Very good video, with great editing. My personal take is that shonen IS changing, but for the better. Dragon ball is my favorite anime of all time, and I have a lot of nostalgia bias, but I feel like older shonen have been getting "dated" in a way. This new wave of shonen (gachiakuta, dandadan, sakamoto days, kagurabachi, etc.) to me feels refreshing; it subverts tropes, is less flanderized and superficial, contains more interesting character motivations, and keeps me interested in anime, which I sometimes feel like is slowly growing off of me. I have a lot of complex feelings about anime, as it has influences my life for a long time but at times feels overwhelming for me. I believe that with less annoying tropes and basic storytelling, shonen right now is heading into the right direction.
I feel as though shounen might be getting better in terms of story wise since they are exploring more and more themes which makes some stories more interesting than previous ones
I disagree. Not a single modern shonen to me has topped shows like Yu Yu, Bleach, One Piece, Naruto, Hunter x Hunter or Dragonball. New shows are good but i wont remember them in years to come unlike everything iv listed. When i look at new gen big hitters, Aot, JJK, Demon Slayer, MHA. The only one that i will genuinely remember and go back to in years to come will be Aot. The rest all fall short.
8:17, I feel like this is what Shonen has become. Instead of driven hard goals, it’s just them being simple humans which shows how much Shonen has actually changed.
You know, I think that's what's missing for me with new shonen. They're missing that inspirational, hopeful message imo. I don't resonate with them as much, though I can enjoy them, as I did older shonen due to this. A lot of modern shonen are more nihilistic as opposed to hopeful and depressing as opposed to inspirational. I do think there are stand outs though like Demon Slayer and MHA.
Black Clover is probably the most old-school shonen out of the more "recent" (10 years old in February lol) series. I can see the appeal of both types of shonen tbh.
I don’t think modern shonen are that nihilistic but they do lack the optimism that older shonen do have but from what I saw they still have the message of finding your purpose and persevering through life, that is what I at least saw from series like Chainsaw Man and JJK.
...you realize that manga like devilman were serialized in shonen magazines and not seinen magazines, right? and that was over 50 years ago. not every shonen manga is like dragon ball or one piece or naruto. nihilism and depressing stories have always existed in shonen manga
This video was an amazing find. Excellent first step into RUclips here. As someone who wants to write shonen manga myself, I found myself at times feeling like I might have been mislead about what to value and highlight in my story, but then at other moments, also feeling convinced I made some good decisions after all. I just really love the nuanced outlook you had on the topic as a whole, that's all. Getting reminded of the very roots and soul of shonen also inspired some new ideas I might want to explore in my own manga now too. Thank you very much for making and sharing this well made video with us all. I feel like it helped me in a way I didn't know I needed until now.
This is a great video. This video explains that by prioritising spectacle over substance, the battle shounen genre has lost what made it special. I love this video, and considering that this is Lemoncubed's first video, I'm expecting that he should continue making more great videos like these that tell a message that can resonate with the channel's audience.
Honestly, I feel like shonen is dying. It doesn't feel the same. The things that made shonen special are changing and not for the better. Chainsawman, jjk are good. But they are precursors to something that'll slowly take the place of shonen. The only shows or manga I've seen recently that actually do feel like shonen are bleach tybw, black clover and maybe boruto. Chainsawman does not feel like shonen. But that could be because i really dislike every character in Chainsawman.
I feel like a lot of shonen reflect the youth really well the stories are a little more depressing and dark and it shows with a lot of big new gen shonen
Really good vid man, but I dont think the effect of hyper realism applied exactly as u described. IMHO, it’s just the banal fact that people are tired to see the same tropes again and again, that when the trope is broken, it feels pleasurable. So the industry follow what people like now, the trope breaking and subversions are not the steps, it’s point in a cycle, and once breaking tropes becomes a trope in itself, the old becomes new again. Then the cycle repeats.
