manga grabbag
PostPosted:Fri Apr 01, 2011 3:49 pm
Let's start with the two sports manga whose quality rivals that of Prince of Tennis. Now if you know anything about Prince of Tennis you'd probably ask how is this possible, since Prince of Tennis was #3 on worst manga of all time last year and it was a monthly, but Prince of Tennis is just bad in the sense that everything is ridiculous over the top. For the most part there's no rule that says in tennis you can't kill the other guy if you can hit a ball in his face and then kill him for an easy victory. If your overhead smash can wipe out the dinosaurs like the Anime, then wiping out the opponent is certainly a legitmate tactic to win.
First we'll start off with the long time sports manga stalwart, Captain Tsubasa. In this arc where Tsubasa plays against his rival Natreleza (who has never beaten him, but who cares about that), first you have an entire arc flashback where Tsubasa removed when he was 6, he lost the only game in his career by 2 goals, and that this may happen again and this better not happen. Now there are a lot of spoiled guys in the fictional world, but here's a guy who cannot fathom losing a game by TWO goals more than once in his life. He's also supposed to be a humble guy. Then, after stoppage time has ran out Tsubasa's team magically found another minute of stoppage time to score the game-tying goal. Also note that most of the movement in the game is not only humanely-impossible, but even Anime-impossible. For example in the final sequence someone kicked the ball to Tsubasa who was guarded by 3 guys ready to break his leg to stop him scoring (this tactic should've been used by any team playing against him). Next frame the ball magically teleported 10 feet ahead to give Tsubasa a clear shot. It wouldn't be too crazy for one guy to somehow get the ball in midair against 3 guys, but here the ball itself just teleported forward for an open shot!
Next is Kuroko's basketball. Honestly this isn't really that bad, but it's more like there are some totally unrealistic stuff presumably because the guy writing about this doesn't actually know anything about basketball. You got a move with a cooldown, like main character (Kuroko) can teleport past the enemy while dribbing. This is a pretty standard move in sports stuff, but apparently it applies a cooldown to the enemy and cannot be used against that enemy for another quarter. What kind of ridiculously useless special ability is that? How does it even make sense even in a fictional world? It's not that this move applies some kind of cooldown to the user itself (plenty of those), it's literally use this move against a guy and he is immune to it for the next quarter. Then most recently in your generic 'super team' entrance, they say how Kuroko's team beat some random fodder team 100-60, but they beat them 170-30. I can probably get 4 other guys here to play the LA Lakers here and they won't score 170 on us unless we insulted Kobe Bryant's mother. There is just zero reason to run up the score like that. Of course there can be that much of a difference in talent but it just doesn't make sense to run up the score like that unless you hate the other team. There's a reason why 50 point plus blowouts are very uncommon because there is just no reason to kick the other team like that.
That said there are also some good manga I'm reading. Sealing of the Gods (Hong Kong) is getting very good. It's your standard guy leads a bunch of people against some super powerful enemy, but the characters, though you've seen their type before, are well-drawn and well-developed. Saint Seiya: Lost Canvas seems like it's ending soon, though it's ending in the same ridiculous fashion as the original Saint Seiya did. I guess it must be in the contract that Saint Seiya stuff have to have certain obligatory scenes from the original like where all the gold saints magically return to life while fighting Hades, the lord of the dead. Heck, Hades even said: "How in the world does dead people spontaneously come back to life to fight against the lord of the dead?" I mean you'd think you should be happy the guys who died didn't just rise to serve Hades, but it's your obligatory epic everyone gets together to throw giant fireball scene, so I understand why it's super cheesy.
First we'll start off with the long time sports manga stalwart, Captain Tsubasa. In this arc where Tsubasa plays against his rival Natreleza (who has never beaten him, but who cares about that), first you have an entire arc flashback where Tsubasa removed when he was 6, he lost the only game in his career by 2 goals, and that this may happen again and this better not happen. Now there are a lot of spoiled guys in the fictional world, but here's a guy who cannot fathom losing a game by TWO goals more than once in his life. He's also supposed to be a humble guy. Then, after stoppage time has ran out Tsubasa's team magically found another minute of stoppage time to score the game-tying goal. Also note that most of the movement in the game is not only humanely-impossible, but even Anime-impossible. For example in the final sequence someone kicked the ball to Tsubasa who was guarded by 3 guys ready to break his leg to stop him scoring (this tactic should've been used by any team playing against him). Next frame the ball magically teleported 10 feet ahead to give Tsubasa a clear shot. It wouldn't be too crazy for one guy to somehow get the ball in midair against 3 guys, but here the ball itself just teleported forward for an open shot!
Next is Kuroko's basketball. Honestly this isn't really that bad, but it's more like there are some totally unrealistic stuff presumably because the guy writing about this doesn't actually know anything about basketball. You got a move with a cooldown, like main character (Kuroko) can teleport past the enemy while dribbing. This is a pretty standard move in sports stuff, but apparently it applies a cooldown to the enemy and cannot be used against that enemy for another quarter. What kind of ridiculously useless special ability is that? How does it even make sense even in a fictional world? It's not that this move applies some kind of cooldown to the user itself (plenty of those), it's literally use this move against a guy and he is immune to it for the next quarter. Then most recently in your generic 'super team' entrance, they say how Kuroko's team beat some random fodder team 100-60, but they beat them 170-30. I can probably get 4 other guys here to play the LA Lakers here and they won't score 170 on us unless we insulted Kobe Bryant's mother. There is just zero reason to run up the score like that. Of course there can be that much of a difference in talent but it just doesn't make sense to run up the score like that unless you hate the other team. There's a reason why 50 point plus blowouts are very uncommon because there is just no reason to kick the other team like that.
That said there are also some good manga I'm reading. Sealing of the Gods (Hong Kong) is getting very good. It's your standard guy leads a bunch of people against some super powerful enemy, but the characters, though you've seen their type before, are well-drawn and well-developed. Saint Seiya: Lost Canvas seems like it's ending soon, though it's ending in the same ridiculous fashion as the original Saint Seiya did. I guess it must be in the contract that Saint Seiya stuff have to have certain obligatory scenes from the original like where all the gold saints magically return to life while fighting Hades, the lord of the dead. Heck, Hades even said: "How in the world does dead people spontaneously come back to life to fight against the lord of the dead?" I mean you'd think you should be happy the guys who died didn't just rise to serve Hades, but it's your obligatory epic everyone gets together to throw giant fireball scene, so I understand why it's super cheesy.