Are there other shonen you acknowledge as better written than Dragon Ball?

[Kinokima]

I’d say it does tell you who the target audience is because they’re published in a publication targeted at young boys but target demographic doesn’t necessarily correlate with the actual audience.

That My Little Pony cartoon is a good example. The target demo is young girls but a large part of its audience, infamously so, is young men.

I largely agree with you and even in the case of Haikyuu I think it was probably initially aimed at a male audience but then caught on with a female audience and the merchandise reflected that

But I do think some Shounen Magazines (and there are a lot) try to diversify their catalog to pull in a female audience.

[MCDaveG]

Well, Gundam is sci-fi and adventure with war drama and mecha...
What we label as shonen usually is One Piece, DB, Saint Seiya, Yu Yu Hakusho etc.

And it’s wrong. Shonen is still a demographic and covers anything from kids and their fighting monsters to martial arts series to sports anime to slice of life/school anime to giant mecha. Anything that could have appeal to elementary and middle school boys.


I don’t particularly like the term “battle shonen”’ because that still puts series like Yu-gi-oh and Beyblades as the same genre as Dragon Ball but it’s a better descriptor for those shows.

In that case we are in a wrong thread

Hence, let's call it, are there other fighting manga that we acknowledge as better written?
I don't know, that is really subjective. Most of the manga uses the same tropes, but I really liked Yu Yu Hakusho, which I think is miles better as manga than the anime. It dealt with some yokai stuff in the beginning, before going full on fighting manga.
But can't really think of anything, that is somewhat going out of it's way.

[MCDaveG]

I’d say it does tell you who the target audience is because they’re published in a publication targeted at young boys but target demographic doesn’t necessarily correlate with the actual audience.

That My Little Pony cartoon is a good example. The target demo is young girls but a large part of its audience, infamously so, is young men.

I largely agree with you and even in the case of Haikyuu I think it was probably initially aimed at a male audience but then caught on with a female audience and the merchandise reflected that

But I do think some Shounen Magazines (and there are a lot) try to diversify their catalog to pull in a female audience.

Saint Seiya was pretty popular among female fanbase... read some interview with Kurumada about it, that female fans liked it because of Shun and characters like Lacerta Misty being naked androgynous male.
But remember being part of some western fanbases where female audience really dominated.

I like Shun for being really a divergence in male protagonist, as he is pacifist and doesn't like violence unless he has to as a last resort and pretty much shows that it's OK to be a man and be emotional and caring.

[FortuneSSJ]

Hunter x Hunter when it comes to characters and power system.
One Piece when it comes to story and worldbuilding.

Saiyan arc is peak battle shonen though.

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

I'm not saying you can't criticize anything. I've engaged in it and if you go to the Super re-read threads, other users who I'm going to assume share similar mindsets to mine also do the same. I'm saying criticism isn't done necessarily via overall comparisons with other works of art, that's not productive and too vague of an approach.

I think my hang up here is that this thread is a fairly specific context. This is a Dragon Ball forum so it can be safely assumed that the people here have a high opinion of Dragon Ball and Akira Toriyama. What you're afraid of is something I'd probably sooner associate with a general reddit thread, rather than a community setup to celebrate one franchise.

Maybe it's just my idealism (and looking at the thread, yeah it probably is) but asking a community like this "hey, what does X but better?" is a good way to get strong recommendations. Everyone here should know what worked about Dragon Ball and what didn't, so responses should look like this

Hunter x Hunter when it comes to characters and power system.
One Piece when it comes to story and worldbuilding.

Saiyan arc is peak battle shonen though.

Clear understanding of what could be seen as weakness of Dragon Ball, recommendations that highlight what these shows offer that Dragon Ball doesn't, and a reiteration of what makes Dragon Ball one of a kind. (Basically the opposite of my meandering post)

[Hellspawn28]

Barefoot Gen is probably one of the best Shonen manga in my opinion. DB is not even close to its level of emontion and storytelling in my opinion.

[Kid Buu]

Outside of that, I like other genres, like Gundam for example.

Unless there's a random seinen manga of Heero Yui or Char Aznable somewhere out there in the ether, the Gundam franchise is pure shonen.

Shonen's not a genre.

