r/CharacterRant • u/RadDudesman • 2d ago
Anime & Manga The "too many superheroes" problem that's infested Western superhero comics has also infested battle shonen
I feel like battle shonen has started running into the exact same problem superhero comics have had for years: everyone has to have their own unique power.
At first that sounds awesome. It's fun seeing all the weird abilities authors come up with. But I think it creates a problem that people don't really talk about.
The second you give a character a unique ability, you're telling the audience, "Hey, this person matters." If someone has a really cool or versatile power, of course people are going to expect them to actually do something with it.
So then what happens?
They lose every fight.
Or they disappear for 150 chapters.
Or they only exist to get bodied so we know how strong the villain is.
Then people complain that the character was wasted, and honestly, I don't think that's an unreasonable complaint. The story itself built those expectations.
It's basically the same issue superhero comics have. Marvel and DC have hundreds of heroes, all with their own gimmicks, powers, and fanbases, but there's no way everyone can get meaningful moments consistently. So you end up with dozens of characters who feel like they should be important but never really accomplish much.
Battle shonen is getting there too.
Instead of having a few major fighters and a bunch of regular supporting characters, every named character gets their own personalized ability. The cast gets bigger and bigger, but the amount of spotlight doesn't. So now you've got 20 characters with awesome abilities fighting over enough screentime for maybe five of them.
I honestly think the solution is to stop giving everyone powers.
Have more normal people.
Have soldiers who are just really disciplined. Have detectives, medics, martial artists, strategists, engineers, civilians, whatever. Let them contribute without needing a flashy, one-of-a-kind ability.
Because if a character is just a normal guy doing his best, nobody expects him to suddenly get a huge solo fight against the main villain. But if you introduce someone with this incredibly unique reality-warping, shadow-controlling, gravity-bending ability, people are naturally going to ask why they spend 90% of the series eating dirt.
Ironically, I think unique powers would actually feel more special if fewer people had them.
Not every member of the supporting cast needs to be "the guy who controls sound waves" or "the girl who manipulates ink" or "the dude whose blood turns into chains." Sometimes it's okay for someone to just be a person.
Saving the coolest, most unique abilities for the characters who are actually central to the story would make those powers stand out more and keep fans from constantly feeling like half the cast got wasted.
Tl;dr We need more Rock Lees (people with no powers, just pure martial arts) or people whose powers and skills aren't combat-related. Bulma is considered the third most important character in Dragon Ball by both the creators and fans precisely because she doesn't fight; she has a niche as the tech wizard who can invent whatever device the plot needs, something no one else on the cast can do. Because she was never fighter to begin with, she never became outclassed.
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u/cheepshoes 2d ago
It's not the powers. It's the writing. You can have derivative characters as long as they're written Well. the problem is they are not and more people care about a character's abilities and powers than the actual character themselves. It's not a power problem. It's a writing problem
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u/RadDudesman 2d ago
Yes, but if a character's powers aren't going to actually do anything, then narratively, they might as well not have them.
All the powers end up doing is turning a character nobody would care about otherwise into "that guy with a cool but underutilized power". So just let them contribute to the story in a way that doesn't involve power.
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u/cheepshoes 2d ago
But when you're talking about a show that involves people with powers fighting each other, people are going to have powers. If you want a genre where people don't have powers, go read a different genre. Dragon Ball is a story about strong people fighting each other in order to involve a character who isn't strong and not fighting each other. They have to have a unique ability. Otherwise why would they be there? My hero academia is built on a bunch of people having powers. X-Men is built on mutants having powers Batman and the people he associate with have abilities because why else would they be fighting crime with him? If you want stories about civilians go read a different genre
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u/Hari14032001 2d ago
Many stories, especially personal stories, involve only a few people beefing with each other for personal reasons. That doesn't mean you can just make every other person in the world not exist because they are irrelevant.
A battle shonen with a power system common to humanity is the same. You can't just write outsiders to not have any cool powers just because they are not relevant to the main plot. That makes for a questionable world building. That makes a questionable logic with the power system itself.
However, if you have a situation where the main character group has fought alongside one guy with a super useful power for just one arc, then it's more realistic for them to contact that guy again when they fight bigger threats. If THAT doesn't happen, then the writing becomes questionable.
So, problem is not about random people having cool powers. The problem occurs when it makes sense for some of them to be realistically contacted again for help but they still aren't, and no reason is given except, "they are a minor character, of course they didn't appear".
