Anime/Manga - Discuss Japanese cartoons and comics here; NO CULTURE WAR DOOMPOSTING!

[rapecel]

All secondaries in a shonen quickly become part of the background. Only the main character/s can do shit

That's why I appreciate Hunter x Hunter so much. In the Chimera ant arc, Gon doesn't fight the greatest villain of the arc, Meruem, but instead fights one of his Royal Guards. It's Netero that fights Meruem instead. Overall Hunter x Hunter deconstructs a lot of shounen tropes. Now, deconstructions aren't necessarily good or bad, but they definitely are a breath of fresh air, and I really wished that more manga made use of them.

those villains are so underdeveloped

It's definitely true that they didn't do a lot plot-wise. But they are still good characters, they're not easily forgettable.

unironically killed one of them for little better reason than the plot needing to advance

No, Yamamoto would've probably killed her, and we actually saw that she was preparing for that fight with him. Also, Aizen didn't kill her. He struck her twice and survived, though she didn't become relevant after that.

giga nigger is apparently espada 0

Honestly I think Kubo did that shit for laughs.

Did anyone watch Orb/Chi when it aired last year?

It's historically inaccurate and I am NOT okay with the Church being depicted in a bad light when that doesn't correspond to reality.

Ah, the Arrancars. When the author had a spanish phase. Can't take Bleach seriously

Actually, the arc is really fun and I enjoyed the aesthetic of Hueco Mundo and the characters.

 

[Soupalognon Y Crouton]

Actually, the arc is really fun and I enjoyed the aesthetic of Hueco Mundo and the characters.

EW

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Actually, the arc is really fun and I enjoyed the aesthetic of Hueco Mundo and the characters.

It started well, but the pacing was godawful ane I wouldn't be surprised if most people jumped ship with how glacial the pace was.

Then you will probably not like the giant robot fight where the fat otaku hums Mazinger Z's theme, yells (mistranslated in the official release)Combatter V attacks and other mecha references. Going too hard on "Do you get this reference?" really took me out of it.

Clevatess is the best shonenslop of the season.

Yeah that sounds cringy as fuck.

I didn't continue Clevatess after the end of the Slavers arc. It just felt too grimdark but with a main character that is unkillable and unlikable.

 

[FatMebius]

I didn't continue Clevatess after the end of the Slavers arc. It just felt too grimdark but with a main character that is unkillable and unlikable.

Klen gets humbled pretty much the first time he tries to go off alone, so that was nice to see. It gets less grimdark after the obligatory rapey slave arc that every fantasy manga/LN seems to have.

Dandadan is best when it's doing its own thing. I think Okarun and Momo's little romance is cute. Amazing how an arc where they fought a kaiju with a giant robot just felt really underwhelming to me since they just buried it under references. I don't want references.

 

[I Know 孤独のせい]

Halfway through reading Stardust Crusaders. And the pacing definitely is better than watching the anime. Seems to be the case with Shōnen in general, reading Dragon Ball is also much more enjoyable than watching it.

I am probably repeating myself, but the art is still great, which I would say is Araki's strongest quality. It is really imaginative overall. I understand why he switched to Stands, though I think that he could have continued to use Hamon as a battle system. I don't think Stardust Crusaders unitizes Stands all too well, though. "Hanged Man" is probably the highlight of Part 3 unless I forgot something equally good later on. It felt dangerous, there was good back and forth between JoJo's crew and the "Hanged Man". The resolution also felt more believable than is typical the case with JoJo fights, as far as I am concerned.

The monster of the week format, which I don't necessarily mind, and constant burning through Stand users probably come from its original weekly release schedule and can explain the repeating A-B-C of every fight, but I am surprised that neither Araki himself, nor any editor or friend realized that this is just lazy and shit writing which backs itself into a corner. Which becomes really apparent with Death 13. That entire fight or arc or whatever you want to call it made me so livid when I watched the anime years ago that I almost made me drop the franchise entirely. Even Part 1 with its paper thin everything was more enjoyable.

