Yoshihiro Togashi

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Why would I create a topic for this guy?

Well, let's see:

Is it because I think he's an awesome manga writer? Yes, for the most part.

Is he as good as people like Naoki Urasawa? No, definitely not.

Is he a lazy ass-hole? Yes, especially with Hunter X Hunter.

So then why do I still hold him in such high regard? Because as much as he can piss me off with his laziness, he's the best damn thing to have ever happened to shonen, IMO. Better than even Akira Toriyama and Eichiro Oda combined, as far as I'm concerned (and I have a lot of respect for those 2 mangaka, BTW; just for the record).

As for Yu Yu Hakusho, there isn't much that I can say that I haven't already said about how I feel about it at least a thousand times already. I think its the best shonen series, period. As for the Hunter X Hunter fans who hate on it and say that it was a product of Togashi's inexperience at the time before he became a better writer, they are all idiots. They overrated HXH as if it were some deep and provocative series in comparison, when its far from that and has its own share of flaws. That said, I also should mention that this is coming from someone who really enjoys that series, as well.

I should probably mention that I can understand Desensitized's dislike for HXH, as it never used to click with me, originally. In fact. I couldn't see why people liked it so much, and I was initially disappointed with it....but part of that was because I was expecting something like YYH from Togashi rather than him trying something completely different. Once I got over that and gave the series another fair shot on its own terms, I really came to appreciate it for what it was and I enjoyed it own its own merits. Its a very creative series with an interesting wold and design that isn't the least bit afraid to be dark when it needs to me, but can be equally as humorous and light-spirited. Its a very enjoyable series due to its dynamic characters and how masterful Togashi is as writing the interactions between characters and in this case even giving them a lot of development.

Let me say that Killua is probably the single most interesting character that Togashi has ever written if you pay close attention to his development when he hangs around Gon, the main character (and there are a ton of subtle touches to how he slowly starts changing that I didn't notice the first time around when I was watching the series, initially). By contrast, though, Gon is kind of a boring main character. He improves later on in the series, but I find myself highly indifferent to him in comparison to the rest of the cast for the most part, mainly because Togashi surprisingly makes the supporting characters way more interesting than the main one. Gon really serves more as a device for other characters to compare themselves to, as many of them take an immediate liking to Gon for being a sort of calming agent for them, and in that regard he is at least far more interesting than most of the brash and brainless protagonists that plague most modern shonen series. Gon is actually far from the strongest and doesn't even care about strength. His role is that of a natural born mediator and tactician (in how he usually resolves conflicts with his brains and wits rather than his strength and combat skills, which he doesn't have very much of) rather than a pure-bred fighter.

Overall Hunter X Hunter is certainly a more ambitious series than YYH and is more impressive and better-written in certain aspects, but its a long-shot away from being as good as YYH in the long-run because with YYH Togashi crafted a much more consistently-paced story where all of the characters were interesting, instead of just some of them.

Oh, and also, just out of curiosity, am I the only one watching the Level E anime, here? I read the manga and enjoyed it but felt it had a weird quality to it due to Togashi's various inconsistencies with the series that kind of pulled me out of the experience. I feel that the anime has done a great job so far of fixing those problems and completely weeding them out of the mix, for the most part. Also, anyone who has read chapter 4 of the manga or has respectively watched episode 4 of the anime should see clear proof in that one-shot short story that Togashi does indeed have the writing talent to take on a science-fiction noir story, or just any kind of noir in general, as far as I'm concerned. The guy just has brilliant ideas, and can usually execute them to an equal level of brilliance.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I really, really, wish this guy wasn't so lazy. He has great ideas, and usually great execution, but if he would apply himself more I'm sure we'd have a lot more great material from him than what we have.

HxH... I dunno. I tried to get into it, and while I liked it to an extent in how different it was, I think it kind of lost a bit as it went on. Like, the enemies were WAY too overpowered 3/4 of the time, good characters were pushed to the side (Leo Rio was awesome), it started getting dragged out, and... it never felt like the characters got any closer to their goal. Which kind of made me lose interest.

