Started writing this last night while people were being mean to shounen. Might as well finish it to make you guys think I'm even crazier/more pathetic (and hopefully take back my title from DTL). I doubt it will change the rather negative opinion of the genre around here, but whatever.
Why Battle Shounen is an awesome genre
When talking about battle series/shounen, there are 2 keywords to keep in mind;
Escalation and
Variety. Sometimes they overlap, but their importance can clearly be seen whether separate or combined.
Escalation
Now when I say escalation, I don't just mean in scale. I'm associating the term with virtually everything important to plot advancement. That means character development, relationship growth, bigger conflicts, more significant fights, all coupled with an increase in a sense of scale.
The standard is of course, to focus on a relatively weak character that gets stronger as time goes on. In other words, a kind of coming of age story. Yeah, that sounds overdone and cliche at this point, but there's a reason it's such a popular setup. Old normal Billy Highschooler might not be some crazy hero now, but through his adventure, he will meet tons of people, get super strong, and get tangled up in multiple conflicts that he may or may not look forward to.
In a good battle series, it will actually feel like things progress. The protagonist, regardless of how willing he or she is to go through all this crap, will grow as a person. And it won't be a sudden change. It will be gradual, something you won't notice until looking back at earlier chapters and/or episodes. It's like growing up alongside a friend. Subtle changes happen little at a time.
Then there's the conflicts and growth in abilities. Again, a good shounen will not throw a character into the middle of something beyond their capabilities unless they are destined to lose. That's not to say things can't be crazy at the beginning, but the point is they will get crazier. The protagonist might start out in a small town and have to beat up some powerful douchebag that keeps stealing fences. Later on, that guy alongside a bunch of new allies will end up raiding a government facility staffed with uber-powerful guards or something, with insanity everywhere! You want to be able to say "wow, that guy totally couldn't do this stuff at the beginning of the series" while actually believing the growth. This is something good shounen series can do.
In
One Piece, the battle of Marineford is far and away the largest scale battle in the entire series which is a far cry from its comparatively low-key introductory arcs.
And the escalation doesn't necessarily have to be limited to the main cast either. Learning bits and pieces about the setting and side characters multiple times will let you see the world the series takes place in as a living, breathing entity connected by several stories, big and small.
One Piece is an example of good escalation. Every single arc with the exception of one is vital to the overarching plot and furthering the lore of the world. The character relationships advance, their own specific traumas come to the surface, their abilities increase, etc. You can safely say that Luffy is not the same person he was at the beginning of the series. His overall personality may not have undergone any drastic changes, but his actions and priorities definitely show a sense of growth. And after a certain point, the world becomes absolutely massive with hundreds of connections and well-foreshadowed relationships or events.
Something like
Inuyasha on the other hand, is an example of poor escalation. Every new learned technique and the time spent to obtain said technique is invalidated by a bullshit counter the main antagonist comes up with, sometimes on the spot. And that's just the bottom of the complaint barrel. There's also static character growth which extends for several tens of episodes, insignificant conflicts that have little bearing on the actual plot, inconsistent power levels that make every fight an uninteresting crapshoot, and sometimes actual REGRESSION in all of these categories.
A good sense of escalation is generally among the more difficult things to pull off within the genre. Many authors fall into the same pitfalls as
Inuyasha, albeit nowhere near as bad. However, when it is pulled off well, you got yourself a large scale adventure akin to a good epic.
Variety
When you have such a long series, you don't want it to be the same thing over and over again. So what do you do? You plan a vast array of different scenarios, characters, abilities, battle strategies, locales, designs, hats, light bulbs, and whatever the hell you can think of!
In terms of areas, long running shounen series can sometimes be like a theme park. Any given area might have some kind of gimmick or theme, whether it be the tried and true ones like ice worlds, haunted houses, etc. or it could be something more unique like a town made entirely of jello that can also time travel. The point is, you're not gonna be bored from the same old environment provided the series doesn't take place in one particular area.
The country known as "Life" in
Toriko is among the more unique locales in the series.
Due to length, there's a good chance any given long running series will have a shitton of characters, many with their own unique abilities, quirks and designs. Now of course the longer a series is, the more chance there is for character overlap, but fortunately, those characters with a ton in common with other characters aren't generally given very much attention. Anyway, such massive casts can lead to really compelling situations depending on their interactions with other characters. It becomes something like chemistry, mixing together certain chemicals to see what happens. With so many chemicals to choose from, you end up with compatible characters, leading to a nice sense of camaraderie where the relationship won't define said characters. And if they aren't compatible, it could lead to some hilarious situations or outright antagonism, bringing about a potentially cool fight.
