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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcBYHnsKx8U
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Nov 4, 2015 03:34
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"What's up everybody, this is Jotaro Kujo. I'm about to kick DIO's rear end into the next loving star system, let's do this poo poo." edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytzk-rx_hx4 oh boy!
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Nov 4, 2015 03:40
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canon    http://noriniku.tumblr.com/post/125677260337/%E3%83%88%E3%83%AC%E3%82%B9-httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv-q1vok0ga36w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1VoK0Ga36w
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Nov 5, 2015 04:05
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Here's the Part 4 volume doodles up to where we are with Xibanya's Let's Read up until now. These appear as chapter breaks, if you're unfamiliar. Technically, one or two may be infront of where we are but we know who Josuke and Koichi are, so there's no huge harm in showing maybe one or two ahead. I've cropped one we definitely haven't got to from the row so that's why there's a white space.  Here's the map at full size.  I'll try to remember to do another big image catching us up when Xibanya gets quite a bit more under her belt Additionally, if you want to see them all now, including them from all finished JoJo parts and a few from part 8, here's the site. You can select by part, so you can see only doodles from the parts you've read if you wish to. Spoiler warning if you've not read all of the manga! http://arakidoodles.com/all.html
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Nov 5, 2015 09:17
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 unironicallyThanks for sharing! That's handy!
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Nov 5, 2015 17:28
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Nov 9, 2015 05:40
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I really like how Crazy Diamond incorporates the hearts, where if you take away the heart shapes it completely changes how it looks, while you can take away The World's heart designs and literally nothing of substance has changed. It's a really good way of showing what the users are actually like in a visual way, like how Star Plat looks like an overexcited labrador in a muscleman's body or The World always looks like it's trying to learn how to deal with anger management and failing. I sure do love Stands.
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Nov 9, 2015 06:33
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There are so many things that I super love about Stand designs and Crazy Diamond in particular, yes. It functions really well as a sort of extension of Josuke, like Star Platinum's actually a reflection of Jotaro if he didn't mask stuff naturally. I also forgot, new morioh-comix from Amaryllis (I will just be the designated morioh-comix reposter I suppose ahahha)  http://strawberry-jan.tumblr.com/post/132773261279 Xibanya, this one doesn't have any spoilers per se but it does directly reference a panel from later on in DiU (that isn't a spoiler in any real way, it's just... you'll basically be seeing a panel replicated so part of the joke might not work for you until you get to that part?). Okuyasu Nijimura fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Nov 9, 2015 |
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Nov 9, 2015 07:18
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This comic confused me until I realized I was trying to read it right-to-left.
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Nov 9, 2015 07:22
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That's me irl but I don't have Crazy Diamond. Seriously though, if I could draw, I'd draw Crazy Diamond on everything ever.
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Nov 9, 2015 08:59
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I accidentally read comics right-to-left all the time now, especially when they're fan comics for manga. But please kill me if I ever start actually drawing R-L. Oh noooooo this is too adorable!
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Nov 9, 2015 16:29
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I would draw comics for an OC thing I'd made left to right. I'd totally draw fan comics in the order of the original though. So a JoJo comic I'd do right to left and an Incredible Hulk left to right.
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Nov 9, 2015 16:40
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Josuke Higashikata posted:I'd totally draw fan comics in the order of the original though. So a JoJo comic I'd do right to left and an Incredible Hulk left to right.
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Nov 9, 2015 16:48
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Okuyasu Nijimura posted:There are so many things that I super love about Stand designs and Crazy Diamond in particular, yes. It functions really well as a sort of extension of Josuke, like Star Platinum's actually a reflection of Jotaro if he didn't mask stuff naturally. Jolyene is my favorite JoJo in fan comics
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Nov 9, 2015 23:22
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Remember, if you've missed a previous entry, you can catch up by clicking the ? under my name or by checking my blog here: https://manuelamalasanya.wordpress.com/lets-read-jjba/ LET'S READ   JJBA Chapter 288 Chapter 23 of Diamond is Unbreakable Koichi Hirose’s Echoes V Translation: Invincible Trio Kobayashi is in agony from the sounds. "I can't believe I fell for your trap..."  May need Daxing Dan to chime in on this, but if the translation is accurate, this is pretty interesting. When Kobayashi says “I can’t believe I fell for your trap,” it basically shows he would rather believe that he was outwitted than that all this was the result of the chaos of the universe. This is the same kind of thinking that makes people cling to conspiracy theories -- it is less scary to think that the events in our life are the result of someone’s plan than to realize that a lot of things are really out of anyone’s control. Now granted, all the events of this story are under the control of Araki, but I believe that it’s revealing that consciously or no, Kobayashi does not linger on the idea that Koichi had no idea that this would happen. Koichi demands Kobayashi take the locks off his sister and mother - or Koichi will never remove the sounds. Kobayashi tries to attack again but Koichi's stand sticks another sound, "blam" on Kobayashi.  I want to point out that we should not be thinking of this in terms of “I’m not buying that a bunch of sounds are making Kobayashi suffer this much.” Instead we should be going the other way. Kobayashi is genuinely suffering, and he’s articulated that it’s the sounds that are making him feel this way, but regardless of whether or not what he’s currently experiencing is perfectly matching his description of it or not, we should accept from the art that whatever Koichi’s stand actually does has a rather profound effect. Koichi demands again that Kobayashi release his mom and sister from his stand but instead Kobayashi (with difficulty) picks up a knife and stabs himself -- superficially.  Another bit of con man theatre. He screams and throws the bloody knife to Koichi just as Koichi's mom and sister rush in to see what the big fuss is about.  