Currently Running Manga Discussion

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Actually I left off on chapter 960, so I'm a little over a hundred chapters behind, but I do know about the recent development, and let me say that I am SO glad that Ippo finally lost again. You have no idea how tedious it gets when a character wins far too much. It took him 15 years or so, but Morikawa finally decided to throw a curve ball into the mix. I honestly love the first anime for cutting so much fat out of the manga and adapting the best parts of it, for the most part, but the series begins to lag past the first 400 chapters, with a few bright spots in that drought.

As for keeping up with the manga, I say go for it. That said, I don't recommend reading everything up to that point. I mean, I pretty much almost have, so I might as well read everything chronologically the rest of the way, but for the average person, it's just not worth it. If you really want, I can give you a "best of" recommendation, so that you only have to view the parts that were pretty good, and can skip all of the boring stuff. Or you can just keep up with the manga as is. As you can see, this is the sort of series where you don't have to have seen everything in continuity, and it's very accessible to pick up any time and keep up with.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Yeah, thinking about it, I suppose I'll just keep reading it from this point on. It seems like it'll be a Detective Conan situation for me. I started keeping up with that 700+ chapters in after only watching the first 200 episodes of the anime and reading the first 30 volumes, but I picked up what was going on pretty fast. I do want to actually read all of HnI in it's entirety, though, so I will continue to read/watch through it from the beginning as I have been, but it's so long that I probably won't have the patience to marathon through it, especially if it drags as much as you say, so I'll just read what I can every now and then until eventually I've read it all.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Really, just finishing the anime and watching the first sequel, New Challenger, covers most of the good parts (roughly the first 400 chapters), IMO. There are some other good fights, and the WWII labor camp flashback arc is excellent, IMO, but the vast majority is just too much of the same formuka. Nothing is Naruto or Bkech levels of bad, but it feels derivative of what the series had already done better in its best days, aside from a couple of arcs that pick up the pace (and currently we seem to be in one of those arcs, thankfully). So trust me, it's really not worth all of the time. If I were so inclined, I'd say that the fights with Sawamura and Woli were pretty good, and Itagaki's rookie tournament fights were entertaining as well. Other than that, there's not too much else noteworthy, aside from Aoki and Kimura's always hilarious shenanigans, which is one of the few things that I never got tired of.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, Naruto is finally over, and it was basically everything that everyone already predicted. For chaoters like this to work, you actually really have to care about the characters after having seen them developed after so many years, which would make the ending seem bittersweet. As most of this manga was shit, the epilogue just felt like a fanfiction. I'll admit that the sentimental side of me appreciated the callback to the very first chapter, but that's about all that really stood out to me. Well, that and the Straw Hat Pirates logo painted onto the Naruto face statue's forehead, which was a neat little One Piece reference, even though Ruouni Kenshin still did it first. That was probably my favorite thing about the final chapter, actually.

Anyways, this series is finally behind me. I....can't say that it will be missed.

[LumRanmaYasha]

It's cute that both Naruto and One Piece referenced each other in their latest chapters.

Anyway, the final chapters were basically what I expected...except even more hilariously dumb than I thought it would be. I probably would have liked 699 a bit if everything that came before it wasn't so terribly written, but that 700th chapter was like some shitty fanfic-y a teenage fangirl would write. Much like how the Kaguya twist reminded me how the villain twist in InuYasha was so much better, this just reminds me how much better InuYasha's ending was too. Couples got together in that series...but there was, like, genuine build-up and development on all of them in the final arc of the series. Even outside of the fact Kagome and InuYasha's relationship is basically the crux of the final encounter with Magatsuhi and the Shikon Jewel, Miroku and Sango's relationship was also heavily focused on and they promised to marry each other before heading off to the final battle with Naraku and stuff, and it played a part influencing their decisions in that final battle, and them being married with three kids at the end of the series came across as legitimately earned, unlike this stuff. Like, no one here genuinely had a romantic relationship, outside of fan shipping, so Kishimoto was basically giving the shippers what they want here without real justification to do so, and the way he executed it was in the most predictable, lame way possible. Well, at least it's over with, though. Can't complain about not having it around anymore.

