Yoshihiro Togashi

[LumRanmaYasha]

I honestly like the first half or so of Greed Island decently enough, but I do think it's a pretty meh arc overall.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I disagree. Greed Island is bad and Saint Beasts is average. Greed Island had 4 new characters worth mentioning at most, 3 which are in Chairman's Election making this a moot point since 2 of the 3 could have just been introduced there (Bisky could have just been brought in during Chimera Ants)..which just leaves Razor..., ugly backgrounds, lame villains, too much expository (explaining the game), the training didn't amount to much and it had like 2 good action scenes. Not that the fights make a season but that would have at least helped. All in all, it did not help Gon find Ging at all, which is the only reason Gon went there. The second Ging was shown deciding to have Gon and a friend be teleported to Kite because he only wanted Gon to meet him made the arc almost completely useless. Chimera Ants indirectly lead Gon to Ging, of course and this time a bunch of new allies were left over.

I find it odd that you'd complain about the exposition in the GI arc when the whole series is full of it. If anything, the Chimera Ant arc was much worse when it came to needless exposition. And as for not finding Gon help Ging, neither did any of the arcs before GI. Your reasons don't do anything to highlight the GI arc as bad. It's just nit-picking elements that can be used against any other arc in the series, especially the stuff about backgrounds and such since that's just standard cheap budget animation (and once again, the CA arc was even worse, in that regard).

The Saint Beasts arc, while average, is worse than the GI arc because at least the latter arc had some unique concepts and thought put into it. The game you complain about was pretty much the best thing about the GI arc (it's the constant training and lame villains that were the main detractors). With the SB arc, the villains were just as generically evil and boring, and in this case, while GI at least had 2 interesting fights, the SB arc had absolutely none. It was the biggest waist of space in the series, considering that the only significant thing that it contributed was having the main four characters come together for the first time, which to be frank didn't even matter, anyways, since they were forced to work together in the DT arc, so it wouldn't have needed an arc of them working together beforehand to explain that.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I find it odd that you'd complain about the exposition in the GI arc when the whole series is full of it.

To be fair, Greed Island had like an entire chapter that was basically nothing but explaining all the different cards and what each one did and stuff ...and few of them really mattered at the end of the day.

Every arc in HXH might be full of exposition, but Greed Island's exposition often felt like unnecessary padding, moreso than Chimera Ant's, imo. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Also, I should make it clear that I'm not defending the GI arc as a good one. I think it's incredibly mediocre. However, none of the reasons that GSF presented are convincing points (IMO) to make it a bad arc without, by extension, also making many other arcs in this and other battle shounen series equally as bad for being guilty of the same faults.

To be clear and put things in perspective, a "bad" arc is something like the Three Kings arc in the YYH manga. It has nice ideas, but horrid execution. Various plot-lines are presented and most are never followed up on, the characters get no significant development, the "villains" or opposition are barely ever present, and the arc doesn't even have an ending. Comparatively, the GI arc at least presents full motivations for each of its new characters, even if they aren't very interesting, and it at least stays consistent with its themes and tells a complete story without completely dropping the ball, for that it's just average, but compared to actual bad writing, it doesn't ever dip "that" low in quality.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I find it odd that you'd complain about the exposition in the GI arc when the whole series is full of it.

To be fair, Greed Island had like an entire chapter that was basically nothing but explaining all the different cards and what each one did and stuff ...and few of them really mattered at the end of the day.

Every arc in HXH might be full of exposition, but Greed Island's exposition often felt like unnecessary padding, moreso than Chimera Ant's, imo.

OK, and how about the whole few chapters/episodes that we had Gon and Killua learning how to auction (which had a lot of exposition attached to it) and also trying to raise money in York New City? Remember how they ended up not using any of that to actually attain access to Greed Island at the end? I find it funny that you would point out GI's shortcoming but completely ignore one even worse than that, even though it was from a better arc.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I didn't like the auctioning either, actually. Pretty much for the reasons you stated.

[LumRanmaYasha]

OK, and how about the whole few chapters/episodes that we had Gon and Killua learning how to auction (which had a lot of exposition attached to it) and also trying to raise money in York New City? Remember how they ended up not using any of that to actually attain access to Greed Island at the end? I find it funny that you would point out GI's shortcoming but completely ignore one even worse than that, even though it was from a better arc.

