Story Arcs

[gunswordfist]

Saint Beasts is the most generic YYH arc but it's the closest thing to an adventure saga the show has for the 4 heroes, it's one of 3 times Kurama and Hiei fight together and it's a fun arc and pretty funny.

[Grave]

7. The Laughing Man (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex)



A perfect blend of science fiction and a political thriller. A complicated conspiracy with a lot of intense action, an interesting anti-hero in the form of The Laughing Man, and all around a gripping work of television that I dare say is almost masterpiece quality. I haven't seen 2nd Gig yet, but if it's better than this, I'll be quite pleased.

A lot of people will tell you that 2nd Gig is the weaker half, although I like both of them equally. I just find GitS to be one of those shows that comes around once in a lifetime to ever keep me glued to my television (especially for me now). The characters are nothing special, but everything else is. I'm not into politics at all. I pretty much hate politics, but the way it's dealt with in GitS just made it come off as intriguing an it kept me interested all the way through to the end of 2nd Gig.

As far as story arcs goes, when I think of arcs I think of shows that are long running (shounen or something similar), and for the most part most of the ones I like have already been mentioned so I'll just echo them.

No particular order

Justice League Unlimited - Cadmus
Justice League - Starcrossed
Yu Yu Hakusho - Chapter Black
Rurouni Kenshin - Kyoto
Yu Yu Hakusho - Three Kings

Unfortunately that's all I can think of.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yu Yu Hakusho - Three Kings

While its not one of my favorite story arcs in the series, I do have to give the anime credit for basically making it a really good and interesting arc in its own right. The manga's version of this arc was downright ABYSMAL. The anime team REALLY pulled their best writers together to salvage this arc, and the result is not only watchable, but also surprisingly good, at least if you knew what you were getting when reading the original version of this story.

But, I notice that you listed both of the arcs of the latter half of YYH, and its so refreshing to see another person who seems to prefer the latter half to the first half. I mean, I love first-half just fine, but to me the story-lines from the second half of the show was when it evolved to tackle themes beyond what most series in the shonen genre could even hope to attempt.

[LumRanmaYasha]

The Three Kings arc was a great final arc for Yusuke to get some great closing character development and resolve issues that arose all the way back in Dark Tournament. Not to mention we got to see Hiei and Kurama's pasts and close off on some lingering issues with them as well. Honestly I think the anime made the arc into something essential to the series rather than the purposefully lazy version in the manga. It's not Chapter Black or Dark Tournament level, but I couldn't imagine the anime without it all the same, even if I think having a second tournament in lieu of an actual, probably more interesting war arc was kinda lame.

[Grave]

Yu Yu Hakusho - Three Kings

While its not one of my favorite story arcs in the series, I do have to give the anime credit for basically making it a really good and interesting arc in its own right. The manga's version of this arc was downright ABYSMAL. The anime team REALLY pulled their best writers together to salvage this arc, and the result is not only watchable, but also surprisingly good, at least if you knew what you were getting when reading the original version of this story.

But, I notice that you listed both of the arcs of the latter half of YYH, and its so refreshing to see another person who seems to prefer the latter half to the first half. I mean, I love first-half just fine, but to me the story-lines from the second half of the show was when it evolved to tackle themes beyond what most series in the shonen genre could even hope to attempt.

I like Three Kings simply because of the lack of Kuwabara. And then Yusuke vs Yomi was too good.

It's not just the themes that won me over. The thing I like about Yu Yu Hakusho the most is the progression of everything. From it's story down to the animation, you could actually see the improvements with each arc. It's almost like a rarity to see that in shounen since, for the most part long running shows tend to be fairly inconsistent, and to me this is where YYH just downright tramples others (Even RK, and I favor that over YYH only because I'm bias with samurai's).

[Spark Of Spirit]

Three Kings was made good with the anime. The manga had all the pieces but had nothing done with them. Unfortunately, I still thought there were a few weaknesses (Lack of any Kuwabara, the reason Kurama got stronger, and I'm still not totally sold on the demon blood thing) but it was a good ending to the show as a whole. The ending of the manga was awful, and the anime's ending was a perfect capper on a great show.

[talonmalon333]

I think the anime version of the Three Kings story arc was... adequate. It had its moments.

EDIT:

Just out of curiosity, which are the ones that you haven't watched yet?

