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There's all the usual growing pains of battle shonen present. A power scaling system that almost immediately becomes irrelevant. An ancillary cast whose members that cannot hang at the top of that power system becoming completely irrelevant. An motivated interesting villain being boiled down into something less interesting or replaced with something less interesting. I think some of these things are less obviously present than they are for a lot of other ongoing series (a lot of the people who aren't hanging out at the top of the power curve have useful non-combat utility) but they're there.
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Dec 23, 2023 17:46
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| # ? May 12, 2024 19:04 |
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The Nobara issue, and I think why it sticks in everyone's craw, is that while Nobara was never held to the same power level as her classmates, she was still given a few moments to be a highlight in her own right. From that point forward, the stage was set and every fan of the series put down a pretty simple request: we know how these typically end, either they get benched or fridged, please god don't do either. It's like a called shot but for disappointment. For all the subversion we talk about, this series couldn't subvert the most obvious trope in shonen anime. It's an extremely basic test and the series failed it. In hindsight it should have been expected given the flashback arc and how that whole mess ended.
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Dec 23, 2023 17:52
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Still wild that the shonen battle series that ignores most of the tropes re: women fighting is Fairy Tail. Which absolutely has its own problems, but that's not one of them and it counts for something.
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Dec 23, 2023 18:01
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Dawgstar posted:Still wild that the shonen battle series that ignores most of the tropes re: women fighting is Fairy Tail. Which absolutely has its own problems, but that's not one of them and it counts for something.
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Dec 23, 2023 18:19
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ninjewtsu posted:Mahito alone is more interesting than all of the students put together tbh I was amazed at the VA’s work with him. Granted the illustrators and animators were no slouches in making him a disgusting piece of fleshy trash, but it’s the maniacal GLEE he had in his voice that made the character.
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Dec 23, 2023 18:41
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I like the character deaths. It shows how much of a gently caress up loser Gojo is. He can't protect those much weaker than him (the students and flashback sacrificial girl, all the normies that sukuna kills) and he can't save his colleagues (Geto and Nanami etc). All because he is a moron who keeps getting outfoxed, which is apparently not that difficult to do. He really thinks he's smarter than he really is. His only plan was to walk into an obvious trap and go "I'm the strongest heh heh". It seems pretty explicitly to be his responsibility as the strongest sorceror to not let poo poo like Shibuya happen, but unfortunately he is too dumb. If you squint, you can kinda compare him to The Natural (book, not movie), where being born as the best at something doesn't necessarily mean much if the person is a gently caress up. I really hope he doesn't get a redemption arc, but if he does it would need to be extremely convincing.
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Dec 23, 2023 18:51
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Fabricated posted:Erza gets to be a badass who wins like, a million fights over the series and is really cool. The exchange for this is her being naked at the end of almost every fight and eventually spending an entire volume chained to a wall naked being essentially raped by a tentacle monster Wow spuper progressiv
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Dec 23, 2023 18:51
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I mostly don't have the same problem as others here with cast members dying, I'm just getting sick of "Oh person seven showed up and oh now they're dead too. Ok here comes person eight! The music just turned up and the oh no wait they're dead. Ok person ten!" If this new woman just dies and does nothing for the overall fight I'm going to stop watching. It's just boring.
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Dec 23, 2023 19:00
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Collapsing Farts posted:Wow spuper progressiv
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Dec 23, 2023 19:10
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As someone who likes to see villains win here and there, this season has been awesome! Villains just stacking Ws over here
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Dec 23, 2023 19:14
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I mean, their job is dangerous. Last season was high school poo poo, and just like a lot of people that recently graduate high school/college, the real world can be a bitch
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Dec 23, 2023 19:52
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Dawgstar posted:Still wild that the shonen battle series that ignores most of the tropes re: women fighting is Fairy Tail. Which absolutely has its own problems, but that's not one of them and it counts for something. You do not, under any circumstances, have to hand it to Fairy Tail That being said, who's the Jump heroine in an action oriented title that makes it out best? Whatserface from Promised Neverland managed to survive that book's whole third person shooter arc without much trouble, but I'm also not 100% sure if you can call it an action title given it spends it's first third as a suspense thriller. Kohaku from Dr. Stone is pretty tough but she's also third string behind a Baki character and a Golgo character. if you expand the criteria to "anything published under the Jump label" that answer becomes Yayoi from Dark Gathering and i will not be taking any counter-arguments.
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Dec 23, 2023 20:16
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Undead Unluck and it isn't even close. 