But that was a long time ago when I stopped reading, so I might be misremembering or something, but I just don't think it stacks up to YYH... Even the manga version.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

HxH... I dunno. I tried to get into it, and while I liked it to an extent in how different it was, I think it kind of lost a bit as it went on. Like, the enemies were WAY too overpowered 3/4 of the time,

You see, this is a problem that I used to have with the series, but here's the thing, upon going through it again I found it to be brilliant. Ever notice how the point of this is that it always puts the heroes at the disadvantage and forces them to really use their wits just to survive? Its honestly a great touch, and makes it way more interesting than the battles would be if the heroes fought on even levels with the bad guys. And really, when it comes down to it the enemies aren't as overpowered as much as they just are more skilled and experienced, since they are usually a lot older than the main characters who fight them, which makes sense. And, on top of all of that, its not like the heroes always lose. In fact, when they finally succeed it feels all the more rewarding considering the insanely difficult odds that they were able to overcome. I honestly don't see this as a flaw at all, anymore. On the contrary, it makes the series more interesting if anything.

good characters were pushed to the side (Leo Rio was awesome), it started getting dragged out, and... it never felt like the characters got any closer to their goal. Which kind of made me lose interest.

Well, Kurapika pretty much already reached his goal (granted that it was hinted at forever that Kuroro could undo what he did), and I honestly liked how he was completely reliant on outsmarting his enemies. He couldn't have taken on Ubo at all, but managed to defeat him at the cost of putting heavy restrictions on his abilities that risked his life, and he ultimately had to settle for removing Kuroro's powers rather than killing him to complete his revenge because he had developed into caring more about his friends thanks to Gon, and that was clearly a touch decision for him to make, but it was great because it showed how much he had changed.

But that was a long time ago when I stopped reading, so I might be misremembering or something, but I just don't think it stacks up to YYH... Even the manga version.

I think that the manga only really develops its problems at the Chimera arc, but I still think its a great shonen manga nonetheless. To be truthful, despite its annoying hiatuses, I still think its leaps and bounds against most currently running battle manga that are running today, despite its own faults.

This is coming from someone who used to feel the same way about the series, though I should mention that, with the exception of the Greed Island OVAs, I feel that this was yet again another case of an anime adaptation substantially improving upon Togashi's already good source material. It added a lot of really nice subtle touches into the mix, and for what its worth the English dub gets a lot better around the 2nd half of the series when the VAs get more accustomed to performing as their respective characters.

Also, while I agree wholeheartedly that Yu Yu Hakusho is by far Togashi's superior work, I still honestly stand by my opinion that Killua is the most interesting character that Togashi has ever written, especially when paying close attention to the subtle touches in his overall development that Togashi wrote in for him.

[Foggle]

Togashi is a total badass. Like Rikudou Koushi, he's not exactly a household name, but his work easily surpasses that of most household names (barring, perhaps, Urasawa, of course). Yu Yu Hakusho is fucking awesome and the little I've seen of Level E makes it apparent that it's truly a breath of fresh air as far as modern anime go (even if the original work is fairly old).

I still need to read Hunter X Hunter. Let me know next time he comes off hiatus and I'll start!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The thing I like about Level E is how sharply it contrasts most of the modern comedy anime of today (you can tell that its based off of an older series with a much different mentality for comedy based off of that alone). Whereas most modern anime comedies are just MOE except with the girls talking in extra-squeaky voices because apparently that makes weaboos giggle, Level E is a fun comedy that happens to have a lot of subtle jokes underneath its more obvious ones. It has a bizarre quality akin to the Excel Saga anime, but is also split up into arcs which all have some sort of central theme to them, and all of them can be highly misleading. If you watch the first episode of the series, it looks like it might be an OK boy meets alien story. You watch the 2nd episode and think that it is turning into a decent Fumoffu-esque comedy. Then you watch the 3rd episode and realize that Togashi just trolled your ass. Pretty fun shit, IMO.

And Foggle, if you're ever going to see HXH, I'd probably recommend the anime over the manga, because at least it has a clear point that you could stop at (and while I can get over it, it might bother you that Togashi's artwork is pretty horrendous....the guy knows how to write good material....but he can't draw to save his life, honestly ).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, just randomly felt like asking this question, but what do people think of Togashi's general art style? Now, keep in mind that art style isn't the same thing as artwork. As many have pointed out, Togashi can often get quite lazy and it will show in his art when it turns out all sloppy, and since this is one of the only few mangaka who downright refuses to work with any assistants, there isn't really anybody around to fix his sloppiness (not that he gives a rats-ass).

