Before the Big 3, the majority of manga did not have a character bloat problem. Dragon Ball knew when to sideline the superfluous characters and kept a core cast of important characters. Jojo? It kept having timeskips to erase the status quo and start over with new characters. Yu Yu Hakusho? It had a small cast of characters that revolved around four main cast members and the format was so perfect that an aggressively mediocre series like Flame of Recca was better than it had any right to be because it blatantly ripped it off. Yu-Gi-Oh!, Rurouni Kenshin, City Hunter, Inuyasha, etc etc etc. (even Ranma 1/2 fits this: it has more characters than it needs for a focused plot but plot is not what it was aiming for)But then The Big 3 show up and then every mangaka and their mom wanted to copy them, even though having billions of characters was always a writing flaw in those series too. One Piece actually did go a few hundred chapters without this problem (it's insane to go back and see how tightly written early OP was compared to now) but by the end of Part 1 it was doing it too. I think Naruto did the best job (and Bleach the worst) of introducing lots of characters at once and making them interesting but you can easily tell that the Chuunin Exams Arc was an editor mandate and the longer the series went the more things snowballed.
YYH had a big cast by the tend but like DB it knew when the shed the arc extras. A bulk of character returned for the last tournament but thankfully were just featured and time wasn't wasted giving each and every character a 'moment' like it was MHA
>>287527858>Dragon Ball knew when to sideline the superfluous characters and kept a core cast of important charactersYeah, all non Saiyans basically get sidelined whenever anything happens. Good writing.
>>287527951Naruto did "give every character moment" thing too, it's why the war arc sucks so much
>>287527858>the majority of manga did not have a character bloat problem.The bigger the world mangka tries to create the more characters/people are introduced for it, their lives, their personal stories paint the picture of the world and what's in it instead of telling about the world with text dumps, unfortunately it also adds more complexity and when not done right or when not needed becomes bloat.
>>287527995Yeah that last arc was bad, but i feel like everything that copied it stuck out as way worse. Terrible framework really.
>>287527969 But this happened constantly in OG dragon ball too. Oolong and Puar were only around when it made sense after the initial arc. Roshi, Launch, and Yamcha became side characters unless a tourney or training arc was happening. Chi Chi and Ox King were random appearances to let the story breath every so often. Even Krillin and Bulma were only around for sections of some arcs, and they were left to the side when their importance was gone. The story was centered firmly on Goku and only brought in characters where it made sense.
>>287527858>big 3>... bleachI keked so hard.
>>287527858How much of your day would you say spend thinking about media franchises made for 13 year olds?
>>287528722Who it's made for affects absolutely nothing
>>287528798Yes it does. Could you answer the question now?
>>287527858Manga does not have a character bloat problem and one of Dragon Ball's biggest flaws is that no one but Goku matters. Whenever they make a Dragon Ball fighting game, they have to add 12 Gokus and a bunch of filler characters.The actual problem is the OPPOSITE of what you're saying: why do these worlds have so FEW characters? The longer these series go on, the harder it is to take their worlds seriously because the main characters only ever run into important people and and you see them over and over and over again, even if the story is jumping around the globe, and somehow the world seems to revolve around a couple of 15-year olds. This is fine for 50, 100, maybe 150 chapters, but it eventually gets stupid and you can see through the art and into the artist's mind. You can tell that the only people who matter in this world are the ones on the page - and no one else exists until the author comes up with someone and shows them to you.Funny enough, Bleach has this problem the least, because every arc introduces a new army for the main characters to encounter and Kubo comes up with a design and name for every character that should realistically exist - even if they don't end up doing anything. That's perfectly fine. Not every character needs a real role. But compare it to JJK, where - somehow - we never, ever see the 4th year students for either school, any of the Kyoto teachers, the 3rd year teacher for Tokyo, any active sorcerers from the Kamo clan besides Noritoshi, or honestly any non-clan adult sorcerers besides the three or four who hang out at the school. And yet, they have about 6 kids enroll in the schools every year. Where the fuck is everyone? In the Goodwill Event, we're told a few sorcerers are killed by Mahito - who were they? I never saw them. Why is Gojo watching over the event but not Kusakabe? Because Gege hadn't created him yet. It's so transparent and makes the world feel tiny, in spite of the text claiming otherwise.
