Fundertaker
El Dandy
Hideo Kojima should direct every ending ever!
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Post by Fundertaker on Nov 29, 2017 14:01:04 GMT -5
Isn't Guts basically the poster boy for Heroes who fail? Guts isn't a shonen hero (Berserk is a seinen manga, after all) and his "failing" is extremely relative. Yeah, there's the whole eclipse episode (which he just couldn't do anything about really) and Casca running away and him and her haven't been on good terms, and he just can't touch Griffith, but all things considered he has accomplished a lot (he was the best soldier out of everyone in the Band Of The Hawk, survived the eclipse (even if the Skull Knight helped with that), rescued Casca in the midst of another, smaller, eclipse against overwhelming odds, defeated a "god" and several other high-powered individuals and we're just waiting (forever) to see if his trip to Fairy Island was worth it) and he has lots of things going his way recently. Heck, even when things don't go his way he goes all out and leaves nothing on the table. Ippo, on the other hand, has been on a downward slope of quality in the story, as if he peaked somewhere after he won the Japanese title and has had a decrease in everything since then, culminating in this. Which is VERY weird for a shonen series. Although, truth be told, this is a Kodansha published series, not a Shueisha one, so that's bound to happen way more often. For another example of a weird main character progression in Kodansha stuff, look no further than Diamond no Ace/Daiya no Ace/Ace of Diamond. Through the entire first series, the main character, a pitcher in his high school baseball team, was never considered the ace of the team. No one. Even nowadays as we go to the last tournament the 2nd main character will take part of, he still has to fight to be acknowledged as the ace against a guy who is still basically recovering from injuries and being an all around mess for months. If this was a Shueisha (Shonen Jump in particular) manga the pitcher would've become the ace after his 2nd game with the team unofficially and by the end of his 1st tournament everyone would acclaim him as the messiah of baseball everywhere.
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Post by aka Cthulhu on Dec 4, 2017 13:36:02 GMT -5
Bad anime/manga protagonists and Hajime no Ippo's latest chapter. Not enough space in the title. HnI's latest chapter spoilers too people. So HnI is a manga I catch up with every few months or so when I'm not busy. Come to find out that 1202 (been going on since the 80s) came out today so in my downtime I decided to peep it. After reading it I had to make this thread. The series is also known for having mega-long fights so for a while we've been on Ippo's latest boxing match. Basically, dude lost his last match and he a long arc where they thought he was punch drunk, he was debating on whether to continue boxing, he had to rebuild himself and work on his moves and he eventually after that long character arc he got to it. He wasn't damaged at all and was in tip-top shape. Anyway, he was doing this for 3 years real time. Since 2014 they've been on this. So the chapter comes out and I'm just gonna post some pages from the last few chapters for yall including the latest. Do you know any main character of a series bitched out this hard? Who loses his last 2 big fights and has been on a downward slope for over 3 years? I've never seen anything like this for any manga or anime character. For all the crap about Naruto dude actually wins his most important fights. Ippo had multiple goals in this series. 1 was that Miyata fight that the author backed out of. The other was seeing Ippo's new Dempsey which we never saw and the other is become world champion which he couldn't do. Anytime he faced a world ranker he got his ass kicked. Like, dude hasn't really accomplished any goals in the series for years. It's crazy. I don't know what the mangaka thinks about this shit but wow, are you serious? Anyone know any other anime/manga protagonists that have been damaged for years like this? I swear we was just talking about something like this happening not to long ago. Methinks I made that thread a while back. In general, the problem with Ippo recently is that things just stretch out for far too long. Each important fight feels like it takes up a whole volume, which doesn't help since I can't help but think "get on with it!" most of the time. Furthermore, the opponents aren't as interesting as they were before. Guys like Sendo, Sawamura, Hawk, etc, felt interesting that the length didn't matter much. Guys like Woli... pretty much Ippo's opponents post Sawamura, especially Kojima were a bore and took far too long. Like, current arc, guy just feels so secondary compared to Ippo's issues that he's basically non-existent. His whole backstory doesn't feel like it matters at all. The guy's just there to be part of Ippo's downward spiral... like the reverse of the guy who ate Ippo's first Dempsey roll, only this time it took far more chapters to showcase, adding to the tedium even further. Tedium, that's the word. The series is suffering from it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2017 13:44:40 GMT -5