Now this whole bit is a little “convenient” in the sense that it’s a bit of a stretch in a realistic setting that Kobayashi could get the knife in Koichi’s hands in just the right way, but the mechanism isn’t very important. Kobayashi “attacks” by making people feel guilty, so we just need to understand that Koichi is giving Kobayashi plenty of opportunities to surrender and Kobayashi refuses each one - even when he’s at as much of a disadvantage as he is right now. In other words, barring some extraordinary intervention, Kobayashi is not going to change. Sound familiar? Remember Keicho and the bow? Even though this is basically a battle, what I said about “recognition” and characters in transition during the Nijimura Brothers chapters still applies here. Even if it’s the case that the characters don't change their personalities, characters in conflict should be in transition, if only from one mental state to another, changing our understanding (“recognition”) of those characters and the way the characters recognize each other. So Koichi has gone helplessness to dominance, and Kobayashi has gone from triumph to desperation. Because the emotional “volume” of this conflict is now so high, and we've proved that even while basically being tortured Kobayashi will not back down, there’s nowhere to else for Kobayashi to go. He could just go back to being the way he was a chapter or two ago, but that would be dissatisfying to the reader since it would make the interim seem kind of pointless. The only other option is for the conflict to end. (Either by actually concluding the conflict between the characters or by causing their battle to be interrupted with the implicit promise that it will resume at some later time, as when Joseph and co. bust in on DIO's mansion and save Polnareff's bacon.)  Kobayashi doesn't have to say a word; the implication that Koichi dealt him a moral wound is clear enough that the guilt/locks on Koichi's mom and sister become enormous, to the point that Koichi's sister falls over (unconscious) and his mom picks up a knife and presses it to her own throat. (I do wonder how much of her reaction is due to Kobayashi's stand? Does his stand act as a guilt multipier?)  I wanted to point out here that Koichi's sister was just introduced to raise the stakes but since it's much more dramatic to just have Koichi's mother's life on the line (to have both of them about to off themselves would edge this whole thing into comedy) Koichi's sister no longer serves any real function in the plot so knocking her out is the most dramatically expedient action. (As an aside I think it's a little lousy how so far women in part four have served just to motivate the main characters, but that's a discussion for a different post as I sense going into too much detail on that topic would derail the thread.) Kobayashi (mirroring Koichi's earlier offer to remove the sounds if Kobayashi removes the locks) says he'll spare Koichi's mother's life if Koichi removes the sounds. Koichi doesn't consider this for a moment.  Instead he puts the sound "Believe Me" on his mom.  This causes Koichi's mom's lock to disappear completely without Kobayashi's intervention (as when Josuke removed the cause of Koichi and Okuyasu's guilt earlier.) This blows Kobayashi's mind -- his experiences/personality are such that he never considered such a thing could happen. "My parents never would've [believed me]" rather telling.  Koichi glowers at Kobayashi and Kobayashi breaks down, weakly claiming to be "just kidding" -- I think he and Koichi both know he's not fooling anyone, but everything Kobayashi believes about human behavior has been totally shaken so at this point I think he's just scrambling to save some face. He removes Koichi's sister's lock without even needing to be prompted. He grovels at Koichi's feet. Koichi demands money then says "just kidding" -- compare to Kobayashi's earlier "just kidding" after he admits defeat. (This is also kind of funny since it reminds me of the Other Yugi from very early Yu-Gi-Oh!, which wouldn't start being published for another four years or so.)  The next day Josuke and Okuyasu are stunned to see Kobayashi acting as Koichi's bootlicking servant, which is a genuinely amusing punchline to this whole strange saga.  Kobayashi's extremely sudden change at the end seems kind of weird and to be honest I'm still kind of trying to totally make sense of it, but I'd say it reveals that he's a rather broken person fundamentally, or someone who, when it comes down to it, is in sore need of approval or validation and has decided that Koichi is the person who can make him feel OK about himself. I have to admit, I had already read Surface Part I before finishing Echoes so I get the impression Kobayashi's change of heart here is sincere, but if we are to continue to read JJBA as a story in which people's emotional reactions are realistic, then Kobayashi has some serious issues. Returning to "My parents never would've [believed that I wasn't a violent stabby person]", seems like Kobayashi has internalized that he is scum. Anyway this is ~bizarre~ and I'm looking forward to seeing more of it! Circling back to how this conflict was ultimately resolved, I do want to point out that this story arc, while solid, is not as coherent with its themes as the preceeding Nijimura Brothers arc. In the beginning it looked like there were foundations being laid for Koichi to learn to trust his own feelings and resist being guilt-tripped for poo poo that wasn't really his fault, but that didn't really happen. Koichi was the mark in a con pulled by Kobayashi, but then he never gets an opportunity to re-confront the circumstances that led to him getting victimized in the first place -- he's fully aware of what Kobayashi is doing once Kobayashi invades his home and starts working his con routine on Koichi's family, so if you were to draw parallels between the two confrontations with Kobayashi, in the second confrontation Koichi assumes the role that Josuke had in the sense that he rescues Kobayashi's victims from their own guilt. It's still a good trajectory for the character - Koichi becoming more like Josuke has multiple implications, but we still don't have definitive proof that Koichi won't get conned in the same way again (albeit by someone else in slightly different circumstances.) That brings me to something about this arc that I found to be a bit of a missed opportunity. We have an interesting metaphor here - Kobayashi's stand is basically weaponized passive-aggression. I loving hate passive aggression, it is THE WORST. And it is interesting when applied to Kobayashi because most of the time when people are passive-aggressive, it's not because their goal is to hurt others, it's because they on some level are afraid to say what they really mean or ask for what they really want. Obviously what Kobayashi really wants (other people's money) is something he can't just go out and ask for, but passive-aggression is indeed the weapon of someone who lacks confidence on some level. And one might say that Koichi's stand is weaponized assertiveness since it makes the concepts of sounds tangible. But as a thematic metaphor it just doesn't quite come together, in part because I'm not convinced Koichi wouldn't have shouted "Believe me!" if he had been accused of attempted murder before anything in this story arc happened. While it's fun to see Koichi being confident, firm, powerful, I never got the sense that during Koichi's second confrontation with Kobayashi he struggled to arrive at those qualities or had to make any tough choices - he just didn't have power before, and now he does, and this is how he acts when he has power. I'm not saying this story arc is bad, but I think it's a shame because it has the potential to say something really powerful with just a little bit of revision. I have to confess, this arc was really tough for me to get through because it didn't capture my interest as well as previous ones, and I'm still trying to decide if it was because the arc was about Koichi or because the thematic content didn't quite come together. It's definitely a solid story, but unlike The Nijimura Brothers, I wouldn't call it one that stands on its own independent of Diamond is Unbreakable. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing more from Koichi, and I'm sure there are plenty of creative uses for his stand waiting to be discovered. Coming up next! Surface! It's only a model! (Shh!)
