Why has shonen suddenly become so popular to hate?

ForgotEyeWasHere said:
Shounen is a target demographic, not a genre. But I assume you're specifically talking about battle shounen, so I'll talk about that.

Most fake anime fans only watch battle shounen, so people start to hate it because of that. I personally don't hate it, but I think it has its flaws too. For example, a lot of battle shounen are very similar to one another, and get quite generic. Dragon Ball, One Piece and Naruto all have quite a bit in common with each other.

-Xenophon- said:
Success can make some people jealous, even when talking about anime genres/demographics.

trulywaath said:
Most people still love shonen. It's just loud, shallow contrarians; they've always existed, it's just now that the anime fandom is getting bigger, annoying people are getting louder and more frequent in number. You'll notice most shonen haters are new fans anyway.

MAXproARYAN said:
Me personally, i dont hate battle shounen anime, infact its probably still my fav genre and most anime i watched belong to that, but i absolutely hate shounen fans. They need to bring down and hate on anything that is non shounen/ seinen. Anytime a romance or comedy or music anime becomes popular, they feel the need to shit on it . Shounen is still by far easily the most popular demographic and minority always likes to be louder , so maybe thats why you are seeing it more often than ever? Idk but it certainly goes both ways imo

Tendo_GM said:
It’s because Shonen fans are the worst of the worst and all the hate the shonen anime get is actually targeted at them

RobertBobert said:
But is this reasonable? For example, I am annoyed by yuri fans because of their twisted mentality, but is it justified if it makes me hate yuri in general? Not to mention that I actually see hatred towards shonen fans more than anything from them.

Faxtual_Ghoul said:
Yuri fans don't overhype; they don't even force others to be queer

Shounen fans on the other hand overhype their garbage to the level that Seinen fans have to shut their mouths

Gwyn223 said:
Trends come and go, and shonen has had its fair share of glory. Maybe some people are just tired of the same old formula, the power of friendship speeches, and the predictable plot twists. They crave something edgier, more mature, or simply different.. And when people gather on social media platforms to vent their frustrations, the negativity spreads like wildfire.
As for the term "shonen MC," some fans like to use it as a way to mock certain character archetypes that they find cliché or lacking depth. It's become a shorthand to criticize protagonists who follow the same predictable hero's journey, and some fans jump on the bandwagon without even thinking..

RobertBobert said:
It might make sense in theory, but then again, it can be said for any genre and demographic, but people keep quiet about it. Or sometimes even in awe of shows that have as much cliché or even more formula than shonen. It's just hypocritical and vile.

Overlord_13 said:

At this point, I am not sure whether you are trolling or serious. Have you ever met any isekai haters?

velveteenvamp said:
I don't understand being disrespectful of other people's tastes in general, it's juvenile and doesn't amount to anything: just live and let live. 

KitsuFrost said:
Shounen has never been so popular whether amongst the ones who love it or hate it.

RobertBobert said:
Met many times. But those same people are quick to pocket all their complaints and grievances when it comes to shows with female MCs or yuri/all-female stuff in general. This is the kind of doublethink I'm talking about. But even if I can understand the vocal hatred of "easy victims" like isekai, it still doesn't explain the one-dimensional hostility towards shonen, which is really no worse or better than other genres.

Overlord_13 said:

First part of your reply is just a baseless claim. Even if what you said is remotely true. It doesn't negate the fact that Isekai is getting hate. I don't understand what you are trying to say in your very last line. Sorry for that.
Many people have already gave reasons why Shonen is getting hate. It's nothing new and neither it's a surprise. So I don't understand the need of dramatizing this trivial issue.

alshu said:
"Why has shonen suddenly become so popular to hate?"

If we are talking battle shounen, its fandom is quite pushy, that's why. Action and reaction.
In the 00s Eva, Monster and LOTGH fans did that, this is why nowadays there's such stigma for liking those.

Pyro said:
Shounen, specifically battle shounen has been hated on by other fans for as long as I can remember. Being the most popular paints the biggest target.

Coupled with its unchanging and repeated nature, one can at the very least start to see why.

