#shonen cliches

[medievalmidinette]

Finally saw the oropo special episode and

Wow that was....so bad :/

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

Does one piece goes like most shonen or does it as you said subverts the ideas? I only watched the most popular ones so idk what are the tropes

(context, i think?)

i think it depends on the trope! not all of which are specific or exclusive to shonen, for the record.

there are some concepts and topics where one piece likes to play with your expectations.

the protagonist with mysterious parentage is… pretty common in shonen. either he has no idea who his dad is, or he knows but his dad’s a mysterious person, never around or never able to answer our hero’s questions. how frustrating! we want answers about our hero’s heritage, the legacy he’s inherited! luffy… doesn’t care about any of that. dragon who? the legacy luffy’s inherited is gold roger’s, a man he has no relation to whatsoever. (though certain fan theories wondered otherwise, for a time.) because blood doesn’t matter, your dreams and will and choices do! the marines don’t believe that, and they’re dead wrong. trying to execute roger’s biological son does nothing for them—it’s in trying to kill whitebeard’s chosen son, luffy’s chosen brother, that they get the war they’ve been wanting.

other concepts are sacrosanct.

the power of friendship™️ is a joke in english-speaking anime/manga fandom, the concept comes up so often in shonen and shojo, but i don’t think one piece would ever mess with that. the importance of your friends, and what you are willing and able to do for them, is so essential to the series. characters can leave, thinking they’re looking out for the crew’s safety, but luffy is gonna get them to admit what they really want (which is to stay part of his crew), and he’s going to bring them back. to do otherwise would be a betrayal of certain fundamental themes of the series. …of course, you could make the argument that ace’s death was a betrayal of those themes. (it was certainly unexpected to a lot of readers—though some had cynically placed ace in a “mentor big brother = DOOMED” box in their heads years prior.) but that loss ends up being foundational to luffy’s resolve post-timeskip. what could have been a betrayal of themes instead reinforced them: luffy’s failed once, there is no way he’s failing again.

and then there are things not sacrosanct so much as… not thought through?

for an example of something played almost too straight, just look at zoro’s backstory. the existence of a girl who dies and is therefore the root motivation for our hero’s entire life is classic fridging. the whole tashigi-is-secretly-kuina fan theory sprung out of the belief that there had to be more to kuina’s story than that, that it couldn’t just be… that.

[lesser-mook]

Clovertards #39: Switcheroo

my life improved the moment I divorced anime from my existential identity. And treated it as it is in reality, a visually revolutionary/ lifelessly predictable industry that exploits and plays on what works, not what's best or right for a good story.

Anime can change one's life in the context of it expanding your view of how good a story can be presented (like designs, sakuga/action/ choreography), but it is NOT the paragon of what makes a story good.

  Presenting it is just how it looks, execution is how it develops, how it plays/reads, how it holds up 10 years from now. Give credit where it's due, but don't just hand it out for free because that's what you're  supposed to do.

[vikingpoteto]

this is just if naruto and bleach had a gorey child

started watching jujutsu kaisen on a whim. there are so many characters in this i thought were from chainsaw man. and one of them i thought was from hunter x hunter.

[lxmelle]

Just some thoughts on 270

Yes the end is near.

Yes I almost threw up when I saw that unmistakable hairstyle...

Yes I was a bit disappointed that there were no visible satosugu crumbs - or are there? More on this later... and the it overall just felt a little bit 😔 empty 😪

Nevertheless, I want to just blab about a few things.

First, is it Geto/Kenjaku?

If we think about how Yuta’s copy CT works, Rika would need to consume a viable part of the sorcerer. The only part of Kenny left was his whole brain. He was the brain. The rest is Geto. We have not seen any evidence of Yuta having CSM, so it can be assumed that Yuta did not have Rika eat any part of Geto. Otherwise, it’s be Geto’s CT and not Kenjaku’s body-hopping technique.

Imho: The person with Takaba is not likely to be either Kenny or Geto. Geto cannot function without a brain, there was none “spare” either, so the theory of a spirit entering the body is going to make it alive again - no, it doesn’t. There is no other living sorcerer who can do that - Ui Ui maxed it out with the number of times and there is no other person to swap with. Just. Not. Possible.

And Kenny was seen to have told Mimiko and Nanako that he took Geto’s brains out to inhabit it.

So. My conclusion is that Gege is baiting. Just as he did with the “we have to help Yuta!” And the rude yelling that got so many of us wondering just who would speak to roughly to Yuta and what warranted it. We were all asking: who calls Yuta “Yuta” and not “Okkutsu-senpai” etc. I even thought it was Shoko, assuming that Maki was in the same hallway as the others, but the main culprit was of course the most obvious, Maki herself.

And that baiting thing with the clock theory about 2:21 pm linking with chapter 221 of Gojo’s unsealing - I theorised it’s about having presence (like how spiritualists, and in Shinto, believe that spirit is all around us) despite being dead and his soul with Geto.

And goodness know what other theories there are out there about time and Gojo revival. I’ve said before that I don’t buy into it, but it is interesting.

So is it Geto? Kenjaku? I 80% think not but... yeah, I am worried. To be completely transparent, I’m so scared that it is.

Because I’m in the camp of: please please Gege, please please please let Gojo and Geto be at peace in their eternal afterlife until they’re ready to be reborn and let them find each other over and over and over again.

So rationally, I doubt it is. But I’m worried. I’m worried for reasons like: why aren’t the bodies and resting places of Gojo & Geto still not mentioned?

Next thing to I have some thoughts on are about Itafushi. They’re really good friends and I think it’s also just one of those things Gege is doing because it’s JUMP and he doesn’t want to just pretend the Hana -> Megumi thing is forgotten. It also shows some character growth.