At any rate, his art style tends to differ from the norm, not to the same extent that someone like Oda's would, but its still different none-the-less. Out of all of his works not counting his pre-YYH one-shots, Yu Yu Hakusho tends to be his work that is the closest to looking like a normal series, but even that (at least when you view the manga) has its own peculiar style to it that kind of sets it apart even from its contemporaries in the shonen manga genre like Dragon Ball and such (well, DB is a bit of a stretch as a contemporary, but it was still running around the same time even though it was already nearing the end of its run when YYH was just getting started up).

As for Level E, the manga for that doesn't even look like a manga. Hell, if the thing read from left to right, it would easily pass as some American (or just some general Western) comic book that nobody would guess was really a manga until they saw some of the jokes. That said, I have to say that Level E is way too inconsistent with its art design, so I'm glad that Togashi went with his more trademark style with HXH.

Now, some people will say that Togashi's artwork is bad. When he's being sloppy, then yeah, I have no arguments there, but as for his general artwork for the most part, I disagree with that sentiment. His artwork is just way more simplistic in technique and execution than most other shonen series, but when he's not being sloppy, I often find that I really like that simplistic design of his. It just has a very appealing feel to it and if nothing else its much easier to follow action scenes and keep track of everything that's going on in general because he doesn't try to over-detail every little thing, which other shonen authors try to do but don't realize that they are kind of bad at since half the time I can't tell what the fuck they drew in one panel because its way too obscured by an unnecessary effect or a bunch of other things.

Also, I have to admit, I like when Togashi has some silly artwork that he intentionally drew to be over-the-top and just plain silly. It feels like there is some good humor behind is art and that he is completely self-aware that he's not talented at drawing, so I kind of like his self-sense of humor in his art, and at the same time I feel that his work still has some earnest heart to it, unlike other series which you can say have better artwork but their style just feels lacking and downright bland (stuff like Bleach and HSDK, IMO). Now of course, he has tons of times when his artwork is silly just because he's lazy and sloppy, but there are other times when I have to admit I just love it, like in some of his wacky yet still fun-looking cover designs for Hunter X Hunter.



And then he has some of his completely opposite, more serious artwork, like this:



Well, IDK, being the Togashi fan that I am I just take a personal interest in his art style. The guy's artwork is admittedly inconsistent as hell and he's actually by far one of Shonen Jump's worst mangaka in terms of art talent, but at the same time I actually find the actual art style of his manga interestingly appealing, or at least more so than the plethora of generic stuff out there. At any rate, I was bored and didn't have anything else to talk about, which is why I brought this up.

[Foggle]

Nice detail on the HxH vol. 11 and Level E vol. 1 covers! Good stuff.

[gunswordfist]

Well I've only seen YYH so I have nothing but love for the guy. I do want to check out Hunter X Hunter.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I like his art style, but I think he needs more assistants. IIRC, it was stated that he doesn't use them which is why he is able to take so many breaks. It tends to show, since the characters frequently are more detailed than the backgrounds are.

He is a good artist and storyteller overall, though.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I noticed that his artwork in the last 20 chapters that he made for Hunter X Hunter before his latest hiatus actually had really good artwork, at least by his standards. I kind of wish that he was always that consistent with his art, but either way I'm still pretty pisses that the guy won't even give anyone a good reason for why he always needs a hiatus. There are other mangaka who work without assistants who still don't take breaks as long as he does. What also ticks me off is that he seemed to be falling into a trap that most shonen writers would fall into, but considering how experienced he is in the genre its quite surprising. In this case he has been dragging out what is essentially a single major arc for way too long. Since its Togashi is writing is still interesting, but I really kind of want to see him come to a conclusion, especially since his set-up for what would come is already really great. Also, I really want to see him involve Leorio and Kurapika in the story again, characters that many fans of HXH got fully invested in only to shove them both aside after Kurapika's story arc was "supposedly" resolved.

No matter what anyone else says I still think that the guy is a talented story-teller and overall writer, even now, but the fact that he can't stay consistent with his work really ticks me off. I know that he doesn't like to work with assistants, but if that's the case then he should at least release the HXH chapters on a bi-weekly or even a monthly basis rather than just making people wait years for a cluster of chapters. At least that way the releases will be neatly spaced out rather than being so inconsistent and unpredictable.

