In the mid-2000s, teenage fans began bragging about the birth of the Big Three: Masashi Kishimoto’s naruto, Kubo Tite’s bleach, With Eiichiro Oda One piece. The three comics co-existed and were serialized in Shonen Jump magazine, known for their worldwide popularity and length, and feature prominently on the cover. They’re not the magazine’s best-selling titles, but they’re well-known, thanks in large part to their equally large anime adaptations.
Years later, comic fans are trying to look to current comics in hopes of crowning a new Big Three. For teenagers, the successor that has been attempted in recent years is Kohei Horikoshi’s superhero epic my hero academia and Akuta Migg’s action-horror series. Jujutsu Kaisen. Like the legendary trio before them, the two are linked by existing and being popular within the same time frame, and also end close to each other: Horikoshi ends the book my hero In August this year, at the same time Jiu-jitsu The final chapter will be released on September 30th. Well… no, not really.
This doesn’t mean It sucks; I love reading and watching what I’ve done with both over the years. At their best, they’re all compelling stories that offer interesting spins on the specific genre tropes they use, and you can see why they were chosen for animated adaptations. When experienced in the right way, their personal highs can be high. (Second my hero movie, 2019 Heroes rise, Something exciting and incredibly crazy happened. This mostly good shounen story could probably be a quarter shorter and be stronger for it.
When you take it seriously, my hero academia Just riding the superhero wave that emerged in the 2010s, it took off with the MCU and entered the (largely) timeless “young superhero” market that Marvel and DC didn’t fully embrace afterwards. young justice First time off the air. In the best way, it’s the Japanese equivalent The sky is high Starting nearly two full decades ago. Jujutsu Kaisen It’s a similar story: horror movies haven’t really gone out of style, and there are already critically acclaimed series like this one tokyo ghoul and attack on titan This helps lay the foundation. (From an animation perspective, it’s the same as titan It was adapted by animation studio MAPPA, which did play a role in it. Hunter×Hunter, Death, and Naruto. The Big Three of the 2000s were influential in their own right, but they were also trendsetters, inspiring future creators in clear, direct ways.
Can the same be said for both? my hero or jujitsu Couldn’t this apply more broadly to the genres they’re a part of? There’s no doubt that these are popular series, as shown by the merchandise and Arena Fighters releases from Bandai Namco, but in an era where anything can or wants to be a franchise, it doesn’t feel like What that meant 20 years ago. Yes, you’ll see Gojo references in Miles Morales’ comics or Megan Thee Stallion’s singles, but what kind of legacy will these two comics leave behind? What will the next generation learn from the stories of Midoriya Tokuhisa and Itadori Yuuji? them?
The thing about the Big Three is that it was a unique, focused moment that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s the result of a combination of factors, one of which is that juvenile media is big enough, but not big enough so So big that things can easily get lost in the shuffle. More broadly, this is the problem with our current media landscape. How often do people talk about not knowing a product existed until just before it was released, or failing because it couldn’t find an audience? In different situations, it is easy to imagine my hero or jujitsu If something else caught the fans’ attention, it was ignored and ended early. This is not the case Bleach, Naruto, or one piecethanks in large part to Cartoon Network’s Toonami block and Fox’s 4KidsTV in the mid-2000s. one piece The latter premiered in 2004 before jumping to Toonami in 2005 (the same year Naruto began airing), and subsequently bleach In 2006, these two networks did a lot of the heavy lifting in the West to help them become the hegemons they are now. in turn, my hero is the only one of the two modern anime to air on actual television, rather than just getting a weekly drop from Crunchyroll and then going to DVD or other streaming media.
The current shounen craze is entangled in time: my hero academia It started in 2014 when manga and anime started to become more popular in the West. by the time Jujutsu Kaisen In 2018, Western countries began to openly embrace both formats. Bookstores began to increase their manga stockings and make them more prominent, while anime spread from Crunchyroll to Netflix and other streaming media, not to mention big movies that were frequently shown in theaters, e.g. Promare and Demon slayer. my hero and jujitsu They’re popular in Japan, but outside of their home country (especially the United States), they’re practically a revelation, aided further by being more readily available, legal or otherwise.
if anything affects me hero and Jiu-jitsu What they do have that is unique is that they helped the leak community explode. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, Twitter leakers will reveal the events of the next chapter, which will air on Sunday on Shonen Jump, along with screenshots and page-by-page summaries. These events become events in their own right, and if you don’t want to be spoiled, the network basically tells you they’re breaks. Both series’ major plot points and character twists were spoiled days ago and will become hot topics immediately Once released a big moment. The phenomenon is so popular that two teenage leakers in Japan were arrested in February, prompting some to temporarily back off once the heat dies down, but there’s no doubt they’ll be back and turn their attention to other ongoing series.
Again, neither my hero academia or Jujutsu Kaisen It’s bad; even if they themselves go too far. But Shounen does more harm than good by trying to equate them with three manga that have largely managed to survive to this day and are firmly integrated into the history of the medium and animation as a whole. But there’s nothing wrong with being a perfectly solid material. In fact, I’d say both series will eventually come to an end. Sometimes, it’s okay not to be the best.
But if you are a power scaler need Something underpinning the second coming…well, it seems kaguramachi There it is, ready to be glazed.
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