Shounen, a genre with the demographic of young, adolescent boys and is often described as one of the main driving forces of manga and anime as a whole.
There are many kinds of shounen, but I would mainly categorize them as being accompanied by either Slice-of-Life or Action.
Out of the two, I'd rather pick action.
I would die the moment I associate myself with the deplorable Slice-of-Life genre.
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April 6, 20XX
8:12 AM
A clear Tuesday morning.
“I'm a mob character, which means I serve little to no purpose, but to fill the background.”
Though it does give me the leisure of speaking out my thoughts.
Truth be told, this is just lonely. I could settle with even the bare minimum of attention.
Okay, I can’t waste any more time here. Let’s begin my analysis.
"First off, the easiest and simplest protagonist of all is... The Shounen Protagonist – Action Edition!”
I peer at the person who I refer to.
“He's got the power of friendship, plot armor, immeasurable amounts of power, and as a bonus... He gets lots of girls. Perfect!"
To be a Shounen Protagonist would be a dream. However, I was faced with one major issue.
"But how do I become a Shounen Protagonist in the first pce?”
My mind wanders off to my past experiences of reading manga and watching shows.
“Hmm…”
I snap my fingers.
“If we’re talking about becoming a Shounen Protagonist, then one of the most common traits is through the absence of a parental figure.”
In most cases, the parents are dead. But the thought of that should never cross anyone’s mind… that’s just despicable.
“Hmm…”
My legs cross as I continue brainstorming with my own mind.
“Well, that wouldn’t help a bit. My parents are never home and despite that, I was not considered a Shounen Protagonist.”
Attraction gets the best of me and my eyes naturally tch on to Y-Yoshio-kun.
“Urgh.”
I get sick at his very presence.
But I must persist.
I get serious and stare at him.
Let me study Kase Yoshio, the Shounen Protagonist.
...
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I seek out the pces Y-Yoshio went to the cafeteria, to the bathroom, to the cssroom, and back.
...
..
.
Mindlessly following him for hours now, I halt my steps.
What the heck?
“I got nothing!!! I didn't get anything from that! What the hell?!!”
My knees drop to the ground.
Don’t tell me… did I misbel him to be the action-oriented Shounen Protagonist?
“Shit! Shit! Shit!”
Thud.
I pound my fists.
All that time wasted-
Hey, wait a minute...
"Doesn’t shounen activities normally start after school?”
Note: Idiot.
…
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4:00 PM, After School
Due to my prior realization, I continue tailing him even as he leaves the cssroom. Surely enough, his actions seemed to be more and more cautious of his environment.
He looks here and there every once in a while, but I hide just at the right time.
This suspicious behavior only increases once he leaves the premises of the school.
…
..
.
At a park, a few blocks away from school, a young boy jumped out of the corner to prevent the young “hero” from walking further.
The boy himself appeared to be a normal high schooler. If I had to guess, he was the same grade as us. His hair was red, along with his eyes. That was all I could describe him in terms of unique design, which wasn’t all that unique to begin with.
"And so you appear... Yoshio Kase," the boy stated.
"You? Who are you? H-How do you know my name?" Yoshio asks him.
They mutter utter nonsense and talked about trivial matters. I couldn’t narrate it even if I wanted to because of the overwhelming presence of jargon.
Can you two stop talking and just get to the fight already? This isn’t a talk fest. This is a heckin’ action scene, so get on with it.
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A few minutes pass...
"Four-headed Spear!" the boy yells as he stretches his right arm forward.
Four translucent yellow spears appear out of thin air.
They rush toward Yoshio.
"What? How?!" Kase asked in a panic.
In the corner of my mind, I cheer for the stranger.
URAHHHH!!! Beat him up! Beat up his ass!
Despite knowing how the end result would be, I put my hopes and dreams into the young boy, whose name I don't know, to at the very least, give a generic protagonist like him a beating.
One of the spears aim for his head, but Yoshio swiftly sidesteps to the left.
Thud.
The spear hit the ground.
Two spears attack simultaneously, which of whom he successfully evaded with a narrow margin.
It was then that one of the final spears that were summoned goes straight for the heart.
"Take this!" the anonymous boy shouts.
Unsurprisingly, this spear was caught by his two hands.
What's with that acrobatic skill? He has inhumane reflexes for a supposedly average high school student. Well this is shounen, so they tend to make the protagonist a reflex god often even before they get their otherworldly powers.
But with a twist of fate...
Whoosh.
The st two arrows of which he evaded, shoot back to attack the left and right.
My eyes widen. Even I was shocked.
"Grr..."
Yoshio was cornered, he had to counteract the strong force of the spear before him.
My heart skips a beat.
How will this go? How can he evade?
These questions fill my mind. It's a rekindling of the shounen passion.
Going back to the action scene, Yoshio sidesteps and lets go of the spear that kept him company, shooting forward and missing him entirely.
Anticipating the next two attacks, he backs up, safely evading them as well until...
Gush.
The very first arrow he evaded had come to pierce his heart.
Joy overtakes every fiber of my being. Perhaps I had misjudged the tale to be generic? This was a fatal blow. Protagonists of his kind would only get scratches in the face, arms, hands, and legs. This is a rare occurrence. Yes, 'rare' which means...
