Boku No Hero Academia: Manga or Anime?

[Bob_McMillan]

I started reading the manga when it first came out. I caught up to the then current issue and decided to go watch the anime. And the anime was just so ridiculously shonen-y I couldn't take it anymore and I gave up on the franchise altogether.

However I hear the anime has gotten a lot better, and the manga has more than a 100 issues out, so I thought it's a good time as ever to get back into it.

So, which one do you guys recommend should I read/watch?

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Manga

Pretty far ahead of the show
Takes less time to read vs watching = faster to judge if it got too "shonen-y" for ya
Fun to look back at scenes in their animated form if you want to cherry pick but not watch everything
Plus small tidbits of info from the mangaka concerning character details not revealed in the show
Shoe #1 character

 

[DaCosta]

How can the anime be more shounen-y than the shounen manga it is a direct adaptation of?

 

[Redryhno]

How can the anime be more shounen-y than the shounen manga it is a direct adaptation of?

Animation adds alot to adaptations. Koe No Katachi and Your Name(I think, I could be wrong) over the last two years or so turned some pretty good source material(that was pretty much unknown before they were turned into movies) into their own realities.

OT:

Honestly, if you didn't like Season 1, you're not going to like Season 2 or the manga. Boku no Hero is a pretty un-shounen-y shounen as it is, and if you think it's too much, you're not gonna like it all that much.

However, in the same universe and happening somewhat parallel to the main story is Boku no Hero: Vigilantes(as in, you're going to see some of the main story cast and have some events be mentioned and shown on the news). Not particularly Shounen-y, more like slice of life mixed with some fight scenes every now and then.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

How can the anime be more shounen-y than the shounen manga it is a direct adaptation of?

All the screaming to get more powerful and impassioned speeches about friendship are more annoying in animated form.

 

[DeadProxy]

The manga is good. It's probably 5 arcs ahead of the show.

But I'm sorry to say that friendship and screaming out your emotions is just how this genre functions. It just does a good job of not laying it on so thick as the manga goes on.

The action of the anime is totally worth checking out though.

Basically, this gets the same recommendation from me one piece does. Read the manga, watch the action, cause everything gets drawn out too much.

 

[Natemans]

I like both equally.

 

[Jerast]

I've tried both because my wife likes it and I want to try to like it but I can't because they're too screamy anime bs for me.

If you held me at gunpoint though, I'd say just read the manga and watch the fights on youtube because at least when you see a huge speech bubble in the manga with the word *friend* you can just skip past a few pages and keep going.

 

[PapaGreg096]

I don't like it as much my friends do. It just seems like a Naruto ripoff with a different flavour.

How is it a Naruto rip off, with the exception of underdog themes the two aren't really that similar

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I don't like it as much my friends do. It just seems like a Naruto ripoff with a different flavour.

How is it a Naruto rip off, with the exception of underdog themes the two aren't really that similar

Character stereotypes and insistence on personal powers rather than strategy (though it's common in Shounen) as well as loads of more interesting and useless side characters. But besides that I feel the first arcs are just too similar. "A simple mission goes south fast when epic level villains pop up and nearly kills everyone" for Zabuza and the training arc. And the sport festival feels similar to the Chunin exam.

While I don't agree that it is necessarily a Naruto ripoff, I have to agree that they are very similar. But from my memory, Naruto didn't get all screechy about friendship and shit until the first series got into the finale. Nostalgia goggles I guess.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Anyway, thanks for the recommendations guys. I guess I'll go read the manga and see how far I'll get.

 

[hermes]

I don't like it as much my friends do. It just seems like a Naruto ripoff with a different flavour.

How is it a Naruto rip off, with the exception of underdog themes the two aren't really that similar

Character stereotypes and insistence on personal powers rather than strategy (though it's common in Shounen) as well as loads of more interesting and useless side characters. But besides that I feel the first arcs are just too similar. "A simple mission goes south fast when epic level villains pop up and nearly kills everyone" for Zabuza and the training arc. And the sport festival feels similar to the Chunin exam.

You just described 90% of the arcs of most modern Shounen, from DBZ's freeza and the tournament of power, to Bleach's Soul Society, HxH Heaven's Arena, Jojo's Battle Tendency and Tsubasa's... everything.

 

[PapaGreg096]

Yeah but it's the exact order and theme. I mean both Naruto and the sport festival ends with:

Spoiler

The hero ends up not winning the main event but managing to "save" an incredibly strong person with an abusive father figure and a mother figure which betrayed him.

Well

1.They actually finish the tournament

2.The mother didn't really "betrayed" him but just went insane when she found out her husband was using her as a tool to make his offspring more powerful also in terms of personality and backstory Shuoto has more in common with Zuko than Gaara.

Plus in both the girls are virtually useless.

Not really, Asui actually save the MC at one point and one of the subplots of the sports festival arc is that the Gravity girl wants to win the tournament in fact she gave Bakugou a decent fight.

I don't like it as much my friends do. It just seems like a Naruto ripoff with a different flavour.

Character stereotypes and insistence on personal powers rather than strategy (though it's common in Shounen) as well as loads of more interesting and useless side characters. But besides that I feel the first arcs are just too similar.

Again there are a lot of instances where you have characters use strategies to win fights