|
Taima posted:I went back and re-read JJK and while it definitely flows better binging it, it's also pretty funny how it progresses once you get into the culling games. These are a lot of assumptions about planning , motivation, passion etc that have no basis other than you don’t like the story as it is. There are clearly lots of planned elements here with Tengen, Yujis whole deal, Kenjaku’s history , Sukuna as a whole , that are very clearly the planned out moments of this arc and all things revolve around them being resolved in some way by getting characters in the spot they need to be to resolve them. It feels disingenuous to me to say it’s not planned , it felt like a very clear thorough line of the cast is building up allies and demonstrating/ building their skills to show what tools are on the table at the finale when things blowup. It felt narratively like the correct thing to do, and Gege is just using that necessity to show off cool fights while doing so. Some fights being less great than others is just normal in these types of series. Looking at your other posts, where you took real issue with the fact that he took Todo and Nobara off the board for a bit and you had an issue with him killing Nanami for no other reason than he did those things, I don’t think I’m gonna agree with what you think a good story is( your suggestions as alternatives were….... yeah not great to put it mildly). Plus you wanted them to go back to light hearted spirit adventures after the devastation of Shibuya, which to me is just insane narratively , especially after where the characters are left both during and after the events. Dunno my dude, feels like you’re stretching for reasons to justify why you don’t like the series anymore, when the fact of the matter is you don’t like where it headed which is totally fine. Don’t need to justify that, can just stop reading or keep reading but enjoy it less. Asuron fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Jun 19, 2023 |
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 00:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 16:11 |
|
|
Rohan Kishibe posted:I do kind of love just how busted Gojo is made out to be here. Hakari's entire domain expansion is set up to put him into the state that Gojo is just in all the time. And the idea of the guy whose whole shtick is being literally untouchable also having insane self healing power is really funny. It rules lol. I also love Okkotsu being mad impressed by it because presumably he could train to do the same thing but didn’t consider it. Whereas Hakari can just be head empty no thoughts while his autoheal even purged poisons
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 00:57
|
|
|
I’m expecting partway thru the fight Gojo to just be like “oh it’s possible to make a domain without a barrier, cool” and just do it himself
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 02:13
|
|
|
EmmyOk posted:It rules lol. I also love Okkotsu being mad impressed by it because presumably he could train to do the same thing but didn’t consider it. Whereas Hakari can just be head empty no thoughts while his autoheal even purged poisons Hakari did nearly die in his invincible mode once against Kashimo when Kashimo tried to blow his head off. Hakari focused the healing into overdrive on his head and manually purged the Cursed Energy.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 03:33
|
|
|
Rohan Kishibe posted:I do kind of love just how busted Gojo is made out to be here. Hakari's entire domain expansion is set up to put him into the state that Gojo is just in all the time. And the idea of the guy whose whole shtick is being literally untouchable also having insane self healing power is really funny. Yes, but Hakari still has Gojo beaten on Pachinko-related theming at least. Betcha even the genius didn't consider that angle.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 07:52
|
|
|
Asuron posted:These are a lot of assumptions about planning , motivation, passion etc that have no basis other than you don’t like the story as it is. There are clearly lots of planned elements here with Tengen, Yujis whole deal, Kenjaku’s history , Sukuna as a whole , that are very clearly the planned out moments of this arc and all things revolve around them being resolved in some way by getting characters in the spot they need to be to resolve them. That's true, you don't change the game with propeller on his head guy without years if not decades of planning. Just kidding, I don't know what to say man it's just an opinion, I am not Gege. Were parts planned? Clearly! There's plenty of good poo poo in this manga. If your bar for organization is "had an outline where some major characters do things for the story" then sure, no debate there. Where it gets a lot more fuzzy is the details, namely, starting and stopping many threads over and over. Seriously read culling games onward and try to keep in your heads the things that Gege brings up and then drops  It's a good rear end manga which is why I'm even bothering to state my personal opinion but cmon.Manga artists burn out all the time but Gege has imo left pretty solid clues that he's burned on the series and I just think the writing and short chapters and pacing and "see what sticks" method of throwing spaghetti at the wall post Shibuya is all pretty unfortunate evidence for a broader theme here. The good news is I think CG and onward will play well when it comes to the anime; they just need to pick and choose what they animate and that should be a tight enough plotline. The individual elements of a good manga are there, they're just clunky and uninspired sometimes. That's ok. Dude is human, it's still in my top 10 so the criticism should be viewed in that light. I'm also intentionally not critiquing the indiviual plot beats because I accept that other people might like them more. I don't know how you enjoy, like, Tsumiki being a huge plot point in the Culling Games that was telegraphed basically the entire manga, only for her to like... be taken over by some evil naked lady who is then killed in the dumbest way possible by all of Sukuna's cool Shadow Toys. Just one more in a long line of lady characters getting done insanely dirty for what seems like very little reason. At least that plot thread was resolved even if it was kind of dumb, which you can't say for the other million dropped points along the way post Shibuya. Like I said, it's a good manga, you just need to Not Think About It Please once Shibuya concludes. It just kind of sucks (imo) that it's come to that because JJK always prided itself on having a pretty coherent and tight structure and it really did, minus a couple of things, until CG. It would be easier to not