I'm not a big fan of lumbing all series into a specific genre. Tend to view everything as it's own thing. This whole "is shounen good" or "is shounen bad", just doesn't work for me personally. There's about 5-10 shounen i really like and the rest i couldn't care less about. Really like Naruto but that doesn't mean i'm necessarily a big shounen fan. Just means i'm a fan of Naruto. If i gotta look at my 5 favorite anime/manga, 4 of them are shounen. 1 - AoT. 2 - Berserk. 3 - HxH. 4 - Naruto. 5 - FMAB. They're all finished except Berserk and HxH. Is there anything else currently ongoing that tops these 5 or are equal to them? Not imo. The genre as a whole, nothing right now really appeals to me as much as those 5. But again i look at them all individually rather than what genre they are. This is the same kinda pet peeve i get when people call themselves "animefans". Would call myself a fan of some anime, but i wouldn't refer to myself as an "animefan". Becouse there's only about 2%, or around 2-5 series a year that i like. For shounen within the last 10 years, there's not much that has appealed to me personally. MHA had a lot of issues from the beginning, i'm not gonna go into all of it. Though 1 major criticism for me is all the overexaggerated expressions/emotions. Compare it to Naruto's first episode, when Naruto is sad he sits alone on a swing and looks into the ground expressionless. When Midoria is sad he has overexaggerated wide eyes shaking with his derpy looking mouth hanging open while his mom kneels to the ground as if he has been diagnosed with cancer. One of them feels a lot more believable/realistic than the other. This is the main reason i couldn't get into MHA, the characters didn't feel believable, which took all suspension out of the show. Tone is very important to me. I did watch 2 seasons and there's many other things that made me drop it eventually. Demon Slayer i watched 1 episode which made me drop it. Again, the problem is the protagonist isn't believable. He's supposed to be a regular guy who lives with his family in the middle of nowhere. They all get killed except his sister. What's his reaction? Despair? Depression? Extreme trauma? No, he's sad for about a minute and then excited to go on an adventure. This is horrible writing. I've seen people make the excuse that it's a shounen, therefore it can't be too depressing. But then why write this introduction to the series in the first place? If it's supposed to be light-hearted and the protagonist is supposed to be uplifting. Then give him a different backstory that fits the series and the protagonist. What's the purpose of killing his family if it has zero effect on him? This immediately just kills any chance for the series to be taken seriously or be immersive. Similar thing with Jujutsu Kaisen, i dropped at episode 1. The protagonist grandfather dies and it just seems to not have much of an impact on the protagonist. Immediately it just goes into action, to where you forget it even happened and the protagonist is having fun action time. Not letting his grandfather's death effect him. A good show needs to have appropiate emotions to make you care about what happens, otherwise there's just no immersion. Take AoT, where Eren's mom dies. He's devastated, frustrated and furious about his inability to do anything about it. This event also shapes Eren until the very end of the series. It's something he often thinks back to, motivating him to act. It served an important purpose for the story and the protagonist. Chainsaw Man is one of the better series to come out recently! The characters feel pretty realistic, considering their backgrounds and the world they live in. While it's silly and over the top a lot of the time. It suddenly reels it back in and becomes very human/relatable. The characters has genuine interactions with eachother and they react appropriately to what happens around them. There's no point where i feel any of them act out of character. The only reason Denji doesn't feel sad about death is becouse of his background and lack of understanding. It fits his character and it's also brought up by himself where he questions it. It's not something that is just glossed over like the other series. It's an intentional part of his character.
This is kind of like a cope. It's quite ironic how shounen, of all the themes it explores, is almost never raw existentialism; whenever it does question it, it does so from an adventureous standpoint, almost through kids' eyes. Most of the newer "shounen big hitters" seem like failed or tryhard seinen and the patient zero is almost Togashi's Hunter x Hunter that a lot of people mimic, even when they don't admit it(Gege Akutami who tried to avoid it despite Kubo sniffing it out in the very interview and pointing it out). The absolute irony being that currently the manga that carry the spirit of shounen are actually found in Jump Plus, the online platform, with Seihei no Slave and Dandadan. Instead of it being "just someone trying to fit in the world" as if it's the average Saturday Morning Cartoon for south korean kids with overly complex power systems to appear smarter to the editors, the afformentioned manga just have an adventure and are done with it, exploring various themes in fun settings, allowing for different angles while going on said adventures. Heck, the ultimate continuation of the shounen spirit has been tokusatsu for more than half a century now; it did start as a darker shounen manga after all with Kamen Rider and you even had Ultraman's side series with Gridman follow that trend. Super Sentai especially for the past 3 series has been shounen anime in live action form personified after a very long time(last time was Gekiranger and Go-Onger and Gokaiger). We aren't losing it, not yet(probably never) but it's slowly getting lost from the magazines that used to host the pillars of the genre, namely Shueisha's Weekly Jump.
