Shippuuden popularity halved

[Zeus]

Take a look at the number of downloads for the Naruto eps from Dattebayo. From 901k for ep 1 to 420k for ep 42

http://www.dattebayo.com/t/

Only half as many and dropping from the looks of it. They really need to speed up the fucking eps....

Or are there just more people watching it on Youtube or shit like that? I don't think it has THAT much of an effect on the downloads.

[Don]

Naruto's popularity has been taking a hit recently, both manga and anime. There's an ongoing joke about how all the creativity of Naruto is directly stolen from Hunter X Hunter, and since Togashi is lazier than dirt and doesn't care if HXH is indefinitely postponed, Naruto ran out of stuff to steal. Right now it seems like it's just riding on Itachi and Sasuke while the author is trying to figure out something that works. I think even the author has come to accept the fact that Naruto is a total loser and not worth writing about, so now it's turned into a story about ninjas with special eyes. This isn't a bad foundation since Itachi, Sasuke, and Kakashi are heavy fan favorites, but the new guys with amazing eye power so far have not picked up any momentum.

[SineSwiper]

Sorry, haven't read the manga, so let's trend carefully on spoilers, okay?

So far, the pacing of the anime is actually pretty good. I wish their was more to that fight, though. Maybe the pacing could pick up a little bit more, but it's 10x better than the beginning of the series.

[Zeus]

Sorry, haven't read the manga, so let's trend carefully on spoilers, okay?

So far, the pacing of the anime is actually pretty good. I wish their was more to that fight, though. Maybe the pacing could pick up a little bit more, but it's 10x better than the beginning of the series.

The pacing is good? What, you're watching it on 4x speed?

A couple of weeks ago I watched a 2-part episode where Naruto was just "powering up" for the entire fucking 40+ minutes. The main issue with it now is the fact that it's moving at a snail's pace since they're doing 1 chapter per ep (I don't read the manga and I can tell) rather than the 2 they did before in order to stretch out the anime as much as possible. That's what's killing the show right now and there's nothing to properly replace it (I'm caught up to Bleach; nice distraction but not nearly the quality of the old, good Naruto). I'm about to start Dragonbore from the beginning for cryin' out loud!

[Chris]

Naruto is like watching a nap....while eating babies....yum

[Don]

Naruto has been about ninjas with special eye power for the last year or two. I guess I tend to forget how far behind the Anime could be.

[Eric]

Sorry, haven't read the manga, so let's trend carefully on spoilers, okay?

So far, the pacing of the anime is actually pretty good. I wish their was more to that fight, though. Maybe the pacing could pick up a little bit more, but it's 10x better than the beginning of the series.

The pacing is good? What, you're watching it on 4x speed?

A couple of weeks ago I watched a 2-part episode where Naruto was just "powering up" for the entire fucking 40+ minutes. The main issue with it now is the fact that it's moving at a snail's pace since they're doing 1 chapter per ep (I don't read the manga and I can tell) rather than the 2 they did before in order to stretch out the anime as much as possible. That's what's killing the show right now and there's nothing to properly replace it (I'm caught up to Bleach; nice distraction but not nearly the quality of the old, good Naruto). I'm about to start Dragonbore from the beginning for cryin' out loud!

Yeah the charge-up was ridiculous, and of course was also 2 chapters, I swear I could edit these episodes to be close to 2 hours if I just let the same animations go on repeat 5 seconds and extend the music a bit.

The next episode with all the action was actually 2 chapters, madness I know.

Then we went back to 1 as well.

[SineSwiper]

Would you like to go back to Team Gau fighting the same enemies for 10 episodes?

[Eric]

Would you like to go back to Team Gau fighting the same enemies for 10 episodes?

As horrific as that was "We must become stronger then yesterday! LAWLS" I honestly don't see a difference between the two at this point.

They're all mechanics used to waste time for no good reason. The anime is a good 150 chapters behind the manga at this point. There's no reason for them to waste time.

[Zeus]

The anime is a good 150 chapters behind the manga at this point. There's no reason for them to waste time.

Sure there is. Why use two chapters per ep when you can use one? More ad revenue and more people buying it on DVD.

[SineSwiper]

Yeah, but if it's popularity is dropping...

[Eric]

Yeah, but if it's popularity is dropping...

