Specific Manga Discussion

[Thrawn183]

Alright, so as many of you have probably noticed, I have recently been asking for input from other members of the playground for advice on suggestions for manga that I should read. Only later did I realize, that while I definitely enjoyed reading these manga, that thread wasn't really a great place to discuss them.

After realizing this, I have decided to launch the Manga Discussion Thread! Every monday, I will name a new manga to discuss.

Therefore, let us begin! All opinions, positive or negative, are welcome. While you can discuss any part of the manga you wish, I highly recommend that you consider:
- character development
- art style/quality
- speed of plot development
- character interraction
- action
- the presence or absence of plot holes
- general overtones (grim dark vs. super cute and cuddly)
- changes in the manga over time

If there is a manga you would like to see discussed on this thread that does not appear on the list from the "Looking for a new Manga" thread, send me private message. In the event that I don't end up reading it and adding it to the "Looking for a new Manga" thread, I'll definitely work it into the schedule for manga to review for this thread.

Current Manga: Bleach
Next Manga: Bleach

[13_CBS]

Unfortunately, I'm not very good at discussing stuff in terms of overall speed of plot or plot holes, but...

1) Character development: There is some, although one could accuse the development and progress of the characters as being extremely easy to do since they started out as being somewhat flat. That said, it's nice to see Naruto as something more than just an idiot hero (as of the current chapter in the manga, he's much more of the regular, selfless kind of hero than the idiot one).

The development of some of the other characters wasn't too bad, either, I think. Despite being a secondary character, Shikamaru had some interesting progression, growing from a lazy genius kid to a (more) responsible adult; Gaara learned to cast away his "I HATE PEOPLE BLAAARGH" self and became a loved and respected leader of the very people who feared and hated him. Sasuke's development was quite good, too, if you can get past the rather...curious execution of it. Maybe it's just me, but it's not often that you:

Spoiler

Show

: have a character who starts of burning for revenge against someone, then later takes up that person's cause due to a revelation.

Other than Naruto himself and a handful of other characters, though, I do feel that a lot of the other characters get shafted in terms of development, though the fact that the cast list is colossal probably has to do with that. Sakura in particular: between the beginning of the manga and now, it doesn't seem like she changed all that much aside from new powers and harboring different thoughts for Sasuke. Despite being in the original main trio (Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke), she's a bit more of a background character. Also, practically none of the adults seem to change all that much: Kakashi is still Kakashi, Tsunade is still Tsunade, and so forth. Not a whole lot of change there.

2) As far as weekly shounen series go, Naruto's artwork may actually be one of the best ones. Even outside of weekly shounen action series, you could do a lot worse than Naruto. I find the action pretty easy to follow, the scenery to be good...the art is pretty good in general. Kudos to the mangaka for being able to come up AND illustrate 5000000+ different ninja techniques.

The style is flexible as well (although to be honest, that could be said for most manga)--the gritty scenes feel visually gritty, the comedic scenes feel visually comical, and so forth.

3) The character interaction in Naruto is pretty varied for a shounen manga, especially later in the series. How the Akatsuki pairs interacted is different from how Shikamaru and Akuma interacted, and so forth. One could accuse Naruto of having a fairly limited social interaction with others outside of combat (he seems to act either cocky and brash or clueless and stupid, especially before the time skip), though this is fixed later in the series.

The change in how Naruto interacts with adults and his teachers is fairly interesting; as I recall, he starts off being a class clown and talks back to his teachers due to being a brat, but (much) later on he talks back to his teachers because of his newly gained insight and knowledge--he has a reason to argue with them and go against their word.

4) The action in Naruto is very good, which is probably why it's one of the most popular mangas around. As I said before, the fact that the mangaka comes up with a billion different ninja techniques helps keep the action fresh. Naruto's tendency to use Rasengan all the time is annoying, though given that it's his most powerful attack (not counting his later Wind Rasengan) it's understandable. He makes up for it by using his shadow clones if creative ways (a lazier author might have made the shadow clones do nothing but one or two things all the time, but luckily Naruto's mangaka avoids that). I particularly like the more unique powers in the series, like the ninja puppets, Gaara's sand techniques, and that...dude's bone ninjutsu (I forget his name). I do wish the Sharingan wasn't so broken, though, and that the Uchiha clan members weren't so hax. Itachi was...okay, but Sasuke? The whole "I summon Manda to escape the explosion" thing was just cheating, seeing how he wasn't supposed to have any chakra left.

That said, the Combat Commentary does tend to irk me. Less talking, more killing!