That...is actually a nice pace of change kinda. I only followed Hajime No Ippo until his first fight after the fight with Miyata fell through (that scarred Thai boxer that Miyata beat once during his trip abroad early in the series) but considering it follows a linear time progression (i.e. characters do get older) and it is fairly realistic from what I remember. While it is a tragic event, I find it kinda refreshing to see a shonen series where the protagonist might not be able to reach his goal and his dreams. Perhaps they might just do a short cut and let him do a final match against Miyata or the mustachioed world champion (dunno that name) or otherwise let him realise that the most important thing about his boxing career was the friendships and persons he met and let him settle down with Kumi (that's the "girlfriend" you mean, right)?Still, I am curious if any of the other characters has retired until that point (the guys from Ippo's gym, his Kansai rival, Kumi's brother etc.). Yeah Kumi's the one I'm talking about. But the thing with Ippo is that he takes so many Ls unlike most Shonen protagonists. He's still not officially dating Kumi yet (hence why the girlfriend is in quotations), he lost his previous fight before this one, the Miyata fight won't happen it seems, he still hasn't been able to show off the new move he's been working years on, he's punch drunk, the guy just never gets a straight win without any backlash. It would be a different story if he got something nice every once in a while, just something straight like Luffy beating the big arc bad and then getting a nakama or something but it just never happens with Ippo. He used to be great in the earlier part of the series but for the longest time since he's gone beyond Japan it's the same situation. He's constantly outclassed. I swear we was just talking about something like this happening not to long ago. Yeah I remember us talking about how stagnant it was in another thread lol. Little did anyone know that Ippo would basically still be on the downward slope. And here I thought Shinichi/Jimmy Kudo from "Case Closed"/"Detective Conan" was the master of the slow-burning romance, only taking 17 years until finally confessing his love to Ran/Rachel. That makes it 27 years for Ippo to not going steady, geezus.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Dec 4, 2017 15:06:50 GMT -5
I swear we was just talking about something like this happening not to long ago. Methinks I made that thread a while back. In general, the problem with Ippo recently is that things just stretch out for far too long. Each important fight feels like it takes up a whole volume, which doesn't help since I can't help but think "get on with it!" most of the time. Furthermore, the opponents aren't as interesting as they were before. Guys like Sendo, Sawamura, Hawk, etc, felt interesting that the length didn't matter much. Guys like Woli... pretty much Ippo's opponents post Sawamura, especially Kojima were a bore and took far too long. Like, current arc, guy just feels so secondary compared to Ippo's issues that he's basically non-existent. His whole backstory doesn't feel like it matters at all. The guy's just there to be part of Ippo's downward spiral... like the reverse of the guy who ate Ippo's first Dempsey roll, only this time it took far more chapters to showcase, adding to the tedium even further. Tedium, that's the word. The series is suffering from it. Sadly, if Ippo is ending this continues the trend of a Manga lasting so long it doesn't have a satisfying ending. Tempted to start a thread asking what is the "perfect" length a manga should exist.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2017 13:13:31 GMT -5
Methinks I made that thread a while back. In general, the problem with Ippo recently is that things just stretch out for far too long. Each important fight feels like it takes up a whole volume, which doesn't help since I can't help but think "get on with it!" most of the time. Furthermore, the opponents aren't as interesting as they were before. Guys like Sendo, Sawamura, Hawk, etc, felt interesting that the length didn't matter much. Guys like Woli... pretty much Ippo's opponents post Sawamura, especially Kojima were a bore and took far too long. Like, current arc, guy just feels so secondary compared to Ippo's issues that he's basically non-existent. His whole backstory doesn't feel like it matters at all. The guy's just there to be part of Ippo's downward spiral... like the reverse of the guy who ate Ippo's first Dempsey roll, only this time it took far more chapters to showcase, adding to the tedium even further. Tedium, that's the word. The series is suffering from it. Sadly, if Ippo is ending this continues the trend of a Manga lasting so long it doesn't have a satisfying ending. Tempted to start a thread asking what is the "perfect" length a manga should exist. I don know about manga but an anime is perfect at 24 episodes and should never exceed 52.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Dec 5, 2017 13:36:19 GMT -5
Sadly, if Ippo is ending this continues the trend of a Manga lasting so long it doesn't have a satisfying ending. Tempted to start a thread asking what is the "perfect" length a manga should exist. I don know about manga but an anime is perfect at 24 episodes and should never exceed 52. Ehh. Now anime is reaching over 50 episodes compared to a few years ago when everything got one season for an equivalent of 12 episodes. There's a lot less filler now than it used to be
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2017 13:43:29 GMT -5
I don know about manga but an anime is perfect at 24 episodes and should never exceed 52. Ehh. Now anime is reaching over 50 episodes compared to a few years ago when everything got one season for an equivalent of 12 episodes. There's a lot less filler now than it used to be I stand by my opinion that those anime progressively lower their narrative quality as they get longer.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Dec 5, 2017 13:50:26 GMT -5
Ehh. Now anime is reaching over 50 episodes compared to a few years ago when everything got one season for an equivalent of 12 episodes. There's a lot less filler now than it used to be I stand by my opinion that those anime progressively lower their narrative quality as they get longer. Hmmm I hear you but I disagree. I'm rewatching YuYu Hakusho and it gets its strongest as the episodes continue especially during the dark tournament arc Eureka Seven first season which was 12 episodes was mostly just there. World building I would say is the accurate term. However, from episodes 12 to the end which is episode 50 it's at its best. I agree not every anime deserves a bunch of episodes but we now in a place where filler is not as bad as it used to be (Naruto and Bleach building whole seasons around filler) which makes each episode feel important. My Hero Academia is approaching 40 episodes and is nowhere near the manga but there hasn't been any filler in the anime as well
