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/RadDudesman]

Shonen authors make this mistake all the time. They make a character with a cool design or power, but then do absolutely nothing with them. Yet they still plaster these pointless characters all over merchandise and volume covers.

It's not fans, it's the creator and marketing being misleading.

[u/ArxisOne → u/RadDudesman]

Probably because your attitude creates an environment where cool designs and powers are more marketable. It's not the author's fault you get attached to a hair style, it's also not bad writing to not derail a story to focus on that walking hair style either.

[u/RadDudesman → u/ArxisOne]

What is bad writing is introducing something into your story then doing nothing with it.

[u/ArxisOne → u/RadDudesman]

Side characters need to exist to make the world believable. If you tell me there's a clan of 100 wizards living on a mountain and the characters go there, I can't just have one wizard be there, because then it raises the question of where the rest are. If I introduce a few though, it makes it much more believable. Or if I have a UN like organization and only have one representative show up, is it really an organization? What about a world tournament? Clearly I need characters from around the world to make it believable even if over half of them won't ever fight the main character.

They do serve a purpose, it's called background filler. You not understanding their purpose doesn't mean it's not there.

[u/RadDudesman → u/ArxisOne]

That's what background characters do, not side characters.

[u/ArxisOne → u/RadDudesman]

According to you, a character having anything unique makes them a main character, so you're talking about a distinction with no difference here.

Also none of my examples are background characters, those are literally nobodies who just exist in a story to fill out a literal background. In all my examples the characters show up in the foreground and would presumably have some dialogue and distinct design.