Why is the tournament arc such a common arc in shonen? Is it a cultural thing? Or is it something else?

Why is the tournament arc such a common arc in shonen? Is it a cultural thing? Or is it something else?
Is it that shonen authors are fucking hacks?

>he hates tournament arcs
why

A showcase of skills learnt and an opportunity to do some worldbuilding. It's hype as fuck too. How can you not like it?

Because it's an easy excuse to get people to fight and show off powers.

Good excuse to introduce a lot of new characters and make them fight.

I'd argue it's a sign of poor pacing if you need to introduce a lot of side characters at once. Same with the fighting aspect really, since if you are worried about the series not having enough fights it's a better idea to switch the narrative to other character or group than to recycle tropes.

It's a an easy way set up fights, especially if it's between friends, and introduce a large amount of characters.

Plus the author can have characters who normally wouldn't fight each other and he can have good guys fight bad guys without killing each other. Basically it allows him to write "who would win threads" in universe but he still doesn't have to commit to anything because "they were holding back in the tournament lol".

Everyone saying that it's for reasons related to storytelling is both wrong and naive.

It's because tournaments are cheap to animate. Production gets to reuse the same simple backgrounds over and over again for a long string of episodes while also giving them an excuse to have an announcer spend half of each episode narrating whatever just happened while the characters just stand there and stare at each other.

You're a fucking idiot, when authors wrote tournament arcs, they didn't even know if they were gonna get an anime.

because in shows where competition is the driving plot device it only makes sense to boil it down to the simplest form so you can focus on showing off characters and powers rather than a contrived plot replete with arbitrary excuses for people to fight one another. Honestly I have more problems with the "heroes raid the villain base, allies say 'go on ahead I'll handle this' one by one until the protagonist faces down the antagonist alone" formula than with tournaments.

Because one of the highlights of martial arts IRL are tournaments.

Same applies to sports manga/anime, imagine those without tournaments?

>kids complain about tenkaichi budokai parts now

You niggers need to tone down the contrarianism and the edge.

I don't think One Piece's author is capable of creating any different scenario than that. It's been repeated so many times in every arc

Who are you quoting?

Why are you asking that instead of why the MCs go through the weakest enemies first.

One Piece literally just had a massive two-year long tournament arc.

Goku never had to fight Yamcha on tournaments, did he?

The dislike for tournaments is something I don't share, not a bit.

That's because yamcha is there to lose to show how powerful the next guy is.

Tradition in manga. Mainly because its a plot device that generates builds up tension, has character growth, character introduction, story plot, etc.

Its a pre-made ready for use scenario where lots of useful things in action manga could be done at the same time.

Animating fights however is way more expensive than anything so using your own logic here.

One Piece had many actual settings for fights you know.
The boat and that fucking hill were great. They used the environment in their writing.

I actually really like the recent NnT tournament.

> big 16 team/4 round/15 match setup with 2-on-2 teams
> two decent one-chapter fights
> one great two-chapter fight
> fourth fight seems like shit until suddenly the entire tournament gets fucked, and shit only escalates from there

everyone was thinking it's be impossible for the middle arc to end around chapter 200, but it seems pretty likely now frankly.

They haven't had an actual non asspull fight after episode 5. So you liking that is really a telltale

the only thing asspull in the 2nd tournament (including the aftermath) was escanor's midnight sunshine.
everything else was built up to.

...

That reminded me of that time when Kishimoto was forced by his editor to do a tournament arc, then he was again forced to have a villain interrupt it when he finally started liking the idea.

A lot of modern shounen dont have tournament arcs though. I dont think its just some "japan" thing or a for some technical reason like saving time on making backgrounds or something like that.

Rather its Dragon Ball & Co that just made authors go OF COURSE SHOUNEN NEED A TOURNEY ARC! But now that the reign of these old shounen are ending, we only have a comparatively small amount of tourney arcs, except of course spots series. But there tourneys are an integral part of the "sports":

I love tournament arcs. They're actually pretty rare outside of sports manga these days. My Hero Academia and NnT being the most recent ones

Tournament arcs are a really easy way to a)introduce a lot of new and old characters, b)have a lot of fights and c)introduce new techniques, ie, the three things that most battle shounen are for. The problem with tournaments though is that the anime versions of them tend to take forever and sometimes even in the manga itself, they can be paced very poorly (Hi Battle Angel Alita: Last Order), but they can be loads of fun

There is very rarely a manga with a tournament arc and there wasn't some really memorable or well-known moment in it even in the bad manga. Pic related, my favorite fight in Negima

Because you don't have to think of a plot during that time.

