@thatguywithheadphones: I never said it was one-sided, just saying. Not only that but there are other mainstream shonen apart from my list like Slam Dunk, Dragon Ball, even Astro Boy and more of which I haven't watched. The fact remains that more otakus are attracted to mainstream shonen because it appeals to a large audience. And if you extend the list more, more from my list and other mainstreams will pop up.
Yeah, but they'll still be preceded by other non mainstream manga.
Agreed.
This also brings up a question. What do you define as "mainstream"? I mean FT on your list but 20 Century Boys has made double that. Is it mainstream?
I don't want to quiblble over such a small matter lol. But I consider mainstream shonen as in 200 + episodes of mediocre plot/story, anime consisted of cliché characters (and maybe even plot), scenes full of friendship speeches, etcetc.
And I refer to the really popular mainstream shonen anime, like:
Naruto
One Piece
Bleach
Fairy Tail
Hunter X Hunter
Toriko
When it's super popular and mainstream, the quality is usually inferior to that of other masterpieces out there. Animators and writers get lazy, profits keep coming, so they usually don't have to worry about their audience.
I've watched a bit of all of them, I'd say I like Naruto the most (and that's not saying much), only because the fight scenes are quite good, and the storyline is dark and it gets right down to the stuff that makes it appealing.
This is just at the moment. Even though I like Bleach more in general right now it just sucks. The typical Kubo treatment: "oh something exciting. better first show some boring stuff". One Piece had a pretty good arc but i like it in general less and all the stretching (haha because luffy is made of rubber :D) of the chapters is just annoying. Fairy tail is as i read in some other comments just the bad version of Rave Master and even though it´s getting quite good right now I don´t think it´s that good. Narutos end did suck so much but nonetheless i like it especially with the movie(s). HxH is on hiatus again but the whole idea at the moment even leaving gon etc out is just nice. one or even more arcs without the main character is a refreshing idea for a shounen manga as i think this doesn´t happen that often. finally there is toriko. and here i have to say i grew to love this manga. i mean now there is this arc with chars that i never thought were the least bit interesting and i still like it. that almost never happens to me so i had to put it on 1.
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