worry about the week to week plot specifics if that was the goal from the beginning. Plenty of manga have weird pacing and plot issues, hell sometimes that's what makes a manga awesome. It just seemed like Gege specifically was doing everything in his power to avoid that style of writing, until a very specific point in the series where that just... wasn't true anymore. He does cool things to, for example I kind of like how he just kind of forgot Yuji existed besides the (awesome) Higuruma fight and we're about to end the manga and we still don't even know who Yuji is, what his overall purpose is, and he isn't even powered up yet. Having a protagonist for a story and then basically saying gently caress you to that character takes a lot of balls and while I wish Yuji stayed the main character, I can totally respect the inherent rizz of saying "classic basics for writing a story are not for me". In fact that's something I love about Manga and Anime in general, it's so creative and up to the author's wishes vs. western media which has gotten soooo restrictive in every way possible. Taima fucked around with this message at 12:33 on Jun 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 12:07
|
|
|
Dude, you don't need to write the Bible every time just because you're disappointed with the manga quality, especially not when you can summarize most paragraphs with "I don't like it and think it's more haphazard now". Every time you provide evidence of stuff not being planned it turns out you just... don't like how things resolve too, which isn't helping your case, and I say that as someone who actually thinks that yeah, the Culling Games weren't a great arc. I'll also say that Shibuya as an arc left me colder than a lot of people, so maybe I'm just strange.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 12:30
|
|
|
It's a topic that deserves being discussed at more length imo, but I respect your viewpoint that art can't be critiqued or whatever. Please feel free to put me on ignore, I don't know what to say. I'm just trying to make an argument and it takes a second, so I'll happily write about it for like 10 or 15 minutes JJK is cool and it's just interesting to me how it played out. But yeah of course there's no room for discussion if "things that happen in it" is not up for critique like you are implying. Taima fucked around with this message at 12:38 on Jun 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 12:34
|
|
|
jujutsu kaisen is a really good manga
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 12:42
|
|
|
Taima posted:That's true, you don't change the game with propeller on his head guy without years if not decades of planning. You can use as many shrug emojis you want this is a skill issue.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 13:56
|
|
|
Write all the long winded thoughts you have on this thing you came here to interact with others about. It's cool and good and what forums are meant for. I have not thought as much about it as Taima, but I think there is a definite sense that the writing with clear purpose has trailed off in the culling games compared to prior arcs, I don't think he's off saying the quality of the construction of this story has been kinda less tightly constructed in this arc than previous ones. Still enjoyable, but certainly more confusing to follow. I've def struggled more with keeping up with concepts and story points in the culling games than in prior arcs.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 15:16
|
|
|
Just because I think someone's posts are bad (they are, there's actually no critique in them besides some vague gesturing) it doesn't mean I think you can't critique art, but I guess this post will be received with another shrug emoji and 15 paragraphs.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 15:46
|
|
|
Taima is cool. Anyways I just binged the entire manga over 5 days after watching the anime last week. I watched the movie and now need to reread some stuff because I was very confused having not read or watch chapter 0
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 15:48
|
|
|
It'd be naive to assume Gege's health/stress/workload issues only impacted the art of that one chapter and nothing else. JJK had always been a comparatively very tightly written story for the genre, with just the right pacing to let the reader soak in the mood and worldbuilding, and the Shibuya Arc deftly bundled its various plot threads together to set the stage for the next phase. By comparison the latter... I want to say two-thirds of the Culling Game Arc are overbriskly heading towards some sort of conclusion, hitting various plot beats the author is clearly invested in while compressing (or sometimes practically shoving aside) most of their setup. The setpieces we get are still very much a fantastic spectacle, but they're being only loosely tied together and that impacts the work's overall quality - to a greater extent than if their inclusion had perhaps bloated it, I feel. We of course can't get into the author's head to find out the motivations behind this noticeable change of pace/format, but between the aforementioned health concerns and with how Gege has consistently said for 2-3 years now that he wants the series to end this year, I don't think "he's burned out" is too unreasonable a guess.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 16:06
|
|
|
The guy with the propellor on his head was awesome
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 16:59
|
|
|
CharlestonJew posted:The guy with the propellor on his head was awesome
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 17:06
|
|
|
Shibuya is the high watermark for sure. I think the culling game is weaker but not bad, I really like it. Outside of the soldiers stuff I don’t really feel like any stuff felt aimless or didn’t pay off well. The long running stuff like Gojo’s release andSukuna taking over Megumi felt incredibly well paid off, especially the latter. I think it’s biggest weakness was feeling a bit slow as we had so many back to back fights that didn’t feel like they had enough narrative progression even though each fight was excellent. That’s an issue that I didn’t have on a reread though. Shibuya is the peak but individual parts of the culling game are better. I feel his fights have stepped up to the next level. Higuruma’s backstory is also probably one of the best things he’s written full stop too.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 17:16
|
|
|
