Do you like other battle shounen, and how do you feel they stack up to Dragon Ball?

[Bagginses]

Do you like to read/watch other series aside from Dragon Ball? Recently, Rurouni Kenshin (know as ''Samurai X'' when the anime first premiered outside of Japan) has premiered on Netflix in my country, so my interest in it (I first got into it as a kid) renewed somewhat. I have watched the entire ''canon'' part of the series (the first 62 episodes, I believe), and skipped the completely filler arc of the last portion of the series. I have enjoyed Dragon Ball since I was a kid too.

I remember quite liking Gundam Wing when I watched it a little grown up (about 15 or so, now I'm 21).

There are probably more I can think (not many, though), but what about you? Are you a fan of other battle shounen anime?

Also, do you discuss those online? If so, please post here the link of the forum in which you discuss it (or them) if you can.

[Ajay]

Is there a way we can make this better relate to Dragon Ball? It's an interesting topic, but discussions do have to relate to Dragon Ball in some way.

Perhaps, "Do you like other battle shounen, and how do you feel they stack up to Dragon Ball?"

[Bagginses]

I definitely get what you are saying, but I don't know what you want me to do about it. Do you want me to rewrite the entire post in a slightly different manner, or do you want me to just change the thread's title? I can certaintly do the latter, but have no time right now to rewrite the entire post (going to work in about 1 hour or so).

However, if you care enough, you are entirely free to change the topic's title the way you worded it. But don't you think it will compromise or contradict the rest of the post?

And if you just wanna lock up the topic, then of course you are free to do it and I have no objections.

[Ajay]

A title change and one extra line in the post is absolutely fine.

I just don't want to have to lock a fun thread for being off-topic, that's all.

[Desassina]

I know that Saint Seiya was a phenomenon in Europe and Brazil, and it was described as a group of naive teenagers fighting older men, with nothing but their weapons. In this case, they fought with their cloths and cosmo in a bloody experience, as they appealed to love and courage in a religious manner. I saw it back when it aired in Portugal, but the dub wasn't all that great. I didn't stop me from appreciating the cloth design and its differences from the manga, which were kept in some continuity that worked for the anime.

Now, does it stack up to Dragon Ball? The anime, which I tend to appreciate more, is not a finished product, and you pretty much have to hunt the OVA, but its filler is not without the appeal that Dragon Ball Z often missed. Nothing too important happened, but the lore was expanded to other cultures in that filler, and it was followed through with another manga chapter (unlike Rurouni Kenshin, for example). Saint Seiya makes its theme painfully obvious, while Dragon Ball is more nuanced with its references, and often smarter with how it uses them. Dragon Ball had its ups and downs in terms of drawings and animation, but it had some of the best for the 90s, while Saint Seiya was more consistent with how it looked very 70s.

[Lord Beerus]

There are several battle shonen that I like such as Fairy Tail, Soul Eater, InuYasha, Saint Seiya, Fist of the North Star, Rurouni Kenshin, Bleach and Naruto (Shippuden), but only a select few that actually I love. Yuu Yuu Hakusho, One Piece, Hunter X Hunter, and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure are that select few. And I think all those battle shonen crap all over Dragon Ball in every department. Plot, characters, world building, music, voice acting, you name it, those shows did it much better than Dragon Ball ever did.

[sintzu]

Let's start with Sasuke from Naruto, the amount of screen time, major battles & development he gets far surpasses anything Vegeta and other non main Shonen characters get.

Naruto's story is moving forward with the next generation while DB is still stuck in the 10 year time gap before the manga's ending.

One Piece's world building far surpasses anything DB has done.

One Piece is always finding ways to keep its characters relevant which is something DB and especially Super struggle with.

Both Oda and Kishimoto planned their series in advance which I think would've helped DB & Toriyama in a major way, especially if DB started in 1980 instead of Dr. slump.

[voltlunok]

Yes, stuff like YYH, Fist of the North Star, Saint Seiya, Groove Adventure Rave, heck even Fairy Tail on its good days. I think Dragon Ball is still rather good but the more I sit and think on it, the more I realize how much of the prototype vibe it has. Its influential, beloved and a legend but it paved a path for things much better then it to come out, things that refined on the ideas and formulas it put forth. Does this mean I see Dragon Ball as some lesser series? Heck no, but I do believe a lot of the things Dragon Ball inspired are a lot better then it.

