An important part ofFortnite’s incredible success has been its willingness to crossover with other IPs. Players can now take on the roles of a wide range of iconic characters from other video games, movies, comic books, and more. Even some celebrities have gotten in on the action, but one medium has historically been rather unrepresented inFortnite: anime. This seems a little odd, especially since shonen anime is full of larger-than-life characters with striking designs and fun mannerisms. Now thatFortnitehas a major crossover with the blockbusterNarutofranchise, it may be a good idea for the game to crossover with other shonen anime in the future.
Fans of anime often group it into four loose categories: shonen anime aimed at boys, shojo anime aimed at girls, seinen anime aimed at older men, and josei anime aimed at older women. While each category contains a lot of variation and specific series can often target more than one demographic, these serve as a hint of what audiences can expect from a given show. Shonen anime often focuses on youths struggling to achieve their goals, support their friends, overcome immense obstacles, or just find their way in the world. A lot of the most popular anime in the world are classified as shonen anime, and they would fit right in with thebrightly-colored mayhem ofFortnite.
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Battle Shonen Belongs in Battle Royale Games
One of the most famous subgenres of shonen is battle shonen, which focuses on physical, ideological, and often magical combat. Titles likeDragon Ball,One Piece,Bleach,Fullmetal Alchemist, andNarutoitself all fall under the umbrella of battle shonen. If any anime subgenre was made to appear in a game like Fortnite, it would be this one.
Battle shonen anime often appear in video gamecrossovers as well as original titles, meaning there’s plenty of precedent for these characters to show up in crossover events. Furthermore, most of the casts of battle shonen shows already come with iconic outfits, weapons, and accessories, making them easy for fans to recognize and easy for developers to implement.
While theNarutoevent only featured four characters,Narutoalone has a cast of hundreds, most of whom can easily be distinguished at a glance, even by newcomers to the series.One Piece, the best-selling manga by a single author as of writing, currently has 10 main protagonists with a sprawling list of enemies, allies, and bystanders, many of whom are just as memorable as the main characters.Dragon Ballhas some of the most popular characters in anime history as well. EvenBleachandFullmetal Alchemisthave some incredibly memorableand distinct character designs despite having ended years ago.
Decades of Anime History
Possibly the single biggest argument for Fortnite to crossover with more shonen anime is the sheer depth of history it could draw on. The shonen genre hasn’t been around for quite as long as superhero comics in the west, but it still has decades' worth of iconic franchises that still have fans today. From older classics likeTrigun, theGundamfranchise, andYu Yu Hakusho— which is getting a live-action Netflix remakesoon — to modern titles likeDemon Slayer,My Hero Academia, andJujutsu Kaisen, shonen anime is a treasure trove of colorful characters with existing and dedicated fans.
One of the biggest reasons to engage in crossovers with existing IPs is to draw in new fans, and whileNarutohas a lot of fans, it’s not even considered the most popular shonen anime. Branching out into more shonen anime could be a good business decision. If that goes well,Fortnitemay also consider crossovers with othericonic anime titles such asSailor Moon,Inuyasha, andAttack on Titan. Characters from anime that don’t focus on combat likeDeath NoteorCase Closedmight be more difficult to implement, but ifFortnitecan add Ariana Grande, it can find a way to add Light Yagami.
Fortniteis free-to-play on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
