Between Yuuji, Denji, Takemichi, and even Legosi, I’m loving this new shonen protagonist gen that I’m affectionately dubbing “An Actually Nice Teenage Boy”.
We’ve long since left the era of Naruto or Ichigo, where the protagonist was very much a teenage boy, but would often be rude or disrespectful or perverted for the sake of comedy, rendering them honestly somewhat irritating and unlikable.
Then the pendulum swung around and we got Deku and Tanjiro (though I do LIKE Tanjiro), where the protagonist was nice but did not feel like a real teenage boy. They were generically nice, kind of wide eyed and innocent in a way I don’t think any 14-16 year old really is.
(Of course there are notable outliers. Not every shonen protagonist falls into these molds in the first place, and there are some that break this timeline I’m setting. Gon, for instance, is an INCREDIBLY believable, and yet nice, 12 year old boy (albeit a slightly disturbed one). I’m just noting some very broad trends).
Now though?
Now we’re getting MCs that are nice, and caring, and respectful. MCs that are loyal and soft and genuinely want to do good…
AND are dumb teenage boys!
They crack dumb teenage jokes without being grating! They’re kinda horny without being disrespectful and violating people’s boundaries! They get angry, they get sad, they get arrogant, but they’re kind !!!
Yuuji is so immature in his sense of humour, and yet he knows when to cut the shit and be serious.
Denji is so pent up and touch starved, but he NEVER goes against anyone’s consent.
Takemichi let’s any small achievement get to his head, but he always puts others first.
Legosi is arrogantly pushing his morals onto others, but it’s all in the name of protecting those he loves.
These !! Are !! Teenage !! Boys !! Not saints and not assholes and I love them so much.
As entertaining and interesting it is, the style still bugs me a bit because many of the characters look like the animators have never seen the actual animals before. XD
So here’s Legoshi and Haru in my style.
I inked the drawing traditionally and coloured it on my ipad pro.
A beautiful story the one that transcends differences about species. The one that talking about our strength and our fragility. That one that makes our darkness shine and our brightness turn to dark.
When pledging for the month of January, all $2+ tier will receive a digital wallpaper of beastars and if youre in the $15+ tiers you will receive the digital wallpaper as a postcard and these stickers in the mail!
