For better or worse, recent battle shonen feel weirdly detached when it comes to dead characters who are supposed to be extremely important to the story.JJK and KnY are probably the two examples where I noticed it the most.In JJK, Toji literally meets Megumi again, but they don't have a single actual father-son conversation. Toji is the only one who realizes who Megumi is, finds out his son apparently didn't end up getting his ass pounded by Naoya in the Zenin clan, feels mildly relieved about it, and then just kills himself.In KnY, Tanjiro never actually meets Yoriichi. Hell, Kokushibo doesn't even get to fight Tanjiro and have the obvious"W-wait... that swordsmanship... could it be... my brother's...?"moment.If Kishimoto had written either series, you already know exactly what would've happened.Toji and Megumi would've gotten an Itachi/Sasuke-tier emotional farewell.Tanjiro would've somehow met Yoriichi's spirit, talked to him, and finally given the poor bastard some closure.And Kokushibo absolutely would've fought Tanjiro, recognized Yoriichi in his swordsmanship, gotten killed by him, smiled and finally passed on in peace.And let's be real: deep down, those are probably scenes a huge chunk of the audience actually wanted to see.The difference is that Kishimoto was shamelessly sincere enough to just give the audience that payoff.Modern shonen authors seem much more interested in restraint, unfinished emotions, missed connections, and letting characters die without ever getting the conversation everyone was waiting for.So is this actually a good development for battle shonen?Or did modern authors become so afraid of being sentimental, melodramatic, or "too obvious" that they started deliberately avoiding some of the most satisfying scenes their own stories had perfectly set up?
I think part of this goes back to the late 2000s.Around that time, there seemed to be a growing attitude on 2ch, that scenes where dead characters come back to talk to the living and have some tearful emotional reunion were cheesy and overly sentimental.This was also the era when H×H was constantly held up as the peak of shonen writing. People really valued restraint, subversion, and not giving the audience the obvious emotional payoff.Gotouge and Akutami both belong to basically that generation.
>>291242673The MCs in shonen behave more like young adults now. Naruto was always just a kid
>>291242673Hinata belongs to Raikage
>>291242673How about you read actual literature instead of goynenslop
>>291242673I honestly think JJK is even more of a fightfag series than Dragon Ball. JJK is all about action and nothing else. Despite how Toriyama really didn't take his series too seriously, there were still more character moments that were emotionally resonant than what most modern works have to offer.
>>291242673Everything you just wrote sounds much gayer than what we got
>>291243256Kill yourself subhuman.
>>291242867>Around that time, there seemed to be a growing attitude on 2ch, that scenes where dead characters come back to talk to the living and have some tearful emotional reunion were cheesy and overly sentimental.They are absolutely correct. Same with 'childhood memory flashbacks', overdone and trite.
>>291243381Stop pretending DB is some kind of high art.A lot of the reverence it gets is just authority bias: people treat it as inherently profound because it's DB, and because it was drawn by Toriyama.
>>291242673because naruto was written as a polar opposite to sasuke aka author's self-insert aka swarthinessswarthoids want a more brutal world where only their greasy unibrowed ideals prevail like slavery, rape, a complete niggerdom consuming the world and turning it into a black hole of nasty swrthiness and repulsion
>>291242673>Kokushibo doesn't even get to fight TanjiroKokushibo being defeated by a ragtag band of literal whos wielding inferior breathing styles enhances the narrative. Kishimoto is a stupid retard who ran out of ideas and so he revived every fan favorite character just so he could have an epic "everyone is here!!" clusterfuck of a climax.
>>291243634>ragtagThe were the literal strongest hashira but I get what you meant
>>291243498I'm not though. It's just that the works that have came out in the past 10 years are somehow worse than it.
>>291242673The real question is why are shonen writers so afraid of writing proper romance? They are to blame for the declining population of the world because kids know how to behave like Goku but are unable to talk to a bitch.
>>291242673If you fault KnY for this you don't have any idea what that manga was about.JJK's violent secret world also should spell out to you why they are non-chalant over death.You lack intelligence or reading comprehension.