[Bullza]

One Piece is always finding ways to keep its characters relevant which is something DB and especially Super struggle with

Which has been backfiring on the series for a while and why it's not as good as it was before the time skip.

It's also what ruined Bleach.

[Hellspawn28]

I enjoy Yuu Yuu Hakusho, G Gundam, Bastard!!, Fist of the North Star, Rurouni Kenshin and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure over DBZ. I like One Piece a lot up until the anime went into long fillers and I stop around 2007 or 2008. The manga was great until they killed off my favorite character and I lost interest. Naruto is good, but I would take the DB series over it. I'm up to episode 14 of HxH, it's a good show but I don't see why people think it's so amazing. Maybe it gets better after the Hunter Exam, but I think it's a good show. My Hero Academia is a good show and manga, but I do think it was a bit over hype. Tiger & Bunny was a better superhero show in my opinion and I do like Dragon Ball over My Hero Academia as well. I can't get into Fairy Tail and I only seen one episode of Seven Deadly Sins (which was decent). Also I could not get into Twin Star Exorcists and D.Gray-man because I found them both rather dull.

I also remember liking Saint Seiya over Dragon Ball, but I haven't read and seen the original TV show in nearly a decade. Overall, Dragon Ball is a pretty good Shounen series, but not the best. The worst battle shounen anime in my opinion would be Battle Arena Toshinden which is filled with poor characters and bad Shonen cliches. Even the Tekken 90's anime was better than it.

[SaiyanGod117]

I feel DB is still the best shounen overall but that's primarily do to its length and pieces of media it spawned over the years that furthers its rewatchability.

[Hellspawn28]

I forgot to mention Bleach. I was never a huge fan of Bleach, I got into it because of the popularity that it had from 2004-2009 and I felt like the show went on too long. I personally would watch DB over Bleach.

[Saikyo no Senshi]

I like Naruto, One Piece(just a little bit), Yu Yu Hakusho, Hunter X Hunter and the recent series Boku No Hero Academia. DB definitely inspired most of them but I too believe that a lot of things it inspired are much much better than it.

- Travis

[Nejishiki]

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has always been a worthy alternative to Dragon Ball for my needs in the genre. The characters are just as memorable, but in vastly different ways from Toriyama to Araki, and I feel as if the latter plays up the creativity of battles up to eleven. Where Toriyama occasionally has strokes of genius with scenarios, Araki thrives upon it in every instance. It also features time skips as Dragon Ball does, which is a element in fiction I like. I don't know about you, but I enjoy growing up with a cast of characters, progressing through the ages. As far as battle shonen are concerned, both products are things I have enjoyed since I was a young child, discovering their manga adaptions simultaneously as I grew older. Reflecting upon it, it's pretty amazing that they're still holding up today, even if Toriyama happened to take a, "hiatus".

[MozillaVulpix]

I feel like I could write an entire essay about this. I've watched and read quite a bit of Shonen, although I feel like there's a lot more I need to personally experience and not just research about. And I honestly think Dragon Ball still holds up.

Obviously, it's more generic. One Piece has pirates, Naruto has ninjas, Fairy Tail has wizards, My Hero Academia has superheroes, Yu Yu Hakusho has spirits and demons, even Saint Seiya has mythology, whereas Dragon Ball is just basic martial arts and aliens. There's no real complicated mana system like Nen in HunterXHunter. Characters use ki and can do whatever they want with it. The Super Saiyan forms are just transformations, and there's no long explanation as to how they work in terms of Saiyan biology. But I don't mind that. Sometimes these series try so hard to make themselves stand out, they become very hard to understand. Dragon Ball always keeps it simple, and it makes it very accessible. Dragon Ball came before most of these series, and it never tried to compete with these series. I think that worked to its advantage.

The only thing I can agree other shonen series do better than Dragon Ball is handle their supporting cast. They often care much more about keeping a consistent cast of characters that can always contribute to the story, as opposed to Dragon Ball often introducing new characters to replace the old, outdated ones with very little fanfare. Yu Yu Hakusho has probably been my favourite in terms of cast usage. It also handled a "major character decides they want to stop fighting and live a normal life" subplot miles better than Dragon Ball ever did.

