Recommended Anime/Manga?

[Randorama]

Well, Araki said somewhere that he was going to fork money of his own to adapt the whole manga, if necessary (too lazy to find the relevant interview, sorry).

I don't think that it will be necessary anyway, since all five parts seem to have generated tons of money.
Part 6 may simply need to keep the momentum going to be successful and avoid the problems of its manga counterpart.

Anyway, aside the grey mullet, we should also work on those illegitimate offsprings, Biru!

(Also, re: Part 9. Araki said that he was getting tired and out of ideas, at least with respect to the monthly format. Not sure if and when there will be a Part 9).

[BIL]

^ SONO CHI NO Child Support "OHHH NO!"

Shingeki no Kyojin (manga) be over.

Spoiler

On one hand, a prosaic ending. By the same token, I enjoyed the final arc's blunt macro/micro vision of total genocide. Eren did his best to exterminate humanity, couldn't quite get them all, died a despised monster to all but a few. Fin.

As far as shonens go, not a bad run at all.



MAPPA's anime isn't as lovely as WIT's prior three seasons, unfortunately, but it's still plenty watchable. Looking forward to the wrap-up in 2022.

[lilmanjs]

I bought the US release of Nichijou and was not aware it got an English Dub on its re-release. Still, I watched 3 episodes last night and hadn't laughed so hard in quite a long time. Might be the best comedy anime of all time?

[BryanM]

The more I learn about Attack on Titan the more I wish I had dropped it earlier than I did. (Which was around the 13th or 14th time Eren gets Erennapped and then rescued.)

Spoiler

Skimming the synopsis in the wiki, I said "oh my god" out loud at the part when he went back in time to make sure his mother died.

It presented itself as an army of alien monsters vs humanity thingy at first, like Luv Muv Alternative or Goblin Slayer, and dropped that premise really quick.

... remember that the author outright said he was inspired by Luv Muv Alternative, at first?? That sneaky bastard!

[BIL]

Oof, yeah, that blew ass. Better Isayama had kept his mouth closed and been thought a time travel wanker than etc etc.

Way to piss on the embers of the kind of black fury that'd make a young man murder the entire fucking world in response. :/

TBH, even in its more promising, horror-informed earlier chapters, I couldn't take it entirely seriously - humanity is trapped behind the walls, clawing at the edge of extinction! Hello ladies, would you like to sign up for the survey corps and its 500% mortality rate per expedition?

That's not how you avert extinction. |: Stahp. Ur doin it wrong! I headcanoned it to "It's a stealth population control method, like the fraudulent 'Operation To Retake Wall Maria' the military organised after the opening massacre (read: Operation To Kill Off You Fuckin Refugees So You Don't Eat Our Food)." Now that stuff I did like - holy fuck, it would really suck to live in this world! this shit blows! - and it's ultimately Only A Shonen, so ok.

Kept reading for Levi x Zeke, pretty much. The latter's "NO! FUUUCK! NOT AGAAAIN!" in the current season was hilarious. DIO's voice actor is AMAZIN

Oh nooo!

Spoiler

[Steamflogger Boss]

The more I learn about Attack on Titan the more I wish I had dropped it earlier than I did. (Which was around the 13th or 14th time Eren gets Erennapped and then rescued.)

Spoiler

Skimming the synopsis in the wiki, I said "oh my god" out loud at the part when he went back in time to make sure his mother died.

It presented itself as an army of alien monsters vs humanity thingy at first, like Luv Muv Alternative or Goblin Slayer, and dropped that premise really quick.

... remember that the author outright said he was inspired by Luv Muv Alternative, at first?? That sneaky bastard!

Seems like a lot of people are finally moving on from it. I might have watched the first few episodes, I don't even remember.

[BryanM]

Way to piss on the embers of the kind of black fury that'd make a young man murder the entire fucking world in response. :/

Yep, there's like half a dozen reasons I hate it and zero reasons I like it. The worst for me is the "just world" ideology it expresses - that horrible suffering in the past wasn't merely necessary, but also just and good. And therefore all horrible suffering in the future is also just and good.