>>287527858>Dragon Ball knew when to sideline the superfluous characters and kept a core cast of important charactersnaruto does this well
>>287527969the one thing toriyama did that none of his successors got was precisely the fact that the cast constantly changed. every arc introduced at least one new character to the group. first it's bulma, then yamcha, roshi, krillin, tenshinhan, gohan, piccolo, vegeta, future trunks, #18, mr satan, goten and trunks, pan and oob.even if the last few arcs stick with the saiyans, there's absolutely a rotation of the cast and new characters join the group and have their moments, and most importantly, toriyama actually aged his characters, so you start with goku as a kid and end with goku training with his granddaughter.nowadays, even a meaningless timeskip gets hyped like a major even when toriyama was like "oh yeah 5 years later here's goku's son i guess". not one of the mangaka inspired by toriyama do that and i doubt editors would allow it anyway.the difference is that toriyama introduced the cast over time instead of "here's the initial group of 20, only 5 will matter btw, also here's the new group of 10, only 2 are relevant">>287528193people call it "the last arc" like it's not 1/3 of the entire series
>>287528980Constantly introducing new characters that do nothing at the expense of existing characters is Bleach's biggest problem.
>>287528980Kubo creates characters not to fill out the world but because creating new characters is his way of overcoming writer's block. He's said this himself.He's not a very good writer, so when he gets stuck on where to take the story, his solution is to come up with new characters
>>287529137Dragon Ball had several timeskips, not just one. And even then, Toriyama had to fight with his editor to be allowed to let Goku become an adult.
>>287529030Except Naruto's supporting cast never does anything all."Sidelined" implied they were important when they were introduced, but shove to the sides once they fulfilled their purpose. In new shonen, most characters serve no purpose in the first place.
>>287528980When you have such a bloated supporting cast, it becomes harder to justify why the main characters are the only ones doing anything. You're constantly asking "why isn't anyone else helping out"?Keeping the cast small, or having the supporting cast be normal people with no powers solves this.
>>287529726At least new Bleach characters get to do something 90% of the time. Looking at the TYBW arc, almost all Sternritters did something.
>>287531743The Sternritters are pure padding, most of them only exist to give side characters someone to fight
>>287531780That's what we're talking aboutWe're dealing with cast bloat by getting the bloated cast to do stuff against each other
>>287531849When there are too many shitters in the story, nobody’s achievements and victories actually matter.In a bloated cast characters become disposable. You get five chapters of a side character no one gives a shit about showing off a new ability just for them fuck get wrecked immediately by your average Aizen to show how scary he is. It’s a complete waste of time.When the cast is tighter mangaka can actually develop dynamic choreography and strategy because they aren't rushing to give 50 different niggas their moment.
>>287527858Huh, that's mighty interesting and all, but Bleach gave us this thougheversomore.
>>287531849Fighting fodder that only exist to give you someone to fight isn't doing something, it's padding
>>287533418Yeah, I really grew to appreciate Toriyama's approach even if he tilted in the other direction too much. Imagine there being androids #31 through #35 which humans and Gohan would have to go thrugh before Goku vs. #19 even starts. Or Babidi having 10 different levels of his spaceship with each having its champion so that everyone can get their fight. That's basically post-One Piece battle shonen. Frieren kept it somewhat leashed until the current arc when they decided to go fuck it, and bring everyone back.
>>287527858>Bleach the worstlmaoOne Piece took that crown after the timeskip.
>>287527969>aiii i want yamcha fighting majin buu
>>287527858Naruto definitely did the worst because of how unimportant and boring all the other characters are, and it takes too long for the series to even properly introduce the other villages which is silly. One Piece is also terrible post timeskip with the bloat.
>>287533418Creting fights in a fight manga? How silly, how stupid, how nonsensical!
>>287527858Saint Seiya is the progenitor of bloated casts
>>287533755>and it takes too long for the series to even properly introduce the other villages which is silly.Yeah, it's probably the worst thing about it. By the time the other three Kages are introduced, they're just fodder to pad out the roster with no real role in the plot.
>>287527858>>287533662Bleach probably did it the best, the captains are doing something every time they appear, most of the Arrancars that mattered died so they didn't end up bloating the cast, the ones who survived did something.