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2017 13:56:08 GMT -5
I stand by my opinion that those anime progressively lower their narrative quality as they get longer. Hmmm I hear you but I disagree. I'm rewatching YuYu Hakusho and it gets its strongest as the episodes continue especially during the dark tournament arc Eureka Seven first season which was 12 episodes was mostly just there. World building I would say is the accurate term. However, from episodes 12 to the end which is episode 50 it's at its best. I agree not every anime deserves a bunch of episodes but we now in a place where filler is not as bad as it used to be (Naruto and Bleach building whole seasons around filler) which makes each episode feel important. My Hero Academia is approaching 40 episodes and is nowhere near the manga but there hasn't been any filler in the anime as well Dont forget that Hakusho's last two arcs were buttsauce garbage, ESPECIALLY the last one.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Dec 5, 2017 14:04:20 GMT -5
Hmmm I hear you but I disagree. I'm rewatching YuYu Hakusho and it gets its strongest as the episodes continue especially during the dark tournament arc Eureka Seven first season which was 12 episodes was mostly just there. World building I would say is the accurate term. However, from episodes 12 to the end which is episode 50 it's at its best. I agree not every anime deserves a bunch of episodes but we now in a place where filler is not as bad as it used to be (Naruto and Bleach building whole seasons around filler) which makes each episode feel important. My Hero Academia is approaching 40 episodes and is nowhere near the manga but there hasn't been any filler in the anime as well Dont forget that Hakusho's last two arcs were buttsauce garbage, ESPECIALLY the last one. Yea last arc left a lot to be desired that's for sure I can't disagree Like I said I see what you are saying and would generally swing your way of thinking as i'm more a manga reader than an anime watcher now but some of the newer stuff has gotten better with the pacing
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2017 14:06:22 GMT -5
Dont forget that Hakusho's last two arcs were buttsauce garbage, ESPECIALLY the last one. Yea last arc left a lot to be desired that's for sure I can't disagree Like I said I see what you are saying and would generally swing your way of thinking as i'm more a manga reader than an anime watcher now but some of the newer stuff has gotten better with the pacing Well I admit that I'm much older now with a lot less time to watch new anime.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Dec 5, 2017 14:09:32 GMT -5
Yea last arc left a lot to be desired that's for sure I can't disagree Like I said I see what you are saying and would generally swing your way of thinking as i'm more a manga reader than an anime watcher now but some of the newer stuff has gotten better with the pacing Well I admit that I'm much older now with a lot less time to watch new anime. Exactly same for me. Plus like I stated earlier anime just became a bore for me and even stuff I wanted to watch only lasted one season Manga has its own problems as well like reading the shit for years for it to have a bad ending (I am Hero)
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2017 14:31:25 GMT -5
I swear we was just talking about something like this happening not to long ago. Methinks I made that thread a while back. In general, the problem with Ippo recently is that things just stretch out for far too long. Each important fight feels like it takes up a whole volume, which doesn't help since I can't help but think "get on with it!" most of the time. Furthermore, the opponents aren't as interesting as they were before. Guys like Sendo, Sawamura, Hawk, etc, felt interesting that the length didn't matter much. Guys like Woli... pretty much Ippo's opponents post Sawamura, especially Kojima were a bore and took far too long. Like, current arc, guy just feels so secondary compared to Ippo's issues that he's basically non-existent. His whole backstory doesn't feel like it matters at all. The guy's just there to be part of Ippo's downward spiral... like the reverse of the guy who ate Ippo's first Dempsey roll, only this time it took far more chapters to showcase, adding to the tedium even further. Tedium, that's the word. The series is suffering from it. Not a manga but this reminds me a lot of the issue I've been having for a looooong time with the webcomic Misfile. Basically all actual plot progression and character development just stopped dead with the end of book 6 and by now the comic's on book 28. In that time it's by and large just been a bunch of stupid drama of the week that goes nowhere, random car races every once in awhile because they're still technically part of the premise but they never actually have anything to do with anything so they just stop dead any momentum the comic might end up building, and in the meantime the author said years and years back the comic would end around the time the main character graduates from high school so as a result he's been perpetually a week away from graduation for like six years now with time just refusing to pass, because the story has been told but the author won't just end the damn thing already. The only reason I even still read it is I've come this far and just want to see when the thing mercifully ends. That said it's already been said several times over the author's doing a sequel and no f***ing way am I bothering with that.
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