The Gargoyles arc is one I haven't seen (that shall be remedied in the near future though, as I'll finally be checking out Gargoyles with some friends in the neat future). I also haven't seen the FMP, Gundam, and Black Lagoon arcs. Digimon is a show that I watched a long time ago, but I don't remember if I saw the D-Reaper arc you listed. Spectacular Spider-Man, Brave and the Bold, and Avengers are superhero shows that I've grown to be really interested in seeing, largely thanks to you guys. So when I do, I'll get around to seeing those arcs.

As you can see, I have some work to do.

[gunswordfist]

The Three Kings arc was a great final arc for Yusuke to get some great closing character development and resolve issues that arose all the way back in Dark Tournament. Not to mention we got to see Hiei and Kurama's pasts and close off on some lingering issues with them as well. Honestly I think the anime made the arc into something essential to the series rather than the purposefully lazy version in the manga. It's not Chapter Black or Dark Tournament level, but I couldn't imagine the anime without it all the same, even if I think having a second tournament in lieu of an actual, probably more interesting war arc was kinda lame.

God, perfectly. I also wish there was an actual war.

[Spark Of Spirit]

The Three Kings arc was a great final arc for Yusuke to get some great closing character development and resolve issues that arose all the way back in Dark Tournament. Not to mention we got to see Hiei and Kurama's pasts and close off on some lingering issues with them as well. Honestly I think the anime made the arc into something essential to the series rather than the purposefully lazy version in the manga. It's not Chapter Black or Dark Tournament level, but I couldn't imagine the anime without it all the same, even if I think having a second tournament in lieu of an actual, probably more interesting war arc was kinda lame.

God, perfectly. I also wish there was an actual war.

See, now if I think if that would have happened we would have gotten the YYH equivalent of the Chimera Ant arc. A large scale war with awful pacing (remember the period in which Three Kings was written) and an ending that closes nothing off from outside the arc.

I think the anime staff cobbled the arc together fine with what they were given and made it pretty unique by basically co-opting the Dark Tournament for a relatively peaceful cause and at the same closing off the story by tying off loose ends. A war probably wouldn't have been very good coming from Togashi's pen at that time.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I like Three Kings simply because of the lack of Kuwabara. And then Yusuke vs Yomi was too good.

I'm fine with Kuwabara, honestly, but I am glad that they didn't just try and shoehorn him into that arc just because he was one of the main characters. It made sense for him to stay behind as the conflict didn't really concern him, especially since nobody was really going to be working as a team in that arc.

[gunswordfist]

The Three Kings arc was a great final arc for Yusuke to get some great closing character development and resolve issues that arose all the way back in Dark Tournament. Not to mention we got to see Hiei and Kurama's pasts and close off on some lingering issues with them as well. Honestly I think the anime made the arc into something essential to the series rather than the purposefully lazy version in the manga. It's not Chapter Black or Dark Tournament level, but I couldn't imagine the anime without it all the same, even if I think having a second tournament in lieu of an actual, probably more interesting war arc was kinda lame.

God, perfectly. I also wish there was an actual war.

See, now if I think if that would have happened we would have gotten the YYH equivalent of the Chimera Ant arc. A large scale war with awful pacing (remember the period in which Three Kings was written) and an ending that closes nothing off from outside the arc.

I think the anime staff cobbled the arc together fine with what they were given and made it pretty unique by basically co-opting the Dark Tournament for a relatively peaceful cause and at the same closing off the story by tying off loose ends. A war probably wouldn't have been very good coming from Togashi's pen at that time.

I think I was thinking about how they probably couldn't do a war arc right at that point in time.

I do wish they had the time, money, etc. for that. We should have at least seen the main 3 fight each other.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

See, now if I think if that would have happened we would have gotten the YYH equivalent of the Chimera Ant arc. A large scale war with awful pacing (remember the period in which Three Kings was written) and an ending that closes nothing off from outside the arc.

I don't know if I can agree with that. Togashi didn't ever do anything close to that style of writing with the Chimera Ant arc until at least the York New City arc of Hunter X Hunter, and even then he kept the pacing under control in that arc and IMO never really went overboard with the violence. It wasn't until the Chimera Ant arc itself started that he started doing incredibly stupid shit.

I think its safe to say that Togashi was a different kind of writer back when he did YYH. The problems with the Three Kings arc stemmed from the fact that Togashi gave up on the series because he was pissed off at his editors. Not because he had become a legitimately bad writer.

A war probably wouldn't have been very good coming from Togashi's pen at that time.

