Battle Shonen Stuff

[Spark Of Spirit]

That happens way too much in modern shonen. One on one fights that last forever instead of any focus on plots.

I especially hate it when characters perfectly capable of fighting stand on the side-line and watch their ally in a one-on-one fight while not in the setting of a tournament but instead in the situation of a life or death battle, and the reason given for this happens to be something along the lines of: "I cannot interfere, because it is his fight."

Fuck that shit! Get off your lazy ass and help your pal not die, you ass-wipe!

The worst part is that they were rushing to help Yusuke against Suzaku when they could have done that had they not sat back let Kuwabara play around with Byakko for two freaking fights and wasted time while their world was swarming with parasites and Keiko and Botan were in direct danger. Hiei and Kurama's fights at least made sense because the others would have got in their way, but the Byakko fight was a real time waster because they simply wouldn't just admit there was something more important than Kuwabara's ego. Which is odd because Kuwabara had no problem submitting against Rando when he was dying in the previous arc, he should have known better than to play around like that. Thankfully that never happens again, but that was a real annoyance.

[Rynnec]

In fairness to Beelzebub, isn't that supposed to be a parody of shounen anyways?

I especially hate it when characters perfectly capable of fighting stand on the side-line and watch their ally in a one-on-one fight while not in the setting of a tournament but instead in the situation of a life or death battle, and the reason given for this happens to be something along the lines of: "I cannot interfere, because it is his fight."

Fuck that shit! Get off your lazy ass and help your pal not die, you ass-wipe!

It's even stupider when one of the characters does end up helping for a brief moment, but their ally just tells them to fuck off because that would taint their stupid sense of pride.

[gunswordfist]

I despise asspull powerups out of nowhere and invincible/omniscient villains with no personality other than "smug master planner" and poorly-explained/pretentious motivations.

I'm also not too fond of "emo" rivals.

I kind of think the rival concept has been way too overdone. Friendly competition is nice, but not when it takes away from the story. Kenshin and Saito was a good rivalry, but I think Naruto and Sasuke might have ruined it for years to come.

Yeah, it's characters like Sasuke that really drag the concept down. Rival's like Vegeta, Saito, Grimmjow, and Char are the ones I prefer. But for the most part, rivalries are better when they start out as one of the central focuses of the story (like in S-CRY-Ed) rather than derail it (like in Naruto).

Hiei and Saito are my favorite rivals/dark heroes. In S-CRY-Ed I liked how

Spoiler

Kazuma didn't beat Ryuhou until the end. I wish the show would get another season.

[close]

[gunswordfist]

That happens way too much in modern shonen. One on one fights that last forever instead of any focus on plots.

I especially hate it when characters perfectly capable of fighting stand on the side-line and watch their ally in a one-on-one fight while not in the setting of a tournament but instead in the situation of a life or death battle, and the reason given for this happens to be something along the lines of: "I cannot interfere, because it is his fight."

Fuck that shit! Get off your lazy ass and help your pal not die, you ass-wipe!

The worst part is that they were rushing to help Yusuke against Suzaku when they could have done that had they not sat back let Kuwabara play around with Byakko for two freaking fights and wasted time while their world was swarming with parasites and Keiko and Botan were in direct danger. Hiei and Kurama's fights at least made sense because the others would have got in their way, but the Byakko fight was a real time waster because they simply wouldn't just admit there was something more important than Kuwabara's ego. Which is odd because Kuwabara had no problem submitting against Rando when he was dying in the previous arc, he should have known better than to play around like that. Thankfully that never happens again, but that was a real annoyance.

Well they didn't know Keiko was in trouble but yeah, Botan being left with demon possessed humans and the world being infested with Makai insects should have made them rush and gang up on Byakko.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

In fairness to Beelzebub, isn't that supposed to be a parody of shounen anyways?

It started out that way, but it has long since become the very thing that it mocked.

On the other hand, something like Dragon Ball originally parodied most shonen series around at the time. Stuff like the nose-bleed gags, after-image techniques, and other tropes were often mocked and played for comedy in the early parts of that series, and it was actually legitimately funny. Beelzeub's comedy was always cheap and stupid to begin with, IMO.