I honestly didn't even remember that until you mentioned it just now. As far as pointlessness goes, the whole stuff with the Cards is just more memorably pointless to me. But I suppose being forgettable is worse than memorably bad, so I suppose you're right.  Though, that doesn't make either of them less pointless.

I'm not really defending GSF's position, in the sense that I myself don't think Greed Island is a worse arc than Saint Beasts (though, I can't say I hate either. I'm just meh on them). That said, I do think it's incredibly mediocre and very boring to read, and that the exposition felt more like padding and came off worse since there was far less good in the arc compared to the others, and can see why GSF and Spark really don't care for it. At least Saint Beasts was short in both versions, but Greed Island is actually longer than York New was in the manga. 

[gunswordfist]

Well, I don't hate Greed Island (it doesn't cause me pain or make me question Togashi's abilities or anything) but I do think it's bad.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Why so, Cartoon X? (about liking the first half of Greed Island. I didn't think 4 new posts would come up) No snark. 

Well, I suppose first half is not quite accurate. More like...second quarter, I'd say. I like the first few parts when Bisky first starts training Gon and Killua. While it's basic training stuff, I found it fairly amusing for what it was, and I enjoyed Bisky a lot as a character. It did start to drag later on, though. I think the point I really started to get bored with the arc during the dodgeball game, which I know E-K really likes, but personally didn't find that entertaining and felt it went on for too long.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Why so, Cartoon X? (about liking the first half of Greed Island. I didn't think 4 new posts would come up) No snark. 

Well, I suppose first half is not quite accurate. More like...second quarter, I'd say. I like the first few parts when Bisky first starts training Gon and Killua. While it's basic training stuff, I found it fairly amusing for what it was, and I enjoyed Bisky a lot as a character. It did start to drag later on, though. I think the point I really started to get bored with the arc during the dodgeball game, which I know E-K really likes, but personally didn't find that entertaining and felt it went on for too long.

The Dodgeball game was fun. It had tons of strategy like the best fights in this series, and unlike the CA arc, Togashi was having a good time playing around with the concept rather than getting way too dark and serious. The training was really boring and dragged out, though.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Actually, now that I think about it, I was just trying to have a conversation with Desensitized and CX about Togashi and about his editor status for KnB. I made a post in response to Desen and than like in many other instances, GSF has to reply to a really minor comment from my post in a condescending attitude for no reason other than to cause conflict and derail the thread. But, I try to avoid conflict and just simply defend my opinion since he brought it up. But then he makes a really bloated post in response that is even more demeaning yet doesn't actually intellectually address any of my points with substantial supporting evidence other than GSF just stating his opinion. Then I foolishly take the time to respond to him, anyways, and realize that I am wasting my time when he posts yet another thoughtless comment simply for the sake of derailing the thread some more.

So, it's another case where I go from having an interesting discussion to a pointless and bitter argument over something that I clearly don't care about that much. Thank you, GSF. Thanks for derailing yet another thread with your pointless arguing. You have really proven to be a true pro at sucking the fun out of everything.

For the record, I had a long-ass post that addresses all of GSF's arguments, and since I know he's going to act smug and say that I didn't have any arguments, I PM'ed the post to CX just so that someone can vouch for that fact. That said, it's not worth wasting it on this thread because I refuse to derail it any further. As someone who is and prefers to act older than 12-year old, I'm pretty much above that stuff.

[gunswordfist]

What in the hell are you talking about? I just wanted to see your opinion on Greed Island.

[gunswordfist]

Why so, Cartoon X? (about liking the first half of Greed Island. I didn't think 4 new posts would come up) No snark. 

Well, I suppose first half is not quite accurate. More like...second quarter, I'd say. I like the first few parts when Bisky first starts training Gon and Killua. While it's basic training stuff, I found it fairly amusing for what it was, and I enjoyed Bisky a lot as a character. It did start to drag later on, though. I think the point I really started to get bored with the arc during the dodgeball game, which I know E-K really likes, but personally didn't find that entertaining and felt it went on for too long.

I see. The dodgeball game was my favorite part too.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

What in the hell are you talking about? I just wanted to see your opinion on Greed Island.

A) You wanted to argue with it, not see it

B) I deleted it because I don't want to add fuel to an argument about a mediocre arc that I'm not that interested in, even though I do firmly stand by the opinion that it's mediocre, and not bad

[Foggle]

Play nice, fellas. There's no need to bait each other. Perhaps it would be good if Cartoon X posts the contents of the PM.