>>280920450Yes shounen trope law is AWFUL. When perspective shifts to the antagonist, it’s ALWAYS to think about how well their stratagem played out, how they saw through the protag’s plan, how much in control of the situation they are in, etc, and is ALWAYS followed by the protag completely overwhelming them and achieving victory. When the protag is the perspective, it means that their initial stratagem will fail and put them into a corner. In fact, perspective shift during a shounen battle scene is an iron clad perfect way to predict who’s going to win. And JP creators will NEVER, EVER subvert or break this trope.
The shounen trope law I hate the MOST is the ABSOLUTE UNBREAKABLE PILLAR of moral cover.
>protag faces the villain>even though the villain as a long history of villainous acts, this alone is not good enough to let the protag fight him>the villain must first do something bad in the immediate scene to allow the fight to begin>but the protag still isn’t allowed to start to fight, the villain must attack first, usually rebuffing the protag’s peace offering>after the villain’s defeat, the protag cannot kill them, and must offer surrender terms (usually although not always)>if the villain is killed, it must be because of some other villain intervening, or the villain trying to backstab the protag’s when walking away after begging for mercy, or some ironic consequence of their evil actions, etc.When the writer wants to look like they’re being super edgy they can omit a few of those, like the end-battle peace offering, but NO MATTER WHAT, without exception, the protag can NOT have even the APPEARANCE of doing something morally questionable. Even in the most edgy revenge stories, the revenge victims must be absurdly, comically evil at all times to make sure the MC has moral cover.