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What Makes a Good Shonen Series?

To start off, I'm gonna say this, when I say shonen, I mean action/battle/adventure series and not series targeted at boys mainly because there are a lot of shonen with female fans such as One Piece, Dragon Ball, Naruto, and Bleach. Now, when we talk about Shonen manga, the biggest manga publisher in the world, Shonen Jump, comes to mind. They're the ones responsible for series like One Piece, Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach, Hunter x Hunter, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and so much more. However, Shonen Jump being a Japanese company, it follows the traditional definition of Shonen which is why series like Death Note and The Promised Neverland have been published in it. 

What makes a Shonen popular?

When talking about popular shonen, we think of series like Dragon Ball, One Piece, and Naruto. Why? There are a couple reasons to this. First, each of these series features characters that start out as weaklings and slowly make their way up the scale through sheer hard work and dedication. They are motivated to either become the strongest or to achieve a dream. This segways into the next reason. characters. In every big shonen series, the main character has some sort of tragic past or is relatable in some way. Let's take a character like Son Goku, easily the most popular shonen character of all-time. On the surface, he's a happy-go-lucky monkey boy and seemingly has no sadness. However, on the inside, he's hurting because his grandfather died by his hands without him knowing. This hurts Goku on the inside and it helps the audience bond with him as he suffers the pain of loss. 

Another thing that makes a shonen good is the progression of silliness to seriousness within the plot. As I've already used Dragon Ball as an example, let's use Naruto in this case. The first arc of Naruto is, more or less, about a jerk kid being a pain to a bunch of ninjas, but by the time we reach the final arc, the story is serious. Characters have died, characters have lost some that they held dear to them, and the stakes had never been higher. Now, with this, the fights in a good shonen series progressively gets more intense. If we compared the first fight in Naruto to the last fight, there'd be an immense difference in power. 

Nowadays, originality is hard to come by as it feels like everything has been done some way, shape or form. That's why if a concept is similar to another, you shouldn't judge it as much because even if the concept was similar doesn't make it a total knockoff. Take Goku and Superman's backstories. They're similar at heart but different in terms of impact. For Superman, the Kryptonians were an advanced society far above Earth in every way. For Goku, the Saiyans were heartless warrior race that couldn't care less about the innocent. However, it can become boring if something becomes a trope due to overuse like the eating habits of most shonen characters.

The greatest anime of all-time, Fullmetal Alchemist, however, takes these reasons and throws them out the window. Although it's a shonen, it's a very different shonen. It doesn't focus fighting as much, and the main goal of the protagonists is very understandable and not outlandish. Lastly, there are almost no perverted scenes in Fullmetal Alchemist as a whole. There maybe just enough to count using less than one hand.

What makes a Bad shonen?

The biggest knock on shonen is "the lack of plot". However, when it comes to an action adventure series, you can't make too deep of a plot as, in the end, it's about the main character achieving his goal. Ask for a heavy plot from a shonen series is like ask asking for action in a romance series. Now, that doesn't mean a shonen shouldn't have a plot because it should. A plot keeps the audience invested in the series. However, there are few series that don't have a good plot to them like Sword Art Online, especially season two.

Another thing that makes a bad shonen is plot armor. Plot armor is essentially making it to where your protagonist seems invincible and invulnerable and can never be defeated. Even Goku's lost his fair share of battles. Now, with that being said, there are series like One Punch Man that take plot armor and use to make something new. A great comedy series that has great action. However, it does get boring if you're a serious shonen series and all of your fights end with beating the bad guy with the power of friendship. This is especially true when an enemy is obviously well above the power of our hero. *cough cough* Fairy Tail *cough cough*

The impact of death (or lack thereof) is also detrimental to a series. When a character dies, in needs to be meaningful in some way. Krillin's death sent Goku to Super Saiyan. Android 16's death sent Gohan to Super Saiyan 2. Now, in a series like Fairy Tail, they keep hinting the death of characters of Juvia or Natsu or others, but we never get it. This constant repetition of not getting a meaningful death ruins the series. Here's a comparison of a meaningful death and teased death that doesn't happen:

NOTE: The first video is an actual scene while the second is a manga review of hinted death later to be disproved by the series.

A really big problem in shonen is the amount of Ecchi they can have in it. A good series has some ecchi moments in it, yes, but it's kept to a minimum. However, a series like Fairy Tail, we can't go an arc without Lucy have some part of her body being revealed and it gets really annoying. 

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With all this being said, check out some of your favorite series and see if it follows the same guides as a bad or good shonen. As always, have a great day everyone!

Here are some tags of people that I want to comment about their thoughts on this:
Batty_And_Bubbly
HayleyDBZ
BluenetteSorceress
The_Modern_Ninja
AnimeTrash8791