Exactly, if the ends don't justify the means, you're getting screwed, if the ratings continue to drop you can and will see it taken off the air, it's happened with other formerly popular anime/manga.

[RentCavalier]

Not One Piece!

[Eric]

Not One Piece!

Yes, One Piece is the master of moderating filler.

[Don]

One Piece is really getting hammered by the 'good guy cannot die' rule by writing itself into logical dead ends that cannot be resolved without some people from the Straw Hats dying, and then having the necessary death avoided by sheer force of will. The problem is that OP is more serious than it looks. One of the key ideas is that Grand Line is a scary place where bad things happen... unless you're part of the Straw Hats, who can avoid death by force of will.

[Eric]

One Piece is really getting hammered by the 'good guy cannot die' rule by writing itself into logical dead ends that cannot be resolved without some people from the Straw Hats dying, and then having the necessary death avoided by sheer force of will. The problem is that OP is more serious than it looks. One of the key ideas is that Grand Line is a scary place where bad things happen... unless you're part of the Straw Hats, who can avoid death by force of will.

There is the flashback-clause mind you. If something is told in the form of a flash back, somebody died!

[Don]

Yeah I forgot to mention that. Good guys can only die in a flashback.

[RentCavalier]

Well, Oda is technically writing overtime, as he'd originally planned a five year run on One Piece, but has been having far too much fun doing it, so he doesn't know when it will end.

Regardless, I still like the series, even if it does do somethings wrong because, in a sea of intensely similar crap, One Piece proves itself to be both similar and yet blisteringly original.

Plus, if you count Brooke, isn't one of the Straw Hats already "dead"?

Eheh...heh...heh...eh.

[Don]

Well just because OP went on a lot longer than it is supposed to doesn't mean it has to suck. If you replaced Kuma with Mihawk in the latest arc, suddenly everything might actually make sense. The latest arc complete defies the notion that Marines and Pirates are always fundamentally opposed to each other, and that this inseparatable difference is not something bridged by honor or friendship. While Kuma is not a Marine, he is about as close to one as it gets and his actions make no sense from someone who is supposed to be 100% loyal to the World Government. Some people say maybe he's a spy from Dragon, but then that's totally a Deus Ex Machina thing, and if you need that you could simply have Dragon appear from nowhere to bail the Straw Hats out. The deal Kuma made would be more beliveable from someone who has no loyalty in the World Government, like Mihawk. Even Moria would be more likely to accept such a deal.

The notion that Sanji or Zoro could be as important as Luffy is also utterly ridiculous. I thought it was downright insulting how Oda was trying to say that there is a member in the Straw Hats that is as important as Luffy. Even the ransom levels suggest Luffy is roughly as important as rest of the Straw Hats together, and the rest of the Straw Hats probably would have died 25 times a piece if Luffy wasn't around.

The author of Dai-no-daiboken says if you care for your characters, your characters will write themselves. Sora personifies hope, Leona personifies love, and Pop is courage. Courage always stands next to the hero. Hope shines eternal when all appears to be lost. Love will heal the land. If you need hope you wouldn't go talk to Leona. If you need courage you wouldn't talk to Sora. Even if the author said today Leona will replace Sora as the hope character, it still wouldn't work because these 3 are basically the virtues themselves.

In the Kuma arc, effectively one of the character, either Sanji or Zoro, wrote their own (possibly both) death. You say that Zoro personalifies sacrifice, and a sacrifice must be made for the survival of the Straw Hats. But the author forcefully intervened against the very qualities his character embodies. This is poor design.

[Zeus]

Yeah, but if it's popularity is dropping...

Exactly, if the ends don't justify the means, you're getting screwed, if the ratings continue to drop you can and will see it taken off the air, it's happened with other formerly popular anime/manga.

Is it dropping that bad in Japan? We're talking about the popularity drop of illegal downloads here.

[Eric]

wtf happened in the last episode? When it ended I thought that was the halfway point >_>

[Zeus]

wtf happened in the last episode? When it ended I thought that was the halfway point >_>

I haven't seen the last couple (since the double ep) so NO SPOILERS

[Don]

Illegal downloads is a good reflection of something's popularity. The stuff that no one watches on TV don't get downloaded very much even when it's free.

