While the shonen demographic for anime is aimed at a younger male audience, fans can name plenty of great shonen titles that push the boundaries of that audience. For each My Hero Academia or Narutothere is an even darker and grimmer glossy title, and for that matter, the likes of My Hero Academia and Naruto might get a nice PG-13 too. This is why the parents of young anime fans will want to pick and choose what their kids watch and what they don't.
The family can't go wrong with kid-friendly anime such as Doraemon or Kiki's delivery servicealthough child-oriented anime are not as popular as the more mature series. So parents may end up choosing the relatively tame shonen anime series while saving the more intense anime for later years. There is so much anime out there that no kid will feel left out if some shonen anime is declared off-limits to their young eyes.
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Fist of the North Star is the Mad Max of Anime
Violent body horror is not suitable for children
Some older anime are fine to show to kids, but others are definitely the wrong choice for family anime night. Fist of the North Star is a 1980s anime that's great for nostalgic viewers who want to return to the simpler days of Shonen from the era of leather-clad badasses like Kenshiro. Kids won't get much mileage out of it, though Fist of the North Star have so few life lessons to teach.
Like many kid-friendly anime series, Fist of the North Star is far too graphic for young audiences. This anime has shocking gore and violence as Kenshiro twists and breaks his many enemies with his pressure points. The famous “You're already dead” scene is one example, where a minor villain gets his head twisted before it flies apart in a downpour. If children want to watch martial arts or boxing, Hajime no Ippo or even Yu Yu Hakusho are more ideal.
Chainsaw Man's Bleak Antiheroes and Gore is for older viewers
Kids won't relate much to Denji anyway
The 21st century had the famous “shonen big three”, while the modern era has its own version in the “dark trio”. Perhaps unsurprisingly, none of the dark trio anime are the right fit for kids to watch, whether their parents are around or not. Chainsaw manThe graphic violence is too much for children to watch, with blood and guts positively everywhere.
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While not a dealbreaker, parents may be concerned about how Chainsaw man lacking any real role models or life lessons for the children. The family-friendly anime will include positive lessons about friendship, forgiveness, self-belief and the like. However, such as Chainsaw man will appeal to older viewers who can see themselves in a lost, broken soul like Denji. Or maybe older viewers appreciate the subversion in a way that young viewers might not fully understand.
Death Note is morally challenging in a kid-friendly way
Children can also make their own notebooks
Unlike any other kid-friendly shonen anime, Death Note has minimal violence or gore. There are some scenes like that, like Light Yagami, the genius anti-hero, getting shot or people collapsing from heart attacks, but there's a lot more to think about. Children probably won't fully appreciate the dark, morally complex themes in it Death Noteand it might actually get worse if they do.
That's because there have already been human cases, including school age Death Note viewers, who had trouble making replica Death Notes. The notebooks may be physically harmless as props, but they are still a troubling outlet for negative emotions. Revenge or murder fantasies can be expressed in ways that no teacher or student would want, so it is best if young viewers are not exposed to Death Note too early.
Jujutsu Kaisen goes too hard for elementary school age viewers
Demon Slayer is a safer option
Jujutsu Kaisen is another entry in the dark trio, and the like Chainsaw manit is too graphic and gory to be suitable viewing material for the young of the family. Broadly speaking, Jujutsu Kaisen actually feels like the right kind of awesome shonen action fantasy anime, but it's not. The Suitor: Beyond Journey's End is OK for kids, though Jujutsu Kaisen goes way too hard with its horror and violence for that.
Shocking character deaths and body horror can scare younger viewers, and even if kids think they can handle it, parents may feel differently. This is one of the more difficult cases for parental discretion, then Jujutsu Kaisen is almost the right kind of action/adventure anime for kids. In the meantime, Demon Slayer is also somewhat graphic and quite violent, but not in the same horrific way as Jujutsu Kaisen. It also has more positive themes and stories overall, where love and hope win out over the villain every time.
Hell's Paradise can scare children with its body horror and nightmarish imagery
Gabimaru is not an inspiring protagonist for young viewers
Hell's paradise is the last member of the dark trio, and also seems to be the most underrated of them. Teen anime fans and older viewers can enjoy what Hell's paradise has to offer, while parents will avoid this. Hell's paradise is just as nightmarish as the title suggests, featuring a group of vicious anti-heroes suffering death and injury, along with plenty of gruesome images of dead bodies or body horror.
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Hell's paradise has no protagonist for young viewers to latch onto, no classic good guy type for kids to learn from. Gabimaru may be relatively noble compared to the other criminals, but not by much, and Yuzuriha isn't an inspiring heroine either. The Realm of fantasy anime has better deals for the family, from The Suitor to Make campfires in another world with my absurd skill.
Attack on Titan is pretty inhospitable to kids as a politically charged action anime
Constant violence and upheaval does not make for a Saturday morning cartoon
Any trailer or online discussion for Attack on Titan will make it easy for any parent to decide that this is not the anime for family TV night. Even if parents are fairly new to anime, they won't doubt it Attack on Titan is wrong for their children. Once again, brutal violence and excessive gore make this a kid-friendly anime, and Eren Yeager's descent into villainy doesn't set a good example for the young either.
Apart from that, Attack on TitanThe story is both too heavy and too dark for young viewers to really understand or enjoy. The plot is already quite tricky for anyone to follow, and children may feel lost or grow impatient with the slow-burning mysteries of Attack on Titan. Above all, this anime's heavy political themes and controversies are not kid-friendly in any sense, with the subject matter being outside of a child's knowledge or comfort zone.