So overall, I’m rather neutral about the Megumi + Hana thing. They’re still kids, and Yuji + Megumi are compatible but they’re also not quite Satosugu, so their relationship will be undeniably different. Friends or otherwise.

It’s nice to see the Megumi is taking initiative and finding novel ways to make new meaning & connections. I wouldn’t read too deeply into it, especially since Hana obviously read too deeply into it and got it all wrong.

I will say that it feels cliche maybe. Again it’s maybe a JUMP serialisation thing shonen mangakas do, since a big portion of the fanbase are young boys too. Gege can’t be doing too much for lgbtq+ too obviously after all.

So it leaves me feeling it is a little reminiscent of the Sasuke and Sakura pairing in Naruto - as if it could become something seemingly out of convenience/settling/making do, but what do I know? Sometimes relationships in life are like that. I’d rather marry my best friend, but you know... different strokes for different folks. As they say.

Now it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t find a way to make it about satosugu. I’m imagining collective groans from people who may be reading this... so please skip if you’re bored of me now, lol. Or read on if you like to be in satosugu delulu brainrot like me.

One of the satosugu-related takeaways from this recent chapter is that it seems to reduce the possibility of interpreting Gojo not allowing Shoko to process Geto’s body as being out of consideration for her.

Her saying that the idiot should have let her process Geto’s body pretty much says Gojo took matters into his own hands. Not only was it protocol… but she also personally thought it would be a privilege. But Gojo did not let her.

We ofc don’t know the details.

So it leaves us with: He did it for his own reasons, or reasons at least relating to Geto. Kenjaku thought it was out of consideration. And Kenjaku is not a reliable narrator, nor was Geto... who tended to think he didn’t matter.

You know, as a person who can quietly just swallow vomit and shit rags without complaint. As a person who could practically transform the filth, negativity, evil, and darkness of the world into power that he could use for good - he was vessel of sacrifice.

Anyway, I digress.

It seems to indicate that Gojo kept his body to himself ... for his own reasons, breaking protocol.

And referring back to 270 again, for Shoko to talk about the afterlife right after preparing the body -> cremation is strange. Does preparing the body and cremating it have anything to do with the afterlife? 🤔 so somehow, prepare body -> cremate -> mourn/afterlife?

Interesting in that Gege is giving us yet another example of how everyone has a different reality / belief. If we believe what we saw in Gojo’s death, then there is one and Shoko will be proven wrong when her time comes like how Gojo was wrong about dying alone.

And it is also interesting in the sense that it’s familiar…

Something about how she said prior to Gojo’s unsealing, about “I couldn’t love either of you like you loved each other, but I was there too.” - am I reading too deeply? Probably. But it’s there for me to read.

Shoko prepared Tsumiki for cremation. She was made her beautiful for the afterlife - even if she was to be cremated, there was something about giving her something (dignity?) before she turned to ash. And those left behind can send them off into the afterlife feeling they did their best.

I think you’d need a certain level of trust for someone to hand your beloved over. Or at least feel like they would mourn the departed like you would. Or faith that your beloved would be happy with entrusting you with that decision. In some cultures, the family wash and swathe their dead in cloth with their own hands where possible.

So Shoko. Shoko could do it for Geto, for Gojo. She was there. She was willing. But. It was almost as if saying that Gojo 1. could not allow someone else to prepare Geto’s body, and neither did he seem to have mourned because 2. Geto was not cremated to be sent into the afterlife. As if he didn’t trust anyone. As if he could not let go.

Again, Rika kept Yuta’s body “alive” too. Parallels are paralleling.

I don’t know how Geto regenerated or if Kenny was responsible for it. Or if Gojo somehow did. But those are just unnecessary details at this point.

And again, Shoko was there but she could not be like what Gojo was to Geto and what Geto was to Gojo.

How complicated.

I’m reminded of that scene where he says to ichiji and Shoko: “There are just 3 of us remaining huh.”

In agreement to Shoko acknowledging that Geto’s body needed retrieving from Kenjaku, it was quite a pregnant pause from Gojo before he goes, “………yeah.”

He seemed surprised Shoko brought it up and decided to just gloss over it.

To me, it collectively implies that Gojo doesn’t let Geto be anyone else’s but his.

His friendship was his one and only. His loneliness was his. His dreams were his. His love was his. His life was his. His body was... his. And his soul was his too. As was his satisfaction.

I think Gege wants us to understand something here. By what he is showing and not showing us.

If I think about the exclusivity that they shared... the whole, “we are the strongest (together)” and “it wouldn’t be bad to be killed by you” or even “I’m jealous but if you were satisfied I’m glad for you.” and then “if you were there to pat me on the back I’d be satisfied.”

It’s a lot like... only YOU can be the one. And therefore I think Gojo kept Geto all to himself. Maybe thinking Geto would only want HIM to touch his body.

It was his exclusive right. And that was mutually shared... because Geto wasn’t really pleased with Gojo getting satisfaction from elsewhere (lol, you know, the “jealous” 妬けるね that got the fandom in a frenzy).

I’ve mentioned it in another post... link: https://www.tumblr.com/lxmelle/758015943938113536/i-love-the-idea-of-mutuality-that-is-deeply-rooted I really do like the idea of Gojo and Geto just teaching each other things. Like selfishness and love. Binding each other to the other. Selfishness and selflessness as part of being human.

Was this an act out of the side of Gojo that was “a little selfish, a little inhuman but a little too human”, and he wanted to keep Geto all to himself? Despite not giving his best friend a proper burial?

When I think about how he normally did what Geto approved of (you can dispute this if you wish) and I think back to how he might’ve really given Geto’s body back to his family- but what we saw in the manga seemed like they didn’t have much involvement either. Surely they’d have wanted Geto cremated?

