this week's shitty manga
1. Bleach: What the hell indeed.
The snark writes itself.
(And still isn't entertaining enough to bother with.)
This is just one of those series that really needs a mercy killing. I also strongly suspect that this is a series that wouldn't have lingered so long if it weren't for the rabid Western fanbase. It got popular at a time when they were really courting Western fans. And arguably has been proportionally more popular in the West than it has been in Japan for the past 5 years or more.
Of course, even the Western fanbase is dying out now. And unlike Naruto, which for all its flaws has been always been able to pick up new fans to sustain itself, Bleach turned out to be pretty faddish. I would guess, just based on personal observations rather than actual data, that it has completely failed at capturing the preteen/young teen demographic. (It's just not fun/exciting anymore. And that is one aspect that Naruto has always been able to sustain through all the plotwtfery.) And like it or not, that is in theory the primary Shounen Jump demographic... And you just can't sustain a series on nostalgia.
2. Naruto:
Is Naruto wearing a fishnet shirt?
#importantquestions
#notsorry
Uh, like I've said before, Kishimoto does some of his best writing with Sasuke. For better or for worse.
Anyhow, that's an undeniably powerful chapter ending. Nothing holds together logically, but it does hold together emotionally, which I guess is what counts for a series like this.
One more week left (double chapter release to close out the series at 700 according to rumors), and then it'll be time to say goodbye. I'll wait until then to whine/rage about Sakura's treatment. :P (Overall, she really is just an afterthought to the story at large. But then, I suppose that could be said for pretty much everyone else BUT Naruto and Sasuke.)
3. First wondered this a few years ago (when I noted that historically, Shounen Jump hasn't ever serialized this many seriously long-running series [each > 10 years] at the same time): Naruto leaves behind a huge vacuum (even if it's not always highest in the popularity rankings anymore). I wonder what new series will step up in its place?
I've heard good things about Assassination Classroom and Toriko, but haven't felt like picking up either one and don't know if either series is shaping up to be monstrously long like the "Big 3". Part of me doubts we'll ever see such a long-running serial again -- times have changed, audience has changed. But who knows...
eta: Something something cultural zeitgeists. (as much as I bitch about Naruto, it's very easy to see why it got so popular -- and why I think it will always stand out as a rather special series.)
Looking at the current Jump lineup, the only series that seems even close to positioning itself as the next epic action shounen series with in-depth worldbuilding looks like World Trigger (which I know nothing about because when I last saw the title [probably sometime when it first started serializing last year] it looked like something I would hate). But just at a quick glance it looks/feels like one of those series that'll reach a natural conclusion after 4-5 years, maybe 7-8 at most.
eta2: Another, perhaps more subtle aspect that I feel has vanished since the 90s -- distinct visual styles.
Popular mangaka have always tended to be very much what I think of as the visual equivalent of the "prose stylist."
- Toriyama is basically kinda like, DUH
- Rumiko Takahashi is another DUH (note that she mostly wrote/writes for shounen mags too)
- Takehiko Inoue is another duh
- Gosho Aoyama is another duh
- Watsuki's style has shifted considerably since his RK days. I don't think I'd recognize his art anymore, but RK was very much RK.
- Obata is also duh, although since he's responsible solely for art I tend to discount him a bit
- Kishimoto: am actually not a fan of his art style, but going back and looking at early chapters? There is a lot of raw charm to the art. And his stuff is certainly distinctive now.
- Kubo: the one thing he's good at, lmao (his art is unmistakeable -- even his earlier and very unpolished styles are very recognizable)
- Oda: another duh
(This is a very different phenomenon from shoujo -- which in contrast follows several "schools" of style depending on era. Some shoujo artists are more distinctive than others [and some are more technically skilled than others], but there is definitely a very set look to the category overall.)
(This is probably something for another post some other time.)
comments at the original Dreamwidth post
The snark writes itself.
(And still isn't entertaining enough to bother with.)
This is just one of those series that really needs a mercy killing. I also strongly suspect that this is a series that wouldn't have lingered so long if it weren't for the rabid Western fanbase. It got popular at a time when they were really courting Western fans. And arguably has been proportionally more popular in the West than it has been in Japan for the past 5 years or more.
Of course, even the Western fanbase is dying out now. And unlike Naruto, which for all its flaws has been always been able to pick up new fans to sustain itself, Bleach turned out to be pretty faddish. I would guess, just based on personal observations rather than actual data, that it has completely failed at capturing the preteen/young teen demographic. (It's just not fun/exciting anymore. And that is one aspect that Naruto has always been able to sustain through all the plotwtfery.) And like it or not, that is in theory the primary Shounen Jump demographic... And you just can't sustain a series on nostalgia.
2. Naruto:
Is Naruto wearing a fishnet shirt?
#importantquestions
#notsorry
Uh, like I've said before, Kishimoto does some of his best writing with Sasuke. For better or for worse.
Anyhow, that's an undeniably powerful chapter ending. Nothing holds together logically, but it does hold together emotionally, which I guess is what counts for a series like this.
One more week left (double chapter release to close out the series at 700 according to rumors), and then it'll be time to say goodbye. I'll wait until then to whine/rage about Sakura's treatment. :P (Overall, she really is just an afterthought to the story at large. But then, I suppose that could be said for pretty much everyone else BUT Naruto and Sasuke.)
3. First wondered this a few years ago (when I noted that historically, Shounen Jump hasn't ever serialized this many seriously long-running series [each > 10 years] at the same time): Naruto leaves behind a huge vacuum (even if it's not always highest in the popularity rankings anymore). I wonder what new series will step up in its place?
I've heard good things about Assassination Classroom and Toriko, but haven't felt like picking up either one and don't know if either series is shaping up to be monstrously long like the "Big 3". Part of me doubts we'll ever see such a long-running serial again -- times have changed, audience has changed. But who knows...
eta: Something something cultural zeitgeists. (as much as I bitch about Naruto, it's very easy to see why it got so popular -- and why I think it will always stand out as a rather special series.)
Looking at the current Jump lineup, the only series that seems even close to positioning itself as the next epic action shounen series with in-depth worldbuilding looks like World Trigger (which I know nothing about because when I last saw the title [probably sometime when it first started serializing last year] it looked like something I would hate). But just at a quick glance it looks/feels like one of those series that'll reach a natural conclusion after 4-5 years, maybe 7-8 at most.
eta2: Another, perhaps more subtle aspect that I feel has vanished since the 90s -- distinct visual styles.
Popular mangaka have always tended to be very much what I think of as the visual equivalent of the "prose stylist."
- Toriyama is basically kinda like, DUH
- Rumiko Takahashi is another DUH (note that she mostly wrote/writes for shounen mags too)
- Takehiko Inoue is another duh
- Gosho Aoyama is another duh
- Watsuki's style has shifted considerably since his RK days. I don't think I'd recognize his art anymore, but RK was very much RK.
- Obata is also duh, although since he's responsible solely for art I tend to discount him a bit
- Kishimoto: am actually not a fan of his art style, but going back and looking at early chapters? There is a lot of raw charm to the art. And his stuff is certainly distinctive now.
- Kubo: the one thing he's good at, lmao (his art is unmistakeable -- even his earlier and very unpolished styles are very recognizable)
- Oda: another duh
(This is a very different phenomenon from shoujo -- which in contrast follows several "schools" of style depending on era. Some shoujo artists are more distinctive than others [and some are more technically skilled than others], but there is definitely a very set look to the category overall.)
(This is probably something for another post some other time.)
comments at the original Dreamwidth post