Quote Originally Posted by Traab View Post
Isnt the shounen trope that the hero fails miserably against his rivals the first few times? Take naruto and sasuke. How long did it take for naruto to straight up win a fight against him? Generally the hero doesnt overcome his rival till near the end of the series, unless its meant to recruit/befriend him. We see an example of that in a lesser known one Shaman King. The rival is usually the symbol of how far the hero has to go till he is "strong enough" for his goal outside of whoever the antagonist is.
While 'the rival' is such a common shonen trope I have a hard time thinking of too many examples right now.. But let's go with what might be the most famous (in recent times) : Naruto to some extent overshadowed Sasuke as early as the zabuza arc, but he needed to go berserk for that. Then he beat Gaara when Sasuke couldn't. Then Rasengan proved more powerful than Chidori which was basically the reason for Sasuke running away. Sasuke beat him at the end of that arc but then for the longest time we don't know which one is stronger. Or ever, kind of.
In DB I guess vegeta is the closest and he's mostly a step behind Goku, like anyone else.
Other popular Shonen.. Well, FMA doesn't really have a rival (does it?), Fairy Tail.. Gray? Kind of mostly same level. HxH I can't comment on.
Don't get me wrong, instinctively I would easily agree that the hero catching up to the rival is common, yet I fail to think of concrete examples.

Bakugo certainly fills the slot best, even if there are other candidates, but I am not sure how the power balance is right now with Deku making such rapid progress.