But I think comparing them objectively is like...a Star Wars vs Star Trek sort of debate. They may be part of the same genre, but they have different approaches to storytelling, and one isn't inherently better than the other.

[B]

I suppose if there's one thing that would theoretically hold DB back, is that it's not really about anything, per word of God. Yes, events happen and the characters face obstacles, but it is always very much in the moment. It was never a series to really reminisce or ever worry about the future(much like its protagonist and creator). That's also what's great about it too; a story about nothing told excitingly is always going to trounce a story with some vague sense of depth, but told poorly. Toriyama's process allowed for truly mesmerizing moments, especially when you consider that was not his goal.

In the interest of finding a work that had a little more of an emotional core to it, I found myself loving BLEACH. It's filled to the brim with things Toriyama would never do, minus a scene that has been accused of being flat-out ripped from DB. It uses battles to explore ideas and philosophies, and Toriyama would never dream of setting his ambitions so high; he likes things with no content and hates "human themes." It's a quieter, more somber work, while DB is louder and brighter. No one in Dragon Ball is going to stop and ponder why these crazy things are happening. DB is "CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA" by Hironobu Kageyama, and BLEACH is "Ranbu no Melody" by SID.

(It's not a shonen, but it is a battle series and since I linked to the interview, Zetman by Toriyama's colleague Masakazu Katsura, is full of human themes and is brilliant)

[Cipher]

Novel-length post containing part of my responses in this thread before the forums went AWOL yesterday. Thanks to Nejishiki for cacheing one of the previous pages.

One of the reasons I don't like other battle shonen -- as an adult fan of Dragon Ball -- is because they lack its singular focus on whimsy. Or, they seem to take themselves seriously enough to want to be thematically relevant (which nine times out of ten means painfully thematically transparent). No one could accuse One Piece of not being whimsical, really, but rather than seeming to exist solely for the amusement of its author, my impression is that it constantly aims for -- rather shallow -- thematic relevance.

Dragon Ball never utilizes some of my least favorite tropes of its sister series and descendants. It doesn't resort to thematically transparent dialogue. It doesn't attempt to work toward anything besides a few basic philosophies, some of which are purely metafictional -- characters with singular focus solely influence the world around them in net positive ways; the author is personally amused. There are a few other aspects that I deeply appreciate about the series -- its straight-faced approach to aging its characters is one of them, and I don't see any other manga it's normally lumped in with take this approach -- but those are the main ones.

I will say that some of the more thematically focused shonen battle series -- your One Pieces and Narutos -- could and should be excellent series for children, offering a window into the idea of fiction as a powerful force. I get frustrated that people seem to stagnate with them rather than moving beyond, but that's a problem I have with (commercial) anime fandom and geek culture in general. Kunzait_83 once offered me a great take on why this happens, so I'll let him explain further in the event he ever sees this thread.

My other media interests run a lot headier than Dragon Ball. But it's Dragon Ball's complete lack of literary aspirations that keeps me coming back, and prevents me from giving similar series another look. It's Toriyama's style that draws me in, and I enjoy his other work almost as much, rather than the demographic it aims for or the tropes that other battle shonen series have since used.

Spoiler:

I've watched and enjoyed both FMA series. It's decent genre fiction, better written than most "battle shonen" to the point I'd put it up against most adult-oriented genre series.

But that's the thing -- I could never love it. I tend not to love hard genre in general, unless it gets really whimsical or there's something metafictional I can grab onto (like the craft or the author's amusement). There are so many more emotionally affecting, or intellectually expanding, experiences to be had in fiction, that it's hard for me to really love something for being "pretty smart for" its genre. Again, I'm glad that material exists for younger audiences, so long as it's a springboard rather than a stopping point. As an adult fan, though, with a diet of written fiction, films, TV, etc. that can do so much more to be affecting, hard genre may as well go all-in on being silly.