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Nov 10, 2015 22:26
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For the record, I'm willing to buy that Kobayashi is in genuine panic and anguish over the sounds, I just don't like this Stand, Echoes, very much. I think it has a lot to do with the reasons you lay out at the end, where the story never quite got into that sweet spot that makes me love Part 4 so much. Koichi kind of has a hard time carrying a story on his own; we've seen that his normal self hides a deep potential for courage and initiative, but it all still kind of comes off as wishy-washy. The whole ending of letting Kobayashi suck up to him in particular does a lot to undermine everything: it's a good joke, but would Koichi really let Kobayashi hang around him? Does he take pleasure at this man's groveling? That seems way too sadistic for Koichi. Is he giving this jerk a chance to atone? It would seem smarter to tell him to stay the hell away, especially since he obviously can't trust this guy. It all feels like an elaborate gag, which is weird because it's not as if Araki can't do serious character drama without mining humor from it.
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Nov 10, 2015 22:58
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:Koichi kind of has a hard time carrying a story on his own; we've seen that his normal self hides a deep potential for courage and initiative, but it all still kind of comes off as wishy-washy. The whole ending of letting Kobayashi suck up to him in particular does a lot to undermine everything: it's a good joke, but would Koichi really let Kobayashi hang around him? Does he take pleasure at this man's groveling? That seems way too sadistic for Koichi. Is he giving this jerk a chance to atone? It would seem smarter to tell him to stay the hell away, especially since he obviously can't trust this guy. Weaponized guilt and passive-aggression is such an interesting stand power: it's a (potentially) good early showcase for the turn toward absurdly specific powers that stands start to take in Part 4 (vs the punchghosts of part 3). You get the sense that Koichi--empathetic, hesitant to assert himself, a little gullible, and visibly small and weak compared to his friends--should work really well, narratively, as a victim of that power; you want to see him overcome his own shortcomings in order to stick it to Kobayashi. (This series of chapters would work even less well with, e.g., Josuke or Okuyasu present throughout: they clearly have no time to get sucked into Kobayashi's guilt trips.) Buuuuuuut, as Xibanya pointed out, it all just sort of fizzles out in the execution. Koichi's really at his best in the series when his wishy-washiness is bouncing off the personalities of other characters in the main cast, and he suffers everywhere else in contrast with those other characters, who can actually carry chapters on their own. This little arc just feels like a slight step down in quality compared to what comes before and after. I have more thoughts about people befriending/sucking up to him but they'll have to wait till there's more evidence, I guess. (e: I really should change my av from my ca. 2008 cat-vatar, and the only logical change is something JJBA related. Any suggestions?) Amaryllis fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Nov 10, 2015 |
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Nov 10, 2015 23:40
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this section definitely is a little bit weaker, yeah. koichi isn't exactly established yet and the tone shift is still kind of weird when coming after the nijimura brothers bit. when i think back on arc 4 fondly i'm not exactly thinking of this part, to be honest. maybe for multiple reasons. (also yeah, women still don't exactly get much of the spotlight yet in the series, but in this arc there's some segments where you can tell that araki is sort of...trying? at least to make things a bit different. he's definitely gone on record to say that he regrets some of his early portrayals and has put in effort to change. it's nice to hear.)
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Nov 11, 2015 00:13
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Koichi definitely is involved in much better arcs down the line. But yeah, it definitely feels like this one was a bit too... I dunno. Low stakes? In terms of Araki writing female characters, they're not AS bad as say Jotaro being all "STFU bitch.  " while all the girls fawn over how he's talking to him, but yeah, it's going to be another two parts before we get some really awesome female characters.
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Nov 11, 2015 00:39
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Personally, my problem with Koichi's Echoes is that on a first read I found it hard to care about Koichi this early as an actual independent character. It being low stakes is fine* and while Echoes and The Lock are cool Stands, neither of their users came across as interesting characters which is a bit of a problem when this is after the shift from focus on the Stands themselves to their users. I was way more interested in it on a second read than the first time, since I gave a poo poo about Koichi at all, never mind as more than an audience surrogate. And let's be honest, if you're going to try to be your part's Speedwagon, you gotta be good at it and Koichi was not. * And if you had a problem with these being too low, I'm not sure how you could like part 4 which is all about low stakes in general save for the occasional short burst of seriousness. This is encapsulated in the best arc of the entire part since there are no lower stakes than Let's Go Out For Italian.
