Shonen anime is incredibly popular across all demographics, and anime fans of all ages enjoy watching action-packed shonen series with uplifting themes, engaging characters, cool fight scenes, and much more. Shonen has plenty to offer with its familiar tropes and conventions, but some tropes are holding shonen back, and fans have noticed.
Some anime tropes are silly but fun, such as the obligatory beach episode or getting reincarnated as random objects or animals in isekai. Some shonen tropes are much worse, and anime fans are getting fed up with seeing them so often in anime series both old and new. The industry will do itself a huge favor by ditching these unpopular, unnecessary tropes so shonen’s best traits may shine.
10 Contrived Power-Ups/New Powers
Shonen power scaling is a great way to provide a sense of progress, and plenty of series handle it well, such as My Hero Academia and Attack on Titan. When this trope goes wrong, however, anime fans will complain, and the immersion might be broken, too.
Contrived power-ups and sudden new powers are common, and it always feels cheap when this happens. Such power-ups feel unearned, and shonen fans can actually see the plot armor giving convenient new powers to the hero so they can win otherwise unwinnable fights. Bleach, for example, does this far too often.
9 The Power Of Friendship Solves Everything
Up to a point, the power of friendship is actually one of shonen’s best tropes. It’s inspiring to watch the characters derive strength and courage from their bonds, and everyone needs a good friend to rely upon. The problem is when this trope is pushed too far and becomes contrived.
The excessive power of friendship is a groan-worthy trope since it’s obvious plot armor, bailing heroes out of any problem whatsoever just because they’ve got a friend around. Fairy Tail does this constantly, and characters might pull off impossible stunts just because their friends believe in them.
8 Damsels In Distress
Even if shonen is meant to appeal to boys with cool and inspiring male characters, that’s no excuse for shonen anime series to treat their girls badly. One distinct example is the “damsel in distress” concept, with the hero’s female friends getting captured as a predictable plot twist.
This cheapens the female characters a great deal, making them helpless and reliant on boys time and again. SAO’s Asuna Yuuki and Bleach‘s Orihime Inoue are two notorious damsels in distress, but fortunately, shonen anime seems to be gradually phasing this outdated trope out.
7 Ultra-Pervert Characters
Too many shonen anime series, action-oriented or not, have that one character who likes girls way too much. These mega-pervert characters don’t just appreciate a pretty face. They will shamelessly harass girls and will seize any opportunity to see those girls in R-rated situations.
Master Roshi from Dragon Ball is an early example, popularizing the idea of pervert nosebleeds. Sanji Vinsmoke in One Piecekept it up, and most of all, the detested Minoru Mineta is the same way in My Hero Academia.
6 Romantically Dense Male Leads
It’s perfectly fine for shonen anime to depict a male lead who’s shy around girls or inexperienced with romance; that just makes him more relatable to viewers. Being a little clueless is fine, but the “romantically dense male lead” trope often gets pushed to an extreme.
These ultra-dense protagonists are unrealistically oblivious about social cues and romance, and it contributes nothing to the story. It also frustrates shonen fans since it delays potential ships, and it also perpetuates the idea that boys are bad with romance—which simply isn’t true.
5 Self-Insert Harem Protagonists
Self-insert harem protagonists are shockingly common in shonen isekai anime series and shonen rom-com titles, and anime fans are getting tired of it. These male leads are generic in both their appearance and personality, all so viewers can put themselves in his shoes.
This leads to predictable and gratuitous storylines where a boring male lead is inexplicably surrounded by girls who adore him because viewers want to imagine themselves in that scenario. Fortunately, other shonen romances have a healthier approach, such as Komi Can’t Communicate and Horimiya.
4 Excessively Angsty Supporting Characters
Angsty characters aren’t unique to shonen, but shonen anime does seem especially fond of using angsty supporting characters to contrast with the himbo protagonist. A famous example is Naruto‘s brooding Sasuke Uchiha, whose personality boiled down to “You don’t know my pain!”
Shoto Todoroki was like that too in MHA, but at least he embraced the power of friendship and turned that around as a well-meaning kuudere. Still, shonen anime is too fond of this silly trope, and angsty characters are usually made fun of rather than taken seriously in most cases.
3 Gratuitous Fan Service
On one hand, it’s not a problem if shonen gets a little PG with its characters, and there’s nothing shameful about the human body’s appearance. That said, many shonen anime series are too eager to undress their female characters to give viewers something steamy to look at.
Not only is that demeaning to shonen girls, it always looks forced and is gratuitous, which cheapens the narrative. Sometimes, there may be good in-universe reasons why someone is nude, but giving anime fans real-life Master Roshi nosebleeds isn’t one of them.
2 Talking Too Much While Fighting
Some witty banter is perfectly acceptable in shonen anime, and some characters are actually adept at using taunts or psychological warfare to get the edge. This trope becomes a problem when the fighters simply talk too much, often for out-of-place character development reasons.
This trope becomes incredibly annoying once shonen fans have seen it enough, and they’ll recognize the pointless chatter for what it is. Even worse is when the characters gleefully explain how their powers work, which makes no sense in-universe.
1 Marginalized Moms
As a general rule, an action hero’s parents won’t be too involved in the story, especially if that hero is a teenager. This is common in anime, Western movies, and more. The problem is when these shonen anime series specifically marginalize the mothers, who often have it much worse than the fathers.
Many of these moms are killed off early on, from Masaki Kurosaki and Kushina Uzumaki to Carla Yeager and Trisha Elric, among many others. If the mother doesn’t die, then she’ll be sidelined as a very token, unimportant character, such as Light Yagami’s mother, Sachiko.
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