Not that it can't occasionally hit more affecting notes -- the approach to aging in Dragon Ball ends up being unexpectedly poignant at points, but that's because it's so laid back about its approach in other ways. There's some combination that Dragon Ball hits really well. Exist solely to be amusing 95% of the time, get (really) real for the other five.

Are you actually holding it against shows for trying to be more than whimsical action?

No -- I guess I'm saying it's hard for me to love them as an adult reader/viewer if they prioritize doing so in a shallow way. It's good for its target audience.

In other words, the dialog isn't so on the nose about its themes? Great, but I don't quite see your point here.

In regards to the shonen action series that usually get tossed around in comparisons to Dragon Ball, it's a combination of being both transparent and simplistic. It's disengaging, because it's disingenuous. There's a reason people are taken aback by unrealistic dialogue, and if it's not in service of anything thought-provoking, I'm not getting much out of the experience.

If it's someone's first experience in fiction beyond pure entertainment, though -- as it probably is for a lot of kids in their target audience -- awesome. And I can understand having nostalgic attachment to that, or appreciation for it, as long as it's not the only kind of fiction you consume.

Is it his lack of pretense or his lack of effort to be more that you find appealing?

Ah, well that gets to be a little tricky, and I could probably go on for some length about my love for work that's confrontational toward its audience. But I don't think that's quite the case with Dragon Ball, since I don't think Toriyama is ever thinking much about his audience at all. That's part of why I love it.

Really, it's the lack of pretense. Toriyama putting in full effort is a staggering thing to behold. You can tell in portions of Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball that he's giving it his all as an artist and storyteller (or comedian) -- trying to prove himself and having a great time. It's infectious, and really solid craft. At the same time, I do have some fondness for burnout-mode Toriyama, but it's earned by years of proving he really cares about what he does overall. It helps that his most burned out products tend to be amazingly entertaining as well.

[ABED]

In regards to the shonen action series that usually get tossed around in comparisons to Dragon Ball, it's a combination of being both transparent and simplistic. It's disengaging, because it's disingenuous. There's a reason people are taken aback by unrealistic dialogue, and if it's not in service of anything thought-provoking, I'm not getting much out of the experience.

There's a big difference between being disingenuous and being not well written. Unrealistic dialog covers a lot because unrealistic doesn't mean terrible. No one talks like they do in the movies. And even in the case of bad dialog, I find that many people can get past it if its heart is in the right place or if other things make up for it.

And since all of those posts were lost, I'll reiterate that genre can do deep and meaningful fiction just as well as non-genre. The two questions I always ask when I'm reading or watching any fictional story are "Do I care about these characters one way or another?" and "Is this story interesting?" and I don't see how genre makes it harder to answer "Yes" to both. This seems to me like you are trying to turn a preference into some rule of thumb for everyone.

[TheGreatness25]

I am trying to watch Yu Yu Hakuho right now on Funimation's app. That's considered a battle shonen right? I think that Yu Yu Hakusho stacks up pretty well against the original Dragon Ball (they'd all die in DBZ). Then again, I'm only about 1/3 done with the series. I really like it. I think it is totally believable that it was inspired by Dragon Ball -- either that or it just hits the same kind of "notes" that Dragon Ball hit. I could actually picture Yu Yu Hakusho and Dragon Ball existing in the same universe to be honest. The animation is more or less compatible.


What other "battle shonen" is there out there? I was never an anime buff (save for Cowboy Bebop), but in the last year or so I really got into Attack on Titan and like Yu Yu Hakusho, so maybe that's the genre that I'm into. I'm interested in checking others out.

[Avery]

What other "battle shonen" is there out there? I was never an anime buff (save for Cowboy Bebop), but in the last year or so I really got into Attack on Titan and like Yu Yu Hakusho, so maybe that's the genre that I'm into. I'm interested in checking others out.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood has became my second favourite battle shounen. It has a powerful and emotional story, compelling characters with unique personalities and different goals, wonderful direction and action scenes, God-tier soundtrack and proper pacing despite starting off rather slow. It's the single anime I'd recommend to whovere wants a "perfect" battle shounen. Also, a lot of the emotional scenes heavily depend on the voice acting, so I recommend watching it subbed since the dubbed version doesn't quite live up to the original. (Also, make sure it's Brotherhood and not just FMA)