>>291242673Honestly, aside from JoJo, HxH, post-Sensui YYH, and Nougami Neuro, I think this generation of shonen manga is clearly written with a more mature narrative and thematic sensibility than the older generation.It's weird how people keep pretending otherwise.
>>291242673because that moment was ooc for tardruto
>>291244246>Goku never meets Bardock.>Luffy probably isn't going to meet Roger either.>Jotaro and Joseph don't end Part 3 by tearfully embracing Jonathan's ghost.The older generation was like this too.Naruto is basically the only one that really does this.
>>291244482>Luffy probably isn't going to meet Roger either.He could meet Dragon, but he doesn't have orphan issues like Naruto to make it a big deal.
>>291242673they'd alienate a chunk their audience, shonen babies are functionally parentless/familyless
>>291243498Saying JJK is worse than DB is not saying DB is high art. Its just saying JJK is dogshit, which it is.
>>291244482>Goku never meets Bardock.He met his grandpa gohan and there was a whole emotional scene of it.Bardock wasn't even canon in the original manga, he was an anime original character imported back in to the manga.
>>291244282How? Narutard was always an emotional sperg.
>>291244246Not really they only seem more 'mature' from outside. A better term would be to call them written more edgier. Otherwise they're just as childish, maybe even more childish than old generation.
>>291242673>but they don't have a single actual father-son conversationI doubt you could have done anything about it because Toji was a deadbeat dad who didn't care much for his son. This is like Goku seeing Bardock again in DB(Talking about OG Bardock, not the minus and subsequently super version), he would just be glad Goku killed Frieza and avenged their race and then leave.Narutard's father wasn't a deadbeat like Toji or Bardock. Have never watched mid slayer so don't know what to do about it.
>>291244482I would've liked at least a little bit of interaction between those three.Like 95% of my problem with SC's ending comes down to that.
>>291242673>Kishimoto was shamelessly sincere enough to just give the audience that payoff.You literally answered your own question. We used to have authors like Kishimoto, who were sincere in the way they wrote and actually gave the audience satisfying payoffs. But nowadays, that’s seen as “fanservice” or a “distraction from the story” by modern authors. Apparently, putting emotion into a story and doing the “obvious” thing is just way too difficult and complicated for them.You mentioned JJK and KNY, and CSM immediately came to mind too. Like, when Reze is revived under Makima’s control, she never even gets to interact with Denji. She just gets torn apart by Pochita and disappears from the story. Even when the other Hybrids return in Part 2, she doesn’t come back for God knows what reason. I think Fujimoto knew that bringing Reze back into the story would ruin the misery porn he wanted to write and actually make the fans happy, so he simply decided to ignore her existence and make sure she never got back to Denji, even though that completely undermines the tragic romance between them. She gave up on escaping before just so she could see him, and now what? She actually left him? Geez, I guess Denji wasn’t completely wrong when he thought she had simply rejected him.I think if Kishimoto had written CSM, he would’ve done the “obvious” thing and given us the “fanservice” of Denji and Reze meeting again. Say whatever you want about him, but unlike the hack that is Fujimoto, he’d at least be sincere enough to give his fans that payoff, which honestly would’ve been much more coherent and far less damaging to Reze as a character
add "naruto" to the op post so I can filter your tumbleweed thread. thanks!
>>291242867>>291243497“Subverting expectations” just for the sake of doing it and being a dick to the audience is the most Reddit shit ever.
>>291243381>>291243498>>291244767Dragon Ball is unironically the best and most sincere battle shonen when it comes to what it set out to do. It never tried to be super “deep” or any of that shit, and it deserves all the credit and praise for that. Toriyama was REALLY something else at what he did. Like, do you seriously think Kishimoto, Oda, Kubo, and Togashi treat him like a god and their idol for no reason?
Guy confuses reading 700 chapters as reading 700 series and feels like he has a profound opinion.
