Downtown Khazan: Ice Cold Utopia

[bruceleegreyhulk]

[Jcogginsa]

I didn't expect it to bother me so much that the group introduced as our "main four" doesn't end up sticking together after the early couple of arcs, but for some reason, it does. Doesn't ruin the manga, it's just weirdly irksome.

I feel like them splitting up is to the detriment of the series. It makes it really hard to care about Kurapika's arc

Question:


What's the general consensus on Stephen Universe ? Boredom has gripped the Cthulhu, and he's looking for things to occupy his time, if only briefly.

I definitely recomend it. Once it starts getting good, it gets real good

[TheLastDalek]

Missed this before. Yes, it makes me really annoyed.

Learning to animate has only served to make this sort of thing more aggravating to me because now I have a greater understanding of how animation actually works and what quality animation means and looks like.

See like 90% of the negative discourse about Thundercats Roar and new She-Ra. Obviously people can dislike their respective new styles but claiming that the new shows have worse quality of animation from stuff made in the 80s is either frankly dishonest or profoundly ignorant.

Honestly I don't get the hate Thundercats Roar. It's not my kind of thing, but it's a harmless comedy spin off at the end of that day. It's the equivalent of complaining about RWBY Chibi or Rock Lee' Springtime of Youth.

[Sharkerbob]

I just can't get myself to care about this succession war when I'd much rather be reading about Gon's quest to get his power back or the Spiders vs Hisoka war, Hell it doesn't even feel like a true Kurapika arc anymore

Agreed. While I love the new world building detail of the Dark Continent and its nice that Kurapuka is in the story again, I just do not care at all about all these new characters.

I feel like them splitting up is to the detriment of the series. It makes it really hard to care about Kurapika's arc.

I agree. Kurapika's my favorite character of the lot, and then he got demoted to side character almost right away. Then he gets his big moment against the Spiders, which was pretty great, but really feels like Togashi blew his load early on the character.

It's worse with Leorio, whom I wasn't really that interested in, but he gets his moments to shine, and he has some real chemistry with the rest of the group. And then he just sort of falls away from the story.

I know one of HxH's appeals is how it somewhat dodges around shonen conventions, but the establishment of the "core group", only to break them apart just always felt like a bad move. None of the other groups the separated characters form around themselves felt as interesting or as balanced character-wise. Of course, as the series goes on, it pumps-and-dumps characters like a superhero web serial. I think maybe that's the issue, really. Lots of manga end up with huge ensemble casts, but that's why you really need a core group to act as an anchor for the readers to stick with. Otherwise, you end up with new character burn out, and before you know it, your core characters are taking a back seat to new characters you don't have the same investment in.

HxH is still great in other ways, but yeah, in hindsight, I think that's been one reason the series can run really hot or cold on some readers.

[KingofPie]

New Aquaman trailer

[Jcogginsa]

Agreed. While I love the new world building detail of the Dark Continent and its nice that Kurapuka is in the story again, I just do not care at all about all these new characters.



I agree. Kurapika's my favorite character of the lot, and then he got demoted to side character almost right away. Then he gets his big moment against the Spiders, which was pretty great, but really feels like Togashi blew his load early on the character.

It's worse with Leorio, whom I wasn't really that interested in, but he gets his moments to shine, and he has some real chemistry with the rest of the group. And then he just sort of falls away from the story.

I know one of HxH's appeals is how it somewhat dodges around shonen conventions, but the establishment of the "core group", only to break them apart just always felt like a bad move. None of the other groups the separated characters form around themselves felt as interesting or as balanced character-wise. Of course, as the series goes on, it pumps-and-dumps characters like a superhero web serial. I think maybe that's the issue, really. Lots of manga end up with huge ensemble casts, but that's why you really need a core group to act as an anchor for the readers to stick with. Otherwise, you end up with new character burn out, and before you know it, your core characters are taking a back seat to new characters you don't have the same investment in.

HxH is still great in other ways, but yeah, in hindsight, I think that's been one reason the series can run really hot or cold on some readers.

Another flaw to the series, I feel, is that it takes too long to introduce it's combat system.

[master of read]

so child emperor isn't a S-class hero for nothing.

little guy is a beast.

[master of read]

Another flaw to the series, I feel, is that it takes too long to introduce it's combat system.

i dont particularly mind that it took them 2 arcs to introduce the nen system.

