Battle Shonen Stuff

[Spark Of Spirit]

It gets pretty intense and violent (gore, even) but it always manages to maintain its focus. The problem is the pacing dies with the timeskip and the story stalled for years. It's a shame, really.

I'm surprised about KG considering how popular Psyren was, especially in the scanslator circles, but that would easily change if Jump would pick it up for NA. Just saying. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Great list!

You also named a few that I completely forgot about, like Eyeshield 21 and MX0, though I'd probably also rank those among generally good like you did.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I read the first 3 volumes of Claymore a few years back. I actually liked it quite a bit, myself, but my tastes have also changed considerably since then, so I'll have to revisit it someday and try to read further in it to see if it still appeals to me.

[gunswordfist]

Congrats on 4000 posts!

[LumRanmaYasha]

Thanks!

[gunswordfist]

You're welcome! I'm surprised you don't have more posts than me by now.

[Avaitor]

I don't recall the first volume of Claymore being too great, but when it hits a certain flashback to Claire's past, it gets more interesting and fun to read. But I haven't caught up in years since the post-timeskip material is indeed slow.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Because of the Let's Watch YYH thread entering Chapter Black, I've been thinking a bit about what it does so well and contrasting its qualities with other manga and anime I like.

The best place to start would be the works of Nobuyuki Anzai as a good catch-all for what I'm trying to get across.

Anzai (like Makoto Raiku) was an assistant to Kazuhiro Fujita on Ushio & Tora where he learned a lot about storytelling. Ushio & Tora is an adventure story where the action comes from confrontations in the heroes' journey and where the main characters must use the skills they have and improve their own tactics to win. There are no defined or proper power levels in Ushio & Tora, you're either more efficient with what you have or you lose. There were standalone slice of life chapters, but for the purpose of this thread, I'm referring to the main story.

Near the end of Ushio & Tora, in 1995, Anzai struck out on his own with Flame of Recca which had obvious influences not only from Ushio & Tora, but from Yu Yu Hakusho (which bypassed the "power-up" issue entirely with Chapter Black), leading to what is still his most enduring work two decades later.

Flame of Recca progresses like Ushio & Tora. There is a story, the characters are on an adventure, and the focus is more on competence than outright strength. This was mixed with qualities from Yu Yu Hakusho's Spirit Detective and Chapter Black arcs which are more about mind games and the Dark Tournament where there are some abilities that are just plain overwhelming to beat.

Flame of Recca ran for six years, ending before the shonen tide lost a lot of the power the earlier works in the '90s had, telling a complete and satisfying story that is still a delight to read nowadays for wearing its influences on its sleeve while adding enough character of its own to stand out from the pack.

Now, jump to 2003.

Anzai is starting his next manga, M.A.R. (Marchen Awakens Romance) which promises to be fairly different from Flame of Recca. Now, this is a good thing. He doesn't want to repeat himself, and we don't need a clone of FoR. The early chapters present promise, too. His art style has changed a bit, making everything softer and focusing on younger characters and a more fantastical setting. MAR starts off well.

And this is when it falls apart.

My biggest issue with MAR is that it promises an adventure. Like the Neverending Story or even something like Labyrinth, MAR starts with a main character in a dreary life who seeks fantasy awakening to him just out of reach. He is transported to a fantastical land where everything is different, as well as himself, giving him a chance to grow and change as he tries to save the world. There's nothing wrong with any of that, in fact, it is a great set up with a lot of potential. A lot of great stories have started there and have the potential to go to great places.

The problem is that it turns into a battle manga. And not a battle manga like Ushio & Tora, Yu Yu Hakusho, or Flame of Recca, in which its about skills learned and a growing competence to achieve your goals, which would be PERFECT for such a setting. No, it devolves into a formula of training arcs, tournaments, and power levels.

So you're not going on an adventure. You're not seeing new sights. You're not getting engrossed in this grand world. No, you're sitting around watching characters do the same thing over and over.

It's a complete waste of the concept and setting.

But it's not any different than other shonen of the time period. In fact, it's not any different from Hitman Reborn, if you want to get petty. Anzai changed his style of writing for MAR and it not only betrayed his own series concept, but hurt his own storytelling in the process. By the end of MAR, little really happens. There wasn't really any adventure, and the only change is that the characters are physically stronger, Nanashi finds his place (which hurts twice as bad because Nanashi is only completing his character arc from Flame of Recca, emphasizing how much weaker the other characters in MAR are), and that's it. This is a real disappointment from a mangaka that should know better because he's done better.