I think Part 3 would have immensely benefited from fewer enemies but longer and more evolved engagements. Because most of the Stands, apart maybe from "The Sun", felt like they had the potential for some great battles.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

I dunno, the problem with the Arranacar is the problem with basically every group in Bleach; there are a couple good ones and then a lot of forgettable ones. You might like MAYBE 10 of them but Bleach Wiki has 45 pages for them and they are almost certainly missing many of the fracción. Hell a lot of them that got a lot of screentime aren't even distinct characters, Grimmjow has a cool design but he's basically just Evil Renji.

I also was underwhelmed with their characterization, they almost always come off as Shinigami but destructive instead of what they are; the dominant personality of a huge pile of souls of people who got the shitty stagnant afterlife instead of returning to samsara or whatever.

Kubo is always my go to example for why the Japansese Manga system is generally worse then the Silver/Bronze Age comics system. Kubo is a distinctive artist with great character designs and cool ideas that should never be left alone to write his work. On some level he knows this and clearly tried to character design his way out of writing a story.

 

[rapecel]

they almost always come off as Shinigami but destructive

Well, they are hollows.

shitty stagnant afterlife

That's the soul society.

Grimmjow has a cool design but he's basically just Evil Renji

Yeah but at least he has a good hairline. Though on a serious note, Kubo does kind of recycle some characters and their dynamics. Renji/Byakuya, Grimmjow/Ulquiorra, Bazz-B/Haschwalth. Although each of them are unique enough in their own ways to make them interesting.

Silver/Bronze Age comics system

What is that?

 

[Grog]

I am probably repeating myself, but the art is still great, which I would say is Araki's strongest quality. It is really imaginative overall. I understand why he switched to Stands, though I think that he could have continued to use Hamon as a battle system. I don't think Stardust Crusaders unitizes Stands all too well, though. "Hanged Man" is probably the highlight of Part 3 unless I forgot something equally good later on. It felt dangerous, there was good back and forth between JoJo's crew and the "Hanged Man". The resolution also felt more believable than is typical the case with JoJo fights, as far as I am concerned.

Araki introduced stands because he had already done everything that could possibly be done with hamon without resorting to asspulls. Therefore, he came up with a system where the asspulls are part of the rules. The stands in Stardust Crusaders are the simplest in the entire series because they were the first. By the time it gets to Golden Wind every other stand is some crazy situational shit, and honestly, makes the fights a lot more interesting.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

What is that?

Having (almost always) separate writers/artists working on the comic, having designated specialists for things like lettering instead of just making whichever interns are in arms reach this week do it. On the minus side it leads to the staff being stewards who don't own their work and will never make a satisfying ending, but it's not as though mangaka really own their work and rarely bring manga to a satisfying ending since they don't often get enough warning that they are done anyway.

 

[McMitch]

Spoiler: Boryoku Banzai continues to be peak

 

[vern]

I dunno, the problem with the Arranacar is the problem with basically every group in Bleach; there are a couple good ones and then a lot of forgettable ones. You might like MAYBE 10 of them but Bleach Wiki has 45 pages for them and they are almost certainly missing many of the fracción. Hell a lot of them that got a lot of screentime aren't even distinct characters, Grimmjow has a cool design but he's basically just Evil Renji.

I think Grimmjow's popularity has less to do with the design but more of being a direct call back to his previous MC from zombiepowder which iirc some people are still split on whether it was axed due to lack of popularity or because kubo vastly underestimated making a weekly series (if anyone remembers bakuman, it's rumored that the duos first series mirrored him minus the actual hospitalization).
For those who haven't read it's a bit of a trigun rip off where the macguffin of the series was a one use thing that could either bring back one person from the dead or make one living person immortal, and one of the few interesting things the series had going was it was unclear which option the MC wanted to use it for.
Although to be slightly fair to kubo, the trigun rip off wasn't his idea but an editorial override when he initially wanted to make a samurai sci-fi kinda like what gintama ended up being a few years later.

Speaking of gintama, there's a clip that's almost as good as the filler explained one where they go over just how bad gorilla and other mangaka are when they they're the ones asking to end a series.

