Has the "underdog" character ever been done right in a battle Shounen? They always end up special eventually...

>what happens when the genius trains just as hard?
The underdog gets punch drunk and retires without ever challenging his talented rival.

> what happens when the genius trains just as hard?
you get pokemon.

black clover ironically.

I unironically would love a shounen anime about the underdog MC who does his best and still loses every time.
The closer example I can think of is Slam Dunk, where the main character, even though keeps getting better and better, is always the weakest part of his team.

The author can always lose his mind, but at the moment world trigger satisfies your requirements in full.

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Does Ash Ketchum count? Never wins

who from what?

>Sworder, gunner or Swordgunner
>variety

Zenkichi from Medaka Box?

Then the protagonist would have to rely on strategy and cunning to win fights but few authors can pull that off

>Luffy: father and grandfather are famous and powerful world figures
>Goku: super alien dna
>Ichigo: 25% everything dna
>Naruto: ninja Jesus reincarnation
>Deku: O MY 7 QUIRKS

goku powerlevel : 3,000,000

freeza powerlevel : 120,000,000

if that isn't an underdog I don't know what is

In battle shounen it's pretty rare, but in sports manga you can find a lot of good, well written underdogs.

Underdogs work for short stories like movies. For long running series it's harder to keep pulling off and justifying the MC's victories without the plot naturally leading towards turning the MC special. Which is the case with all of these shonen series.
Though to be fair I don't think they even try to make underdogs in terms of capacities, what they often do is make underdogs in social terms by making them outcasts in some way.
Ichigo had his loose blonde hair bullying story, Naruto his sad childhood, now Deku had his quirkless background, you get the idea.
Finding true underdogs is hard, and even finding normal characters is hard.
Even the least OP and special characters have at least some sort of minor advantage to help them out.

>Luffy: father and grandfather are famous and powerful world figures
That is 100% unrelated to his personal skills and powers, though. Not that the 4th gear isn't bullshit, but still.

Yoh from Shaman King, I think. Yeah his family history intersected with the Big Bad's, but he was ultimately just a dude caught up in this thousand year war saga with his own goals and motivations beyond beating the big bad and saving everyone

This.

Conquerer haki

Are you retarded? Guy and Lee spent 100% of their training on taijutsu and the eight gates. They were talented at it because they put the work into mastering it, because it was the only thing they could be remotely good at.
Realistically we should have seen others use the first few gates. But neglecting all other jutsu to master this one technique is something nobody is willing to do unless they have no other jutsu in the first place.

Conqueror Haki and the will of D is being set up as some Naruto destiny type shit

Just a dude from one of the most powerful shaman families with a direct connection to the big bad. The real underdog of that series as far as I remember was the wooden sword guy.

Was Guy also unable to use ninjutsu? I don't remember that being stated, more like he simply chooses not to do it.

It all depends on what the audience wants. Either it's good writing or a power fantasy they can insert themselves into, can't have both or at least not at the same time

By your logic, Gon is also somewhat of an underdog.

Sakuragi in Slam Dunk is very well excecuted. He goes from nobody to solid teammate to "you overextended" so naturally it felt like it could happen to anyone in my football team.

I remember him using summoning justu at one point, but his flashback makes it seem like he was almost as hopeless as Lee was.

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Pretty much.
Either the MC is successful out of being special, or out of regular normal consistent hard work.
Alternatively the MC can be a failure. This one doens't work so well in an action series because failure would be terrible for the plot or even death but works on sports series I guess.
One of the problems most shonen series run is that the protagonists have to be young to be relatable to the audience and young people can't have the years of experience, social networking and resources required to be successful normally so they need shortcuts like coming from a special origin or having some special potential.

Would you niggers prefer to see an underdog fail miserably as expected?

Yes.

Underdogs are not top dogs for a reason: they're not at the top. Once they get there, they're not underdogs anymore.

