Well, as many of you know the current anime season is winding down, and with christmas fast approaching I would love to wish a merry christmas and happy holidays to everyone. A little commentary before my next post most likely when new manga hits or season finales get subbed. Recently at a party with some highschool/middle school friends, the subject of anime came up, and how one of my friends commented that it was a fad from middle school. For me I felt that statement at first made me ashamed of tendencies but while laying in bed I thought of a reason why anime is a relevant format as entertainment. True shows like House, or Heroes, Entourage have appeal, not to say I don't watch these shows because I do, but I think anime and manga in general have a more finite path in story telling, where as television shows can span 11+ seasons like That 70's show, and end up jumping the shark just to prolong the enivitable. It's not to say that many manga and anime series don't do this too but I feel that for a mangaka its ok to just stop a project once it has reached its end. That also made me think about the nature of scripted television, a lot of it is just slice of life/drama + a unique setting, but in honesty, the relationships in anime and manga are as deep and complex as the ones portrayed by real actors. The fact is you shouldn't feel ashamed about enjoying anime like I did, anime is a viable method of story telling, and naturally there are some things that anime and manga can portray better than real life, and when I say real life I mean scripted television.
Have a great holiday season and enjoy the time we have with friends and family. Get ready for an interesting winter season of anime, looks like Ippo is coming back swinging. "yes that was corny"
P.S. On the side note, heroes is pretty underwhelming for me, the story just is no longer dramatic, and powers just seem cliche. Also I'm really excited about lost, even though I think its been too long, guess its time to bust out the lost boxset.
P.S.S Tis the season for rewatches imo. I love to rewatch anime, and reread manga. Stuff that I think will never get old is, Beck, making the band 99 has nothing on this, Gurren Lagann. For mangas I have to say Love Hina. I'll probably write a recap of what I felt of the series because almost 8 years later this series still is a testament of time. Its been a long time since I've read the entire series in succesion but I really think Ken akamatsu is a genius. Since I rewatch a lot of stuff I'm just gonna end it here.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
First post from your Resident NEET
Welcome to Resident NEET
I'm gonna try to talk about the big three shonen here, I'm refering to Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece mangas. These mangas are the most succesful mangas and have the most rabid fan base. I don't consider myself a fan boy but I do consider myself a fan of these three series. To start today's post I will be discussing OP 526, Naruto 429, and Bleach 339. Too me these three shonen have been very entertaining to follow and have some of the higher production values for their respective animes which make them quite fascinating. Also these three all are fairly dead on from manga to anime where as shorter series that haven't been serialized are not always so dead on. Then again because of the nature of these manga, they are naturally turned into anime quite easily because they naturally have a lot of action. Again this will most likely be a weekly post, about what I think of these three shonen and how they progress, todays post will be longer because I'm introducing this segment.
OP 526, I find Oda to be an amazing mangaka, even though the series is quite long, the story is never rehashed. Even though Luffy's insane look on life can be obnoxious and Sangi swooning over the girls may seem to be present does never make this manga feel old. My feelings on this is that One Piece is clearly the best of the three big shonen even though Naruto currently holds that spot. If you look at One Piece the way I do, it doesn't care that “oneups-menship” that both Naruto and Bleach posses. The action is never about Luffy constantly spamming his new abilities when he fights a new enemy. Of course Luffy learns new techniques but it never feels like the what I like to call “DBZ model” where both guys constantly spam their “special” move which in turn makes them less special. This weeks OP was outstanding. It definelty didn't rival some of the previous chapters such as the one where Luffy says that he will rescue Ace but this week it was a light hearted chapter that still developed Luffy as character. Sure he is goofy but when it comes to protecting the ones he loves, Luffy is dead serious. The idea that the white beard pirates are about to go toe to toe with the world government with luffy and ace in the middle seems to be shaping up as an epic arc.
Naruto 429 Oh sometimes I hate Kishimoto. First he goes and kills Jiraya my favorite character in Naruto now Kakashi's life is up in the air with Pain being a real pain in the ass. This arc seems a bit convoluted. You have many sub strands going around that 20 or so pages just doesn't seem to be enough to capture the pace of this arc. With so many sides to tell, the pacing of the series seems to have slumped even though there are some important developments. The reason I say this, is not only is Tsunade in a confrontation with the 6 Pains, but you still have Danzo and his shady Root organization lurking in the background, and on top of that layer you have Naruto training his “sage” mode. It true that the actual time that passes is very short in the world but I still look forward to how the story progresses. If only we had 50 pages a week, but then again thats from a fan's stand point.