Keep in mind, this was a "time" where Togashi hot off the heels of finishing the Chapter Black arc, his best one ever, so I have no doubt in my mind that at least at that time, he would have had the talent to balance out a full-scale war arc. That said, to be fair, reading that arc in the manga, I don't think that's where he was going with it at all to begin with (he was really going nowhere because he wanted the series canceled; he knew he was writing complete garbage). It was really more of an anime thing that pushed that idea along more.

[Spark Of Spirit]

See, now if I think if that would have happened we would have gotten the YYH equivalent of the Chimera Ant arc. A large scale war with awful pacing (remember the period in which Three Kings was written) and an ending that closes nothing off from outside the arc.

I don't know if I can agree with that. Togashi didn't ever do anything close to that style of writing with the Chimera Ant arc until at least the York New City arc of Hunter X Hunter, and even then he kept the pacing under control in that arc and IMO never really went overboard with the violence. It wasn't until the Chimera Ant arc itself started that he started doing incredibly stupid shit.

I think its safe to say that Togashi was a different kind of writer back when he did YYH. The problems with the Three Kings arc stemmed from the fact that Togashi gave up on the series because he was pissed off at his editors. Not because he had become a legitimately bad writer.

I'm not so much referring to the violence but the pacing. Remember, the manga in the Three Kings arc had miserable pacing and the only other thing I can compare it to (which had a similar style to what people here are talking about) is the Chimera Ant arc. Though yes, I do admit that he had far more restraint at the time that it probably wouldn't have been so over the top gory.

All that said, we probably wouldn't have gotten as much character development for Hiei if it was made into a war. His whole arc ended with him accepting who he was and coming to terms with what he had done leaving him without the urge to fight any more. Of course Togashi completely missed that in the manga so who knows where he would have ended up?

A war probably wouldn't have been very good coming from Togashi's pen at that time.

Keep in mind, this was a "time" where Togashi hot off the heels of finishing the Chapter Black arc, his best one ever, so I have no doubt in my mind that at least at that time, he would have had the talent to balance out a full-scale war arc. That said, to be fair, reading that arc in the manga, I don't think that's where he was going with it at all to begin with (he was really going nowhere because he wanted the series canceled; he knew he was writing complete garbage). It was really more of an anime thing that pushed that idea along more.

But remember what he did write after Chapter Black. It was the Three Kings arc.

I'm not so certain if he would have made it a war that it would have fixed any of the problems of his writing with idiotic plot twists, sudden jump cuts in story, and a totally out of character ending for about every character. Just making it a war wouldn't have made those problems go away, I think.

Honestly, I believe the ending we got was as good as we could get considering.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I just thought I'd add that even though I think YYH is way better than HxH, I also think that every arc in HxH is way better than the manga's Three Kings arc.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

But remember what he did write after Chapter Black. It was the Three Kings arc.

You missed my point, though. I'm aware that he wrote this after Chapter Black. I'm also aware that he wanted to end the series at that point due to disagreements with his editor, hence the whole part of my previous post saying that he was purposely making the Three Kings arc bad. I'm saying that if he was actually trying, he could have potentially made the arc go into an all-out war and he had the writing talent to deal with that. The difference is that with the Three Kings arc we got, he was purposely writing bad material because he knew it would get his series canceled. If it weren't for the fact that Jump authors are contractually obligated to keep running their series until the editorial staff deems that it needs to be canceled due to a lack of popularity, he probably would have just stopped the series after the Chapter Black arc, which probably would have been best for everyone, but since he was obligated to put out more chapters, he just wrote whatever crap came to his mind and didn't actually bother to make sure it was good. Basically, if his heart was actually in his work and he legitimately wanted to continue the series, then he was most certainly talented enough at that time to do it the right way.

I'm not so certain if he would have made it a war that it would have fixed any of the problems of his writing with idiotic plot twists, sudden jump cuts in story, and a totally out of character ending for about every character. Just making it a war wouldn't have made those problems go away, I think.

Honestly, I believe the ending we got was as good as we could get considering.

See, that's the part I don't agree with. You seem to forget that Togashi wasn't trying at that time. He was still a talented writer, and when I said that he was hot of the heels of the Chapter Black arc, that indicates that he was a writer who could churn out good material when he wanted to. If his editors had just let him take a personal break like he wanted, and he came back and wrote with a full passion for what he was doing, then the arc would have been great. All of these issues that you talk about are stuff that he never did until Hunter X Hunter, anyways. Those problems didn't really plague the Three Kings arc. That arc was just a result of general laziness. The point is, when it came to his actual "genuine" writing, and not his fake stuff like with the Three Kings arc, he was a VERY different writer in both style and substance, at that time.