Kaijuu Catcher - Mons meets Kaijuu - how to avoid the "Ash" character?

So I'm thinking up of something called Kaijuu Catcher, where Kaijuu Trainers catch actually large monsters for fighting. Unlike Pokemon, the fights really do injure and/or kill the Mon (and sometimes even the trainer), and well, the setting is a bit more dangerous.

I've already established that a trainer can only be accompanied by one Kaijuu while traveling but can "have" more than one ready for a fight. Any Kaijuu he or she catches will be sent to the Kaijuu Sanctuary he or she is registered to, and has some teleporter ready to bring out his Kaijuu when fighting in tourneys and such. With that said, Kaijuus have their own feelings too, and may even not participate in a fight if it doesn't want to, causing forfeit. The Kaijuu trainer him/herself can be abusive, and implant some shock collars or similar to keep the Kaijuu under his or her control.

But that's not my topic here. My topic here is that how do I avoid the generic dumb shonen character mostly found in similarly-themed shows? Especially when this one is a bit more dangerous. I don't want to put a Toriko since the main character isn't doing the fighting, but still...

...If you don't want to write a Shōnen hero, don't write a Shōnen hero.

OK. Maybe it's a bit more complicated than that. If your world is nastier, odds are your main character will be a bit rougher as well. If there's a good reason for capturing and training these kaijuu to fight, you've got a lot of leeway, but you're still in Anti-Hero or I Did What I Had to Do territory. If it's all pure sport, you'll have a Villain Protagonist by default, and should work accordingly.

edited 2nd Aug '11 8:35:50 PM by KillerClowns

Well it's merely for glory. You know, kinda like how the kaijuu would put their life on the line for it (or at least how they perceive it) and that forcefully putting one to fight is illegal.

Make other reasons for why people train their Kaijuu. One character might do it to commit crime, one might want to do it to bet fights and raise money for any number of reasons. One might do it for the glory or thrill of the battle. One might be a celebrity trainer and fighter who travels the world fighting. Think of all those different reasons and try to create characters around that. It can often be said that coming up plenty of supporting characters makes making 1 protagonist much easier.

Going off of the above, you can use other characters to help define your hero. Are there people that support him, or would rather see him dead? Does he have someone special to him, or is he a heartless loner? Does he have some sort of job that helps define him (say, is he part of some special task force)? And most importantly, how does he react to others?

Whatever the case, it sounds like you've got an interesting idea. Hope it goes well on your end.

While the concept outlined seems fairly unique for a mons show, I should say that you don't need to do it just to avoid the Idiot Hero. As someone else said, the easiest way to not use a dumb Shōnen Genre protagonist is to not use a dumb Shōnen Genre protagonist. I can't think of any reason why you would ever need an Idiot Hero, and even if you can't, nothing about the Mons genre makes one inherently necessary. So just don't use one.

Kaijuu as a metaphor for a nuclear deterrent. People who actually use them are thus regarded as terroristic at best.

edited 4th Aug '11 5:10:56 AM by Night

XD

Actually lemme revise that - kaijuu battles are no holds barred fights, as in anyone can die, while at the same time, nothing is against forcing the monster to fight, etc.

I'm wondering if the main character should be a hardened dude, since kaijuus are kinda not for kids to play with, especially with the risks.

While I don't object to the idea of a "hardened dude" as the main character, don't feel like you have to limit yourself to that — just as you wouldn't want to limit yourself to making the lead an Ash clone.

There are a lot of different types of characters out there — heroes, mothers, and badass children, to name a few — so think carefully about what you want to do with your character, and breathe fresh, original life into him. The more you limit yourself with your writing, the worse off you'll be.

Well, that's enough ranting out of me. Hope that helps.

My main projection is something similar that of Toriko - he knows his craft but at the same time feels like he has a lot more to learn. He doesn't do stupid things.

Well, if you're going Kaiju, then you're not going to find them in the tall grass.

To get Ash, you need to have a world championship with hundreds of applicants. That's who Ash was when he was formed, and the rest of the series is him building fire-forged friendships with the pokemon du jour and fighting against people who want to treat pokemon like dirt. What defines Ash as a character the combination of his low knowledge/high empathy so he always opposes team rocket despite being unable to win several battles without their interruption.

Now the main point of kaiju is that our "weapons have no effect." If calling in the army worked, most of the examples would be much shorter films. Only by befriending the monster, or bringing in a champion monster (Godzilla vs.) is the movie saves. Granted there are a few movies where the monster has a hidden weakness, but to battle a kaiju or terrorists with kaiju back-up requires "kaiju for defense."

I'm thinking of Big O, which has been described as batman with giant robots. The hero of the story is a billionaire playboy who moonlights as a private detective. He used to be a regular cop, but at some point he discovered a giant robot that can use the abandoned subway system to sneak all over the city. In the course of the show, he meets a rogues gallery, quite a few of whom have access to giant robots. However, there is no government-based giant robots, and no one tracks Big O back to the hero's mansion.

Kaiju settings usually start with the first monster, who then becomes "the monster you know." This monster then fights all other monsters to defend the humans and sometimes create fire formed friendships. The only exception is in King Kong vs Godzilla, a film that had two regional monsters and different endings for each region. Whoever "commands" the kaiju, whether scientist or child, is an important person in the eyes of the government. Often the movie's general, finding his tanks and planes ineffective, will go to this person.

By giving the hero responsibilities and a sense of patriotism, you make him less like Ash and more like Captain America, who is making a movie at the moment. You could ride his coattails for the first monster, then make most of the stories about the lensman arms race and the kaiju olympics. Meanwhile the more competent you make your hero, the less likely he is to fall back on one of the Ash-pulls used in the pokemon series.

isn't that basically monsuno in some extent? minus the whole being created from gems or something

Except that the MC of Monsuno is basically Ash in Saito Hiraga's body.

yeah that too. my god i was so naive back then.

If all you want to do is avoid that stereotype, you can just make the character the opposite: a Shrinking Violet Smart Guy.

It would actually be very sensible to be a coward in that setting, since you want to get as far away from a Kaiju battle as possible. If anyone accuses him of being too distant to his monster, he could point out how easily he could be Hoist by His Own Petard.

BTW, Pokemon meets Kaiju is an incredible idea and I'm amazed no one's done it already.

Edit: Also, if these monsters are really 500 feet tall, the tournaments will also have be be held in the middle of nowhere - maybe on former nuclear test sites if you want to go meta - with the spectators watching either behind unbreakable forcefields or on screens from a very great distance.

If you want a Kid Hero, simply use the backstory that the Kaiju will only listen to whoever they first meet, so that person is forced by law to train them so they don't destroy your Tokyo-equivalent. And in this case, it was a kid. Maybe one who just happened to be on the fishing boat that always gets wrecked when monsters come out of the ocean.

That would also explain why some trainers are abusive to theirs: they never wanted them.

edited 20th May '16 4:34:34 PM by Wheezy

yep the idea is awesome