...you realize that manga like devilman were serialized in shonen magazines and not seinen magazines, right? and that was over 50 years ago. not every shonen manga is like dragon ball or one piece or naruto. darker shonen that were nihilistic and dealt with raw existentialism have always existed
@@afro025 Of course I do. So was a few other equally dark manga at the time. Heck, a manga that was MORE existential at the time was Cyborg 009 andd even that wasn't as nihilistic and existential as Chainsaw Man and other modern shounen. And the manga from that era came from people who still felt the effects of the bombs. There's a reason Nagai pivoted genres when making Violence Jack when he wanted to tackle heavier subjects with a deeper emphasis and the appropriate ultraviolence some of them meritted. Hell, Bleach in its final arc deals with existentialism and again, despite it being darker in tone compared to Ichigo's previous adventures, still doesn't have that edgy, morose and purely nihilistic angle that, again, Togashi's HxH and its offshoots have in droves. And even in the "Shounen Overdrive" era of the 80s, you had Bastard(the manga that mindbroke Togashi, his words, not mine) that tackled existentialism and had darker visuals and darker storytelling before switching to Ultra Jump, still wasn't as dour. And even when it switched to UJ it still didn't go full dour and "where do I belong" kind of thing.
@@RiderWithTheScarf Okay, so then what are the manga that make up most of the "newer shonen big hitters" which are purely nihilistic like you claim? Are you talking about Chainsaw Man? Because if you'd actually read Chainsaw Man, you'd know that it CERTAINLY isn't nihilistic. It's the opposite in fact. So much of the manga is based in humor because of the ridiculous scenarios the characters are in. Yes Denji goes through hell and loses everyone he loves, but the story isn't trying to push a nihilistic message, it's literally saying the opposite. "At some point! I'll find family again somewhere! And if they die too! I'll find another family! Tough luck, bad guys! I can make a perpetual motion machine!" No matter how many people Denji loses, he won't ever give up trying to find people who love him. It's sad, but it's not nihilistic. Then what about JJK? It's definitely nihilistic for a long duration of the manga, and I'm definitely not a fan of it, but to say it's "purely nihilistic" is disingenuous. At the end of the manga, Itadori doesn't keep that "I'm just a cog in the machine whose role I must fulfill" mindset, and that was never the themes JJK was trying to push. Instead, the final mentality he comes to is, "Roles like walking the dog or providing for a family - none of that really matters. Even if there were no such roles, and you just eat, poop, and sleep, or if you're bedridden with illness, and your life is disconnected from everyone else and leaves nothing behind... Even if only small fragments of memories are drifting around, a person's life still holds value beyond the memories that create their identity. It isn't about how you die. That's why I could never forgive someone who acted like that value didn't exist." This is what the ideological conflict between Sukana and Itadori is about, whether all human lives have value, or only the strongest. And it's thanks to Itadori's friends that he's able to land the final blow on Sukana and prove his beliefs wrong. How on earth is that "purely nihilistic"? The only newer shonen manga you can really argue that is purely nihilistic is Attack on Titan, but that's *not* most of the shonen big hitters, only a single one. And that's completely ignoring series like My Hero Academia, Black Clover, Demon Slayer, and Dandadan, which aren't like that at all.
@@afro025 "Shounen big hitters" = shonen manga on Weekly Jump Magazine or "Shounen Jump" as it used to be called in the west. Chainsaw Man is basically a "softer" Fire Punch which was an utterly failed "but highly subversive(aka pure shit)" Violence Jack at best. JJK didn't start nihilistic at all, it became that during and especially after the Shibuya arc. Kagurabachi wants to be some kind of Bleach clone but the author is inexperienced and it comes of as tryhard dark nihilism when it really isn't, thankfully. In fact, the MC for as poker faced as he is, outright rejects the nihilistic shit of the enemy factions. >Last part And it seems you didn't fully read my first post. I said "The absolute irony being that currently the manga that carry the spirit of shounen are actually found in Jump Plus, the online platform, with Seihei no Slave and Dandadan." Manga like Black Clover, MHA are indeed nothing like the ones I blasted but they also begun way before Chainsaw Man, JJK, Sakamoto Days etc. My initial post and the comment towards the creator of the video basically was that the afformentioned "pinnacle of shonen" as Shueisha had held it before, is becoming needlessly nihilistic and morose; all the while the other imprints the publication has perfectly carry on the spirit just fine. Aka the mainstay printed magazine that gets all the attention is shifting to a worse direction yet the online magazine is perfectly fine and puts out bangers. Traditionally, that shouldn't be the case. At least, I'm completely opposed to that, the big mainstay magazine with both a printed and online presence should keep the tradition while the online ones or the other side imprints should experiment. Plus the whole "if people don't pay attention to who publishes what, videos like these are bound to be made".