>>287527858long-running series are going to have a lot of characters, duh
>>287533763When those fights serve no real purpose in the story, it's a bad thing
>>287533993ENTER
>>28753396890% of the captains are just beatsticks with no real relevance to the actual plot. Their fights are padding.
>>287527858Ussop is the most despised member in the main cast of One Piece, and yet he has more memorable moments than Tien and Yamcha put together. I don't think Dragon Ball is the best example of how to handle a character cast.
>>287534111That's exactly the problem the OP is talking about. Toriyama would just let go of characters or reduce them to the side status, but Oda needs to have the whole cast tag along nearly always and he needs to find something for them to do on top of gigantic side casts every arc.
>>287533968The problem is that the new characters introduced get less and less interesting. In Soul Society most of the captains are interesting and a lot of the vice captains too, then in Hueco Mundo only about half the espada are cool and interesting and their fracciones are all irrelevant and uninteresting and by the time the sternshitters show up none are cool or interesting, and because Kubo doesn't kill off characters and for the most part only ever gave everyone one single fight win it becomes bloated.One Piece actually handled things well rape timeskip and it felt like all the strawhats got do to stuff while in post time skip they're lost in the shuffle and more and more characters just get introduced and even some brought back.Naruto is the worst because it's also adverse to killing off characters like Bleach but doesn't even take the time to give everyone at least one good fight, hell even a fan favorite like Kakashi post Land of Waves is useless and a weakling until he gets his Sharingan upgrade way late into post time skip, some even think his death by Pain was good when it was pathetic as fuck but he had become such a useless character with nothing going for him by that point that trimming the fat of the cast was seen as good.Unironically the newer shonen handle big casts better.
>>287534135>Toriyama would just let go of characters or reduce them to the side status, but Oda needs to have the whole cast tag along nearly always and he needs to find something for them to do on top of gigantic side casts every arcThat's because Oda has a genuine appreciation for his characters and isn't just writing based on what an editor tells him to do.
>>287534135a cast of 9 characters isn't that big though
>>287534316Not having an editor to tell him no anymore is Oda's biggest problem.Hell, Oda himself warned MHA's author about having too many characters, because the more characters you have, the harder it is to fit them all into the story.
>>287534322It is when only Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji actually do anything anymore.
Author creates a character with an interesting power, design, and maybe personality. Character does something once and never again. Why would the author do that? Well, now a marketing company can use that character to bait you into watching/reading. The anime company has more material for fillers, when those were a thing, and for original movies. They have more merchandise to sell. Video games can have larger rosters of playable characters and NPCs without having to make OCs. You get more engagement from cosplayers and fan art.
>>287534225The thing about Soul Society is that it was an order of magnitude more complex arc than stuff that followed. In the end it broke down into Aizen and co. vs. everyone they were running circles around for the past 100 chapters, but before the end of hypnosis you had plenty of different conflicts with everyone trying to make sense of the situation and shifting alliances. So all could shine as their own characters with their unique philosophies which amounted to more than the one-liner they throw after beating the enemy (which as far as the plot is concerned is all the difference between, say, Kenpachi and Mayuri henceforth). Arrancar and Quincy had some infighting in the bad guys side, but you had much more clearly defined good and bad guys to begin with, and most of the latter were just fodder to the former. That's the same reason Wano arc in One Piece was such a slog. Large casts work only when the arc is more complex, and you don't just split everyone into two camps, since then it all just feels like biding time until the MC and Big Bad face off finally.
>>287527858>chunin exams was an editor mandateI have no idea if this is true but I definitely think the chunin exam is the obvious best part of the entire manga.
>>287534322It is 10 as of now. But it undersells it as nearly every arc has its own cast that for the purpose of the arc in question are also a main cast (like Bonney, Kuma and Vegapunks in Egghead or Loki, Hajrudin etc. right now).
>>287534135oda's problem is he keeps writing these 300 chapter arcs that barely push the main plot forward instead of just pushing towards the endgame.
>>287534372Kishimoto wanted to have Team 7 go on more missions and introduce other teams from other villages, but the editor said that was too slow paced and to do a tournament instead so a bunch of new characters could be introduced all at once.You never thought it weird how they're suddenly thrust into a tournament after only one mission? The Chunin Exams very clearly hurt the development of the main characters. Actually having them go on more missions together would have gone a long way towards making Naruto and Sakura's attachment to Sasuke more believar. As it is, their relationship with Sasuke is too underdeveloped for what is the central focus of the series.
