Best Ongoing Shōnen Story

[Stray Cat]

So I'm curious to see what everyone's views are on this.  From what I remember there has always been a rivalry between series like One Piece and Naruto so I wanted to see what everyone thinks.  I'm trying to keep in the realm of extremely popular series but if you think I'm overlooking something let me know. 

 

For me it's a tough choice between One Piece and Fairy Tail but I'm going to have to pick One Piece. 

 

 

[Down]

Hunter x Hunter. Not even a hint of doubt about that for me. There are so many good things about this manga. Which I'm not even going to list because I'm too lazy to do so, but the arcs are so diverse, the battle system so comprehensive and well thought, and all the fights are just crazy good.

[FruitsPunchSamurai]

Hunter x Hunter. No doubt about that. It's just amazing in so many ways.

[Stray Cat]

Hunter x Hunter. No doubt about that. It's just amazing in so many ways.

So says the person with the Erza avatar. XD

[Yukiru]

No magi? Come on that manga is great, Toaru isn't exactly a manga, so no comments there.

From those above it is Fairy Tail. Ah and Soul Eater is also missing.

[Seth]

Fairy Tail in my opinion. The fights aren't too long like in some of the others, you have characters with great development (Wendy as the best example ) and the power levels are still somewhat functioning. One piece would be second place, some of the arcs are just too lengthy for me.

[Praeliator]

For me, without a doubt my vote goes to Hunter x Hunter. It has:

 

Intelligent fight scenes that involve psychological aspects and there aren't any fights where a character wins a fight with willpower being a major aspect.

 

Very diverse arcs where they are so different from each other but the transition between each arc is excellent and doesn't feel too rushed.

 

The power system is the best I've seen, it has enough rules to be restrictive but it also has enough leeway that you could do just about anything.

 

Awesome villains: Mereum is definitely one of the most (if not, the most) well-developed villain I have ever seen out of all the villains in any manga I've read. The Phantom Troupe are a group of thieves who aren't just plain evil for the hell of it.

 

The most glorious character to descend upon shounen: Hisoka

http://i.imgur.com/6tNS8Zo.png?1

[Nosebleed]

You might as well just put some other Shounen Jump titles

I don't read any of these but I read other on going shounen stuff like Ansatsu Kyoshitsu.

[Freestyle80]

Fairy Tail is the only one thats decent from this list,all the others mostly are dragged on pointlessly

[Heizei_koukousei]

I'm another person for HxH.

There's a lot less to complain about than the other ongoing stories

[Rose]

No magi? Come on that manga is great, Toaru isn't exactly a manga, so no comments there.

From those above it is Fairy Tail. Ah and Soul Eater is also missing.

 

Soul Eater ended already, he's asking about the best ongoing one. 

 

Among the ones in the pool, I read only Blech, Naruto, One Piece and Fairy Tail. The only one among them that didn't ruined itself already is One Piece, both in my opinion and by how much the authors ruin them with completely stupid deus ex machinas. I have yet to read HxH so I don't know how it is right now, but The Breaker: New Waves and History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi are awesome shounens as well, the former being a manhwa. 

 

Right now, I think the best one is The Breaker but Kenichi is close, since it's on a really big arc, honestly it's the shounen with most hype for me right now.

[Stray Cat]

Added some new options.   

[Totodile]

honestly Naruto has gone from tolerable to downright suckish and i only glance at bleach manga sometimes to see how badass Kenpachi has become. JoJo's bizarre adventure i gave up on in the first episode, it suuuuuucks 

[Avil]

HunterxHunter and Magi are definitely the best shônen mangas avaliables right now, both are somewhat underrated despite their quality but it's just a matter of time before people get bored of naruto/bleach and start searching other titles.

[Totodile]

HunterxHunter and Magi are definitely the best shônen mangas avaliables right now, both are somewhat underrated despite their quality but it's just a matter of time before people get bored of naruto/bleach and start searching other titles.

HunterXHunter is quite popular right now regardless. The fanbase catapulted out of nowhere 

[Stray Cat]

HunterXHunter is quite popular right now regardless. The fanbase catapulted out of nowhere 

Many people have told me to start watching but I just can't seem to motivate myself to watch anything else that's over 25 episodes anymore. 

[Down]

Also you should add Shingeki no Kyojin to your poll. We'd have way less "I don't like any of those".

 

And maybe Assassination Classroom as suggested by Nosebleed. It's really popular in Japan right now, chances are it'll soon get to that point in the West too. Might be the next favorite "shônen of those who don't like shônen"

[SilverLi]

Such a hard question. I am currently watching Fairy Tail, Naruto and One Piece every week. I like the animes for different reasons I can't really put into text. It is something special about them every time they doing an arc instead of fillers. The epicness, feelings and story are flawless. 

 

But then we got fillers. I think Fairy Tail or One Piece got the better part of fillers. I actually can watch some of them. Naruto fillers are deadly for your health. 

