You know...
I think what really bothers me about Naruto (aside from the obvious) is that it could have been a really genuinely cool/modernized SFF take on Japanese and Buddhist mythology*. And this is a really strange thing to be contemplating after all these years of rolling my eyes (sometimes fondly) at the series and not really giving a crap about the underlying worldbuilding.
I mean ninjas! Moon myths! Alien origin stories! Samsara! How can you go wrong with this????
But everything about the way this stuff is utilized in the Naruto mythology is just so half-assed.
I mean I guess I should be happy that at least Naruto mythology is fairly consistent and thought out, even if it's ridiculously oversimplified and silly and doesn't really hold up to logical analysis. (Bleach on the other hand...)
* despite all the mocking in fandom about Naruto the Savior and all, the series is very much built on a Buddhist scaffolding, as recent chapters have pretty much confirmed. (A shittily constructed scaffolding, but still.)
In the hands of a better writer, there really is some very interesting stuff to be said about the way Buddhism morphed and adapted to native culture/beliefs when it hit Japan, and the often odd juxtaposition of religion and violence and politics (see: sohei). I could probably go into pages and pages of meta about how all the moral hypocrisy in Naruto that I detest about the series can probably be traced to actual historical and cultural movements.
But I feel like that would be giving the series way too much credit. Because I don't think any of this was intentional -- it's probably just a secondary effect of blindly accepting the standard shounen moral system and being really, really preachy about it.
On the other hand, Naruto's frustrating take on morality and spirituality in general is still a hundred times better than Korra S2's incoherent nonsense, which still pisses me off whenever I think about it months down the line. (Naruto and Korra are really in some sense the perfect example of "shitty insider writing" vs. "shitty [cultural] outsider writing".)
(Bleach is just too hipster for any meta whatsoever on spirituality or systems of morality.)
- - -
I have nothing to say about One Piece because it'd just be the same screaming and flailing I do at the series pretty much every week, magnified tenfold
But let's just say: Oda delivered on his narrative promises. Boy, did he. AND then he threw in a bonus out of nowhere. agd;jlkg;
(There's probably something to be said about the difference between predictability and trustworthiness in a writer... Kishimoto IMO is one of the most predictable writers* in mangaland, but probably in a good way, as he gives exactly what his fans want. Kubo is predictable in the sense that you know he'll pull the most trolly option out of his ass pretty much every single time. Oda though is one of the few writers I really, genuinely trust to do whatever the fuck he wants because I know he'll make it work. [That said, trustworthiness isn't necessary for good writing -- there are writers like Urasawa Naoki whom I'm not ever sure I entirely trust but I enjoy and admire his storytelling anyway.])
(I'm ashamed to admit that I actually trusted Kubo for much longer than I should have -- I actually still liked the series during Hueco Mundo because I was convinced he was actually going somewhere with all the bullshit. Then butterfly!Aizen happened and I stopped taking the damn series seriously. Early Bleach was probably really genuinely good [and I still think Kubo does some pretty amazing character writing -- Tsukishima and Ginjou would have been SO GREAT in a different series] but tbh it's really tainted by all the irritation I've felt toward the series in the past couple of years.)
* Oh my god reading Naruto fan theories is so hilarious after years of reading Harry Potter meta. I don't think there has ever been a single twist or major revelation in Naruto that hasn't been predicted years before it's actually confirmed. Except maybe aliens but who the fuck was going to predict THAT.
- - -
I think I was going to say something about last week's Fairy Tail fakeout but meh. Pretty par for the course for this series.
That said, I'm also beginning to think that precognitive abilities are up there along time travel hijinks as my least favorite tropes ever.
comments at the original Dreamwidth post
I mean ninjas! Moon myths! Alien origin stories! Samsara! How can you go wrong with this????
But everything about the way this stuff is utilized in the Naruto mythology is just so half-assed.
I mean I guess I should be happy that at least Naruto mythology is fairly consistent and thought out, even if it's ridiculously oversimplified and silly and doesn't really hold up to logical analysis. (Bleach on the other hand...)
* despite all the mocking in fandom about Naruto the Savior and all, the series is very much built on a Buddhist scaffolding, as recent chapters have pretty much confirmed. (A shittily constructed scaffolding, but still.)
In the hands of a better writer, there really is some very interesting stuff to be said about the way Buddhism morphed and adapted to native culture/beliefs when it hit Japan, and the often odd juxtaposition of religion and violence and politics (see: sohei). I could probably go into pages and pages of meta about how all the moral hypocrisy in Naruto that I detest about the series can probably be traced to actual historical and cultural movements.
But I feel like that would be giving the series way too much credit. Because I don't think any of this was intentional -- it's probably just a secondary effect of blindly accepting the standard shounen moral system and being really, really preachy about it.
On the other hand, Naruto's frustrating take on morality and spirituality in general is still a hundred times better than Korra S2's incoherent nonsense, which still pisses me off whenever I think about it months down the line. (Naruto and Korra are really in some sense the perfect example of "shitty insider writing" vs. "shitty [cultural] outsider writing".)
(Bleach is just too hipster for any meta whatsoever on spirituality or systems of morality.)
- - -
I have nothing to say about One Piece because it'd just be the same screaming and flailing I do at the series pretty much every week, magnified tenfold
But let's just say: Oda delivered on his narrative promises. Boy, did he. AND then he threw in a bonus out of nowhere. agd;jlkg;
(There's probably something to be said about the difference between predictability and trustworthiness in a writer... Kishimoto IMO is one of the most predictable writers* in mangaland, but probably in a good way, as he gives exactly what his fans want. Kubo is predictable in the sense that you know he'll pull the most trolly option out of his ass pretty much every single time. Oda though is one of the few writers I really, genuinely trust to do whatever the fuck he wants because I know he'll make it work. [That said, trustworthiness isn't necessary for good writing -- there are writers like Urasawa Naoki whom I'm not ever sure I entirely trust but I enjoy and admire his storytelling anyway.])
(I'm ashamed to admit that I actually trusted Kubo for much longer than I should have -- I actually still liked the series during Hueco Mundo because I was convinced he was actually going somewhere with all the bullshit. Then butterfly!Aizen happened and I stopped taking the damn series seriously. Early Bleach was probably really genuinely good [and I still think Kubo does some pretty amazing character writing -- Tsukishima and Ginjou would have been SO GREAT in a different series] but tbh it's really tainted by all the irritation I've felt toward the series in the past couple of years.)
* Oh my god reading Naruto fan theories is so hilarious after years of reading Harry Potter meta. I don't think there has ever been a single twist or major revelation in Naruto that hasn't been predicted years before it's actually confirmed. Except maybe aliens but who the fuck was going to predict THAT.
- - -
I think I was going to say something about last week's Fairy Tail fakeout but meh. Pretty par for the course for this series.
That said, I'm also beginning to think that precognitive abilities are up there along time travel hijinks as my least favorite tropes ever.
comments at the original Dreamwidth post