weird pattern with favorites in shounen anime

betaweeb said:
Strange post, not to say that there aren’t good reasons to like side characters and even more so than main characters sometimes, but the whole premise here is a bit sus.

Obviously there is no weird “boost” or anything surprising about main characters being more popular, these are the characters that you spend the most time with, usually by a huge margin in battle shounen and so, people get more attached to them and they have more opportunities to get fleshed out, develop and become more well rounded.

While side characters like some of those you mentioned get their memorable highlights, often times they remain pretty one-note, even if that note is awesome.

Just for the record, basically in all of your examples, I consider the main character better, both in cases where the mal rankings agree and in those where they don’t (not to say that I’m not biased, or that there aren’t other cases where I do prefer a side character).

Awwww- said:
I can agree with you that often the main characters aren’t the best characters, but it’s still their story that we follow, and they get the most screen time. When you watch the promised neverland, and Isabella and Emma have a confrontation, you don’t hope for Isabella to come out on top, you hope for Emma to be the victor. I think for most people’s, it’s just a lot easier to get attached to the main characters.

Usagi-san-chan said:
In most series the MC will have the most favourite. I don’t see how that relates to shonen

Apolygon2 said:



it's not that other series don't have it, it's just that the boost is WAY bigger for shounen for some reason.

look at monster, made in abyss, or vinland saga.

the only ones that break that rule are the shows where their main character is also the most highly praised and well written ones. like in berserk and steins;gate.

but like, I don't think anyone thinks decu is the most well written character in my hero. yet he is the most favorited right behind todoroki. which again, is a fan girl attractor character. so it gets the waifu/husbando boost.

BloodyTaer said:
talking down to people who like a different character than you do is not gonna show you in some superior light my friend, it just shows that youre an arrogant asshole who doesn't even have good opinions in the first place to be arrogant about.

if your question is 'why does the main character almost always have more favorites?' then the answer is that simply the main character is the most one that gets the care and attention with the most screentime, theres no surprise when people like the character that they see the most.

AlexPlayer said:

Most casual fans don't care about how well-written a character is. Most casual fans rank their favourites based on pure enjoyment. Also most protagonists are designed to be widely-appealing likeable since often times that can make or break the series.

the_moon_snail said:
i mean, who cares? mal favorites are not so important also this place is full of troll accounts. well yeah isabella is much better that emma but in my opinion edward is better than roy and rengoku is only there for few min. everyone's taste is different. don't mind the numbers and dont make people feel bad for liking a character. just enjoy watching things you like

Apolygon2 said:




the time spent thing makes sense, but I disagree with the one note ness.

all of my examples have just as, if not more development and depth than the main characters.

Apolygon2 said:
ok so, I have noticed something for a while.

in every shounen title, the main characters always have a very weird boost in their number of favorites.

what do I mean by that?

like ok, are we really going to pretend like mother Isabella wasn't the best character in TPN s1 by far?

I know some of the favorites are from manga readers, but considering how s1 is the most popular tpn entry by far, and her favorites aren't even close, I don't think that's the problem.

and it's not just this series.

decu has more favorites than all might.

edward has more favorites than roy.

and every main demon slayer character has more favorites than rengoku.


now this isn't always the case. in mob psycho for example reigen beats mob, in jjk gojo beats yuuji and in AOT levi beats eren.

but even between these, 2 of them are clearly just fan girls. 2 of the are that high for the same reason some waifus are that high.

and reigen is... well... he's reigen so it makes sense.



I think most of us can agree that, specially in shounen, the main character is rarely the best or most memorable, yet they for some reason get a MASSIVE boost when it comes to their number of favorites.

does anyone know why this is the case?