Reincarnated in a shonen story, who would you choose to be?

[Bristlecone]

You were crossing the street, but a truck does not stop even at the red light.

“!!!“ You

You only had the time to close your eyes...

“Now you will be reincarnated in a shounen manga world“ Otaku God

... and you hear a voice.

“Entertain me and I will save you from your demise“ Otaku God

...

“Choose your destiny“ Otaku God

1. Main character. -50 IQ, unable to think ahead, deals with everything with immediate violence. Power level: Potential to become the strongest in the world.

2. Handsome weird rival. Extremely popular, has an obsession bigger than love with the MC. Power level: normally slightly stronger than the MC, but weaker at key moments.

3. Legendary negligent father. Psychologically unable to have responsibilities (no romantic partners, no childcare). Power level: slightly weaker than the full potential of the MC.

4. Annoying secondary character. Life is mostly normal, but sometimes you will unconsciously follow the MC into danger only to overreact, get hurt, kidnapped, killed (not permanent), etc. Power level: Stronger than most humans, but will never be even close to the MC level.

 

[NotaNuffian]

Also, MC has plot armor.

 

[Renaxan]

In the shounen world where is power is what matter the most, become MC is the best choice. You got potential, you got yourself nakama but the most important you got yourself legendary plot armor.

 

[ArcadiaBlade]

1 is too annoying, 2 seems plausible and 3 as well, 4 is just straight up death sentence. The only choice is being either 2(which I only have to battle the MC, lose and have the rest of the day off) or 3(related to the MC which might get me killed in the latter part).

You know what? Imma have to choose 2.

Being annoying to the MC, create a conglomerate and basically make a scedule where I need to fight the MC at certain times and live the rest of the day living a normal life as a rich playboy.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Ah, dear friend, we meet again. I choose death.

 

[HyperiousTheSun]

MC all the way here, with plot armor even this otaku god (read idiot) that wants you to entertain him will be crushed by pure power and forced to save you anyways.

 

[RaizarP]

Is there no choice to become MC's superior? Like most shounen where MC is part of organization and he had a crush with his superior/boss

 

[BenJepheneT]

1. Main character. -50 IQ, unable to think ahead, deals with everything with immediate violence. Power level: Potential to become the strongest in the world.

unable to think ahead

unable to think

as they say, ignorance is bliss.

to a dumb man, he is the smartest in his world.

i'd rather relish in stupidity than face the horrors of reality. seems to serve my mental well-being better.

 

[Jemini]

Anyone who chose "Father" either has a death wish or they don't watch very much shonen anime.

I picked rival. They get all the benefits of the MC, only half a step less powerful. On the other hand, they get a LOT less of the emotionally traumatizing BS and usually get treated with a lot more respect by society.

Yeah, weighing the pros and cons, the only real down side of being the rival is that they don't get the final word at the end of the day during the big glory events, but they come out winning in life more than the MC does. Yeah, I'm definitely going rival all the way.

EDIT: Oh great, now there's a premise for a story idea. You are reincarnated as the rival in a shonen universe... by choice. Having been given the choice by whatever god or system is reincarnating you. You choose "rival" based on the exact reasoning I just gave there. Except... your fore-knowledge of how everything works turns you into the MC instead because your competence has discouraged the hero because you out-performed him too devastatingly, and now you have to step up and end the threats to the universe and you wind up having to deal with all the BS baggage you were trying to avoid when you chose this role.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Anyone who chose "Father" either has a death wish or they don't watch very much shonen anime.

I picked rival. They get all the benefits of the MC, only half a step less powerful. On the other hand, they get a LOT less of the emotionally traumatizing BS and usually get treated with a lot more respect by society.

Are you sure that rivals get less of the emotionally traumatizing BS? I'm not picking a fight. I'm just having trouble remembering any MC\rival duo. The only one I can think of is Naruto\Sasuke, and I can't say that Sasuke had it easier.

 

[Anon_Y_Mousse]

I pick three because that's basically just me but super OP.

 

[Cipiteca396]

Ah, dear friend, we meet again. I choose death.

The correct choice. No wait, the god wouldn't be entertained... A worse fate awaits?

1. Stupid and violent is a bad combo. I mean, I already have that in real life, making it worse would be a nightmare.
2. The best choice of those listed. You can theoretically do anything and be anyone as long as you occasionally call the MC a piece of shit and lose at the last second.
3. This is actually the Meta answer. The God wanted to be entertained. I think traumatizing the MC could be very entertaining. When you die, you will probably get thrown into another shitty story, but at least you had fun first.
4. If you don't want to be an idiot or a tsundere/boyfu, or.. you know, daddy... Then this is your answer. The problem is, you won't be able to entertain the God here. Death comes for you unless you can heavily lean into your role and make yourself the target of several 'He killed Kenny' moments.

 

[Jemini]

Are you sure that rivals get less of the emotionally traumatizing BS? I'm not picking a fight. I'm just having trouble remembering any MC\rival duo. The only one I can think of is Naruto\Sasuke, and I can't say that Sasuke had it easier.

