Stop Criticizing Shonen Slop & Just Watch A Real Anime Instead

When it comes to anime, there’s no genre (or more accurately, no demographic) more popular than shonen, to the point that it almost feels egregious. Every season, many of the biggest and most popular series come from the world of shonen anime, whether it’s returning series like Demon Slayer and My Hero Academia, or new series like Dan Da Dan or Sakamoto Days. To their credit, shonen anime is popular for a reason—they frequently feature some of the best animation, and they create imaginative, expansive worlds full of excellent fight scenes. That said, the genre is far from perfect.

It should only take watching a handful of shonen anime before the genre’s flaws begin to emerge. Certainly among the most popular series, shonen suffers from a lack of well-written female characters, either in lead roles or even supporting positions. For older fans, it can be exhausting to deal with shonen, since the specific demographic means the main character and supporting cast are likely to be children or teenagers. However, more than anything, the genre can be quite tropey. As a result, it can be easy to write everything off in shonen anime with a term that’s become quite popular lately: slop. Yet whatever problems viewers have with shonen ultimately fall on the viewers themselves, for not branching out and watching other anime.

Far Too Many Anime Fans Overlook The Classics

To begin with, far too many new anime fans rely on whatever’s releasing on the seasonal schedule to make up their mind about anime. But going back even to the 2000s, let alone the 1990s or ’80s, can quickly prove rewarding to the average fan. Nevermind what many modern fans might say, many of the medium’s greatest series come from older decades.

For one thing, while there were fewer anime in prior decades, the different series were spread out much better. Since shonen anime were usually long-runners, fans of other genres or demographics were more likely to get great anime that were 12 episodes or a maximum of 26 episodes. At one point, these series were considered must-watch anime for people who were getting into the medium. Now, fans just jump to whatever the new hot series are, especially since dozens of new anime are released every three months.

Watching older anime can be an enjoyable time for all fans, but there’s another benefit to it that fans scarcely talk about these days. Looking at series from the past can bring out a greater understanding of modern series, since creators are often inspired by works from their youth. Art is often in conversation with itself, too, meaning creators are often “responding” to other pieces of art with works of their own.

Even genre viewers think they understand, like isekai anime, look entirely different if they’re willing to go back and try older series. Where isekai anime these days are wish-fulfillment series aimed at a primarily male audience, the isekai anime of the ’90s and early 2000s are a different story. During that era, the genre was aimed primarily at women and offered unique fairy tale-like adventures that pushed their protagonists to grow and change before returning to their eras. The genre generated some of the biggest classics of the ’90s, like Vision of Escaflowne and Fushigi Yugi, and even into the 2000s with series like Twelve Kingdoms. And those are all well-known projects; there are tons of hidden gems waiting for fans who are willing to take the time to explore.

Fans Tired Of “Shonenslop” Should Try To Embrace Lesser-Known New Anime

So it’s possible some people might not want to watch older anime. While some people find the 90s to be the Golden Age of Animation, others just can’t deal with how different everything looks. Or maybe they just don’t like the more character-driven storytelling from that era. Whatever the case, it doesn’t mean fans who are tired of shonen anime are out of options. They just need to look at lesser-known anime.

Just this year, Kyoto Animation released City The Animation, one of the funniest, most visually stunning anime that fans will see all season. Meanwhile, series like Grand Blue, which just made a return, or even the recently released Let’s Play prove there are still some anime that are aimed at an adult audience. There are even long-running series that don’t specifically belong to shonen, like The Apothecary Diaries or the reincarnation drama series Oshi no Ko, two series that have garnered incredible critical acclaim and have breathtaking animation on par with what one might see from a My Hero Academia.

Even fans who just can’t stand older anime will likely get a chance to experience some old classics through new eyes. Anime has been undergoing a renaissance of remakes for the last decade now, and it doesn’t look like there’s any chance of that slowing down. In the 2010s, magical girl fans got the return of one of the greatest magical girl anime of all time with Sailor Moon Crystal, a faithful remake of the manga.

At the same time, shoujo anime fans got Fruits Basket, a proper remake that completely adapted the source material. Anne of Green Gables got a remake recently in the form of Anne Shirley, a surprisingly solid historical drama courtesy of Tower of God’s The Answer Studio.

There’s No Excuse To Be Tied Solely To Popular Shonen Picks

Ultimately, there’s just no excuse for fans getting resentful at “shonenslop” when the problem largely falls into their lap. In the ’90s and 2000s, at best, there were still only a handful of new anime every season. These days, every season offers forty to sixty new and/or returning series, spanning a vast number of genres and demographics. It’s fine to skip out on the newest hot series that everyone is talking about in order to take a risk on a sleeper hit, or even explore the seasonal charts to discover something literally no one is talking about.

As if the options aren’t bad enough, it’s especially egregious given just how many options are available to watch anime. In the past, viewers had to spend hundreds of dollars to buy anime out of a store or online. These days, literally every streaming service from Netflix to Crunchyroll to even Disney+ has a vast library of series just waiting for viewers to try them out. Viewers just have to be willing to give them a chance.