#loud brash hotheaded and abrasive are NOT traits that make a good team leader

[sojourner-between-worlds]

I normally don't vague post about other people (and I'm not really here, even) but someone in the tag suggested that Jack would make a better Team Leader than Yusei and it made me realize something, in part, about why people think that Yusei is boring.

tl;dr: Yusei isn't boring; he was written as the MC in the wrong genre.

See, Shonen protagonists typically have the following personality traits: loud, brash, hot-headed, sometimes abrasive. Yusei is none of those things, and Jack is ALL of them. Which, I'm sure, is what led that person to say that Jack would make the better leader and what leads so many people (who are mostly only fans of Shonen anime) to say that Yusei is boring. He doesn't fit their expectations of what a Shonen protag is supposed to look like, therefore he's boring.

But the thing is, if you popped him into, say, a Slice of Life, he'd be perfectly at home (well...except for the Trademark YGO Hair anyway) and well-loved by the fan base. I can say this with fair certainty because I've at least never seen anyone say that Natsume Takashi (Natsume's Book of Friends) is boring in any way, and honestly the two of them have very similar temperaments. The difference is, obviously, the genre of their respective stories.

Slice of Life allows for its protags to be softer-spoken, more reserved; Shonen often does not.

It's time people stopped saying that Yusei is boring and just admit that they like loud, brash characters as opposed to quiet ones, and that Yusei just doesn't fit what they expect from a Shonen protagonist.

He's not boring; he was just written for the wrong genre.

#not to mention that sol actually allows for exploration of trauma but that's another story lol #oh also for the record: jack would NOT make a better team leader #loud brash hotheaded and abrasive are NOT traits that make a good team leader #i could make a whole post solely about that but i won't haha #it doesn't mean i dont like jack btw #i love jack! #...but that doesn't mean i think he would make a good leader #anyway #yugioh 5ds #yusei fudo #also before someone comes for my head and starts listing off shonen with reserved mcs #i'm sure not ALL of them fit the description above #i haven't seen every shonen every made #what i CAN say is that of the ones i've seen the mcs usually fit at least TWO of the four traits listed #this also isn't anything against shonen! i like a good shonen once in a while! #i'm just saying there are differences in genre here (which. should be obvious. but this is tumblr. so gotta cover my bases lol) #and different genres have different character tropes #and yusei as the mc does not fit those character tropes #so for people who love that character trope then yeah a character who doesn't fit it isn't going to be interesting to you personally #okay at this point i have an additional essay in the tags so i'm done lol