Many modern shounen series have a lot of death and suffering.
Summary:
- To some, it feels that modern battle shounens are darker than the genre used to be.
- We’ve had these series for decades.
- This process is cyclical: we’ll likely see some more light-hearted series soon.
At first, it would seem that the current generation of battle shounens is significantly darker and edgier than the genre was in the past. Yes, Naruto had its fair share of dark elements — even One Piece did — but the overall presentation has been pretty optimistic and often light-hearted.
Compare these to something like Jujutsu Kaisen, Hell’s Paradise, or Chainsaw Man. The new shounen series are significantly darker in tone, killing off many characters in a short timespan. Yes, we are in an era of darker shounen series — but it might also be over soon.
We’ve Had Dark Shounen Series Before
It’s not like we’ve never seen dark and gritty shounen series before. In fact, the original Devilman manga was a shounen series, and that came out back in the early 70s. Darker series were a trend back then, and then slowly phased out years later.
This process is cyclical. For example, the original Dragon Ball series was mostly low-stakes and not dark at all. Compared to it, Dragon Ball Z, which came out years later, is way edgier — though not as much as something like Jujutsu Kaisen.
The Big Three — One Piece, Naruto and Bleach — went on for many years and had many tonal shifts throughout their run. One Piece was mostly light-hearted (although there are serious moments), and in Naruto, the start is fairly dark — but the latter arcs often are more light-hearted even if characters die. Bleach is pretty dark, but still not on the level of Jujutsu Kaisen.
We’ll Probably See More Light-Hearted Shounens in the Future
So, if the process is cyclical, that means that we are currently in an era of darker shounen series — and that it will be over at some point in the future. In fact, people are already fed up with Jujutsu Kaisen killing off too many of its characters — they want a series where they can be attached to the characters without having them constantly die.
Does it mean that current shounen series are bad? No, not at all. Despite some faults, JJK is still pretty good. Similarly, when everything is light-hearted, people complain that no one dies and that there are no stakes.
It seems that the most popular series are the ones that strike some sort of balance — the Big Three come to mind, and, among modern series, Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba) does both happy and serious moments pretty well.