[Zeus]

wtf happened in the last episode? When it ended I thought that was the halfway point >_>

Basically, yeah, but it was a good segway to the next part of the arc

[Don]

Someone compiled a list of all the possible special eyes and there are 10 of them so far...

Clearly the way to go in the world of Naruto is getting a lot of eye grafts, like Kakashi did.

[Zeus]

Someone compiled a list of all the possible special eyes and there are 10 of them so far...

Clearly the way to go in the world of Naruto is getting a lot of eye grafts, like Kakashi did.

There are three or 4 versions of the Sharingan alone that I know of.

I may not be far along yet, but so far, the eyes have been a pretty sought-after rarity. Only the Uchiha and Byakua clans have them. That's why Orichimaru wants Sasuke so badly (he can't get Itachi, he's too strong)

Has there been that much more eye stuff in the last couple of years?

[Don]

We're up to 8 variants of the Sharingan now. There are only 3 major eyes, with variants of Sharingan accounting for 8 out of 10 special eyes far.

The important lesson is to get an eye graft of Sharingan somewhere if you're not born with one!

[Zeus]

We're up to 8 variants of the Sharingan now. There are only 3 major eyes, with variants of Sharingan accounting for 8 out of 10 special eyes far.

The important lesson is to get an eye graft of Sharingan somewhere if you're not born with one!

There's only two Uchiha's left an Orichimaru's got the a hold on the only really accessible one. Kinda impossible to get yourself one

On a side note: when the FUCK are we gonna get the anime version of the Kakashi Gaiden storyline? We should have seen that by now

[Eric]

We're up to 8 variants of the Sharingan now. There are only 3 major eyes, with variants of Sharingan accounting for 8 out of 10 special eyes far.

The important lesson is to get an eye graft of Sharingan somewhere if you're not born with one!

There's only two Uchiha's left an Orichimaru's got the a hold on the only really accessible one. Kinda impossible to get yourself one

On a side note: when the FUCK are we gonna get the anime version of the Kakashi Gaiden storyline? We should have seen that by now

We can't really discuss about who has what if you haven't seen the later chapters, though I guess we'll be able to discuss this in the year 2010 or 2011 when the anime finally catches up(No I'm not kidding).

And talking with Don about these things is like asking to be spoiled. He can't control himself!

[Don]

Raising the dead and cloning technology is quite common in Naruto. Both would solve the shortage of eye supplies quite easily.

Heck, maybe they can just do a normal clone nijitsu and pluck the extra's eyes out.

[Zeus]

Raising the dead and cloning technology is quite common in Naruto.

It is?

[Eric]

Raising the dead and cloning technology is quite common in Naruto.

It is?

I warned you once, I will not do so again.

[Zeus]

Raising the dead and cloning technology is quite common in Naruto.

It is?

I warned you once, I will not do so again.

[Zeus]

Sorry, haven't read the manga, so let's trend carefully on spoilers, okay?

So far, the pacing of the anime is actually pretty good. I wish their was more to that fight, though. Maybe the pacing could pick up a little bit more, but it's 10x better than the beginning of the series.

The pacing is good? What, you're watching it on 4x speed?

A couple of weeks ago I watched a 2-part episode where Naruto was just "powering up" for the entire fucking 40+ minutes. The main issue with it now is the fact that it's moving at a snail's pace since they're doing 1 chapter per ep (I don't read the manga and I can tell) rather than the 2 they did before in order to stretch out the anime as much as possible. That's what's killing the show right now and there's nothing to properly replace it (I'm caught up to Bleach; nice distraction but not nearly the quality of the old, good Naruto). I'm about to start Dragonbore from the beginning for cryin' out loud!

Yeah the charge-up was ridiculous, and of course was also 2 chapters, I swear I could edit these episodes to be close to 2 hours if I just let the same animations go on repeat 5 seconds and extend the music a bit.

If I find myself with tons of time I may go back and re-edit the Shippuuden series to cut it down to what it's supposed to be. Then we can see how truly great it should be

[Don]

Well all the raising the dead stuff is usually around level S, same with creating clones that you can actually salvage body parts from. But as time passes on there seems to be a technique inflation and now everyone and their brother can use class S techniques. In the first part there are exactly 2 S class techniques, Orochimaru's raise dead and Kakashi's lightning cut (no idea why it's S class). In the 2nd part they started measuring technique in like S+++++++ class pretty much from the get go, so stuff like raising the dead is considered pretty easy.