It's even stupider when one of the characters does end up helping for a brief moment, but their ally just tells them to fuck off because that would taint their stupid sense of pride.

Yeah. In something like Rurouni Kenshin you may be able to get away with that because of the whole Samurai code thing. Though, oddly enough they DON'T ever use that excuse in the series except for the final set of fights which sucked, anyways. I specifically recall the Shishio battle, though, where everyone just jumped in one after another to take on Shishio, and Saito even had the forethought to use a surprise attack on Shisho which almost worked. I also like that Saito was willing to downright use dirty cheap shots to kill his enemies, because in the end all that mattered to him was slaying evil, and that's the way it should be.

Now a ton of other more modernized shonen series don't even have that sort of excuse, and ironically you see them pulling the pride bull-shit all the time, but at that point its not a cultural thing, but rather just some untalented mangaka following a specific formula/trope just because everyone else does it and never thinks much of whether it even makes sense in the situation or not. I wouldn't mind this if more shonen series displayed pride as a bad thing that the hero had to learn from, but in most cases they celebrate it, which I just find to be appalling, personally.

[Rynnec]

In fairness to Beelzebub, isn't that supposed to be a parody of shounen anyways?

It started out that way, but it has long since become the very thing that it mocked.

On the other hand, something like Dragon Ball originally parodied most shonen series around at the time. Stuff like the nose-bleed gags, after-image techniques, and other tropes were often mocked and played for comedy in the early parts of that series, and it was actually legitimately funny. Beelzeub's comedy was always cheap and stupid to begin with, IMO.

That's not too surprising. Most shounen comedy is pretty awful.

It's even stupider when one of the characters does end up helping for a brief moment, but their ally just tells them to fuck off because that would taint their stupid sense of pride.

Yeah. In something like Rurouni Kenshin you may be able to get away with that because of the whole Samurai code thing. Though, oddly enough they DON'T ever use that excuse in the series except for the final set of fights which sucked, anyways. I specifically recall the Shishio battle, though, where everyone just jumped in one after another to take on Shishio, and Saito even had the forethought to use a surprise attack on Shisho which almost worked. I also like that Saito was willing to downright use dirty cheap shots to kill his enemies, because in the end all that mattered to him was slaying evil, and that's the way it should be.

If a character tried that today, most fans would probably deride them for "cheating" or some BS like that.

Now a ton of other more modernized shonen series don't even have that sort of excuse, and ironically you see them pulling the pride bull-shit all the time, but at that point its not a cultural thing, but rather just some untalented mangaka following a specific formula/trope just because everyone else does it and never thinks much of whether it even makes sense in the situation or not. I wouldn't mind this if more shonen series displayed pride as a bad thing that the hero had to learn from, but in most cases they celebrate it, which I just find to be appalling, personally.

It's can be fairly justifiable when the character in question doesn't give a shit about justice and just wants a fight to the death with his opponent, which is usually treated as a character flaw, or if the fight is between rivals who really have a grudge or personal history with each other., but otherwise it's just stupid.

For the Naruto example, I can kinda excuse it because Shikamaru was just an amateur at the time, and it was clear that splitting up was one of the primary reasons for the failure of that mission.

Oh yeah! I remember when he did that. I remembered thinking that was actually smart of him to do. Why would he tell him his weakness? He's not an idiot.

There was also a moment in the current arc where Kenpachi outright kills an enemy while they were explaining their powers. Unfortunately it was offscreen, so we never got to see what could have been a legendary moment in all of modern shounen.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Here you go.

Every shonen mangaka should be required to learn from this legendary scene.

[Rynnec]

Here you go.

Every shonen mangaka should be required to learn from this legendary scene.

[Grave]

4 day weekend, yes.

I was going to give reasons, but I can't think right now so I'll come back to it later.

Idiotic leading characters
Damsels in distress
Reliance on lead character

Thinking about it now, if somebody were to tell me that they think Hajime no Ippo was the greatest shonen, I wouldn't argue against it.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Here you go.

Every shonen mangaka should be required to learn from this legendary scene.

This too

Use your brains- pride is a vice.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Damn, you read my mind, Desensitized! I was JUST about to post that!

