Three months ago, in anime time, Okumura Rin set out with a goal to slay Satan, his true father. After sixteen episodes, however, we’re nowhere in sight of the anime’s endgame. Instead, we’ve been treated with episodes after episodes of Rin fumbling around through, well, what is essentially high school. This is a shounen anime, after all, so it’s going to be full of filler. The story’s going to be drawn out till the end of time; hell, we’ll probably never even get to see Rin drive a blade through Satan’s black heart. Still, there used to be a time when I would gripe about the never-ending nature of these anime. After watching the “Harry Potter” series evolve over time, however, my position has soften somewhat.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’ll never fully enjoy “Ao no Exorcist” nor will I watch even a quarter of the anime’s episodes. There’s something to be said, however, about the anime prolonging possibly the one thing it has going for it: the early years. “Harry Potter” eventually ditched its early years and, well, the results weren’t fantastic. Of course, that’s just my personal opinion. “Harry Potter” is wildly popular across the entire planet, garnering glowing reviews from many critics, professional or otherwise. Still, while my opinion is certainly of the minority, I don’t think I’m alone in how I feel about “Harry Potter.”
I was never really into “Harry Potter” to begin with. I’ve only read a single book in the entire series. Even so, the first two movies were fun enough. Over time, however, I grew weary of the movies. As the story progressed, everything just turned greyer, colder, and damper. Harry’s face was constantly grimacing or brooding. A children’s tale tried to grow up with its audience, but it couldn’t help doing so without awkwardness. The result was a story that neither felt here nor there: the final movies seemed neither fun nor whimsical enough for children, but at the same time, they still felt too silly for adults. All I could ask, then, was why did “Harry Potter” bother to grow up at all?
To get a shounen story to grow up is like pulling teeth, i.e. you’re not going to get it to happen without a lot of effort. The climax in these stories always feel indefinitely deferred; in the meantime, we watch the characters train, get into silly hijinxes, train some more, grunt as if they were passing a kidney stone the size of a Namekian Dragon Ball, so on and so forth. The turtle-like pace in these anime series can be downright infuriating.
Nowadays, however, it’s hard to fault these series for doing the smart thing by holding off on plot progression. Cynically, these stories never end so creators can maximize their profits. At the same time, however, we must ask ourselves whether or not a “Naruto” or an “Ao no Exorcist” can actually handle growth. Others might disagree, but I didn’t think “Harry Potter” could. That’s “Harry Potter,” however — can something like “Naruto” do the same, i.e. take on a darker tone, without coming across even sillier? Or will shounen anime just ruin itself with forced seriousness and faux grittiness?
So why bother growing up at all? Why not just slow things down to a glacial pace and stay forever fun and light-hearted? We can then have episodes full of school camping trips and what not. Gosh, I’ll never enjoy these filler episodes — hell, I would just plain stop watching the anime period –, but I can’t help but think “Ao no Exorcist” would actually get worse by growing up. Either way, I wouldn’t watch the anime, but at least stunted growth allows the anime to retain some sort of childish charm. Of course, the anime’s plot could always progress without losing its charm, but what are the chances of that?
Moe Sucks 
I believe this is the argument many One Piece fans use, as it’s a series that never grew up no matter how much plot it ploughs through.
Not that I agree that Blue Exorcist needs to stay kiddy or anything. I rather liked growing up with the Harry Potter franchise
Oh, sure, it’s subjective. We’re shaped by our experiences and Harry Potter left a sour taste in my mouth. But look at all the people excited for the latest and last movie.
I never really caught on in the hype that the Harry Potter movies gave. I liked the books and kept up with each one of them, since they were good books during their time, but not the movies. They got too overly hyped up.
I never got how shounen anime and why they need to make the manga and anime so damn long. Possibly to milk it for all its worth. For example, Naruto would have been better if they just picked a good point and ended it. However, they have to go on for like who-knows-what-hundred episodes and just keep adding all these random powers and fights with little to no redeeming points in its everlasting story. Bleach is an even exaggerated example. Kubo, sheesh.