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Dec 23, 2023 20:38
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Maka Albarn from Soul Eater is a contender for sure. As far as I'm aware she gets to beat all the main villains for each arc she's in and never gets sexualised or disrespected by the narrative. Edit: Huh, turns out Soul Eater and Fairy Tail aren't actually Shounen Jump. I guess that explains why the girls are allowed to fight. Nephthys fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Dec 23, 2023 |
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Dec 23, 2023 20:52
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Lt. Lizard posted:Undead Unluck and it isn't even close. This is a good catch although you wouldn't think it at the start.
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Dec 23, 2023 21:06
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Nobara is not even not on the same level as the top people. She had incredible potential and a unique cursed technique that even unrefined allows her to target the soul directly which was clearly very effective against Mahito, meaning that she is one of very few people in the world that could reasonably deal with him.
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Dec 23, 2023 21:13
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Jerkface posted:She had incredible potential Ain't that the issue? So now, when Itadori needs some fresh powerful ally he'll have to depend on some newly introduced powerful character or have something silly like Miwa going SSJ and kicking rear end for some reason.
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Dec 23, 2023 21:52
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Jerkface posted:Nobara is not even not on the same level as the top people. She had incredible potential and a unique cursed technique that even unrefined allows her to target the soul directly which was clearly very effective against Mahito, meaning that she is one of very few people in the world that could reasonably deal with him. I will definitely agree that she should have been given more to work with, being a pretty hard foil to Mahito's everything. She's ranged AND hurts his soul? gently caress off with that nonsense, let her wreck shop
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Dec 23, 2023 21:59
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DeadFatDuckFat posted:I like the character deaths. It shows how much of a gently caress up loser Gojo is. He can't protect those much weaker than him (the students and flashback sacrificial girl, all the normies that sukuna kills) and he can't save his colleagues (Geto and Nanami etc). All because he is a moron who keeps getting outfoxed, which is apparently not that difficult to do. He really thinks he's smarter than he really is. His only plan was to walk into an obvious trap and go "I'm the strongest heh heh". It seems pretty explicitly to be his responsibility as the strongest sorceror to not let poo poo like Shibuya happen, but unfortunately he is too dumb. If you squint, you can kinda compare him to The Natural (book, not movie), where being born as the best at something doesn't necessarily mean much if the person is a gently caress up. to be fair to gojo its worked out for him every time beforehand
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Dec 23, 2023 22:02
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Yuji being broken down to the point he gives his Cog speech, fully terrorizing Mahito and changing the dynamic, is a great moment isolated in the manga. But ya know what give me Nobara+Yuji double black flash REPRISE in the finale of S2 to show their growth from the same moment in S1 ya know
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Dec 23, 2023 22:02
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Nephthys posted:Maka Albarn from Soul Eater is a contender for sure. As far as I'm aware she gets to beat all the main villains for each arc she's in and never gets sexualised or disrespected by the narrative. It's called Shounen Jump not Shoujo Jump, duh.
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Dec 23, 2023 22:15
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Lt. Lizard posted:Undead Unluck and it isn't even close. also the overall better anime this season tbh and if the staff is being horrifically mistreated at least it wasn't bad enough for them to openly talk about it on twitter so it has that going for it too
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Dec 23, 2023 22:29
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bean mom posted:to be fair to gojo its worked out for him every time beforehand Do you mean aside from the giant failure that we saw in the first arc of this season?
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Dec 23, 2023 23:30
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Right, the one time he failed and then became a nearly invincible demigod.
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Dec 23, 2023 23:40
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King of Solomon posted:JJK is significantly worse about it than most shonen anime imo. I'm sorry have you actually watched most shonen. Absolutely not, that's a horrendous take and completely wrong
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Dec 24, 2023 01:08
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I think they're taking that side because JJK showed so much promise compared to a lot of mediocre shounen. High rise, low LOW fall.
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Dec 24, 2023 01:17
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Maera Sior posted:I don't think of Chainsaw Man as shounen Why not?
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Dec 24, 2023 01:52
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rkd_ posted:Why not? I know it's part of the extended Shounen Jump family, but it feels unfiltered in a way that I don't associate with mass-market properties in SJ and similar magazines.
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Dec 24, 2023 03:01
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Pan Dulce posted:I think they're taking that side because JJK showed so much promise compared to a lot of mediocre shounen. High rise, low LOW fall. can someone let me know what this "so much promise" was in which scenes/story arcs was jjk so immensely promising in comparison to other contemporary shounen? why was that writing so promising?
