Trope Armor: The Writing Battles of Shonen

 When talking about battle shonen, people sometimes refer to them as just "shonen". I think this sometimes leads to confusion as now the term shonen isn't necessarily used properly. So in this post, I would like to try and differentiate shonen and battle shonen    

In a previous post, I discussed the idea of power levels in relation to Dragon Ball ( here ). I talk about why I think the scouters and power levels are a great tool in showing the ignorance of the Freeza force. In this post, I would like to discuss an interesting case where the idea of "power levels" is used to mixed results in the series Bleach.  Spoilers for Bleach

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure has a myriad of recognizable characters in its roster like Joseph Joestar, Jotaro Kujo, Bruno Bucciarati, and Gyro Zeppeli.  However, one could argue that the antagonists are even more recognizable, with the likes of DIO, Diavolo, Enrico Pucci, Funny Valentine, and today's topic Yoshikage Kira on why he is one of the best-written antagonists.  Spoilers For Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4

     An interesting aspect of battle shonen is this tangible idea of someone's strength. You tend to see lines such as, "I can feel an immense amount of strength coming from this guy" or "The aura he is emitting is intense".      Authors tend to give their characters a way to see this strength, like "Ki" in Dragon Ball.  Usually, this is done so the viewer has a sense of whether a character is average or truly powerful. This is the idea of power levels, and today ill be discussing how Akira Toriyama uses them excellently in his series Dragon Ball.  Spoilers For Dragon Ball

 If you have any battle shonen, one of the weaker aspects of the genre tends to be the antagonist. Either they are written as one-note or comically evil for the sake of being evil. At that point, the only thing that gets you to continue reading the series is the inevitable fight with the main character and the villain.   However, One Piece has done a good job in adding depth to one of the main antagonistic forces in the series, that being the marines.  Spoilers For One Piece

 A good power system can really cement itself into the minds of readers, I.E. cool powers and abilities. For Jujutsu Kaisen it would cursed energy and the slew of things the characters can do with it. So I will be looking at all the aspects of cursed energy to see what works and what might not.  Spoilers for Jujutsu Kaisen 

Death is a concept that we as humans struggle to understand and come to terms with. As such, plenty of forms of media try to tackle this topic and put their spin on it.  Battle shonen tends to be more lighthearted in nature, so when they do tackle more serious topics, like death, sometimes it is hard to nail the right feeling or they don't fully commit to the idea.  Spoilers For The Following Series Dragon Ball One Piece Hunter x Hunter Bleach Naruto Jujutsu Kaisen

About Me      Yo, my name is Quentin Rivera, and welcome to the blog. I'm a long-time battle shonen fan, my favorites include One Piece, Hunter x Hunter, and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4 . I'm pursuing screenwriting and writing,  and while reading/watching battle shonen I have tended to note how many of them use similar tropes and plots. So that's why I wanted to discuss the things that I have noticed for others to use in their own writings.