Anyways, I thought it would be interesting to bring up that I read somewhere that apparently Yoshihiro Togashi never wanted to do battle manga in the first place (even though he's miraculously good at it), and kind of had to be dragged into doing it by his editors. I believe that he had personally just wanted to do gag manga all along (at least during the time he made Yu Yu Hakusho). I suppose Hunter X Hunter was actually his first serious attempt at doing a battle/adventure manga, but ironically I feel that he somehow managed to make Yu Yu Hakusho a more entertaining series, though his efforts with working on HXH still definitely payed off.

One thing that I feel regarding the anime adaptations of Togashi's work, though, is that the guy gets damn lucky with who chooses to be responsible for adapting his manga. In all 3 cases, Yu Yu Hakusho, Hunter X Hunter, and Level E (at least so far), have superior anime adaptations to their manga counterparts, IMO. That isn't to undermine the value of Togashi's work, as its irreplaceable in how unique his own manga feel in comparison to their respective anime adaptations, but even so, I feel that the adaptations of his works are among the few cases in which the writers and directors of the anime actually really give a crap about his stories, and aren't just copying and pasting every little thing that he does for a quick cash-in, but rather changing around bits and pieces and modifying aspects of his material in their own ways, which to be honest seem to better suit each respective series, most of the time.

I especially like the subtle touches of added sequences by the Hunter X Hunter TV series director Kazuhiro Furuhashi (who also worked on the Rurouni Kenshin anime, primarily for the Kyoto arc) that contain little to no-dialogue yet add a lot of emotion to the characters and to the overall impact of some of the more dramatic moments in the series. The animation crew for HXH deserve especial praise for how well they handle the facial expressions of the characters allowing them to convey emotions through the artwork and animation rather than having to use verbal ques to state how they feel all the time. I actually like how the HXH anime treats its audience with more intelligence than the average shonen series, not just stooping down to explaining every little detail, purposely leaving in some subtle touches in terms of character emotions or foreshadowing, and not over-explaining the crap out of everything unless it needs to be explained to the viewers in great depth (such as the concept of Nen).

As for Yu Yu Hakusho, I could fill in a whole article worth of stuff on the additions and changes and overall tweaks that I love in the anime adaptation of the series, but I'll refrain for that for now. Either way, no matter what anyone else says, even if they think YYH really isn't anything above the level of a genric and forgettable shonen, nobody can deny that the people involved with making that anime cared a lot about how it turned out and put a lot of heart and effort into working on it. It really shows in how well executed the entire series is, for the most part.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I have to admit, the anime adaptations of Togashi's material really improve upon his original material (for the most part, anyways). The HXH anime is handled almost masterfully in later episodes, and I have been enjoying the Level E anime significantly more than the manga. As for YYH, its pretty obvious by now that the anime stays faithful to the manga while using its minimal amounts of filler material to enhance the quality of the story rather than hamper it.

I have to say, though, if Togashi was ever to do another series, I'd want him to make most of the series itself based more off of the type of material he has present in the Chapter Black arc from YYH mixed in with the York Shin City arc from HXH. Those 2 particular arcs are the 2 best things that he has ever written, IMO, though in both cases whoever was responsible for working on each respective anime may just deserve as much credit as Togashi himself.

On another note, though, I decided to retry a few episodes of the Greed Island OVAs of HXH, and man they are a huge drop in quality. Its expected when the director for the TV anime and the first OVA didn't return to direct anything past that, and it can be seen that the people involved with making the GI OVAs really didn't care about the source material all that much. I mean, I'll admit that the GI arc itself wasn't all that enthralling, but it was at least fairly entertaining in the anime, whereas I have to admit looking back on it that its rather boring in the anime, at least from the first few episodes that I have re-watched from it. I also find its music to be rather inferior and the animation looks "shinier" on the outside but its like any other generic anime with all of its stiff and lifeless movements, which is a shame after coming straight out of the fluidly animated TV series as well as the first OVA.