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Dec 24, 2023 03:27
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Asuron posted:I'm sorry have you actually watched most shonen. Absolutely not, that's a horrendous take and completely wrong I've seen enough shonen to have an educated take and no, I don't think I'm wrong about this.
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Dec 24, 2023 03:39
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King of Solomon posted:I've seen enough shonen to have an educated take and no, I don't think I'm wrong about this. Everyone gets loving chumped in JJK. Like if you're nearsighted you might associate a rash of female characters biting it problematic and then a few chapters later a bunch of guys get chumped too. Watching with friends and most are pretty much "meh" on the general shonen story it portrays but are in it for the fights. If there is one thing that JJK does well is the idea that anyone can die, everyone I watch with that dont read the manga agree.
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Dec 24, 2023 03:47
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Cao Ni Ma posted:Everyone gets loving chumped in JJK. Like if you're nearsighted you might associate a rash of female characters biting it problematic and then a few chapters later a bunch of guys get chumped too. if there's 20 guys and 10 girls and 6 girls get chumped and then 6 boys that's not equal. there's already an imbalance in ratio and focus. Its telling that right now the most important characters are all dudes.
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Dec 24, 2023 04:13
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ninjewtsu posted:can someone let me know what this "so much promise" was Basically JJK is a very competent but fairly by-the-numbers shounen that has a darker/more mature setting than most. It was the exploration of this setting where the promise of the show was. More specifically, it was how it could balance the typical shounen stuff (power of friendship, power levels/growth, school BS, etc) with the more mature stuff (Actually threatening villains, serious consequences, etc) that I personally liked. It also has really cool fights
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Dec 24, 2023 04:13
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trucutru posted:Basically JJK is a very competent but fairly by-the-numbers shounen that has a darker/more mature setting than most. It was the exploration of this setting where the promise of the show was. More specifically, it was how it could balance the typical shounen stuff (power of friendship, power levels/growth, school BS, etc) with the more mature stuff (Actually threatening villains, serious consequences, etc) that I personally liked. i more mean like, which specific story beats or moments made you go "oh, this show isn't like the rest" setting you up for this big let down because the only one i remember being particularly noteworthy was yuji's friend dying, which was extremely in line with what's been happening this season
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Dec 24, 2023 04:15
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ninjewtsu posted:can someone let me know what this "so much promise" was "i really like it so that means it must be deep and subversive"
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Dec 24, 2023 04:20
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Jerkface posted:if there's 20 guys and 10 girls and 6 girls get chumped and then 6 boys that's not equal. there's already an imbalance in ratio and focus. Its telling that right now the most important characters are all dudes. Should all stories mathematically even out bad events happening to its characters to not be discriminatory? Indisputably the manga/anime is shounen and thus wants to appeal to a male audience but that doesn’t make it misogynistic just yet.
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Dec 24, 2023 04:24
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ninjewtsu posted:can someone let me know what this "so much promise" was S1 - huh, Nobara's cool. Her ability looks tailor made to gently caress up one of the main antagonists. And holy poo poo, the ending sequence with Yuji? Def my two fave characters and with such synergistic abilities. And the other women are pretty cool too, with designs that aren't even that sexualized! Maki is awesome and I really wanna see more of Miwa's New Shadow Style battutsu/iaijutsu/whatever-it-is. Both Nobara and Maki, in particular, are written with complex motivations and both are given traits typically excluded from sympathetic female characters in this type of media, where motivations like spite are reserved for the evil shrew archetype and most women are bashful and passive. Maki is shown to be ambitious not for some noble reason, but simply because she's ambitious. She's allowed to just be a person with personal motivations in a way that men consistently are, and women are frequently denied. Rather than being compelled to act by male characters in danger or making demands, the women have motivations that exist because of their backstories and personalities and they aren't put on pedestals as, like, perfect creatures who exist to inspire and be led by the male leads. At this stage, neither character is coded with internalized misogyny to reject their girly sides as weaker or worse, somehow. And they immediately strike up a friendship without any need for the too common girly catfight that's used to prove that Maki is "worth it." That Nobara's probably most significant role model is a woman her age is doubly significant, showing that women can inspire other women and be a source of wisdom and guidance without being on that pedestal - either as some perfect angelic creature, or an otherworldly elder. Nobara and Maki both are written to subvert