Now here's something new...

[akai_senshi]

Dear Certain People:

Naruto Uzumaki is NOT a Gary Stu.

Neither is Yusuke Urameshi. Or Monkey D. Luffy. Or Gon Freeccs. Or Son Goku. (I'm ashamed to have called Goku that in the past.)

I am sick of people calling shounen protagonists "God Mode Stus", because they apparently have no idea how shounen manga works. They're supposed to be the ones who

Comments

[jlarinda]

I agree, but why the Japanese? Nakama isn't impossible to translate, as far as I remember.

[akai_senshi]

Fixed it! Went with "posse".

[beccastareyes]

Heck, I haven't seen any of the series enough to argue, but... well, consider 'Harry Potter'. To a small extent, it has some of the same genre traits as shounen manga -- at least along the lines of the main thing the character and his friends have going for them is the Power of Friendship and Love, and they are struggling against a main villain who doesn't see the value of it. And, we expected Harry to win -- it would be in-genre. However, J. K. Rowling did a good job of convincing us that the win would come only with a struggle, and that Harry would still lose things and people along the way.

In my mind, the possibility of loss*, and the treatment of the conflict as something that does take effort and skill and hard work from the protagonist, is what makes a character not an Author's Darling.

* You don't need to kill a character for this. Just convince me that the character isn't going to win perfectly all the time, even if s/he wins.

[blackjackrocket]

You can have a main character of power, and then you can have a main character with stupidly perfect powers. Like Ash from Pokemon--he's run into nearly every Legendary there is and saved the day every time, been a legendary hero with prophesies about him in multiple parts of the world, and NOW it turns out he's got superpowers! Yeah, I'd say he's a Stu.

[akai_senshi]

You are right.

Most of the time, though, the powers won't be absolutely perfect like Ash's are. And that's what I'm trying to point out.

[insaneladybug]

**jawdrop.** Ash has superpowers?! **headdesk.**

[blackjackrocket]

Yeah, they're called "Aura". It started in the 8th movie and they've been touched on at least twice in the series since.

[slayerofgod]

...Yusuke? Are you f-ing kidding me?

[akai_senshi]

Nope. It's sad, but true.

I've heard Yusuke called a Stu, Sensui be called a Villain!Stu, KURAMA be called a Stu...

[aisu_hoshino]

My sentiments exactly. How in the universe? He's gotta be like, as far from a stu as a main character can get.

So the good guys always when...with a lot of training and fighting and stress and risks. If none of those are presents, then I might set off the Stu alarm.

[dawnrune]

What the wankers who cry "Stu" fail to remember is that the shounen heroes tend to work DAMN HARD, busting their butts and staking their lives on training in battles to acquire power. There's also the added bonus that they're fighting to protect the world, and/or the people they love. That's where their powers come from. Do I want to see them win? Damn right I do! A Sue/Stu is supposed to acquire special powers OF DOOM quite literally out of nowhere, are they not

[akai_senshi]

SO MUCH WORD. Especially about Ryoma.

[missing_nin15]

Just curious about the Ryoma part. Do the things that makes not-a-Stu/Sue include having weaknesses that the series acknowledge or is it enough that the characters have weaknesses that the reader can identify? I mean, say a character has negative traits such as being selfish and arrogant, but the series portray this as a Good Thing in which the other characters are not affected when they should be or when they are rightfully affected the series always portrays them as the total idiots or in the wrong. I'd say that's a Sue/Stu. When I read PoT, all I saw was a lot of tennis and not much else, so does this unsociable Ryoma actually affect other characters or it's just a thing that can turn into funny situations or makes him look cool?