For quite some time I was interested in how similiar shouen manga and anime are in general themes and how they mirrors Japanesse culture. who puts great pressure towards work for the benefit of all society. As old Japanesse saying says, "Teh nail that stand out will be pounded down" and it's noticeable in multiple shonens.

Our hero is an young outsider, loner who either rejected society or was rejected by it. He has almost no friends, often gets in trouble, everybody consider him useless or troublemker. What's interesting is that he often has only one parent, if any.

And then, something happen. Hero either finds out he has hidden superpowers, or gets them through strange incident. While he fights forces of evil, people slowly realize he isn't so bad at all, learns to respect him and become his friends, and he too learns something new about them. Nail who was standing out slowly becomes panned down, hero becomes part of society even without realizing it. Often they also like to repeat or yell in enemy's face how they holds their friends dear, how they're willing to sacrifice even their own life to protect them and how their frendship gives them power to fight evil. Few examples:
-Naruto: Naruto Uzumaki - Orphan, considered worthless by everybody, as story starts, graudates from academy after finding he has powers of demon fox. Not only slowly he becomes more and more powerfull and competent, but also people who once seen him as nothing more than incompetent fool, one after another learns that he's a skilled fighter that deserves their respect.
-Bleach: Ichigo Kurosaki - Dead mother, considered troublemaker, has only few friends, often gets in the fights. After becoming Shinigami, he slowly grow accepted by not his society, but Soul Society and other Shinigami, gains new friends and helps the world he almost scratch out.
- Yu Yu Hakusho: Yusuke Urameshi, lives with mother, outsider, loner, deliquent, troublemaker, has only one friend, don't respect the rules, teachers dislike him, other students thinks he's totall jackass, he gets in the fight with anybody, has bad relationship even with his mother. Then he dies. As a ghost he finds out that people he scratch out aren't so bad - students go to his burial, director reveals he always belived in him, his mom is mentally broken, even school bully miss him. This makes him take a job of Grim Reaper, go back to life and change, gaining friends among humans and other Reapers as well.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: Yugi Mutou - not exactly outsider, but has no friends before solving Millenium Puzzle and having to share his body with Yami Yugi, mischavious spirit who helps him gain friends and later learns value of friendship himself, becoming much less crueal and actually nice person.

Common motive in shonen is also rival who is a cool loner that needs to be taught meaning of friendship and becoming part of society by hero, mostly by hero proving that friendship gives him strenght and drags rival into circle of his friends. Uuru Ishida from Bleach and Seto Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh! (who never actually becomes Yugi's true friend, but ends as occasional ally) comes in mind. In Naruto it becomes actuall plot point, after Sasuke rejects Naruto's hand and leaves Konoha. Naruto becomes pretty much obsessed in bringing him back to the right path.

Speaking about it, only way approved by society can make you stronger in many shonens. If somebody try to suprass his limist going beyond rules estabilished by society, or even openly breaks them, it's mostly potryed as evil. Villains in shonens have often thendency to be selfish, put themselves above others, challenge status quo and openly does something against it. Their act of rejecting society, putting themselves before it, giving up to their pride or desire of power/perfection is evil and need to be stopped, often comes with rejecting their humanity as well. Sasuke's decission to leave Konoha and become Orochimaru's student is potrayed as an mistake and something outright evil. In Bleach big bad Aizen wants to suprass Shinigami's limits, aiming to become God, but rejects rules of society, thus sending message that doing so is an act of evil. That's only top of the iceberg, just listen to famous quotes of many popular shonen villains:

"Even at this cricular moment you are still only human. "I don't want to feel sorry". "I don't want to be unjust". Those are ideals that will get you killed! I, Dio, have no such thoughts." - Dio Brando, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

"Those without talet get in the way simply by existing. Twenty-two of me, now that would be a dream team." - Agon, Eyeshield 21

"As you said, fools and the weak have no right to live." - Raoh, First Of The Noth Star.

I'm still doing research, feel fre to submit another examples of such potryal of good and evil in manga and anime.

Those are all interesting examples, and I can definitely see how they reflect the cultural leanings of a society that all but worships conformity. I can see this in a couple of other mangas.

Akira's a pretty good example. Tetsuo is part of a gang of motorcycle punks until his latent psychio powers are unlocked. These powers seperate him from society and make him an outcast. Before too long he embraces being this outcast and is driven insane. The story ends with Tetsuo needing to be put down like a rabid dog before he destroys reality as we know it.

Lone Wolf and Cub can also work in this mindset. The protagonist of this story was an honorable samurai until he was set up by a rival. Accused of a crime he didn't commit, he's dishonored and driven out from his respectable position. Most of the rest of the story centers on him wandering the countryside of feudal Japan with his young son, struggling to get by and perhaps one day reclaim both acceptance and a shred of dignity.