Among all the things in this thing that make you pause and wonder "is the guy who writes this a bit of a nazi?" I'd put this one at the peak. He thought this would be a good thing to put into his picture-book.

TBH, even in its more promising, horror-informed earlier chapters, I couldn't take it entirely seriously - humanity is trapped behind the walls, clawing at the edge of extinction! Hello ladies, would you like to sign up for the survey corps and its 500% mortality rate per expedition?

That's not how you avert extinction. |: Stahp. Ur doin it wrong! I headcanoned it to "It's a stealth population control method, like the fraudulent 'Operation To Retake Wall Maria' the military organised after the opening massacre (read: Operation To Kill Off You Fuckin Refugees So You Don't Eat Our Food)." Now that stuff I did like - holy fuck, it would really suck to live in this world! this shit blows! - and it's ultimately Only A Shonen, so ok.

I actually love that kind of stupid shit - that throwing away lives at these monsters was the best they could do and they were obviously doomed. It wasn't a matter of if, just a matter of "how long do we have left". (Being able to bring even one of these things down by throwing a hundred people with swords at them is already the realm of cartoonish power fantasy. That's not how it would work! That's not how any of this works!)

There's a lot of talk about hyping up the threat of bad guys on the internet. It's been observed one reason the "same thing but with different genders" remakes tend to be way worse is due to audience sensibilities - you want your bad guy to be menacing so beating them actually feels like an accomplishment, but it's also hard for normies to stomach having a man beat the crap out of a woman protagonist to prove how strong he is.

Making the threat completely dehumanized monsters makes it a bit easier to stomach the apocalyptic doom. If you turned it into a human vs human conflict, why, then it inevitably becomes about capital expansion and acquiring land and new lackeys and slaves for the empire..... why would you include alien inhuman monsters in such a timeless conflict, that would be really stupid.

[BIL]

I don't think Isayama said much of anything about generational cycles of hatred, other than that they exist and motivate people to kill each other. He then wrote a cartoonishly simplified world (because Shonen), where literally every major power decided to roll up and genocide Paradis, who ain't shit militarily - BUT have an apocalyptic deterrent.

What the fuck am I reading >_>

OH HELL NAW, THEY GON N DONE IT NAO

(We're shown their version of the UN, where a delegate advocates compassionately for the persecuted Eldian diaspora - and the Eren Friends, disguised in the crowd, go "Hmm, maybe we can-" followed immediately by the same guy going "BUT FUCK THOSE PARADISIAN DEVILS, WE NEED TO OBLITERATE THIS EXISTENTIAL THREAT FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH BEFORE THEY GO BACK TO THEIR OLD TRICKS" Cue the Eren Friends kinda nervously side-eyeing each other, then looking to their boy, only to realise he's quietly gotten up and is disappearing out the door as the crowd goes "FUCK YEAAAA" )

I'm from a small defenseless island nation, too. If BURGERVILLE and CUCKFORDSHIRE and WONTONLAND, after engineering a series of unfortunate events that led to 10y/o me living in a prison camp where I saw my mom get eaten alive, jointly decided that we all had to go, I'd probably push the Get Fucked Button too.

Cartoon world = cartoon outcome \(O_O)/

(I mean if they went "JESUS FUCK PLS STOP" halfway through, I'd probably say "OK BUT IMMA DO IT AGAIN IF U FUCK W/ME ", but I'm a charitable sort. Like my boy Zeke, who got his feets chopped up for nothing Murderously angry outnumbered cunt with nuclear option does unspeakable horror to cartoonish aggressors - every month in Bessatsu Shonen! )

It's been observed one reason the "same thing but with different genders" remakes tend to be way worse is due to audience sensibilities - you want your bad guy to be menacing so beating them actually feels like an accomplishment, but it's also hard for normies to stomach having a man beat the crap out of a woman protagonist to prove how strong he is.

