Battle Shonen Stuff

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

(apparently, a dog pees on a girls head).

And this is the type of material found in a spin-off series that runs specifically in a magazine marketed towards little kids (primarily between 8-12) in Japan?

[Foggle]

(apparently, a dog pees on a girls head).

And this is the type of material found in a spin-off series that runs specifically in a magazine marketed towards little kids (primarily between 8-12) in Japan?

BUT IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE BODILY FLUIDS

[Angus]

I guess pee jokes are funnier than boob-service for that demographic.

[Rynnec]

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2012-07-21/kishimoto/naruto-manga-to-continue-longer-than-1.5-years

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, this series is his main source of income, so who can blame him. I mean, I don't like this series....at all, and I don't really think that Kishimoto is a very talented mangaka (to be fair, though, he's miles better than Kubo and is far from the worst modern shonen writer), so it makes sense that he would want to keep his cash cow Naruto running for as long as possible. Of course even after it ends he'll still make money in royalties and such, but really it'll be hard for him to break in with a new series. I mean, his name status as a mangaka will help him a lot in making anything he does initially popular, but if his writing is as stale as ever with any new series he tries to make, it'll still fall flat in under a year.

[Rynnec]

True, but I don't want to see this series drag on longer than it needs to. Naruto's current arc seems to be the endgame of the entire manga, and while I understand wanting to keep the series running as long as possible for income reasons, at the same time, dragging out the series too long will only hurt it in the long run. I mean, this isn't like Bleach's Aizen arc where there were still characters unaccounted for and mysteries and plot points left unresolved. Kishimoto seems to have at least some semblance of what he's doing here (even though I don't agree with it, and the execution leaves a lot to be desired). I guess he can delay the final battle so he can resolve any remaining plot threads and whatnot (which would be much preferable rather than stretching out the final battles for chapters on ends), but I dunno, I just can't see this whole thing lasting longer than 1.5 years.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Honestly, that's the way I felt about 2 years ago when the series was seemingly "gearing up for the endgames," which is what a lot of people were claiming as well, at the time. But, look at it now. Kishimoto brought up this whole resurrection plot-line and created a whole war out of it and dragged it out for well over a year. Now its done, and it seems like stuff can finally come to a resolution soon, but he's finding every little thing way he can to prolong the series even longer. In this case, he made it so that all of a sudden Madara can choose to stay resurrected even though the resurrection spell has been stopped. Its just really lame and on-the-spot pieces of writing like that which really pisses me off about this series. This was clearly a move done to have threatening villain around for powerful characters to fight for even longer. I was actually getting excited (yeah, excited for something in Naruto, imagine that ) at the prospect of that particular battle finally ending (since, you know, I think Kishimoto sucks at making fights interesting in the first place), but instead he's still forcing it to go on. I guess it just infuriates me because I kind of force myself to continue reading this manga out of habit, but I absolutely dread reading it since its just so goddamn boring to read these days (not that it was good before, but at least it used to be passable).

[Rynnec]

Honestly, that's the way I felt about 2 years ago when the series was seemingly "gearing up for the endgames," which is what a lot of people were claiming as well, at the time. But, look at it now. Kishimoto brought up this whole resurrection plot-line and created a whole war out of it and dragged it out for well over a year. Now its done, and it seems like stuff can finally come to a resolution soon, but he's finding every little thing way he can to prolong the series even longer. In this case, he made it so that all of a sudden Madara can choose to stay resurrected even though the resurrection spell has been stopped. Its just really lame and on-the-spot pieces of writing like that which really pisses me off about this series. This was clearly a move done to have threatening villain around for powerful characters to fight for even longer. I was actually getting excited (yeah, excited for something in Naruto, imagine that ) at the prospect of that particular battle finally ending, but instead he's still forcing it to go on. I guess it just infuriates me because I kind of force myself to continue reading this manga out of habit, but I absolutely dread reading it since its just so goddamn boring to read these days (not that it was good before, but at least it used to be passable).

Wow, that's really bad. Though, I guess it's better than it was during the whole "Year of Sasuke" mess (Sasuke's whole character arc is a mess, honestly, but I get what Kishi was trying to do with him). I didn't mind the whole boss rush-esque ressurection war, because it allowed us to see a few characters fight one last time, but knowing this series, it probably managed to screw it up.

since, you know, I think Kishimoto sucks at making fights interesting in the first place

Honestly? For being two of the most popular Manga series in the US right now, Naruto and Bleach's fights are pretty hit-and-miss for me. I think the problem with both of them are that they waste too much time with exposition when neither author knows how to do exposition very well. There's also a lot of general padding in said fights, and the actual fights themselves are rather slow-paced. Now, their anime adaptations could've (and should've) remedied these issues, but instead they leave them as is, and their problems become more apparent in animated form. IMO, Naruto and Bleach fights are at their best when they're fast and furious, and have little to no exposition.

