I like your style of Reviewing Anime’s, I really enjoyed your DxD review (Which is funny as Medaka looks like Rias’s cousin with bluish hair lol) I hope to see more obscure or not well known Shonen Anime’s on here we always see the popular ones hyped up but recently I’ve been seeing that the Shonen’s you’ve reviewed are honestly better than the popular ones we always see hyped.
Tldr: please don't read this and think I'm saying you're bad or something, I'm just arguing for a balanced way of talking about manga and anime not so much you're wrong about shonen as indirectly also putting down authors and mangaka you like to a large/undeserved extent! Using shonen as an insult is usually talking about highly ranked weekly shonen jump series which lasted say 100+ chapters, plus just common issues with writing which took you out of stories which weren't popular enough to win you back over. I doubt half of this applies to some random shonen slice of life, all the shorter/less popular wsj manga, a lot of other Shueisha magazines like jump square, a lot of kodansha ones etc. Like do these things apply to Helck, Noragami, Nurarihyon no mago, World trigger, World Embryo(a bit edgy in retrospect), Claymore, Jojo, hell Fairy Tail even, the ideas of standard generic shonen just seem made up to me. Which is why half of what's written in a different shonen magazine gets labelled as seinen with only some of it being backtracked to "it shouldn't be shonen" instead. With all the teamwork involved I'd say I didnt see much mecha which satisfies the world revolves around mc aspect either. My hot take is that the popular seinen is worse than shonen in everything it's stereotyped for, while it's treated as better. Guts, Phosphophilite, Kei in Gantz among others had a bigger problem with being the centre of the world than most shonen, and Claymore and Tokyo ghoul which are seen as basically seinen are similar, it doesn't mean other characters aren't important because they are but sometimes it breaks the world's logic, or in Guts' case it causes other character arcs to suffer(with Casca's badly written insanity/damsel in distress existing for his pain). I'm sure this is worse in some things like dragon ball z or naruto but I haven't read/watched them, out of the big three I only read Bleach and I can't reread because it no longer holds up. I should add it's just insulting writers needlessly, a lot of people say something is good because it subverts/deconstructs/isn't a generic shonen when that doesn't exist and what they actually mean is it subverts my expectations based on more predictably written stories I've read, it kind of makes out most shonen to be subpar writing and say Nisioisin's stuff is better because he's a real writer not an amateur.... As if the best of them are only average in the wider industry of published books films TV and comics. I'm sorry but a lot of western sff books are just OK with the same flaws, they just often try hard to build up the setting from complete scratch so even if it's badly executed the freshness of it gives it a pass. And at the same time, they aren't bad! And neither are a lot of shonen, a lot of reviews just have a combination of high standards and thinking they're better reviewers/writers than they are(eg this thing I didn't grasp is a plot hole, I deliberately didn't get invested in characters I'm supposed to care about because I know where the story is going etc, I'm referring to the worst reviewers I've seen who seemed to enjoy the spite). I'll give an example of popular sff which has similar problems to how shonen is described with some differences. Wool by Hugh Howey is still unfinished by me, its setting of a bunker among other bunkers in a post apocalyptic world of radiation is different yes, but trying to actually read about what people did in said bunker was tough because all the I am engineer/IT person regardless of the IT stuff being a conspiracy was very hard to read for how made up their jobs in the bunker seem, and how much I felt like this community should have died off if I paid attention to the focus on their professions(I've worked in IT, know many others with more experience, and studied for three years around plus grew up with engineers). The story doesn't have a centre of the universe problem but more of a jjk problem where the way pov shifts due to the main character simply dying several times in a few hundred pages makes it seem weirdly episodic and unplanned. If the setting was more of a copy and incorporated meta/referential stuff as is the case for a lot of manga, it could be seen as having many of the same flaws with the loophole that you can't say the world revolves around the mc if you only see it happen briefly before they die and it repeats with the next mc. I still don't think it's bad exactly but I probably won't finish the book let alone the series. Then there's Malazan, a pretty popular fantasy series which I just cannot get through book one of because of how it revels in not showing any emotional moments for the characters, and the general dialogue they have making them feel like clones of pseudo philosophical soldiers who are just doing their jobs while knowing it's wrong and that they're disposable. I actually have the same problem with its worldbuilding as