>>287534225>Unironically the newer shonen handle big casts better.They really don't, and they don't even have filler to flesh out characters and concepts that were barely touched upon in the manga like old ones did
>>287534426yeah no I agree with the editor for sure. First of all there's a lot more small time missions they go on before the exams, it's just offscreen. The exams did a great job introducing a ton of long term characters in an interesting setting that allowed them to show off their attributes. The later parts of the manga couldve used some more of that fast pacing too.
>>287534340>Not having an editor to tell him no anymoreOne Piece has always been more about the author than the editorial staff, unlike Dragon Ball and Naruto, for example, where Kishimoto and Toriyama were essentially illustrators following other people's orders. You may like it more or less, but it is what it is.
>>287534459The characters introduced in the Chunin Exams do jack shit for the rest of the manga, so introducing them was a waste.
https://voca.ro/1hcYQy9cXwEo
>>287528980You're making this sound like it was a good thing for Bleach when it's actually one of its biggest issues, specifically in how it mishandles its huge cast of characters with its lack of focus.
>>287528980The more characters you try to juggle, the less focus each one gets.Most people prefer smaller casts of well developed characters to large casts of underdeveloped ones.
>>287534020The purpose is to inject action in an action series. If you're some kind of pretentious retard that watches unsophisticated action series but says he doesn't care about cool action then you might have a shit instead of a brain.
>>287534349Zoro barely does anything post timeskip.
>>287527858Never watched a single episode of either of these 3 and i most likely never will.
>>287535105It's really not how battle shonen is written traditionally.
Yeah, One Piece sucks dick because every crew needs to be the size of an army now
People now get mad when s character that was relevant in the previous arc gets docked/disappears for a couple arcs.Why have a character around when you aren't planning to do anything with them?
>>287535404Yeah okay lil bro, that’s why in Elbaph the stunningly long list of villains is… 3 people. No, Gunko is not evil, and even if she was it would be 4.
>>287534372You are a tasteless retard. It doesn't hold a candle to land of waves
>>287530013>Except Naruto's supporting cast never does anything all.Dragon ball does this. Nobody does a damn thing after Cell
>>287535458>Why have the character at all if you aren't planning to do anything with them?FTFY
>>287534439Nah. It's a different problem but that doesn't mean the old ones didn't have their own problems with bloated casts.
>>287535458>Joe has fire powers and appears one time to show that the power system/setting can have fire >WHY isn't joe playing a huge role in all arcs from now on and blasting the final boss?? joe should not even exist at all
>>287527858Bleach started very well but became bizarre when it went full into battle shounen nonsense. I barely understand the point of the first arc if you tell me the other world are basically humans who are not humans dressed like samurais who are assholes with the "saved" souls living in some shithole villages.
Reminder that the new gen shounen we see todays are influenced by Naruto and Bleach only.One Piece has influenced nothing except Fairy Tail.
I don't give a shit about "teamwork" with a bunch of irrelevant side characters. that's why i love DB, it doesn't pretend like every character are equal and nobody wants to sit through chapters and chapters and episodes and episodes of some irrelevant character struggling to fight some henchmen.I'd rather take one good quality fight with goku over his jobber pals getting their 15 minutes of fame. Not every character is equal.A single, impactful, high stakes fight is infinitely more potent than a soulless buffet of participation trophies for every side character like it's fucking kindergarten. Goku going 1v1 with a universe threatening monster is what we came for. That's why Goku vs Frieza is so iconic. So many modern battle shounen feel like they're ticking boxes. "Everyone gets their little emotional arc, their quirky power moment, their 1v1 with a villain they're conveniently perfectly matched with." It becomes formulaic and predictable, like a tournament bracket disguised as a war.Dragon Ball, for all its faults, knows the harsh fucking truth. Only the elite can stand at the top. There's no illusion. No equal power scaling. No forced relevancy. Piccolo gets a shine when earned. Vegeta gets his wins and his losses. Everyone else? THEY'RE FUCKING SUPPORT CHARACTERS. They either step back or get stomped. That's how it SHOULD be. You don't need a 30 man gangbang on one villain to create tension, you just need a fight that actually matters. JJK is so far the only modern shounen that gets this half right, but it also does the same mistake as Demon Slayer with the same participation trophy syndrome.It's funny to how people decry Dragon Ball as the Goku Show (and well, it kinda is, it's Goku's story) but the Saiyan arc does the whole "muh teamwork" better than all these shounen people are glazing over like JJK and DS, lmao
Noooooo you just don't get it OP I liked the character design of scrimbo bimblo the background character who appeared for 3 panels so they deserve to have more screentime they deserve to have more focus they should be a side character a real main character they should be explored more and have a 200 chapters story arc focused on them that would grind the entire story to a halt MUH WASTED POTENTIAL BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW
>>287536927Im sorry chunin exams didnt have a tranny for you to get off to.
