manga review
PostPosted:Thu May 26, 2011 11:38 pm
Starting with the good, since there probably won't be anything good for a long time.
Sealing of the Gods - One of the most ironic scenes I've seen in manga, where The Priestess after she was done with some massive orgy with 10 man, talks about how she's been thinking her people have been too into pleasure and that's why their grip on the human slaves have been slipping, while her two lietenants look on and is like 'no duh'. And after going over some generic 'this boy is powerful so we'll just send one of our guys at him at a time until he becomes unstoppable', she resumes her orgy with the lietenant who didn't go to the mission. Up until this point, it's not exactly clear how the human's revolution against their enslavers was going to be successful, but this arc pretty much captures exactly why the humans had a chance. I've heard the author will go on a break and explore the adult entertainment business so we might not be seeing anything for a while, which is a shame.
Naruto - This moves to the good list by the virtue of sticking to what works, even though it's dragging on longer than it should.
Now the bad...
Ravage of Time - If you're writing a historical fiction you can't say Napoleon won at Waterloo no matter how cool a story that might be, unless the point of your story is that it has nothing to do with history. I really don't think anyone actually liked Yuan Fan as a character, and he should've died while getting trampled by random guys saying, "But I am invincible!" like some other less popular characters, but he is supposed to be the main villian. Still, this doesn't mean you get to just change the outcome of the Battle of Guan Du, one of the most pivotal battle in the three kingdoms period, just to spice things up. Historically Cao Cao took out Yuan Shao's supply base and Yuan Shao's army collapsed from the attack, but now apparently it was Yuan Fan who destroyed his own base in an attempt to consolidate power. Never mind that the base is also needed for sustaining the entire army. I mean you can look over stuff like Yuan Fan going Super Saiyan 3 against Cao Cao, who is much stronger than a guy (Sima Yi) who went Super Saiyan 657 30 volumes ago, but this is inexcusable. Guo Jia was basically defeated by a bolt of lightning so there's no shortage of supernatural powers involved. I'd think they'll go with what Yuan Fan said a long time ago, "If God wants you to die, you die" to explain his inexplicable defeat since he's something like a Super Saiyan 9000 according to the power scale. Maybe it's not a coincidence that Ravage of Time is 3 months behind on the pirate sites. This is a catastrophic failure for a 'historical' drama. You just can't change the outcome of the most pivotal event for the sake of the driving up interest.
One Piece - I'm not sure if the story is marketed to six year olds, or the author has the mentality of a six year old. Yugioh or Pokemon has a more serious discussion on life than OP. So your mother was assassinated in front of your eyes, but your sons put on clown suits and started laughing like a madman because 'mother wouldn't want us to hate whoever did it'. This isn't maturity. This is just utter lunacy. The author of One Piece was once an assistant for Rourouni Kenshin, and I wonder if he thought Sojiro, who smiles on everything, is supposed to be the model of a great person. Never mind that Sojiro is a mentally unstable murderer and that laughing through everything is his escape mechanism, not because he actually feels that way. I mean I get it, the point of the story is that they're supposed to resolve stuff peacefully. That doesn't mean you can't mourn the loss of someone who was an equivalent of Martin Luther King who got shot in public. It'd be like if Luke Skywalker put on a clown suit to fight off the Dark Side because then the Emperor will be too distracted. It might even work but it's totally missing the point. When I was watching Yugioh in America, they'd have games to the death where there's like chainsaws or explosives and stuff that kills the loser, and in America those thing become 'spiritual chainsaw' or 'spiritual bomb' because you wouldn't want to even suggest people could die, even though nobody actually dies in Yugioh either. OP treats the serious of life as if it's afraid to tell you Santa Claus is not real. While manga isn't necessarily for sophiscated audience, last time I checked Shonen Jump is marketed to teenagers, not pre-schoolers.
The thing is that OP didn't have to come down to this. You can cry about the death of your loved one and say, 'but we must not let hatred consume us' or something along these lines. Actually OP has a rather curious take on crying. If you're anyone but Luffy crying basically means you're a worthless coward who don't deserve to live and it doesn't matter whatever you believe in. If you're Luffy that means you're destinated to become the Pirate King because even the Pirate King can cry. I realize the story clearly has a very sunny atmosphere, but it doesn't mean crying is something that should be forbidden by law. You can still have courage even if you cry.
Bleach - I think the latest arc answers the question: "How would combat in Bleach look like if people didn't explain what their special abilities do?", and the answer is that you get random outcome with no discernible flow or reasoning. At this point I'm not even sure what's the purpose of Bleach. It's almost like it's going just because the author needs money to pay the bill.