I thought about this a while back, when there was that uproar at the Batgirl cover, where that rascal JOKER is doing *gasp* JOKERY things to her. "WOMEN IN REFRIGERATORS" went the crowd. I heard a suspicious revving sound from Hobbes' grave!

I'm in two minds. >_> One is that reality is sexist. Males have a monopoly on ultraviolence. The other is, of course, this is all fantasy, so some guardrails are to be expected. I suppose it comes down to balance, as things seem to.

It's all dumb as shit anyway. Fucking KOF 2000 with Bao and Hinako slapping around Ralf and Takuma? Yeah no not really. 3; I think it would take every last molecule of ATP in my system to give one pale ghost of a fuck about 110lb Women Beats Up 225lb SAS Dudes: The Movie: Part 2

I'd rather read about Joss Whedon's latest cancelling! It keeps happening! :3

[EmperorIng]

I watched Steamboy (twice) this past week. I didn't really know what to expect other than Otomo heading it, but I found myself really enjoying it, even if it was more 'slight' as entertainment and had more CGI than I realized (though a lot of it was blended/hidden well enough to not make it repugnant). It's actually quite a fun movie, though on second watch I noticed that the final act got a little ridiculous with how long it took for the big baddie's fortress to explode... a slight flashback to Namek exploding on DBZ. Any second now!

The thing is still chock full of detail and overflowing with that neurotic obsession with machinery and architecture that I think mark's Otomo's style.

The weirdest thing about the movie was the credits sequence, where it seems like, essentially, it gave you the storyboards for the other 2 hours of movie they never got to make. At first I thought it was a simple epilogue (oh, steam boy goes home, ok!), but then as it moved further into the future I was getting increasingly confused. I had wondered, considering it took 10 years to make (a lot like Boyhood but less lame) if this was all the cut story Otomo had dreamed up but still wanted to show us, somehow, in the weirdest way possible.

Still this movie gets a recommendation for me for a very fun fantasy and some cool steampunk designs.

[BryanM]

Oh, Invincible finally has its animation adoption. The first half of the comic series was very good, but the end was timeskip+xeno supremacist trash. The animation has more stuff added to it to pad it out some.... the fight scenes are much more visceral and hard to watch when they're dragged out like that, and have sound effects for necks snapping and such.

Steamboy

When this was out in the theater, I was on a social outing when someone suggested we go see a movie. I suggested... Steamboy. Due to social convention, I relented to the "I don't watch anime" "I want to watch National Treasure" guy.

... what kind of nerd hates anime and loves Nicolas Coppola??

I'd rather read about Joss Whedon's latest cancelling! It keeps happening! :3

I tried to look this up but just got a timeline of "he's a meanie!" and "his writing on sexy power fantasy stuff is sexist!" stuff which uh.... when I compare it to the casting couch stuff he did on Buffy all of it rates about a 0 on the sin meter. Is there anything as bad as the casting couch thing?

And I just listened to an old Chapo bit where they talked about the capitalist realism guy, and how calling out individuals is just a way to drown out talking about the existence of systematic issues..

[EmperorIng]

Sorry to say this about your m8, but National Treasure flicks are for people who are content and comforted by their own dumbness. Hope you got to see it later; steamboy at least doesn't suck off Industrial Revolution era England like National Treasure sucks off the United States government

[BIL]

Oh, Invincible finally has its animation adoption. The first half of the comic series was very good, but the end was timeskip+xeno supremacist trash. The animation has more stuff added to it to pad it out some.... the fight scenes are much more visceral and hard to watch when they're dragged out like that, and have sound effects for necks snapping and such.

This sounds intriguing but I have to admit I'm a sick bastard who only remembers Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Suppository because of its fight choreography's frickin awesome sound design - somebody REALLY liked the sounds of hyperextension, yeooowch!

I tried to look this up but just got a timeline of "he's a meanie!" and "his writing on sexy power fantasy stuff is sexist!" stuff which uh.... when I compare it to the casting couch stuff he did on Buffy all of it rates about a 0 on the sin meter. Is there anything as bad as the casting couch thing?