@@RiderWithTheScarf Yeah, I know what you mean. And according to what you're saying, Chainsaw Man wouldn't even count since it moved over to Jump Plus. And it seems you didnt fully ready my reply, becsuse I already debunked the claims that JJK and CSM are "nihilistic". To call them nihilistic is no different than saying Naruto and One Piece are nihilistic manga because Naruto fails to bring back Sasuke in part 1, and Luffy fails to save Ace...which is ridiculous. They're depressing moments, and the lowest points for our characters, but that's not what it means to be nihilistic. And there's no way you're calling Kagurabachi "nihilistic" 😂 Do you even know what nihilistic means? Just because you don't like how edgy a story is doesn't make it "nihilistic". Those are two COMPLETELY different words My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, and Black Clover *ARE* modern shonen though. It doesn't matter if they released a few years apart. Bleach was serialized 4 years after One Piece and they're still grouped together, and Jujutsu Kaisen/Chainsaw Man was serialized 4 years after My Hero Academia so obviously they'd still be grouped together, as they released in the 2010s. Therefore, the claim that "most new shonen big hitters are purely nihilistic" is a false one.
original Devilman came out in 1972. Chainsaw man is not inspired by dragon ball, it is influenced by other shounen made over 50 years ago and Evangelion-- Not Dragonball ffs. Stop worrying so much, dark shounen have been around for 50 years and they arent going anywhere.
Demon Slayer doesn't have magical swords, nor does it have any unearned power ups, as everything is masterfully set up beforehand and built up to, it's assuredly the most grounded and human centered supernatural battle shonen out there, among new and old shonen. Also spectacle in general is best used to to describe older shonen, not newer ones (though ofc there are some that go for spectacle still)
i think shonen got better this early years because they are focusing on the story more now not like the previous animes where they focus on getting the main character stronger i like new shonen even if theres not very much fights (which is not) but its better than old shonen ( only fight) you can notice what iam saying if you watched onepiece
Short answer: YES. It's both sad and dissapointing how worse has changed. There are no aspirations, no risks....etc. Instead of giving a message to the lector (via lessons or hard work lead to greatness), now it's all brain rot selfishness and memes. This is not the Shonen I grew up with. It's straight up trash.
you seem like someone that's blinded by nostalgia. this new branch of shonen is much better than before and limiting it to "brainrot" "selfishness" and "memes" shows how close minded you are
Villains continue to become suddenly braindead and hero’s suddenly gains asspulls at the finale of manga (like in CSM Part 1) So no, not only Shonen isn’t changing, Fujimoto single-handedly ruined his own possibility to make something new and different five years ago. Instead wegot typical “good guy won because he must”. I believe in some regards it’s actually could affect other mangakas specifically Gege because they are friends, so he greatly lowered the stakes and number of unallived characters.
Are you seriously acting like these AREN'T notorious in shonen? -braindead villain -asspulls -good guy winning because he must You might genuinely be delusional if you think NEWER shonen are what introduces these. Chainsaw man IS completely unique and original, and it's a step in the right direction when it comes to anime.
@ what? How CSM in complete unique if its has everything I write about bad endings in shonen? How it’s a step in right direction if Fujimoto commits the same bad idiotic plot decisions as everyone else?
@ what? How CSM in complete unique if its has everything I write about bad endings in shonen? How it’s a step in right direction if Fujimoto commits the same bad idiotic plot decisions as everyone else?
Very good video, with great editing.
My personal take is that shonen IS changing, but for the better. Dragon ball is my favorite anime of all time, and I have a lot of nostalgia bias, but I feel like older shonen have been getting "dated" in a way. This new wave of shonen (gachiakuta, dandadan, sakamoto days, kagurabachi, etc.) to me feels refreshing; it subverts tropes, is less flanderized and superficial, contains more interesting character motivations, and keeps me interested in anime, which I sometimes feel like is slowly growing off of me. I have a lot of complex feelings about anime, as it has influences my life for a long time but at times feels overwhelming for me. I believe that with less annoying tropes and basic storytelling, shonen right now is heading into the right direction.
I feel as though shounen might be getting better in terms of story wise since they are exploring more and more themes which makes some stories more interesting than previous ones
Js if u think that u haven't read enough shonen
I disagree. Not a single modern shonen to me has topped shows like Yu Yu, Bleach, One Piece, Naruto, Hunter x Hunter or Dragonball. New shows are good but i wont remember them in years to come unlike everything iv listed.
When i look at new gen big hitters, Aot, JJK, Demon Slayer, MHA. The only one that i will genuinely remember and go back to in years to come will be Aot. The rest all fall short.
Money vs passion
Did you even watch the video?
@@DionPanday yea I know it’s just kind of restating what he said
8:17, I feel like this is what Shonen has become. Instead of driven hard goals, it’s just them being simple humans which shows how much Shonen has actually changed.