the meek/bashful writing of so many female characters in Shonen, without being entirely cast as tsundere whose harshness is really, under the surface, actually maternal or romantic love for a male character. They completely buck the Madonna/Whore complex trope. All that said, neither of them has to reject their femininity to be as badass as they are, perhaps Nobara most of all. Rather, Nobara's femininity is confident (she knows she's beautiful! fucken imagine that!!), empowered, and unashamed. They're kinda underpowered compared to the main dudes now but this could absolutely go in two directions with the female characters and fingers crossed it's the good one~~ ! S2 - oh, so it's the bad one where they all die, become uncomplicated villains (child abuse is bad, y'all) instead of unsympathetic antiheroes, or just fail to do anything of note, cool. You really do not love to see it. I know that apparently Maki isn't dead and does, in fact, go on to continue being the kind of female character that I describe her as above, but the show so far hasn't really set that up for me and I had to be spoiled by assholes here about that instead of being able to read it from the text I'm given. That Miwa apparently just made a binding vow not to swing a katana again disappoints me sooooo much too, fuckkkk That's what I mean by promise, in any case. S1 wasn't, like, totally 100% perfectly amazing re female characters compared to other Shonen, but it was a great setup for a Shonen battler where the women are actual people who get to shine and aren't sidelined by men and ultimately useless as much as is frustratingly common in the genre in my limited experience. Like, I'm a relatively new anime watcher. I watched a few bad shows in college and then took a fifteen year break before picking it back up recently. In that time I reconsidered a lot of casually misogynistic views I held unthinkingly from my upbringing. It's been really fun engaging with a new form of art and storytelling and I think I'll be an anime watcher for the rest of my life now. There's so much to love here, really. And shonen stories in particular have been grabbing me - I love a good action centric heroic tale where we don't really question whether the good guys will win in the end, but what's interesting is the costs they pay along the way. JJK S1 was the most excited I've been about this since picking anime up. The thing that consistently disappoints me the most is the treatment of women in these stories. It makes me sad to see JJK go on that pile when I was really sorta hopeful that it wouldn't. Cao Ni Ma posted:Everyone gets loving chumped in JJK. Like if you're nearsighted you might associate a rash of female characters biting it problematic and then a few chapters later a bunch of guys get chumped too. Lol what I think you're entirely missing the point. It's not just that they die, but that they do so without fuckin doing anything. The only people to actually impact the overarching plot are dudes (or male-coded curses that might technically be genderless but I digress - they're dude-coded and get he/him pronouns in almost all discussion I've seen so they're dudes) or in the rare cases a woman does something impactful it's off screen (a lady taught Todo - waow!) or by helping out a dude.
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Dec 24, 2023 04:27
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ninjewtsu posted:i more mean like, which specific story beats or moments made you go "oh, this show isn't like the rest" setting you up for this big let down For me, it was the friend dying, the complicated system for battle, and the fact that one of the three main characters wasn't being "Sakura Haruno-d" and was a respectable part of the team, keeping up in her own way. It certainly wasn't the art, I'll tell you that much.
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Dec 24, 2023 04:27
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ninjewtsu posted:i more mean like, which specific story beats or moments made you go "oh, this show isn't like the rest" setting you up for this big let down For the serious/dark themes Junpei getting killed is certainly a highlight. The setup and consequences were well crafted and it gives you a better idea of who mahito, itadori, and sukuna are. In other words, his death was not a cheap plot device. As far as action goes the fight against Hanami is tops. For comedy / light hearted stuff I would go with the Baseball game. It's the balance of all that and how it could transition between different vibes that made it better than the rest. pork never goes bad posted:(or male-coded curses that might technically be genderless but I digress - they're dude-coded and get he/him pronouns in almost all discussion I've seen so they're dudes) Hanami is deffo a girl (and maybe Krang is one too, lol, that loving brain came out of nowhere) trucutru fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Dec 24, 2023 |
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Dec 24, 2023 04:32
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I'll also toss in that, while the male lead is the strongest fighter, the main might-be-romantic relationship in Zero is between a meek, bashful boy who uses fancy magic abilities with the Power of Love, and a brash, aggressive girl who's fueled by spite against her family and whose combat style is all about getting in close and beating the poo poo out of everyone with superstrength. That's a kind of a fun twist on the expected standards that's all the better because it's not called out. As for tonal differences, season 1 did have Jujutsu Stroll to show the characters just hanging out being idiots between the grim parts. Lacking it really emphasized the more monotonous battles of Shibuya.
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Dec 24, 2023 04:34
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