[Jcogginsa]

i dont particularly mind that it took them 2 arcs to introduce the nen system.

And it took 2 more arcs for the main character to develop his nen skills, and the pay off for it was a lack luster Rock Paper Scissors based fighting style.

[master of read]

And it took 2 more arcs for the main character to develop his nen skills, and the pay off for it was a lack luster Rock Paper Scissors based fighting style.

well what were you expecting? gon's still a kid. a very talented kid who had a lot of potential in terms of nen but still a kid. as we've seen in a lot of shonens, it takes long time for characters to get good at their respective battle systems.

if you really wanted to get into it, one piece didn't have a official battle system for a long time. it was mostly just devil fruit users and certain esoteric skills.

[Jcogginsa]

well what were you expecting? gon's still a kid. a very talented kid who had a lot of potential in terms of nen but still a kid. as we've seen in a lot of shonens, it takes long time for characters to get good at their respective battle systems.

if you really wanted to get into it, one piece didn't have a official battle system for a long time. it was mostly just devil fruit users and certain esoteric skills.

Devil Fruits were the battle system. And the point was that Gon spent a lot of time to develope his own Nen, and the end result was a very boring fighting style.

[Sharkerbob]

Another flaw to the series, I feel, is that it takes too long to introduce it's combat system.

There was honestly so much world building going on all the time, and so many different systems, I don't think I even noticed. But then, I did marathon most of it in one go.

I do agree Gon's powers are exceedingly basic for such an otherwise creative shonen universe.

One piece didn't have a official battle system for a long time. it was mostly just devil fruit users and certain esoteric skills.

I wish it had stayed that way, but I guess there's only so much they can escalate with just the DF system, and it's some kind of shonen law that whatever else is going on, there must be some kind of "chi" equivalent in the universe.

[master of read]

Devil Fruits were the battle system. And the point was that Gon spent a lot of time to develope his own Nen, and the end result was a very boring fighting style.

devil fruits were just how many characters had super powers. anyone could eat a devil fruit and have a edge in combat. it was the introduction of haki that was the battle system for the series. it showed us that merely having a devil fruit didn't really matter in the new world. you needed to know haki to really stand a chance, hence why luffy needed those 2 years to learn it.

and gon really learned his skills at a very fast rate. in fact, gon had one of the fastest growth rates of any shonen protag, with ichigo from bleach being one of the top of my head being faster. the time it took between gon learning the basics of nen and developing his own hatsu ablity was about a couple of months at least and a year at most. it took luffy a year and a half to master his haki with one of the best haki masters in the world. but you finding his fighting style boring is your opinion. i personally find knuckle's fighting style the most boring, even though i like the character a lot.

[master of read]

There was honestly so much world building going on all the time, and so many different systems, I don't think I even noticed. But then, I did marathon most of it in one go.

I do agree Gon's powers are exceedingly basic for such an otherwise creative shonen universe.



I wish it had stayed that way, but I guess there's only so much they can escalate with just the DF system, and it's some kind of shonen law that whatever else is going on, there must be some kind of "chi" equivalent in the universe.

Devil fruits are interesting but there had to be a way for guys like shanks and roger to justify why they were/are the top dogs of the one piece world without having a DF.

[Jcogginsa]

devil fruits were just how many characters had super powers. anyone could eat a devil fruit and have a edge in combat. it was the introduction of haki that was the battle system for the series. it showed us that merely having a devil fruit didn't really matter in the new world. you needed to know haki to really stand a chance, hence why luffy needed those 2 years to learn it.

and gon really learned his skills at a very fast rate. in fact, gon had one of the fastest growth rates of any shonen protag, with ichigo from bleach being one of the top of my head being faster. the time it took between gon learning the basics of nen and developing his own hatsu ablity was about a couple of months at least and a year at most. it took luffy a year and a half to master his haki with one of the best haki masters in the world. but you finding his fighting style boring is your opinion. i personally find knuckle's fighting style the most boring, even though i like the character a lot.

But Gon took up the most narrative time to learn. Luffy learned Haki over a timeskip

Devil fruits are interesting but there had to be a way for guys like shanks and roger to justify why they were/are the top dogs of the one piece world without having a DF.

True. One Piece has always had a lot of variety in it's combat. It's not a relly good comparison here. Something like Naruto or Jojo would be better