Bleach 339 Wow has this series taken a dive. You had the back story of the pimpest captain Urahara which was awesome. Plus we got to see who the Vaizards were in Seireitei but then this Hueco Mundo arc has really been underwhelming. This is also a criticism to the real world portion. As a fan of Bleach I feel the pacing of the current story just seems so trivial. The power level of the enemies seems so off, because not just Ichigo is spamming his vaizard abilities but the high leveled captains are too. The highest ranking captain had to draw his sword to beat a bunch of arancar made the power level of the captains seem so far behind. To me bleach has become the captain's bankai spamathon. It just feels the battles are not substantial at all. This just reminds me of how awesome Bleach could have been. Some of the writing is amazing like when Ishen is revealed with his captain's badge and cape, while he rescues kon. That instant was awesome, and oh did I speculate on the story, but with the current state that bleach is in I feel that I can pretty well see the future of how the series progresses. Bankai after bankai after hollow forms, makes for quite a boring manga imo.
What do you think about the big three?>
I'm gonna try to talk about the big three shonen here, I'm refering to Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece mangas. These mangas are the most succesful mangas and have the most rabid fan base. I don't consider myself a fan boy but I do consider myself a fan of these three series. To start today's post I will be discussing OP 526, Naruto 429, and Bleach 339. Too me these three shonen have been very entertaining to follow and have some of the higher production values for their respective animes which make them quite fascinating. Also these three all are fairly dead on from manga to anime where as shorter series that haven't been serialized are not always so dead on. Then again because of the nature of these manga, they are naturally turned into anime quite easily because they naturally have a lot of action. Again this will most likely be a weekly post, about what I think of these three shonen and how they progress, todays post will be longer because I'm introducing this segment.
OP 526, I find Oda to be an amazing mangaka, even though the series is quite long, the story is never rehashed. Even though Luffy's insane look on life can be obnoxious and Sangi swooning over the girls may seem to be present does never make this manga feel old. My feelings on this is that One Piece is clearly the best of the three big shonen even though Naruto currently holds that spot. If you look at One Piece the way I do, it doesn't care that “oneups-menship” that both Naruto and Bleach posses. The action is never about Luffy constantly spamming his new abilities when he fights a new enemy. Of course Luffy learns new techniques but it never feels like the what I like to call “DBZ model” where both guys constantly spam their “special” move which in turn makes them less special. This weeks OP was outstanding. It definelty didn't rival some of the previous chapters such as the one where Luffy says that he will rescue Ace but this week it was a light hearted chapter that still developed Luffy as character. Sure he is goofy but when it comes to protecting the ones he loves, Luffy is dead serious. The idea that the white beard pirates are about to go toe to toe with the world government with luffy and ace in the middle seems to be shaping up as an epic arc.
Naruto 429 Oh sometimes I hate Kishimoto. First he goes and kills Jiraya my favorite character in Naruto now Kakashi's life is up in the air with Pain being a real pain in the ass. This arc seems a bit convoluted. You have many sub strands going around that 20 or so pages just doesn't seem to be enough to capture the pace of this arc. With so many sides to tell, the pacing of the series seems to have slumped even though there are some important developments. The reason I say this, is not only is Tsunade in a confrontation with the 6 Pains, but you still have Danzo and his shady Root organization lurking in the background, and on top of that layer you have Naruto training his “sage” mode. It true that the actual time that passes is very short in the world but I still look forward to how the story progresses. If only we had 50 pages a week, but then again thats from a fan's stand point.
Bleach 339 Wow has this series taken a dive. You had the back story of the pimpest captain Urahara which was awesome. Plus we got to see who the Vaizards were in Seireitei but then this Hueco Mundo arc has really been underwhelming. This is also a criticism to the real world portion. As a fan of Bleach I feel the pacing of the current story just seems so trivial. The power level of the enemies seems so off, because not just Ichigo is spamming his vaizard abilities but the high leveled captains are too. The highest ranking captain had to draw his sword to beat a bunch of arancar made the power level of the captains seem so far behind. To me bleach has become the captain's bankai spamathon. It just feels the battles are not substantial at all. This just reminds me of how awesome Bleach could have been. Some of the writing is amazing like when Ishen is revealed with his captain's badge and cape, while he rescues kon. That instant was awesome, and oh did I speculate on the story, but with the current state that bleach is in I feel that I can pretty well see the future of how the series progresses. Bankai after bankai after hollow forms, makes for quite a boring manga imo.
What do you think about the big three?>
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