>>287527858>making assumptions about several decades of manga that you've never read
>>287538224Ummm, sweetie, do I have to remind you of THAT Orochimaru scene?
>>287537132You don't need to introduce an entire pointless character just to say that a power exists
>>287536931Dragon Ball's cast was sidelined. Naruto's never did anything in the first place.
>>287527858>character bloat problem.yeah>Dragon BallPFFFFFFTTTTTTTT probably the worst example of what should you do with characters
>>287535105It doesn't matter how "cool" your action is it has no impact on the plot. Side character #10 VS mook #20 is not storytelling, it's filler. It could easily be cut out and the story would still reach the same end point.
>>287539385Dragon Ball introduced characters then sidelined them when they no longer had a place in the story. It didn't waste your time giving everyone their "moment" in every arc.
>>287537799Characters that don't do anything shouldn't exist in the first place, that is the problem. If they can't actually contribute anything to fights, there's no point in them being in the story at all.If they have no powers, them being useless is fine, but too many make the mistake of giving the supporting cast their own powers that would be extremely useful in any conflict, but then do nothing.
>>287527858>the majority of manga did not have a character bloat problem.Blame the classic Chinese novels.
>>287537932Side characters being unimportant isn't usually the root cause of people's problems, it's when the side characters take up too much time for the value they bring to the series.If you devote too much screentime to a side character and they don't end up mattering in the grand scheme of things, that time feels wasted and like padding/filler.There are lots of shows that do side characters well because they don't spend a second more on them than they have to - they set them up, deliver their value to the story, then die or fade into the background until they're needed again. But when you have entire stretches of episodes dedicated to side characters fighting between each other or getting up to wacky hijinks only for them to end up playing a tiny (or nonexistent) part in the overarching story, it's a pacing and expectations issue and is bad writing. If you devote time to a character, people WILL get attached to them, and if that attachment is betrayed, it's the writer's fault. Do not let people get attached to characters if you intend to forget about them. Do not spend massive amounts of screentime on characters that you (the writer) do not care about or have a plan for.There are people who get overly attached to characters in a way that is totally beyond the writer's control, but these are the vast minority of people. Most criticism of bad side characters is entirely valid.tl;dr Characters being on the sidelines and helping out when it's appropriate is fine, but when the time you spend establishing and fleshing out a character is disproportional to how important they are to the actual story, then all that screentime and "development" ends up feeling like it was padding.
>>287539465it wasted plenty of timeyou are lying about "sidelining" when they have plenty of screen time absolutely wasting your time when nothing they do matter but just wait until goku gets here
>>287539465You didn't watch any of these shows.
>>287539759fucking this, is dishonest when one of the cell arc moment is how Tien stalls Cell, he is a sidelined at all, I think OP is confused between being the guy that beats the villain and "sidelining"
>>287539759Their purpose was to show how strong the villains are, and they fulfilled that purpose. You use other characters to show that the villain is a credible threat, that they're strong enough to give the main character a challenge.
>>287539740Rock Lee had a single meaningful fight and he's the posterboy for muh wasted potential spamming faggots.>There are lots of shows that do side characters well because they don't spend a second more on them than they have to - they set them up, deliver their value to the story, then die or fade into the background until they're needed again.Exactly. Like Rock Lee. And you have people slurping that ugly-ass faggot microdick that hasn't done anything meaningful since Obama was still president.You have retards going about how Kishimoto "wasted" fucking Tenten and how she had "so much potential".Your post is not wrong at all, but that's how it works in an ideal world, in reality, that's not happening at all and people shit themselves about how literally whos got "wasted".
