this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2024
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Honestly it's too much of a minor point to mention YYH when there are such stronger examples like One Piece, Full Metal Alchemist, Bleach (to some extent), Sakamoto Days, and so on. Naruto/Boruto is like the only really conservative manga that's big (in the action genre), not to mention big on the "impregnate" thing, and it gets routinely ridiculed because of those very traits because it just completely wastes the setting and characters.
MHA is explicitly collectivist, so it probably isn't what these guys are talking about even though I would call it conservative for other reasons. In many ways, it kind of stumbled into the most stereotypical possible set of values for a Japanese cultural export with conservative collectivism and being custodians of society, etc. Still better than atomized American conservatism.
I guess you can make an argument for Mob Psycho, but they don't really defend or improve existing institutions, they just protect humanity in general from would-be conquerors, with very little attention paid to the structures rather than individuals protected. Maybe you could say One Punch Man by a similar token, but Saitama is constantly clowning on the Hero Association by doing nothing but vibing, and the current arc in the manga and webcomic is about the Hero Association being inadequate and corrupt and being challenged by a seemingly even-more-corrupt competitor. It's pretty unclear where it's going, imo, though there's a chance it does end up extremely conservative by just re-enforcing the status quo.
Chainsaw Man is spoilers, but if you know them, it needs no explanation how not-conservative it is.
JJK? Uh, Gojo wants to use his totalizing power to reshape society and is seen as a hero for that, so he's something of a blanquist I guess. It's like Naruto in that the institutions are all fucked up, but unlike Naruto in that most of them get absolutely destroyed, albeit for various reasons. idk, maybe it is conservative, but really the main message is about being empathetic to all of humanity, even people who are different from yourself, and the other totalizing force is viewed as explicitly pitiable because he doesn't have that capacity for empathy.
Mob psycho isn't very political, but there's one moment I really like in the season 2 finale where where Mon gets really angry at some Claw members who break some windows or something. He asks them if they even know how to make a can of tinned food, or if all they know how to do is destroy. That's a nice critique of basically any fascist movement that glorifies physical strength and hierarchy instead of the ability to create and work. Imo Mob Psycho gets away with not being political in general because it's about the beauty of the human experience and that's already in line with leftist ideals.
Jujutsu Kaisen is full of criticism of conservatism, some vague anti-capitalism in Nanami's backstory, and criticism of misogyny. It also does the classic shonen thing where it criticises violence in the text, but the reading experience is all about cool fights. Also, it's about to end and it looks like the problems with society aren't going to be resolved or addressed.
Remember there's the season 1 finale where Reigen basically lectures the first set of Claw members about how they aren't special and need to start acting like adults and get real jobs and such. I think MP100 is pretty political since it usually frames its theses around political points, it's just difficult to parse in a nuanced way because most of what actually happens isn't distinctively political.
Late addition: Kimetsu no Yaiba gets the same ruling as MHA, that one is actually conservative. Cowboy Bebop is mostly personal and oriented towards letting go of the past (or rather, failing to and suffering). Space Dandy might be a proper conservative anime despite being funny. I never watched Eva.