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ben-talks-art · 1 year ago

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My Top 10 Scenes in Manga!

I love manga!

It's probably one of my favorite ways of consuming a story. I love the artworks that express the individual style of each creator, the lack of colors that forces artists to get creative with what they can do with white, black, and shades of grey, the enjoyable pace that allows you to consume it as fast or as slow as you want, unlike Anime where you have to adjust to their pacing instead...

Basically, Manga means a lot to me, so I felt it would be fun to list down my top 10 moments in manga. These are not the best drawn, or best written or anything like that, these are just the ones that hit me the most when I first read it, and to this day still remains fondly in my memories.

So be aware of spoilers and let's start!

The Twins Fighting Together (Claymore)

This is a scene from Claymore where two sisters that were genetically altered in order to fight together serving as each other's anchor to humanity lose their control at the same time.

To put it simply, they have a condition where if they use their full power they risk becoming a mindless monster, so they devised a plan where they connect their minds so that one can transform and if they start losing themselves, one sister can bring the other back.

They keep this back and forth in a fight, turning into monster, then turning normal, then watching their sister turn as well, then bringing her back, and on and on, constantly switching who turns and who brings back who... Until eventually they face an opponent so strong that they both are forced to turn into monsters at the same time out of desire to protect her sister.

And when I saw that, saw both of them sacrificing their humanity for each other I somehow gasped and went "Awww!" at the same time. It was some sort of mix of horror and worry but also somehow touching.

The reason this scene sticks with me is because, this was the first time I've ever seen these characters. They never appeared before, and they never show up after this fight... And the manga still managed to make me both love them and feel bad for them in a matter of seconds.

This is so amazing to me, the fact that a story can make me connect so strongly with characters I barely knew just by knowing exactly how much information they need to give and how they need to transmit it to the reader, it makes me feel the power of good storytelling, the power of getting an emotion out of your audience with the skill of your writing and artwork.

This is a scene that makes me love and appreciate manga!

"Are you afraid?" (Ragna & Crimson)

This is a scene where the main lead of the manga starts rampaging against on of the big bads of the series.

Up until this point the character had been mostly a very calm and collected individual, but when we reach this point it feels like some sort of switch flips inside of him and he just starts attacking the villain relentlessly.

This is one of the biggest beatdowns I've seen in manga (and I've seen a lot!) and it sticks out so much due to how personal it feels. The main character isn't just angry, he's calmly angry, as if he's focusing all his energy and fury into making every move counts.

Like for instance, there's a small scene where he starts attacking, then pauses to tie up his jacket, and then proceeds to attack again. You can tell he's completely focused on making sure every move counts, that he makes no mistakes, no error, no missing blows.

And it all builds up to this line, where you finally understand where he's coming from. He's not angry that the villains are bad, he's angry that the villains don't understand why they're bad. That they can kill innocents without regrets but when someone puts them in danger they just start to despair.

It's such a frustrating and relatable anger that transmits itself so well through the pages. You feel his anger, you feel his adrenaline, you feel his desire to beat up this character with everything you have. It's just so good!

"Yes, we can!" (Heaven's Lost Property)

This is one of the hardest I've ever laughed in my entire life.

Just to be clear, real quick. This is not a good series. It has a lot of shameless fanservice featuring teenage girls in uncomfortable situations, and if possible I'd rather not mention it at all... But I need to talk about this damn scene.

This is a chapter where the main lead takes a pair of robot angel girls on a date (because, of course), and they go to the zoo.

The chapter itself is the usual trope fest where the robots struggle to understand emotions which leads to funny shenanigans and weird situations, mostly funny jokes but nothing you have never seen before.

But then we reach the ending joke, and the joke just keeps building up, and building up, and building up, until it turns into pure insanity.

It starts with the robot girls releasing the animals from the cages and causing them to start chasing after the main lead. Okay, that's already kinda cute and funny...

But then the lead starts losing his clothes because the animals keep slashing him and people start thinking he's a terrorist making the animals rampage, then they start calling the police, but then the police starts feeling like they won't be enough to stop him, so they call the army, and then the marines, and then the soldiers start having an existential crisis wondering when will the battle with evil ever end, and then we cut to (at the time) president Obama for whatever reason to let us know he believes in us!

And it just gets dumber and dumber, until eventually the main guy is arrested with all his classmates giving interviews and talking about how they can't believe he would stood this low and all the while I'm just "What am I reading!!??"

The jump from a date at the zoo to... Whatever this was, was so absurd I couldn't stop laughing.

By far one of the funniest moments in any manga I've ever read.

"Nothing Happened" (One Piece)

This is another scene that only works because of the escalation of events.

Thriller Back is one of my favorite arcs of One Piece, mostly due to how things start so small and then just keep going and never feel like they stop.

At first, the main characters just do their usual routine of stopping at some random piece of land, finding out it's being ruled by some big jerk, and then going out of their way to beat him up and help the locals.