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Nov 11, 2015 00:50
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Amaryllis posted:Koichi's really at his best in the series when his wishy-washiness is bouncing off the personalities of other characters in the main cast, and he suffers everywhere else in contrast with those other characters, who can actually carry chapters on their own. This little arc just feels like a slight step down in quality compared to what comes before and after. Yeah I mean I have to hand it to Araki in that as a manga artist he has a very very small window in which to plot out each story in that even if he had one week to make a chapter, obviously he has to create the script in way less time than that since he has to spend most of the week drawing the drat thing - and even if he thinks of something better mid-chapter cycle, it's too late, he's gotta stay the course to push that chapter out on time. That's the thing about going pro in pretty much any creative pursuit, be it fine arts, creative writing, whatever. You will almost never be able to be creative under "ideal" circumstances, so don't bother waiting for them to show up. So while I stand by my critique of this story, when you have to crank this poo poo out like this, it's almost a compliment that this reasonably OK story arc is some of the worst Araki writing I've seen since the start of Stardust Crusaders. If I were to somehow come in and be a script doctor to this story, I'd do one of two things - really hammer the passive-aggressive angle OR really hammer the assertiveness angle. For the former, the antagonist would need to be someone else entirely. I'd want to show how people who are passive aggressive often don't even intend to hurt people, that their passive-aggression comes from a place of insecurity. Passive-aggression, and it's close sibling, defensiveness, seem like the safest course to the people who use them because it seems to cover all the bases - ask for something you want without risking confrontation! - but really they just have one of two effects: make other people feel guilty OR piss people off because they feel falsely accused. As an example, imagine you're chilling in the living room and I walk in and say "It'd be nice if someone picked up in here." You'd probably get more annoyed than if I said "Hey, can you help me tidy up in here real quick?" With the first, there's really only two ways to react - one, feel guilty as it sinks in that you made a mess and I noticed, or two, get annoyed because I deliberately tried to make you feel guilty but in such a way that I could totally deny that was my intention if called out on it. I do want to point out that sometimes the difference between passive-aggression and actual aggression comes down to context. Recently I was trying to get in touch with really good friend whom I hadn't heard from in awhile. I was kind of annoyed with them so when I finally heard from them again, I decided to bust their balls by saying "Hi, my name's Xibanya, you might have heard of me" and we had a good laugh. Yeah, kind of a dick move, but if I'd gone moe moe anime on them and was all "...gosh I was so sad but I don't blame you for forgetting that I existed...", trying to convince them that I actually believed that, then that would have been truly assholish. The most artfully done passive aggression is the kind where, if it's done to you, you feel guilty about letting someone down and don't even realize that they made you feel guilty on purpose! I would suggest that if you have that one friend where when you're done hanging out you always feel kind of lovely about yourself, then they are probably passive-aggressive as gently caress. I think that kind of dynamic - that of a character who harms people with their stand but has some sort of mental block/cognitive dissonance issue preventing them from realizing it - could easily be done with stands. And this would work better with Koichi's natural personality, in that this antagonist could even be someone who isn't a bad person, making it even harder for Koichi to confront them. With Kobayashi, since Koichi's mom's life was literally in danger, it seems less interesting that Koichi would assume a heroic role - I think all of us would take a great risk to save the life of a close family member. I don't want to downplay the heroism of people who have done that (and probably multiple people in this thread have done so -- it's practically part of the "older sibling" job description if you have little brothers) but kinship altruism has been observed in several species of mammal so it doesn't even require higher cognitive function. Koichi defending himself when it's not even clear there's a threat/who the enemy is would be much more interesting. Now if I wasn't going to hammer on the Passive-Aggressive angle, I'd probably look at Koichi and say, OK, what caused him to become a victim in his first confrontation with Kobayashi? Was it his lack of assertiveness? Lack of trust in his own recollection of events? Then let's have him get in that kind of situation again but with higher stakes and have him do what he should have done in the first confrontation. So in the second confrontation someone or something would be causing him to doubt his own feelings and he would have to push through that to believe his own memory and his own sensations. To be honest I'll cut that one short because as someone who managed to escape an abusive situation (as briefly touched on in The Nijimura Brothers arc), the topic of gaslighting touches a raw place for me and if I start going on about it now I'll write way too many  and it wouldn't shock me if this topic comes up naturally in the story and then I'll just have to dredge all that up again.Amaryllis posted:(e: I really should change my av from my ca. 2008 cat-vatar, and the only logical change is something JJBA related. Any suggestions?)
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Nov 11, 2015 01:13
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I'm not sure what I was thinking when I said low stakes was the issue, but it's hard for me to put my finger on what about this chapter that doesn't click for me. I guess the main thing is that, like most people are saying, it's not really an arc that brings Koichi, heretofore a support character, to the fore too well.
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Nov 11, 2015 02:13
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Xibanya posted:Name a JJBA character and I'll make you an avatar in the style of the Slam Fighter II character select portraits (pixelly!) since I'm working on a bunch of portraits in that style right now so I'm in the groove.
