Currently Running Manga Discussion

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

It's nice to see Noelle get the spotlight for once and she may even be the one to ultimately win this battle, which would be a nice change of pace. It's understandable to have the main character get more focus than the rest of the cast, obviously, but the story loses any sense of tension when every story arc features him as the deciding factor in any major conflict. Having him lose here doesn't take away from his previous accomplishments or make him seem like any less of a valuable character. On the contrary, it makes him feel more human and more relate-able, and it's something that more writers would realize in general. When a character is showing to be just as susceptible to defeat as any other character, then it actually makes their conflicts all the more engaging and it's easier to invest in their development since now there feels like their actions have actual weight and consequences to them.

A good example is how Luffy flat-out lost to Sir Crocodile twice before finally taking him down in the Alabasta arc. Had he beaten him right off the bat, the whole battle would have felt anticlimactic, but after decimating him in their final battle, it felt really rewarding to finally see him achieve that victory.

[Spark Of Spirit]

To explain what I mean, let's play out how this arc would have gone had a lesser writer handled it. The main plot points would all be the same, except when we got to the villains taking Bakugou, he actually would prove to be the shallow character that we all initially thought he was and he would be tempted by them. Then the whole hero ambush would take place, and despite it clearly going against orders, Midoriya and his friends would expose themselves and have a series of one-on-one fights, except only Midoriya's, and maybe Todoroki's, would feel like they mattered since one is the main character and the other is really popular among the readers. Midoriya would have a fight with Bakugou and then knock some sense into him. All Might would have his fight with the final boss, but there would be no stakes because after some struggle he'd pull out another epic attack and win. His secret wouldn't be exposed, people would cheer, and that would be the end of that, and everything would go back to status-quo with Bakugou returning with his friends to UA Academy. The kids' parents wouldn't even be mentioned in all of this. And there would be your problem right there. On its own it's not a bad story, but it would be woefully underwhelming due to a serious lack of stakes for readers to become invested in. For as much as I don't like the majority of Naruto as a series, I will at least give Kishimoto credit for using story arcs like this to dramatically alter the status-quo of his series and make it feel like actions had long-lasting consequences like with Sasuke becoming a villain and then staying that way until the end of the series. Granted, he handled it really poorly and it was insanely stupid to see him be forgiven for everything in the final two chapters LITERALLY right after turning heel AGAIN and trying to kill Naruto, but I'm starting to get off-topic here, so that's a rant for another day.

It's funny when people call MHA generic, because what you said here about this arc could apply to any of his previous arcs.

To add on to what you said, in lesser hands:

-All Might would have had some kind of pointless personality quirk like being a pervert or addicted to soap operas.
-Shigaraki would have been captured and forgotten after the villain invasion arc.
-Aizawa would be like he was in his first appearance all the time.
-Midoriya would have mastered his quirk by the finals of the Sports Festival.
-The finals would have been Midoriya Vs. Tokoroki and Midoriya would have won Todoroki over with a friendship speech and solved his problems.
-Bakugo would have lost to Midoriya in the semi-finals.
-Uraraka would have slid into the background after her fight and never would have brought up her loss again.
-Ida would have convinced Stain his worldview was wrong simply by standing up to him.
-Ida would learn his brother was okay after all.
-Todoroki, in general, would be mopey and depressing.
-Bakugo would still be loud, and would be an utter moron.
-Midoriya would still be a coward, and would need help to do anything short of tying his shoes.
-Ida would have learned nothing after Stain.
-Stain would have been beaten by someone like Endeavor showing up at the end to save them from his last attack.
-The Exam would have ended with Midoriya and Bakugo either actually beating up All Might or utterly losing to show they can't ever work together.
-Midoriya would have needed help to save Kouta.
-Bakugo would have joined the villains.
-Kirishima wouldn't have been in the Kamino Nightmare.
-Neither would Yaoyarozu.
-All Might would have died against All For One.
-The series would still be in the Sports Festival arc at chapter 100.
-The art would not have such a clear respect for shonen manga and superhero comics and it wouldn't be half as well done.

I think this series would only work if it was written by Kohei Horikoshi. That's what makes it rise above its simple premise into being such a great series. A lesser writer and artist would have either had their series canceled by now or would have been spinning their wheels.

[Spark Of Spirit]

By the way, the color page for this chapter is pretty much a perfect picture for where the series is right now and where it's going next. Midoriya contrasted with All Might's current state in a place as simple as a park bench really just says it all.