But, again, unlike other arcs with this exact same formula, this one sticks out from just how much things escalate.

We start with the heroes fighting some giant Frankenstein monster with elastic powers, followed by their captain joining the fight and helping them beat the monster, but then the monster stands up again while all the characters are exhausted, so they all need to work together to beat him for good, but then the mad doctor that made the monster shows up and picks up a fight with the heroes again, but this time they're on a time limit and even more exhausted than before, and then they beat him, BUT THEN, another even bigger threat appears to also pick a fight with them, except this time the captain is out for good which leads to all of them getting pulverized, BUT! THEN! one of the heroes offers himself to take the punishment for his Captain, even though he runs a high risk of dying, even though they all have been going through hell that entire night, and then he finally takes it, going through possibly one of the worst pains imaginable...

And then the arc finally ends with the guy just going "Eh... Wasn't a big deal."

It feels like such a rollercoaster where things just kept getting worse and worse for the heroes but they still never showed any fear or hesitation that they would win in the end.

That one line at the end carries so much weight behind it. When I reached it I couldn't believe that THIS was how they were going to end that gigantic non-stop fight.

It was so cool.

"It Didn't Work" (All You Need Is Kill)

This is one of those stories where the main lead is stuck in a time loop.

Throughout the whole series, our guy has been doing all he can to find out what he can do to escape. He's been learning how to fight, learning how to talk to people, how to focus on his tasks, how to use his armor, how to use questions to look for other loopers, using a marker to keep track of how many times he died and went back in time...

You feel his desperation, his mind starting to break, his will starting to give up... But then he finally finds out how to break the cycle.

He finds an answer that can get him out, makes all the necessary preparations to make sure he succeeds, makes sure nothing could go wrong, you see him fighting and struggling for his life as he can practically sense the taste of freedom approaching his fingers...

And then... He starts the loop again. And his body, almost as if moving on its own, grabs the marker to set another day, but when he finishes marking it his hand starts shaking, as if all the frustration finally started to kick in.

This is one moment that makes you go "God, that must suck so much" because you can sense how ready he was to finally be free, but the manga was all "not there yet, my guy."

Very frustrating, but at the same time, very engaging.

"It's Not Trivial" (Even if you don't do it)

God, I love this scene.

This is the part where the main lead is being confronted by the wife of the man she had an affair with and basically asked why did she do it.

She goes on to say how she simply wasn't feeling loved by her own husband anymore, how she was craving for some kind, ANY kind of comfort, of display of affection, of reassurance that she was someone worth being loved... with the wife just going "Is that it?", questioning how she doesn't feel ashamed of resorting to adultery over something so trivial, to which she replies "It's not trivial."

We always think our pain matter more, our pain is bigger, our life is harsher, our problems are more important, we are the bigger victims, we are the ones who deserve justice more... and that causes us to forget that other people struggle too, and not only that, most people struggle more.

I like this because it shows a big, big problem in society today, the struggle to sympathize with the problems of others.

Like, here's this woman who all her life always felt she had no right to complain because she felt her problems were too small and not worth complaining about... And in this moment, she realizes her problems aren't trivial, they aren't too small, they are worth complaining about, because they are your problems, and even if others would not be hurt by them, you are, and you have the right to try to avoid what hurts you.

Yes, the wife is the victim, yes, she's in her right to be antagonistic to our main lead... But that does not mean her pain matters more... or less! All our pains affect us in different ways and in different sizes.

Mind you, I don't think it's anyone's obligation to force yourself to relate to others, to feel sorry for others, to like others, or to forgive others if you don't think you have it in yourself the conditions to do it, but I think it's important to keep in mind that each person's struggles affect us in different ways, and that your pain does not make you matter more than others.

"Chainsaw Man... Doesn't Spit!" (Chainsaw Man)

(Told you there would be spoilers)

This is from the climatic confrontation between Makima and Chainsawman where she, in my opinion, perfectly shows the harm and toxicity that comes from the concept of entitlement.

You force your ideals on others against their will, you go out of your way to manipulate their lives and make decisions that will affect their future without their consent, you bring pain and struggles that they might not be ready to deal with, you ignore the consequences of your actions and refuse to look at the damage you cause, you install this same mentality on others who follow and trust you and motivate them to do the same...

All because you think you're right and they're wrong... And you refuse to let things play out in a path you disagree with.

This scene is so perfect because it's so simple. The big evil bad of the series is just a grown kid who wants things her way or the highway.

"Chainsaw Man doesn't spit, doesn't wear clothes, every action he does should be chaotic..."

It's such a beautifully perfect display of the ugliness of entitlement, and all done with such simple actions and simple lines.

This is what good writing should be. Conveying big impactful messages by making use of effective methods that make it easy to process and digest.

"I don't Know- Pi..." (Takopi's Original Sin)

This the climax of the manga Takopi's Original Sin.

