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Shonen Manga
Since I've heard so many complaints about things I like I figured I'd return the favor.
I got to be honest I don't understand the appeal of these things. The one nice thing I can say about them is that the artists are pretty good at what they do (or at least they were--I can't stand the more modern artstyles) but I can't justify buying a graphic novel just for good drawings. That's one of my first biggest complaints: these things are so overpriced. You can literally expect to pay £11.99 for 100-150 pages for say one volume of DragonBall.
Some people have told me "the quality justifies the price" which... no, it really doesn't. Shonen stories are kind of lame, and a lot of times you can tell the writer had only one week to pen a narrative and like television, often they're penned around whatever will attract the most attention rather than actually being a story worth telling ("in this chapter, one of the Magical Girls dies!"... and then its a Magical Girl nobody cares about anyway). This is before you even get into issues like retcons, characters who die and constantly come back to life, villains who are never stopped for good, the exact same social issues coming up over and over with no sense of progress or closure, or how the universes get more and more convoluted the further in they go. Never mind that by this point, all the characters you gave a damn about have either been flanderized to hell or else had their personalities canon-raped so they would appeal to the "edgy" demographic. That's my biggest issue right there (and I feel like I'm being redundant for some reason): nothing in comics is about art, its all focus-tested to appeal to trends and demographics. Sort of like moeblob anime.
Granted, I still like the early DragonBall and a few sundry others, but there is often a feeling that "they're goodin spite of their flaws." And on some of my worst days (days where I don't have any painkillers especially) I simply can't look past them. It's hard to enjoy an early Piccolo story with the foreknowledge that, in later years, they have Piccolo trying to babysit children.
Anyway, I'm gonna go play some video games now. Peace!
I got to be honest I don't understand the appeal of these things. The one nice thing I can say about them is that the artists are pretty good at what they do (or at least they were--I can't stand the more modern artstyles) but I can't justify buying a graphic novel just for good drawings. That's one of my first biggest complaints: these things are so overpriced. You can literally expect to pay £11.99 for 100-150 pages for say one volume of DragonBall.
Some people have told me "the quality justifies the price" which... no, it really doesn't. Shonen stories are kind of lame, and a lot of times you can tell the writer had only one week to pen a narrative and like television, often they're penned around whatever will attract the most attention rather than actually being a story worth telling ("in this chapter, one of the Magical Girls dies!"... and then its a Magical Girl nobody cares about anyway). This is before you even get into issues like retcons, characters who die and constantly come back to life, villains who are never stopped for good, the exact same social issues coming up over and over with no sense of progress or closure, or how the universes get more and more convoluted the further in they go. Never mind that by this point, all the characters you gave a damn about have either been flanderized to hell or else had their personalities canon-raped so they would appeal to the "edgy" demographic. That's my biggest issue right there (and I feel like I'm being redundant for some reason): nothing in comics is about art, its all focus-tested to appeal to trends and demographics. Sort of like moeblob anime.
Granted, I still like the early DragonBall and a few sundry others, but there is often a feeling that "they're goodin spite of their flaws." And on some of my worst days (days where I don't have any painkillers especially) I simply can't look past them. It's hard to enjoy an early Piccolo story with the foreknowledge that, in later years, they have Piccolo trying to babysit children.
Anyway, I'm gonna go play some video games now. Peace!
Comments
One problem with a lot of Shonen is that they have a ton of characters, some of which get to fight sometimes, but usually it's the hero who is the only one that can beat the big bad. The other characters just fight enemies so the hero can go on ahead. At least in Naruto other characters get to fight and win. Dragon Ball Z just has the side-characters distracting the villains for 20 episodes till Goku gets there or heals up.
Also these self-imposed tournaments are stupid. Every arc is a tournament arc when the characters believe one-on-one fights are the only fair way to fight. Naruto for example, YOU'RE FUCKING "NINJAS". Your whole history is based on unfair fights. Or Dragon Ball Z, YOU NEED TO SAVE THE WORLD! Just gang up on the guy and save the big hero some energy after all, not all of you are completely outclassed.
Also these self-imposed tournaments are stupid. Every arc is a tournament arc when the characters believe one-on-one fights are the only fair way to fight."
Well, Negima isn't like this at all (which is why I consider it to be a really good shonen). The other characters actually are useful, and the tournament arcs actually factor into the plot in a way that makes sense.
Aww, you had to ruin it. Now I have to nitpick it.
1) there are no single volumes of Dragon Ball that have less than 180 pages (except I think the first volume of Z, which seems oddly thin). Whether the price is reasonable or not though seems to depend on territory.
Incidentally I didn't see my "$1 per page" typo until you parodied it. Now I'm laughing myself sick.
2) Shonen and Magical Girls are different genres. Doesn't mean they can't fall in love.
3) This part:
Here is where you suck at proving points. "Shonen manga" is not a genre. it literally means nothing but that the manga was published in a shonen magazine. Yes, DBZ was published in a shonen magazine. So was Maison Ikkoku. You really gonna tell me that an oriental adventure fantasy and a romantic soap opera share the exact same set of flaws?
4) and finally:
You can't use this line unless you're actually going to go play video games once you hit "post comment." So you better have followed through.
Because it is.
It is full of quirky characters and random actiony stuff for no reason (like Light's ridiculously overdramatic way of writing in the Death Note). Stupid plot twists frequently happen for no reason except to make the series longer. Black-and-white morality (despite occasional insistence that it's not portrayed as such), etc.
Not like any of those things are exclusive to (or even necessarily more common in) shounen manga, but the way they all get combined together, I am left with the impression that it was definitely written for teenagers, which it was.
But yeah, your other stuff's valid.
I didn't know it did! Am I killing people every time I do laundry?
Glad they went out of business.Fyi, the main shonen trilogy is Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece.
People hate Naruto and Bleach because they really aren't that well written but have legions of teenage weaboos saying they are.
People hate Death Note because of either Hype Backlash or they think it's pretentious. Though neither of those are very common as I see it.
^Also some people still haven't forgotten the 4kids dub. Though I agree wholeheartedly that One Piece is head and shoulders above most shonen.
That could be wishful thinking though.