Just about every shonen anime has some form of rival, most of them get less BS. I will give you the point though that some of them do have it pretty heavy. Prime examples would be yours on Sasuke, and Vegita from DBZ. Sasuke is kind of a stand-out though. Even the small portion who DO have some crap going for them usually have it in their back-story and not the current day. (In Sasuke's case, the entire reason he had crap in his current day was from his own actions.)

If you take my example with Vegita, he married the daughter of the largest company on Earth and, frankly, Vegita's children were more bad-ass. Meanwhile, Goku was a mountain man who had to work as a hunger or farmer just to get some money for his family and occasionally being paid off by Mr. Satan in order to keep up the act of letting him pretend he was the world's strongest.

If you want to look to some more typical Shonen, look to Gary from Pokemon or Heiji from Detective Conan. Those two fit the description I gave to the letter. They are a lot more along the lines of what a typical Shonen rival looks like. Also, sometimes the rival character is part of the primary team. In Digimon, (the 1st one,) Ishida Yamato was the one with the rival role, although it was more along the lines of him being the one who kept the MC in line and told him to be serious when the team's lives might be on the line.

(If someone was reincarnated as Ishida from Digimon, that's easily the quickest way to have that "become the MC by accident" scenario happen.)

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Just about every shonen anime has some form of rival, most of them get less BS. I will give you the point though that some of them do have it pretty heavy. Prime examples would be yours on Sasuke, and Vegita from DBZ. Sasuke is kind of a stand-out though. Even the small portion who DO have some crap going for them usually have it in their back-story and not the current day. (In Sasuke's case, the entire reason he had crap in his current day was from his own actions.)

If you take my example with Vegita, he married the daughter of the largest company on Earth and, frankly, Vegita's children were more bad-ass. Meanwhile, Goku was a mountain man who had to work as a hunger or farmer just to get some money for his family and occasionally being paid off by Mr. Satan in order to keep up the act of letting him pretend he was the world's strongest.

If you want to look to some more typical Shonen, look to Gary from Pokemon or Heiji from Detective Conan. Those two fit the description I gave to the letter. They are a lot more along the lines of what a typical Shonen rival looks like. Also, sometimes the rival character is part of the primary team. In Digimon, (the 1st one,) Ishida Yamato was the one with the rival role, although it was more along the lines of him being the one who kept the MC in line and told him to be serious when the team's lives might be on the line.

(If someone was reincarnated as Ishida from Digimon, that's easily the quickest way to have that "become the MC by accident" scenario happen.)

The thing is, I haven't read nor watched anything that you mentioned. And I have trouble remembering who was the rival in Bleach, Fairy Tail, Toriko, One Piece, Mairimashita! Iruma-Kun. I've read a bunch more shounen mangas, but the memory of the characters from those works is rather vague.

 

[Jemini]

The thing is, I haven't read nor watched anything that you mentioned. And I have trouble remembering who was the rival in Bleach, Fairy Tail, Toriko, One Piece, Mairimashita! Iruma-Kun. I've read a bunch more shounen mangas, but the memory of the characters from those works is rather vague.

All of those are examples that don't really take the rival character as seriously as older ones have, but there are still echos of the trope in them. It's just that the rivalry is not quite as plainly stated. Mostly, it is presented near the start and then kind of forgotten. (Although, I am having a hard time seeing how you are having trouble remembering who Fairy Tail's rival character is. You ought to have presented Grey as a counter-example of my assertions right along side Sasuke. Same counter-argument applies though.)

Bleach, rival = Ishida Uryu
Fairy Tail, rival = Grey Fullbuster
Iruma-Kun, (self-declaired) rival = Sabnock Sabro

I don't watch Toriko, and I am going to have to admit that One Piece is one series that doesn't actually have a rival. Although, I strongly suspect that the only reason One Piece doesn't have an actual rival character is because the formula simply does not allow for it. Since they are constantly on the move, the only way to have a rival would be if they are part of the crew. But, if they are a rival to the captain, then why are they in the crew in the first place? Yeah, simply doesn't work.

You should check out Hunter X Hunter though. That one does a clever deal where the rival, Killua, is also the best friend. Gon and Killua are best-friend rivals, emphasis on the best friend part. The rival part only comes up in the sense that they are constantly pushing each other to get stronger and having little friendly competitions almost constantly as they try to out do each other. They are totally rivals, but you completely miss that fact because absolutely all of their competitions are done in such good spirits.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Although, I am having a hard time seeing how you are having trouble remembering who Fairy Tail's rival character is. You ought to have presented Grey as a counter-example of my assertions right along side Sasuke. Same counter-argument applies though.

I dropped Fairy Tail halfway through, and I thought of Grey OR Gajeel. Thus, I was confused about who is the actual rival.

 

[Jemini]

I dropped Fairy Tail halfway through, and I thought of Grey OR Gajeel. Thus, I was confused about who is the actual rival.

Yes, there can be more than one rival. Grey is the OG, Gajeel pops in and also happens to serve the role in some aspects.

 

[Lloyd]

MC because my IQ is high enough to take the hit.

 

[ElijahRyne]

4: I hope it’s a romance instead of a battle shounen. If so, I may find love, if not at least I have magic and shit, while being remembered for my ‘sacrifice’...