So it leaves me with the idea that it was Gojo acting out his secret feelings.

Just Gege and how he shields Gojo’s privacy. Secret words. Secret thoughts. You know. Gege being Gege letting Gojo do Gojo things.

I think we might need to accept that Gojo and Geto just have this exclusive thing we aren’t privy to.

That’s all for now. Abrupt ending 🫡

Thanks for reading my rambling if you made it this far 🫶

Feel free to share your thoughts/comments/criticisms 😄

[ex35life]

There are a lot of other themes in Chainsaw Man, but one of the essential themes is child abuse. The fact that it's held in the framework of a seemingly cliche shonen manga with all the trappings makes it brilliant. I think of all the times I have read media featuring kids and teenagers and think "They're just kids, that's traumatizing" or "where are the adults?" Or "there's no way that's legal to put a kid in that position in real life". But in, Chainsaw Man, it isn't brushed away and ignored. It is glaringly obvious that these are kids.

One small element I thought about reading chapter 169 was the idea of setting up a traumatized teenager as the deity of a religious organization...an idol. It made me think of all the kids who are made into "idols". They are vulnerable to abuse. They are manipulated and consumed as a commodity. Like Denji. Like other teenagers throughout the series.

[mobfan893]

HORRIFYING: LIKE IT OR NOT SHOU SUZUKIS TERRIBLE BUZZ CUT HAS REAL SYMBOLIC VALUE

so i see people making fun of his new hair which is understandable to an extent because it does look a little jarring since it’s so new but it’s a little bit more than him trying to look like his dad or fucking up with scissors so let’s talk about it

i want to start with just hair and symbolism in mob psycho and what we’ve seen of it so far

terus hair gets its own entire arc basically but it mirrors his growth as a character, put simply: shaving=reason/opportunity to change, tall wig=overcompensation/dedication to large change, cut wig=humble change/humility as chosen by others, final hair=change/humility as decided by himself

serizawa’s haircut is symbolic of new beginnings, and it’s reigen that cuts it which can be seen as reigen freeing him from his past and allowing him to take steps into a new chapter in his life which is pretty cool, the same can be said for how it’s consistently mob that’s shaving Teru’s hair lol

less significantly is kamuro and ritsu getting hair changes after the big cleanup arc ends, while not exactly a haircut it’s still a way to show the changes in their mental health and is a way to say that they’re taking care of themselves more afterwards

which takes us to shou’s haircut, which still needs prefacing because his first hair has its own meaning

unfortunate and tragic but shou having this ridiculous vibrant sharp main character look is a window into how he sees himself during this time, he’s trying to stick out because he has an understanding that he is very important, I vaguely recall ONE saying in a tweet that his design is made with the intention to resemble that of a battle shonen protagonist.

in a way his appearance mirrors his feeling of responsibility to take the role of this cliche selfless protagonist chasing after a happy ending, and we know he has this style by choice because the fanbook tells us that by no means is it his natural hair

so understandably when he realizes that he’s actually free of this responsibility and doesn’t have to force himself to fill the shoes of a sacrifice and can choose to make decisions for himself and his own happiness, he cuts all his hair off.

and not only does it pull him away from this manufactured anime protagonist fantasy (which he’s arguably been using to make things look less scary by ignoring the humanity in his situation) it is also representative of free will and personal autonomy, which is so important because until then shou was doing most (not all) things because he felt he had to, not because he wanted to!!

tldr mobpsy loves symbolism and his haircut is a very literal way to show us he’s finally able to make decisions for the sake of himself because it’s what he wants and because it’s what makes him happy, not because he feels some moral or greater obligation to.. you make fun of him but that haircut was his choice and that’s all that matters :cry: :cry:

[exstasyplague]

UnPopular Jujutsu Kaisen Opinions (with arguments)

manga spoilers

☆ Yuji is the perfect MC

i've seen a lot of people trashing on him. some say gege writes him poorly and doesn't give him enough scenes, some say he's boring because he doesn't have any fancy cursed techniques. first of all, yuji has been aware of the jujutsu world for 6 months in manga; even less in anime. he doesn't have any OP cliche to him (looking at you Ichigo) and that makes him so much more enjoyable! when he loses he loses for good reasons and when he wins you can feel genuinely happy for him because you know he deserves it. he is a teenager and the shift in his mentalities embodies that perfectly; along with him we discover the cruelty and unfairness of the jujutsu world. at first, especially if you're a shonen watcher, you'd tend to believe he will shift to a high white knight borderline annoying mentality yet he doesn't, the jjk verse doesn't work like that. yuji is able to adapt. he has traits that you'd see in your real life friends: silliness, kindness, idiocy, love for jennifer lawrence etc but also traits that make him a perfect mc: empathy, resiliance, convinction, raw anger. + gege have him some of the HARDEST panels.

ㅡif it's just pain... Yuji Itadori won't ever stop

also. his last battle with mahito. hands down. best. panels.

mahito (another well structured villain) RUNNING for his life while yuji walks slowly behind him. if that doesn't show major improvement from the kid he was at the beginning idk what does. that's some MC shit right there man.

☆ Sukuna is not a fraud

the fraudkuna memes are funny. i admit. i'm sure mahoraga kisses him goodnight and tucks his blankey, however, sukuna is a fucking piece of shit, LOL (i mean it in the best way), my man literally became curse. people expect him to not use the weapons he has to his advantage as if he didn't want megumi from the beginning specifically for using his abilities. a good gun doesn't make you a military tier shooter. it's about the resources, it's about the experience, it's about the aim. "why doesn't he use his curse technique wah wah" — because he knows gojo is strong. unless he isn't absolutely sure he will strip him away from all his gimmicks, he has no reason to flaunt his true powers. sukuna wants to win. he wanted to kill gojo since the beginning of the series. i think the fight is balanced well, sukuna uses his resources and takes the consequences for being a tad too cautious. in the heian era when cursed energy had a purer, rawer output even domain expansions were simple in principles: you're in, i kill you. (line from the manga, btw) his CT is probably straightforward as well with a simple principle so having gojo use his infinity against it and figure out how to strip him naked would make him lose faster than todo called yuji his bestie.