This has happened before... and because it had happened before meant...
"That it can still go generic."
For that reason, my doubt remains firm.
“Blegh…”
Yoshio spits out blood.
“I got you where I want you,” the anonymous boy utters.
“No…” Yoshio grunts.
This is the crucial moment.
This is the moment that makes or breaks the story.
I stare intensely.
You know, if this was any other series, I’d be looking like a real bastard right now. If you couldn’t hear my thoughts, you’d see what I mean.
Note: It works even when you hear his thoughts.
Yoshio is down for the count, but he isn’t giving in yet.
He forces himself to stand up, but fails.
“Give up. Why don’t you rest? You’re just making it harder for yourself. Weaklings like you don’t need to fight the strong.”
Yoshio grits his teeth.
“I know… I know I’m weak… but… I need to… I need to live…”
His fist tightens and he ‘remarkably’ stands up, fighting the pain. God, this is painful to narrate.
“I need… to live… for my parents…”
Hearing that line makes me sick and I audibly hold myself back trying to hold ‘lunch’.
“Not yet.”
No. HELL NAH.
He said the line. He actually said the fucking line.
“Urgh… I feel sick.”
My throat receives a rush from my stomach, but I reject it.
“I-I-I ain’t a w-wuss… H-Hearing generic lines… A-Aren’t gonna best me-”
Yoshio screams his lungs out.
“Not yet! Not yet!!!”
‘Lunch’ graces me with his acidic presence in my mouth, but I reject his presence and shoot him back in.
“I can’t lose! Not when I have friends and family!!!”
“BLEGH!!!”
Floods of blood erupt from my mouth and nose as I drop to the ground. I don’t know how I didn’t get anemic after this.
So… c-cringe… So…
“G-Generic…”
My hands attempt to reach for the sky.
“God… why…”
Why would you make such a bnd protagonist? We’re sick and tired of the friendship power at this point.
“Uhh… the one-dimensional writing… I can’t take it.”
This is one of the reasons I lost faith in anime and manga. Though, I still do actually read and watch those, just not as often as I used to.
My hands instinctively crawl to take me away from the scene.
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Eventually, I find myself walking back home.
I no longer care what happens to the action scene. Since if there’s anything to learn from weak writing, it’s to not follow it.
Okay, I might be jumping to conclusions about it being weak writing, but I rather not wait a few episodes to see it actually get ‘good’.
I’ve seen enough to only be disappointed time and time again.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A sigh exits from my body.
In the end… I didn’t really get anything.
“Fuck!"
The lying can on the floor meets my kick as I yell.
Cnk. Cnk. Cnk.
Right when the final cnk exits my mind, a sudden spark of realization occurs to me.
“Hang on, have I even once considered the qualifications of becoming a Shounen Protagonist?”
I facepalm.
“Why didn’t I think of that in the first pce…”
I sm my palm onto my forehead repeatedly to punish myself. After a few seconds, I retract my hand.
“Hold on, I’m getting nowhere. Let’s just get to business.”
Based on my innate knowledge, one becomes a Shounen Protagonist, if you encounter a strange being or something along those lines or even having a special ability in your lineage, in which both chances are…
“Zero.”
The words escape my mouth as my consciousness makes the conclusion.
My eyes avert to the sky once more. It was clearly afternoon.
“I should’ve known from the start… that it was impossible for me to be a Shounen Protagonist.”
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April 7, 20XX
Right back in my chair, I was seated in my chair.
Well, now what? What am I supposed to do now?
My eyes fixate on my own pin desk.
“I suppose it’s time for me to hunt a different type of protagonist.”
Of course, it would only make sense if things progressed that way.
I look here and there, identifying each and every student and their type, as well as their role, as there were a few side characters.
Unfortunately, I fail to concentrate over my own despair.
I duck over my desk and furiously scratch my head.
Ahhhh!!! This is so frustrating! Why can’t I just become an MC?!
“What’s worse is that, I’m not even a side character…”
To make matters worse, most of the dialogue so far, has been 90% me. Mostly compromising of back-and-forths between my thoughts and the things I actually speak. I guess my narration also counts, which makes it all the more pitiful.
This is bad. I’m going to lose readers before I even get a story at this rate.
I vent my frustrations, without fear of anyone overhewring.
“Gragh!!! The world is mean! God is mean!”
Hang on… God?
It was then that I ponder about the presence of a higher authority. If there were stories, then there had to be a creator.
Does this world have an author?
“Hmm, now that I think about it, is this really a anime or manga world? Or am I being deceived that it is one? It’s not entirely unfathomable to assume it can be other than a manga world.”
Yeah, I’ll just call it a manga world from now on.
It could be a graphic novel, a manhwa, or even a hecking manhua for all I care.
But then again, the origin of this story would be of barely any significance if it adheres to the rules and clichés of manga.
Noticing I have gone astray. I sp my cheeks.
“I can’t afford to waste much more time than I have. I need to do something.”
Although it was hypothetical, I try to come up with ways to attempt to converse with ‘Author’.