Later when I feel up to it I might write something about my overall history and thoughts on the series. Probably not today because I'm busy, but sometime when I get the time. On that note, we still on for writing about how crappy the final arc was, E-k? I probably won't get the time to until mid-December, though.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Y'know, thinking about it, that final chapter had like a ton of plot holes. Like, where the fuck did Orochimaru and Kabuto go? They're still alive and about, but we didn't see them in the final chapter. And what about Karin? What, am I to believe she just gave up on Sasuke like that? In that case, where the hell did she, and Jugo and Suigetsu for that matter, go? In fact, did we see Sai in the last chapter? Where's he? I dunno, it's odd that Kishi neglected to mention the fates of these characters at all, when he did for a lot of others.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Definitely, though I don't have much time either. I'll have to keep anyng thing that I write fairly brief and to the point.

And as for the whole couples thing, it really does bug me how bad most shonen are at portraying them. Like, with Naruto and Hinata, there was literally no chemistry between the 2 characters. It was established since early on in the series that Hinata had a crush on Naruto, sure, but over 700 chaoters they barely ever interacted with each other or even built up the pretense of a relationship. The fact that they have to use the final movie to expand on that is a failure of Kishimoto's own writing. It's the same with Sasuke and Sakura, with the former absolutely never showing any romantic interest in the latter, but just because Sakura had a crush on Sasuke, to the point of being flat-out pathetic after he went rogue, Kishimoto made it a thing.

And I'm not accusing only Kishimoto of doing this, as other shonen mangaka are guilty of that as well, but since Naruto is the easiest current example to use, I can't help but target it. Honestly, I'm not even a big fan of romance stories and could completely do without them if they aren't done well, but if mangaka insist on putting themin their stories, than at least actually show some semblance of what a relationship actually is, rather than just sticking 2 characters together by the end because they "make a cute couple" or some shit like that.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Y'know, thinking about it, that final chapter had like a ton of plot holes. Like, where the fuck did Orochimaru and Kabuto go?They're still alive and about, but we didn't see them in the final chapter. And what about Karin? What, am I to believe she just gave up on Sasuke like that? In that case, where the hell did she, and Jugo and Suigetsu for that matter, go? In fact, did we see Sai in the last chapter? Where's he? I dunno, it's odd that Kishi neglected to mention the fates of these characters at all, when he did for a lot of others.

Just because I'm a nitpicky ass-hole (and don't pretend like you're not ), I should point out that those aren't technically plot holes. A plot hole is when a two or more events within the same established continuity don't add up due to stark contradictions. Like, one event makes another one impossible within the context of that universe, but both still exist anyways, thus creating a sort of plot paradox, or as it's more frequently referred to, a plot hole.

In the case of those other characters, those are simply unanswered questions, but since they are unanswered, it can't be claimed whether or not any of that I formation, if ever revealed, would contradict the epilogue of the story. Most likely you're just meant to assume that all of those characters and their stories got resolved off-screen, which I'm sure that we both agree is absolutely lazy writing. However, on the flip side, do we really even care? I mean, would you REALLY want to read even more chapters of this shitty manga giving closure to shitty characters that we never even cared about in the first place?

Oh, and also, Sai can be seen standing next to Ino in one of the panels. I guess they became a couple? It makes about as much sense as any other randomly stuck together characters in this epilogue.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Yeah, as far as battle-shonen go, I can probably name all the romantic relationships I thought were well done/liked on one hand. Outside of battle-shonen, though, I can think of many well-written examples, but battle-shonen series just don't handle these things well most of the time, from what I've seen.

Just because I'm a nitpicky ass-hole (and don't pretend like you're not ), I should point out that those aren't technically plot holes. A plot hole is when a two or more events within the same established continuity don't add up due to stark contradictions. Like, one event makes another one impossible within the context of that universe, but both still exist anyways, thus creating a sort of plot paradox, or as it's more frequently referred to, a plot hole.

In the case of those other characters, those are simply unanswered questions, but since they are unanswered, it can't be claimed whether or not any of that I formation, if ever revealed, would contradict the epilogue of the story. Most likely you're just meant to assume that all of those characters and their stories got resolved off-screen, which I'm sure that we both agree is absolutely lazy writing. However, on the flip side, do we really even care? I mean, would you REALLY want to read even more chapters of this shitty manga giving closure to shitty characters that we never even cared about in the first place?

Oh, and also, Sai can be seen standing next to Ino in one of the panels. I guess they became a couple? It makes about as much sense as any other randomly stuck together characters in this epilogue.

Well, you know what I meant. 

Orochimaru was the freaking main villain of this series for the first half of it, and his influence was very important in the grand scheme of things in general. It bothers me that we wouldn't see what they did with him now that this shit is all over. Kabuto, as well, was basically equally as responsible for the war as Obito was, so it annoys me that we don't see what happened to him either.