☆ Gege doesn't hate women

because the unfortunate thing with nobara and yuki getting xd-d by kenjaku, a popular belief seems to be that gege is fond of trashing the women in his series. argument people have for that? "the only one in the spotlight is maki and she's female toji". first of all, if gege hated women he wouldn't write them as he does— each one of his lady characters is incredibly well structured and way beyond the love interest/ gotta be protected trope. mei mei, shoko, utahime, miwa and many others became non-existent, or what? even tengen is a woman. masashi kishimoto (the creator of naruto) is an author i'd say has 0 regards for women since the way most of his girl characters are built is literal dog shit. sakura is naruto's one sided love and a sasuke dickrider, hinata is a stalker that sharts when she sees naruto, karin is a sasuke dickrider, kurenai is asuma's chick and the only two women somewhat ok as a structure are tsunde and temari. (i am a big fan of the naruto series but i am spitting facts, also an avid sakura lover) plus there is a rumour that gege is a woman too and from the way sato sugu is written i'd agree anw

☆ Kenjaku is the best villain of the series

homie got railed by itadori's papi just for his plan, that's not even aizen level of plotting bro. he got drizzled in jizz and gave birth to yuji 💀

how good that d had to be for him to get impregnated....

ANYWAY jokes aside, he is very calculated and chill. he is not the strongest but his literal essence is to be a technique stealing leech and well, he's just that. with suguru, even in his villain arc you can empathize. sukuna is cool and straightforward: he wants to massacre people, kill gojo and then enjoy his life slashing random ass people who don't kneel is total submission.

kenjaku? bro, kenjaku has plans over plans and he executes all of them. even in geto's sexy body he still gets hated because there is genuinely nothing likeable about him. not because he's a poorly written character, he's written to be a piece of shit that makes you wanna break the screen when he gets a W and idk about y'all but even when he exorcised mahito i was like "aw hell nah bruh, get your hands off asap". may come as a shock, i know but we're like supposed to hate villains (not me being the biggest sukuna simp even in his crusty dusty OG form🤭) and well, nobody fucking roots for kenjaku. so gojo, go take your boyfriend's body or something fr.

☆ Yuta is.... mid

hear me out.

i don't hate him— not in the slightest. i hope he will actually have something going on with maki since apparently nobara is afk. i liked his entire rika situation but... bro.

yes, i will be going into the power system 😭I'M SORRY BUT like all he does is copy shit. wow. sure, he's a good copycat. i am not complaining about him being called so powerful and wtv but i don't find anything exciting about his battles and his personality is dead ass boring. do i get happy when he wins? yes. do i hope he'll come and save goatjo? yes. yes. yes. but people call him the real MC and all that shit... not even that— i... nothing in me likes him. my opinions are not absolute. his story is cool. i liked jjk 0 but the only thing that ruins his story is literally his lack of perosnality. and don't come at me for not grasping his depths or whatever. yuta is best fanfic y/n material because he can be turned into bashful stereotype really easily. "omg, best friend power, precious friends made me wanna live ❤️" very sweet HOWEVER very untouching for me. i only liked him when he made maki go all blushy because my girl deserves happiness.

☆ Toji actually cares about Megumi

is he the good father that would spoil his kid as a ray of sunshine?

no.

but he chose this. to forget about everything, to abandon his pride, to part himself away from the clan that rejected him and live his life on his own. megumi's mom made shit better for him and she died so his life became shit again. he thought that by entrusting megumi to the zenin clan he would actually be able to make something of himself since he had cursed energy.

also, people tend to forget just how conservative and judgemental the 3 big clans are, maki and mai have been shat on their whole life by the zenins, especially maki. toji went through the same shit if not worse. he wasn't always buff max version of himself, he wasn't born with anything. exactly because he gave up on all the things in his life he was able to reach that type of power and live with some purpose since he failed in everything else.

in the manga he has the option of coming back to life as long as he keeps killing sorcerers, which is his speciality, but he meets megumi, recognises him and kills himself in order to not hurt him. be fr. anciet sorcerers sold their booty holes to kenjaku to get a second chance at life.

ANYWAY. SADLY i can't post Toji memes since i reached my pic limits.

let me know what you think:) i may make a part 2. feel free to also ask for my opinions about anything in the verse, lol. if you wanna see my fics check my ao3, i promise i don't write in the same braindead way i type. <33

[mikeellee]

In all the stories of Shonen I read I think MHA is the only one where the mc should have give up on his dream. Izu as a character is abused and we are meant to laugh.

He didn't became a great hero

He couldn't save shig (who didn't want to be saved)

He has no friends

He has no one.

All his mentors and adults failed him so hard and...for what? Like seriously, let's talk how no one taught him shit about what to do in hero industry or how to save someone...he had no prepare but...sure, let's also hate on him and not on am and Aizawa (and Aldera)

Am is a bad mentor and...amazingly bad in that. I see many sides saying how it was hori's doing, how am is a new mentor...he wasn't(?) Kathy was his student and while one could argue "ah it was easy to tech her" he was her mentor...he did smth at least, with Izu? Nothing. He can't even defend Izu, he is the idiot superman.

Aizawa is Aizawa.