what took me out of hunter x hunter, the idea of so many characters being introduced yet almost always being murderers with an amoral sort of worldview feels inconsistent with the large scale state of this world and how it has continued, and I don't like the characters enough to get past my issues with it. The idea that every character is a clone and then there's a power fantasy in the middle is often said about isekai, but is also true of what I've read of gardens of the moon(140 pages but he shifts pov excessively so this introduced me to something like 50 characters). On the other hand nurarihyon no mago is described as a battle shonen with a generic main character... Ignoring that Rikuo's cheerful demeanour in the first few volumes was always a result of his repressing childhood memories and his gradually becoming aware of his yokai form coming as he starts to unpack the past. His stubbornness in accepting being the clan leader is because of his past, where his father's murder and the surrounding deaths of other heads of branch families followed by everyone trying to protect him from the family history made him u turn on previously loving being raised around yokai. Humans being afraid of yokai was only the early reason we're given for Rikuo's do gooder attitude towards yokai(also the adaptation was terrible in season 1, they entirely rewrite the clash with the seven pillars and other yokai clan to be monster of the week instead of the manga where at first it seems they'll defend the local deities supporting the Nura clan's "fear"/power but after the first defeat the inugami drags it into an immediate war taking everyone by surprise, many individual fights were solely the anime rewriting things thus weakening them). On the last point, I'd like to say that sometimes poor writing is just bad anime adaptation /rewriting without the author's input justified for production and budget reasons. Maybe making a fight more monster of the week, the story more episodic, the side characters less developed is just easier with their budget, than having a script which involves harder backgrounds, paying more voice actors, having less ideal episode numbers. We'll never know how much source material is ruined in this way(but ironically I STILL don't like Tokyo ghoul anymore, that series lost me on homo/transphobia alone).
People please watch this show / read this manga! It's criminal at often Medaka gets left out of female characters in Shonen Jump discussions.
J-Stars Victory VS is what introduced me to this anime/manga. No regrets here.
I like your style of Reviewing Anime’s, I really enjoyed your DxD review (Which is funny as Medaka looks like Rias’s cousin with bluish hair lol)
I hope to see more obscure or not well known Shonen Anime’s on here we always see the popular ones hyped up but recently I’ve been seeing that the Shonen’s you’ve reviewed are honestly better than the popular ones we always see hyped.
Really glad you enjoy my content. Got a lot more planned so I hope you stick around!
😂😂
Good video. Didn't think I'd wanna watch this after but seems like nothing I thought.
I've heard it mentioned around, but never deepened.... looks right up my alley, tho!
watch all the video you are amazing
Its kinda of fuzzy but I recall seeing this around. Its really interesting
Love Medaka box
Tldr: please don't read this and think I'm saying you're bad or something, I'm just arguing for a balanced way of talking about manga and anime not so much you're wrong about shonen as indirectly also putting down authors and mangaka you like to a large/undeserved extent!
Using shonen as an insult is usually talking about highly ranked weekly shonen jump series which lasted say 100+ chapters, plus just common issues with writing which took you out of stories which weren't popular enough to win you back over. I doubt half of this applies to some random shonen slice of life, all the shorter/less popular wsj manga, a lot of other Shueisha magazines like jump square, a lot of kodansha ones etc.
Like do these things apply to Helck, Noragami, Nurarihyon no mago, World trigger, World Embryo(a bit edgy in retrospect), Claymore, Jojo, hell Fairy Tail even, the ideas of standard generic shonen just seem made up to me. Which is why half of what's written in a different shonen magazine gets labelled as seinen with only some of it being backtracked to "it shouldn't be shonen" instead. With all the teamwork involved I'd say I didnt see much mecha which satisfies the world revolves around mc aspect either.
My hot take is that the popular seinen is worse than shonen in everything it's stereotyped for, while it's treated as better. Guts, Phosphophilite, Kei in Gantz among others had a bigger problem with being the centre of the world than most shonen, and Claymore and Tokyo ghoul which are seen as basically seinen are similar, it doesn't mean other characters aren't important because they are but sometimes it breaks the world's logic, or in Guts' case it causes other character arcs to suffer(with Casca's badly written insanity/damsel in distress existing for his pain). I'm sure this is worse in some things like dragon ball z or naruto but I haven't read/watched them, out of the big three I only read Bleach and I can't reread because it no longer holds up.
