Things I Hate In Shonen Manga

Written by: Micha.

Picture this. You have a huge stock of your favorite pizza lined up for you with your most favorite pizza toppings (if you hate pizza, get the fuck out) but the catch is, it has olives too and you hate olives. The olives were tampering the flavor of your food. It was disgusting you. It was making you vomit.

I get the same feeling every time they ruin my favorite shonen manga with little things that gets on my nerves. And I must warn you that this article is where I will look like a narrow-minded, conservative, intolerant little piece of shit to some of you, because what I hate in shonen will be mostly what you love about it.    

Women.

I must confess that I’m an out-and-out sexist. Despite being a woman myself, I have been giving my middle finger to most of my species. There’s just something about stereotypical women that makes my blood boil every time I encounter one. So naturally, my interests and preferences in most things lie on common ground with those of men.

Let me tell you this. Shonen was created for the purpose of promoting an idea of heroic young boys. It exists for the purpose of making nerdy boys feel special and courageous in an entertaining and educational way. Shonen is their turf. Shonen is the geeky retreat for them. And whenever there’s anything beautiful such as that, women just have to butt in and ruin it.

Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope. 

The best examples for traditional manga would be Naruto and DragonBall Z. And the best thing about them is that they never focus too much on the females of the show, especially when it comes to utilizing them in battle. Why? Because fuck women. This is testosterone paradise, people. We don’t need to watch pissy women fighting in battles, not just because it’s not customary, but also become shonen is a man’s thing!

Most people think manga such as Naruto and Dragon Ball Z do not focus on women because the manga artists lack the ability to write well developed female characters. Bullshit. Any mediocre writer could create a badass female character, but why don’t they do it? Because it’s. not. shonen. tradition.

I know this is a hard concept to digest, especially if you’re from a younger generation since feminism has probably eaten away your brain by now. And considering that there’s a ridiculous increase in women character development happening nowadays in recent action manga, this shit has become normal to you.

   

I think it would probably be a better idea for me to conserve turtles or a buffalo species rather than declaring war on feminism to save my traditional shonen manga style, because honestly, anybody who challenged those nutjobs are in jail. And I don’t want to go back in there yet.

Romance.

Here’s the thing with romance. I despise it. Actually, despise is the nice word for the feeling I have towards it. I avoid it at all time. I avoid it in real life, I avoid it in fiction preferences, be it books, movie or even manga. Which is also one of the reasons why I choose to devote my time to shonen manga. Why? Because it’s all about tough action with little to no romance focus.  Well, of course, up until recently.

I honestly don’t understand why the new shonen manga artists have the need to emphasize romance so much in shonen. Oh wait, I do. It’s a cheap way of getting readers hooked on their manga and distracts the readers from the horrible storyline they come up with.

If there is such a thing as heart breaks, I felt it for this manga that day. 

But I’m not amused. I hate romance in my action manga. And I know that some amount of romance is essential to keep the lonely readers entertained but it becomes a problem when consequently a week or two goes by with heavy density of romance thrown at us. If you’re that desperate to win over my heart, let me kindly direct you to my pants where my dick awaits to be sucked. Or join a shojo magazine, if that helps.

And worst of all, heavily implied canon couples, such as NatsuXLucy, or ErzaXJellal, or NarutoXHinata insanely fuels the fanbase like a political sex scandal fuels the mainstream media, enough to divert you from the most important thing in manga; the fucking plot.

Because it will be all you talk about. Every thread, every discussion board, every conversation will be reeking of fandom wars, because hey, who cares about the plot, my ship is becoming canon!  

Fanservice.

Now let’s bitch about fanservice.

I know. It’s tedious, it has been discussed in here before and this is becoming a drag but this was inevitable and the bitter truth. Constant fanservice is destructive, not just to the customary shonen image, but also the fanbase.  

And when I say fanservice, I’m referring to the seductive style of clothing, nearly all girls having enormous breasts for reasons still unknown to me, and generally over-sexualizing characters, since romance has been talked about before. And some artists feel the need to use excessive, excessive, excessive amounts of fanservice, which I can guess is some sickeningly convenient way to lure (dumb) readers.  

Where there is FT, there is excessive fanservice.

 Fanservice is a low, cheap and an easier way to gain (dumb) readers for your show. It’s the manga equivalent of comedians making fart jokes, music artists using provocative lyrics about sex and drugs, and movie stars showing too much of skin.  

Fanservice is one of the genius ways -and at the same time very idiotic method- manga artists try to cover up their pathetic writing skills. A good writer shouldn’t have to use fanservice to keep readers around. You know how you can seduce me? Create an earth-shattering plot, with well-developing characters, brilliant battles, and I will be wetting my pants and I promise it wouldn’t be piss.

I still think that women have completely ruined shonen. And this article may seem like propaganda of mine to encourage anti-feminism or anti-women, but the truth is, women really do suck. Because with women comes romance and fanservice, and everything that’s going wrong in action manga.

Traditional shonen manga is dying. And with it, dies my conservative, republican soul.  Just kidding, I don’t have one. But yes, traditional shonen is dying.  We all knew this was going to happen eventually ever since certain manga were released and continually started plaguing the style of action manga.

But can we do anything other than bitch about it? Nope.

Micha: [Co-founder]









Micha likes to broadcast her terrible drawing skills to the world on her DeviantArt account and talks about her life long ambition of making Yakushi Kabuto a woman, on her Skype; michasucks. Yes, with the dot. She will also respond to e-mails on her michamichamicha@live.com because Amber forces her to.

 Also, I now have an ask.fm. Here's your chance to  harass me.

Haters and constructive people only. Dicksuckers piss off.