You can't have a true underdog story unless said underdog is literally the only one in the world that wants to achieve his goals, and everyone else is aiming for the wrong things or gives up.
You talk about Goku, who is an underdog only when compared to Vegeta, who is misguided in his ways to become stronger so he may never catch up. He's special compared to the humans or Piccolo, who all gave up on competing with him anyway.

isn't this pretty much HxH?

Underdog stories only last until the underdog wins, battle shounen last forever.

Did someone said Underdog?

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It would but then goku just gets a 50x multiplier with SSJ.

why aren't we talking about jonouchi? or by underdog you guys refere to MCs?

>the good guy sucks at first until get's something that helps him win

so like an underdog?

>what happens when the genius trains just as hard?
You mean like in real life?

imagine being so new that you don't know about osamu

Yeah, in real life hard-working geniuses get to the top, while hard-working average Joes may get far but not nearly as far. That's why your typical shounen always devolves into a feelsgood empowerment fantasy

its just japanese pulp, nothing wrong with it

You don't understand good writing or what makes a good underdog do you shonenfag?

>the freeza arc was badly written

okay you don't get to participate in this discussion

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>his genetics put him ahead of most other races.
Not really, the only major difference was with humans. Lots of other races have been about even or stronger.
>modern DB retcons made Bardock special.
They made him less special by replacing future sight with good intuition.

No, because that's the story about a top dog always tripping up when it counts, since you can't even claim most of ash's opponents were underdogs either.

>saiyan saga goku doesn't even beat vegeta and the fight ends with him laying on the ground with every bone in his body broken
I honestly forgot this happened since no one in the series gets beat this bad until videl vs spopavich

based and mikumo-pilled

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>the freeza arc was badly written
>more like all of dbz is badly written
You really are a shonen-nigger aren't you?

DB was pretty brutal. Goku broke every limb in his body against 3 villains straight: Piccolo, twice, and Vegeta

This guy deadass wins all his duels based of luck I am not even joking.

He took away Rock Lee's thunder in that final arc.

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>Dad is a gambling addict who burns all the cash he could be spending on his family
>Joey uses that trait to push through adversity and make lemonade out of lemons
It's like Poetry. Also you could argue that Joey is part of a trifecta of TCG necessities. Luck (Joey), Money (Kaiba), and Skill (Yugi)

idk, personally after re-watching og yugi idk how much adversity or difficulty joey faces when he wins every game with luck and his deck is fucking hot garbage.

Shamo does this very well

Gear 4th is absolutely NOT bullshit
I mean, yeah it looks a bit silly, but it totally makes sense with his power-set.

It's just vulcanized vs. unvulcanized rubber. One works well as a tire (able to store high pressure) and the other doesn't.

All that skill involved with being able to magically draw whatever card you think you need, ay Yugi-boy?

So hard work wins?
If geniuses have to work hard just to beat untalented people that also work hard, it means hard work wins over talent.

>what happens when the genius trains just as hard?
Then they'll get BTFO by the hard working genius and need to find a different way to achieve their goals with the skills that they have, so long as that goal isn't "become the #1 person in the league".

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On the upside both the will of D and conqueror haki are fairly useless outside of making a select few people interested in assisting Luffy. Gears and armament and just general fighting ability are from training and experience.

Toriyama is a terrible writer, he can draw well but as far as structuring his story he fucking sucks.

His comedy setups and punchlines are genius though.

Pic related was pretty much Kuwabara posing as Hitsugaya.

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That's different from structuring a story but I don't necessarily disagree with you.

fpbp

Gon and Killua are still stated to be genius

I wouldn't say too different. His longer term action stories are definitely flawed and lack tension from knowledge that everyone's going to be fine cause of the dragon's nuts. Shorter stuff works out better imo. I remember liking Sand Land and most Slump stories do have a solid beat to them.

Unironically, I think Pokemon is what happens.
Ash always trains hard, but is always outclassed by someone who's more talented than him.

Killua has a massive IQ, gon is pretty stupid except when it comes to battle.