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Nov 11, 2015 02:22
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Xibanya posted:(As an aside I think it's a little lousy how so far women in part four have served just to motivate the main characters, but that's a discussion for a different post as I sense going into too much detail on that topic would derail the thread.)  There are some definite problems with that character, too, but it's a step forward. I feel like there's progression from prior parts, at least.  quote:While it's fun to see Koichi being confident, firm, powerful, I never got the sense that during Koichi's second confrontation with Kobayashi he struggled to arrive at those qualities or had to make any tough choices - he just didn't have power before, and now he does, and this is how he acts when he has power. I'm not saying this story arc is bad, but I think it's a shame because it has the potential to say something really powerful with just a little bit of revision. AHA, there we go, that's something I couldn't put my finger on that bugged me about Koichi in this part. There's something coming up (sorry to do this again) where you *can* see the development more clearly, but it didn't make as much sense here. If he's pulling out a stand that really plays upon someone mentally, it's disappointing to not see that expanded upon a little more. Because really, this would be a pretty tremendous matchup otherwise: I mean, obviously it's written to be THE stand that shows off Echoes to its fullest right now: passive aggressive/subtle/manipulative vs the stand that writes itself on you so it's plain as day. I very much like the lock as a stand and do see it as a bit of a missed opportunity. I agree, these chapters don't do as much for me. Surface is more fun, you get to see some creative Crazy Diamond work. Amaryllis posted:Oh man, that's awesome! I want to take you up on that offer when you get further into Part 4, so that I don't have to ask you to spoil yourself while drawing. (I can think of a few cool characters who aren't already in the crowd of JJBA avatars in this thread.) I wonder if it is the character who springs to mind immediately for you...
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Nov 11, 2015 02:27
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Okuyasu Nijimura posted:It's gonna happen throughout DiU unfortunately *but* there's a character I really, really like with an extremely interesting stand coming up soon.  quote:
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Nov 11, 2015 02:40
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To be totally fair, I think Okuyasu is the one who's more similar to Speedwagon just because of how similar they are, what with the similar backgrounds, the both of them going from outright thugs to getting "nnnnooooo, sweet babyyyyy" reactions from the audience, the fact that Okuyasu was super touched by the selfless nature of Josuke's stand like how Speedwagon was touched by Jonathan's thoughtfulness, they both express feelings of inadequacy a lot, the list goes on. Koichi is less that and more of a regular kid who suddenly gets shoved into all this supernatural business like Poco or Anne. He just, you know, gets a super power because of it. Also unlike those other two, he only looks 12 but anyways. BaDandy fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Nov 11, 2015 |
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Nov 11, 2015 06:23
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that wasn't the edit button, jesus christ
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Nov 11, 2015 06:26
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Blah blah feelings blah blah emotional arcs DUDE WHATEVER LET'S TALK ABOUT FIGHTS. Specifically let's talk about what doesn't quite work with this one, and how that fundamental issue brings down the arc as a whole - I mean, alongside all that other stuff you guys were talking about. Probably. Anybody who has talked to me for any length of time on the subject of shounen battle manga knows that I love me some good fights. I like them so much I've invented some of my own jargon for talking about them. I've posted this before in other threads, including the general catch-all shounen thread, and today I'm gonna talk about it in here. Basically, I think that the fights matter, which is surprisingly enough not a very common opinion to hold. A lot of people like to write off the fights, or respect them only insofar as they service the story or the character dynamics at play. Good Guy Greg and Bad Guy Bruce are coming to blows. The blows themselves won't matter to most people ("Man I have a hard time following the fights in this series anyway"); instead what matters to them is simply that the narrative has brought these two characters here, now, to come to terms with one another. The fight itself is an afterthought to the resolution of their long-standing beef, as it were. I think that's totally bogus and something we've come to tell ourselves just to try and make peace with the fact that most comic writers write bad fights. The two things that are most important to me in shounen battle manga are characters I like and fights I can get into. Other stuff like having an engaging plot or an interesting setting (or perhaps say substantial character development) is good too, but those two points represent the bare minimum bar I expect from any given battle manga to be worthy of my time - and all other things being equal, the two points by which I decide which of two series I like more. There are several reasons for this, but the one that's most relevant to the conversation is this: the good guys always win. Generally speaking, in 95% of fiction, the good guys come out on top and the bad guys lose. Even for those 5% of stories where they don't, they still win or at least break even up to a certain point before losing. If I'm reading a 500 page book, even if the heroes lose and evil prevails, it probably won't happen until the last 60 pages. We tend to not like spoilers, but implicit in most fiction is the understanding that I could spoil it for you by saying the good guy wins. The reasoning behind my two points then are as follows:
Here I'd like to talk about something I call THE BALANCE OF POWER (written in all caps and bold with thunder and lighting and a prolonged guitar solo). At its core, the balance of power is simple. In any given conflict, one side starts with a disadvantage. Typically, but not always, this is the hero's side. Stories are about overcoming obstacles, so it makes since that the hero should be in the position of overcoming whereas the villain provides the obstacle by way of some seemingly overwhelming advantage. The villain's goal is to maintain this balance whereas the hero's goal is to create a shift, generally relying on their skill or wits to carry the day (in a good comic anyway where the outcome isn't arbitrary). Even among series that are really good about this sort of thing, most fights will only involve a single shift - the hero overcoming their disadvantage - after which the fight ends and the bad guy is defeated. One of the reasons I like Jojo so much is because Araki loves to include lots of shifts, both in favor of the good guys as well as the bad. Some of Araki's best fights actually involve a bad guy who actually has to fight to regain their position of power, or who it turns out actually started at a disadvantage but gamed the system in order to produce a win condition. In this case the balance of power is more like a seesaw of power and I totally dig it. Okay, well, that was a lot of text. Let's talk about Echoes. Echoes starts out strong but ends kinda weakly. Why is that? Our heroes in this case (initially) are Josuke, Okuyasu, and Koichi, all of whom are likable in various ways. Josuke is cool and dependable, Okuyasu's a lovable idiot, and Kochi, well, Kochi's us. Not just as our audience surrogate, but as the embodiment of a particular sort of person likely to read comics in the first place. He's awkward and scrawny, a nice enough guy but frequently unsure of himself. At this point in the story we probably don't like him in the same way that we like, say, Josuke (who's more of a role model), but we don't like seeing bad things happening to him because he's the underdog. On the opposite side of the equation, Kobayashi's our bad guy and reigning dickweed of the month. He's a bully, coward, liar, and conman. The rest of the math's easy. We wanna see our heroes win while the villain is put in his place. So how about that balance of power. Interestingly enough, the one who starts out with the disadvantage in this case is Kobayashi. Even before we factor in stands, he's already at a disadvantage - not that this is immediately clear. As Xibanya pointed out, a con tends to be way more obvious to outside observers than to the mark. Thus, Kobayashi not only needs to deal with his prey one-on-one, it's in his best interest to maintain that exclusivity. A single policeman, kindhearted bystander, or one of his mark's friends (or two) could show up at any moment to complicate the situation. Then you add in stands to the mix and Kobayashi's really not in a great place. Up till this point most of the stands we've seen have been combat stands, but Kobayashi's The Lock is more of a gimmick. Here we have a villain who'd never win in a straight out brawl with most characters, so he needs to plan and prepare and carefully tailor the situation to suit his strengths. Although we don't see any of the steps that went into this ourselves, enough of it is implicit that in a weird way we sort of respect Kobayashi for taking the initiative. Like with D'Arby before him, the reason he's dangerous isn't his stand but his own human ability. This secures him the advantage while simultaneous elevating him above a common thug or thief. So Kobayashi springs his trap, and Koichi falls for it. The advantage is securely Kobayashi's, only for Kochi's friends to show up. This avoids feeling like a contrivance since, for the time being, Koichi is less a hero, more a victim. The true fight is only just now beginning, or so we suppose. It's still interesting though because with both of Koichi's friends showing up, it's again Kobayashi who's on the ropes - which is why I think the first half of this fight is actually pretty good. The traditional dynamics of the balance of power have been completely thrown out the window. It's the heroes who have, and casually maintain, the dominant position on the balance of power while the villain, weirdly enough, is the one scrambling to turn the tables in his favor. Okuyasu belts Kobayashi, which should be the end of it, but Kobayashi feigns the injury being worse than it actually is and plays to Okuyasu's soft side to produce the effects that he wants. Okuyasu feels guilty, and The Lock snaps into place. Shift. Josuke uncovers Kobayashi's plot with the toy cat and uses his ability to heal Kobayashi, releasing Koichi and Okuyasu from their guilt. Shift. Kobayashi pretends to be scared and sorry and returns Kochi's money, only it was actually a trick and he got away clean. Shift. All these shifts. So good. Josuke's ultimate solution to the problem is a bit "Easy," but we permit it because it still qualifies as an unorthodox use of his power - most heroes with healing abilities would not think to heal their opponents. This may seem like a small detail, but it'll be important to why the second half falls flat. So Koichi goes home and finds Kobayashi there waiting for him, being a creep. He's made himself welcome and is threatening people Koichi cares about. Koichi's friends aren't with him and he has no way of contacting them on such short notice. Previously we might've assumed Kobayashi simply broke even after their previous encounter, but in actuality he used the information gained from his brush with Koichi and friends to formulate a plan and cement an ever greater advantage than ever before. This is important because, while Kobayashi may be scum who steals from children and makes unwanted advances on women, he's legitimately "Earned" all his advantages which makes him an oddly terrifying opponent despite the admittedly small stakes involved. We hate him, of course, but are probably at least a bit in awe of him. Koichi's so outclassed that his stand choosing to finally manifest itself here doesn't even feel like a contrivance, but rather more like Araki's throwing him a bone - though to be sure there are plenty of other (thematic, character, emotional) reasons this works as well. Alright Koichi, time to turn the tables. Kobayashi's fortified himself behind a wall of seemingly ironclad advantages. How will you use your wits to come out on top? The answer is...he doesn't. Not really. Koichi's Echoes lets him slap sound effects on things, after which those things make those sounds. Alright, cool. So he...punches Kobayashi...and the sound of him getting punched (over and over and over and over) is enough to drive him crazy. Uh, well, that was a bit easy I guess BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE. Kobayashi stabs himself* and cries out in pain, after which he tosses the knife at Koichi. Koichi catches it, but now his mother and sister think he's a violent hoodlum. Kobayashi's Lock grows more powerful, it looks like this is the end... ...Until Koichi just slaps "BELIEVE ME!" on his mom's heart and...she does. And that's pretty much it for Kobayashi. He releases his ability on Koichi's family, Koichi taunts him, a little more self-assured of himself now, and Kobayashi basically becomes a punchline. The reason the conclusion to this fight is so unsatisfying, beyond the thematic reasons already discussed, is because Koichi's victory feels very arbitrary and unearned. Although his ability isn't as obviously convenient as Josuke's (or Okuyasu's), he basically uses it once without thinking and once in kind of a hat-pull kinda way and both times it proves to be exactly what he needs to take back the reins of the situation. While you could say Josuke's solution to their earlier encounter is similarly "Easy," it works (again) because Josuke's still using his