IIRC, the most notable recent thing was an actress accusing him of blackballing her for getting pregnant BITD. Which is shitty, and misogyny par excellence - but indeed, we already knew that about him! However, this finally prompted Sarah Michelle Gellar to mumble "yeah he not very nice" which made the twattersphere say HAHAAA! GOTTEM and leave mean reviews on his new show.

It's similar to Nick Cannon claiming white people are biologically hardwired to rape and murder due to lower levels of dermal melanin, with nobody giving a shit, then slurring Jews and being insta-cornholed. The wider statement encompasses the narrower (we know Whedon is a gross exploitative neckbeard, of course he'd deal slovenly with an expectant young actress / we know Cannon is a moronic racist, of course he digs Farrakhan), but the latter is the culturally mandated catalyst for a fresh round of rotten vegetables.

...which won't end up changing shit, I know. But if I gotta hear about assholes 24/7, at least lemme see a well-deserved shoe up 'em now and then.

And I just listened to an old Chapo bit where they talked about the capitalist realism guy, and how calling out individuals is just a way to drown out talking about the existence of systematic issues..

It may be. I'm sure Harvey Weinstein's pilloried ass-cheeks are providing welcome cover to his ilk as I type this. Assholes getting ahead in the world seems written into our DNA, unfortunately. I suppose the best outcome, from here in the peanut gallery, is to encourage a slightly less ostentatiously gaping variety of them.

[Mortificator]

Oh, Invincible finally has its animation adoption. The first half of the comic series was very good, but the end was timeskip+xeno supremacist trash.

Ah, I remember hearing about how the comic went the ~edgy~ route by having a female supervillain rape the protagonist.

[BIL]

I remember someone on a mid-00s EDGY n X-TREEM forum I used to frequent posting those pages, and forevermore confusing that series with another he was into, The Elite (I think it was called?), where the Superman expy gets... RAPED IN HE ASSHOLE Dude, that's METAL AF, and then (wait for it) - HE PUNCH THE DUDE HEAD OFF FOR BUMMING HIM

It all kinda blurred together. The Walking Dead was doing mad press in these circles, around that time, with similarly pungent content. (I think Kirkman was involved in both TWD and Invincible? God damn, what took the adaptation so long?! I am now in a world of hellish regret! I didn't start game collecting until like 2010, I got bummed just like Not Supes! )

[Randorama]

Megalo Box 2: Nomad is ongoing.

[null1024]

I just saw Looking For Magical Doremi. Was pretty good, a feel-good story about a trio of twenty-somethings bonding over beer [honestly, I didn't expect them to drink quite this much lol] and the fact that they all saw Ojamajo Doremi as a kid while trying to get through their lives which weren't exactly in a place they wanted.
Mire, the office lady, was my favorite of the lot.

Wildly different from what I expected, given the source material. There are references galore for those who saw Doremi [raises hand ], but the movie can be enjoyed without having any knowledge of the series since it takes place in the real world, with the big sticking point for a non-fan being that you'd probably wonder why they're so obsessed with a show from 20 years ago.
Thematically, it feels like something that picks right back up from the series, which spent a lot of time dealing with the sort of issues kids would face in their lives. Now that everyone who would care about Doremi is all grown up [the series aired from 1999-2003], the movie deals with the sort of issues they might face at their current age. It's nice.

[null1024]

I never did get around to reading through Fist of the North Star, so I'm doing that now. It's an absolute treat, naturally.
THE HEAVENS THEMSELVES CHANGE as shit happens. It's so marvelously dramatic. The art is gorgeous, the characters are fairly compelling despite the absurd melodrama, and watching Ken explode thugs is extremely satisfying.
Before the timeskip, it's largely perfect.

Post-timeskip is still cool, but not quiiiiiite as good so far. Still not done though.

