#considering who the main antagonists are and which pokémon are important to the au... one of them becoming a faller would make sense.

[wildflowercryptid]

where is that post that's kinda clowning on the s*bmas fandom boom that's like "can you imagine if they eeby deebied either sordword or shielbert and they got the same fandom treatment as s*bmas"? i need it for reasons.

[kob131]

https://vanillo.co/v/T2piRZ5GCS

You know, I actually respected your video on RWBY beforehand, even if it had issues...

Now I see that trust was misplaced.

Before he even makes a point, he goes onto explain why he’s making this video.

The reason being and I quote-

“Why? Because I know it’ll make the RWBY fans made that I dare to consider something better than RWBY or because I want to make a legit comparison between two shows, both came out in the same year, both have themes of oppression, both involve fighting monster, have a focus of fighting within, have unique weapons and....ect ect.”

Yeah, this has two major issues.

1. If MangaKamen is doing this to piss off RWBY fans then why should we trust anything he says? One of the quickest ways to piss off a fan is to lie about their series and misrepresent them so how do we know that the mistakes in the video are due to honest overlooks or he did it on purpose to be a disingenuous troll? Not only that but this immediately paints all RWBY fans (and yes, all. He didn’t make any distinction) as irrational and fanboyish so no RWBY fan can argue against his video in good faith, even if they have legitimate grievances with the content. Right off the bat, he’s already put himself in a point where everything he says will be taken with a grain of salt.

And 2. You notice something about the list of things MangaKamen gave for similarities? Let me bullet it point them:

* Same year

* theme of oppression

* fighting

*fighting monsters

* unique weapons

Yeah I bet you’ve caught on now: all but one of these are INCREDIBLY vague.

First off, fighting is a common conflict resolver in media so that shouldn’t even count/

Second, fighting monsters is only barely more specific than just standard fighting and even then there could be any number of differences between the monsters and what they could represent in the story so...no dice.

Oppression is a very common theme in media, ranging from slavery to racism to classism to any form of unfair system stifling freedom. It can be almost anything.

Being released in the same year...I have no idea what that has to do with anything and thousands of pieces of media are released every year. This...is just weird.

And I only discount ‘unique weapons’ because there is no MENTION of how the weapons are unique nor do I know enough about GAIM to debunk this so I can’t say anything.

This isn’t even getting into how important each piece here is to the show as a whole, like how the theme of oppression isn't a major focus in the show and is limited to one character while the monsters are just one part of the antagonistic force of the show. So… Yeah. This comes across as reaching.

And sadly, this is a reoccurring theme.

And now we get into the main point of this video apparently: the basic plot.

And right off the bat we have a problem.

MangaKamen talks about the main characters of RWBY with him zooming on Yang;s breasts as he talks about ‘supposed’ elements of Yang and makes a laughing gif when he describes Weiss as ‘A selfish and self centered girl who becomes kinder and nicer’ in a mocking way. He’s presenting this as a serious basis for the show while also apparently trying to be a troll which just makes him come across as untrustworthy. Again. 

There’s also the issue with how he portrays the main plots of the series.

RWBY: ‘A fictional world with Dust, Fanaus and Grimm were humanity fought for survival against the Grimm and eventually came up with the Huntsmen to fight the Grimm. The series follows the four girls in their adventures.’

GAIM: ‘This is a AU version of our world in the massive city of Zawane, built around the Yggdrisill Corporations’ tower, where we have these dance team composed of youths called Beat Riders who instill joy into the citizens. Mixed with them is a Pokémon-esque game called The Inves Game where they summon the Inves with items called Lockseeds. One day, Kouta Kazuraba’s former team loses to someone who invites him to come look at something. This is the Sengoku Driver where the Driver’s first wearer can transform into a Rider with a Lockseed. The mystery of Yggdrisil, the Driveers and the Lockseeds envelop Kouta and the cast.’

… I feel like explaining why these two don’t work would be insulting my readers but it’s what I gotta do.

First off, Remnant is a completely separate world from our own and thus would logically have quite a few differences with our own in how they view things, how things operate and how their governments and such work. Meawhile, Zawame is based on our world with minor differences which means these people’s values should be extremely similar to our own, how things operate should work similar to our world and their governments and such should be akin to ours. This is just a few aspects of what makes these different hut you get the picture: Remnant and Zawame have almost nothing in common aside from the basic inherent elements inescape to human fiction since fiction ahs to be based on something.

Secondly, Dust is basically elemental gunpowder, Fanaus are just people with animal traits and the Grimm are basically those endless RPG mooks. They are nothing like what MangaKamen states Drivers, Lockseeds and Inves are. They are nothing alike once again so it just drives home for the THIRD time how bizarre the comparisons are.

Third: What a Huntsmen is and what a Rider/Beat Rider is have a very fundamental difference. A Huntsmen is an official profession and thus carries with it an inherent sense of duty and honor to the audience, similar to a firefighter or a police officer. A Beat Rider is basically an unofficial entertainer, who is closer in nature to being a YouTuber which carries a very different connotation to the audience. Now you could argue that the comparison isn’t fair and that I should be using Riders as the counterpoint...except that beinga Rider has no definition other than ‘person who transforms using a Driver and a Lockseed’. It’s more like a Semblance in nature: a power rather than a profession.