RobertBobert said:
Why doesn't anyone hate sports, idol or CGDCT shows? They are no less repetitive than many shonen. And I'm not talking about something more general like romance, it doesn't matter if it's gay or straight. Because you can literally predict every line of every character as if you were the one who wrote the script.

Pyro said:

Every other genre or even demographic might as well be labeled as niche compared to shounen.

Funcrisp said:
The most popular shounen have always been hated. Some posters already made their points but I like to add: I think it's that people have been groomed to expect or crave new seasons of shows they like and that may cause fatigue, culprits like Netflix, Disney and how seasonal anime is going ( AoT season 4 part 2 part ∞ ). I would rather enjoy a completed story than waiting every new year for a new season, but that may just be me.

Zettaiken said:
Battle Shonens:
They aren't that popular to hate in nowadays, it has been a "trend" since quite a time. Bleach has been hated, now I guess Demon Slayer is [just binged it from yesterday and I have no complains to it], MHA was hated when it started to come out, Black Clover too, JJK in some certain levels too, for Naruto I have no idea tbh I haven't memorised anything related to it so won't say, same goes for stuff which I haven't seen or haven't been following the topics such as for Dragon Ball, Yuu Yuu Hakusho, One Piece and many more.

Shonens which are not Battle:
I don't think they are actually hated, I don't think I've seen a huge hatred towards sports shonen or other anime from that demographic outside being Battle and Sports.

RobertBobert said:
I don't think so. But even if we assume that this is a niche, it still turns out to be rather hypocritical that not the smallest part of shonen haters consists of fans of these genres. Don't you find it? I often directly pointed out this to them and the main argument was "this is a good formula, otherwise a bad formula", lol.

Pyro said:

Well, that's sorta the problem. It seems you expect too much from anime fans. Let's be real, we're some of the most opinionated and passionate bunch around. Those qualities don't always lead to good ends.

RobertBobert said:
How long have you been watching anime? Shonens have been the most popular anime in the West for decades, even more than in Japan itself. 

ThunderBolt_16 said:
I thought action-adventure shonen were always hated and easy to target. Anime community has grown a lot in last few years and anime outside of shounen are getting attention now. From what I have seen, seinen anime like Monster and Berserk are getting more popular now.

I am not saying shounen-oriented shows don't have any flaws or their fandoms are completely peaceful. But fanboyism and snobbery have always been part of the community. It's not anything new, neither it is going to stop. So it's not something to care about tbh.

RobertBobert said:
I expect people to not write manifestoes about how they hate apples just because they really only dislike red apples because of the color while devouring green ones even if they are rotten. If you understand what I mean.

RobertBobert said:
Do you now seriously think that shows like Berserk and Monster have only become popular now because of the reduced focus on watching shonens only?

ThunderBolt_16 said:


From what I've witnessed, anime community in general have grown quite a lot. So it's obvious, the number of people who would seek out more anime to watch have grown. It's not only limited to action-oriented shows. It applies to other genres like rom-coms and Psychological thrillers too.

Not saying shounen has lost it's popularity, it's still the most popular demographic.

RobertBobert said:
Can anyone explain to me when and why Western fans went from literally worshiping shonen to using any loophole to attack shonen and its fans? I understand that all things have their fans and their haters, but for the last year or two, it seems to me more and more that hatred of shonen is becoming somehow excessive or even insane. To the point where I see normies attacking shonen just to seem like cool anime fans. For example, a couple of people used "shonen MC" quite seriously when talking to me with the expectation that I would understand it as a derogatory term without any problems. Can anyone explain this?

Ventus_S said:
Because many genres have progress in terms of storytelling and character building, like we have Blue Lock as sport, Oshi no Ko as drama, etc.

However, many of the most popular shonen has not progress their storytelling method at all , and the way they're telling the story/ highlighting the characters are very "ancient" and "outdated" in viewers' eyes.
Ofc there're some outliers like usual, but my point is they have the popularity but they have not progress in story-telling and character building.

RobertBobert said:
For example? What kind of shonens do you find like this? Also, Oshi no Ko was never pure "drama" in that sense, it's a typical seinen idol show about the dark side of show business.