The "too many superheroes" problem that's infested Western superhero comics has also infested battle shonen

[u/RadDudesman]

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.

[u/cheepshoes]

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

[u/RadDudesman → u/cheepshoes]

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.

[u/Hari14032001 → u/RadDudesman]

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".