>>287527858>>287528697You can stop pretending to hate Bleach because a YouTuber from 2010 said it was bad. A lot of cults nowadays consider Bleach the best of the Big 3, cults who like Texhnolyze, Monster, PunPun, etc.
>>287539354Yes you doHow do you expect to show there are fire powers...but you can't have a character use fire powers
>>287539855so you lied about this one>sidelined them when they no longer had a place in the story
>>287539855>Their purpose was to show how strong the villains arewow, amazing character handling
>>287539856Tenten is indeed a wasted character. All of her characterization and fights come from filler and the Rock Lee spinoff.She has zero fights in the manga. She's an actual example of character bloat, she only exists because every team had to have three members.
DBros getting cooked
>>287539866You can have background characters and recurring extras show off these powers, you don't need to invent an entire named character for it.
>>287539938It's character building for the character that matters. A villain needs fights to prove that they're strong so that it actually means something when they're defeated and the supporting cast provides those fights.
>>287540042bro thinks flexing muscles is character building
>>287537799anon never watched DB
>>287540358thats what we all saying, lots of things said to glaze dragonball were flat out lies
Did anyone even read Dragon Ball at all? Most of the time, the side characters don't really fight at all. There aren't a lot of fights in Dragon Ball actually. They serve their role really well during the Saiyans fight, Krillin is the only one on Namek and he helps a lot, in Cell you have Tenshinhan helping a little but they're just here for two team wipes.This isn't One Piece or Fairy Tail where every single character gets a designated jobber to fight. They're part of the cast, they do some stuff, they had some fights but not that many.
>>287531780You say it like it's a bad thing. Compare it to warm piss with its constant clashes and offpaneling.
>>287537754Naruto and Bleach are just ripoffs of HxH and DBZ, making them easy to emulate. One Piece is unique as hell making it nearly impossible to mimic. Nice predditor spacing, by the way.
>>287540693agreed, though I am a big One Piece fan actually, but I digressI really love how TYBW arc felt like a celebration of Bleach with having everyone here and mostly everyone shining one last time
>>287540774explain how it is impossible to mimic
>>287540693It's better for them to get fights that matter, not ones that only exist to drag the story out. There didn't need to be a Sternritter for every letter of the alphabet.
Why do so many shonen now end with a big "war arc"?They're nothing but meaningless fights and "hype moments" where every side character returns and gets a token "moment" or "contribution" that doesn't actually matter. They seem appealing until you realize that the side characters aren't actually doing anything that advances or meaningfully affects the story, it's just padding in-between the fights of actual substance and narrative importance. So, even for fans of those characters, it's a terrible usage of them.It's not storytelling, it's a checklist where every character (including ones that have been irrelevant for 99% of the story) gets a participation trophy. These arcs toss out all substance in favor of flashy fights and hype moments. They almost always suck and end up ruining the series's legacy and make people feel like all the time they spent on the series was a waste.
>>287540838If it was one big battle where everyone plays an important part, you'd have a point, but most "war" arcs are a series of disconnected 1v1s.Bringing back all of the characters you've created over the years only to reduce them to meaningless filler to pad out the story between the parts that actually matter is just a waste that undermines them. Use them properly, or don't bother
>>287540999wdym "you'd have a point" I'm not arguing anything, I'm just saying why I liked it
>>287540906why would they go with an incomplete alphabet theme though
Did you get >WORDSWORDSWORDS'd out of /dbs/ or what? Fuck off and take your college thesis with you.
>>287537799I beat you think you hard carry your team in games
>>287540960Dont you have KGB to seethe at Jeremy?
>>287541110which is funny since when of the flaws I'm used to hearing is that we dont know what every shrift is like the "N" now I'm seeing retarded psueds imply that just not having a complete alphabet at all with the shrifts would be better
>>287540185If the only fight we see from the villain is the one that he loses, he looks weak which deflates the significance of him being defeated
>>287543376>bro we need to see the villain beat someone that is 0-8 in fights
This is all kind of stupid, large casts of flashy characters has been standard in shounen focused content forever. Just look at something like Kinnikuman. The entire point is to have these heavily individualized and stylized extras to fill out the merchandising.
