Something is happening in the world of shonen. As the massive titles of the early and mid-2000s like Naruto and Bleach die down, we're seeing a new breed of storytelling rising to the top. Series where there are things more important than the next battle or who's the strongest. Series where character is king. And with that sea change, comes a new variety of shonen protagonist.

In the past, you could more or less copy and paste shonen heroes: A young underdog with an endless passion that has a hidden potential waiting to be unleashed -- especially for the sake of his friends. This broadly describes the central heroes of Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Hunter x Hunter, Fairy Tail and tons of other, less prominent shonen series. You could switch it up by changing the hero's attitude, as with Bleach, or their gender, as with Claymore, or their circumstances, as with Shaman King, but the core remains largely the same.

Many of these shonen series have been centered purely on the spectacle of battle and the awe of seeing the hero become the Most Powerful in the World. The hero is not truly meant to be a three-dimensional person, but more of a walking, talking power set. How strong can they get? If they go up against Person A and Person B, who would win? Shonen of the past was all about witnessing the escalation of power and testing the limits of each protagonist's raw strength.

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A prime example of this is Dragon Ball ZGoku lives in a unique world, full of dinosaurs and beast people and impossible technology. We get to see him through the years as he goes from a baby orphan to father to grandfather. He makes friends and raises a family; his friends start families and even one of his sons starts a family. He travels to other worlds and places beyond even death itself. Goku leads a uniquely domestic life for an alien monkey-man.

But all of it is just a vehicle. For what? Fights. Everyone's fighting all the time. Goku fights, his friends fight, he has kids and then his kids fight; his friends have kids and their kids fight. The only break from fighting is when they're all training. Even when they're dead and in the planes beyond, Goku and company are doing one of those two things.

All this is to say that Goku and the life he's built, while interesting, is not the point or focus of Dragon Ball Z. In any shonen it would not be the point -- that's just the nature of the genre. But the type of story Goku and protagonists like him inhabit is what determines the type of character they are:  powerhouses that bounce from one fight to the next. They know exactly what they want -- to get stronger; they know exactly how to do it -- through training and fighting, and they know exactly why they do it -- for their friends. All of these things are made clear so that it's easier to move from fight to fight. This is perfectly fine and these types of heroes resonate with millions of people the world over. They have done for decades, since the dawn of Casshern.

But what happens when fighting is no longer the center of the story? What happens when your shonen is about more than just the fights? Well, you get a different type of protagonist at the helm. Recent shonen series have been taking a different approach to the traditional "ascend the tower of power" protagonist and the stories that need them. Now, we're seeing stories where the hero already is the strongest or isn't strong at all. Heroes that aren't sure what they want and heroes that couldn't beat their odds with the power of a million Gokus. Now, we're seeing heroes that are people.

Saitama floating in the air in One-Punch Man

Of this new wave of shonen heroes, the most popular at the moment is probably Saitama of One-Punch ManImpossibly powerful, all Saitama needs is a single punch to destroy absolutely anyone. And all that power has bored him out of his mind. The story of One-Punch Man, while not lacking big battles by any means, is more about Saitama's everyday life and what he chooses to do with all that strength. It's about what the guy with all the gifts does with them.

Denji of up-and-coming manga, Chainsaw Man is strong but is by no means the strongest character of his series. Actually, the fact that Denji has powers at all costs him his rights as a human being, enslaving him to the powers that be. But that's fine by him since he's uneducated, dirt poor and doesn't really know what he wants in life. So the story of Chainsaw Man is about a guy doing as he's told until he can figure out something better, even if better can't exist for someone like him.

Similarly, Gabimaru of Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku is a feared ninja up for execution. Though he's powerful, he no longer wants to kill and only wants to live quietly with his beloved wife. His crimes will be pardoned if he retrieves the Elixir of Life for the Shogun and so he accepts the mission. To that end, Jigokuraku is a story about what a man will sacrifice to get back to the woman he loves -- the woman that first made him feel human.

Saitama, Denji and Gabimaru are just a few of the heroes in this new wave, but they represent what it's all about -- characters that are people. Protagonists whose characters and struggles are just as important as their move sets and abilities. These new shonen heroes don't have all the answers and they don't have all the power they need to save the day. Their challenges are real, human trials.

Wrestling with boredom, figuring out what you want in life, sacrificing for the ones you love -- everyone deals with these on some level. And, because of that, we understand the stakes these protagonists face on a different level; an emotional level. It adds new depth to a genre that can, frankly, wear thin pretty quickly. That's not to say the old guard didn't also struggle, but sometimes we need characters that face more real obstacles than figuring out where to train next.

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