I should add it's just insulting writers needlessly, a lot of people say something is good because it subverts/deconstructs/isn't a generic shonen when that doesn't exist and what they actually mean is it subverts my expectations based on more predictably written stories I've read, it kind of makes out most shonen to be subpar writing and say Nisioisin's stuff is better because he's a real writer not an amateur.... As if the best of them are only average in the wider industry of published books films TV and comics.
I'm sorry but a lot of western sff books are just OK with the same flaws, they just often try hard to build up the setting from complete scratch so even if it's badly executed the freshness of it gives it a pass. And at the same time, they aren't bad! And neither are a lot of shonen, a lot of reviews just have a combination of high standards and thinking they're better reviewers/writers than they are(eg this thing I didn't grasp is a plot hole, I deliberately didn't get invested in characters I'm supposed to care about because I know where the story is going etc, I'm referring to the worst reviewers I've seen who seemed to enjoy the spite).
I'll give an example of popular sff which has similar problems to how shonen is described with some differences. Wool by Hugh Howey is still unfinished by me, its setting of a bunker among other bunkers in a post apocalyptic world of radiation is different yes, but trying to actually read about what people did in said bunker was tough because all the I am engineer/IT person regardless of the IT stuff being a conspiracy was very hard to read for how made up their jobs in the bunker seem, and how much I felt like this community should have died off if I paid attention to the focus on their professions(I've worked in IT, know many others with more experience, and studied for three years around plus grew up with engineers). The story doesn't have a centre of the universe problem but more of a jjk problem where the way pov shifts due to the main character simply dying several times in a few hundred pages makes it seem weirdly episodic and unplanned. If the setting was more of a copy and incorporated meta/referential stuff as is the case for a lot of manga, it could be seen as having many of the same flaws with the loophole that you can't say the world revolves around the mc if you only see it happen briefly before they die and it repeats with the next mc. I still don't think it's bad exactly but I probably won't finish the book let alone the series.
Then there's Malazan, a pretty popular fantasy series which I just cannot get through book one of because of how it revels in not showing any emotional moments for the characters, and the general dialogue they have making them feel like clones of pseudo philosophical soldiers who are just doing their jobs while knowing it's wrong and that they're disposable. I actually have the same problem with its worldbuilding as what took me out of hunter x hunter, the idea of so many characters being introduced yet almost always being murderers with an amoral sort of worldview feels inconsistent with the large scale state of this world and how it has continued, and I don't like the characters enough to get past my issues with it. The idea that every character is a clone and then there's a power fantasy in the middle is often said about isekai, but is also true of what I've read of gardens of the moon(140 pages but he shifts pov excessively so this introduced me to something like 50 characters).
On the other hand nurarihyon no mago is described as a battle shonen with a generic main character... Ignoring that Rikuo's cheerful demeanour in the first few volumes was always a result of his repressing childhood memories and his gradually becoming aware of his yokai form coming as he starts to unpack the past. His stubbornness in accepting being the clan leader is because of his past, where his father's murder and the surrounding deaths of other heads of branch families followed by everyone trying to protect him from the family history made him u turn on previously loving being raised around yokai. Humans being afraid of yokai was only the early reason we're given for Rikuo's do gooder attitude towards yokai(also the adaptation was terrible in season 1, they entirely rewrite the clash with the seven pillars and other yokai clan to be monster of the week instead of the manga where at first it seems they'll defend the local deities supporting the Nura clan's "fear"/power but after the first defeat the inugami drags it into an immediate war taking everyone by surprise, many individual fights were solely the anime rewriting things thus weakening them).
On the last point, I'd like to say that sometimes poor writing is just bad anime adaptation /rewriting without the author's input justified for production and budget reasons. Maybe making a fight more monster of the week, the story more episodic, the side characters less developed is just easier with their budget, than having a script which involves harder backgrounds, paying more voice actors, having less ideal episode numbers. We'll never know how much source material is ruined in this way(but ironically I STILL don't like Tokyo ghoul anymore, that series lost me on homo/transphobia alone).