it. Same thing with the mysterious emo character that is a rival that turns teammate. Rival characters are supposed to be badass like Saito, weird like Kuwabara, or fucking evil like Char. Not pussy characters whose only motivation is because they aren't man enough to do anything about their problems.

So yeah, with me, it's characters. I think even a cliche plot can be good enough if the characters are watchable.

Eh, I'm going to have to disagree with Goku to some extent. The thing is, Dragon Ball is a very different kind of series. In any other type of series I'd find Goku to be a terrible character just like most people do, but in all honesty he fits perfectly in Dragon Ball, a series which was tailor-made for a main character such as him. It has a very archaic sort of philosophy to it, being that its basically a series where everyone who's anyone loves to fight and its acceptable enough to the characters that Goku has no real sense of common decency. At any rate he's a very different character from Naruto. He isn't really hot-blooded, either, as he's not that "spunky hero with something to prove," which in and of-itself spawns the hot-blooded attitude. He's more like a character with no goal but just an extreme love for challenging battles. If any character is more like him its probably Luffy, but rather than battles Luffy's extreme love is applied to adventure and exploration.

I agree with you about the emo characters, though.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I meant like Goku, not actually Goku. For a while it seemed every Shonen had a Goku as a main character and it got annoying.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I think the problem with other shonen like that is that their stories and characters didn't have Toriyama's particular style and touch of humor them, and they generally tried to make more serious stories, but were obviously very influenced by Dragon Ball and memorable characters like Goku. The problem lies in the fact that Goku is a character who simply just wouldn't work in any other piece of fiction, and it really shows in shonen series that have main characters or any characters at all who act a lot like Goku when presented with other characters who do not fit Toriyama's style. Its at this point you realize how annoying that character type is in other settings, as characters like that are clearly meant to be liked by the viewer but just come of as horribly selfish in wanting to reach their own goals and irritatingly brain-dead and naive to the point of being sickening. That's basically what makes characters like these so annoying. Having a determined character with big goals is not a bad thing at all, in and of itself, but it has to be handled properly, like with Luffy.

You know what type of main character we need more of in battle shonen these days, though? We need more Yusukes out there. I mean, honestly, he's a great contrast to the typical shonen hero. He is selfish in many ways but in this case its intentional and he openly acts crude to those around him, including his own teacher/mentor. He doesn't give a crap about coming off as a good guy and at the end of the day he would rather go back to doing trivial stuff in his life rather than taking on missions for Spirit World, except for around the end of the series where even he goes down the "battle-hungry" route, which is a little disappointing, but he's still a damn fun character. Honestly, a character doesn't need to have a goal to be a good character, and that's why it pisses me off when some people use that as a weakness in Togashi's writing and in Yusuke's character when they claim that YYH is inferior to other shonen that do have characters that follow that trope. I mean, if you get past the whole "goal" thing and see Yusuke for the type of character he is, he's actually quite a lot of fun, and works well as a main character because of how he plays off and influences the action of the other characters in the series. He's perfect because he's just sensible enough to be a good guy and a main character but is also amoral enough that he can be really fun and occasionally unpredictable to watch (well, speaking from the point of view of someone reading or watching YYH for the first time, anyways) in how he does things his own way and actually yields far better results than most other shonen heroes would in the same types of situations.

Also, another key thing as far as characters go is that characters need to play off of each other really well for a series to work. Their needs to be a dynamic chemistry between them whenever they interact. So many shonen series these days feel like they have cardboard cut-out characters that don't even feel like they belong in the same series. In other words it feels like the authors of shonen series like this just throw in characters for the sake of adding in new characters, whether they really fit into the story or not, and they don't even bother to experiment with different character interaction scenarios and possibilities. You know what I really liked about Digimon Adventure? It really went all-out into exploring all sorts of different character interaction combos, taking full advantage of the large group of characters and constantly splitting them up so that they would always be in a new sub-group out of the main group to interact with. As a viewer, that always kept me far more interested than the story itself did, and certainly much more than any of the action did.

Basically, I really like to see characters acting and reacting in response to other characters. Character chemistry is essentially the most important things about characters in a series, as no matter how good the background story and personality of a single character may be, it means nothing if there isn't immediately another character with his or her own distinct features in personality and actions to compare them to.

[Angus]

A few tropes that make me roll my eyes at battle shonen:

The Hulk effect - when your hero has to regularly rely on a hidden superhero power or ability to win, yet has no clue that he or she has that ability. It's a cop out for what could be a decent battle with strategy, overcoming odds with resourcefulness, and a strong set of moves.

Multi-boss RPG stage - Similarly when the boss is beaten so badly, they transform and become twice as strong??  It's so unrealistic. If you lose, you can accept defeat but initiate another round like with Luffy vs. Crocodile in the Alabasta arc. I can understand holding back your full potential too since that happens a lot in competitions with the whole sizing up and warm-up stuff.

Class rankings – I just watched the first episode of Ga Rei Zero, which was pretty good, except they had to rank the monsters on an E to A/S-class scale. Same with Air Gear, Ikki Tousen, MAR, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and most mediocre battle shonen anime. At least with DBZ when they had Power Levels and made a lot of fun of that when the heroes would totally break the system. And with Yu Yu Hakusho, the rankings come much later when the heroes are already established. But heh, I hate grades anyway, I don't want that crap in my anime and be reminded of being evaluated all the time.