Thinking about JJK as a leader in the current generation of shonen manga, I actually appreciate how much it seems to have learned from the days of the big three and avoided turning itself into a massive and meandering 500 chapter manga with lots of filler. The pacing has been pretty tight, I would agree that even too tight recently. I also think it's true that the planning feels a little looser than the first half of the manga but that's just standard for this industry, it's unreasonable to expect someone to sketch out the second half of a multiple year project as well as the beginning before they even get there. It feels like a lot of the groundwork was laid before and yes, maybe we're zooming through it a little but it doesn't feel to me like Gege is flying by the seat of his pants or anything. It remains to be seen if the Nobara write-off will have any delayed payout -- very little time has passed in-universe despite how long it's been irl, so they could just be keeping her a secret because her CT seems like an interesting ace to have up their sleeve if they can weaponize it against Kenjaku or Sukuna -- and that will be an important measure of how hard Gege dropped the ball with some stuff for me, but imo the Culling Game has just been his take on a HxH Greed Island-like arc, whereas the first half had a lot more YYH vibes to me.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 17:32
|
|
|
I personally find a lot of parallels between Shibuya and the Palace attack. Very similar vibes, full conflict resolution, the main characters are smaller fries, the whole operation turns into a desperate operation very soon, the MCs have to get past impossible odds and the whole situation is complete chaos until the threads start resolving. Char fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Jun 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 19:54
|
|
|
I think the Culling Games would have actually benefited from better character development. It would have been a lot easier to get invested in the side fights if people like Hakari had a more fleshed out personality. But I think that flaw already showed up early, though not to that extent, outside of Yuji and Fushiguro, I didn't really get a feel for most characters in the first arc and it took me a while to get them.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 21:53
|
|
|
the US Gov/soldiers stuff was a ridiculous overreach and tonal mismatch and a couple of the later fights were shithouse (Yuki/Kenjaku, Yorozu/Sukuna). That's about all there is to complain about in terms of things that actually were explored and it's a better hits to misses ratio for a work in this genre than anything this side of like, the genuinely impressively plotted out HxH and FMA.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2023 23:28
|
|
|
I just want to know if Nobara’s okay
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 00:10
|
|
|
PringleCreamEgg posted:I just want to know if Nobara’s okay I was so certain Nobara would show up over the course of the culling game, if she shows up now it'd feel so outta left field and also make me sad cause we coulda been getting Nobara fights this whole time.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 00:13
|
|
|
TheHan posted:I was so certain Nobara would show up over the course of the culling game, if she shows up now it'd feel so outta left field and also make me sad cause we coulda been getting Nobara fights this whole time. It's pretty amazing that Gege managed to write himself into such a no-win position with her. He really hosed up
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 00:19
|
|
|
I miss the rest of the young cast, they've done mostly nothing since Shibuya lol
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 00:24
|
|
|
King of Solomon posted:It's pretty amazing that Gege managed to write himself into such a no-win position with her. He really hosed up She basically has to show up again or its authorial malpractice. It cannot be argued that "JJK is just so brutal and so even a main character can get summarily offed" because plenty of characters with much less page space got long send offs that made it clear they were done. Its just multiple things: she gets killed ambiguously, none of her main character buds seem to care, shes not really mentioned much since, she doesn't get a send off. No other character who died got treated this way , we had to see that stupid cousin/brother guy get killed like 5x and get a bunch of flashback space devoted to him lol
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 00:26
|
|
|
Tonfa posted:the US Gov/soldiers stuff was a ridiculous overreach and tonal mismatch and a couple of the later fights were shithouse (Yuki/Kenjaku, Yorozu/Sukuna). That's about all there is to complain about in terms of things that actually were explored and it's a better hits to misses ratio for a work in this genre than anything this side of like, the genuinely impressively plotted out HxH and FMA. I agree that HxH is really well plotted and the CA arc for how long it took to come out flows perfectly. That is also a huge benefit to him. He got years to plan that. I know it’s health issues leading to delays but that’s still going to give you a lot of time to think of how stuff is going to go vs consistent weekly releases imo. I think CSM Part 1 is probably the best plotted/paced thing in recent years though. FMA ftw also ofc
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 00:41
|
|
|
Nobara seemed to legit die during the fight, she got flashbacks and everything. Nitta the younger just said he might be able to save her, but don’t get your hopes up. Yuji then asked Megumi if she was alive and he gave a solemn look, that Yuji says he understands. This implies death to me, but Greg probably should have made it more explicit.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 00:45
|
|
|
You absolutely have to make it more explicit than that
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 00:47
|
|
|
I assumed she’s dead but he really seems to be teasing it a bit. I feel like why even include the Nitta stuff otherwise. The showing her again when Itadori says he’s worried about Hana replacing her. Which just feels like a weird fear. I suppose the death is still recent for them not for us. As for Megumi’s solemn look my theory there is based on similar lines. It’s only 12 days out from Shibuya at the time, so she could still be in a critical state and better not to get Yuji’s hopes up. I’d actually be fine with her having died when she did but the teases feel weird otherwise.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 00:50
|
|
|
They fed her the last Sukuna finger and she'll show up as the final final boss.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 01:35
|
|
PringleCreamEgg posted:I just want to know if Nobara’s okay After the final chapter, she'll show up and be like "Hey guys I'm alive, did I miss anything?"