“Hmm. A Ouija board? Ah, but that’s for ghosts. Wouldn't it work though?”
Oh, but I don't even know where to get one.
“Telepathy?”
No, I doubt that would work.
I sigh and stand up from my chair. The door was open for me to go out and head to the bathroom.
“I have a dumb idea, but it’s worth a shot.”
This is where I could get real personal.
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True to my word, I enter the male’s bathrooom.
There were only two bathroom stalls.
I knock on the leftmost bathroom stall and csp my two hands together as if praying to the infamous legend of a spirit trapped within the stalls.
“Author-kun, Author-kun… What the heck?! Why are you being a jerk to me?! Just hand me the role and we’ll be done!”
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The door of the bathroom stalls get bullied by my two fists.
I take a step back and organize my thoughts. There was too much that had gone in a short span of time that I had to process it rationally.
Feeling drained, I turn around and turn the tap.
Water releases from the faucet and my two hands catch it.
I dowse my face and turn off the faucet after a minute.
“Haha, I look horrible.”
I could see my face in pin view from the rge rectangur mirror. A pin, boring, and familiar face. Though, I spot something unfamiliar at the bottom right corner of that very window.
Drip.
The font is so little, it's barely legible... It’s out of pce, like it’s a bck printed text attached to the window in… Garamond?
What does that read?
I bring my face closer and see letters in bold.
“N… O… P… E… Hmm… The fuck you mean nope?! Bring me a more concrete answer!!! Turn me into a protagonist right this instant!”
At the very least, this confirms the existence of an Author. Though, the thought in and of itself isn’t too appealing.
I await the response of ‘Author’.
…
Nothing, but silence.
“Tch.”
Ring. Ring. Ring.
The school bell rings, signifying the end of lunch break.
Oh, break's over. Time to go back to the cssroom.
I peer back at the corner of the mirror.
“...It’s gone.”
I’ll deal with figuring out how to communicate with them ter.
Running out the male’s bathroom, I let my feet take the lead.
As I hurriedly run to my cssroom, I bump into someone with books on their hands, and get both of us pushed back from each other.
My bottom falls first.
“Ow…”
I rub it as it was slightly in pain.
“Watch where yo-”
It hit me, in the literal and figurative sense. Because of that, my body acts on its own and stoos me from finiahing my sentence.
This! This is what I think it is, isn’t it?!
It’s an encounter! The protagonist bumps into a girl carrying books and they both quickly apologize to each other. Afterwards, the girl feels gratitude towards the protagonist which sets up a route for love.
My fist clucthes to celebrate my revetion.
Yes! This is… a romantic event! For a rom-com protagonist!
I look at the ceiling.
About time.
I pick myself up in a conduct manner, dusting my pants to make myself presentable and face the girl I had bumped into.
I extend my hand to help her out.
“S-Sorry! I wasn't looking! Are you okay?”
But I made one fatal error.
“Urgh…”
My eyes widen and my jaws drop. My demise was set. All because… I forgot to confirm the gender of the person whom I bumped into.
The boy before me rubs his bottom and notices me, hand outstretched, frozen in pce, or rather in fear.
SFX: Doki-doki!
“How handsome!” he says.
Bewildered, my mind attempts to save me by fshing of my life, before me.
“Ah, I’ve had a shit life. I have full of regrets. I’m ready to pass on~”
Would’ve made for a good chance to pass away, however, the event says otherwise.
Continuous ‘forces’ hit me from all directions which snap me back from reality, though I fall again on my bottom due to the numerous collisions.
“What on eart-”
Astounded.
That was one word to describe it.
Multitudes of men had intersected with my path and had all met the same fate as falling on their bottoms… with a whole ass library on the floor.
Their stares were directed at me. They were as red as tomotaoes.
SFX: Doki-doki! on repeat.
“Doki-doki! H-Hello…” one of them speaks up.
“Doki-doki! L-Let me help you!” another offers.
“Doki-doki! Such a face!” another praises.
OKAY! OKAY! WE GET THE POINT. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP DOKI-DOKIING WHEN THE SOUND EFFECTS ARE ALREADY PRESENT.
Putting that sentiment aside, I had already realized the situation I was caught up in. Without a wasted second, I stand up… and make a run for it.
“Fuck! Fuck! Shit! Shit! Shit! Dammit!!!”
I yell as hordes of zombies flourish from behind me. Flustered, lustful faces those were sure to devour a male.
Huff. Huff. Huff.
And they were primarily aimed at me.
This is a setup!!! I got had! This is a rom-com, yes! But not in the way I want to!
“Fuck it all! A Yaoi Protagonist!!! AHHH!!!”
I look back and see their faces ready to rewar- punish me with me smooches.
“Get away you freaks!!! Don’t kiss me bastards!!! I don’t wanna be a BL Protagonist!!!”
Note: I am not a retard. You never asked for specifics.
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I arrive at the cssroom, unscathed.
You think I’m gonna give up that easily, Author? I’m taking the easy way out.
“If you don’t wanna give me that role, then I’m gonna force you.”
An unreasonable demand from my mouth, an equivalent to a decration of war to the very author of the series.
Note: Bring it on.
END OF EPISODE 2