One shounen anime that stood out a bit better than the others was Reborn. Although it was still long, it stopped. Just, stopped. It picked a nice point and ended. Although I wanted it to continue back then, it drew me to the manga to read on and you know what they say on manga > anime counterparts.
Then again, I don’t keep up with shounen stuff much as I used to, so I don’t know if there were some redeeming shows.
I wouldn’t know if any of these shounen shows are redeeming either. I just think, however, that they’d get worse if they did try to mature. You would have to pull off some great writing to portray children growing into young adults and dealing with darker issues and heavier themes. I certainly don’t think your average shounen can do that. Naruto is dumb enough as it is — it’s not “Don’t run before you can walk,” but rather “Don’t run when you haven’t got legs to begin with.”
I was surprised you’d write something about Ao no Exorcist!
can something like “Naruto” do the same, i.e. take on a darker tone, without coming across even sillier? Or will shounen anime just ruin itself with forced seriousness and faux grittiness?
In my opinion, it depends on how flexible the mangaka and the universe of the series is. A man can make a point even if he’s wearing a funny suit if he really wants to. I think if you really want to be taken seriously, you have to prove how serious you are. Shows like Naruto and Bleach try to get there but never quite make it. Unlike those two titles like, One Piece and Gintama shift from serious to wacky without sacrificing too much because the universe itself allows for many possibilities. Another ongoing shounen that does growing up quite right is Hunter x Hunter but then it’s a lot like One Piece and Gintama in terms of having a flexible enough universe to do so and there’s also the fact that the characters for all three shows aren’t really placed in a protective environment like schools or places where adults are willing to look after them.
I don’t think Ao no Exorcist can handle growth either, the characters are all too ‘shielded’, even Yukio who is supposedly an experienced exorcist. It’s fine the way it is but it runs the risk of losing the interest of it’s readers, that’s why these titles are constantly trying to introduce new (albeit somewhat cliche) things.
I like to tease Nyoron about the show. She thought the opening pair of episodes had promise, but then the rest of the anime turned out to be a plodding shounen. I like to download the show and make her go “Oh god, not this thing again.”
I dunno if One Piece ever got serious in the way I’m referring though. I don’t keep up with it enough to be an expert, but from the little I’ve seen, it never gets dark. It stays relatively PG, maybe some blood here or there. I just keep returning to Harry Potter where the last few movies seemingly sucked the fun out of the air. Spoilers incoming, if you care about that sort of thing. I watched minutes after minutes of Harry, Hermione and Ron looking all serious in the woods and I just got so tired of it. At another point, Harry “dies” and sees Dumbledore who gives him a “profound” talk and I’m just thinking… what the fuck happened to this series? Then I got to thinking last night, after watching Rin snap in front of all his friends, man, what if shounen anime tried to get that serious? It would just look and feel ridiculous.
I though the first two episodes were really, really good. It could’ve been a completely manga from there. But this whole exorcist school just doesn’t quite make it for me. But it’s almost done and….yeah.
Oh boy, can you imagine that? Now I’m having images of Shiro having a ‘profound’ talk with Rin. Not sure if want. I saw the movie with my friends and it was fun and exciting but I have to agree, the overwhelming despair really got to me.Especially when it started killing characters left and right. It did allow some characters to grow but the charm dimmed along with the Warner Bros. logo.
I don’t follow One Piece that much but from what I can tell it does get serious but yeah, probably not the level of seriousness you were trying to get at. Gintama having an older cast does let itself go there but I think the closest one would be HxH because it steadily grew darker and more violent every arc and the themes are more mature. If definitely one of the best shounen out there but all the hiatuses really weighs it down.
Well, I haven’t seen Gintama nor HxH. Whenever I see an anime with more than fifty episodes, I instantly hesitate. From what you’re saying, they do sound as though they’re already “grown up” so that does sort of avoid the whole awkwardness altogether. In that case, I dunno, I guess the anime is just long-winded?
