Dragon Ball knew when/how to sideline superfluous characters, something that later battle shonen don't. In Dragon Ball, when a character no longer has anything to offer the story, they're either written out entirely, or retire from fighting altogether and move to the sidelines. Every arc doesn't waste time giving characters like Tien and Yamcha their "moment", the focus stays cleanly on the characters that matter.Later battle shonen don't do this. Characters fall out of relevance, but they never officially get written out or "retire". They're still treated as if they're active combatants even if they don't actually do anything or what they do is just padding.My Hero Academia is a prime example of this. It’s like, “Oh look, it’s time for every single side character to get their big emotional moment against a random villain no one gives a shit about.” I don’t need to see Mineta crying over how he's "finally useful" while fighting some C-list villain nobody will remember two episodes later.
>>288468209Demon Slayer falls into that participation trophy BS even harder, especially in the Infinity Castle arc. Every Hashira gets their little Oscar-worthy hero moment. While I don't mind one or two characters getting their 15 minutes of fame, I can't help but feel like it's just padding to make sure everyone gets their "epic" and "emotional" fight. Like, cool, Snake Guy and Butterfly Girl didn't do anything throughout the story... So why are we spending chapters on this and expected to care about them?Sidelining characters that no longer serve a purpose is fine. The issue is when characters serve no purpose to begin with, or are still treated as "important" long after that purpose has been fulfilled. Fans would much rather see their favorite character written out altogether or retire from combat than become "guy who only exists to pad the runtime with unnecessary fights" or "guy who only exists to make the villain a credible threat by losing to them". People prefer small casts of well-written and developed characters over large casts of underdeveloped characters that only exist to pad things out.All these newer shonens have way too many fucking characters that don't do anything or have any importance to the plot. They're just there for no reason.
>>288468209I blame Naruto for starting this "cram everyone in the final arc for fanservice" trend
>>288468387MHA started it.Naruto's war arc didn't do that.
>>288468430it literally had Haku, Zabuza and every Hokage resurrected for fanservice don't get me started on how on the nose Bleach did this too
B-But muh friendship!
https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/1sq51ab/les_dragon_ball_knew_whenhow_to_sideline/Dragon Ball threads are literal Reddit threads.
>>288468781Wouldnt surprise me if this was another one of Jeremy's alt accounts.
>please care about Dead Author BallKill your fucking self you worthless ape.
Later battle shonen don't do this. Characters fall out of relevance, but they never officially get written out or "retire". They're still treated as if they're active combatants even if they don't actually do anything or what they do is just padding.
>>288468209Bleach is especially guilty of this. By the final arc, the sheer number of Captains and Lieutenants made it mathematically impossible to give everyone a meaningful, substantive conclusion without ballooning the page count. And because Kubo prioritized giving each member of the Gotei 13 a moment, the focus on Ichigo (the main protagonist) becomes less of a story about Ichigo's journey and more of a retrospective on the institution of the Soul Society.Also, most shonen writers falls into this faulty logic of thinking that more = better. A lot of them mistake huge casts and giving them equal spotlight with good writing. Good writers have a small, but focused cast the story orbits around. Bad writers have a big and disjointed cast, thinking every character is equal.
>>288468209How bored do you need to be to defend toriyama shitting on his own characters
>>288471964>Later battle shonen don't do this.MHA absolutely does this, and it's especially exacerbated by the final arc where the author tries to equally distribute the amount of screentime Class 1-A gets for their "big" moment. So does Demon Slayer in its own final arc where the main characters (especially the little sister who is supposed to be the second lead) are pushed aside in favor of side characters you don't get to know which is why the author is so reliant on flashbacks. It's to compensate for the non-existent development these characters have so the audience can shed tears over them in ways the author never earned. Jujutsu Kaisen is even worse and goes by pro wrestling logic where every character ever takes a shot on Sukuna; even literal who side characters like Kashimo and Higuruma.
>>288472044>shitting on his own charactersLike who? Yamcha? He was always a comic relief. Chiaotzu? He had one moment against Nappa, he failed, Toriyama threw him out like yesterday's garbage. Krillin? He retired and became a family man. Goten and Trunks? They were always gag characters. DragonBall is one of the most consistent, straightforward shonen out there: it's Goku's story with Vegeta, Gohan and Piccolo as the occasional main characters.
>>288468209Hori should have listened to Oda when he said that MHA had too many characters because managing a sprawling ensemble cast is one of the biggest narrative juggling acts. When a story gets crowded, it is incredibly easy for characters to start feeling like background noise or for the pacing to grind to a halt just to give everyone "screen time."
>>288472135Chiaotzu is a prime example of a character that did not need to exist
>>288468209>um actually making only 3 characters useful and relevant is a good thing!!No
>>288468209>Dragon Ball knew when/how to sideline superfluous characters, something that later battle shonen don't.And yet the fanbase still criticizes it for not wasting chapters to show pointless fights like Tenshinhan or Yamcha fighting Cell or having the humans fight some low level fodder.
>>288475526That's still the case in modern ones. Wasting time giving every side character their "moment" doesn't change that, it's just padding.Use your supporting cast to actually support the main cast, not pad the story out.
>>288468209yeah, but what if Goku was a girl who was cute?
>>288468781oh no no no ... troonball sisters we just got caught reposting redditslop