>>287540960Most likely this is all the result of the trope of the great youkai war, it’s fundamentally baked into Japanese culture
>>287543621Having a huge cast for merchandising is fine as long you don't try to shove them all into the actual plot
>>287540861Fine, correction. It is impossible to mimic successfully, which is why the only anime that you’ve heard about that has tried, Fairy Tail, has subsequently crashed and burned. Coloring inside the lines with crayons is easy to do, just look at most toddlers (ie MHA, JJK, KNY etc), meanwhile true artistic talent like One Piece or the original run of DragonBall will be counted as culturally relevant for centuries.
>>287527858The characters are the best part of Bleach you retard
>>287540861Because OP managed to survive after everything else had ended so now it's artificially held up and propped up as the last thing holding the magazine alive.How many other manga can you think that have found themselves in that position? The only one other example I can think of is when SJ begged Togashi to continue YYH because everything else popular had ended and they were desperate to keep having a big hitter with the end result being Togashi earning himself a broken spine and a contract in which he has Shueisha by the balls rather than the opposite.It's also a matter of the times. No brand new series would be able to survive the current year zoomer attention spans if it took it's sweet easy time like One Piece does. One Piece only can afford to do so because of the branding power it managed to cultivate through the years, and again, because it's now the cow they want to milk forever for so they'll do anything to not let it die no matter what.
>>287527858That's actually what I like about DB. As the story goes on and the power scaling goes up, the human characters really have no place in the story anymore because they can't keep up with the aliens. There are a rare few who becomes a major character like Mr. Satan or there's Bulma who's a recurring character, but they have their little niche lanes and the story still treats them as though they're side characters.
>>287546282Bulma is still arguably the third most important character after Goku and Vegeta. Toriyama at least considered her to be
>>287546326>shartperleave
>>287544991How? They don't do anything. All they have going for them is cool designs and powers
So what's the ideal cast size?
>>287527858>Before the Big 3, the majority of manga did not have a character bloat problem.Really? Saint Seiya, Captain Tsubasa, almost any delinquent manga...
Since this is the thread, I can ask this: What's with modern battle shounen and this bullshit quota of "every hero gets their special little fight"? It's like every writer feels morally obligated to hand out participation trophies in the form of screen time. My Hero Academia is a prime example of this. It’s like, “Oh look, it’s time for every single side character to get their big emotional moment against a random villain no one gives a shit about.” I don’t need to see Mineta crying over how he's "finally useful" while fighting some C-list villain nobody will remember two episodes later.Demon Slayer falls into that participation trophy bullshit even harder, especially in the Infinity Castle arc. Every damn Hashira gets their little Oscar-worthy hero moment. While I don't mind one or two characters getting their 15 minutes of fame, I can't help but feel like it's just padding to make sure everyone gets their "epic" and "emotional" fight. Like, cool, Snake Guy and Butterfly Girl didn't do anything throughout the story... So why am I spending chapters on this and expected to care about them?
>>287546951nta but neither does DB characters, they are glorified action figures and thats okayhowever Bleach does have more distinct character expression with their ability while like 99% of Dragon Ball moves are melee flurries and big beams
>>287548299also in Mayuri fight with Pernidas we actually learn something about him beyond him just breaking a boundary
>>287527969That's unironically a good thing. Humans are cannon fodder in the grand scheme things in the DBverse. At least Toriyama is honest about that and doesn't bother going the pro-human masterrace Warhammer 40k route. Either humans go transhuman like 17 and 18 did (and they clearly hate being Androids), or they interbreed with aliens like the Saiyans to compete. It's more realistic this way to show that humanity is weak in the grand scale of power levels. Not every character is equal.
>>287548353Rose tinted nostalgia goggles,they are given ots of screen time but all they do is stall that's the problemthe fodder in the cell saga would have more screen time than the villains, see the cell saga, Krillin is fodderized yet he has more screen time doing fuck all than the woman that beat a Super Saiyan with Android 18 and so does tienyou boomers lie out your asses
>>287548455for the record
>>287548353Humans being the weakest species breaks the worldbuilding. Logically, if your setting is full of species with their own unique characteristics and abilities, the humans would have something unique about them too.Being the only species with nothing special or unique is just lazy writing.