Aldera is Aldera (was it worthy? Sacrifice all the others students for BK? I think not as BK is dropping on the charts)

Like see Naruto, for example, he is a ninja and the story is about that. He couldn't be anything else bc the story wouldn't work

See Bleach, where Ichigo is the cliche of clichês, he couldn't be anything else but a Shinigami.

And so and on...

Hell Luke Skywalker couldn't be a mere farmboy or else we wouldn't have a story.

Izu? Suffering and is not as if we see the corrupt if society bc others characters show that...Izu is his punching bag.

Izu couldn't even win against Shig.

Ironically speaking, Shig had everything to win as a villain...but had everything pull under him and considering shig had no qualms in stealing shit from others villains and never worked for an army (in the sense, he formed by his ideas and actions, not bc a billionaire wanted to fight you out of blue) or power...lose all.

Its poetic. I give that.

But still hate what hori did.

[greenbeen-with-an-e]

I just saw a person say that "naruto (the character) has no depth and is very cliche and predictable"

...

...

...

Ugh.

Aren't you people tired of being completely incorrect? Like genuinely? If you think naruto has no depth and complexity as a character then it simply proves to me that you have no analytical skills.

In comparison to, say, sasuke - it may seem as though naruto is more one dimensional. HOWEVER, the reason why it seems this way is because naruto is a little more subtly written.

When it comes to sasuke we see him; facing his abusers (danzo and a1p itachi) in the name of justice & emotional developments that are easy to understand because sasuke reacts to abuse in a way that makes sense to most. Sasuke haters (the braindead) aside.

Naruto on the other hand? We never see him face his abusers (the people of the hidden leaf) & his emotional developments are overlooked by the audience in favour of grand, shonen-esque fight scenes (i.e. the LoW arc. We see naruto maturing and developing his ninja way due to haku (character development??) but this is overlooked by many for some reason), etc. But no, you think that because naruto is a happy go-lucky 'idiot' there is no room for any other character traits.

A lot of his character is built around the neglect he faces as a child. In og naruto, we are introduced to a loud mouthed, annoying, attention seeking brat. AND THIS MAKES SENSE! Naruto has never received positive attention in his LIFE (bar the third's very much occasional visit) so of course he is going to go out of his way to get some - negative or not. So he is loud so people will look at him. He is prankster so people can laugh with him instead of at him. He's an optimistic smile-freak in order to hide the very real anger and misery he feels. Do you think it is a coincidence that kishi choose for naruto, a repressed young boy, to only release the power of the nine tails when extremely angry, fearful or otherwise I'm distress? No. It's a direct reflection of naruto's own emotional toil.

Who has the most attention and respect in the village? The hokage. What does naruto want most in the world atp? Respect and attention. So what does naruto want to be? Hokage. But when naruto was facing dark naruto when training with bee - he acknowledges that he still feels resentment and anger towards the village for how they treated him. He got everything he wanted, he got the respect, he got the attention. And yet, deep down, he wasn't happy with it. Because being so socially outcasted his whole life leave a toll of you. Leaves you with psychological issues that follows you for a long time.

This doesn't even mention the dehumanisation that naruto goes though throughout the series - even in shippuden, though this is more unintentional by the surrounding characters atp- due to him being a jinchuuriki. A literal weapon of state. An oppressed minority who were being hunted down and slaughtered by the akatsuki in their own villages. How does this demonstrate a lack of nuance? A lack of complexity? It doesn't. You only extrapolate surface level ideas from a text and call it a day.

This isn't even touching the bond between sasuke and naruto, yknow, the most developed and emphasised relationship in the entire manga? The relationship that is the key to understanding both characters, their emotions, their mental state and character decisions? But anyway. That's a WHOLEEEE other post for a whole nother day

[anti-dazai-blog]

my actual opinions on today’s episode (under the cut because spoilers)

As I said in my last post, I actually really liked Fukuchi’s development in this episode, and I think this was a really satisfying way to conclude his story.

everything else though? Tbh I’m not the biggest fan. I’m gonna hope that all of the things that are out of character for BSD as a story to do are anime only, and the manga will have a better resolution to this arc.

Fyodor dies without any ability reveal— what does that mean for the series? If Asagiri’s on board with this, does this mean that his ability will be revealed and explained after his death, or is this a way to get out of revealing and explaining his ability at all?

Fyodor alludes to a different opponent he fought who was nearly a match for him. Is this a way to shoehorn in another person for Dazai to have his quasi-super genius quarrels with? Is this a way of saying “Fyodor may be gone, but Dazai still has someone out there he can play the numbers guessing game with”?

The episode pulled one of those “Dazai knew everything all along” moves, which really makes the entire Meursault subplot meaningless. There was no conflict. There was no back and forth strategizing. Dazai knew everything from the start and everything went exactly according to his plan. Dazai’s injuries also don’t matter, since he’s up and about immediately after sustaining them.

What was the point of Dazai choosing Sigma. Was there a point? He left him behind at the end. Sigma didn’t do much of anything to help him or harm Fyodor (nothing that affects the plot at least).

Dazai being all-knowing also adds to his accountability in everything. Which I mention fairly often, but I hate that this final episode is proving me right. There’s this issue now of at what point did he contact Chuuya and arrange this plan. If it would be too far in advance, you’d have the question of how and why he’d know about vampires and that Fyodor and the decay of angels is planning on using them. You have the question of why he wouldn’t warn Ango, the one person he’s contacting who’s conveniently in the Actual Japanese Government, about a potential World War 3.

If Chuuya wasn’t a vampire this whole time, that means he brutalized all of the Meursault guards on purpose. It also doesn’t explain the panel where he’s struggling and breathing heavily, dragging two dismembered corpses of guards. What does that panel mean in the context of Chuuya be conscious? The struggling could be an act, but what was Chuuya’s conscious reason for picking up two corpses he brutalized and dragging them around with him?

