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  * _One Piece's_ Luffy, 
  * _Naruto's_ Naruto, 
  * _Fairy Tail's_ Natsu, 
  * _Reborn's_ Tsuna, 
  * _Dragon Ball's_ Goku 

All of the above are shown to be simple-minded and foolish.

Why is it so common to depict the lead protagonist to be so stupid?


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tropes
Why are the shounen lead protagonists usually shown to be stupid?


This seems to be a general feeling of creators for shounen, that characters
should be straightforward and stupid. A lot of them also seem to have been
based off of Dragonball

Regarding [Naruto](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naruto_Uzumaki):

> When creating Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto incorporated into the character a
> number of traits he felt made an ideal hero: a straightforward way of
> thinking, a mischievous side, and many of the attributes possessed by Son
> Gokū from the Dragon Ball franchise. He also made sure to keep Naruto
> "simple and stupid," since he does not like smart characters. Naruto himself
> is not modelled after anyone in particular, being conceived as childlike,
> with something of a dark side as a result of his harsh past. Despite this,
> he is always positive, making him unique in Kishimoto's eyes.

Regarding [One
Piece](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_D._Luffy#Creation_and_conception)
(it is worded slightly differently now, but this is where I originally got it
from):

> When drawing One Piece, Eiichiro Oda was heavily influenced by the manga
> Dragon Ball, and had the series in mind when designing his characters. Oda
> has said that when he was creating Luffy, he was thinking about "manliness",
> because Dragon Ball had already done all the things that a child could
> possibly be happy about.

Regarding [Dragon Ball](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Ball#Production)
(also now worded slightly differently):

> The Dragon Ball universe began as a loose adaptation of the classic Chinese
> novel Journey to the West, with Goku starting off as more or less a parody
> of Sun Wukong the Monkey King. Similarities between the two include Goku's
> prone for mischief as a child (due to his innocence), possession of Nyoibo
> (Sun Wukong's staff that can fill the entire universe), and Flying Nimbus
> (the magical cloud the Great Sage rode on in Journey to the West). As the
> Dragon Ball manga continued its run, he was able to develop differently,
> eventually turning out to have similar origins.


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This is a [common
archetype](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotHero) in many forms
of fiction, not just shounen anime and manga. for instance, many seinen
romance series have protagonists who are usually at or below average
intelligence, e.g. Clannad, Chobits, though seinen also has some intelligent
protagonists like those from Death Note or Ghost in the Shell. Shoujo series
also sometimes use this archetype. However, I suspect it is especially common
in shounen series and other series targeted at children.

One reason for this is that if the protagonist frequently spends a lot of time
deeply considering things, and comes up with complicated logical thinking to
justify his actions, it can easily confuse some of the viewers, particularly
younger children. In a mystery series, this might be acceptable, because the
viewer is expecting to have to think critically to follow what's going on, but
in an action series, it detracts from what most people are watching for.

Another reason is that for the protagonist to be a good hero (or arguably even
a good antihero), they need to be identifiable to the average viewer. It's
easy to identify with people who aren't as smart as you are, because at some
point in your life you were like that. Since some of the viewers will be
fairly young, to make this work you need to make the character at or below
their intellectual level, which makes them appear really dumb considering
their age. It's much harder to identify with someone who is far smarter than
you. Extremely intelligent characters are supposed to be impressive rather
than identifiable (e.g. Light and L from Death Note, who are identifiable in
other ways, but not in terms of their intelligence). Of course, it's also
possible to just make the character average intelligence and not put any
emphasis on that direction (and lots of series do this), but shounen
protagonists tend to be more like caricatures than real people, i.e. they have
exaggerated features and characteristics, and intelligence is often one of
them.

It's also worth noting that most shounen action shows were, at least
originally, marketed to young boys. Most young boys are far more interested in
being strong than in being smart. By making the character below-average
intelligence, but unbelievably strong, it makes the character simultaneously
identifiable and admirable.

There's also the comedy aspect. Almost all of these series involve comedy. For
whatever reason, many people find people doing stupid things to be funny. A
lot of these series exploit this by making the protagonist almost useless
outside of battle. In the traditional
[Manzai](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manzai) style of comedy, they play the
boke role, which is usually the more interesting role (hence fitting of the
protagonist). That isn't to say that intelligent characters can't be comical,
but it isn't as easily exploitable with little-to-no effort as it is if the
protagonist is unintelligent.

Finally, the protagonists in most of these series are idealists. Intelligence,
by and large, correlates with pragmatism, at least in anime. Pragmatic
characters make good generals, but typically not interesting ones. To put it a
different way, pragmatism wins wars, but idealism leads to epic battles, and
in an action series that's what counts. Dragon Ball wouldn't be nearly as
interesting if Goku resorted to some form of guerrilla tactics to win each
battle, even though it might make things easier. The protagonist usually has
some more level-headed allies who will pull out if they really are in a losing
battle (e.g. Nami, Piccolo), but these characters aren't the ones you're
supposed to identify with. Also, idealism is often portrayed as admirable in
these series, which further adds to the character's good qualities.