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 01:39
|
|
|
IMO Nobara should just suddenly appear alongside everyone else while they're watching Gojo's fight, but have no one acknowledge it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 01:42
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:IMO Nobara should just suddenly appear alongside everyone else while they're watching Gojo's fight, but have no one acknowledge it. Then she gets her head cut off instantly
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 01:48
|
|
|
Taima posted:It's a topic that deserves being discussed at more length imo, but I respect your viewpoint that art can't be critiqued or whatever. For whatever it's worth, your issues with the Culling Game seem pretty widespread. If you look at the manga sales for the last few volumes, JJK is still huge, but it's had massive dropoff during this arc, even beyond what you'd expect to lose with no current anime and with a longer ongoing. The culling game is messier than previous arcs, has a lot of fights that, in hindsight, don't seem to have done much for the plot, and doesn't focus on the characters people loved, instead revolving through a bunch of new guys whose role is basically to have the aforementioned unimportant fights. Don't know why bringing that up would be verboten, but yeah. Seems that, anywhere people will say JJK has flaws, these last few arcs have been noted as more flawed than the series was prior, even if it's still a good time.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 03:46
|
|
|
chiasaur11 posted:For whatever it's worth, your issues with the Culling Game seem pretty widespread. If you look at the manga sales for the last few volumes, JJK is still huge, but it's had massive dropoff during this arc, even beyond what you'd expect to lose with no current anime and with a longer ongoing. it's not verboten the comment was maybe condense the thoughts and less stream of consciousness posting. hell all we do in these manga threads is going off on tangents anyway, I agree that it very much feels like a tournament arc where we're watching the other matches waiting for the big kids to come out. for the most part though the side fights have been about getting points, changing rules or upgrading characters, like Maki. so it's felt a bit disjointed but is ultimately driving towards a narrative goal a lot of people have complained that this arc is taking too long and wanted the plot to move forward. e.g. where is Nobara / when is Gojo getting released. which I think has led to an increased pace in tempo which is causing the dissonance. I think the a way for this arc to work better would be to actually make it longer and flesh out the other colonies more and what's going on between them so I think Gege kinda wrote himself into a corner and is now just blasting through and getting to the good bits
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 04:05
|
|
|
Nobara just hanging out with Bakugo in Shonen Purgatory
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 04:17
|
|
|
The Culling Games felt very erratic and barebones cause there was very little fluff. Every fight was meant to showcase a different character, which I'm assuming was to set up the finale + provide more jujutsu mechanic homework. We have 1 fight each for the new Big 3 Jujutsu High heavy hitters (Yuta, Maki, Hakari), Yuji, Megumi, Kenjaku (Tengan/Yuki/Big Bro), and finally Sukuna. After their Big Fights, with minor exceptions like Yuji, those characters are basically put in the waiting room in anticipation of the Ultimate Showdown. Adding an extra scene or two or more interactions between those characters after their big debut would've made the story feel less rushed. But the skeleton was definitely there, I don't feel like the series of events depicted was unplanned or non-sensical.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 05:24
|
|
|
King of Solomon posted:It's pretty amazing that Gege managed to write himself into such a no-win position with her. He really hosed up Counter point: when our resident idiot villain starts making his big final plan and connects everybody's soul that means literally everything is a voodoo connection to him so Nobara will save the day by nail stunning him long enough for Yuji to punch him so hard. And I guess Megumi will use the boss shadow to turn off some poo poo I guess.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 13:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 16:11 |
|
|
after third impact nobara kills all of humanity in a single instant. the end
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2023 13:35
|
|