Forum - View topicHouse of 1000 Manga - Naruto Part II
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perroloco
Posts: 307 |
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@Jose Cruz: Exactly, there are mangas like BLEACH or GANTZ which no kidding I have read entire volumes in like less than 20 minutes. They focus more in the action than in the dialogue.. Then you have gag manga and mystery manga like Detective Conan or Death Note, a lot of text, you probably will take more time to read a chapter from these kind of mangas..
Naruto is in the middle and One Piece is in the upper end of the medium spectrum, having a lot of dialogue but not Death Note level. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5887 Location: Virginia, United States |
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In my world, evil villians who have committed countless evil acts, who then profess their redemption, would be congratulated on finally seeing the light and then would be promptly impaled on the biggest pointed stick that could be found.
"Good morning, I am the dreadful Ankaria, the Great Annihilator. Yes, I was the one who destroyed several cities, killing tens of thousands in massive fireballs of destruction, and indeed, I planned world domination by destroying everyone who opposed me. Of course that was before I found the love of a good woman and redeemed myself. I am your new neighbor and we are inviting you over for a potluck. My blood golem warrior butler will bring over the physical invites." Yes, Naruto style redemption makes so much sense now. I see the light now, as my eyes are carved out with a spoon. |
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shamisen the great
 Posts: 658 Location: Oregon, USA |
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Snomaster1
 SubscriberPosts: 2838 |
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Wow,sir. You tried to read an entire manga series in forty-eight hours. A worthy goal,even if you didn't make it. But,I think you kinda forgot some things in your article. Like for instance,Hinata trying to attack Pain. I'd have loved to have seen how you'd do her attempt to take him down and her confession of her feelings to Naruto. I've got to admit,she had guts to do so. It's a shame you skipped over it or Sakura healing her and finding out how she felt about him as well.
But,I have to admit,the way you describe the villains of "Naruto" makes them all seem incredibly creepy. The supervillains of Marvel and DC would probably want nothing to do with those guys and they'd probably run in terror from them,screaming. I don't know how the series will end. Perhaps some creepy villain will kidnap Sakura and Hinata to try to get something from Naruto and he has to go on this quest to save them or something like that. I admit this may seem like an old-fashioned way to finish the series but to be honest,with all the eerie villains in that manga,it would probably be an exciting finish. |
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cloud8100
Posts: 550 |
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There have been a fair few ups and downs with the arcs in Naruto.
I watched the anime for part 1. Caught the 1st few eps of Shippuden when it first came out and picked up the manga from then and continued with the anime still. Like alot of others (from what I gather anyway) I kinda lost interest and stopped reading after the Pain arc. I was never interested in Sasuke's story or a fair few other villains, but it was the general character of Naruto that made me enjoy the series and the world itself. Anyway good job man. I should really check out One Piece at some point. |
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bigivel
 Posts: 536 |
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I don't know if you don't really know, but Shounen means "young(preteen to teenager) boy" and it is in the title of the magazine! There is a big difference between "Target audience" and the "Gotten audience". For example, you can write a book directed to mystery fanatics(Target audience), but still have a huge following of readers interested on the romantic aspect of your story(Gotten audience). Just because of that fact doesn't mean you should do a continuation of your book directed at romance. Weekly Shounen Jump is the most popular manga magazine in Japan surpassing the 2nd place by more than its double in copies printed. Everybody in Japan, be it old or young, be it girl or boy, read the magazine. But in the end of the day Shounen Jump is a Magazine directed at Young Boys from middle school to end of High School! |
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shamisen the great
Posts: 658 Location: Oregon, USA |
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3492 Location: Back stateside |
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...Um, yeah, I know what "shounen" means. I've been doing this for 12 years. My argument is that publishers are idiots for insisting on sticking with their "target" audience rather than realizing they've got a wider one and embracing it by having some more focus on older and female characters, and letting them be as badass as your younger, male characters. Also, it assumes that boys and men are only interested in male characters, and while I know that we socialize boys to not want to identify with female characters directly, a lot of them grow out of that. My reference to Fullmetal Alchemist, another shounen series (though not Shounen Jump), which had a lot of older characters and strong female characters, was intended to show there's an alternative to having your cast being overwhelmingly young and overwhelmingly male. Keep the leads in your target demographic, but don't neglect the rest of your cast, especially your female characters. And Naruto isn't the only culprit in this - I'm looking at you Bleach. Or, I was. That one definitely jumped the shark. |