There's also the aspect of tradition, as kuwaly's answer points out. So I
think there are a lot of reasons why it works well to have an idiot hero in
shounen action series, so it's understandable why they are common.


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One of the reason for this is that we get attached to this type of
personalities. Moreover, they sometimes make the viewers optimistic as the
protagonists being stupid achieve many things which seems impossible!


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Shonen, for me, is all about doing the hard things. It's about effort, moving
past self-doubt, facing impossible odds, and somehow through luck, faith, and
grit you make it through. I think to do any and all of that instinctively, you
have to be a little stupid.

I consider myself a smart person. Most of my friends are smart. My parents are
smart. My brothers are smart. I think I know smart people. Smart people
analyze things. They think about the odds, about their abilities, the utility
of a certain action and do a rough calculation in their heads before they make
decisions. In the real world, it's the right way to go. The trouble comes when
you do too much analyzing and distance yourself from reality and hope.

Shonen heroes never do such a thing. They bulldoze their way past insecurity.
They don't give it a second thought. All they know is that if they stick with
it, if they keep punching, if they keep climbing, they will get where they
want to go. Even if it's stupid. Even if it's impossible. They're insane or
dumb. That's the only explanation. You can't just solve things by punching
your enemies. You can't just keep running on a race track till your soles
bleed or you collapse. You can't kneel for three days to make a point.

But they can.

And that's why it's so addictive. Because I want to believe that I can be like
that. I want to be able to laugh off failure and keep trudging. I want to
believe that the most important things in life are being a good friend, never
giving up, and always following my own path, even when every rational
indicator tells me to turn back or to hedge my bets.


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Those protagonists aren’t dumb, but more so simple-minded. There are some
definitions of the word that make it seem like simple-minded equals stupidity,
but it honestly doesn’t mean stupid. People who are simple-minded can still
problem solve pretty well even if it takes them longer to figure it out. They
think and solve things simplistically, have simple ideologies, and have
simplistic goals. That doesn’t make the characters stupid, their brains work a
bit differently than the average person. They typically rely on their own
strengths and abilities to make it through the day. They are in many ways seen
as survivalists and are more practical than reasonable. This makes for very
stubborn protagonists who don’t give up. For example, I kind of know someone
who thinks this way, he can fix cars and trucks like it is second nature to
him, and he’s done some insane fixes that other car mechanics find insane to
attempt, and he just relies on what he has to solve these problem. Although he
struggles in math and with solving puzzles. Like he absolutely hates puzzles
because it takes a lot of brain power to solve stuff like that. That kind of
problem solving isn’t their best ability. People believe that intelligence
means you do well in school and make good grades. People who don’t do well in
school are considered unintelligent. That isn’t the case. Intelligence comes
in many forms and you can be intelligent in gathering and retaining knowledge
but struggle with social or survival intelligence.

With that said, why does shounen have simple-minded characters. Well they are
typically the easiest to develop and also provide good comedy to the anime.
When you have characters that think simplistic than they usually struggle a
lot in many areas. Later on you put other characters in those protagonists’
lives to build up those simplistic protagonists through influencing. Their
struggles can be seen as relatable to most who struggle in their teenage or
young adult life, but at the same time it is also suppose to make you feel
better about yourself because you aren’t struggling as much as those kind of
protagonists. I would argue though that there are plenty of shounen that have
genius level protagonists and also a few that have average protagonists.
However the ones you’ve listed do have that shounen troupe of the protagonists
having simplistic thinking and problem solving.

I don’t know if you’ve watch Hunter X Hunter, but Gon has that same simple-
minded protagonist troupe in this shounen anime. He thinks simplistically, but
the writer does show that Gon can problem solve well and even better than the
other characters during certain situations. He is shown to struggle with
higher level concepts and explanations, but finds his own way around it or to
understand those concepts. I don’t think anyone who watches the anime
considers Gon stupid. There is an understand among those characters that Gon
thinks differently than them, and the smarter characters in the anime are both
fascinated with and sometimes make light humor of Gon’s thinking and how it
affects his actions and judgements. Unlike the other animes like Naruto where
all the characters call him stupid for struggling which makes them
underestimate him. I’ve watched Naruto so much to know that he isn’t stupid
and it is just that other character calling him that. It’s suppose to be
humorous but it can give people like you the wrong idea about these
protagonists. When people around those characters call them stupid, than that
influences how you view those characters. It’s psychology, look up Asch
Conformity Experiment on YouTube. It can help explain why you think these
protagonists are stupid because the other characters consider them stupid and
you believe them those characters to be right about the protagonists.


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