>>291242673>recent battle shonen feel weirdly detached when it comes to dead characters who are supposed to be extremely important to the storyCharacters being dead means they're not supposed to participate in the story anymore (in most cases anyway). Otherwise, that devalues the fact that they died. Idk what your point is. Even the example you gave with Naruto and Minato feels like an asspull that came out of nowhere. Also, the fact that Minato and Kushina sacrificed their lives also meant that they sacrificed watching their own son grow up. Making both of them eventually meet up with teenage Naruto takes quite a bit away from their deaths.
>>291242673being able to talk to your dead parent(s) is wish fulfilment. there was no courage in this, just like how he wasn't brave enough to permanently off kakashi
>>291242673Why are modern OPs so confident in making tumbleweed generals like this?
Hey OPKill yourself.
>>291242673Because this isn't really a trope.Tons of battle manga where the MC's relation to dead characters is either rarely dwelled upon or utterly irrelevant.As examples,>Dragon BallGoku never once thinks about or learns of his father in the original manga.He has a tearful reunion with Gohan, but that isn't dwelled upon and the character never comes back despite later reveals.>Ashita no JoeRikiishi dies in story so he doesn't really count.Joe is an orphan, but nothing about his parents is ever mentioned, in either the anime or the manga.>JoJoI'll just mention the fact that a popular troll during the airing of Part 5 was a fake manga page of Dio saving Giorno.Really, I can't think of many battle manga that have such scenes beyond Naruto. Even in Bleach, characters "coming back from the dead" (ironic) are often just imposters preying on the weaknesses of Ichigo and Rukia.In Hunter x Hunter, Gon's mom is dead and he literally doesn't give a shit about her, and I doubt anyone is hinging bets on her having a pivotal moment in the future.Such an odd thing to make a thread about.>>291248758It's hardly being a dick to the audience to not want to write some overly sentimental shit. Naruto's scenes with his parents are almost comically bad and overwrought.
>>291248699>You literally answered your own question. We used to have authors like Kishimoto, who were sincere in the way they wrote and actually gave the audience satisfying payoffs.You don't have to use sincerity to mean "I like this thing".Kishimoto was perhaps one of the least sincere mangaka to get a popular following in Jump. Most of the story quite literally is not what he wanted to write and instead what the editors knew would make for a popular manga. I have no doubt that the Hinata love reveal followed by the Naruto dad reveal were all a part of what his editor(s) at the time thought would sell, like how they forced Kishimoto to add a rival character and forced him to do a tournament arc.
>>291242673Honestly, Naruto went way too far with this kind of tearjerker porn involving dead characters.By the final war, every character seemed to get their own scene where they cried while talking to some dead loved one, and it became so repetitive and emotionally manipulative that I could barely sit through it.Gaara was easily the worst example.The reveal that his mother had actually loved him all along was one of the worst retroactive additions Kishimoto could have made. It completely undermined the drama of his character.Gaara was better as a child who had truly been born cursed and unwanted.The catharsis, the real affirmation of humanity, came from the fact that, despite all of that, he still learned to stand on his own feet and eventually became someone capable of leading and protecting his village.Kishimoto destroyed all of that with his own hands.
>>291242673>mock it consistently for years>surprise no one writes like it anymoreWhat's the problem? Don't you like hype moments and aura?
>>291242867So that's why most series have dogshit endings.
>>291242673Because they do that in MHA and the crowd that loves hype moments and aura hates emotional vulnerability
>>291242867And decades later, 2ch is seething over JJK’s ending being soulless and calling gege a hack
>>291249560Gaara in general is such a shit character in part 2. He was completely stripped of everything that made him interesting in the chunin exams and got turned into an extremely generic good guy.
>>291242673Maybe if they showed that Toji ever cared about his son, but no, that guy was a bum. Megumi never cared about him.Megumin should have had that kind of moment with Tsumiki thoFfs
>>291242673Tanjiro knowing about Yoriichi defeats the purpose of Yoriichi's legacy outliving the man himself.