And that epilogue. It looks like a cliche shonen boss fight. There better be a solid explanation to why we’re reverting to beam attacks after having such a long series presenting us with some of the most unique abilities found in anime/manga.

[fire-dwelling]

I'm going to rant about why Haumea doesn't work for me as a character.

Was Haumea's trauma ever actually foreshadowed before the last arc decided to make her the tragic victim that needed to be saved?

Or were we to read that given how obviously unwell she was (and simultaneously ignore how awful she was to other people, including whatever she was doing making Sho into her new dollie)?

Or was it not foreshadowed and just a drastic shifting of gears because the writer had no idea what he was doing?

Or is it that she does bad things and it is presented as bad, but we need to recognize that no one is wholly good or evil and that people in pain deserve to be helped regardless of what they did before?

Is she the Crona of this story? Because, for good or bad, I can overlook what Crona did when the story clearly communicates that they are part of a cycle of violence, whereas with Haumea, the late back story does not recontextualize anything when the horror of what she was doing to others was the first impression and not only never wore off but is still used in current promotional materials (the mobile app game just reinforcing her sexualized violence upon Arrow).

In other words, the story barely made it clear that Haumea was just "driven insane" and that's why she does what she does--which doesn't work: her being in tune with humanity's darkest thoughts does not seem to separate her from her own agency, as so much of the story presents her actions as out of a choice and agency, not even a choice within the limited options given to her.

I wish the story had emphasized some detail that clearly delineated that we are supposed to root for her recovery; even Shigaraki in My Hero Academia was a villain that the story was trying to make you root for being rescued, even if the cliches of reducing him to his child form as Tenko may be cliche or overlook, again, his own agency in the choices he made.

Instead, Haumea's conclusion just seems slap-dash and doesn't clearly telegraph an ending that says everyone deserves to be saved regardless what we may think of them. Would it have helped to info-dump all of Haumea's back story in the middle of the manga similar to how Tenko is info-dumped in the middle of My Hero Academia? I don't know.

Fire Force kept acting like this was a story about saving lives and property, and that firefighters don't see anyone as undeserving of rescuing...Too bad it also has Shinra and company resurrect even mass killers and ends up creating monsters and natural disaster then treats this as, "Oh, well, the world's more exciting like this."

Like, sorry for conflating people who deserve the chance to change with mindless monsters and destructive forces of nature, but the story never seemed to have the depth it was trying to telegraph in its ending.

This isn't even a problem of shonen as a demographic or this story as an action-adventure genre: it's setting up a question--"Does everyone deserve to be saved?"--and instead of answering with a resounding and obviously correct answer of "Yes!" instead overlooks what Haumea did, what Kurono and others did, and says to just have fun and not think about this because the world is now a zany cartoon known as Soul Eater (which, as I was trying to emphasize, did this entire plot better with Crona--a character who themselves didn't even apologize for their actions but at least said they had a connection to Maka and wanted to do what was right for her if for no one else).

And, just going to throw this out there: it's bothersome that Fire Force has an ending that acts like everyone, regardless of how wicked they were, deserves to be resurrected...while Crona (a victim of abuse who still did commit atrocities) gets to stay imprisoned on the Moon, Medusa is still dead, and Arachne is still dead. I would not be so insistent on this point because, hey, two different works by the same author doesn't mean that they have to be consistent just because it's the same creator. But when you then force the two stories into the same chronology and are trying to connect their morals--that the lessons learned in Fire Force created the world for Maka to learn her lessons--but those morals do not match up, then yes, I am going to criticize all of this as tonally inconsistent and having competing mutually exclusive morals.

Maybe so much of this would help if there was ever any sense of just how much agency Haumea had. The bread crumbs were not enough: she witnesses the Evangelist holding baby Sho, but she was the one who kidnapped him; she is suffering from the images of humanity's worst impulses, but we don't see resistance by her even when she seemingly gleefully is participating out of pleasure in harming Arrow and Sho, not to stave off the pain from those impulses or even to distract from that pain but just because she seems to really want to do it. Maybe I'm obtuse and need the story to hammer whether she really wanted to do this, or whether she changed her mind over the course of the story, and either case would require the story to actually let us into her mind--and by the time we get there, she has done enough that is too gross to think, "Oh, okay, now I get it." I can accept "she needs to be saved"; I can't accept "and you should agree that this doesn't still suck, doing the right thing."

Also: maybe if she wasn't given reality-altering powers at the end this all would have worked better. I understand that Crona having the power of madness and needing to be talked down means that they are still not being treated as a person to reach out to but as a force of nature that has to be stopped; I appreciate how that is a mixed message. But the thing is, I think most people like Crona, however much unfair derision will be made that we like them just because they are a "woobie." But with Haumea, the entire attempt by Shinra never felt like reaching out to Haumea as a person but just to convince her to go along with his plan to remake the world--that's it, a means to an end, a force of nature that is out of control and needs to be managed. And it makes Shinra resurrecting Charon seem less as a way to help Haumea continue to live and, again, just a bribe, an enticement like getting a kid to do their chores--it's condescending.

I guess to wrap up this rambling, Haumea never felt like much of a character, just "the antagonist" until the story needed sympathy for the devil to jerk out some tears from the audience that are not earned. I know all literature is just artificial constructions meant to imitate reality without ever entirely reaching reality and instead opting for just believability--but, damn it, this is not believable, and when the stitches in the plot are showing this obviously, the story is not working and comes across as a bunch of tropes stapled and taped together so badly that the staple and the tape are obscuring what I can see in the story.