power in an interesting way. Koichi isn't. Kobayashi, meanwhile, may have been a deplorable bastard, but he used his head and fought tooth and nail for every measly advantage he could muster in a fight that was never his gain to begin with. He may be the bad guy, but his steps towards shifting the balance of power in his favor feel earned. Koichi's aren't. Koichi simply wins, so his victory feels hollow. Some of this, I imagine, was probably due to Araki trying to think long-term. What's supposed to matter here isn't how Koichi won the fight, but that his powers have finally manifested, and how that represents the stirring of change within him. Koichi goes on to use his powers in several ways that are far more satisfying and befitting of his wits, but it kinda leaves this introductory brawl out to dry. Anyway, thanks for reading way too many words about a kids slapping around a conman. *Kobayashi stabbing himself while calmly explaining it to the reader always gives me a chuckle because it reminds me of Araki's first series Cool Shock BT wherein he would advise the reader on how to do a number of incredibly dangerous things they probably shouldn't actually attempt like catching hornets or faking the effects of food poisoning. Bad Seafood fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Nov 11, 2015 |
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Nov 11, 2015 21:12
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Bad Seafood posted:fight talk Echoes causes you to hear sounds or words directly into your mind (except for when it also makes those sounds physically, for reasons). For the type of cacophonous noises he was attaching to Kobayashi, it stands to reason that those would get really distracting and migraine-like as they stacked onto each other. Attaching actual words, "Believe in me" to his mother, on the other hand, was more like a subliminal suggestion. She has no idea that she's been affected by a Stand, so when she starts to hear Koichi's plea "Believe in me" echoing in her head, she thinks that it's her conscience crying out for her to believe her beautiful baby boy. Koichi won because of his virtue, not his strength. I'd say that Koichi didn't win because he "tricked" his mom into breaking her own lock. In fact, breaking her own lock was something that she did with her own will, in an act of true forgiveness and expression of trust. Kobayashi could have continued the fight from there if he had wanted to. However, and this is important going forward, Koichi's mother believing in him despite everything was an event that shook Kobayashi to his core. He had believed up until that point that his behavior was fair because everybody is essentially a fraud and a crook, and he has to survive in that world. When Kobayashi sees somebody forgive another person in such a pure way that it breaks his Stand Lock, which he previously believed could only be broken by himself, it proves to him that the world really does contain good and trusting people who want to do right by each other. He stops the fight because he realizes the error of his ways, and can no longer bring himself to harm Koichi or his family.
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Nov 11, 2015 21:37
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I don't really get people's confusion about how Echoes' power would hurt him. If someone was yelling into your ear at the top of their lungs, I think you would get hosed up too. I like this fight because it tells us Koichi is capable of solving problems all by himself. When I first read this, I expected Josuke to barge in and fix everything, but they put Koichi in a situation where that plain couldn't happen.
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Nov 11, 2015 22:37
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Xibanya posted:May need Daxing Dan to chime in on this, but if the translation is accurate, this is pretty interesting. When Kobayashi says “I can’t believe I fell for your trap,” it basically shows he would rather believe that he was outwitted than that all this was the result of the chaos of the universe. This is the same kind of thinking that makes people cling to conspiracy theories -- it is less scary to think that the events in our life are the result of someone’s plan than to realize that a lot of things are really out of anyone’s control. Now granted, all the events of this story are under the control of Araki, but I believe that it’s revealing that consciously or no, Kobayashi does not linger on the idea that Koichi had no idea that this would happen. If you want to know, the word is はまった, which means like, to fall victim to someone's tricks or setups. I personally did not take it as an incredibly profound line but that's up to you, I guess.
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Nov 11, 2015 23:06
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deadly_pudding posted:Echoes causes you to hear sounds or words directly into your mind (except for when it also makes those sounds physically, for reasons). For the type of cacophonous noises he was attaching to Kobayashi, it stands to reason that those would get really distracting and migraine-like as they stacked onto each other. The problem is Koichi makes two proactive moves in this whole fight, one of which is akin to blind button spam while the other is him hoping his power works in a way he and we are not really sure it can. Although Koichi himself is a newcomer to the world of stands, he picks up pretty quickly on the fact that different stands have different ways of interacting with the world around them. Once his stand hatches, he immediately uses it to attack Kobayashi without a second thought. Maybe he thinks he'll be able to pack a punch and beat Kobayashi into submission, or maybe he's hoping his stand will reveal itself to possess useful powers. Either way, and it turns out to be the latter, it's not a particularly satisfying "Move" since it's just him blindly lashing out without consideration and "Winning" because he drew the better hand at the last minute. It works against the larger context of the series as the reveal of his power, but within the realm of this fight specifically feels a bit cheap and arbitrary. While there are plenty of series that throw "Gimme" fights at their protagonists early on as a means of allowing them to display their powers for the audience's understanding, typically those last a chapter or two at best rather than the better part of an entire volume. By this point Araki's audience has been tuning in to this specific fight for over a month, so a more satisfying conclusion is warranted. I don't hate this fight's conclusion like some people do, and I do think there are larger storytelling machinations at play here to help smooth things out, but on its own it's still kind of a weak note to end on. Koichi is supposed to be solving his own problem, but it feels more like he gets handed the solution by author fiat, after which Araki smudges the scores a bit to give him a passing grade. That said, in the future Koichi goes on to earn most of this wins.
