7 Shonen anime that I had to drop because of fan-service

Shonen anime is inarguably one of the most popular and rather influential genres present within the medium. New entries make their debut every year. Although the genre mainly centers around battle, romance, and coming-of-age stories, fanservice is yet another element prominently present within the genre. It is also present alongside most other genres within the medium.

While fanservice has served as one of the key aspects in the popularization of anime, it has become a weakness for many series. This is partly due to the medium's mainstream popularity, as well as the rise in quality seen in many narratives, which simply makes fanservice unnecessary.

Even though fanservice within a series rarely reaches a level that makes it into a huge turn-off, many new generation and old generation shonen, which would've become classics if not for fanservice, still remain.

Disclaimer- This article contains minor spoilers for Fire Force, Fairy Tail, Seven Deadly Sins, Highschool DxD, Food Wars, Sword Art Online and Prison School.

Fire Force, Fairy Tail, Seven Deadly Sins, and 4 other shonen anime that I had to drop

1) Fire Force

Tamaki as seen in the anime (Image via David Productions)

Fire Force by Atsushi Ohkubo first marked its debut in September 2015, followed by its David Productions anime adaptation in 2019. This pushed it to mainstream popularity.

While the overarching mystery around spontaneous human combustion, alongside its innovation-prone power system, made it into one of the more popular shonen anime series in recent times, Tamaki and her involvement in fanservice scenes also made the series one of the hardest series to sit through.

While Tamaki's character has sensible dialogue with a rather well-executed character arc, most of her involved scenes are ruined because of her fanservice gags. These gags take away from the tension and depth created by her backstory and other events.

2) Fairy Tail

Natsu the protagonist of Fairy Tail (Image via J.C. Staff)

Fairy Tail by Hiro Mashima made its debut in 2006. It belongs to an older generation of shonen anime and manga that popularized many tropes, while also leaning heavily into over-the-top fanservice.

While the plot and power progression make the series into a rather enjoyable watch, its fanservice moments and the intrinsic need to push fanservice to the forefront simply detract from the narrative.

The coherent character development and story carved over multiple arcs often fall out of character. This is due to its rather unsavoury fanservice elements, which manage to reduce well-developed characters into props for fanservice. Despite these issues, Fairy Tail remains a prominent title in shonen anime.

3) Seven Deadly Sins

Meliodas as seen in anime (Image via A-1 Pictures)

Seven Deadly Sins by Nakaba Suzuki is often regarded as the battle shonen anime that failed to live up to its potential, partly due to the subpar production quality it was subjected to.

While the actual production quality of the series might've become a real-life gag, the series' battle shonen anime elements remained alongside a compelling revenge plot.

Unfortunately, the relationship between Elizabeth and Meliodas, the main leads of the series, alongside their fanservice-heavy scenes, often leaned towards harassment, albeit tolerated by both parties.

While these kinds of fanservice elements might've been commonplace in older generation shonen anime, such elements only make a series difficult to enjoy compared to modern standards.

4) Highschool DxD

Issei and Rias Gremory as seen in the anime (Image via Studio Passione)

Highschool DxD by Ichiei Ishibumi is considered one of the original fanservice-heavy harem series, which set a precedent for the eventual success seen by romance harem anime all the way up to the genre's oversaturation.

While Ichiei Ishibumi's series is often considered a series that plays to its strength as a fanservice-heavy harem series, its romance elements as well as its abundance of fanservice simply detract from the otherwise compelling heaven vs hell narrative, as well as the worldbuilding.

5) Food Wars

Yuto Sukuda's Food Wars is often regarded as one of the most absurd yet somewhat well-done battle shonen anime, mainly playing to its strengths in considering cook-offs as actual battles.

While the series' emotion-driven subtext served as a compelling plot device to drive the actual emotional impact of the many cook-offs, the reaction to food itself and its fanservice-heavy imagery ended up becoming repetitive.

This often diminished the emotional baggage that served as the primary motivation.

6) Sword Art Online

The cast of Sword Art Online (Image via A-1 Pictures)

Reki Kawahara's Sword Art Online, often cited as the series that kicked off the RPG-inspired isekai genre and its oversaturation, still remains as one of the most popular and arguably one of the easiest series to get into.

While the series still remains a rather well-done isekai exploring themes of simulated life, as well as escapism, the emotional and romance aspects of the series remain its biggest weakness.

Given the series' origins in 2009, the romantic interests of the main character spanned across numerous characters, routinely bordering with the harem genre.

While the main romance between Asuna and Kirito might be tolerable and even well-executed, the rest of the relationships, along with the female characters' absurd and rather unwarranted gravitation towards the protagonist, severely detracted from any form of seriousness that the shonen anime attempted to achieve.

7) Highschool of the Dead

Takeshi as seen in the anime (Image via Studio Madhouse)

Highschool of the Dead by Daisuke Sato is regarded as one of the original zombie anime that popularized the genre in the early 2000s.

While the series and its absurd use of fanservice have become a gag within the fandom, with the series often being cited as one of the first use cases of absurdist over-the-top fanservice, the actual story and themes explored within the series are still considered some of the best.

The compact cast of characters, along with their overall story arc and character direction, served toward exploring themes of loneliness, betrayal, and loss of identity amidst a widespread zombie outbreak.

Unfortunately, the over-the-top fanservice depicted throughout the series simply diminishes the shock value or emotional weight, making the entire series a hard watch by modern standards.

Final thoughts

Shonen anime and the abundance of fanservice within this genre were commonplace throughout the early generation series. While the actual public opinion behind fanservice has historically been divided, current generation shonen series like Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia, and Kagurabachi made it clear that the genre is moving away from over-the-top fanservice.

New generation shonen anime often limit it to a handful of chapters, and some even completely forego the fanservice elements to keep the emotional core of a series intact.