Almost nothing ages well with enough time. What once was cool or even acceptable a decade ago may not be as well-received today, and that’s alright. After all, this is just a sign of the changing times and, hopefully, intellectual maturity.
This applies especially well to shonen anime, which can be seen as an ever-changing timeline of storytelling norms and ideas. While some shonen staples of the 2000s are timeless, others aren’t as lucky. This doesn’t automatically mean they’re terrible, but they do show their age.
10 High-Rise Invasion Was An Unnecessary Flashback
Though released this year through Netflix, High-Rise Invasion could easily be mistaken for literally any edgy anime from the early 2000s. With its flat direction, copious amounts of fanservice, high-pressure gore, excessive narration, and more, High-Rise Invasion would’ve been an instant hit if it aired beside the first Hellsing anime or School Days.
High-Rise Invasion does nothing to improve or even spice up the survival anime, which is what ironically makes it stand out all the more. Nobody in 2021 is highly praising or criticizing Yuri Honjo’s physical and moral fight against The Masks. Rather, High-Rise Invasion is oft mentioned as a flashback to 2008 no one really expected or wanted.
9 Future Diary Is Too Edgy For Its Own Good
While it’s not the first of its kind, Future Diary is widely regarded as the death game anime that solidified the craze. Even now, new death games like Darwin’s Game or Gleipnir are measured by the standards set by Deus Ex Machina’s contest for godhood. But in doing so, fans accidentally stagnated the death game niche and restricted it to the bygone edgy trends of the 2010s.
Future Diary set the template for the modern death game, popularizing conventions like the ineffectual yet competent protagonist, a yandere love interest and/or rival, a nihilistic yet simplistic worldview, and more. It’s debatable if later titles improved on these or not, but seeing them in motion in Future Diary only exposes how aged a concept and story it is.
8 A Certain Magical Index Was Overshadowed By Its Spin-Offs
Because of A Certain Scientific Railgun’s popularity, some of Mikoto Misaka’s fans decided to watch the anime where she and her friends originated from. Unfortunately, A Certain Magical Index didn’t just fall short of expectations, but it bored them as well. Index isn’t terrible, but it’s a generic shonen harem anime that just so happens to have an interesting power system in place.
Worse is its protagonist Kamijou Touma, who’s as boilerplate as harem heroes get. For Railgun fans, Index’s cast and ideas are better as supporting elements in Misaka’s story than being left on their own. There’s a reason why despite being the mainline anime, Index flounders while the spin-off Railgun continues to thrive.
7 Lucky Star Is A Time Capsule Of 2000's Comedy
There’s no brand of shonen comedy as popular as the otaku spoof, where characters make inside jokes and references that only anime-obsessed viewers would get. Lucky Star was the pinnacle of this humor in the 2000s, with Konata Izumi and friends constantly skipping schoolwork in favor of parodying whatever anime was currently popular or anything in Japanese pop culture.
Unfortunately, as is with any joke that relies on references, Lucky Star’s comedy aged poorly. Many of the things that Konata mentions and/or mocks are no longer popular or infamous, such as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya or Ultraman. While the old guard of the anime fandom would love a silly trip down memory lane, newcomers would just be lost.
6 Black Clover’s Old-School Style Isn’t For Everyone
To its credit, Black Clover isn’t terrible. The biggest drawback of Asta’s quest to become Magic Emperor is that it’s a shonen anime from the 2000s made with the production value of a 2010’s title. In fact, Season 1 is such a slave to formula that viewers either slogged through it or stopped watching altogether because they couldn’t stand Asta’s endless screaming. Black Clover didn’t age poorly; it aged itself from the beginning.
Asta’s hot-blooded adventures are archaic to the core, barely refining classic shonen mainstays such as training arcs, an intricate magic system, Asta’s bottomless determination and vocal cords, and the power of friendship saving the day. This is great for nostalgic shonen veterans, but everyone else would just see it as a relic – assuming, of course, they get past the first 51 episodes.
5 Darling In The Franxx Is An Ode To Wasted Potential
There was a time when Darling in the Franxx was hyped as its generation’s milestone, which may be hard to relate with today. From the get-go, Darling in the Franxx already has some aged nitpicks, like its juvenile humor that relied too much on sex. But while that could be brushed off as a sign of the times, its messy story can’t be excused.
Darling in the Franxx opened well enough by introducing a strange world, giant mechs, and Hiro and Zero Two’s odd yet genuine romance. But when the big questions were finally answered, they either fell flat or were called out for being unoriginal. What should’ve been Trigger’s magnum opus is instead remembered today for its squandered promise that no one wants to revisit.
4 Bleach Was Everything Wrong With 2000’s-Era Shonen Anime
Lots of modern shonen anime (for example Jujutsu Kaisen) owe a lot to Bleach, which stood beside Naruto and One Piece as part of Shonen Jump’s beloved Big Three. However, time has not been kind to Bleach. While the ninjas and pirates thrived, the Shinigami fell out of favor and became a summary of modern shonen anime’s biggest faults, specifically prioritizing style over substance.
Besides too many filler arcs and padding, Bleach’s writing was a mess. Just to name a few issues: inconsistent power levels, convenient power-ups, Aizen’s countless keikakus, and Ichigo becoming one of the most ridiculously overpowered shonen heroes ever. Today, Bleach is better as an example of what shonen anime shouldn’t do than a classic begging for a rewatch.
3 The Yu-Gi-Oh! Franchise Is More Of A Meme Than Anything Else
As a shonen anime, the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise is the epitome of being generic. It’s a glorified ad for the eponymous trading card game, where an already formulaic shonen adventure about friendship’s might takes a back seat to product placement. Without its so-bad-it’s-good reputation, Yu-Gi-Oh! is the kind of toy tie-in anime that barely gets made today for a reason.
But when factoring in its ironic appeal, Yu-Gi-Oh! will forever be seen as that anime where people take children’s card games too seriously. To counteract this unintentional legacy, the franchise has constantly tried to reinvent itself into something cooler and edgier. This almost always backfired, though. Case in point: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s card games on motorcycles.
2 Highschool Of The Dead Will Forever Be Incomplete
There’s little else about Highschool of the Dead that could be said since it’s nothing more than a zombie apocalypse with more fanservice than undead cannibalism. However, the only thing that aged worse than this anime’s shamelessly juvenile excuses for gratuitous fanservice amidst zombie carnage is that it will never be properly concluded.
This is because author Daisuke Sato passed away before he reached his manga’s halfway point. Out of respect, illustrator Shoji Sato and studio Madhouse quietly dropped Highschool of the Dead. B-movie-styled schlock aside, the anime is basically a prologue to a wider zombie apocalypse that will sadly never be expanded upon.
1 Fire Force’s Fanservice Belongs In The Past
There’s nothing too spectacular about Fire Force; it’s a generic action-packed shonen anime that reimagines exorcism as firefighting. That said, it caused controversy for fanservice at Tamaki Kotatsu’s expense. Fanservice is as old as shonen anime itself, but Fire Force took this to exploitative extremes that belong in the forgotten sleazy ecchi romps of yesteryear.
Tamaki isn’t just susceptible to humiliating moments of undress; it’s literally part of her being. This is because of the Lucky Lewd Syndrome, which gives her the power to end up naked and/or groped in almost every episode – regardless of the scene’s tone. As a result, Tamaki’s character was overshadowed by some of the most poorly justified fanservice of modern anime history.