You know, I think that's what's missing for me with new shonen. They're missing that inspirational, hopeful message imo. I don't resonate with them as much, though I can enjoy them, as I did older shonen due to this. A lot of modern shonen are more nihilistic as opposed to hopeful and depressing as opposed to inspirational. I do think there are stand outs though like Demon Slayer and MHA.
Black Clover is probably the most old-school shonen out of the more "recent" (10 years old in February lol) series. I can see the appeal of both types of shonen tbh.
I don’t think modern shonen are that nihilistic but they do lack the optimism that older shonen do have but from what I saw they still have the message of finding your purpose and persevering through life, that is what I at least saw from series like Chainsaw Man and JJK.
...you realize that manga like devilman were serialized in shonen magazines and not seinen magazines, right? and that was over 50 years ago. not every shonen manga is like dragon ball or one piece or naruto. nihilism and depressing stories have always existed in shonen manga
@@blues4509 you do realize it is a medium reflecting its society, right? It’s not all sunshine and rainbows in Japan right now
Very good video. I like the context your provide for the vintage anime you mention. Keep it up!
How is Chainsaw Man specifically not grounded and not about “a young boy who is trying to find his place in the world?”
He did say that "the way it's being shown has changed"
Nice video! Excited to see what ya do from here
This video was an amazing find. Excellent first step into RUclips here. As someone who wants to write shonen manga myself, I found myself at times feeling like I might have been mislead about what to value and highlight in my story, but then at other moments, also feeling convinced I made some good decisions after all. I just really love the nuanced outlook you had on the topic as a whole, that's all. Getting reminded of the very roots and soul of shonen also inspired some new ideas I might want to explore in my own manga now too. Thank you very much for making and sharing this well made video with us all. I feel like it helped me in a way I didn't know I needed until now.
Bro you're cooking. This is great storytelling and good editing
Thanks bro, glad you enjoyed it
this was really captivating, good video
Good video! Didn’t even know this was your first one!
This is a great video. This video explains that by prioritising spectacle over substance, the battle shounen genre has lost what made it special. I love this video, and considering that this is Lemoncubed's first video, I'm expecting that he should continue making more great videos like these that tell a message that can resonate with the channel's audience.
To me it has Change for the Better, from more childlike Qualities to a more Mature Take of Life.
If only we already had a whole genre for that kinda thing….
Kagurabachi mentioned 🔥👏🏿
Loved this
love it man
Great video holy, made sure to drop a sub and i'm excited to see what comes next
Thanks, stay tuned!
Nice. I enjoyed this video.
I like how you subverted the RUclips trope of pointing out and/or exaggerating a negative within a medium and overexplaining why its bad.
Nice vid 👍 keep it up
amazing editing
Amazing video
❤
I wrote a whole paragraph about how I disagred and then I got to about the 7 min mark and deleted it. Great video, I suspect you will be sucessful.
Thanks, I appreciate you watching the whole thing through!
Honestly, I feel like shonen is dying. It doesn't feel the same. The things that made shonen special are changing and not for the better. Chainsawman, jjk are good. But they are precursors to something that'll slowly take the place of shonen. The only shows or manga I've seen recently that actually do feel like shonen are bleach tybw, black clover and maybe boruto. Chainsawman does not feel like shonen. But that could be because i really dislike every character in Chainsawman.
Chainsaw Man is social commentary on life and relationships. Especially the first part of the story.
I feel like a lot of shonen reflect the youth really well the stories are a little more depressing and dark and it shows with a lot of big new gen shonen
Damn bro I hope you remember me when you’re famous
You do know shounen is just a demographic, right? It can have many genres including battle/action
Really good vid man, but I dont think the effect of hyper realism applied exactly as u described. IMHO, it’s just the banal fact that people are tired to see the same tropes again and again, that when the trope is broken, it feels pleasurable. So the industry follow what people like now, the trope breaking and subversions are not the steps, it’s point in a cycle, and once breaking tropes becomes a trope in itself, the old becomes new again. Then the cycle repeats.
I'm not a big fan of lumbing all series into a specific genre. Tend to view everything as it's own thing. This whole "is shounen good" or "is shounen bad", just doesn't work for me personally. There's about 5-10 shounen i really like and the rest i couldn't care less about. Really like Naruto but that doesn't mean i'm necessarily a big shounen fan. Just means i'm a fan of Naruto. If i gotta look at my 5 favorite anime/manga, 4 of them are shounen. 1 - AoT. 2 - Berserk. 3 - HxH. 4 - Naruto. 5 - FMAB. They're all finished except Berserk and HxH. Is there anything else currently ongoing that tops these 5 or are equal to them? Not imo. The genre as a whole, nothing right now really appeals to me as much as those 5. But again i look at them all individually rather than what genre they are. This is the same kinda pet peeve i get when people call themselves "animefans". Would call myself a fan of some anime, but i wouldn't refer to myself as an "animefan". Becouse there's only about 2%, or around 2-5 series a year that i like.