[VLordGTZ]

It's official, Blue Exorcist is getting a new anime.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Catching up on this week's Jump, and I noticed this:



Methinks Togashi's been reading/watching Urusei Yatsura lately. 

[VLordGTZ]

It looks like Hunter x Hunter is taking an indefinite break once again so that Togashi can resume his favorite series Hiatus x Hiatus.   

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I believe that he literally just came out with enough chapters for a new volume so as to troll all of the book stores that decided to bundle the first 32 volumes as a complete series set.

[Spark Of Spirit]

In other long running manga news:

Bleach is near the end!

Looks like there'll be three open slots in Jump soon enough.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've been hearing that Bleach is near the end over and over and over and over again for years now. I'll believe it when it's actually done and forgotten about.

[VLordGTZ]

Considering that the current batch of Bleach chapters are literally titled "THE END #", I'm taking it as a good sign that we're near the end.  It's going to be interesting to see what Viz will replace Nisekoi, Bleach, and Toriko with.  One of them will surely be Haikyuu but the other two could be almost anything.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Weekly Shonen Jump Issue #31 (July 4th, 2016):
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. (Lead CP)
1. My Hero Academia
2. One Piece
3. Black Clover
4. Hunter x Hunter
Gintama (CP)
5. Haikyuu!!
6. Food Wars! Shokugeki no Souma
Koro-Sensei Q! (CP, Special Chapter)
7. Hinomaru Zumou
8. Yuna of Yuragi Manor
9. Kimetsu no Yaiba: Blade of Demon Destruction
10. Samon the Summoner
11. Takuan and Batsu's Daily Demon Diary
12. Bleach
13. Straighten Up! Welcome to Shika High's Competitive Dance Club
14. World Trigger
15. Kochikame
16. Mononofu
17. Nisekoi
18. Toriko
Chronicle of Isobe -Life is Hard-

Mononofu is in real trouble. I'm not sure what that means for Takuan and Batsu, since the first chapter was better than its follow up chapters, but it's not the best first ranking regardless. Nisekoi better do everyone a favor and end soon.

As for Bleach, it's clearly nearing the end. Right now Ichigo is in the final fight which will probably last a while, but after that Kubo will probably just wrap up the loose ends. It's a real mess.

[Rynnec]

Bleach may have an inevitably rushed conclusion, but it'll be nowhere near as stupid, pretentious, and nonsensical and Naruto's final arc and ending.

And that'll be the one thing most crappy shounen can take solace in.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, it's clear that the groups in the first phase of the Promotion Exams are fixed in regard to grouping the rebels against Central together and then giving them low quality main ingredients so that they are at a clear disadvantage. However, since it's clearly fixed anyways, what idiot's bright idea was it to make a group where four out of its five members were in the Autumn Election tournament's top eight? If you also factor in that Ryou is an expert on fish and you give them the ability to go out and get their own fish if they are dissatisfied with what they've been given, then no shit they are going to find a way to pass that phase of the exam. What they really should have done is to organize the teams in such a way that only one or two of the stronger members are paired up with the weaker ones, giving each of them less of a chance to come up with an amazing dish and thus increasing the possibility of eliminating more rebels right off the bat.

Of course, it's kind of the nature of this series to write things out in ways that are both disadvantageous yet also oddly convenient for the protagonists, so I'm not surprised by that. I have generally enjoyed what we've been getting lately, and still do. I just have to be honest in that I never liked Azami as a villain and don't care for any of his faction either, except for maybe Eishi who seems to potentially have a bit more nuance to his character. Azami to me is the Akashi of his series, in that he's a moustache-twirling one-dimensional villain to such an absurd degree that it's impossible to take him seriously, except we are supposed to take him and his supporters seriously. My gripe is that while I don't expect my shonen series' to be the most logical in their stories, the character motivations at the very least should make sense and line up with their actions. I hold any sort of fiction that isn't simply flat-out comedy to those standards. Azami as a character fundamentally doesn't make any sense. His goal at first seemed to be to convince everyone that his way of cooking was the only one definitive way of cooking. It's overly simplistic and unrealistic, sure, but it fits the tone of this series well enough and I could buy that on its own.