>>287548507why didnt the Red Ribbon Army make Tao Pai Pan as strong as the androids despite using the same technology?
>>287548299>>287548345Bleach fights have one rule. If you lost before you'll win now. No amount of big beams or unstoppable hax ability mean anything at all. That's why they'll just stop losing at some point and automatically win.
>>287548601spoken like a true larper
>>287548646Thats how I'd reply too if I couldn't refute the point.
>>287548601Winning is the expected, default outcome of a crazy hax. Losing means the hax being somehow overcome by the heroes, that is why it wins by default after that.
>>287535126in english we use either to refer exclusively to groups of 2
>>287548888you tried to be reductive while missing the point completely displaying ignorance instead, now not to be reductionist you give each one three points>things we learned about Gohan in his fight with Cell- he had Potential which is like I said just breaking a boundary- he is arrogant and makes mistakes while he is ahead, like just about every other saiyan- he fights out of necessity rather than enjoyment, which is nothing new with him but it is an extent of this character trait that he always had>things we learn about Mayuri- his relationship with Nemu is more complex than just exploitation where he poetically sees her as a daughter while he knows that she is an experiment so he values her life which something which is a side of him we havent seen before, while he's still himself and isn't completely humanized- we learn how he sees science as an ever improving force while he previously seen is as something static when it is "perfected"- we get to see more of an extent of how he operates cerebrally in action, while we didnt get a chance to see with with Uryu defeating him out of his previous flaw of seeing science as static once perceived perfected and in other fights he had already studied his opponent in preparion to battling them such as Syaelaporronow lets not bring up what new moves each of them used since anyone that has watched both knows which one blows who out of the water, hence why you are a larper
>>287549015The hax simply stops working because it is their turn now.
>>287549015he tried to be reductive but it backfired, of course a conflict has an obstacle but the point is how is said conflict solved and which one has not only more complex solution but which one offer more character growth in the conflicts
>>287549196You don't want people to be reductive? Then don't do it first.
>>287539465Half of the “arcs” in Dragon Ball are about resurrect half of those useless mob characters that nobody really cares about.
>>287539857lol, lmao
>>287549437>“arcs”Filtered
>>287539857who knows Michael B Jordan keeps glazing bleach actually
>>287539857Bleach has aged like milk
>>287548299All the different powers in Bleach are smoke and mirrors reallyThey all do the same thing, the only thing different is that visuals
>>287552514bro necrobumped his thread just to not have a point
>>287529137New shonen don't do timeskips anymore and they lack in world building too
>>287527858characters are there for world building. When you make kinda ambitious settings you need multiple story threads, factions, enemies, etc. since most of these stories scale up to killing god or the government or whatever. The real problem a lot of these supposedly bloated series have is they don't actually flesh out said characters as in push them forward even if it's offscreen so they feel more like set pieces just waiting for the mc to do something. It's why Oda and OP or even FMA get praised because they clear this very low bar with all these characters "doing shit" and progressing their agendas independent of the main guys. It makes the world feel more alive. Not doing so makes the setting feel hollow and like it revolves around the MC instead of it just being a story about the MC
>>287553187worldbuilding is fleshing out the world's history and culture, not introducing a million characters that have nothing to do with the plot
I imagine it's very jarring for Dragon Ball/Naruto/Bleach fans who grew up watching the anime and playing the games to read the manga and discover that none of their favorite character's best moments, moves, or characterization are even canon
There is no big 3 you retarded amerifat
>>287529791>Kubo creates characters not to fill out the world but because creating new characters is his way of overcoming writer's block. He's said this himselfHe never said this
>>287527858>Using DB as an example when the side lining of characters is one of the things fans criticize the most
>>287537799>THEY'RE FUCKING SUPPORT CHARACTERSThere's a difference between playing a smaller role and playing no role like how you're implying things should be. For example, it's not as if Dragon Ball was exclusively Goku vs Everyone else. As uncommon as it was, you would have: Goku and Piccolo taking down Raditz, Goku, Gohan, Krillin and even fucking Yajirobe vs Vegeta. Everyone vs Freiza prior to Goku going SSJ and so on. You can have the not so relevant characters shine everyone once in a while, no need for retarded extremes.
>>287527858>character bloat problem.Made up zoomer problem