I was also reading Way of the House Husband. Fairly fun comedy about an ex-yakuza in a domestic setting. A few chapters have a terrible habit of ending without a real joke, and some chapters fall flat or don't do anything that wasn't done better in other chapters, but you can't hit a home run every time in comedy, unless you're Azumanga Daioh.
Good fun.

god, part of me wants to go and re-read Negima, but like a: the beginning absolutely sucks, and b: the ending is abrupt, and also sucks, and solves major conflicts off-screen
oh, and c: I remember not liking the sequel, UQ Holder at all

Might just go finish JoJo part 7 instead. Was having fun reading that, dunno why I stopped.

[BIL]

HNK definitely hits a holding pattern in the latter half. It's far from bad - some great arch-villains, and Ken actually gets a decent run for his money, despite his even more overtly GDLK stature - just lacks the first's sense of desperate post-apocalyptic purpose. To a lesser extent, the new cast can't match the likes of Rei, Toki, Raoh, Shuu, Souther, even smaller figures like Ryuuga and Juuza... mostly due to Ken feeling so peripheral and above most of them, rather than being punishingly intertwined in each's tragedies. Certainly worth seeing through, between Buronson+Hara's classic Road Warrior x Fist Of Fury x Savini grand guignols, and Ken's sheer presence.



KILL THE FIGHT a jam

Top Ten Anime Betrayals: randomly watching Shuu's last moments on a laptop one lazy Christmas, and glancing over to see my grandma was in tears. "You can see?!" "Kenshiro... God has blessed me with this last sight..." *BOOM* "SHUUU!" The only other time I saw her so televisually moved was one Monday Night RAW, where mid-grapple, Al Snow punched D-Lo Brown in the nuts - and the latter sold it amazingly.

"Oiii! Sonneh - da bad, y'nuh!" "Yeah, I know!"

Raoh: "Magnificent."
Toki: "So long, Shuu."
Ken: "SOUZAAA! I'LL GRIND YOU TO DUST!"

HNK1 some shonen masterclass shit for real Then despised SOUZA busts out a tragic tale too! Buronson+Hara were alchemists of KANASHIMI+IKARI

Steel Ball Run... I love the style, but I can't help always feeling a tad disappointed when, after starting out intriguingly un-Stardust, it veers hard back into that mode. Araki is great at this stuff, always, but I wish it'd stayed in its odd racing drama mode. No regrets though. Gyro is a brilliantly rendered hero, worthy of Part 1 & 2's more conventionally manful shonen.

Part 8 feels more in line with 4's horror/mystery-tinged vignettes - I was massively digging it, but fell off due to it being currently ongoing. I like a nice fat stack of volumes to mow through.

[Randorama]

SBR is Araki going back to his roots (his first one-shot was a western) and then blending all the genres he worked on, into a single series. Though not perfect, it is sometimes staggering just how scintillating the artwork and narration can be (...when he does not enter Crusaders mode, really).

JoJolion suffers from inconsistent or sometimes even bad art, and it is becoming clear that Araki is having lots of personal issues on wrapping up the series ("Do I retire after this? Do I not?").
There is something majestic on how he is integrating and/or re-elaborating all ideas and citations from past series and the works being cited in those past series.

JoJo as a whole might be one of the most complicated, intertextual narratives around (references! It sounds so "intellectual"!), while also being a good ol' action series overall (or: anyway we are going to beat the crap out of Dio/Diavolo/etc.).

However, in JoJolion it is becoming clear that Araki's skills are waning, though we all know that he is an immortal vampire (of course!).
Still a marvelous series, if only because it contains references to South Side of the Sky in a 2014 issue.

EDIT: I am probably repeating myself, but Araki also always acknowledged that he tried to implement Prince's style in JJ: here is a translation of an old interview8, and David Bowie's influence on the series has also been discussed somewhere.

And these are just quick comments on musical influences; again, a full study of how the guy masterfully combined one million different types of influences in a coherent, multi-part series is just staggering, and would require a series of books to be dissected. Maybe once he wraps us the opus, and I am emeritus or something.