However, why then do the Elite Ten support him? Isn't the whole point of being in the Elite Ten to possess a huge level of authority, power, and resources despite being a student? It's specifically stated that the E10 members are given nearly unlimited funding to conduct their research and develop their cooking formulas and techniques. Those are things that mean experimentation and generally follows the concept that nothing is ever perfect and you can always come up with new foods and improve other dishes. Apparently only three (or I guess four, now) members of the E10 actually even remember that, since the rest unquestionably support Azami. However, if they support him that means that they must follow his ideals, and following his ideals SHOULD essentially mean that they are abandoning their own individual, unique ways of cooking by blindly following in his footsteps. Yet none of this is ever touched upon, and I believe the reason for that is because Saeki Shun knows that it doesn't really make any sense if you think about it too much. Also for that matter, isn't having to resort to cheap tricks like rigging judges or purposefully giving any rebels extremely disadvantageous circumstances to work under basically flat-out admitting that Azami's methods are NOT definitive after all? I mean, if they were, then they wouldn't need to do anything and his followers would prove themselves by defeating all rebels on an even playing field. Instead they flat-out resort to tactics that all but outright say "teehee, we're clearly the villains".

I can certainly understand one-dimensional villains who are portrayed as pretty much pure evil in stories like this under a different context. Like, in Yakitate!! Japan, Yukino is a one-dimensional villain, but being that she's comically portrayed as someone who's bat-shit insane, and that the people who work for her really only do it for either a paycheck or because she tricks them into being on her side, she has a role that makes sense as a character. It also helps that we're clearly meant to laugh at a lot of her antics that don't directly involve emotionally screwing with the main characters. In Azami's case though, much like Akashi from KnB, he comes off as a guy who clearly thinks that he's superior to everyone else, which is fine in and of itself, but that alone doesn't serve as a strong enough motivation for him to be the main villain of the series (or at least this saga of the manga if it continues on past this point). Even at this point in the story, I still don't have a satisfactory explanation as to why he was so pissed off about the state of cooking in Tootsuki and Japan in general, and felt the need to step in himself. And I don't understand why anyone in their right minds, even other villains in the series whose logic clearly didn't line up with his before this arc, are declaring for him as their supreme leader.

For all that I just ranted, it probably seems like I hate the current run of the series, but as I've said above and as I've expressed in earlier posts, I'm actually rather enjoying it. I wouldn't spend so much time critiquing one of its flaws (IMO) if I didn't care about the series at all. You can still complain about something while also liking it on the whole (which is pretty much what I've been doing for the last two seasons of Game of Thrones). I just wanted to really get out my full thoughts on why I personally just can't stand Azami. The other stuff in this saga that doesn't directly deal with him is mostly very good. It's just him as a character that I flat-out can't stand, and even though we're supposed to hate him in the context of the story, I'm hating on him for totally different reasons than the ones intended.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Bleach may have an inevitably rushed conclusion, but it'll be nowhere near as stupid, pretentious, and nonsensical and Naruto's final arc and ending.

And that'll be the one thing most crappy shounen can take solace in.

Yes, but at least Naruto's final arc was unintentionally hilarious, which made it strangely entertaining for all of the wrong reasons. Bleach has had its moments of being so stupid that it's funny, but its mostly just stupid to the point that it was a pain to even keep up with on a weekly basis.

Essentially, both series are garbage, but it's at least more fun to rip apart Kishimoto's shitty writing than it is for Kubo's.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I read the first four chapters of Hinomaru Sumo, just to get a taste for it. Man, that is the manliest thing I've read in a while. It's got elements of sports, fighting, and delinquent manga, going for it and the first few chapters established two of the main characters really well. The first chapter isn't very original, but it does hit all the right marks. I can easily see why readers of Jump attached themselves to it. Shame it doesn't sell that great, though.

I hope this gets an anime so the manga can get an NA release some day.

Bleach may have an inevitably rushed conclusion, but it'll be nowhere near as stupid, pretentious, and nonsensical and Naruto's final arc and ending.

And that'll be the one thing most crappy shounen can take solace in.

Yes, but at least Naruto's final arc was unintentionally hilarious, which made it strangely entertaining for all of the wrong reasons. Bleach has had its moments of being so stupid that it's funny, but its mostly just stupid to the point that it was a pain to even keep up with on a weekly basis.

Essentially, both series are garbage, but it's at least more fun to rip apart Kishimoto's shitty writing than it is for Kubo's.

If the rumors about the next chapter are true, Kubo might have just slid into Kishimoto tier.