For shounen within the last 10 years, there's not much that has appealed to me personally. MHA had a lot of issues from the beginning, i'm not gonna go into all of it. Though 1 major criticism for me is all the overexaggerated expressions/emotions. Compare it to Naruto's first episode, when Naruto is sad he sits alone on a swing and looks into the ground expressionless. When Midoria is sad he has overexaggerated wide eyes shaking with his derpy looking mouth hanging open while his mom kneels to the ground as if he has been diagnosed with cancer. One of them feels a lot more believable/realistic than the other. This is the main reason i couldn't get into MHA, the characters didn't feel believable, which took all suspension out of the show. Tone is very important to me. I did watch 2 seasons and there's many other things that made me drop it eventually.
Demon Slayer i watched 1 episode which made me drop it. Again, the problem is the protagonist isn't believable. He's supposed to be a regular guy who lives with his family in the middle of nowhere. They all get killed except his sister. What's his reaction? Despair? Depression? Extreme trauma? No, he's sad for about a minute and then excited to go on an adventure. This is horrible writing. I've seen people make the excuse that it's a shounen, therefore it can't be too depressing. But then why write this introduction to the series in the first place? If it's supposed to be light-hearted and the protagonist is supposed to be uplifting. Then give him a different backstory that fits the series and the protagonist. What's the purpose of killing his family if it has zero effect on him? This immediately just kills any chance for the series to be taken seriously or be immersive.
Similar thing with Jujutsu Kaisen, i dropped at episode 1. The protagonist grandfather dies and it just seems to not have much of an impact on the protagonist. Immediately it just goes into action, to where you forget it even happened and the protagonist is having fun action time. Not letting his grandfather's death effect him. A good show needs to have appropiate emotions to make you care about what happens, otherwise there's just no immersion. Take AoT, where Eren's mom dies. He's devastated, frustrated and furious about his inability to do anything about it. This event also shapes Eren until the very end of the series. It's something he often thinks back to, motivating him to act. It served an important purpose for the story and the protagonist.
Chainsaw Man is one of the better series to come out recently! The characters feel pretty realistic, considering their backgrounds and the world they live in. While it's silly and over the top a lot of the time. It suddenly reels it back in and becomes very human/relatable. The characters has genuine interactions with eachother and they react appropriately to what happens around them. There's no point where i feel any of them act out of character. The only reason Denji doesn't feel sad about death is becouse of his background and lack of understanding. It fits his character and it's also brought up by himself where he questions it. It's not something that is just glossed over like the other series. It's an intentional part of his character.
This is kind of like a cope. It's quite ironic how shounen, of all the themes it explores, is almost never raw existentialism; whenever it does question it, it does so from an adventureous standpoint, almost through kids' eyes. Most of the newer "shounen big hitters" seem like failed or tryhard seinen and the patient zero is almost Togashi's Hunter x Hunter that a lot of people mimic, even when they don't admit it(Gege Akutami who tried to avoid it despite Kubo sniffing it out in the very interview and pointing it out). The absolute irony being that currently the manga that carry the spirit of shounen are actually found in Jump Plus, the online platform, with Seihei no Slave and Dandadan. Instead of it being "just someone trying to fit in the world" as if it's the average Saturday Morning Cartoon for south korean kids with overly complex power systems to appear smarter to the editors, the afformentioned manga just have an adventure and are done with it, exploring various themes in fun settings, allowing for different angles while going on said adventures.
Heck, the ultimate continuation of the shounen spirit has been tokusatsu for more than half a century now; it did start as a darker shounen manga after all with Kamen Rider and you even had Ultraman's side series with Gridman follow that trend. Super Sentai especially for the past 3 series has been shounen anime in live action form personified after a very long time(last time was Gekiranger and Go-Onger and Gokaiger).
We aren't losing it, not yet(probably never) but it's slowly getting lost from the magazines that used to host the pillars of the genre, namely Shueisha's Weekly Jump.
...you realize that manga like devilman were serialized in shonen magazines and not seinen magazines, right? and that was over 50 years ago. not every shonen manga is like dragon ball or one piece or naruto. darker shonen that were nihilistic and dealt with raw existentialism have always existed
@@afro025 Of course I do. So was a few other equally dark manga at the time. Heck, a manga that was MORE existential at the time was Cyborg 009 andd even that wasn't as nihilistic and existential as Chainsaw Man and other modern shounen. And the manga from that era came from people who still felt the effects of the bombs. There's a reason Nagai pivoted genres when making Violence Jack when he wanted to tackle heavier subjects with a deeper emphasis and the appropriate ultraviolence some of them meritted.