[sylver-drawer]

The Writing of Pandora Hearts and its Depiction of Human Ego or an essay I wrote for class because I love PH so much (mainly spoiler free except for a small tangent on Lottie’s character)

When you think about aspects of the Shonen Demographic, what tends to come to mind? Usually it’s something along the lines of fluid yet repetitive action, a lovable cast of characters who get down but quickly move on, and a protagonist who can handle anything. But when you ask a fan of renowned and well-liked shonen such as Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan or Hiromu Arakawa’s Full-Metal Alchemist, what’s most reminiscent is how the characters are written and their depth. That’s why when anyone asks me what shonen I’d recommend, I always immediately recommend Jun Mochizuki’s Pandora Hearts. Jun Mochizuki is a master at her craft, be it with her beautiful watercolor illustrations, the fantastical and fairytale-like world building, or what I associate with her most—how bitterly human she writes her characters and how it hits the reader. The way Pandora Hearts’ ornate writing twists from this alice-in-wonderland inspired gothic adventure, to a story about the beautiful yet ugly depths of human will and ego, genuinely makes me believe that it deserves one of the top places in the Shonen Demographic.

It’s a relatively standard set up. Pandora Hearts follows a young boy by the name of Oz Vesalius on the brink of his fifteenth birthday. During his coming of age ceremony a sinister group called the Baskervilles condemns him for his sin of living, and casts him into the Abyss—a hellish nightmare dimension resembling a broken toy box filled with grotesque monsters called ‘Chains’. With the help via contract of an amnesiac girl who calls herself Alice, her identity being the chain “Bloody-Rabbit” that strangely takes an alternative human form, he escapes the Abyss only to find himself ten years in the future. The first few chapters set up our boyish protagonist’s temperament and desire, as well as the dangers he will encounter with sprinkles of what the world of Pandora Hearts is like. I relate this to the beginning of Attack on Titan, introducing Eren and his friends’ personalities and values before getting thrust into the harsh reality of their apocalyptic world.

The story begins in a cliche, yet familiar way. It starts off relatively light and almost whimsical as it makes you think it’ll follow the monster(chains)-of-the-week format; Oz seeking out the Baskervilles for the reason of his ‘sin’, and Alice seeking out her fragmented memories. Preceding the Shonen Demographic, kids grow up with something like Pokémon or Digimon where there’s a new ‘monster’ to ‘defeat’ quickly each week. It’s a way to progress the story for the very young child viewer in a fun and easy way, even if they miss an episode or two. The main purpose of presenting the idea of this familiarity, is to rope the reader into a false sense of security.

This format is abandoned just as quickly as it was proposed as the story gets more convoluted, pulling the reader in. All the characters seem to be hiding something, the enemies are closer than you think, and at some point you genuinely question yourself if they’re truly the enemies here. You begin to realize that despite all the secrets everyone has—no one actually knows anything. The protagonists, their comrades, and even their enemies; everyone is in the dark in regards to the truth of the catalyst event a hundred years prior, The Tragedy of Sablier, except for the main villain of the story. The fact that the reader is on the same level of knowledge the vast majority of characters are on allows the reader to empathize with them almost as actual comrades, instead of seeing them as simply characters in a story.

Usually in shonen, the reader is given scenes of the antagonist’s side so that the reader has information the protagonists do not, such as displayed in Full-Metal Alchemist where the reader is exposed to multiple scenes of the Homunculi and their plans before Ed and Al are. Shonen villains tend to be bastards after all, pure and irredeemable evil in support of an evil system. This is meant to build a sense of foreboding for the reader, as well as anticipation for how the main characters deal with this danger. It’s because of this storytelling method that separates the readers from the characters, driving almost a wedge between them. Readers' thoughts go from, “I wonder why this happened” (solving a ‘mystery’ in the moment alongside the characters), to “I wonder how the characters will deal with this” (an event the reader already knows will happen soon).

Particularly what sets Pandora Hearts apart from this, is that Jun Mochizuki allows us to empathize with the villains due to their similar level of ignorance as the heroes. We are shown scenes of the villains, but not so much that we gain any major insider plot knowledge. Rather, the most important insider information the reader receives are the bonds between the villains almost paralleling the bonds between the hero cast we’ve already fallen for. Charlotte, who is somewhat one of the Baskervilles’ ringleaders, presents herself uniquely. She is very devote to the Baskervilles’ cause of obeying their leader, and kills and torments without a second thought. Yet, Lottie is as desperate for answers as Oz’s crew. You can see it on her face, where she contemplates as she stands beside her fellow Baskervilles whom she loves like family, “Is what we’re doing truly right?”. It is a very subtle writing strategy, one that acclimates the reader to feel for and humanize the ‘inhuman’ enemy, gradually building up to Pandora Hearts’ crescendo.

This intricately planned writing Jun Mochizuki has drip fed the reader pays off during the story’s climax. By the time the truth is revealed to all, the reader is left in an array of chaos alongside the cast, questioning everything. One of these, being the protagonist himself. Everything we associate with our dear hero, Oz; his classic young yet burdened hero demeanor with a high moral compass, his complicated emotionally charged relationship with his estranged family, his immortalized friendships with Alice and his childhood friend Gilbert that feel as if they could stick through everything—at some point, all of those threads that make up ‘Oz Vessalius’ fall apart. His connection to the antagonist and how it affects the story and narrative still shakes me to the core to this very day, and you’re left wondering what exactly is left and where we can go from here. Everything Oz knows, everything we the reader knows about him and the cast we’ve come to love, suddenly becomes false. You can’t help but feel played, yet when you read back desperately to validate your feelings, there’s the cruel realization that you were never lied to. All the signs were there in your face and it was you, the reader’s, choice to misinterpret them. It’s difficult to manipulate the reader using the reader’s own assumptions and prejudice, and yet Jun Mochizuki has done it in Pandora Hearts.