This is the opposite of the style of adventure that I was talking about earlier, and what much of the shonen of the era were focusing on. Naruto (despite early promise), Bleach, Prince of Tennis, Hitman Reborn, Bleach, Beezlebub, and many other series since forgotten, all followed this same formula into a rut. Shonen is all but dismissed these days because they're all expected to be like those series with their similar formulas. As a result, nothing much of consequence happens much of the time in the stories or in a worst case scenario nothing really happens at all.

As a consequence, I'm not sure what Anzai is up to these days. He created a third series I have never heard anything about that ended a few years ago. I have no idea how it went despite running the typical 3 years, but I would hope he learned where he went wrong with MAR and polished his skills again. I still think he can do better.

Nowadays, there's a return of the adventure style of Ushio & Tora and Yu Yu Hakusho with series like Food Wars!, World Trigger, and My Hero Academia, where it is about skill and competence winning the day over mindless strength and a there's been a noticeable drop off in the battle style of simply making everyone stronger and having the progression basically stop there. The adventure hadn't really been around in a long time since around Flame of Recca's end, but are now taking over as the dominant style. I think only Black Clover remains of the battle style from the last decade, and as been mentioned in the manga discussion thread, its failings are obvious to most readers, even those who are fans of it.

I guess what I'm saying is there are two styles of Battle manga. There are adventure series (popularized by early to mid Dragon Ball, Ushio & Tora, and Yu Yu Hakusho) and there are battle series (popularized by later Dragon Ball, Naruto, and Bleach), which is why there are so many different fans looking for different styles and have different interests. I think this split is why there are divides these days when discussing shonen with certain people.

Of course this doesn't mean adventure stories can't have power levels and battle stories can't have plots, it's just when they do, it tends to take a back seat to other concerns.

Also, yes, I gave Dragon Ball the credit for starting both of these. Since it basically created modern shonen as it is now, it only stands to reason that there would be aspects some writers would take with them from each of Toriyama's styles in the long-running series.

As for me, yes, of course I prefer the adventure style. Most of my favorite shonen and series in general have this sort of focus, so it only stands to reason that I like it more. I'm more than happy that it has been making a comeback in recent years and hope it sticks around this time.

How about you guys? What do you think about all this?

[gunswordfist]

Oh whoa, adventure is really making a comeback? I had no clue. I of course love the genre.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Oh whoa, adventure is really making a comeback? I had no clue. I of course love the genre.

Just looking at Jump now, most of the action series are more adventure oriented, more about telling stories about protagonists that are growing into their own, discovering new things, and learning how to be better people. Not chapter after chapter of endless battles for no real reason. The only real series like that are Bleach and (so far) Black Clover.

Shonen Sunday used to be all about adventure, but most of their series nowadays are either obscure or getting up there in age. If they can get back on track they can easily compete with Jump again.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'd add something, but I pretty much agree with most of what you said.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I'd add something, but I pretty much agree with most of what you said.

I mean, I'm not saying it's a foolproof theory, but I couldn't figure out why what were being considered "Battle Manga" were so different from each other in styles.

I saw some comments dismissing Ushio & Tora as more generic shonen, which just puzzled me. Mostly because I couldn't name any shonen in the last decade that were anything like it in execution. But they saw "Supernatural Battle Manga" in the description and instantly came to the conclusion that it was training arcs, tournaments, dopey overeating main character with a 2edgy4u rival, power-ups, and a lack of story. Even though it doesn't have any of those things in it!

So I wondered, if so many shonen anime and manga have those problems, what about the ones that don't? But at some point the ones that weren't in the battle style sort of disappeared. I honestly can't think of any after Flame of Recca ended and before Magi and the recent Jump crop started that weren't written by Ohba and Obata. They sort of vanished around the time "shonen" became a dirty word and look to be making a comeback.

I dunno, food for thought. I think it's about time for it to stop being an insult to call something shonen.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I was always bothered by how MAR became literally one long tournament arc. They didn't even do any variations on the matches to make  each of them unique . The matches are literally just the same thing each round right up until the end, and because there was no tension because Ginta had to fight in every round and obviously couldn't lose because one loss meant the entire team would be kicked out, very few of the fight felt like they actually mattered, much less added to any real character or story development, most of which instead happened outside of the matches.