Fourth: It sounds like Kouta just so happened to stumble upon the Driver through this one person rather than seeking it out or training for it, like Ruby or really everyone in the main hero cast of RWBY. These carry very different meanings and feelings in fiction MangaKamen, and they serve very different end goals for the heroes on the story as the first begins a story of an unlikely hero into a more ideal hero while the other is more a story about being honorable and doing the right thing. These aren’t mutually exclusive and can work together, like in the case of Spider Man, but you didn’t communicate this.

Fifth: There really isn’t a mystery element in RWBY, at least not until the fourth of so Volume with Salem whereas it seems like the mystery of the Lockseeds, Drivers and Yggdrisil are all ingrained into the story of GAIM.

Really, at this point, MangaKamen should have stopped and really thought about what he was doing at this point because when you have this many issues of this severity in the very beginning of your video, you should probably consider whether or not this is a good idea. Sort of like with MatPat and how he should have reconsidered his many wrong theories when issues started rising in them.

I mean, when I catch myself doing this, I stop and reconsider what I’m doing so it can’t bee that difficult.

Anyway, we then move onto the supposed ‘themes’ that the shows both share ‘extremely.’ Those themes being ‘Coming Of Age’ and ‘Getting Over Yourself.’

… Yeah, not only does he not define what the second theme actually is which means there’s a very real chance that people could misinterpret what he says unintentionally but the first theme is one of the MOST used themes in all of fiction. Like, 99% of Shounen, Shoujo and teenage-aimed fiction in America among so many others is Coming of Age stories, each having examples pf being told in vastly different ways with vastly different tones, styles, characters, worlds and so on. To just present the base trope as valid comparison would be to conflate these two to literal THOUSANDS of pieces of media.

But it gets worse. He goes onto explain himself by saying in GAIM, Kouta believes that the Goku Driver and the transformation will make him a ‘better man’ which isn’t true (demonstrated by him trying to help some construction workers by transforming and jumping up to them with some buckets, making things worse) and he questions his own beliefs and what he needs to do, even if it means sacrificing himself in some way. And in RWBY, Yang has to learn how to think in her battles after losing her arm.

Okay here we know so little about Kouta that I have no idea if this is an actual development for him. Judging by the clips shown, Kouta seems like the kind of guy who’d be self sacrificing by nature considering the almost child-like glee he shows in his transformation and helping others while I know so little about him that I have no idea if he is doubtful of himself normally or it’s an actual development. Same goes for Yang, we have no information on Yang outside of being the big sister type and losing her arm. We see Yang leaping at Adam in a clip but without context we have no idea if this is justified or not or if it’s a reoccurring issue with Yang or not. This is aimed at people who haven’t seen either series so this lack of information is damning and makes his point brittle and weak.

And it breaks if you actually think about it. The issues with Kouta are based on him as a person and helps him directly grow as a person whereas the way MangaKamen presents Yang it’s displayed as though she only really grew as a fighter. (He does say that Yang ‘matured from her previous personality’ but that’s not the result of her training, it was more the result of her experiences and even then one could argue she didn’t ‘mature’, she just changed.) And even then, these two developments don’t have anything common other than...being developments in the characters.

And then we have the fact that this isn’t an application of themes, this is just CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Character Development is NOT a theme and yet here MangaKamen is trying to portray it as such. I have no idea why but if I had to guess he realized that the shows didn’t have anything in common beyond basic ideas so he tried dressing up character development as a specific theme.

This gets especially egregious when you consider who SHOULD be Kouta’s counterpart here. Ruby Rose undergoes development revolving around her beliefs being questioned and questioning what she needs to do in order to be a hero. Instead of this comparison with Yang that makes no sense and makes MangaKamen look like an idiot for comparing two different types of character development under the guise of the nebulous and undefined ‘getting over yourself’, he could have reinforced the theme of ‘coming of age’ or ‘being a hero’ with Ruby.

Now why did he not bring up Ruby? Well, again I can only guess...and neither one flattering. 1. He knows Ruby is being questioned not by outside viewpoints like Kouta and her questioning comes not from how to be a hero but the difficulties of being a hero. Or 2. He’s using Ruby to bash her home series. This supported by his first actual point being ‘Is Ruby Even The Main Character?’

However, I will point out that he tries to portray Yang’s loss of her arm and resulting PTSD as the same as Kouta coming to terms with killing a man. because ‘both went through a depressed spell.’ Which is a Trope called Heroic BSOD...one of the MOST used Tropes.

Look, I’d love to continue but for some reason the link started having a 502 issue. And at this point you get the picture. If the link starts back up again or when the video gets uploaded to YouTube, I’ll make a separate post addressing those points.

But numerous times throughout the videos introduction MangaKamen shows that he’s blatantly ignoring facts and information that contradict his assertions and his points, to the point I can only assume he’s being a disingenuous troll or he’s doing this to prop up GAIM. All things he’s called out in the past.

So for now, congrats MangaKamen. How’s it feel to be MatPat for a change? Because you’re being just as intellectually dishonest as him.

I’m Knight Of Balance and remember to examine your fandoms.