Ghost in the Shell is also arguably a part of this. It takes place in a future society where conformity reaches the level where most of a person is a cyborg composed of interchangable parts. All the action in the first Ghost in the Shell centers on a rogue AI who desires to shape itself to become exactly like the rest of the human race. (To reproduce and die)

Air Raid Robertson
Ghost in the Shell is also arguably a part of this. It takes place in a future society where conformity reaches the level where most of a person is a cyborg composed of interchangable parts. All the action in the first Ghost in the Shell centers on a rogue AI who desires to shape itself to become exactly like the rest of the human race. (To reproduce and die)

That's a stretch.

The Ghost In the Shell is about what it means to BE human, not about what the AI wants, but what it is- the same as Motoko, Batuo, and all the rest: what makes them human? And, are our machines human?

I like the movie, the manga, and he rest of the animated series because superficially it's all about guns, tits, and heavy mecha, but parallel to that it's all about Shirrow's own philosophising on the evolution of human conciousness in a technological world. It's way beyond simple themes of conformity.
I use his work as a model for my own. :)

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I tend to agree with God of War about the themes in shounen manga though.

I don't know that much about manga but it's an interesting theory and, as far as mainstream, popular manga/anime is concerned, it certainly makes sense.

In western societies where individuality is more often seen as seen as all-important, the loner is perhaps more likely to be seen as successful if he remains a defiant antihero to the end. (Does anyone really want to see Wolverine settled down, and married with two kids? Isn't part of his appeal already watered down in the animated Wolverine and the X-Men, where he replaces Charles as the de facto leader of the team?)

I'd be interested to know whether less mainstream, independent manga goes against this trend and champions the individual. Any thoughts?

DAJB
I'd be interested to know whether less mainstream, independent manga goes against this trend and champions the individual. Any thoughts?

God Of War isn't saying that all Anime and Manga does that, just stuff like shounen.

The conformity theme couldn't apply to all Japanese anime and manga anyway, mainstream or no, because the theme of the "ronin" is so strong and perennially popular- Not just in the Lone wolf searching for a master type that God of War talks about- but in the individual, lone warrior, outsider, knight errant mode that's popular in the west.

ozoneocean

Air Raid Robertson
Ghost in the Shell is also arguably a part of this. It takes place in a future society where conformity reaches the level where most of a person is a cyborg composed of interchangable parts. All the action in the first Ghost in the Shell centers on a rogue AI who desires to shape itself to become exactly like the rest of the human race. (To reproduce and die)

That's a stretch.

The Ghost In the Shell is about what it means to BE human, not about what the AI wants, but what it is- the same as Motoko, Batuo, and all the rest: what makes them human? And, are our machines human?

I like the movie, the manga, and he rest of the animated series because superficially it's all about guns, tits, and heavy mecha, but parallel to that it's all about Shirrow's own philosophising on the evolution of human conciousness in a technological world. It's way beyond simple themes of conformity.
I use his work as a model for my own. :)

If you want to get into that then to say that Akira is making a statement about conformity is probably too broad as well. As I understood it Akira was more about how humanity's desire for power may well be it's undoing. Although Tetsuo was not a conformist character and became a tremendous threat that needed to be taken out, Kaneda, Yamagata and Kai were never made to conform and remained biker punks to the end.

patrickdevine
If you want to get into that then to say that Akira is making a statement about conformity is probably too broad as well. As I understood it Akira was more about how humanity's desire for power may well be it's undoing. Although Tetsuo was not a conformist character and became a tremendous threat that needed to be taken out, Kaneda, Yamagata and Kai were never made to conform and remained biker punks to the end.

But God of War's point with Akira was that Tetsuo was bad precisely because he was the absolute anti-conformist, which was a road he began when he was a part of that gang
-So he shows the folly of being a non-conformist... :)

But then, he really couldn't help what he became in the end as far as I recall, so maybe that idea is a little bankrupt and we should lean to the power corrupts theme you've suggested? ^_^

Rurouni Kenshin has become a pretty popular model of how to do a shounen too.

Hero is the greatest fighter ever but doesn't want to use his power. He wants a simple life. He tries to settle down and in doing so his morals are put to the test by an increasingly large entourage of misfits and battles with increasingly deadly opponents. Also they're always broke.

Cowboy Bebop
Outlaw Star
Trigun
Samurai Champloo
Getbackers
Bamboo Blade
Samurai Deeper Kyo
Garaman

Mainstream shonen manga (The examples you pointed out are battle mangas) is much more controlled and often plots can't deviate into something too dark, too avant garde, or depressing.

Rising power and being able to change things for good with a power is pretty mainstream (almost Hollywood/Western story telling), because the good guy always wins in the end.