As for fights in other modern-shounen, I haven't watched/read many One Piece fights, so I can't judge their quality. Same goes for Hitman Reborn, Kenichi, Blue Excorcist, and D-Grayman (though, I did skim a fight that seemed serviceable enough). The fights I've read in Negima were pretty good, and the chapters I've read of Psyren show some promise in their fights. Both of their authors can actually pull off strategy and exposition well, and know how to give their fights the right mix of flash, and substance.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Hunter X Hunter has had some really good fights, as well, but Togashi is an expert of pulling off shonen-style fights with tons of exposition and still making it really interesting. Though, even he succumbs to that modern writing syndrome of either making a fight with an overpowered villain that isn't interesting or making a fight take way too long and dragging it out. Still, even then he's still got a lot of good material in his writing in general, and the strategies in his fights can always be followed really well without seeming too convoluted (as long as you don't consider the bizarre assortment of powers and abilities that everyone has to be convoluted in and of itself ).

Actually, speaking of Togashi and Hunter X Hunter, while I do like Togashi as a writer on the whole, and like HXH as a series on the whole, I also have a lot of problems with both Togashi and HXH. The thing about HXH is that since its more ambitious than his other works (which mainly consists of just....YYH) its prone to have more potential flaws, IMO, and it does. There are inconsistencies in narrative, convoluted plot points, overpowered villains, and just general sections of the manga that drag. However if you try telling this to any other HXH fan (and for the record I DETEST the HXH fan-base), they'll just defend everything that Togashi does and deem him as perfect, and if you don't like it then you just don't "get" his style of writing. I had one hardcore fan dismissing every bad part of Togashi's writing that I pointed out as just him being an eccentric writer, and using that to excuse him, or even worse say that its actually good writing. It pisses me the fuck off because eccentric or not, there is still good writing and bad writing, and while most of Togashi's writing is still good, he has written quite a bit of bad material within his overly long Chimera Ant arc. I mean, its his most ambitious arc, but it pisses me off at how so many HXH fans blindly call it the best arc just because of that. To me, the York Shin City arc is the best arc in the series. Its not the most ambitious (though it was at the time), but its still suitably dark, has a surprising amount of character depth, has great and memorable villains, and is constantly engaging and has consistently strong writing. Something like the Chimera Ant arc is what I like to call a roller-coaster arc, because it constantly alternates between having highs and lows, IMO.

[Spark Of Spirit]

If Naruto lasts beyond the current arc then I think it's going to plummet in the ratings. What Bakuman said about reversi is right, sometimes the end is the end.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

What Kishimoto is doing, though, is essentially dragging out the same arc over an insanely long period of time. Really, this whole ordeal of the end of the Shinobi world is really just one major arc that has been going on for YEARS. That'd be fine if Kishimoto could handle a really long continues story-line like that, but he can't (Naoki Urasawa is probably the only mangaka who could carry out a continuous story for hundreds of chapters and still keep it interesting). What should have essentially ended years ago has been dragged out far longer than even someone like Toriyama would ever dare to attempt doing, and Kishimoto doing this is to me a sign of his desperation to still stay prominent in the shonen manga industry. I have a feeling that Naruto's popularity was just a major fluke on his part, and he realizes that, which is why he wants to milk it for as long as possible and doesn't want to attempt trying to make a new successful original series. I know that may sound harsh, but I honestly can see no other reason for why he would drag this story out for so long when it doesn't even need to be close to this long.

[Rynnec]

Actually, I heard that after Naruto, he wanted to do some sort of Mafia manga or something like that (and he's had this Mafia story idea since before Naruto, so it likely preceeds KHR as well). Last time I heard this was about 08/09-ish, so something must've happened since then for him to stretch Naruto out this long. Either he lost interest in doing this Mafia-shounen thing, or SJ is deliberately stretching out Naruto as long as possible because they don't want to take a risk with replacing it with a new manga (even if it is by the same author).

It's kinda funny, 4 years ago people were saying that Kishimoto was half-assing Naruto so he could wrap it up and start working on Mario (the afformented Mafia manga).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

It's kinda funny, 4 years ago people were saying that Kishimoto was half-assing Naruto so he could wrap it up and start working on Mario (the afformented Mafia manga).

I get the most unintentionally hilarious image in my head of a mafia manga with a main character (presumably) called Mario.

The thing is, I'm wondering if a "mafia" manga would by Kishimoto would actually be something cool or something that just uses the term mafia because it makes it sound like its deeper and darker than it is, but its really just a cool term to use to describe another team of generic super-powered goodie-two-shoes. That's the trend of shonen, as Bakuman itself pointed out. Mainstream shonen typically just have a group of people that the author call a certain thing to distinguish them from every other generic team of generic shonen hero characters out there. In Naruto its ninjas. In Bleach its Shinigami. In Hitman Reborn its "hitmen" and "mafia." None of these things even come remotely close to exploring the cultural implications of what they claim their heroes to be a part of. They just do it for "fashion" and "style" rather than any form of substance.