[LumRanmaYasha]

I'm too tired to explain the cliches I don't like, so for now I'll just list them:

• Happy Go Lucky Idiot Main Teenage Protagonist who just loves to talk about friendship, is pretty much carefree baring a small tragedy in his past, and also always the one to take down EVERY main antagonist
• The Irritable Teenage protagonist who is a reluctant hero at first and has an attitude but fights for the sake of the plot his friends
• The whiny male protagonist who constantly complains and pouts on his situation and keeps talking about how he wants to get stronger to protect people or some boring ass stock motivation or grievance.

• Reluctant male protagonists that are more or less "normal" guys that have to deal with other eccentric characters as a straight man to the action. Basically Kyon, except not Kyon himself because Kyon is actually a decent protagonist for the most part.
• Tsundere Main Female Protagonist who ultimately is useless in the main story and has to be saved by the other protagonist at some point
• Big Breasted Moe-ish female protagonist who always gets flustered around the main male protagonist and probably has to be rescued or saved at some point, or basically exists just to provide fan-service.
• Stoic or "bad-boy" emo rival who is often bishonen and has a tragic past and maybe even little to no personality
• Unnecessary one on one battles fought out of bullshit reasons like "pride" or whatever
• When another character intervenes in a fight but then lets the main character/other protagonist fight for some bullshit reason. Like, when Laxus intervened in the battle with Hades in Fairy Tail. He could have fucking won that fight, but for the dumb ass reason that "he was not a member of the guild" he gave Natsu a godamn powerup so he could defeat Hades. That was just fucking stupid and made no actual sense to do, especially since that act was completely against Laxus' character. Fairy Tail is just full of dumb bull-shit moments like this, which brings me to my next grievance...
  

• The main protagonist must always fight the main antagonist of the arc, even when it doesn't even feel natural. In Fairy Tail, Natsu ALWAYS fights the arc's main villain, but to be honest in some cases he shouldn't have. In the Tower of Heaven arc Erza should have fought and beaten Jellal; he was HER enemy and she SHOULD have had the power to fight against him, more so than Natsu, who is supposed to be weaker than Erza. But no, Natsu fight and beats Jellal. Bah... It also pissed me off in Naruto that it was Naruto who defeated Kakazu and not Choji and Ino. The battle against Hidan and Kakazu was supposed to be Team 8 getting revenge for Asuna's death, but nope, Naruto intervenes and cheapens the victory as a result.
• Explaining a technique to an enemy or wasting time talking during a fight
• Killing off or maiming established characters just to show the arc's enemy is super strong or whatever
• Speeches involving Friendship or Love or Heart or Dedication or some lame ass moral
• Bullshit power ups that are only introduced to help a character win a random fight and have little to no build to them
• The basic shonen plot formula:
  

  
  It's like it always has to be villains show up and cause trouble and are way more powerful than heroes > heroes train > heroes seek villains out > each character fights their doppelganger > leaders fight for 50 chapters too long > next arc.
  

But although I just listed a shitload of cliches I thoroughly detest, I want to make clear that I consider shonen a demographic and not a genre, and that I don't think just because a particular series is aimed towards a particular group of people it absolutely MUST contain elements that make the series somehow "lesser" entertainment. Basically, when people say things like "it's good for a shonen series" or "it's better than most shonen" I get a little annoyed because the audience to which a work of entertainment is aimed towards has no bearing towards what quality a series can and may have. It is true many writers stay within familiar territory in their work and hence create work that may be derivative in many respects, but to consider the overall body of works created for a particular demographic to automatically be fundamentally flawed and inherently less entertaining and quality than works created for other demographics is just silly. A good series is a good series and a bad series is a bad series and that's that. If a work is good, it should be good, not just "better than most." When a work is bad, it is bad, and there can be no excuse for it's level of quality other than poor writing and planning from it's creator(s). It just annoys me how somehow the series I enjoy created for the shonen demographic must somehow be less entertaining then other series or just "above average" for their "genre" when I legitimately enjoy them and consider them, no buts attached, to be "good" shows/comics.