Hell, Bleach in its final arc deals with existentialism and again, despite it being darker in tone compared to Ichigo's previous adventures, still doesn't have that edgy, morose and purely nihilistic angle that, again, Togashi's HxH and its offshoots have in droves. And even in the "Shounen Overdrive" era of the 80s, you had Bastard(the manga that mindbroke Togashi, his words, not mine) that tackled existentialism and had darker visuals and darker storytelling before switching to Ultra Jump, still wasn't as dour. And even when it switched to UJ it still didn't go full dour and "where do I belong" kind of thing.
@@RiderWithTheScarf Okay, so then what are the manga that make up most of the "newer shonen big hitters" which are purely nihilistic like you claim? Are you talking about Chainsaw Man? Because if you'd actually read Chainsaw Man, you'd know that it CERTAINLY isn't nihilistic. It's the opposite in fact. So much of the manga is based in humor because of the ridiculous scenarios the characters are in. Yes Denji goes through hell and loses everyone he loves, but the story isn't trying to push a nihilistic message, it's literally saying the opposite. "At some point! I'll find family again somewhere! And if they die too! I'll find another family! Tough luck, bad guys! I can make a perpetual motion machine!" No matter how many people Denji loses, he won't ever give up trying to find people who love him. It's sad, but it's not nihilistic.
Then what about JJK? It's definitely nihilistic for a long duration of the manga, and I'm definitely not a fan of it, but to say it's "purely nihilistic" is disingenuous. At the end of the manga, Itadori doesn't keep that "I'm just a cog in the machine whose role I must fulfill" mindset, and that was never the themes JJK was trying to push. Instead, the final mentality he comes to is, "Roles like walking the dog or providing for a family - none of that really matters. Even if there were no such roles, and you just eat, poop, and sleep, or if you're bedridden with illness, and your life is disconnected from everyone else and leaves nothing behind... Even if only small fragments of memories are drifting around, a person's life still holds value beyond the memories that create their identity. It isn't about how you die. That's why I could never forgive someone who acted like that value didn't exist." This is what the ideological conflict between Sukana and Itadori is about, whether all human lives have value, or only the strongest. And it's thanks to Itadori's friends that he's able to land the final blow on Sukana and prove his beliefs wrong. How on earth is that "purely nihilistic"?
The only newer shonen manga you can really argue that is purely nihilistic is Attack on Titan, but that's *not* most of the shonen big hitters, only a single one. And that's completely ignoring series like My Hero Academia, Black Clover, Demon Slayer, and Dandadan, which aren't like that at all.
@@afro025 "Shounen big hitters" = shonen manga on Weekly Jump Magazine or "Shounen Jump" as it used to be called in the west. Chainsaw Man is basically a "softer" Fire Punch which was an utterly failed "but highly subversive(aka pure shit)" Violence Jack at best. JJK didn't start nihilistic at all, it became that during and especially after the Shibuya arc. Kagurabachi wants to be some kind of Bleach clone but the author is inexperienced and it comes of as tryhard dark nihilism when it really isn't, thankfully. In fact, the MC for as poker faced as he is, outright rejects the nihilistic shit of the enemy factions.
>Last part
And it seems you didn't fully read my first post. I said "The absolute irony being that currently the manga that carry the spirit of shounen are actually found in Jump Plus, the online platform, with Seihei no Slave and Dandadan." Manga like Black Clover, MHA are indeed nothing like the ones I blasted but they also begun way before Chainsaw Man, JJK, Sakamoto Days etc.
My initial post and the comment towards the creator of the video basically was that the afformentioned "pinnacle of shonen" as Shueisha had held it before, is becoming needlessly nihilistic and morose; all the while the other imprints the publication has perfectly carry on the spirit just fine. Aka the mainstay printed magazine that gets all the attention is shifting to a worse direction yet the online magazine is perfectly fine and puts out bangers. Traditionally, that shouldn't be the case. At least, I'm completely opposed to that, the big mainstay magazine with both a printed and online presence should keep the tradition while the online ones or the other side imprints should experiment.
Plus the whole "if people don't pay attention to who publishes what, videos like these are bound to be made".
@@RiderWithTheScarf Yeah, I know what you mean. And according to what you're saying, Chainsaw Man wouldn't even count since it moved over to Jump Plus.