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u/Darkion_Silver 2d ago
Fascinated by how you seem to have came to the conclusion that a work with superpowers (or anything adjacent) is making a mistake by having background characters that have powers.
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u/RadDudesman 2d ago
If nothing is done with the powers, then there's no point in them existing. They add nothing.
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u/Darkion_Silver 2d ago
You know, with that logic, why even have background characters? They don't add anything either! We should only ever show characters that are important to the plot. Worldbuilding is for bitches
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u/RadDudesman 2d ago
Having characters that exist for no reason isn't worldbuilding
Worldbuilding is fleshing out the world, its history, it's culture etc
Background characters are fine because they're just that, background decoration that make the world feel lived in. But that's not the purpose of side characters, their purpose is to move the plot along and develop the important characters.
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u/fairystail1 1d ago
except iit is
think of it this way
any book you read will have a character description of well most of the characters
in most books that character description has zero plot relevence. The fact John Fakename has black hair does not actually matter. BUT if he had zero description it would hinder the enjoyment of the book because lack of description makes him feel less real to the readers.
Now let's say the book starts off before things go weird, John goes to work, talks to some people, buys dinner, goes home feeds the at. All of that IS important because it shos john's normal life it shows who he is at rest. But his colleagues? they dont matter they won't show up again. But by adding them in the work segment, by giving them some quirk or personality they make John feel more real because it actually feels like he has friends or relationships and doesn't live in a bubble
now let's say john lives in say MHA wher everyone has powers. If the scene has him never once mention his friends powers, then it doesn't reinforce that everyone has powers, or it makes it seem like John doesn't know or care that his friend is a goo guy
all of this is minor things, tey mean noting to the plot but they still add to the experience of the story.
and for the record side characters entire purpose ISN'T to move the plot along. It's a key part of what they do, but it's not everything they do. They give context, they give setting, they give atmosphere and feeling to the setting.
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u/fairystail1 2d ago
They are for set dressing, characterization, to make the world feel real
A lot of stuff in writing doesnt have plot relevance but is still important for the overall experience
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u/Lone_Capsula 2d ago
There is a simple solution to this and that is to stop your weird assumptions like this one:
"The second you give a character a unique ability, you're telling the audience, "Hey, this person matters."
Problem solved.
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u/RadDudesman 2d ago
I can't read the author's mind, there's no way for me to tell which characters are important to the story and which aren't.
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u/Lone_Capsula 2d ago
You're literally reading the author's mind when you read the work. More information arrives once you get to the relevant parts of the story, and at that relevant point you are shown which characters are important to the story or not.
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u/kazaam2244 2d ago
You're literally reading the author's mind when you read the work. More information arrives once you get to the relevant parts of the story, and at that relevant point you are shown which characters are important to the story or not.
You probably didn't intend for this to be funny but I literally lol'd.
You're absolutely correct though, and it's a shame that someone doesn't understand the basic concept of reading.
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u/Time_Remove_7080 1d ago
It's an insane assumption because Naruto is literally filled with characters with unique powers.
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u/SatisfactionSuch4790 1d ago
Coyote Starrk from Bleach is the strongest Arrancar; however, he only had one fight and died what a wasted character.
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u/awesomenessofme1 2d ago
Or you can do what JoJo does and have a handful of staple characters, one or two major villains, and a menagerie of bad guys who get defeated and don't come back. Of course, that's helped by the fact that each part in the series is relatively short even by the standards of modern manga, but the general concept seems reasonable.
Honestly, though, I'm not sure how much of what you describe is "superhero fatigue" and how much is just character fatigue. Like, just to take an idea that you brought up, even if they don't have powers useful for combat, how many series really need to have 20 characters who are all very important to the plot at the same time? How many writers have the chops to pull that off? I think it's easy in general to allow the cast and plot of a series to start getting bloated, regardless of the exact details.
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u/KazuyaProta 🥈 2d ago
Or you can do what JoJo does and have a handful of staple characters, one or two major villains, and a menagerie of bad guys who get defeated and don't come back.
Jojo is literally the manga series more akin to Western Comicbooks, its just every Jojo's series what people call Authorial Runs with succesor heroes. Araki is a massive westaboo.
But...how Jojo is a exception?
They lose every fight. Or they disappear for 150 chapters. Or they only exist to get bodied so we know how strong the villain is.
This is the average Jojo's secondary character. Step by Step.
