[shounen serious poll] mha ranting got me thinking, friends is there any perfect shounen out there. or one that is acceptable levels of frustration that make it worth it.
my personal fave is saint seiya lost canvas. it was shounen but very much set up like greek tragedy, they had interesting battles that weren't so much power levels but unique abilities trying to counter each other and everyone, even many of the bad guys had super compelling arcs
Idk I think it really depends on what you get when BC when I was a kid Naruto was perfect to me, NOW I have reanalyzed it and find faults with it, but at the time there was nothing better The same w MHA before it hit animation
I don't think any of the shounen I consumed are ones that nowadays I wouldn't look back on and be like "okay, well, that aspect of it sucked" but I still really loved them while I consumed them
And hell. I still really love Soul Eater and still find it worth consuming even if I would say it's far from perfect
there's a lot that have the same "vibe" as FMA to me, like psyren - where the story is just lockstep tight every step of the way and the art is workmanlike enough to tell that story plainly
I think GetBackers might count, but honestly I don't know if it's acceptable frustration or just that I love the characters and the dedication to happy endings consistently throughout the arcs
because it lets the characters push the plot and it's not just a toy commercial, it's like... it actually gets into what being a hero and shit does to you, even the kindest, most warmhearted person
kamen rider kuuga manages to come down hard on "violence is bad, actually", in a good way, while still being a show about violence, and it's tied together really well and please watch kamen rider kuuga
I think it's not as daring as other shounens in terms of the chances it takes, but it creates a fulfilling story and doesn't branch off from the main point in too many ways to make itself longer the way other series can
and i mean the level of frustration from the hiatuses is legit, but for me i just think the hiatuses are fine cuz i can just reread whats out there and its good. I THINK THERE ARE JUST THINGS I DONT SEE OFTEN IN SHONEN THAT IS PORTRAYED IN HXH THAT MAKES ME HAPPY TO SEE so i am like [you get a pass]
like THE DAD THAT ABANDONED HIS SON TO GO ADVENTURING IS NEVER TREATED AS A DAD, THE SON'S ACTUAL PARENT IS FOREVER THE AUNT THAT ACTUALLY RAISED HIM, thanks hxh
as far as character treatment hxh is great, as far as pacing and tone, hxh is wildly inconsistent imo. maybe the only manga I've skipped entire pages that were definitely important and thought to myself 'I don't caaaare' and then came away from the chapter wanting the next one
that was probably heavily affected by the fact that it's hard to get invested in an arc when you don't know when the next hiatus will be or for how long. poor guy
i STILL have no read hxh. I do not know why. I love yyh??? i like stuff with kids??? but every time i see hxh my brain whizzes by. one day i will have to make myself sit down and forcibly consume it.
like, I can't stand One Punch Man, but I love Mob Psycho 100 even though they're by the same creator and share similar story beats (namely being about having an immensely powerful main character)
LOCAL MAN GETS POISONED TO DEATH THEN GOUGES HIS OWN EYES OUT THEN KEEPS GOING FOR ANOTHER LIKE 5 CHAPTERS AND THEN STANDS BACK UP AFTER HE DIES TO RIP HIS OWN HEART OUT
I will put up with a lot in any card game series and I can list all the ways each series of Yu-Gi-Oh are frustrating in their own way, which is different from how all the other series might be frustrating
hikaru no go has the distinction of being a like 60 episode anime that i will just sit down and rewatch straight through. you have no idea how wild that is for me
tbf re: HxH I have seen it described as the "anti-shounen" before which is probably why it works for me who generally isn't big into the battle shounen genre
cfv season 1 is a sports anime for sure, early ygo dm is also more of a sports animanga except that early ygo dm was not actually entirely about the card game, so ???
the main issue I have with HxH is the pace, as in the pace of the storytelling. Granted, my main experience is the 2011 anime, but I can near quit during the Chimera Ant arc because it was so slow
older shounen series like, not all of them but a lot of them were more mature in a lot of ways than what we're used to thinking of as shounen these days
BC when I was a kid Naruto was perfect to me, NOW I have reanalyzed it and find faults with it, but at the time there was nothing better
The same w MHA before it hit animation
And hell. I still really love Soul Eater and still find it worth consuming even if I would say it's far from perfect
ygo is just pokemon with extra steps