Does anyone miss really buff male leads in manga? The only mainstream one now is Toriko...

Does anyone miss really buff male leads in manga? The only mainstream one now is Toriko, and that's only borderline mainstream.

Even a show like One Piece has the main three strawhat fighters looking lanky as fuck.

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Japanese men typically can't identify with large buff characters, it's easy to see why a lot of them go with the stupid Speed > Strength meme.

They didn't have that problem with the big series in the 80's, though.

What changed? Hell, even JoJo has the problem where Araki can't portray muscular characters anymore. Johnny and Jo2uke are supposed to be Jotaro ripped but they look less buff than fucking Anasui.

It's true. Even their Rugby and football anime are about begin little guys. Hell, even their bicycle anime is about a little shrimpy shy guy that doesn't even gain confidence after winning a national title.

I wonder if that's why Ichigo felt like such a strong MC when he first appeared.

In the 80s Japanese men were idolizing western movie stars and Classic samurai films of manly men.

Now not so much, Marketing probably determined it's easier to appeal to what is possible vs what is perceived as unreachable body standards for Japanese men.

very muscled men have become a joke in Japanese society, because they stand out.

Was Kenshiro buffed, really? All enemies he had were 10 feet

Every large man in anime currently I can think of are all presented as ugly or stupid.

I'd agree about Ichigo if Edward Elric wasn't around.

It's funny, too. For a good decade or so hollywood turned away from muscled dudes and are only now getting back into it.

That said, the idea that they wanted what was possible is hindered by the extreme androgyny of most male leads. Which I partly blame on ReBorn for making popular.

Because Toriyama came with Dragonball and had all his midget tiny kid characters and lanky old men beating up Kenshiro looking niggas and everyone thought it was cool and thus everything shifted from giant muscled guys to skinny guys who look weak but are actually strong as fuck.
I'm not displeased with how things turned out, it is cooler.

I'm not sure about this theory because you also had Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan and a few other martial artists of that build be pretty popular at the time especially in Japan.
But then again boxing was still a pretty popular sport at the time and Rocky was really popular too alongside Terminator. Still, I don't think the trends were specifically following live action media. Toriyama's work is pretty based in the live action martial arts genre of course though, but the industry as a whole probably just did whatever they wanted.

I don't know, I still say it completely shifted due to Toriyama, but maybe someone else knows more.

>everything shifted from giant muscled guys to skinny guys who look weak but are actually strong as fuck.
But it gets fucking old.

Bruce lee and jackie chan dont come to my head when I think large muscled men, they are slim, but toned.

Just like real life.

Jackie was pretty ripped.

Yeah but Jackie is also short as shit

He's still really buff.

Not skinny at all.

That's a typical look for Asian men who work out; they get wiry rather than big.

It's a good look. I'd like to see more male anime characters with lean, muscular bodies like that.

jotaro isn't supposed to be some hulking mass of muscle, he's fairly slim. it's just that araki's old style forced him to make everyone gigantic

nah, it's a worldwide tendency that viewers tend to selfinsert harder in rogish type over warrior type characters in any kind of media

...

Why not a rougish warrior type?

But Jo2uke is said to A) look like Jotaro in Araki's new style and B) be extremely buff.

And yet he's slim as hell. It was an even bigger issue with Johnny, since they reference him having huge arms but he looks thin as shit.

That doesn't really count.

Not really, no. They looked pretty laughable most of the time.

Luffy has some pretty lean muscles here though

youtube.com/watch?v=l0cP07bxiCI

There is still Guts.

Look no further.

Like jesus christ

Because they're usually teenagers.

Teenagers can be ripped.

Goku

Goku has been around since this was still a thing

But they're boys. Only real men can be truly buff.

Guts still exists.

Guts was from when muscular heroes were a thing.

I'm talking about a current one.

Helck.

Huh, looks neat. Is it any good?

I have not read it yet. But the ones I know who read it say it's good.