Since these works are generally aimed at pre-teen/teenage boys, the rule of cool might play a part in determining a character's design, abilities, and sometimes even personality. Maybe you got a guy with a big-ass laser cannon grafted to his shoulder and a chainsaw sword that shoots chainsaws embedded in his left hand. The sheer amount of crazy designs and powers out there is staggering. Admittedly not for everyone, but it shouldn't be too difficult to see why many people might consider these various designs badass. Or maybe they consider them annoying. The fact remains there's just so many to choose from that it just goes back to the point I made about these world being living, breathing entities.
Just like character relations, pitting abilities against each other is also something like chemistry. With fighting being one of the main points of the genre, you want a match up that would make for an interesting battle. What makes many so entertaining are the unknown variables which extend beyond what we know about each character. This applies to the strategies, the choreography itself, and just to what extent an ability can be used to. Sometimes it's conditional and sometimes it's based on power levels, but a good shounen fight will keep you on the edge of your seat with a creative usage of skill sets and wit.
A good example of this is
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Some of the most creative abilities in fiction coupled with some totally (well, usually) believable strategies that actually turn a shitty situation into a good one without feeling like an asspull. Araki is a master at this kind of stuff because he understands how a fight should be set up and how it should play out from both a strategic and choreographic standpoint. Completely crazy moves like carving a message into your own arm or blinding yourself suddenly become genius, and taking into account the personalities of the characters, you realize it isn't beyond them at all. And since this is almost all conditional rather than based on power levels, the ridiculous amount of unknown factors only make the battles more intense.
Then you take a look at the other side of the coin, where standard abilities can lead to some very interesting results. Variety in application is more important than variety in design.
Flame of Recca is an example of this. Standard Captain Planet abilities are very prevalent throughout the series, but the way they are utilized is really creative and strategic enough to say it doesn't feel like it's unoriginal. While not on Araki's level, Anzai is another guy that knows his strategies and how to frame a fight in general. Interestingly enough,
Flame of Recca is also among four or so series that have been accused of plagiarism, the plagiarized work in question being
Yu Yu Hakusho. What makes this so interesting is the tournament arc is similar in its setup, but the content of the actual battles is quite different. You could almost say it would be believable if they took place in the same universe, but the battle variety makes it hard to accuse of being a straight copy.
Poor variety is generally just using the same attack over and over again with the same result. Interestingly enough, something like
Fairy Tail is both good and bad at this. With the main character Natsu, his moves are all fairy similar and remain so throughout what we've seen. However, the rest of the cast actually utilizes different techniques as well as the same ones in different ways. Gray's fight with Ultear is probably the best example, making good use of his knowledge of the enemy's abilities and using the environment itself to his advantage.
Variety is usually pretty easy to pull off in the most basic sense. Anyone can slap together the most oddball design they can think of and couple it with the most oddball ability they can think of. Hell, you can probably just combine a lot of stuff you consider "cool". Boom, there's your character! But the execution is what matters most, and this is where escalation comes in once again. In battles, escalation is just another part of variety. The general progression of a fight will have each character using bigger moves as it goes on, switching things up, sometimes even growing stronger (which would hopefully be foreshadowed and not an asspull). A sound strategy and solid choreography with good variety can make even the stupidest characters and powers look good.
The Espada and the Vizard are two groups in
Bleach that display a great deal of variety. However, the series fails in escalation.
While we're on the subject of variety, judging the genre by any one measure is doing it a big disservice. What do you want out of the genre? Want to ignore the plot and just experience some glorious fights? Read something like
Gamaran or
Kongou Banchou. Want the opposite where the plot takes priority while the fights are secondary? Read
Alive: The Final Evolution. Want the complete package? Read/watch
One Piece.
It's a big genre, so no need to generalize. I mean there's enough people excited for
Magi and
Jojo to say it has its place.
I kind of see the genre as complimentary to JRPGs. Sometimes you got your Persona 4s, with their slow starts that eventually lead to you seeing the characters as actual friends and going through withdrawal upon completing it. Sometimes you got your Dragon Quest 7s, which take too damn long to go nowhere. Sometimes you got your Xenosagas that bring about a whole bunch of convolution, yet still remain entertaining. In other words, it can be a commitment that isn't for everyone, but can also be very rewarding if you keep an open mind.