[null1024]

Top Ten Anime Betrayals: randomly watching Shuu's last moments on a laptop one lazy Christmas, and glancing over to see my grandma was in tears. "You can see?!" "Kenshiro... God has blessed me with this last sight..." *BOOM* "SHUUU!" The only other time I saw her so televisually moved was one Monday Night RAW, where mid-grapple, Al Snow punched D-Lo Brown in the nuts - and the latter sold it amazingly.

It's absolutely the heaviest thing in the series and it absolutely hit me like a truck.
I can't imagine anyone seeing it and not being moved by it.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

Jojolion is fantastic (have been following it monthly) but I definitely feel I need to sit down and re-read it all from start to finish to really evaluate it. It does feel meandering at times, but I've very strongly enjoyed the big climactic battle that seems to be wrapping up now, and am really excited by the fact that the story seems to be heading into its finale even though it's still pretty unclear how things will really go down. I think it lacks the strong hooks of some previous parts (Josuke feels like one of the less interesting protagonists despite some fantastic moments, the villains as a whole are less compelling than previous ones outside of the excellently wormy Jobin and the terrifying Wonder of U, an omen of death so menacing I can forgive the stand's actual user being a bit flat).

[Steamflogger Boss]

Been watching Hajime No Ippo.

Really enjoyable imo. Follows typical sports anime trajectory from what I have seen so far. I do like that they show a fair bit of Ippo's opponents before the match. Also dick jokes.

[BIL]

Also dick jokes.

IT'S YOUR FAULT I GRABBED HIS ROD :O

I've been mulling over starting the manga for donkey's years, ever since I finished both seasons of the TV anime. Loved them but, ala Baki, it seems like a fairly enormous, long-running body of work. So I'm tempted to wait a bit to see if it ends, before going on a gigaton binge. Will get around to it someday for sure. (suddenly a little sad, writing that, with the recently departed Kentaro Miura having been George Morikawa's assistant for a bit, BITD )

Second season's Bryan Hawk match was amazing, a sports-shonen epic.

Obligatory shout to Treasure's GBA game, which conveyed the cast's blistering enmities and passions so well, I had to watch the anime just to see WTF was going on. Astonishing, the sheer intensity conveyed by that one.

[null1024]

I remembered Future GPX Cyber Formula existed, so I decided to just watch it.
It's really fun so far. Finished the 5th episode, where he meets Kaga.
The circumstances around everything [why Hayato is driving, how he meets Kaga, etc] are kinda dumb, but it's still pretty entertaining. It's been neat seeing how they have this kid struggle to come to grips with this absurd hypercar while his body is being flattened by 4.5G CORNERS.

There are a few little random details that feel a bit odd [despite having "formula" in the name, it isn't a single-seater series; was that really a seven second pitstop with just wheels being changed? an F1 stop is like 2-4 seconds lol; etc], but they don't really detract much, they're just a bit goofy.

[Randorama]

Isn't Ippo's manga ongoing since, uh, the '80s? For me it's a bit like JoJo: I started it as a kid and found it quite cheesy at the beginning, then I slowly developed a taste for the author's characterisation skills (even minor opponents are well-fleshed out), and then it became an habit that waxed and waned over the decades.

I started reading it again in 2017 and had to catch up 40 tankobon or so, but it was not a too taxing task (over six months or so...). I am pretty sure that by now they are at 3-digit tankobon numbers (127?) and four-digit issue numbers (1340?). Worth it? If you have time and patience, yes: the level of Morikawa's craft is superb, and it has a degree of seinen maturity that makes the series worthwhile (shonen=AIDS on wheels, in my book, sorry).

[BIL]

Rando's Bizarre Adventure

Spoiler

Something in JoJo and Hokuto no Ken Part 1's favour: dead is dead. Who was it in Legend of the Galactic Heroes (Dusty, IIRC?) that lamented of his fallen comrades "We can't wish them back like in some shitty anime!" I can dig a classic shonen where fighting men do their utmost and the loser pays the ultimate price. It's done so well in JoJo that by the end of the line (Part 6 spoilers)

Spoiler

Stone Ocean's "Wonderful World" feels like a genuinely hard-won respite, not some mere reset - and again, dead is dead. Jolyne and co all died on that beach, the Joestar bloodline's long tradition of self-sacrifice finding transcendent expression in Emporio's survival and subsequent eradication of DIO/Pucci.