I heard that with Dragon Ball the creator wanted Goku to die so he can move on to different characters or make a new story. But since the character was so popular the editors made him bring Goku (and later a number of good guy characters) back to life.

I hear that if goodguy shonen characters become really really popular with fans, the author can not kill them off. The magazine they are working for won't let them.
(Like when Kakashi and Gaara were brought back to life in Naruto.)


Even though in Death Note a number of main characters die, I think it's different because the main character was evil. It is not mainstream.

There must be other things too.

A lot of the conformity in shounen manga (as well as any mainstream genre) appears to be editorial mandate. Popular characters can't be killed off, certain plot-twists will not happen if they're too dark, too weird or otherwise "inappropriate", etc., etc. - because the editors refuse to risk losing their readership. Most of these mainstream shounen manga survive on a week-to-week basis dependent on popularity-polls.


One of the most common themes in mainstream shounen is that tried-and-true message of believing in oneself, and that hard work will get you where you want to go in life. This is coupled with an emphasis on the importance of friendship - which in essence is an argument for how the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few*. And yet, many mainstream shounen also emphasise the importance of being yourself, of caring about people otherwise rejected by society, and that being different is quite often a good thing.

But yeah, you're right - being selfish is almost always portrayed as a bad thing; thinking only of oneself is equated with being evil.

However, not all shounen go the route of forcing their protagonist to conform to society, whether they're aware of it or not. I could babble on about One Piece and how Luffy is both selfish and non-conformist, but that would utterly derail the thread.

*) Side-note about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few; often, in mainstream shounen - as well as many other mainstream genres that come out of Japan - the establishment is portrayed as being inherently corrupt or evil. Be it the government or the organised religion or just whatever organisation happens to be stronger than the protagonist at the beginning of the story - and the protagonist rebels against it in some way, and, in the end, usually succeeds in either bringing down the establisment or severely damaging the status quo.

What I'm getting at here is that the various large organisations are often portrayed as seeing the big picture while forgetting the individual - and yet they're often depicted as evil, contrasted to the protagonist's valuing of the individual etc., etc. Thus, shounen protagonists are, in some measure, more selfish than the establishment they're fighting.


.... I think I lost where I was going with this post. >.> I'll just leave it as-is, and you can yell at me if you want.

Some very interesting facts pointed out here. I'm thouroughly enjoying the read. :)

Rave Master is probably the most middle of the road shounen manga to go this conformist path. It's pretty much about an orphan who is chosen by the rave to become the hero of light or some shit like that. As he progresses in the story, he gets more and more friends and that somehow empowers him or some shit. Then he does the whole fighting for friends speech in every one of his boss battles against the major bad guys.

Almost all shounen manga go along this path. I really wish there would be some different-ish shounen kinda thing that doesn't adhere strictly to the rule of conformity. It gets boring to read. I don't see how the Japanese like it so much.

alwinbot
I really wish there would be some different-ish shounen kinda thing that doesn't adhere strictly to the rule of conformity. It gets boring to read. I don't see how the Japanese like it so much.

Since it's fresh on my mind, I'll recommend that you check out Highschool Of The Dead. The anime (which I'm watching) or the manga (which is obviously further ahead).

HSOTD, like classic zombie stories, deals with the widespread breakdown of social order. At first glance you may think that the main chara's small group = fighting for his friends = conformity. Outwardly he acts like a typical shonen boy-hero, but his inner monologues are a direct betrayal of that theme. I've never heard him say anything like "I've been able to stay sane/alive this long because of my friends bla bla bla." Or "I'll do anything for my friends bla bla!" Instead he says things like "Within 1 day, we've changed so much (from normal students to remorseless killers)" or "I will accept her sins... of course, for my own survival."

In the most recent episode, the group of high school aged individuals are seriously contemplating breaking away from a larger, more secure group of adults (who are not evil or anything, led by 1 of their families in fact) simply because they want to continue their newfound Peter Pan-esque existence free from any authority/control.

It's too early for me to tell if the author is merely flirting with such anti-shonen themes, or if he truly plans to take his story in a fresh direction.

mlai

alwinbot
I really wish there would be some different-ish shounen kinda thing that doesn't adhere strictly to the rule of conformity. It gets boring to read. I don't see how the Japanese like it so much.

Since it's fresh on my mind, I'll recommend that you check out Highschool Of The Dead. The anime (which I'm watching) or the manga (which is obviously further ahead).

HSOTD, like classic zombie stories, deals with the widespread breakdown of social order. At first glance you may think that the main chara's small group = fighting for his friends = conformity. Outwardly he acts like a typical shonen boy-hero, but his inner monologues are a direct betrayal of that theme. I've never heard him say anything like "I've been able to stay sane/alive this long because of my friends bla bla bla." Or "I'll do anything for my friends bla bla!" Instead he says things like "Within 1 day, we've changed so much (from normal students to remorseless killers)" or "I will accept her sins... of course, for my own survival."