I definitely think that more series now are paying attention to characters and are willing to take more risks and mix up their stories. I don't know if pure adventure has truly made a comeback, because a lot of series I've read like Toriko and The Seven Deadly Sins started off more as adventure series but then eventually introduced power levels and became more battle focused and such, but I do think a lot of series just have much smarter and more clever writing than the more generic stuff that gave the battle genre such a bad name last decade.

Though, there has also been a rise in series that think being super violent and dark are good substitutes for genuinely well-written stories, characters, and themes. Case in point, the Deadman Wonderland mangaka's new series, Smokin' Parade. I read the first two chapters of that shit earlier this week, and good lord, I couldn't believe how awful it is. Horribly unlikable characters, a messily written story, overly-violent and tastelessly gory, all of it trying to mask the generic tropes and archetypes at it's core and failing miserably at it. Stuff like that and Akame ga Kill are bringing the battle genre down as much as stuff like MHA and World Trigger are bringing it up.

[Spark Of Spirit]

There are still manga with the power level thing, true, but those will probably always be around. Dragon Ball made it popular for a reason. I just don't see it as often these days, which is a relief to someone like me who prefers more adventure in stories.

As long as manga like World Trigger and My Hero Academia are still being made, I don't really mind if people want more of the simpler battle style manga.

Though, there has also been a rise in series that think being super violent and dark are good substitutes for genuinely well-written stories, characters, and themes. Case in point, the Deadman Wonderland mangaka's new series, Smokin' Parade. I read the first two chapters of that shit earlier this week, and good lord, I couldn't believe how awful it is. Horribly unlikable characters, a messily written story, overly-violent and tastelessly gory, all of it trying to mask the generic tropes and archetypes at it's core and failing miserably at it. Stuff like that and Akame ga Kill are bringing the battle genre down as much as stuff like MHA and World Trigger are bringing it up.

Yeah, there are just some mangaka that are just total misses to me. As much as I might not like the whole boring tourny/training/level up formula in a lot of shonen, I dislike the grimdark crap far more.

Just because you make everyone moody, show lots of blood and gore, and randomly kill "important" characters (but never the main character, because these types of manga have the WORST usage of plot armor in any kind of story) to show how "anything can happen!" does not rise you above the common shonen trope. I fact, it makes you worse. I have never read or seen a GOOD grimdark shonen and I probably never will. They just have some of the worst issues in any genre.

The dialogue is still cliche (only darker!), the story is still unoriginal (but darker!), and the characters are still unlikable (but darker!) but are far less enjoyable than something like Black Clover because Black Clover for all its faults is only trying to be fun. It's not pretending to be what it's not and hiding behind trappings to hide that it's really no more original than Hitman Reborn when all is said and done and not some deep epic tale of whatever pretentious crap the main character moodily monologues about in between whine-fests.

I really don't like that stuff.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

It's funny how so many shonen which took inspiration from DB by putting an over-emphasis on power-levels pretty much completely missed the point of them in the first place.

Power-levels always have been and always will be BS. Toriyama himself stated that characters won or lost fights depending on which outcome suited the story that he wanted to tell. If you pay attention, you'll notice that the idea of scouters and using power-levels to gauge an opponent's ability always became a weakness of the person using it, in the end. On several occasions, reading one of the heoroes' power levels only caused a villain to underestimate them and lose in the process, either because the hero was hiding his true strength, or because he used a clever strategy to overtake his opponent.

Hell, we even have a recent example of raw power being meaningless in certain situations. In DBZRF, written by Toriyama himself, Freeza is at first more powerful than Goku, but Goku overtakes him by dragging out the battle and forcing Freeza to burn most of his energy on useless attacks that Goku can just block or dodge. Then when Goku overtakes Freeza, the tables are turned again by having Freeza lure Goku into a trap and having one of his minions snipe him when his guard's down. In both instances, power levels didn't amount to jack shit.

And how about Gohan defeating Cell? The victory was ultimately decided by the help of his friends and Vegeta, since Gohan was crippled and severely weakened during their beam struggle.

And Goku vs. Kid Buu? The Universe would've been doomed without the help of Mr. Satan and all the people of Earth, who were individually weak, but combined were able to give Goku enough spirit energy to vanquish Buu once and for all. You can't exactly say that Goku won because of a higher power-level.

It's just bizarre how many fans there are of Dragon Ball who don't get the message that power alone doesn't ensure victory, and the writers who claim to be inspired by DB but focus purely on power-struggles in their battles must not have been paying attention to the above facts. There's a reason that scouters only have prevalence in two arcs in the entire series, and are no longer used by the time that the androids show up.