I'm mostly into battle shonen and for well established series here’s my top 5 in no particular order.
Dragon Ball (all series): The foundation of battle shonen. Even though there are series with better storylines, animation, fight scenes, etc, this will always be the GOAT anime setting the bar for all other battle shonen.
Naruto: Classic top 3 series. Tons of fillers, but it’s a must watch. There are fan made condensed versions out there without fillers so watching that can make it a lot easier.
Bleach: Another classic in the top 5 and the best part is that the best arc was just released this year and half way done. What makes that also great is that you get 2023 animation which is a huge upgrade. compared to beginning of the series.
Gintama: This one is special to me. Yeah it’s more of a comedy parody series and you could argue that it’s just full of filler BS, but when it gets serious it gets real good and all the characters tie in together in some way. Best part is that the series is finally compete. I don’t recommend watching this off the bat, but if you’re already watched all the main action shonen (DB, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Rurouni Kenshin, Yu Yu Hakusho, Fist of the North Star, etc) then this would be a great anime to watch if you’re up to the task and understand that the first 50 episodes or so is pretty boring lol.
Hunter x Hunter: I wasn’t sure if I wanted to add this one, but it’s so damn enjoyable. Definitely a must watch if you like battle shonen, however it’s been on Hiatus for so long hopefully we get something in the coming years as more manga content comes out. Hopefully Togashi is well enough to finish it.
So there’s my top 5. Yeah there are tons of other great anime, but I think these big ones hit differently.
As for current/newer anime my top 5 would be:
Attack on Titan: Something different and the great part is that it’s finally compete after a decade. A must watch IMO, however I can understand why some people don’t like it.
Demon Slayer: Great battle shonen with fun characters and GOAT level animation.
Jujutsu Kaisen: Another great battle shonen. This one goes head to head with Demon Slayer for me.
Black Clover: Typical cliché shonen, but what isn’t now a days? If you want a lot of episodes this one is pretty deep into the series. It’s currently on hiatus though, but hopefully we get something new in the coming years. Great characters, animation, and fight scenes.
One Punch Man: Who doesn’t love some straight up OPM anime. Sadly they have been too damn slow with new seasons. So slow it’s easy to forget how fun this show is. It’s been over 8 years and we are still waiting on Season 3 to come out even though they already have more than enough content in the manga. Sad how this was handled from the get go. I think they could have easily stretched out episodes, added more reasonable filler on other characters to give us more content. I’m hoping they can stretch the Garou arc in 2 parts. Ideally 24 episodes. Hopefully by then God arc will be almost done which in hopes they could stretch that out 24 episodes giving us the content the fans want.