It's like you're begging me to shill World Trigger to you

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What is an underdog though?
Within a specific matchup it's easy to call out the underdog, it's whoever looks more likely to lose.
But what makes an underdog character?
Is it being weak? Appearing weak? Being average, not special?
Do we take into account only physical properties, what about their origin, family, friends, their support cast. What about their mental and emotional traits.
And what about information we don't know until later.
Ichigo sure seemed a huge underdog when he invaded soul society, before we knew how ridiculously special and powerful he is.
Is an underdog defined by the moment, or by their potential of their nature?

Like I want to say a lot of the problems in Dragon ball is a lack of foresight on how to handle future stories and weave them into an overall narrative. Things usually work well within the arc (even with some obvious editor meddling). Some storytellers can do huge overarching plots just fine, but Toriyama just kind of slaps an idea in the next arc and runs with it regardless of how well it fits. I don't think this was ever really a story that should have lasted as long as it did. But for what it is, I think he did well enough.

Dropped this series for this reason.

Ash loses because he has the opposite of Plot Armor.

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Here is some irrelevant chinese story input. Often MC is a genius but is poor and is of low social standing. In fact the MC almost always has a cheat like in isekai. This gap underlies almost every conflict in these stories. Eg MC is poor and has to steal. Or MC looks at someone funny but because MC is a commoner that means they can be executed. Or someone is jealous of their ability and can try to kill the MC will hour fear of retribution from higher ups.

This works because everyone thinks they they are a bit special and that it's them against the world.

Well it's like you say it depends on the story but generally the underdog is whoever has a perceived disadvantage, be it in strength, skill, experience, so on and so forth.

Per your example, Ichigo started as an underdog for sure. The thing is underdogs can't stay underdogs forever. An underdog story by definition has to have a goal that the protagonist can overcome. You can only create so many challenges for your character to overcome in a believable way.

Pokemon, as another user pointed out, is a perfect example. Ash isn't an underdog, he's a worthy contender. Him winning a championship is more than just believable, it's kind of silly that he isn't winning one at this point.

an underdog is a character who is weaker than the other characters and expected to lose. Yamcha is an underdog, Goku is not and OP is a dumbass

Ash Ketchum is probably the best example I can think of right now of an underdog protagonist (only in the first season where is an idiot and wins his badges through luck or characters feeling sorry for him)

What if the hard working underdog becomes the villain?

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>His comedy setups and punchlines are genius though.
Indeed, that's why Dragon Ball was best as a gag manga

when it introduced Tien and Piccolo and tried to be a serious action series it turned to shit

All Shonen MCs are dumb as bricks except when their retard switch flicks off during fights. That doesn't stop them from being OP.

Are you retarded OP? Goku is still the underdog in Z and Super. In the grand scheme of things, he's just a martial artist moonlighting as a farmer to pay the bills.Him being a Saiyan doesn't really change things since Saiyans are just Space Spartans.

He just seem like god because Shonen Protagonists after him have gotten weaker despite plot mandated power ups. Nothing really comes close to Goku vs. Frieza in terms of iconic battle except for maybe Yusuke vs. Younger Toguro.

.

Conquerors has no bearing on Luffy's individual fighting skills

>Him being a member of an alien race whose entire ADN revolves around fighting, including the ability to become noticeably stronger whenever they get badly injured or every time they fight with someone stronger than them, almost unlimited stamina, longer life expectancy, and a handful of legendary transformations that empower them beyond the greatest fighters of the universe doesn't really change things
The only thing more broken than saiyans are namekians, and even then their way to powerup means that some other namekian has to die in the process, so they're limited by how many namekians are around, unlike saityans who have no real limit to their strength.

Namekians are only as strong as the average Frieza Solider. Only Nail was above Dodoria and Zarbon.

Kenichi was never special

And none of them had fused with other namekians as far as I remember. The moment Nail and Piccolo became one he was stronger than all of Freezer's elite force and stronger than second form Freezer at a time were Freezer was suposed to be the strongest in the universe.

dammit user, seeing this always takes a toll on me.
poor Osamu.

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Goku, Luffy and Ichigo never were underdogs