 

[I Know 孤独のせい]

Araki introduced to stands because he had already done everything that could possibly be done with hamon without resorting to asspulls. Therefore, he came up with a system where the asspulls are part of the rules. The stands in Stardust Crusaders are the simplest in the entire series because they were the first. By the time it gets to Golden Wind every other stand is some crazy situational shit, and honestly, makes the fights a lot more interesting.

I understand, I've read the interview at the back of the manga. But I disagree to an extent, since Phantom Blood felt like a proof of concept and Battle Tendencies like the real start for the Hamon battle system. He could have done another series, but that never happened. As for the Stands, I don't mind their simplicity in Stardust Crusaders and I would argue that the simplicity, if properly paced, would have allowed for much better fights. I understand that the fights are done from a neutral or enemy stand perspective for the explanation(asspull) to happen. And with the "Hanged Man" I think Araki done that quite well, but not with everything else.

Now it's been a while since I watched Golden Wind, but I remember disliking it quite a bit, similar to Part 3. Have to see if that will change when I reach that part "again".

 

[Trollblade69]

Is anyone following Dandandan?

I read up to chapter 190 and stopped reading the manga. Haven't watched the anime, why would I when I'll probably just be bored watching stuff I've already seen

 

[Gentlebastard]

Amazing how an arc where they fought a kaiju with a giant robot just felt really underwhelming to me since they just buried it under references. I don't want references.

I have really superficial knowledge of mecha anime (from the top of my head, I've watched Evangelion and TTGL, and might have Full Metal Panic, the Appleseed movie, and Gunbuster waiting to be watched in some external HD somewhere), so, as an outsider, it was just plain, silly fun; I can see why just being barraged with references can get stale quickly, though.

 

[Lone MacReady II]

How can people wade through the sea of filler in Bleach?

 

[GigantorUnitron]

How can people wade through the sea of filler in Bleach?

By watching it on its own, good 6/10 fanfiction when youre not getting cold cocked by it in the middle of the actual plot.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

How can people wade through the sea of filler in Bleach?

I swapped to reading at the beginning of the Bount arc

 

[Lone MacReady II]

By watching it on its own, good 6/10 fanfiction when youre not getting cold cocked by it in the middle of the actual plot.

There are certainly things I've always liked about Bleach, but it's always been from the sidelines since I was a teen. Even back then it was an issue, and now I just don't have the patience for it. I wish someone had a list of which arcs and episodes really have the good shit, like unconditionally. There's lists like that for One Piece, covering which arcs can be skipped if you really want nothing but the best. None of this is Shakespeare anyway. The longest I stuck with Bleach was during the mask stuff when Kisuke was one of the soul reapers. I enjoy the stories where you get to learn how a character got fucked up and lost his spot.

 

[crowabunga]

I watched the first episode of Demonbane, and so far it's amusing for the sheer idiocy of it all.

Firstly, it progresses like a dream, cutting so much connective tissue that it fails to produce any character attachment - it doesn't even try for cheap, manipulative investment, no sad orphan/dead sister/missing friend shit or anything like that - and borders on the non sequitur.

Not once, but twice, the protagonist has been silently snuck up on and surrounded by fleets of loud gasoline motorcars.

It also includes a transformation sequence that, rather than attempt titillating censorship, throws in the towel and depicts the characters "unclothed" with Barbie and Ken doll bodies - not that that's what I'm watching it for, but it's bizarre how sexless they made the scene for something in an IP that started out as an eroge, and doubly bizzare for something that's already included trite coomer pantyshots already.

Who is this made for? Idiots like me who see a Twin Peaks reference on top of the usual Lovecraft references and feel some superficial kinship with the writers, I suppose.

 

[BiggestKai]

What's everyone reading now?
For me, it's been Slime Saint:

It's about an evil psycho saintess accidentally dying in the forest. A slime comes across the body and possesses it, wanting to know what it's like to be human.
Shenanigans and funny faces ensue as the airheaded slime saint accidentally pulls off being a saint far better than the original human did.
Very lighthearted fun manga all around.