Screwing up throughout a significant part of the series is a shounen hero forte. You know - they start weak, loud and annoying (Naruto) and then change. Eren fit that trope almost perfectly in early chapters, now he's far from that.
Yes you're right about this, but i not only meant in power (like starting weak like naruto). I'm talking about continous stupid choices, never being right, not trusting commrades, or trusting them too much, etc.. But i do think that in this specific category he does approach shonen generic characters.
Yeah, not trying to save Annie was a good decision by Eren, however I've heard too much of Kaji Yuki to consider the voice-over good. Look up any of his other VA roles, he's the exact same everywhere. One of the most memed about VA's on MyAnimeList. And I don't see what a voice actor has to do with how a character is written.
Good point. My love for Eren is more of an anime exclusive, since the VA is a huge part of his character.
Eren is not a complete psycho, Lol. There have been so many times he's done what he's done for Mikasa and Armin, at the very least.
Did you just not see him kill hundrers of people? That's definitely VERY far from what a generic shonen MC would do. That's like the opposite of the "protect everyone" shit.
And who would decide to randomly punch a titan (smiling one) and get a sudden power-up? That's right, a shounen hero in his early days.
I don't see this as a part of Eren's personality so to me it doesn't count. He could get infinite power ups but to me what makes a character generic/shonen type is the way he acts.
Naruto is a thinker for example. I don't think this is a generic MC trait.
always rushes battles with a war cry, headstrong, loudmouth without much going for him.
Example of the bold? I always saw him as a confidence lacking kid that breaks down when he has to make a big decision. The loudmouth comes from when he was arguing with Jean in the first chapters? Because from that point, he was just a character that kept his mouth shut not being able to say anything on most times.
To me, if eren was closer to a generic MC, he:
-Would have changed his goal "kill all the titans" to "protect everyone"
-That would be reflected in his actions, and he would never reach the point where he actually kills hundreds of people fighting annie
-At some point in the manga, he would stop having mental breakdowns and use some talk no jutsu on his enemies at least, instead of losing his mind everytime he talked to Reiner and Berthold after he discovered the truth
-When being chased by the female titan, he just kept his mouth shut while Annie was crushing anyone who came and tried to help them. And here is where the lack of confidence clearly is showed, when he could just faced annie there, but he decides to leave things to his teammates (which they all died).
I don't say he's the opposite of a generic MC, and if i said it i take it back. But he's not close to it. Generic MCs are normally so nice and have so high morals, that they don't even seem human, while Eren is like the most regular guy you could find: selfish, unconfident and committed to his purpose, and lets his emotions take over every single time (this last trait would be that of a generic MC if his emotions were normal, but almost every time he is just engulfed with rage and thirst for blood, damn, i just re watched season 2 episode 9 when he tells reiner and berthold with an absolute rape face he wants to kill both of them the most painful death he can think of)