LogFAQs > #883133984

Well to a certain degree yes. In fact I've actually enjoyed tons of shonen anime, but its almost exclusively the shorter ones (aside from again hunter x hunter). Its the combination of the simplicity shonen implies combined with the infinite weekly format that results in the insane amounts filler, quality drops, power creep, and predictability.

I feel of the long running shonens, naruto started off fine, good even, but couldn't manage the pace and the quality dropped, power crept, and filler became more and more frequent. Bleach had a fantastic first arc (well the soul society, i guess there was some mini stuff before then) and then fell off a cliff becoming noticeably worse, hitting stupid power creep levels, and having some of the worst filler arcs out there.

One piece sorta stands above the other 3 from that generation as actually fitting a long form narrative very nicely, managing to continuously keep the stakes personal and grounded, very slow power creep, and a much larger focus on self contained adventures and stories. Unfortunately its fight choreography is not very good. The other strong points and the story focus lessen the impact somewhat. It also has some poor pacing and can really drag things out sometimes.

Fairy tail I've already gone over and Hunter X Hunter I could talk about for days but ultimately it simply shakes up genre conventions which breaks the painful predictability of other long running shonens. A key aspect is that many fights are not to the death which allows main characters to lose and not just in round 1 to set up the arc but really truly be defeated. The fact that each arc has a different style as well is significant too.

I'd argue the long form nature of shonen makes its tropes that much more pronounced but the truth is there just aren't many good examples of long form shonen anime out there, IMO. I should make sure to reiterate that last point though, its all my opinion, different strokes for different folks and all that. I know I may come off as especially harsh but the truth is I'm just jaded and frustrated at not finding what I really want in the genre. It's like a craving for something I just can't satisfy because no one will make the series that I want which I guess would be some kinda mix between one piece, samurai champloo, and kino no tabi. I will apologize for calling fairy tail garbage. I did not enjoy it, I had many problems with it, I found its low points to overshadow its high points but it did have high points and if you enjoyed it, its not my aim to take that away from you or make you feel worse for it.
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