[SineSwiper]

Any further discussion on this, and I'll just start deleting posts at random. If you want to talk about the manga, go do so on a new thread.

What the fuck is S class? There is no mention of that in the anime.

[Don]

All the techniques have a 'difficulty' rating assigned to them. It is just never revealed basically anywhere unless you buy the sourcebooks. The first time it's even talked about is in one of these training session where Kakashi is going about how to fight the Akatsuki guys you'd need like S++++++++++++ techniques because just S class stuff don't cut it anymore, even though prior to this point only 2 guys can use them (Itachi's eye might be considered S class, I didn't pay for the 2nd sourcebook that has those techniques analyzed).

For example the vast majority of Garaa's big techniques are class A. Generally speaking class S stuff is stuff you're not allowed to do, like raising the dead. Even those at the top of the Naruto world are generally limited to only A class techniques. For some reason Kakashi has access to a S class technique, even thuogh it doesn't even do anything special.

There used to be some significance to the S class stuff. For example getting Sasuke back was a S class level mission, and pretty much Jiraya/Orochimaru are the only ones who went on more than 1 S class mission because supposedly the fate of the world hangs in balance of every S class mission. Of course nowadays every time the Akatsuki shows up it's a S class mission.

[Zeus]

Any further discussion on this, and I'll just start deleting posts at random. If you want to talk about the manga, go do so on a new thread.

What the fuck is S class? There is no mention of that in the anime.

Actually, I think they did mention something about it when Kabuto was disguised as a genin and was in the Chuunin exam. He had that book with the info on each person in it

[SineSwiper]

Only about other genin, not anything about some of the super elite.

[Zeus]

Only about other genin, not anything about some of the super elite.

No but they mentioned the Class thing there I think

[Don]

That was the info on the type of mission they went on, like how they said Garaa already went to a class B or A mission even as a newbie so he must be really powerful. They kind of abandoned the class assignments to mission difficulty since it seems like every thing that involves Akatsuki is automatically S class. Sakura is likely to beat any record on number of S class mission completed set by either Jiraya or Orochimaru at the rate things are going, and she doesn't even do anything useful (obviously the people who actually fight goes on even more S missions). For what it's worth every member of the Akatsuki is a S class fugitive, but again that really doesn't mean much when S is like the minimum level of danger in the 2nd part.

The technique class stuff exists since the beginning, but it's not mentioned much because it doesn't make much sense anyway when you consider some S class techniques can be considered crime against humanity, while others are actually pretty useless. I think the problem is that in Naruto, no one ever becomes physically more powerful so you can only learn better techniques, but originally you're not supposed to be just throwing out S class techniques but with the inflation of power, right now even S class is just old hat. Right now you basically see a lot of techniques because thrown at the undefined class of difficulty, something higher than S but no one knows how much higher, because the system doesn't accomodate for such things.

One of the unwritten but enforced rule of Naruto is that a lower level technique never beats a higher level technique. If Sasuke does a S class fireball and Naruto uses an A class water shield to defend, the fire attacks win every single time. If they were both A class than the water shield wins every time. The 3rd vs 1st + 2nd battle is sort of your by-the-book counter-recounter fight when fighting amongst equals until the combo/forbidden nijitsus gets thrown in. The problem becomes if someone hit you with a S class anything, you must defend with a S class technique or you cannot defend effectively at all, which leads to the creation of increasing more S class techniques to top each other. This is also why Kakashi is quite feared, because for some unknown reason his lightning attacks are considered S class (note that Sasuke's are not) so there are no effective way to defend against Kakashi's attack beyond withstanding the attack physiclaly.

[Eric]

I hope you enjoyed the last 3 weeks of the anime, cause it's covered about 2 chapters. lol.

[Zeus]

I hope you enjoyed the last 3 weeks of the anime, cause it's covered about 2 chapters. lol.

They're killing me. I wish I had the time to re-edit now. That should cut down the 46 eps to what, 20?

[SineSwiper]

Heh, just do what DB did with that shortened "manga-accurate" episode.