Originally, I was confused why so many american teen shows lack slice of life elements and (intentional) comedy and focus on drama, drama, drama. At least give me endearing characters first, before you make them get attacked to krokodil so that I care.
YA has a similar problem of overbearing seriousness, mostly in the spec fic genres. The thing is, you can have a story with endearing characters and a dark setting. Gakkou Gurashi/School-Live proves it.
It has everything YA readers/booktubers love, except for racial diversity (everyone is Japanese) and LGBT representation (only two canon romantic relationships, from what I remember, both found in the manga, and both het). Otherwise, it has strong themes of hope, friendship, and teamwork in a zombie apocalypse. You just need to adapt the manga into a book trilogy from all four main girl’s perspectives and see the money fly right into your bank account.
I think anyone writing a YA with dark themes should at least watch the 12-episode anime.
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As a loving hardcore anime fan, I will say this “anime isn’t really for everyone”, but we can learn from that medium and whatnot.
Just saying.
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I think that the people who write edgy YA will appreciate it most.
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Interesting. What makes you say that? 
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I notice this with people who write YA stories as well.
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Because they would learn that not every single teenage character in a screwed up world would be dour, gloomy, sarcastic, or serious edgy loner types. That it is more interesting to see people have hipe and joy in a zombie apocalypse than endless violence and drama.
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Isn’t that odd? The Shadows Between Us and Lightlark took themselves deadly seriously for no good reason.
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Yeah and if it’s not about fantasy stuff it’s all about identity, identity, identity, identity, muh feels. And very boring and self inserty.
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Because unfortunately most western writers these days have zero creativity, and the only thing they’re capable of doing is taking something that already exists, and “rebooting” it with a focus on politics rather than quality/good story telling. Not that you can’t encourage certain morals/beliefs via writing/art/cartoons/movies/whatever, but it takes a skilled person with a working imagination to pull it off in a way where the story is still entertaining/high quality versus a watered down plot blanketed with lectures, and zero escapism. I mean, the US’ education system wasn’t made to raise critical thinkers sure, but man, has it only gotten worse over the years.
Anyway, I agree. Many can learn from eastern entertainment. My local bookstore has even been telling us for a while that the interest in manga has sky rocketed especially since the pandemic whereas in western comics, the interest is dropping at an alarming rate. Gee, I wonder why.
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I wish that you were wrong.
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Rick Riordan’s books are very funny and lots of his characters are goofy or lighthearted.
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He has a range and he is one of the top ones. Honestly, he was the only YA writer I could read anyway.
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I see your point exactly. Sad he is an exception rather than a rule.