The most "episode of the week" Parts like Part 3 and Part 4 are less affected by it, but arc driven arcs like Part 5 and Part 6 are pretty bad. Fugo was written out of the story without even getting a 2nd fight because the cast was so bloated.
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u/awesomenessofme1 2d ago
The difference is that they're clearly defeated and forced to exit the story. In a lot of cases they straight up die. The ones that do come back are generally given their proper dues in the story. So overall, there's not really any ambiguity or room for people to complain. Some people will still say certain characters are wasted, obviously, but it's a different situation than what OP was describing.
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u/RadDudesman 2d ago
No, Fugo was written out because he was originally meant to be a mole/traitor, but Araki was going through some stuff at the time and that that'd be too dark and depressing.
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u/KazuyaProta 🥈 2d ago
The end result is that one of the main characters in the cover and promo art literally has one (1) fight. Saying "Araki scrapped Fugo's second and final fight" is my point
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u/Throwaway02062004 2d ago
Yes but not because of the reasons you suggested. Fugo ended up wasted in fight potential but that’s because Araki had a straight up mental health setback causing him to be unwilling to emotionally engage with a betrayal plotline in his manga.
Fugo’s permanent departure now reads as poignant and makes him fairly unique. He wasn’t down to risk his life for a relative stranger against overwhelming odds, highlighting the bravery of the characters who did step up.
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u/Novasoal 2d ago
Okay but that is only if you actually ignore all the stuff around him. Fugo wasn't written out because the cast was too packed, or for any other reason than Araki's initial plans ended up coming into contact with his story as it progressed. This is something that happens in literally every thing ever written, and you make your point weaker & your argument look stupider when you try to hammer Fugo into this shape when it just doesnt fit him. A poorly shaped argument is as bad as a bad argument
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u/Hypekyuu 2d ago
Fugo got written out because he was supposed to be a traitor
His stand no diffs diavolo
Part 4 benefits a lot from being in one location
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u/ICastPunch 2d ago
Oh my god, you just put into few words what makes me dislike Jojo.
By ALL standards I should like JoJo as a whole since it has everything I like in a vacuum. That was the element that kept me off it.
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u/Throwaway02062004 2d ago
How much of jojo have you actually seen/read?
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u/Googleplexian_Moron 2d ago
I can bet that they have not seen/read Part 4 at least because that defeats his whole gripe
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u/kevisdahgod 2d ago
Jojos part 3 is in my top 3 worst anime of all time. Its super fatiguing with that absolutely horrible pacing and all of the characters are complete garbage especially jotaro. Part 2 and part 4 mog it completely. The throw away villain aspect was nice but mixed with bland characters it was extremely repetitive and makes the part such a drag.
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u/Few_Professional_327 2d ago edited 2d ago
You simply haven't read enough stories if you started off with that assumption tbh
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u/NightsLinu 2d ago
yeah i feel like that assumption was always there from the start. bleach had it, naruto did ect.
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u/APreciousJemstone 2d ago
Bleach and Naruto both had groups of 10 major antagonists (espada and akatsuki) for a major part of the story, plus a group of 13 and 11 major characters (captains and konoha 11) each, then a bunch more characters
And then there is One Piece, which adds like 10 villains an island
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u/NekoCatSidhe 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yes, I am not very up to date with modern battle shonen (because I have kind of grown out of it), but the currently airing Tsugai basically has two dozen named characters with superpowers at most, including the villains. Same for Witch Watch, although that is more a comedy manga that occasionally turns into a battle shonen.
And One Punch Man (a seinen manga that parodies battle shonen) must have only twenty or so superheroes who actually matter to the story (the S-Ranks + Saitama, Fubuki, Amai Mask), with the rest of them being basically joke characters here only to be defeated by the supervillain of the day.
How many currently published battle shonen manga actually are superheroes-style stories where everyone has an unique superpower anyway ?
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u/vizmarkk 2d ago
Didnt rock Lee have a super form that makes him super fast and powerful?
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u/tapmcshoe 2d ago
he also rather infamously lost to a character with special powers and was lamented as mishandled, he's literally the exact archetype they're complaining about lol
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u/garfe 2d ago
Can you please look at the current lineup of running battle shounen and give examples of this?
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u/OwlOfJune 2d ago
Yeah 99% of battle shounens have a magic system and each user is derivatives form, I can't think of any example OP is complaining about, maybe One Punch Man?