Always the Rocketman quote in my signature about Shonen.

[DBZAOTA482]

I can say a couple new ones like Attack on Titans and One Piece are better written. Yu Yu Hakusho is also better with characters and themes.

Although I contend the Namek arc as the best arc in shonen history.

[UltraInstinctRorikon]

Naruto did tactics in fights better you can see this in particular with the Sound Four fights.
One Piece does world building better and keeping things consistent over a long period of time, truly the best at consistency. It especially shines with all the main characters remaining relevant.
HxH women having better designs and portrayals overall.
Toriko having more diverse designs for male characters.

As for what Dragon Ball does better than these shows I'd say although it fails at long term story telling, consistency with it's story telling, it remains entertaining despite when it's having it's worst moments. Due to the pure absurd creativity by Toriyama even when I'm in arcs I really do not like he somehow made the content enjoyable. Maybe not always in the way I wanted it to be, but it's clear he goes all out with whatever strange or fun idea he has in his mind and it shows.

[Kendamu]

Not really. The "Kung Fu" genre is different than the pirate, ninja, superhero, etc. genres. Just because Naruto and Dragon Ball were aimed at the same age group doesn't mean they'll follow the same tropes and be so directly comparable.

"Shinobi No Mono," a film from the 60s about ninja might be aimed at the same age group as Bruce Lee's "Return/Way of the Dragon" from the 70s, but they're totally different genres of film and can't really be so directly compared.

Same goes for something like Dragon Ball or Naruto. If you like the long-con plot twists and stuff and the tricky fights of Naruto better than a straightforward martial arts action story with escalating threats like Dragon Ball, then you'll probably like "Shinobi" more than "Dragon" when it comes to film. But both are still really great films in their respective genres.

Now if you wanna compare, say, Naruto to Tokyo Shinobi Squad then I can have thst conversation.

[Zephyr]

*looks through list of favorite comics to see which happen to be from Japan and also aimed specifically at young boys*

The only Japanese comics aimed at young boys that I've read fully are Dragon Ball and Devilman. I read a little bit of Yu-Gi-Oh! before dropping it, might pick it back up some time. I've read a little bit of Dr. Slump, Fist of the North Star, and Yu Yu Hakusho, but none have hooked me yet.

Dragon Ball and Devilman are so different that it seems silly to compare them. The former excels at making me laugh, and the latter at making me think. But Devilman is shorter, sweeter, and to the point. Characters grow on natural and straightforward arcs, thematic content is pretty clear, etc. Just well crafted stuff.

I would compare Dragon Ball's writing against that of other cartoons from Japan aimed at young boys, of which I've seen many more than I've read. But at that point I'm either comparing one work's source material to another work's adaptation, or I'm comparing something that doesn't represent "Dragon Ball's writing, as it was written" against things that are meant to compare and contrast with "Dragon Ball's writing, as it was written".

Not really. The "Kung Fu" genre is different than the pirate, ninja, superhero, etc. genres. Just because Naruto and Dragon Ball were aimed at the same age group doesn't mean they'll follow the same tropes and be so directly comparable.

I think peoples' tendency to group Dragon Ball and its direct imitators into the same "Battle Shonen" genre is off the mark not for the grouping, but for the label they put on it. Not to deny the influence of ninja, pirate, superhero, etc media on these respective "successors", but there seems to be some sort of "kung fu-lite" bend to them. Tournaments, training arcs, throwing hands to speak to each other, etc. by way of their doing what DB was doing.

In the same way that by riffing on Journey to the West, Fist of the North Star, and who knows how many Hong Kong fantasy martial arts films, Dragon Ball can reasonably be retroactively classified as "Wuxia/Xianxia/Xuanhuan-like/lite".

[Kinokima]

Honestly I do think Naruto and Dragon Ball share certain tropes that they can be grouped into the same overall genre even though the “fighting style” & setting is not the same. I mean if you mainly enjoy Dragon Ball and Naruto specifically for their fighting style or setting/influence you may not see them as the same genre. But I see connections between series like Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, Yu Yu Hakusho, etc. That doesn’t mean they are exactly the same, otherwise why read different stories if they were the exact same thing.