Like, in InuYasha, we never find out what happened to Koga after he had to give up on fighting Naraku, but at least he got closure to his character arc and his relationships with other characters. I admit Kabuto did get an actual resolution to his character arc, but Orochimaru, Karin, Suigetsu, Jugo, etc. never got real closure to their stories, Kishimoto just forgot to show what happened to them, and that's what bugs me, because he set up that they were going to actually do stuff only for them to be completely forgotten after the Kaguya twist happened.

And Sai was an important character for a good chunk of this series too. I always hated the shit out of him. Still, the fact that he doesn't even have a speaking role in the final chapter and gets randomly paired up with Ino, who I don't believe he ever even had an legitimate interaction with, in one throwaway panel, is fucking dumb.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I agree that it's really bad to leave all of that stuff out from a writing standpoint, but I'm just saying that with all of the problems this series already had, combined with the fact that I never liked any of those characters to begin with, I'm more indifferent to their exclusion than ticked off about it. At the end of the day, even if their character arcs did get concluded, it would still be utter shit, and would force me to sit through even more of this manga. So, in that regard, I'm simply just glad that this whole thing has been put behind me all the sooner.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Also, you know how I was complaining about Naruto and Hinata being a couple even though they barely ever interacted with each other over the course of 700 chapters? Guess what I just realized? They didn't even interact at ANY SINGLE POINT in the FINAL chapter! We're just supposed to assume that they are together, but even in the very end, Kishimoto doesn't actually show them even on the same page, let alone the same panel. The same goes for Sakura and Sasuke. Well, if nothing else, at least he is consistently bad at writing romance....and writing in general.

Seriously, though, this is just as bad as the Digimon Adventure 02 and Harry Potter epilogues, except those ones hurt to watch/read more because the series that they were concluding were actually good, for the most part. Over here it's definitely bad, but I must admit that it's "hilariously" bad, so that may be the only perk to this final arc being as big of a POS as it was.

[LumRanmaYasha]

This has made my day  : Jason Thompson attempts to read all of Naruto in 48 hours (part 1).

I can't wait until he gets to the Shinobi War and has to endure all that shit. I hope he gets uncharacteristically infuriated. The only truly spiteful review he ever did was for Usagi Drop, so that would be a treat.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Goddamn, that's got to be the most sadistic thing that I've ever seen a fan of manga do, and that's saying something. I'll bookmark it for later.

Anyways, reflecting on this and other less than stellar endings in manga have inspired me to make a top 10 list of manga/anime endings that I actually really liked and felt did their respective series justice. Here is what I came up with:

10. Yu Yu Hakusho (anime)- An epilogue that's actually not cringe-worthy for a change.

9. Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket- It may be cheating considering how short this series is, but a great ending is a great ending, all the same.

8. Monster- While not necessarily perfect, for a series as well-written as this one, to pull off such an ending without disappointing any of the readers was nearly impossible, and somehow Urasawa still managed to do it, even if some ass-hats still love to complain about it and, in the process, miss the point of the ending, and the entire point of the series to begin with.

7. Trigun (anime)- Vash carrying Knives off slung over his shoulder is class.

6. Puella Magi Madoka Magica- That last episode really is pretty heartwarming (and the epilogue doesn't kill it depending on how you interpret it).

5. Rurouni Kenshin (manga)- Another one of the few times that an epilogue actually turned out to be really satisfying, and the actual conclusion to the final arc itself was brilliant.

4. Cowboy Bebop- The ending everyone praises, and while we all love that last shot of Spike, it's really the intensity of the The Real Folk Blues 2-parter that makes this ending so good.

3. Slam Dunk- That last shot, man, that last shot.

2. Ashita no Joe (manga/anime)- The iconic scene that everyone praises Cowboy Bebop for, but which this series did decades before it ever even existed; though this last fight itself is also super climactic and excellent.

1. Death Note (manga)- Yep, still my favorite in terms of pure satisfaction.

There are other endings which I enjoyed as well, but these are my favorites.

[Foggle]

Good news, everyone! http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/11/07/naruto-manga-sequel-coming-in-2015

[LumRanmaYasha]

Old news, friend! And it's only a mini-series! And of course there will be spinoffs upon spinoffs for one of the biggest anime/manga franchises of all time! But who cares! I don't care! The main series is done, kaput, over! I DON'T HAVE TO READ IT ANYMORE! So...MEH!