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Quote:But I guess that's also where you will find a whole world of difference between what makes shonen characters like Naruto "cool", and seinen characters "interesting". In the latter case, what makes your average thief interesting, is exactly because your average thief is average in the first place: all the struggles they will face, their doubts, their failures, the way they see the world, their human side. In the former case, what will make your average thief interesting is just that they will comply to be basic rules of shonen, being a teen-angst, dark brooding but all lovey goody two shoes male hero who gets angry at every injustice, and can actually change things because he is special, a chosen one, and has super powers. And compared to him indeed, your average thief, no matter how well fleshed out they will be, will pale in comparison, not because of a lesser writing, but to the contrary, because the special snowflake shonen character will suck out everything from that average character presence to concentrate it in the middle of the spotlight: the awesome one.Ummm... no I'm going to have to disagree with this. There's a distinct difference between a interesting shonen hero and one that can be cool just because they suck out everything from the average person in comparison. The average thief is not inherently "better" than a superpowered MC of some high action movie or whatever. It all depends on the writing. DBZ is a prime example with this, The Saiyans mainly are terrible characters that drain any excitement from the human characters just because of plot line ancestry. It's to the point I believe DB Super to be absolutely trash.
But let's take Vegeta for example, as he's the only character from that series (besides teen gohan probably) that isn't cringe worthy to watch. Â Now people don't like him because of his 1 liners, badass entrances (even though he never wins a big fight) or the fact he can shoot beams that can destroy worlds from his hands. He's got such a huge fanbase of people because he portrays the epitome of "You can do it if you work hard enough for it". GOKU is the typical all talented shonen hero with that basic ass "I hate all evil and never give up" crap. Vegeta is the one who you could see grow over the series and face many problems average people would (comparing themselves to someone doing better than them, not living up to others standards, having to compete with people who naturally just seem to be better than you) just on a larger scale.
Just cause you want to shoot magic from your hands doesn't automatically make you less interesting than one of those mundane characters nor is the reverse true. It's a preference to a demographic, but at the same time you don't have to be blind to the other side either.
Kevin Gates - Told Me