 

My vote is on One Piece. But I would say I enjoy Naruto the most at the moment. But on the long run I think One Piece is better. I have watched all episodes up to date and wasn't bored once I think. Fairy Tail is close but because it is pretty "short" in comparison it still got something to prove even though 200 episodes are good enough. And I like the setup of Fairy Tail. But the current arc will prove me wrong or right. Fairy Tail with the new art is a double edge in my opinion. I don't need the fanservice which is too much at the moment.

 

Naruto isn't the best because the fillers. Such painful fillers. The only filler worth watching is the Kakashi ANBU arc. But you still got 100 - 150 episodes at least of useless fillers you can't even watch. 

[Stray Cat]

I think the overall conclusion seems to be that not many people here like Shōnen.  -_-

[Darklord Rooke]

I think the overall conclusion seems to be that not many people here like Shōnen.  -_-

 

That's certainly the reason I voted the way I did

[Stray Cat]

That's certainly the reason I voted the way I did

[Freestyle80]

its not really about not liking shounen,the ones he listed most of them are old and really boring. to read now

[Down]

I definitely wouldn't call it my favorite genre but I would say it has a special place in my heart since it served as my (and probably quite a few people's) gateway to anime, manga and the like. 

"Shônen" by itself is not really a genre, it's way too large for that.

 

The main reason for those results is that long-running Jump shônen have a bad reputation because they're overly popular. They're often just ignored and not read by a huge chunk of the "less mainstream" manga readers and, especially, anime watchers. But they're not representative of "shônen" as a whole. Too bad that people won't read One Piece, one of the best constructed and epic stories in manga, and the symbol of an entire decade, but that specific genre is just not popular around here.

 

Which is why I suggested adding Attack on Titans, but it might have been too late.

 

its not really about not liking shounen,the ones he listed most of them are old and really boring. to read now

I lived to see One Piece called "old and boring". I'm only 21 and I already feel like an old fart

[Rose]

I don't dislike shounens, actually most of stuff I'm reading, have read and probably will read in the future are shounens. The problem is that so many of them end up getting worse with the time, you also can't escape the deus ex machinas, some of them are acceptable but there are times when it gets just so dumb it's frustrating to read. Since it's a discussion about the best ongoing shounen, I'll give my input on three of the four 'biggest' titles popularity-wise, I'll stick with the ones that I think that are actually bad right now because I'd rather be seen as a hater than a fanboy, that's what I mostly get when I give my opinion about mangas/animes anyway. And I usually discuss those three with a friend and so I have everything I wanna say in mind.

 

Fairy Tail

I was really excited when I discovered that Hiro Mashima, the guy who made Groove Adventure Rave (a.k.a Rave Master) was making a new series. It was good at the beginning, seemed to be interesting and at first, it really was, like most shounens tend to be, it starts teaching you about general stuff of the manga's universe, showing characters, maybe foreshadowing somethings and then, just like most shounens, it starts to lose it's way. There are actually so many times where Fairy Tail broke itself that it's not hard to understand why it's considered a good manga, after all, what matters in this genre is to have awesome things going on and friendship, etc. Let's set some examples:

• I'll predict that one day, one of the Dragon Slayers - very likely Natsu, will have all the elements within him and use it against a big enemy, acnologia or even Zeref. They'll just give their elements to the chosen one and he'll enter in a kind of nature dragon mode, using every single power of the DS's to overpower any kind of enemy, just like it has been for a while for the DS mages. When Natsu ate aetherion, which contained every single element, he was incapacitated for days, later it was said that eating Laxus lightning had the same effect on him and yet after eating his lightning again - this time a full magical power filled one, he can use Lightning-Fire Dragon Mode at will, with no explanation about how he does that. Gajeel can also freely use Iron-Shadow Dragon Mode, and so far he proved that he uses the shadow element more efficiently than Rogue.
• Erza will never lose a 1-on-1 battle to the end. She's the physical representation of Deus Ex Machina. Both Azuma and Kaguya completely overpowered her, just so she could say that her friends need her and suddenly win.
• Franmalth, the etherious member of the kyukimon, the one who could absorb souls of both living beings and magic, got defeated in such a forced way. He not only had Hades soul, he had absorbed the Lightning-Fire Dragon Mode on top of it. Natsu then came up with the idea of hitting him with a huge rock since he couldn't absorb it's soul... Really? Someone with the power of Hades got defeated by being smacked down by a rock? He had already used the magic chains and an amaterasu formula, he could use all the magics shown in Hades arsenal, or even just use a magic push to take away Natsu's balance and then beat him up again, but nah, rocks are scary.

[Chewy]

One piece FTW

It was tough between OP and HxH though.

 

Continuing on above points, Bleach also has a repeating storyline. That ruins and trashes it perfectly with a knockdown. I mean yes a lot of shonen stories all have similar storyline between different arcs but it almost seems Bleach lacks that variety for example backstabbing or major (not minor) plot twists. These give the almost repeating storyline more depth and interest.