Sealing of the Gods - One of the most ironic scenes I've seen in manga, where The Priestess after she was done with some massive orgy with 10 man, talks about how she's been thinking her people have been too into pleasure and that's why their grip on the human slaves have been slipping, while her two lietenants look on and is like 'no duh'. And after going over some generic 'this boy is powerful so we'll just send one of our guys at him at a time until he becomes unstoppable', she resumes her orgy with the lietenant who didn't go to the mission. Up until this point, it's not exactly clear how the human's revolution against their enslavers was going to be successful, but this arc pretty much captures exactly why the humans had a chance. I've heard the author will go on a break and explore the adult entertainment business so we might not be seeing anything for a while, which is a shame.
Naruto - This moves to the good list by the virtue of sticking to what works, even though it's dragging on longer than it should.
Now the bad...
Ravage of Time - If you're writing a historical fiction you can't say Napoleon won at Waterloo no matter how cool a story that might be, unless the point of your story is that it has nothing to do with history. I really don't think anyone actually liked Yuan Fan as a character, and he should've died while getting trampled by random guys saying, "But I am invincible!" like some other less popular characters, but he is supposed to be the main villian. Still, this doesn't mean you get to just change the outcome of the Battle of Guan Du, one of the most pivotal battle in the three kingdoms period, just to spice things up. Historically Cao Cao took out Yuan Shao's supply base and Yuan Shao's army collapsed from the attack, but now apparently it was Yuan Fan who destroyed his own base in an attempt to consolidate power. Never mind that the base is also needed for sustaining the entire army. I mean you can look over stuff like Yuan Fan going Super Saiyan 3 against Cao Cao, who is much stronger than a guy (Sima Yi) who went Super Saiyan 657 30 volumes ago, but this is inexcusable. Guo Jia was basically defeated by a bolt of lightning so there's no shortage of supernatural powers involved. I'd think they'll go with what Yuan Fan said a long time ago, "If God wants you to die, you die" to explain his inexplicable defeat since he's something like a Super Saiyan 9000 according to the power scale. Maybe it's not a coincidence that Ravage of Time is 3 months behind on the pirate sites. This is a catastrophic failure for a 'historical' drama. You just can't change the outcome of the most pivotal event for the sake of the driving up interest.
One Piece - I'm not sure if the story is marketed to six year olds, or the author has the mentality of a six year old. Yugioh or Pokemon has a more serious discussion on life than OP. So your mother was assassinated in front of your eyes, but your sons put on clown suits and started laughing like a madman because 'mother wouldn't want us to hate whoever did it'. This isn't maturity. This is just utter lunacy. The author of One Piece was once an assistant for Rourouni Kenshin, and I wonder if he thought Sojiro, who smiles on everything, is supposed to be the model of a great person. Never mind that Sojiro is a mentally unstable murderer and that laughing through everything is his escape mechanism, not because he actually feels that way. I mean I get it, the point of the story is that they're supposed to resolve stuff peacefully. That doesn't mean you can't mourn the loss of someone who was an equivalent of Martin Luther King who got shot in public. It'd be like if Luke Skywalker put on a clown suit to fight off the Dark Side because then the Emperor will be too distracted. It might even work but it's totally missing the point. When I was watching Yugioh in America, they'd have games to the death where there's like chainsaws or explosives and stuff that kills the loser, and in America those thing become 'spiritual chainsaw' or 'spiritual bomb' because you wouldn't want to even suggest people could die, even though nobody actually dies in Yugioh either. OP treats the serious of life as if it's afraid to tell you Santa Claus is not real. While manga isn't necessarily for sophiscated audience, last time I checked Shonen Jump is marketed to teenagers, not pre-schoolers.
The thing is that OP didn't have to come down to this. You can cry about the death of your loved one and say, 'but we must not let hatred consume us' or something along these lines. Actually OP has a rather curious take on crying. If you're anyone but Luffy crying basically means you're a worthless coward who don't deserve to live and it doesn't matter whatever you believe in. If you're Luffy that means you're destinated to become the Pirate King because even the Pirate King can cry. I realize the story clearly has a very sunny atmosphere, but it doesn't mean crying is something that should be forbidden by law. You can still have courage even if you cry.
Bleach - I think the latest arc answers the question: "How would combat in Bleach look like if people didn't explain what their special abilities do?", and the answer is that you get random outcome with no discernible flow or reasoning. At this point I'm not even sure what's the purpose of Bleach. It's almost like it's going just because the author needs money to pay the bill.