At least in a series like YYH among other stand-out shonen the groups are of a fictional role made up by the author, which at least leads to come creativity, with YYH being Spirit Detectives, or HXH being Hunters. Make no mistake, though, these could have easily also just been generic teams of good guys, but in YYH the characters are actually likable and have personality to them more than just carboard stereotype of what people who mock shonen always thought of the genre. And in HXH, as much as I hate to say it since I'm getting a little annoyed with Togashi fans, I have to give the guy credit as he basically downright deconstructs the whole traditional "shonen group" or "team" ideal and really explores how characters have their own personal motives in a large organization, and how even among the smaller more close-knit group of characters, they realistically aren't always going to stick together and obviously split off to pursue their own interests and goals, and not all of these "goals" are happy ones. Just look at Kurapika, and look at how getting closer to achieving his goal doesn't even bring him happiness. At the end of his major character ark at York Shin City, he's only gotten deeper into the dark depths of the criminal underground world, and you can tell that he seems to be pursuing his vengeance more because he feels like he needs to rather than him really wanting to be in that dark of a place.

Anyways, before I get totally off-topic, I'll get back to my main point, which is that more shonen really need to get down to the nitty-gritty and truly explore the potential depths of what can be seen with a large group of characters working together in some kind of ogranization. Superhero stories have done this marvelously. Justice League, for instance, really did a lot in showing just how dangerous a large organization of superheroes could be when working in unison. Sure, they could accomplish a lot, but episodes like "A Better World" asked the question of whether what they accomplished was really for a good world, or if it could lead to something much worse than if they just let a few villains get away every now and then. I have yet to see a shonen tackle something like corruption among a group or a group of characters having to deal with corruption among larger groups (well, actually One Piece HAS done the latter, but it could still be done so much better than it has been).

[Rynnec]

It's kinda funny, 4 years ago people were saying that Kishimoto was half-assing Naruto so he could wrap it up and start working on Mario (the afformented Mafia manga).

I get the most unintentionally hilarious image in my head of a mafia manga with a main character (presumably) called Mario.


The thing is, I'm wondering if a "mafia" manga would by Kishimoto would actually be something cool or something that just uses the term mafia because it makes it sound like its deeper and darker than it is, but its really just a cool term to use to describe another team of generic super-powered goodie-two-shoes. That's the trend of shonen, as Bakuman itself pointed out. Mainstream shonen typically just have a group of people that the author call a certain thing to distinguish them from every other generic team of generic shonen hero characters out there. In Naruto its ninjas. In Bleach its Shinigami. In Hitman Reborn its "hitmen" and "mafia." None of these things even come remotely close to exploring the cultural implications of what they claim their heroes to be a part of. They just do it for "fashion" and "style" rather than any form of substance.

Going from the sketch he made, it could go either way.  That trend you described is actually pretty prevalent in most media aimed at kids, but shounen manga is a pretty big offender of it.

Anyways, before I get totally off-topic, I'll get back to my main point, which is that more shonen really need to get down to the nitty-gritty and truly explore the potential depths of what can be seen with a large group of characters working together in some kind of ogranization. Superhero stories have done this marvelously. Justice League, for instance, really did a lot in showing just how dangerous a large organization of superheroes could be when working in unison. Sure, they could accomplish a lot, but episodes like "A Better World" asked the question of whether what they accomplished was really for a good world, or if it could lead to something much worse than if they just let a few villains get away every now and then. I have yet to see a shonen tackle something like corruption among a group or a group of characters having to deal with corruption among larger groups (well, actually One Piece HAS done the latter, but it could still be done so much better than it has been).

What's annoying about Naruto and Bleach is that they show seedy elements of their respective organizations, but hardly anything is done with them. It gets pretty ridculous in Bleach when you have the Seireitei making all of these seedy decisions, and let clearly evil individuals like Mayuri Kurotsuchi work for them, or have one of their characters brand one of Ichigo's friends as a traitor for some(rather asinine) reasons, but Ichigo still seems to be at peace with them, even though he has every right to act suspicous (it's even worse in the anime's filler, where most of the villains have some damn good reasons to want to destroy the Soul Society). And since these characters are popular (and god only knows why, since a vast majority of them are rather bland and generic, and only a handful of them have any sort of charisma or personality to make up for their genericness) hardly anything is done to villainize them, because that would get fans' panties in a bunch (to Bleach's credit, they're kinda sorta addressing this issue in the current story arc, but since this is Bleach...)

Now Naruto is a lot better in handling the Shinobi Government's activities, but apparently Kishimoto's taken the typical route of "the main character changes their shady ways because he's super special awesome!". Which, if true, is complete bollocks.

I'd love to see more shounen have storylines similar to the ones you described. S-CRY-ed tries to do something similar, and these aren't anime or manga, but corruption of a large organization is actually one of the thems of the Megaman X and Megaman Zero games. There's also Fullmetal Alchemist, to an extent.

[gunswordfist]

Ahh, sweet, an S-CRY-Ed mention.

Sucks to hear that Bleach goes nowhere with handling the Soul Society's corruption. I've seen very little of the show, like no more than the first 40 episodes and random episodes after that, but I thought one thing the show did good was mention that the Soul Society was possibly shady here and there. Sounds like they couldn't even do that right. From how repetitive the later seasons seem, the show seems to be nothing more than bad YYH fanfiction.