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Sorraffy
Posts: 161 |
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"I'm impressed Kishimoto plotted out the Naruto backstory so thoroughly"
he apparently spent to much time on that and not enough time plotting out the rest of his characters and future storylines. *I mean at least unlike Kubo, he's trying to use all 3 "main" cast (whereas if Kubo were using Naruto it would be him 99% of the time and Sas/Saku the other 1% ... but I guess in part 2 that's not so bad, Sakura has moments but is rarely seen the rest of the time and Sasuke gets very annoying) *The War storyline? The Kaguya .. whatever ... ugh |
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AiddonValentine
Posts: 2250 |
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I really don't get why so many writers are scared of just making villains; not everyone has to be sympathetic, the world isn't so simple. Some people, admittedly, are just born broken or have no interest in redemption. For crying out loud, some of my favorite villains have been guys like Shishio who is a complete, callous, unsympathetic nutjob but has a million times more charisma than all of these other villains I see who writers try to retcon as misunderstood as sympathetic. And then of course you got guys like Griffith, Dio Brando, Freeza, Xellos, Lust, NONE of them are the least bit sympathetic but they're just so interesting to watch it's impossible to get bored with them. |
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster
Posts: 357 Location: San Francisco |
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Agreed!! Re: villains, I get tired of the stereotypical bullies/goons who just show up acting like jerks so the hero can quickly kick their butts... But it's great when there's a villain who's actually interesting in addition to being totally evil. |
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GVman
 Posts: 729 |
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But isn't the female readership of WSJ mainly interested in it because of the boys? I understand your plight (I'd love to see more badass ladies, myself), but it seems like I usually hear that just from guys assuming that that's what gals want. There might not be that big of a female readership in Japan interested in manga about girls tearing shit up. Also, it's worked for WSJ since the '70s when Ring ni Kakero started getting women interested in the magazine, and I'm sure Shueisha doesn't want to rock the boat. Hell, they've even gone as far as to have manga deliberately targeting their traditional female readerbase with stuff like KHR and Kuroko no Basuke. Again, let me reiterate by saying that I'd personally love more stuff that has more women beating stuff up, but I don't think there's really a proven market for that in Japan. |
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AiddonValentine
Posts: 2250 |
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Dio is one of my favorite examples; the guy is established early on as being an unrepentant menace. He's cruel, he's manipulative, and even downright petty. He BURNS A DOG ALIVE just to get back at Jonathan for humiliating him. Any attempt to try and make him sympathetic at that point would be silly. Heck, the series even outright says through Speedwagon that trying to play a sob story with this guy would be freaking moronic. Sure, his father was an abusive alcoholic, but that does not make him sympathetic. Griffith is another good example; the guy is cold, manipulative, cunning, looks down on his own mercenary company, and then essentially throws a tantrum when Guts leaves the Band of the Hawk. Oh, and he sacrificed nearly all his subordinates and supporters in order to become Femto. Not really a way you can make him sympathetic after that. I can't feel sorry for a character that does that. Sympathy is not required to make an interesting, memorable antagonist. In fact, a lot of the time it detracts from it. |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3492 Location: Back stateside |
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Yeah, I wouldn't doubt some of their female audience is definitely there for the eye-candy - my first reaction to reading Watsuki's comments about his publisher's concerns was "Then stop making all your characters hot guys!" - but it's that "doesn't want to rock the boat" thing that I guess I'm protesting against. Have they actually done research into what readers might want? Or are they just doing what they assume works? And while I suppose this will get me some flack, I kind of do think that entertainment industries, regardless of the country or the medium, have some responsibility to be sending positive messages to their audiences, and if they know they have a female audience (which they must, there's way too much fan-baiting with some of the characters, like Sai), then they need to be sending messages other than "you are weak and will need to be saved my men, constantly." (Again, Naruto is far form the worst offender in that category, but it's not the best either) |
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GVman
Posts: 729 |
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Ah, I see what you're getting at; that makes sense. Anyway, if Shueisha could get some visionary editors back in there, we'd see them willing to take more risks. Let's hope that happens
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At least there's the success of 
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