How training montages make power-ups in shonen anime more believable

Shonen anime generally adheres to a set of established conventions regarding the protagonist, their final objective, and the obstacles they face on their journey. Almost every shonen protagonist starts off either weak or ignorant of their true potential, sometimes both.

As a series progresses, the protagonist becomes stronger and more capable, in anticipation of facing off against the final villains of the story. While major character deaths, promises made to loved ones, and vengeance all motivate the protagonist to become powerful, sudden power-ups with no context don’t usually sit well with fans.

This is where training montages come in, contextualizing an increase in power and skill and upholding the typical shonen recipe of determination plus hard work equals success. This article elaborates on why sudden power-ups in shonen anime don’t work, and analyzes the series where they do.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for several major shonen anime series mentioned in the article. All external media in this article are the property of their respective owners.

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How shonen anime like Naruto, Bleach, Hunter X Hunter, and others introduce power-ups in the story

Training montages in Naruto, Hunter X Hunter, My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, and One Piece

Pre-Shippuden era Naruto using Rasengan (Image via Masashi Kishimoto/Studio Pierrot)

Training montages are one of the most reliable ways of introducing power-ups in shonen anime, with most series having more than one training arc. Naruto did this especially well, through elaborate training montages before every major power-up that Naruto achieved.

Furthermore, none of Naruto’s training arcs were the exact same, preventing them from becoming monotonous. While learning to use a Rasengan, his training involved simply gaining control of his chakra and spinning the ball of energy.

In Naruto Shippuden, he moved on to manipulating chakra nature and shape to finish the incomplete Rasengan technique and create the Rasenshuriken. Jiraiya’s death dealt a severe blow to Naruto, but in typical shonen anime fashion, he traveled to Mount Myoboku to learn Sage Mode, where he even modified the Rasenshuriken to bolster its destructive power and use it without injuring himself.

Kishimoto not only used the training arcs to build up the anticipation for Naruto’s new move, but also used it to explain how the chakra worked. This provided the foundation for introducing specific new concepts and powers later on in the story.

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In Hunter X Hunter, Togashi used a training arc within another training arc, during Gon and Killua’s time at the Heavens Arena. The two main characters of this shonen anime traveled to the Heavens Arena to train and become stronger, while also earning money in the meantime.

However, their real training began when they met Wing, who taught them the basics of Nen and helped them discover their individual affinities. Gon and Killua got another training montage during the Greed Island arc, under Bisky’s supervision.

Netero fights Meruem (Image via Yoshihiro Togashi/Shueisha)

Netero, the chairman of the Hunter Association, also got his own training montage, performing ten thousand punches a day for two years. The time it took him to complete the daily ritual steadily grew shorter. What initially took him an entire day would only take an hour after four years.

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My Hero Academia is another shonen anime that invested a major chunk of its earlier storyline into training montages, beginning with the second episode of season 1 itself. Owing to the nature of One For All, showing those training sequences was very necessary.

The protagonist Deku started off as a timid and lanky teenager, who was also Quirkless. The series showed him becoming visibly muscular over the course of ten months of intense physical training, by the end of which his body finally gained the bare minimum strength required to handle the Quirk he inherited from All Might.

Even then, Deku himself repeatedly mentioned that his power wasn’t something that could be mastered through intuition alone. Deku was especially far behind his peers, who had the advantage of fine tuning and honing their skills for years and years. Even the basic ability to adjust One For All without shattering his bones took him two whole seasons, and even in the latest anime season, Deku can only use One For All at twenty percent capacity without harming his body.

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One Piece, one of the Big Three of shonen anime, has multiple training arcs alloted to every major character. One Piece training montages aren’t just about becoming physically stronger, as was evident from Chopper’s training at Torino Kingdom to improve his battle awareness and Nami’s training at Weatheria to become a better navigator.

Zoro canonically trains everyday, even discarding his pride and asking Mihawk to train him in order to inherit the latter’s title of the “World’s Strongest Swordsman.” Luffy himself trained under Silvers Rayleigh for two years to learn the basics of Haki. While not every character’s training is shown in detail, it makes the increased power levels of the Straw Hat crew post timeskip more believable.

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Shonen anime that do not feature proper training arcs

Among the new-gen shonen anime, Demon Slayer had the shortest training montages, shown almost entirely through flashbacks. This made Tanjiro’s dramatic increase in power level during the fight against Daki and Gyutaro jarring and somewhat difficult to justify. Nezuko’s faceoff against Daki was even more unbelievable, with her ability to harden her blood even after having her head cut off seeming a bit too convenient.

Despite being one of the Big Three of shonen anime, Bleach suffers from a similar problem. Ichigo was shown training under masters like Urahara and Yoruichi to release his Bankai, with the Vizards to control his Hollowfication, and later on, under Kugo Ginjo to master his Fullbring form.

However, his power-ups in the anime have always been sudden and very convenient, always featuring when he was at the brink of defeat. This was most obvious during his fights against Grimmjow, Ulquiorra, and Aizen. Ichigo's power levels increased during such high-stakes battles by leaps and bounds, despite having struggled against weaker opponents not too long before.

Ichigo's Final Getsuga Tensho form (Image via Tite Kubo/Shueisha)

Some of it can be attributed to Ichigo’s heritage with a Shinigami father and Quincy mother, but that alone cannot justify the sudden mastery over his abilities he achieved mid-battle.

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Do sudden power-ups in shonen anime ever work?

Sudden power-ups do work in shonen anime, when the foundation of it is laid down in advance. In Hunter X Hunter, Gon’s immense increase in strength and transformation into his adult form was achieved through a binding Nen contract he made with himself.

The foundation for this was laid down in the Phantom Troupe arc, when Kurapika established a Nen contract with himself on the condition that he could only use this power against members of the Phantom Troupe to exact revenge for the massacre of his clan. Without that pre-existing knowledge, Gon’s final transformation would be extremely unconvincing.

Jujutsu Kaisen is another shonen anime that is infamous for its unconventional treatment of the training arc trope. Itadori’s training consisted of maintaining a steady flow of cursed energy into a cursed corpse while watching movies, along with standard hand-to-hand combat training under Gojo. The series, however, mentioned early on that Cursed Techniques are completely dependent on a sorcerer’s innate talent and affinity.

Itadori’s consecutive Black Flash attacks against Hanami were justified by Nanami explaining that it was similar to athletes being “in the zone,” and attributing his own Black Flash record to sheer luck.

Domain Expansions in the anime were similarly dependent on a moment of mental clarity and enlightenment that a jujutsu user achieves. Both Mahito and Fushiguro achieved Domain Expansion when pushed beyond their limits in do-or-die situations, which made their sudden power-ups understandable.