As for the other parts of the HXH anime, I feel that there were some truly great scenes and moments. I was particularly impressed with how the scene involving Pakunoda's death was handled. As one of the villains, the anime played her out to try and make the viewers sympathize with her a bit more. I really must say that the scene in which she willingly sacrifices her life to reveal to the rest of her members the remaining information that she has about Kurapika was dealt with extremely well in the anime and I'd easily put it on par with some of my favorite YYH moments. Even Desensitized can't deny that for all the faults that HXH may have, Togashi still clearly knows how to create some truly gray lines between heroes and villains. Hell, I'd argue that Togashi may in fact be better at writing the characters of villains than he is at writing for any of the good guys.

[Foggle]

Do you know if they're going to continue with the HxH anime once Togashi publishes enough new manga chapters?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Its possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath seeing as how Togashi is too damn lazy to even finish the current arc that HXH has been on....for nearly a fucking decade....(granted that, most of that decade was spent in hiatus-time, but that only makes the matter even more inexcusable).

To be honest, though, the best HXH material has already been animated. The Chimera arc in the manga can be really weird and bizarre, and while it still contains some solid writing, Togashi pissed me off with going a bit overboard....such as killing off 2 really important characters without a second thought or any remorse and also getting Gon's right arm chopped off....I wonder if the guy is expressing some internal issues in his manga....

At any rate, I'd say that the HXH TV series and the first OVA by themselves make a satisfying, if somewhat unfulfilled story in themselves. To be honest, HXH has its fair amount of childish shonen elements, so I'm not sure if it would really be your thing, but it is a really enjoyable series for those who enjoy a shonen story that uses shonen tropes in the right ways and can be fairly imaginative in its own right (granted that it also does deserve some criticism for abiding a bit too much by some of the more idiotic "shonen" logic, but this mostly only applies to the earlier segments of the story than the later ones).

If you ever want to check out the best Togashi material at any point in time, though, I'd highly recommend the Chapter Black arc of YYH in the English dub (you don't need to have seen much of the previous material from the series to follow it, as long as you just know who the main characters are), and the York Shin City arc of HXH (though admittedly that would require having seen the series from the start).

The first 4 episodes of Level E are also worth checking out, and make for some good comedy that contrasts the more popular "loud-mouth" style comedy where the writers have the mentality that just making characters yell a lot alone makes something funny (Level E has that too, but it mixes in some pretty clever subtle humor to balance things out). Everything after that can be a bit too bizarre, so I don't know if I'd openly recommend it, but episodes 5-7 make for a fun but silly RPG parody.

Anyways, those are my personal recommendations, just for any future reference for anyone who's interested.

[Foggle]

I've seen the Chapter Black arc of YYH dubbed, granted that was about a decade ago (or whenever it was that it first aired on Toonami) and I remember almost nothing about it. I'll watch the entire series again sometime, for sure...

I have the first 5 episodes of Level E queued up, so I'm not sure why I haven't watched them yet. You know I love bizarre, though.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, the reason that I recommended the Chapter Black arc alone is because it can be seen individually for the most part, and its only 25 episodes which is basically the cut-off length of most anime series that I figure you'd be willing to watch. Plus, I didn't figure that you'd want to go through a long tournament arc even if it is done extremely well (as in, I typically hate shonen tournament arcs, but YYH's Dark Tournament mixes in some brilliant story and character elements to actually make the experience seem really fresh and entertaining), since I know stuff like that are among the things that you don't like about shonen (and understandably so).

As for Level E....well, I mean bizarre more in the sense that the series literally changes genre and characters after every mini-arc (its composed entirely of mini-arcs that are only related through one certain character, who could best be described as the king of all trolls....you'll see what I mean by episode 3 of the series). The first 3 episodes involve a boy meets alien type story, but then the next episode is a very serious sci-fi noir type story, and then the next 3 episodes after that are a wacky power rangers parody. When looked at individually, each arc is quite well in the respective genres that they fit in, but when looked at as a whole, the series has about as much coherency as the Excel Saga anime.

That said, I think it works since its really short (only 16 chapters in the manga, and the anime is supposed to end with episode 12). I like the humor, though, because it actually has some pretty clever subtle touches to it, which is rare among anime comedies, especially these days (though Togashi wrote the manga for this well over a decade ago, so the way its style of humor clashes with that of modern anime is all the more apparent now).