Morikawa's passion for his chosen sport (and time spent as a cornerman) helps a lot, I'd imagine. Even in the earlier volumes covered by the animes, Ippo conveys passion, agony and sacrifice with a frankness junkfood ala Dragon Ball can't hope to (and to that series' credit, generally doesn't try to).

[Randorama]

Rando's Bizarre Adventure

Spoiler

Something in JoJo and Hokuto no Ken Part 1's favour: dead is dead. Who was it in Legend of the Galactic Heroes (Dusty, IIRC?) that lamented of his fallen comrades "We can't wish them back like in some shitty anime!" I can dig a classic shonen where fighting men do their utmost and the loser pays the ultimate price.

Yes, it *should* be Dusty (I haven't read/seen the series in ages). Admiral Yang has a witty remark right after that (are we surprised?).

...in this case we are talking about series and particular authors who brought adult sensibilities to the mainstream demographic, in an attempt to be popular but with a certain degree of class.

By today's standards, HnK would not really qualify as Shonen (=the ultra-repetive mainstream stuff), as far as I am concerned, but it was published when the whole demographic labels were not yet popular.

It does not perhaps touch more delicate topics like standard seinen do (e.g., Kaiji and its exploration of gambling and the underworld, etc. etc.), but I recall it as having loads of characterization and narrative nuances. Same for JoJo beyond Part 3, really.

I remember Grant Morrison in an interview bitching about how "adult" comics are supposed to be about issues and people talking for pages on end, and lamenting that his works were seen as mainstream/adult hybrids because he liked to include, well, action and people fighting for some goals (please think of The Invisibles, for instance).

In Manga/Anime, there is a certain tendency from publishers to slap the label "shonen" to anything that does not feature entire episodes/tankobons of characters talking or reflecting on something. Sometimes, fighting men have deep reasons to fight (or, sometimes, they are just great characters), so I tend to see certain "shonen" works as more seinen-ish. At least, story and characters are adult-friendly, so to speak.

Bah, labels do not matter, but no Dragonball and the likes for me!

Morikawa's passion for his chosen sport (and time spent as a cornerman) helps a lot, I'd imagine. Even in the earlier volumes covered by the animes, Ippo conveys passion, agony and sacrifice with a frankness junkfood ala Dragon Ball can't hope to (and to that series' credit, generally doesn't try to).

Yes, and even with ups and downs, the quality has only ever increased over the years. Some guys are simply excellent artisans and can deliver excellent products with a staggering regularity. Then again, when I caught up with the series a few years ago, I spent months to read through the backlog and it felt a bit tiring, to be honest: it's a type of series that does not work well for binge-reading sessions.

EDIT: to sum up, the hero mono-myth existed long before shonen and seinen demographic labels, so if you like this narrative template (who doesn't?), you don't necessarily need to focus on shonen (though it is now common in this demographic).

Also: I cannot see the picture in your latest post (evil Chinese censorship!). Could you please upload it on something like Imagebam? TA in adv.

[BIL]

EDIT: to sum up, the hero mono-myth existed long before shonen and seinen demographic labels, so if you like this narrative template (who doesn't?), you don't necessarily need to focus on shonen (though it is now common in this demographic).

Tales old as time, indeed. Despite HNK's popular image as nonstop grand guignol, I always felt Buronson & Hara's Road Warrior lift had extended well beyond that film's aesthetic. For all the raucous carnage, the signature aspect of these works isn't badass driving or fighting, but a mournful sense of civilisation lost.

And other ancient woes. Like radiation sickness. ;-; (HNK1 Spoiler)

Spoiler

https://www.imagebam.com/view/ME16S9K

Also: I cannot see the picture in your latest post (evil Chinese censorship!). Could you please upload it on something like Imagebam? TA in adv.