Naruto already did the whole ”growing up” part when the time-skip started, and I can assure you, the result is far from pretty. Somehow it thinks being preachy and wallowing in even more angst (mostly for unjustified reasons) is the equivalent of an adult-oriented story.
And Blue Exorcist is quite literally diverting from the manga now. So enjoy your crappy filler, especially since the Kyoto arc is where it finally becomes interesting, and dare I say it, intriguing.
I’m not even going to follow the show, so damn, calm down man. For me, it’s just picking the lesser of two evils: a slow moving plot or angst-ridden piece of shit. Like you said, Naruto got worse when it started to wallow in angst. All I’m saying is that Ao no Exorcist would commit the same sin if it tried to stop being about kids fucking around. Shounen are never going to be storytelling masterpieces so I don’t think they would or could ever pull off growth.
Wait? What? I said ”enjoy your crappy filler” because that’s exactly where the direction is headed. Everyone is better off switching from the anime to the manga because of that, so I’m not upset or anything if you think that’s the case.
Sorry, just seemed like you were directing that comment at me because I was telling Ao no Exorcist not to grow up. But if I misunderstood you, hey, it’s cool.
Misunderstandings happen on the internet. No biggie.
My personal experience with shounen stuff that tries to mature is that they happen to get very, very, very, pretentious. Like Bleach for example (aside from the million other issues I have with that piece of festering horseshit).
I was instantly turned off by Bleach when I saw the OP full of counterculture imagery. I just found it so bizarre — how is Bleach remotely counterculture? — so I never really bothered to watch another episode.
It isn’t, but it sure as hell tries to wallow in style because there’s absolutely nothing to tell in that series. Lately though, it’s gotten so pretentious (and downright nonsensical) that even the fanbase began to devise a slew of memes in order to make fun of Bleach.
http://www.mangafox.com/manga/bleach/v41/c354/4.html
Yes, that’s an actual page in the manga. Not some ”clever” meme to mock Bleach’s lack of content (which totally backfired for obvious reasons).
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I was writing a comment but it grew too long. So i made a post: http://myswordisunbelievablydull.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/actualization-of-shonen-characters/
went a little off topic.
I follow the Bleach and One Piece manga. One Piece is quite like your description of Ao no Exorcist: it has a youthful feel to it that never goes away. Chapter 1 and chapter 500 read pretty much the same way, timeskip or not. What separates One Piece from the crowd is the illusion of growing up while retaining the youthful feel.
Luffy has the goal of reaching “One Piece” on the last island in the Grand Line. How many islands are there before this final goal? We’re not told. But with each passing arc/island, it seems like the manga inches that much closer to the goal. We may have to sit through 1000 more chapters before Oda calls it quits, but at least we feel like progress is being made.
Ichigo, on the other hand, is never given a goal. We see him yell at Aizen and yell at Rukia and yell at the guy with the hat, but we don’t really remember why. Though it sports the same arc-based structure as One Piece, Bleach can’t pull off the “illusion.” Everything happens in a matter of days, and we don’t remember who all the hundreds of side characters are. We don’t know why Ichigo is fighting, nor do we care. So even if Bleach did manage to retain its initial childish tone, it would never have succeeded.
P.S.: Eyeshield 21 is another great example of a manga/anime that doesn’t grow up even though it feels like it does.
P.P.S.: The fourth Harry Potter tome was so huge that my fifth-grade attention span got the better of me and I haven’t read a book in the series since. I did go watch the last movie, though. Didn’t watch the three movies before that, so everything looked like a huge mess.
There’s just a popular movement nowadays to darken everything. Batman became gritty, Harry Potter became gritty, so on and so forth. Sometimes, the change is successful, but usually, I find that stories become goofy or just plain boring when they try to mature. Especially when people draw ridiculous conclusions from the “darker” aspects of these stories. I read some post arguing that Harry Potter somehow justifies universal health care. Man, I want universal healthcare in the ‘States too, but damn, taking my inspiration from Harry Potter?