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

Nothing to do with anything but since Devilman was brought up

Loved the modern adaptation. Wish I could say the same for Cutie Honey Universe. Guess some of Nagai's stuff is easier to update than others.

Not really. The "Kung Fu" genre is different than the pirate, ninja, superhero, etc. genres. Just because Naruto and Dragon Ball were aimed at the same age group doesn't mean they'll follow the same tropes and be so directly comparable.

I think peoples' tendency to group Dragon Ball and its direct imitators into the same "Battle Shonen" genre is off the mark not for the grouping, but for the label they put on it. Not to deny the influence of ninja, pirate, superhero, etc media on these respective "successors", but there seems to be some sort of "kung fu-lite" bend to them. Tournaments, training arcs, throwing hands to speak to each other, etc. by way of their doing what DB was doing.

In the same way that by riffing on Journey to the West, Fist of the North Star, and who knows how many Hong Kong fantasy martial arts films, Dragon Ball can reasonably be retroactively classified as "Wuxia/Xianxia/Xuanhuan-like/lite".

Categories are always hazy at the margins. Is Three Hearts and Three Lions dark fantasy, high fantasy or epic fantasy? Does it fit into the sword and sorcery genre? Any honest answer is going to be followed by an asterisk linking to a block of text contextualizing the work alongside the conventions of its day and what the author was borrowing from.

Anyway, the best battle shonen is G-Gundam. Not even a competition. Giant robots, screaming teenagers with weird hair, and kung-fu. Literally the maximum amount of awesome.

[Kinokima]

You could also say different series fit into more than one genre. There are broader genres and then you can get more specific with the nitty gritty

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

Probably JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. It's got its own share of writing problems, (Some parts are obviously better than others) but it always manages to stay interesting with each part. It also manages to beat the American superhero comics curse by actually giving each part a clear conclusions and changing the protagonist with each part.

[Kendamu]

You could also say different series fit into more than one genre. There are broader genres and then you can get more specific with the nitty gritty

The problem I have with that is that nearly ALL the tropes and a fair amount of main character names and backgrounds in Naruto directly reference old ninja fiction.

Like if you've ever seen or read ANY older ninja fiction out of Japan you'd already know about Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru specifically and you'd already know what animals they summon and that ninpo magic like that was super common when depicting ninja on film pre-1960 when the more grounded historically accurate takes became popular.

And even if you only watch the grounded stuff you'd know where Sasuke got his name and you'd see the Itachi plot twist from a million miles away only because it happens ALL THE TIME in ninja fiction. It's an incredibly common trope specific to ninja fiction.

But if Naruto was your intro to these tropes, then what you'll see is, "Naruto is like DB because training, battles, and rivals to friends," while missing literally everything else that keeps it from being in the same genre as Dragon Ball.

Wuxia or not, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan films and their tropes are specifically referenced in Dragon Ball and their films had a heavy heavy influence. Heck! Even the old Golden Harvest logo movie intro thing is directly lifted and applied in the anime version of one of the openings to some of the Budokai episodes of DB (same music and all!).

While Lee and Chan's films are a more grounded take on martial arts than a high-fantasy Wuxia film, they still follow the same story beats as a Wuxia film the same way realistic takes on ninja have the same plot twist structure as the more high-fantasy ninja stuff. And Toriyama directly lifted those Kung Fu story beats, which are very distinct from ninja story beats, and applied them to DB.

Of Naruto and DB really have anything in common, it's that their respective authors combined the incredibly kinetic action of the grounded takes with the awe-inspiring mystical aspects of the high-fantasy takes in a very entertaining way while still managing to aim the material directly at children.

"Battle Shonen" is too broad a category for in-depth comparisons. Putting DB, MHA, Naruto, etc. into the same genre is like saying Johnny Quest and Thundercats are in the same genre because there are adventures in both and they're aimed at different generations of the same age group.

Btw the only reason I'm saying this is because if you decide to directly compare them anyway, at least you'll have a better idea of what you're looking at. These aren't all the exact same stories dressed in ninja clothes or Kung Fu clothes or Superhero clothes. They take a lot more from their respective genres than you'd imagine and they deserve to be appreciated for what they are instead of being dissected for what they aren't.