However, it also occurs to me that I may not have read some of the absolutely abhorred generic shonen's that are out there nowadays, so I'm curious to learn which works besides the ones I am already experienced with are just absolutely terrible.

First let me list the "shonen" series I hate thoroughly dislike:

Naruto and Naruto Shippuden
Bleach past the Soul Society Arc, even though that arc itself is only just good, not great.
Valrave the Liberator
Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Sonic X
Kiba
Bakugan franchise
Beyblade franchise
.hack franchise
Tenchi Muyo! GXP

And then there are the series where I can't say I actively dislike them as they have some good elements to them, but are ultimately too inconsistent in quality, story, characters, humor, or execution for me to really enjoy them a whole lot:

The Prince of Tennis - I don't usually believe in the concept of "guilty pleasures," because mostly I feel the term is an excuse for people to cover up the fact they like something that is unpopular or looked down upon, which I find quite stupid. However, I am completely aware of this manga/anime's flaws and I actually find it stupid, ridiculous, and think it's characters are very stock or otherwise bland. However, be it my love for tennis or the manga's way of making the sport both ridiculous and epic at the same time, I can't help but be drawn to the series from time to time. So while I actually think it isn't very well written, my odd enjoyment of the manga/anime in spite of it's stupidity makes it one of the few things I would consider to be a personal "guilty pleasure" for myself.

Fairy Tail - So many bullshit and poorly written moments and the blandest, most stockiest shonen protagonist ever, but the other characters in the series were enjoyable and a few annoyances aside I did enjoy it for the most part until the end of the Edolas arc, where a stupid and poorly written plot twist marked a stark and rapid decline in the quality of the series to the point where I have dropped it for being terribly unreadable.

D. Gray Man - It's really terrible now, and the protagonists are very, very bland, but the story and villains and the odd character here and there like Miranda and Krory made it a pretty good read for me up until the end of the Noah's Ark arc and then the Alma Karma arc. The plot became shitty fast after that though, and I fucking hate Johnny, so I dropped the series a year and a half ago and haven't looked back since.

Soul Eater - The story was good until the end of the Book of Eibon/Noah arc, but the main characters weren't really interesting until around the Arachnophobia arc anyway, and the supporting characters introduced in that arc, with the exception of Marie, do absolutely nothing for me and really didn't add to the story at all. I really enjoy the villains in the story, though, with Crona and Medusa being personal favorites of mine, but the story and protagonists are too inconsistent in quality for me to really, really enjoy it, and I would have dropped it a while back if not for the fact it's almost over.

Pokemon - I can watch the first five seasons out of nostalgia, and I legitimately think all of Team Rocket's focus episodes in those seasons are really quite good, but otherwise it's really not and was never a very good show. Digimon was way better.

Digimon Adventure 02 and all other series after except Tamers - Like, they are better than Pokemon by a mile and all, but they still are too filler heavy and inconsistently plotted for my tastes.

Dragonball GT - I can never, ever hate GT because it was the series that got me into anime (no, I'm not joking). But...it's just not very good story-wise, although elements of the Baby, Super 17, and Shadow Dragon arcs were good, just not executed in the best way possible.

Buso Renkin - This series is just SO disappointing coming from the creator of Rurouni Kenshin, but it's humorous elements prevent me from really hating it, so I just find it a little mediocre for the most part.

Kekkaishi
Dinosaur King
The Familiar of Zero
Eureka 7
IGPX
Baka and Test
Deadman WonderlandTenchi Muyo! OVA 3
Tenchi in Tokyo
Black Butler
Negima!
Blue Dragon
Voltron
Viewtiful Joe
Mega Man: NT Warrior
MAR
Psyren
Rave Master


Yu-Gi-Oh franchise - The plot is kinda stupid, even back when it was about Yami killing people through twisted games and not about card games, but every series is honestly decent enough entertainment in some respects, with GX and 5D's having some surprisingly interesting plotlines in them despite how easily they could have just simply been cheap, soulless knockoffs.

Attack on Titan - It's got some good moments here and there, but after having caught up on the manga I can honestly say it didn't end up enamoring me with it's plot or it's characters, as I actually don't find much to enjoy about Eren as I find him to just to be a slightly less whiny Ganta for the most part of the story.