Sorry for the late reply, didn't see your edit until now - it's just a clip from Quebecois prog/thrash heroes Voivod's video for Ravenous Medicine. I'm guessing the band's animal rights platform wouldn't go over well in less PETA-friendly parts of the globe.

https://www.imagebam.com/view/ME16QUH

[Randorama]

Tales old as time, indeed. For all HNK's popular image as nonstop grand guignol, I always felt Buronson & Hara's Road Warrior lift had extended well beyond that film's aesthetic. For all the raucous carnage, the signature aspect of these works isn't badass driving/fighting, but a mournful sense of civilisation lost. Unsurprisingly, HNK suffers a bit in the manga's post-timeskip half, the ruined world having settled into a vaguely medieval grind.



Sorry for the late reply, didn't see your edit until now - it's just a clip from Quebecois prog/thrash heroes Voivod's video for Ravenous Medicine. I'm guessing the band's animal rights platform wouldn't go over well in less PETA-friendly parts of the globe.

https://www.imagebam.com/view/ME16QUH

Thanks BIL-dono, the gif is a perfect rendition on how I feel about Z-level shonen/superhero tripe. I guess that the evil Wuxia fans (and related sub-genres ONLY focused on protagonists getting stronger) have friends in the upper sides of the guvnment!

Jokes aside, HnK adapts a '70s sensibility but vastly improves on the sources (OK, lifts), since serialization gives you that advantage.
A weekly series simply offers more "space" to authors for exploring whatever topics they want to explore, and do solid world-building at the same time (as desolate the world can be).
The second anime series, which covers the Raoh blah blah cycle, is '80s steroid/braindeath/etc. frenzy.
I am pretty sure that Buronson was asked to adapt the series to the Zeitgeist, and as a result...we got an entire cycle of lameness.
Harlock had a similar fate: the original, legendary '70s series was a remarkably nuanced though certainly flawed masterpiece (I mean, who would *not* feel sorry for the mazonians?).
The '80s remake is "Harlock good guy, against green invaders; green invaders evil, etc. etc." (But the animation level was superior, OK).

...I blame the '80s for this (and Calvin Harris for singing that it was acceptable).

...and generally speaking, yes, most epic poems (i.e. the oldest works of myth & literature) are, well, "hero adventures" after all.
The genre has some rather well-established pedigree; it is just that modern scribes tend to be pedestrian at it

[BryanM]

The shonen battle anime friend collector genre does have an intrinsic flaw - true mortal peril is in direct conflict with collecting friends. Time spent on battles is time not spent drinking milkshakes together, nobody wants to see their friends suffer, so the constant fights in these things naturally must degrade to wrestling. And due to the extremely unrealistic romanticism of friendship these shows tend to have, they often end up as vastly inferior sports anime, a genre famous for its bickering and backstabbin'.

It's been proven these two elements aren't completely incompatible with one another, but the fights have to be very scarce and important. #1 hit webnovel, Beware of Chicken, is a friend collector and, due to being a xianxia, technically has the videogame "numbers go up" thing of battle animoo. Within two books, there's only been three mortal combats, and most have left physical or emotional scars on the MC's tribe. Brother Chunky got brain damage yo! From getting his head clawed in! During a fight! A thing that you get hurt when you get into!

I know these things have doo-doo writing for children, but they could be better... the worst is the allowance of characters to become vestigial. Aisa Himegami from a Certain Magical Index is the apex of worthless hangers-on, the poor girl has nuthin' to do (I think she babysits a cat offscreen? That's her life's ambition?), makes Tien look like an MC.

Side characters should be mini-MC's with ongoing stories of their own. The model of wrapping up their everything right after they're introduced is lame.
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(I only really thought about the violence as drama thing years ago when I was working on a story prototype for this thing I call Card Psycho Insanity, which is basically yugioh but when people lose a game, they die. While technically workable as a tiny video game, it has no ability to foster relationships and drama because it kills off all the damn characters by design. No depth or attachment. All these in-story conflicts would be better off as a game or sport and not a life and death struggle that the MC's have to always generally win by design.)