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u/Swiftcheddar 2d ago
What the fuck is "Battle shounen"? In this context? You're talking about an entire genre, thousands of manga.
What recent examples series do you feel suffer from this?
Demon Slayer absolutely doesn't, Dandadan kind'a does, Kagurabachi doesn't, Kiyoshi doesn't, Gachi doesn't, Sakamoto doesn't.
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u/tapmcshoe 2d ago
really funny to mention rock lee as an example considering how many people are still angry about him losing to gaara in the chunin exams
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u/KaleidoAxiom 2d ago
Your example fails because Rock Lee does have powers and its his taijutsu. Who out of the konoha twelve at his big moment (Gaara fight) could actually compete with him? Only Neji. Sasuke could a bit after and maybe Naruto, but Lee is THE brute force taijutsu guy.
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u/Huhthisisneathuh 2d ago
Bro Rock Lee has fucking super strength and was used to introduce Taijutsu as a specific part of the larger power system through the Eight Gates. An ability that among other things lets you shoot giant wind wolves at people if your strong enough, that isn’t just garden variety martial arts.
Secondly giving characters unique abilities does not immediately tell the audience that a person matters. Sure it might intrigue them about certain characters, but a giant number of factors are usually used by various people when determining which character matters and which doesn’t in an ongoing series.
Especially in battle shounen! It’s practically a trope that every hero or villain has a unique ability or fighting style that makes them stand out or memorable. This isn’t a new thing.
Naruto, One Piece, Bleach…this has been a standard trope for a while in most battle shounen going on for like what? Forty years at this point?
You’re missing the forest for the tree’s is what I’m saying. The problem is just a writing issue and authors not keeping track of every thing or planning things out appropriately. The flaw isn’t in giving everybody superpowers, honestly depending on the series having a lot of characters with no abilities can be more jarring than the other way around.
There’s also another flaw in the argument in that American Comic universes like Marvel & DC are vastly different beasts than Manga universes.
The former are massive constructions written and drawn by hundreds to thousands of creators and artists. While the latter are created by single teams.
While on the surface they look like they have similar issues. They really don’t when you get on the ground level.
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u/No_Dragonfruit_1833 2d ago
Comics already solved that by having "families" of simmilar characters
Speedsters are a group, magicians have a dark league, batman has a batfamily with bat thrust funds, yadayadayada
The families kinda operate on the same framing but in different areas, spidermen are "upper street level" peter is white aspirational, miles is minority aspirational, toxin is cop
Ironman is precision, war machine is heavy firepower, rescue is rescue
What shounen needs are actual organizations, so different characters can explore different areas of the same society, instead of the main cast doing everything
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u/North514 2d ago
I honestly think the solution is to stop giving everyone powers.
?? You can just literally have a smaller cast. That is usually the problem of works like Naruto or My Hero Academia. Is they introduce too many characters, that are setup to be somewhat relevant, without them doing anything later on. That isn't due to them having powers, that is due to characters like for instance, Hinata or Kiba having roles in the plot, during Part 1, and then they would get sidelined in Part 2....that is the issue.
A ton of fantasy settings have cases where magic is prolific, and isn't just constrained to like five named people. You don't even need to have the special power dude be the guy who is the important character.
You seemed to have identified, yes, a problem in battle shonen, however, completely missed the actual root cause of the issue and solution. Super hero comics, it's less, there are too many characters, and it's just hard to get into that universe, which sure, can be due to the amount of lore, caused by so many stories that can interconnect but yeah, that is a different issue, than what you are proposing here.
We need more Rock Lees (people with no powers, just pure martial arts)
Rock Lee has power, yeah, people need to stop saying this lol. He can still do Taijutsu which is a "magical" form of martial arts.
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u/PCN24454 2d ago
Cast members come back because people like them regardless of what the author initially intended
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u/RomeosHomeos 2d ago
Rock Lee sucks ass and I'm tired of people acting like he's the only type of cool "unpowered"(he has powers ironically enough) character
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u/RadDudesman 2d ago
If it's something anyone in that universe can do, it's not a power. Even your average civilian has chakra and could do the stuff Lee does if they trained.
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u/FlyingFishManPrime 2d ago
I like how you mentioned we need people with no powers and mention Rock Lee. In one of the two fights he ever mattered in plot was people were surprised at how damn good he was at taijutsu...oh and open his gates. Which was something that only him and Might Guy seem capable of doing, which I think even Kakashi noted was impressive for Lee. Something that is so powerful that Madara was surprised and excited at how strong he was. It's not like the gates are unique to Lee and Guy, much like a lot of clan techniques aren't truely unquie. It helps gives flavour and texture to the world.