And it seems you didnt fully ready my reply, becsuse I already debunked the claims that JJK and CSM are "nihilistic". To call them nihilistic is no different than saying Naruto and One Piece are nihilistic manga because Naruto fails to bring back Sasuke in part 1, and Luffy fails to save Ace...which is ridiculous. They're depressing moments, and the lowest points for our characters, but that's not what it means to be nihilistic. And there's no way you're calling Kagurabachi "nihilistic" 😂 Do you even know what nihilistic means? Just because you don't like how edgy a story is doesn't make it "nihilistic". Those are two COMPLETELY different words
My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, and Black Clover *ARE* modern shonen though. It doesn't matter if they released a few years apart. Bleach was serialized 4 years after One Piece and they're still grouped together, and Jujutsu Kaisen/Chainsaw Man was serialized 4 years after My Hero Academia so obviously they'd still be grouped together, as they released in the 2010s. Therefore, the claim that "most new shonen big hitters are purely nihilistic" is a false one.
6:30 30 billion dollar industry? didnt pokemon alone make like a 100 billion? are you talking annually?
that's literally what i was thinking lmao
No, we r not
I think bleach really set the rapid shift in shonen over the past few years.
original Devilman came out in 1972. Chainsaw man is not inspired by dragon ball, it is influenced by other shounen made over 50 years ago and Evangelion-- Not Dragonball ffs. Stop worrying so much, dark shounen have been around for 50 years and they arent going anywhere.
Demon Slayer doesn't have magical swords, nor does it have any unearned power ups, as everything is masterfully set up beforehand and built up to, it's assuredly the most grounded and human centered supernatural battle shonen out there, among new and old shonen.
Also spectacle in general is best used to to describe older shonen, not newer ones (though ofc there are some that go for spectacle still)
MGS4 ahh intro
I know a KaptainKristain fan when I see one
This guy is mega underrated. You'd think by the way he speaks and edits, he has at least 100K
I think you meant underrated
@@MKS12124 Oh yeah my bad💀😭
i think shonen got better this early years because they are focusing on the story more now not like the previous animes where they focus on getting the main character stronger i like new shonen even if theres not very much fights (which is not) but its better than old shonen ( only fight) you can notice what iam saying if you watched onepiece
No
The word literally means For Mans
That's it
The word means "Boy". "Otoko" is man. So shounen manga / anime just designates the age range and demographic the work targets mostly.
I love Chainsaw Man
I love Chainsaw Man
Same
nah
Summary: yes, it's a good thing
That shouldn't be a good thing
Yeah Shonen has changed it's more different than previous Shonens that were more light hearted and characters usually had an goal.
Short answer: YES. It's both sad and dissapointing how worse has changed. There are no aspirations, no risks....etc. Instead of giving a message to the lector (via lessons or hard work lead to greatness), now it's all brain rot selfishness and memes. This is not the Shonen I grew up with. It's straight up trash.
Tell me you don’t read any manga without telling
you seem like someone that's blinded by nostalgia. this new branch of shonen is much better than before and limiting it to "brainrot" "selfishness" and "memes" shows how close minded you are
oh and I just watched the video and you completely missed this guy's point.
@@Burst644 Are you done? If so, please refrain to talk to me ever again. Dont waste everyones time with vague responds. Thank you.
@@IlargiaZeruan gladly. I prefer not to waste time with oldheads that lack reading comprehension unless it's a show they grew up with
dragon ball is THE shounen, its contributed more to the genre then anything that came before imo.
Villains continue to become suddenly braindead and hero’s suddenly gains asspulls at the finale of manga (like in CSM Part 1)
So no, not only Shonen isn’t changing, Fujimoto single-handedly ruined his own possibility to make something new and different five years ago.
Instead wegot typical “good guy won because he must”.
I believe in some regards it’s actually could affect other mangakas specifically Gege because they are friends, so he greatly lowered the stakes and number of unallived characters.
Are you seriously acting like these AREN'T notorious in shonen?
-braindead villain
-asspulls
-good guy winning because he must
You might genuinely be delusional if you think NEWER shonen are what introduces these.
Chainsaw man IS completely unique and original, and it's a step in the right direction when it comes to anime.
@ what? How CSM in complete unique if its has everything I write about bad endings in shonen?
How it’s a step in right direction if Fujimoto commits the same bad idiotic plot decisions as everyone else?
@ what? How CSM in complete unique if its has everything I write about bad endings in shonen?
How it’s a step in right direction if Fujimoto commits the same bad idiotic plot decisions as everyone else?
Whatever, comics are better anyway
Comics are gay
@@beastvicious8672 Manga is lesbian
fatherless behaviour
Nah Manga is better
@@Chillin-jg8vg manga is good but comics are emotion❤
It needed to change, it was at a dead end