It's a stalling tactic. Tournament arcs can be dragged out for ages with little to no plot advancement or character development.

They're also popular, though I personally have gotten a deep distaste for them. Usually a big warning sign when they show up.

It's an easy way to introduce a bunch of characters at once and give people other than the MC time to shine.

Since the stakes don't need to be high, you can actually afford to have your MC lose, thus giving fights more tension.

It's fun.

it's a way for a mangaka to get paid to experiment with character design by throwing a lot of shit against a wall and seeing what sticks.

> and stall the plot for future plot planning

Not all shonen are based in martial arts.

Fucking editors, man.

It's the quickest and easiest way to keep a battle manga/anime interesting. You get to see the growth of the characters you've been following, as well as seeing a ton of cool fights with characters with unique abilities and designs. You can make the tournament setting itself more interesting by adding special rules and conditions which allow technical victories as well as normal ones.

In my opinion, Hunter x Hunter and Boku no Hero Academia had good tournament arcs. One Piece and Nantsu no Taizai did not.

Hxh's tournament arc wasnt even that, it was just a training arc.

This.

Tournament arcs are super non committal for the author.
>oh I was holding back because tournament
>I didn't use anything lethal because tournament
>I fought my best friend because tournament
>we're all super elite freaks the likes of which %setting% has never known but here's some new guys right over there because tournament

Tournament arcs suck. There's always an out for the author and they never truly mean anything.

Even so, it still had most of the elements of an interesting tournament arc.

YYH and DB both had great tournament arcs though.

I think DB's were all junk and the only time it wasn't was when Jr cast of the pretension of the tournament and fought to kill Goku.
No other time does anyone go all out in DB's tournaments. There's always "I'm holding back" bullshit.

I actually really like the final tournament arc shedding the tournament's bullshit. It's the only time the "winner" actually deserves the title that comes with it in DB.

>YYH
Meh most of them were shit except for Yusuke vs Chu, Jin and Toguro and the tournament dragged on like a Bleach arc boring fight after boring fight with very few highlights.

World Trigger has a recurring tournament arc, more or less. It honestly feels like a sports manga more than anything during those arcs too.

This was the one fucking thing I wanted animated in the Negima OVAs. Every other fight I didn't give a fuck about, but this one had to be animated since it was so bad ass. And then we get none of the tournament animated at all, shit's gay

gives an excuse for fighters to fight with no other reason then fighting

no, no you don't get it.

it's not about the tournament per se, it's about what's at stake, how creative the author can be, etc. etc. Yuu Yuu Hakusho had an awesome tournament arc simply because of how diverse and interesting the battles were. Same with HxH's first exam. It's a breeding ground for almost anything.

plus who doesn't fucking want competition? us boys love that shit

>cheap to animate

why? that doesn't mean it inherently bad for the author and the plot. name one tour arc that sucked YYH, DB, HxH, BnHA were all hype and good shit

Tournament arcs are the GOAT; what shit are you on?

>He never read Kongou Banchou
Nigga, asspulls are the whole fucking point.

The first one was great faggot.

>There's always an out for the author and they never truly mean anything.
Majority of the time tournament arcs are plot important or have a role in the story. I don't know what manga you are talking about.

What's each user's favourite tournament arc? Mine is the Dream Tag Team Tournament from Kinnikuman.
Also to answer OP's question it's simple, it means the author can easily set up fights between characters on the same side, an excuse to bring a shit ton of different enemies without needing to write a back story for each one and it can sometimes show off characters who usually don't get much screen time.

No, well written stories are the whole fucking point.
NnT is even more soulless than Fairy Tail

Shokugeki had a solid tournament arc, literally all but two characters in it had some level of previous establishment and it was important for the development of a couple of characters (Hisako, Souma)