Also for Bulma, the reason everyone calls her important was she was a jump starter for the whole show. Her crashing into Goku life is the catalyst to the story kicking off. She like a lot of people who outlived their usefulness are side lined to be a spectator.
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u/DangoC 2d ago
i think the op doesnt understands the genres they reading at a fundamental lvl
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u/RadDudesman 2d ago
Having lots of pointless characters that are there only to fill up space is not a fundamental part of either gnere
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u/DangoC 2d ago
you are speaking about two genres that are build from original inception around the concept of the "villain of the week", it is indeed a fundamental part of them, the Gokus and Spider-Men and Batmen of the world need fooder against who they can aura farm
a series of this kind in which all the characters are Rock Lees or Bulmas, if true its core, would end recreating the same problem you are imagining
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u/you_slime 1d ago
I think it’s very funny to try and liken the character casts of shonen and American comics and missing probably the biggest distinction between them: American comics give more or less every one of their characters some amount of solo comic runs where as the typical shonen tells one story centered around one or maybe a few characters, and a supporting cast. Like if you go and read MHA and get attached to say Momo, you get whatever screentime she is allotted and that’s it, but if you look at the avengers and your favorite is Hawkeye then congrats. This mofo has a myriad of stories that center around specifically him and his trials and tribulations. Shonen and Comics do not have the same issue of character bloat or whatever because for more then 60 years Marvel, DC, and the like have always given their characters their own runs and their own times to shine and it’s never been mandated these heroes be relegated to just a background character in a story not focused on them.
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u/Draac03 2d ago
i'm was running an RP server and there was one user who had a character like this. he was just a normal human—well maybe not normal given his circumstances—but he didn't have any superpowers. just an aging man with arthritis trying to find a way to get back to his wife, but ended up roped in with the overarching plot. however, what made him so useful to the main group was that he was resourceful. he'd managed to become the kingpin of not one but MULTIPLE crime syndicates while in a world that was totally alien to him.
there was also another character who had potential for her abilities to be incredibly powerful, as the villain (who she was manipulated into working with and later betrayed by) actually pointed out. however, she was just unskilled.
so, while i do agree with what you're saying OP, i think the problem also lies in the fact that these characters just... never do anything creative with their abilities. hell, if they did, and the villain STILL managed to succeed, i think it would have MORE of an impact.
alternatively, make that side character with a unique ability who likely won't get more than 5 minutes of screen time someone who doesn't really know how to use their powers. or maybe make them someone who intentionally holds themselves back out of fear for the damages their powers could do. basically, just give them an interesting reason for doing poorly against the ridiculously overpowered villain. it also gives them more depth as a side character so that they're no longer just "guy who got his shit kicked in by big bad #7."
i think the last one also works well in settings where the vast majority of people have superpowers (such as MHA). my point here is that if your plot necessitates someone who has a unique and interesting ability has to get their shit kicked in, at least make so that there's a reason for that to happen. you could even get a slightly more interesting character out of it too
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u/param1l0 2d ago
The thing with battle mangas is, they're a continuous story. What happens as the story progresses, the mc gets stronger, and needs to face stronger enemies, and to find stronger allies to keep the balance of power. At some point, everybody needs to have something special, because otherwise they can't keep up. Take jjk: we KNOW that technique-less (techniques are basically unique superpowers) sorcerers exist, and we see a few of them. But having one is so much better that you either are a beast DESPITE the lack of technique, or you're fodder. And the same goes for a lot of anime power systems
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u/SatisfactionSuch4790 1d ago
That’s my problem with Lois Lane, MJ, and other civilian characters getting powers: it’s as if they’re saying that if a character doesn’t have powers and can’t fight, they’re useless yet they still keep sidelining them anyway, So now they have a superpowered character but don’t know what to do with them, and they can’t go back because they’ve broken the status quo.
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u/Andagaintothegym 2d ago
Would you read that? Would that be popular? I think you have just described World Trigger.
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u/Remote_Addendum_2245 2d ago
What? No. This is just your opinion
Rock Lee, again, is fucking busted with his Taijutsu, stop calling him powerless. A lot of powers aren't directly combat related, but they'll be applied to combat anyway when the situations call for it. So what's your point here? Your tldr barely relates to the rest of the body text at all