Well, One Piece is all about nakamas and an ultimate goal. Short, sweet, and simple. Bleach, on the other hand, is about some dude who follows “the heart” and must struggle with moral issues like betraying his friends and blah blah blah. It tries to be deep, but the story itself doesn’t advance fast enough to justify anything. Kubo’s habit of making a one-minute battle last fifty chapters doesn’t help, either.
Well, a lot of people read too deeply into a lot of things. I don’t like Mawaru Penguindrum posts for that reason, though they’re certainly not on the same level as Harry Potter-healthcare.
This is also why I don’t like literary analysis. Some people spend their entire lives reading and rereading a specific book and all the analysis other people have written about it, but I don’t see the point! I’m sure that the author might have wanted readers to feel something at some depth, but not an entire career’s worth of depth.
Went off on a tangent, but it’s all the same thing!
It’s probably because they enjoy it. What does it matter what the author wants?
I guess that’s true. Though having high school English classes where I’m expected to analyze something like a feminist retelling of King Arthur in a huge winter break multi-paper project is overdoing it! If my crazy English teacher likes analyzing the book, fine. But I sure don’t, and I don’t see the point!
But then again, high school English classes always suck. My second-semester senior year teacher was my all-time least favorite teacher. She put grades into a spreadsheet and didn’t notice that a pop quiz she handed out on the first day was calculated at 30% of the grade for the entire semester. And when I pointed it out to her, she said she was right, even though it clearly said 30% on the paper I was holding.
She also liked Bruce Springsteen and made us watch videos of Bruce Springsteen in class. We didn’t write any papers/do any work on these videos, so I always wondered why we had to watch them. They were really boring.
tl;dr Bruce Springsteen sucks and high school English classes suck. College humanities courses have been better so far. Here, people actually care more about their students than Bruce Springsteen and feminist novels.
You won’t get any disagreements from me about grade school. The most that any teacher can really do is prepare kids for standardized tests. There’s no room for independent thinking or intellectual curiosity. I loved college cause I could pick and choose which classes to take. High school? Boring as hell. Then again, I did have a teacher in my senior year of HS who had the class analyze Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” for two weeks. I think it was just an excuse for him to dim the lights at 7AM in the morning.
I kind of like it when the more serious aspects of stuff is examined, like the idea of a superhero in Watchmen (masked men beating up other masked men? vigilantism? what kind of nutjob do you have to be to consider donning a diguise and beating people up is fun and good? etc etc etc). But then it has to be done well, forced “seriousness” is worse than “silliness”. If you introduce a concept, think about what it would actually mean instead of including it “for flavour” (this is commonly seen in bad fantasy writers, who will have the hero ride a horse that can gallop forever, never needs food or sleep, and never needs care in any other way; pretty much like a car or a bicycle. this is merely because “in fantasy people ride horses” is a concept of fantasy, and the writers haven’t seen a horse except in photographs. I’d love to see a fantasy story where the hero takes good care of his horse, i.e a more serious take on “hero rides a horse”).
Have you seen the anime Dennou Coil? A pleasant cyberpunkish thing, a little like if William Gibson and Hayao Miyazaki worked together.
I’m sorry if my English is bad, it isn’t my native language.
Oh, I’m sorry for not having noticed this post earlier.
I do like taking a serious look at a silly subject, but sometimes, people can go overboard. I remember how the studios wanted Sam Raimi to make Spiderman 3 be extra dark and so he basically gave them that campy mess that everyone hated. I actually thought Spiderman 3 was hilarious. A darker Spiderman would pretty much be that emo dork in the third movie, but most people expected a serious Spiderman movie so they lambasted it.
I’ve seen a bit of Dennou Coil, but I’ve never finished it. I dunno, something about it eventually bores me but I can’t quite put my finger on it.