Weak action – anime should be animated when it comes to fight scenes, it should not just be a bunch of partly slide drawn or cut away lightning fast punches and sword slashes and then followed by the animated knockback. If I wanted that, I'd read the manga. Ga-Rei-Zero episode 1 had one good sequence where a girl fought a monster using her motorcycle, but everything else was sort of generic until the end of the episode.

[Angus]

Oh, yeah, can't forget:

I want to become stronger - that's so overused, and such a weak goal. Works for sports and weight training, but not fights. It's better to show a storyline where the character actually does get stronger and can contend again.

Mecha=sleep - hand to hand combat is cool, but when the heroes and villains jump into mechs like Power Rangers, they better be stepping up the action, or they'll put me to sleep.

[Spark Of Spirit]

The best arc of Yu Yu Hakusho was the one where ranks meant shit. Unfortunately, try finding a battle manga like that now. Flame Of Recca is one of the few I can think of where there were no "levels", and it was refreshing to read.

Now it's always arc-power up-arc-power up-arc-power up repeat until end.

[gunswordfist]

Another discussion question....errrr, more like a series of discussion questions, I guess:

What is it about this genre that might usually turn you away from shounen shows? Basically, it could be anything, from the abundance of bad battle shonen manga/shows out there to the plethora or agonizingly bad cliches that plague most shonen series. And a little sub-question I would like to add is: What are some things that you think kill a series that has some potential to be good and would otherwise be entertaining? By that question I basically mean, what is it that some mangaka could do that could take a series that starts out OK enough and then ends up making it completely unreadable or unwatchable?

Nudity, etc. Bright, shiny animation. And uh I guess there could be a good thing as really long anime but that never works out.

Also, what are the few exceptions to you (if any exist) among battle shonen series, and why exactly do you find them to be good, or at least entertaining and bearable to watch as opposed to most other battle shonen series out there?

Shounen may be pretty much the only type of anime I watch but I'm still very picky. Good character designs is the first thing I look for. If I can't even look at the characters, I don't watch. Then it's good, well animated action, good characters and good story in that order.

Oh, and we all know that Fist of the North Star and Dragon Ball, for better or worse, are basically the main 2 titles that have influenced most modern shonen up until today. However, if any of you could pick another shonen series that most modern mangaka should take influence from in terms of its stronger aspects, which series would it be? And as far as that question goes, it could be more than one series.

Do you even have to ask? 

And one final question that I have is which currently running battle manga do any of you guys find to be good? That is, of course, assuming there are any that you guys are currently following that you enjoy enough to recommend.

In this case, I have quite a few things to say myself, so I'll give my own personal answers to my own discussion questions in this thread a little bit later on.

Don't know any. I know FMA's manga ended years ago so there you go. Wait, Guyver is still around right? Might give that a try Oh and add Guyver to the list of anime mangakas should use for influence.

[Angus]

Master of Martial Hearts is my "so bad it's good" pick of the year, well, of last year if I watched it when it was promoted.

[gunswordfist]

I have to agree with you about characters making extended fighting storyarcs worth sitting through. I probably wouldn't enjoy the Dark Tournament arc as much as I do if the main characters weren't so well-developed and a lot of the supporting fighters also were fleshed out. I mean, you compare that to the tournament arcs in the Dragon Ball franchise, and it's like day and night. Granted, I don't think the tournament arcs in DB/DBZ were meant to be taken as seriously or were as crucial to the series, but it's still a valid comparison.

I knew you would agree with YYH. That's why I didn't get into detail as to why I chose it, since either you knew why or would just talk about it anyway. And I'm still working on something related to it, anyway.

Couldn't agree more about the Dark Tournament. I would have said Naruto instead of DB though. I liked the parts of the DB tournaments I've seen.

[Spark Of Spirit]

IMO, this fight (Spoilers for Yu Yu Hakusho) is by far the best one in a shonen.

Why? The entire staging in the hospital, the set up of the mystery of who the enemy is, the clever use of skills, the themes of the arc coming to play in the battle, every character is crucial to taking down the enemy, and to top it off... The direction by Furuhara is perfect. When I think of Chapter Black, this is always the first thing that pops into my mind in how it pretty much encapsulates everything great about the series and arc in this one battle.

So yeah, that's what I want the genre to be more like. That fight.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Thank you! I have always loved the episodes between Yusuke and Doctor (in fact its so different from a typical shonen fight that I often forget that its actually technically a fight). Its all about wits and a battle of the mind, since Yusuke could stomp all over Doctor with zero effort. The fact that Doctor is smart enough to keep Yusuke at a moral dilemma, hindering him from just killing him is what makes this fight so brilliant. Its not about trading punches or using wild random powers. Its about whether Yusuke is willing to cross the line or not and take a human life, in which case he would be one step closer to being like Sensui. Truly great stuff. I'd show scenes like this to anyone doubting whether it was right of us or not to put YYH in our site's top 10 for our animation list.

Oh, BTW, Furuhara never directed YYH, he directed Rurouni Kenshin and HXH. Noriyuki Abe is credited as directed YYH though I don't know if each individual episode had different individual directors.