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Nov 11, 2015 23:42
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Bad Seafood posted:Here I'd like to talk about something I call THE BALANCE OF POWER (written in all caps and bold with thunder and lighting and a prolonged guitar solo). At its core, the balance of power is simple. In any given conflict, one side starts with a disadvantage. Typically, but not always, this is the hero's side. Stories are about overcoming obstacles, so it makes since that the hero should be in the position of overcoming whereas the villain provides the obstacle by way of some seemingly overwhelming advantage. The villain's goal is to maintain this balance whereas the hero's goal is to create a shift, generally relying on their skill or wits to carry the day (in a good comic anyway where the outcome isn't arbitrary). Even among series that are really good about this sort of thing, most fights will only involve a single shift - the hero overcoming their disadvantage - after which the fight ends and the bad guy is defeated. One of the reasons I like Jojo so much is because Araki loves to include lots of shifts, both in favor of the good guys as well as the bad. Some of Araki's best fights actually involve a bad guy who actually has to fight to regain their position of power, or who it turns out actually started at a disadvantage but gamed the system in order to produce a win condition. In this case the balance of power is more like a seesaw of power and I totally dig it. I am adding THE BALANCE OF POWER to my comic vocabulary: I didn't know it before, but it perfectly captures why I like most Jojo fights. (And thanks for the wall of text! I really did read it!) quote:The reason the conclusion to this fight is so unsatisfying, beyond the thematic reasons already discussed, is because Koichi's victory feels very arbitrary and unearned. ... Some of this, I imagine, was probably due to Araki trying to think long-term. What's supposed to matter here isn't how Koichi won the fight, but that his powers have finally manifested, and how that represents the stirring of change within him. Koichi goes on to use his powers in several ways that are far more satisfying and befitting of his wits, but it kinda leaves this introductory brawl out to dry. quote:The problem is Koichi makes two proactive moves in this whole fight, one of which is akin to blind button spam while the other is him hoping his power works in a way he and we are not really sure it can. Yeah, these two points also nail a problem on the head that I couldn't quite articulate. JJBA is full of characters whose powers change and/or get dropped whenever Araki feels like it or just forgets, but Koichi using Echoes for subliminal manipulation moments after finding out he can attach sounds to things feels like such an rear end-pull of a move. The fact that Koichi's using his power on someone else causes Kobayashi to just give up and start grovelling makes it feel that much more of a letdown. I can't quite put my finger on it, but while I do think these chapters work alright thematically, there's one disappointing thing that ties into the arbitrary victory. Like, the fact that Koichi has to use his stand power to get his mother to trust him instead of just having their familial bond win out over psychic guilt magic kind of works against part 4's interest in how acts of kindness/trust/general decency draw people together and solve problems. I guess you could say that the sound of "BELIEVE ME" stirs those feelings in her, but should it really be necessary? I dunno: at this point I'm just talking for the sake of talking because I love the way this Let's Read allows for this kind of discussion! quote:*Kobayashi stabbing himself while calmly explaining it to the reader always gives me a chuckle because it reminds me of Araki's first series Cool Shock BT wherein he would advise the reader on how to do a number of incredibly dangerous things they probably shouldn't actually attempt like catching hornets or faking the effects of food poisoning.
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Nov 12, 2015 00:34
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Amaryllis posted:I am adding THE BALANCE OF POWER to my comic vocabulary: I didn't know it before, but it perfectly captures why I like most Jojo fights. (And thanks for the wall of text! I really did read it!) Anyway, YEAH, thanks for taking the time to read it. Amaryllis posted:I love that line too. Had no idea it was an Araki Thing elsewhere.  Cool Shock BT was canceled after like five chapters. Can't imagine why.
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Nov 12, 2015 00:55
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Bad Seafood posted:
Hi koichi
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Nov 12, 2015 01:07
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Who taught Araki how to even do that, and why.  quote:May need Daxing Dan to chime in on this, but if the translation is accurate, this is pretty interesting. When Kobayashi says “I can’t believe I fell for your trap,” it basically shows he would rather believe that he was outwitted than that all this was the result of the chaos of the universe. This is the same kind of thinking that makes people cling to conspiracy theories -- it is less scary to think that the events in our life are the result of someone’s plan than to realize that a lot of things are really out of anyone’s control. Now granted, all the events of this story are under the control of Araki, but I believe that it’s revealing that consciously or no, Kobayashi does not linger on the idea that Koichi had no idea that this would happen. JoJo villains, or at least antagonists, fall into this line of thinking a lot, yeah. It's hilarious that Kars would rather assume that a mere human outsmarted him or planned all this when Joseph actually had no idea what the gently caress he was doing, or how Dio is gripped by fear and paranoia at the idea of the Joestars finally getting him when everything would have been fine and luck would have treated him kindly if he just stopped being a dickhead around the time he arrived at the Joestar manor. It's just being showcased a bit more with some of these other antagonists.
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Nov 12, 2015 01:25
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Probably ties in with the theme of fate you brought up in your big huge Dio post. Nobody wants to believe they were "Destined" to lose, that all their efforts might ultimately arbitrarily be for naught. "Of course" they were outsmarted, outmaneuvered, out-whatevered by their opponent; the alternatives would be either random chance upsetting everything or the universe itself dooming them from the start.
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Nov 12, 2015 01:31
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BaDandy posted:Who taught Araki how to even do that, and why. Obviously that skill is an integral talent for a mangaka to have. 
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Nov 12, 2015 03:36
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I'm too lazy to pull specific quotes from your post, Bad Seafood, but it definitely does feel like a lazy fight with less progression to me which is at odds with the very idea of utilizing that fight as a means of showing Koichi's progression as a Stand user. It feels like too easy a victory for him given the build we've had since the egg first showed up. I'm still finding myself enjoying him a little bit more as a whole (I confess that I didn't pace myself - I completed my re-read) so I'm more forgiving of that part than I was before and definitely gave it more attention. He definitely does earn subsequent wins in ways he hasn't before, his next one is a great win and great for laying out his character a further still.
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Nov 12, 2015 06:58
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Gonna get somebody to work their photoshop magic, churn out the VEGETA Fight Club gang tag.
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Nov 12, 2015 07:57
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