[goku the krump dancer]

I'm with Kendamu on this... Naruto aside, something like Attack on Titan might have a tighter fit story than Dragon Ball so that might make it "better" in that respect but outside of that those two series ( DB and AoT) have literally NOTHING in common.

[Kinokima]

You could also say different series fit into more than one genre. There are broader genres and then you can get more specific with the nitty gritty

The problem I have with that is that nearly ALL the tropes and a fair amount of main character names and backgrounds in Naruto directly reference old ninja fiction.

Like if you've ever seen or read ANY older ninja fiction out of Japan you'd already know about Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru specifically and you'd already know what animals they summon and that ninpo magic like that was super common when depicting ninja on film pre-1960 when the more grounded historically accurate takes became popular.

And even if you only watch the grounded stuff you'd know where Sasuke got his name and you'd see the Itachi plot twist from a million miles away only because it happens ALL THE TIME in ninja fiction. It's an incredibly common trope specific to ninja fiction.

But if Naruto was your intro to these tropes, then what you'll see is, "Naruto is like DB because training, battles, and rivals to friends," while missing literally everything else that keeps it from being in the same genre as Dragon Ball.

Wuxia or not, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan films and their tropes are specifically referenced in Dragon Ball and their films had a heavy heavy influence. Heck! Even the old Golden Harvest logo movie intro thing is directly lifted and applied in the anime version of one of the openings to some of the Budokai episodes of DB (same music and all!).

While Lee and Chan's films are a more grounded take on martial arts than a high-fantasy Wuxia film, they still follow the same story beats as a Wuxia film the same way realistic takes on ninja have the same plot twist structure as the more high-fantasy ninja stuff. And Toriyama directly lifted those Kung Fu story beats, which are very distinct from ninja story beats, and applied them to DB.

Of Naruto and DB really have anything in common, it's that their respective authors combined the incredibly kinetic action of the grounded takes with the awe-inspiring mystical aspects of the high-fantasy takes in a very entertaining way while still managing to aim the material directly at children.

"Battle Shonen" is too broad a category for in-depth comparisons. Putting DB, MHA, Naruto, etc. into the same genre is like saying Johnny Quest and Thundercats are in the same genre because there are adventures in both and they're aimed at different generations of the same age group.

Btw the only reason I'm saying this is because if you decide to directly compare them anyway, at least you'll have a better idea of what you're looking at. These aren't all the exact same stories dressed in ninja clothes or Kung Fu clothes or Superhero clothes. They take a lot more from their respective genres than you'd imagine and they deserve to be appreciated for what they are instead of being dissected for what they aren't.

I think we are talking about different tropes. I didn’t just name Naruto but One Piece, Yu Yu Hakusho, Bleach, Yu Yu Hakusho, Hunter X Hunter etc as being in the same battle shounen genre as Dragon Ball

My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer are two newer series that I feel are also part of this umbrella genre.

All these series have a different setting and type of power/fighting style that doesn’t mean they all aren’t all Battle Shounen which has its own set of particular tropes. It also doesn’t mean the manga-ka were not influenced by other sources besides other battle shounen manga. And they can be Battle Shounen that are are also then part of other genres. It’s not like if you are battle shounen you can only strictly be battle shounen. And again I am not saying this means these type of series are exactly the same with no differences because what would be the point of that.



And Attack on Titan is not Battle Shounen. I did not even mention that series so that is a strange series to bring up as an example that disputes Battle Shounen is a genre. Maybe you could argue in the very early days of the manga it may have seemed like one but as the series went on not really.

[goku the krump dancer]

It wasn't you Kinokima who brought it up but someone else did, so I was speaking to that in that regard.

[Kinokima]

It wasn't you Kinokima who brought it up but someone else did, so I was speaking to that in that regard.

Ah sorry my mistake!

Anyways my point is just because a bunch of series are part of one genre doesn’t mean that is the only genre they can be part of or they all have to be exactly the same.

Take the common Hollywood genre like the Westerns you had Western comedies, Western musicals, Western Noirs, Sci-Fi Westerns. When you are part of one genre you aren’t excluded from also being part of another.


So I am not saying comparing Naruto and Dragon Ball is like comparing apples to apples but they are both fruit in the end.