How Pandora Hearts takes everything the reader knows and destroys it is such a transformative experience that transcends the expectation of a normal shonen. The layers in which Jun Mochizuki had written are so deep, that the characters' roles we tend to reduce to tropes and generalizations have so much meaning to them. Oz, our heroic protagonist, maybe isn’t the strong willed boy he’s supposed to be; and maybe the Baskervilles, despite the atrocities they’ve committed, maybe aren’t wishing for world destruction. Our lovable cast of characters are hypocrites, sometimes betraying themselves or people they’ve sworn to, and reasons we expect to be grandiose turn out to be simple selfish, raw human desires. Those that selflessly fight for ‘love’ are simply fighting for self preservation, and those that do everything for their ‘ego’ crumble so easily in face of their love. Pandora Hearts is just like other shonen, but also not. There’s action, characters who get down but sometimes need time to move on, and a protagonist who tries his best to handle anything. Most of all, they’re all so painfully human, and I think that’s what is at the heart of shonen. Jun Mochizuki’s Pandora Hearts’ intricately written story, with its raw portrayals of the human will as well as the world crashing twists and cast you can’t help but love, is exactly what the shonen demographic deserves.

[curoopeez]

I'll admit I've been anime only so far but I love Marcille's evolution in Dungeon Meshi.

At the start of the anime, she was a complete failgirl. She loudly opposed the main character's solutions to obstacles and always ended up being wrong. Very stereotypical shonen anime main girl.

But very early on, Laios assures her that she is extremely important to the party, and the reason he's been avoiding her help was not because they didn't need her, but because they needed her so much that he was intentionally avoiding using her magic so she would have plenty later on.

Then she started scoring some wins. Her way of harvesting mandrakes turned out to be better. Her waterwalking spell proved to be the right call. She found out how to recharge her magic by boiling the undyne.

And then it came the time to ressurect Fallin. She got her hands dirty, she picked apart human and monster remains to build Fallin's skeleton and used black magic to bring her back. She was still unhappy about eating monsters, but she showed she was powerfull and extremely intelligent and was able to stomach a lot of grossness when she didn't have to eat it.

I know Dunmeshi is known for subverting anime cliches for the better, but I'm really happy with how Marcille was written and I don't want that to be ignored because it is so rare to find such a well written female character in an action anime with a male main character.

[billiuspendragon]

Comparing Saiki K and MP100

Saiki K and Mob Psycho are pretty similar since they're both comedies that comment on the shonen genre (or anime in general) in some way. I think their main difference is that Saiki K exaggerates and ridicules these tropes, while Mob Psycho subverts them.

Saiki, as a protagonist, is very detached from his own setting. This means that he can be self aware, and comment on the tropes and cliches as they are happening. The "cliche baseball chapter" is a great example of this, where Saiki has to try and make a baseball game go along with sports-anime cliches in order to make sure they win the game. He understands that he is in an anime, and interacts with the world around him with this knowledge always in mind.

Mob Psycho is a little different, because Mob isn't aware that he is in an anime. Instead, the story subverts expectations by leading you to believe that you know what will happen and then changing tack last minute. We expect season 1 to end with the child protagonists beating the villains in a big fight -- but this expectation is subverted when an adult enters the scene and completely diffuses the situation, keeping the kids from being further hurt and berating the villains for picking on people younger than them. It's like a wake-up call for both the villains and the audience, as we suddenly realise that yeah, that is ridiculous. Why are they picking on children?

A trait that both Mob and Saiki share is that they are both powerful beings who feel alienated from other people. They both repress their emotions and see themselves as monsters. The difference is that while Mob craves connection and popularity, Saiki wishes for seclusion, and to slide under the radar. In a way, Saiki's detachment from the narrative can be seen as symbolic of his detachment from other people.

Friendship is very healing for both characters. Saiki learns that he really is human enough to connect with other people, and Mob gains confidence and support. I think another difference is that to the audience, it is obvious from the beginning that Mob really is just a child who isn't monstrous at all, while Saiki's nature as a self-aware protagonist allows him to lie to the audience, convincing us that he is as uncaring as he pretends to be.

If I were to choose between the two shows, I'd say that Mob Psycho does a more subtle job of subverting expectations, and that it is more satisfying to watch than Saiki K. On the other hand, I really appreciate the clever use of metaphors in The Disastrous Life of Saiki K, and the way the self-awareness works its way into the plot. While it is a funny and unserious anime, it holds up surprisingly well when you analyse it seriously. I would highly recommend both of these shows.

[nijigasakilove]

Playing the first OP during the climax is so unfair dude I started crying, pure goosebumps idc what anyone says Shy is PEAK SHONEN. Absolutely amazing end to this arc and the best episode of the series overall. This arc was as much about Shy becoming a true hero and coming into her own as it was about Ai and Mai. They handled both plot lines so well and I couldn’t be happier.

Mai trying to sacrifice herself was giving me so much anxiety like cmon silly haven’t you seen how much your friends and sister care about you? You don’t need to take on all the burden by yourself. “At least for my final moment let me be a good person” Mai, you’ve been a good person forever. A good person recognises when they’ve done bad things, feels bad about it and wants to change. No one is perfect!

Tokimaru and Shy refusing to let her go out like that and forming the moon circle was so cool. Yea it’s cliche and power of friendship-y but idc, it showed how much Tokimaru and Shy have grown and seeing Shy’s true power, her being the literal sun for people lost in fear and doubt was so beautiful. She was once that little girl who was saved by someone as brilliant as a star and now she’s doing it.

Love this episode so much, finale next week but please give us another season