In the most recent episode, the group of high school aged individuals are seriously contemplating breaking away from a larger, more secure group of adults (who are not evil or anything, led by 1 of their families in fact) simply because they want to continue their newfound Peter Pan-esque existence free from any authority/control.

It's too early for me to tell if the author is merely flirting with such anti-shonen themes, or if he truly plans to take his story in a fresh direction.

I've read it and there's a lottaaa boobs. and zombies. And that's enough for me.

Frostflowers
However, not all shounen go the route of forcing their protagonist to conform to society, whether they're aware of it or not. I could babble on about One Piece and how Luffy is both selfish and non-conformist, but that would utterly derail the thread.

Well, I haven't read One Piece, but from what I see, that's may be part of reasons behind it's huge sucess. Simirliar to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, in both the heroes are ones who rebel against the estabilishment and higher authority. Rebeling against the rules enforced on the most is good, but said authority isn't evil - it has resonable motives to do what it's doing, they just goone to faar and crossed the line.
Lordgeenome wants to save mankind by forcing them to live undergound and in small groups. Anti-Spirals just wants to control Spiral Power so it won't destroy the Universe so they control and destroy races capable of using it. Goverment from One Piece wants to control their part of the world in order to save it from becoming pirate hell on Earth like rest of the world and did many horrible things to do so.

I think that if Straw Hats or Simon and Kamina would be adapted into Naruto or Bleach settings, they would be villains.

In reply to God of War's post:

Nausicaä (the manga) has a very interesting ending in a similar vein. I won't spoil it for anyone (because anyone who hasn't read it yet should do so, by all means ^_^), but it has a very controversial, almost enigmatic ending - and quite unlike many other anime/manga where it's more or less obvious that they just ran out of ideas to resolve everything properly.

And by "in a similar vein" I mean something like: Going against the norm, against society - even against a sort of normative, predetermined history.

Bubblegum Crisis had a sort of rebellious theme going on, what with the protagonists opposing an all-powerful corporation. But that might have been because of the Blade Runner influence.

alwinbot
Rave Master is probably the most middle of the road shounen manga to go this conformist path. It's pretty much about an orphan who is chosen by the rave to become the hero of light or some shit like that. As he progresses in the story, he gets more and more friends and that somehow empowers him or some shit. Then he does the whole fighting for friends speech in every one of his boss battles against the major bad guys.

Almost all shounen manga go along this path. I really wish there would be some different-ish shounen kinda thing that doesn't adhere strictly to the rule of conformity. It gets boring to read. I don't see how the Japanese like it so much.

I remember having a conversation with some people as to why there seems to be more mainstream shonen animes out there and less risky storylines.

It's mostly on the account of merchandising and being able to make a profit off of these animes and mangas. Over time anime has been making less money due to not so much less interest but people getting free downloads and scandalations. Animes like Wolves Rain, Kino's Journey, Gunslinger Girl... are becoming less and less because the studios are having more of a problem making a profit.

Now... animes like Naruto and One Piece are great not because of the anime and manga sales but the little merchandise that comes with it.

It's the same with American stuff. Toy Story and Cars are getting the sequels because you can sell sooo many toys based off of it.

So anyway I am saying that shonen style story telling is conformist because you can make more money with it. Thus you will see more of that kind of stuff.

I see several issues with the argument presented here. The first is that many of the people posting on here are branching out beyond the shounen manga subset, including anime series and seinen material and comparing it to shounen series. Shounen manga is more a description of the target audience than the genre, itself. There are a few different genres which fall under the shounen label and several of them have overlaps in shoujo, josei, kodomo, seinen, and other manga subsets as well as the various genres of anime.

What people are really looking at here are specific genres within the subset, and honestly, it's no surprise that you would see a lot of common themes among series within a specific genre. You can make most of the same claims about any literary genre.

Another major issue I see here is that the focus is almost entirely on anime with very little focus on the actual topic of the thread, shounen manga. Japanese TV is far less diverse than manga. I've read all kinds of shounen manga that would never make it onto Japanese TV that branch into all kinds of genres. Studios in Japan, however, tend to focus on series which either appeal to otaku or have greater international potential. The anime industry in Japan isn't doing so hot, right now, so you don't see a lot of studios taking risks. In the West, the emphasis is on anime, not on manga. The vast majority of manga that makes its way over here is either the manga an anime series was based on (or vice versa) or something which falls into one of the popular genres we see on TV. The more original stuff tends to be overlooked by domestic publishers, since it is easier to get an idea of how popular something more conformist will be.