And, of course, there are the "shonen" anime I either love, really enjoy, or just plain like a whole lot:

Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo - Which is my favorite show and comic EVER mind you.
Dragonball franchise excluding GT
Dr. Slump
Most if not all of Toriyama's other short series like Cowa! and Neko Majin Z
Yu Yu Hakusho
Hunter X Hunter (both anime series included)
Level E
One Piece
Fullmetal Alchemist franchise
Ranma 1/2
Urusei Yatsura
InuYasha
Mermaid Saga
Death Note
Bakuman
Hikaru no Go
Rurouni Kenshin
Black Cat
School Rumble
Case Closed
Pani Poni Dash
Azumanga Daioh
Yotsuba
Sgt. Frog
The Devil is a Part-Timer
Tenchi Muyo! OVA 1 & 2
Tenchi Universe
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Gurren Lagann
Casshern Sins
Baccano!
Durarara!
Zatch Bell!
Animal Land
Pokemon Adventures - Fuck the anime. THIS manga is how a Pokemon story SHOULD be.
Digimon Adventure
Digimon Tamers
Great Teacher Onizuka
Eyeshield 21
Slam Dunk
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
Toriko (manga only)
Medaka Box (manga only)
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Duel Masters (English Dub)
Sands of Destruction
Kirby: Right Back at Ya!
Mega Man: Star Force
Robotech
Gundam 00
Gigantor
Astro Boy

holy shit, 97 anime/manga! I've seen more "shonen" than I thought...


So that's about 50 or so "shonen" anime and/or manga I like to about 27 I'm not particularily fond of but don't hate to 18 series I really don't like, which is a pretty good ratio of like:eh:hate in my opinion. That said, I don't read or watch every single shonen out there anyway, so I'm sure there are plenty of crappy series I just haven't gotten to, but as far as I'm concerned I can't personally justify hating on series aimed towards the shonen demographic as fervently as others do because I like more series than I hate from the demographic.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Damn! For someone who's too tired, you still posted a lot of shit!

As for your list, though, there are a lot of good points there, but I'll comment on them tomorrow since I should go to bed, now.

Digimon Adventure and all other series except one - Like, they are better than Pok?mon by a mile and all, but they still are too filler heavy and inconsistently plotted for my tastes.

I definitely can't agree with you on the first season of Digimon Adventure. That doesn't have that much filler at all. There are plenty of episodes that don't cover too much story, but almost all of them are plot-related to a specific story arc in some way (Now, Adventure 02 is a series with a fair amount of filler). And, as for the inconsistent plotting, I could see that for the first half of the show since at that time the writers had only planned for 13 episodes and the show got extended to 50+ episodes at the last minute, so stuff was just kind of thrown in right after the end of the 1st arc. That said, everything past the point where the kids get their crests and after Tai comes back to the digital world were plotted through pretty straightforward, so I don't see how it could come off as inconsistent. And, Digimon Tamers has absolutely no filler episodes. Every episodes either progresses the plot or characters in some way. As for all other Digimon series past that, I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case, but I haven't seen any of them except for just a little bit of Xros Wars, so I can't really comment on any of them.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I really wish the writer of School Rumble wrote and adventure manga of some kind (shonen or not) since School Rumble showed how much respect he has for characters and how much fun he has with his stories. He knew how to take character and plot cliches and go beyond them to his advantage.

By the way, you didn't list Martian Successor Nadesico at all. Have you seen it? It's one of my favorites.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

MSN is a shonen series? I actually never knew that, myself. I need to get around to watching that series as well, though.

I still contest that if Togashi actually had a good editor to channel his ideas through and actually LISTENED to that editor's feedback, then he'd pretty much be the king of the shonen genre. As it stands, it seems that nobody ever gives him any feedback on any of his material with HXH, which explains how lopsided in quality that series got once it hit the Greed Island arc, and later the Chimera Ant arc.

Also, I'm still waiting for whatever the next series is that Tsugumi Ohba does. I love Death Note and Bakuman, so I can really only expect good things from that author. I just hope that he continues to team up with Takeshi Obata as his artist, otherwise it just wouldn't feel right to me.