Our little octopus guy with God-like powers is confronted by his best friend with the question of why does she have to suffer? Why couldn't she be happy? What did she do wrong? What should she have done? Why isn't a space alien octopus with a time-traveling camera (this manga was weird...) able to fix all her problems? What's the answer?

And that's just so relatable. We want our pain to have a deeper meaning, to believe we're not suffering in vain, that there's a bigger reason, and that someone out there knows this reason, and that we'll one day find that person and they'll make everything make sense to us.

And he just replies... He doesn't know.

He doesn't know how to fix her life, how to solve her problems, what she should have done... He just doesn't know.

Sometimes life simply has problems that we won't be able to solve and hardships that we won't be able to avoid. We can try our best to avoid it, but the more time, energy, and effort we spend trying to run away from an unescapable pain, more time we lose that could have been used to moving on.

Maybe there is a bigger plan, maybe every struggle we face does have a deeper meaning or has an easy solution that could have solved it all... But who can tell that we will be able to figure it out?

There are some pains that we just need to accept. Sometimes we have a little pet, or friend, or parent that we wish we could keep by our side forever, but we just can't. We have to say goodbye at some point because life goes on.

It's a painful part of life, but it doesn't have to be all there is to life.

"It was my desk" (Silent Voice)

This is the closest I ever got to crying while reading a manga... And I don't know why.

It's the scene where the bully kid from Silent Voice, after weeks of spotting the girl with hearing disability from his class arriving early every day to clean one of the tables of the room because it kept getting filled with awful messages from the other kids, and after her leaving the class, finally notices that the table she was cleaning all this time was actually his.

This was such a whirlwind of emotions.

The realization that the people you trusted were actually betraying you, the realization that the girl you were hurting not only didn't hold any grudge but actually considered you someone dear. Dear enough to be worth going through the trouble of hiding these messages every day.

The realization that the person you thought was weak was in fact so strong, and that you who you assumed were strong was actually so weak.

This is one of the best and one of the biggest reality checks I've seen. Having to accept how small, fragile, vulnerable, and misguided you are, and that the person you believed was so far behind in the race of life was actually miles and miles ahead and you just have so much damn catching up to do.

When people say "coming of age" story, this is what comes to my mind. A kid finally understanding what a real adult is, and the he isn't it, but not only that, understanding that this is what he needs to be. What he WANTS to be.

Learning what it means to be a good person, to be better, and wanting that for yourself as well.

What a powerful scene.

"Stop Faudo, Leo" (Zatch Bell)

And to end things on a lighter note, my all-time favorite scene from Zatch Bell, aka, the one that happens RIGHT AFTER THE ANIME TAKES A DIFFERENT DIRECTION!

For those that don't know, the Zatch Bell author broke his hand during the production of the anime so they had to create an original story to fill up what happens with the conclusion of the arc since they had no manga to adapt... And the filler starts literally before we get to this scene. It's literally the start of chapters that never got adapted, and it is my favorite scene!!

In Dragon Ball terms, this is as if you stopped adapting the manga right before Android# 16 gets killed by Cell and an anime original content is used instead where Gohan wins with the power of friendship or something... Let that sink in.

But anyway, the scene itself...

This is where the heroes get informed that the villains of the arc are gonna use their big FU weapon called Faudo to destroy Japan out of vengeance because the heroes placed a device inside the weapon that will make it vanish in a matter of hours.

The villains capture the heroes and try to force them to turn off the device while the heroes try to force them to turn off the weapon.

And I just love the difference between the ways they talk.

The villains act all sophisticated trying to act polite as if they were closing a business before ordering the waitress for the check so they can go home, while the heroes just act like they are possessed by some sort of entity.

They don't even try to hold a conversation, they just go "Stop the weapon! Stop the weapon!! STOP! THE! DAMN! WEAPON!"

You can feel how in their heads nothing else matters, the entire world around them vanishes, and their only thing they can think about is making sure the people from Japan stay safe.

And this is what I love about the heroes in Zatch Bell, they always put the innocents first.

The big focus of Zatch Bell is the theme of empathy and sympathy. People connect with each other and they feel each other's pain, struggles, goals, wills, fears, and joys.

This is a series that shows the importance of socializing and learning what it means to coexist with other people and the impact that can have on you and you can have on others.

Heck, the big goal of the main character is just to make sure a little girl doesn't have to cry again.

Everything is about understanding how the pain of others also matters and how you can have the power to make a change, and this scene where the heroes are just on autopilot, totally focused on making sure nobody gets hurt again feels like the culmination of that sentiment.

This is why I love this series, why I love these characters, and why I always try to tell myself I'm not the only one that matters in this world, no matter how much I want to sometimes, and that if I can do something for others, then maybe I should.

If you're able to make someone's day better, no matter how little you think you can do for them, always take the chance to risk it and do it, because you never know how big of an impact it might have.

You always have more power and strength than you think you have!

Anyways... That's it for now. Feel free to reblog this with your favorite manga moments that meant something to you if you feel like it.

Have a nice day!

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