Best Ongoing Shōnen Story

[Freestyle80]

"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.

 

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

[Stray Cat]

 

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.

 

Naruto

I don't think there's a lot to say here, how much the quality of this series decreased is just stupid. It's been really weak for a long time, so I'll just mention some of the worst parts of this most recent arc, which I already did before on another thread.

• The promised main villain since a long ago (Madara) was simply trolled by Black Zetsu and out of nowhere an alien rabbit god becomes the new main villain.
• Obito literally said: "Hey, Death. Wait a minute, I gotta leave the limbo for a bit so I can give Kakashi my Mangekyou Sharingan. He's so weak he might actually die now and cockblock me for eternity".
• Kakashi always had trouble to use kamui, but he suddenly used a perfect Susano'o, which Sasuke who's a true Uchiha took a long time to perfect, he even had the same scar on the eye because of aesthetic reasons. Also, he was really weakened by that time, his already low chakra pool was basically empty but let's just give him one of the most powerful technics of the series, he might as well fuse kamui in a super large scale with some of his attacks for the hype.

 

Bleach

Kubo being a troll, that's basically what we've been getting at Bleach for a few years. Bleach had an awesome beginning, until around Soul Society arc, the manga was good and very likely worth the fame. By the end of it, the series fell really hard. The arrancars were interesting, but when it came to their fights, some of them ended up with really disappointing endings. Aizen basically is Kubo in Bleach, he knows about everything and he actually is the one who setup the plot for the main character, he's the ultimate troll but we knew that from the beginning, you can't be ready to half of what he's capable of. Also, Ichigo is literally everything, not exactly a flaw but it's just Kubo's way of powering him up and being able to give him and other characters prettier outfits, yeah, we all know he's actually only practicing to design for fashion magazines. Either way, some stupid stuff from lately:

• Byakuya came back from the dead in such a poor way. His death was incredibly beautiful, even kinda romantic just like Kubo likes it. But his fandom would go nuts if he actually died, so he came back brutally powered up and ripped three Sternritters with ease, one of them being the one who managed to even take one of Kyouraku's eyes.
• As Nodt fear was supposed to be a primordial thing. You can surpass your fears but you are not supposed to be able to do the same with The Fear. To quote As Nodt himself: "For the ones hit by my arrows anything turns into fear." and also "If you investigate further, all "safety" is connected to "life" and all "fear" to "death". Even people who don't know "why they want to live" will be able to tell you "why they don't want to die". Not only the "creatures who have feelings". All living things... instinctively... try to avoid "death" and thus "fear". There's no way that fear doesn't work as long as you are alive". Even knowing this, Rukia overcame her fear by some pretty words said by Byakuya, who supposedly should also inspire fear upon her.
• Gremmy could win against anyone if he wasn't dumb as fuck, or if it wasn't for his personality of wanting to beat Kenpachi so much he self-destroyed his body trying to imagine himself as stronger if you prefer like this. Arguably, it would be possible for Juha Bach to win if he's able to take bach The Visionary from him. Yamamoto could arguably win using Zanka no Tachi but that's only a low probability since he can't kill Gremmy. The Soul King never showed himself in a fight so there's no way to tell, but let's just leave him as a potential one since you know, he's the king.

 

I read them all except FT cause I'm watching that.   I feel the same mostly, that stores that stretch on too long tend to lose their appeal (which is why I hardly ever watch anything longer than 26 episodes).  One Piece and Fairly Tail are the only ones I don't feel that way about and I know people who feel the same about Naruto, Bleach and the others, so I wanted to see where the alignment was. 

[Chewy]

I read them all except FT cause I'm watching that.   I feel the same mostly, that stores that stretch on too long tend to lose their appeal (which is why I hardly ever watch anything longer than 26 episodes).  One Piece and Fairly Tail are the only ones I don't feel that way about and I know people who feel the same about Naruto, Bleach and the others, so I wanted to see where the alignment was. 

I agree with this point. When youve got a limited space, you tend to want to compress the action so therefore, we get lots of action very quickly. When you get a infinitely large space, you think of ways to fill it up with content and action and whatnot. At the end of the day, if the balance is slightly off, you just dont feel like its quite right. 

[Darklord Rooke]

I'll try shounen anime but usually they're not to my taste. I do like Rurouni Kenshin and Hajime no Ippo, and also Tenchi (I think that's considered shounen.) Is Trigun shounen or seinen?

 

But these series aren't ongoing. 

 

And I've tried reading One Piece. It wasn't for me.

[Down]

I'll try shounen anime but usually they're not to my taste. I do like Rurouni Kenshin and Hajime no Ippo, and also Tenchi (I think that's considered shounen.) Is Trigun shounen or seinen?

[Dark Ariel7]

It really is not a contest. There are only 2 that actually have more going for them than "it's ok I guess..." Hunter X Hunter and One Piece. I dont read the manga for either. I only watch the anime. I cannot get enough of it. One piece might win if it wasn't for the short doses that you get per episode. If you marathon instead of weekly they are more even. But I still have to hand it to HxH. They just keep it so fresh and full of life. Every episode is actually full of story. To be fair though, HxH is not afraid to catch up to the manga because it knows when it will end. On the other hand One piece is only just over half way with about 5 times the content. And One Piece at least updates regularly unlike HxH(manga). So I vote One Piece for the poll because it will be with me when I turn 30 and is hopefully still good. But as of at this very moment I say HxH edges out a victory.

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. 

[Jibril]

Out of those, I only read and watch Assassination Classroom and One Piece and I think One Piece pretty much wins (especially after ep 400+). Not to mention it will probably take 10 years for it to end... which means more epic story and twists (the current arc has already lasted for more than half a year, go figure).