5) Naruto's tone is pretty generic for a shounen manga--it sits somewhere in the middle of the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs Cynicism, leaning heavily towards Idealism. The heroes tend to win, the bad guys sometimes get a change of heart, and the main character is a hero; however, people do still die, the bad guys win at times, and tragedies happen. I can't say much more since tone (GRIMDARK or otherwise) doesn't affect me too much--I've liked saccharine series as much as I've liked GRIMDARK ones.


Overall, the Naruto manga is pretty good. You could do better, probably, but you could do a whole lot worse. It's flawed, but it's an enjoyable read. One must wonder how much better it would've been if it weren't for the pressures of being in Weekly Shounen Jump.

[13_CBS]

...man, people don't like talking about manga around here, do they?

[UltraDude]

...man, people don't like talking about manga around here, do they?

I blame Naruto.

[KnightDisciple]

I blame Naruto.

Hey, don't blame him! Believe it!

Seriously though, I'd say that 13_CBS seemed to hit things pretty well.

I'll just add that Naruto (the character) has been growing in his awesome by leaps and bounds lately. In my opinion, at any rate.

[Tengu_temp]

...man, people don't like talking about manga around here, do they?

No, they just don't like talking about Naruto.

[13_CBS]

Shucks.

Alright, so what manga would you want to talk about? We could always have a Bleach hating session, but the mods might be displeased.

[shadzar]

Well we know Naruto was fashioned after DragonBall, even down to the 2.5 year timeskip.

Also the humor was taken from there as well in how serious and funny it would be at the same time.

Naruto himself is not completely fashioned after Son-Goku, but is a close approximation, and they pretty much grow in the same way over the course of the stories.

I don't really know what to say other than being an updated ninja-version of DragonBall that has a good story.

Competing with One Piece, and Bleach means there is a lot of comparison between them in how the speed moves along in the series. Naruto sets the pace some weeks while other leaves it to one of the other two.

The key story elements are great as well as character designs. Having the tale of The Gallant Jiraya present with its main cast members as the Legendary Ninja, as well as many other cultural infusions into the series makes for great reading and learning tools about another culture on top of its humor and drama.

Each person maintains their set personality even through growth and keep something to look back to notice who they are and who they have become and what key elements of the story took them there such as recent events.

All in all a pretty good manga and has popularity for good reason.

[Xuincherguixe]

I've come to the conclusion that Naruto is a good story, poorly written.

There's oodles of great character concepts, but not a whole lot gets done with them. Sakura is one particularly glaring example of this.

But, the biggest problem is that the whole world revolves around Naruto. Characters seem to just come into existence for the soul purpose of how they interact with him.

For instance. There are 5 Ninja Villages, 6 if you count Sound. Of them, only the Leaf Village seems to really have any history. You get a smidge here and there, but for the most part it's all pretty generic bad guys outside the Leaf. The group that seems to have the most history outside the leaf is paradoxically the newest, which is the Sound.

And which promptly gets discarded after it's purpose in the story is done.

I don't really mind Naruto either. Kind of odd but somewhere along the line he seemed to become a somewhat believable Ninja. I can kind of forgive the orange jump suit (since it's an intentional Dragon Ball reference). There's a bit of a "crazy like a fox" thing to his character. Too bad it doesn't actually say that certain aspects of his personality WERE from the result of the Nine Tails. (Sounds like it comes from... his mother of all things)

There aren't a whole lot of characters that I really can't stand oddly enough. I hate Sasuke, but he's something you're supposed to hate I figure. Only problem is that for awhile it seemed like he was trying to be pulled in too directions, essentially, "fan service" vs "decaying anti hero".

A recent Anime episode kind of shows how Orochimaru decayed in a similar manner. Granted it's not that he was blinded by revenge, but he was blinded. And arrogant. And short sighted. Considering Sasuke is to be his replacement, it's fitting that they are both characters who rot. It looks like the author has realized what exactly Sasuke actually is finally. A selfish whinny brat who doesn't appreciate what he actually has, and is unwilling to acknowledge that he's made mistakes.

He's going to clash hard against Naruto. Which is good, because it's the whole point of making someone like that.

Funny thing is after some of the filler arcs... it's looking like the people doing the Anime have a better understanding of what the story is about.

The character interaction is probably this Manga's weak point, pretty forced and arbitrary at points. Not very natural. What's worse, is that it seems like in response to people saying the plot is predictable... unnatural curves started being thrown in.

It's better to have a natural story than an unpredictable one. Which is not the same thing as being original. Everything has been done already, and I think people shouldn't worry so much about originality, so much as having the characters drive the story.

Plot seems to suddenly be advancing WAY too fast right now too.


That being said? I still do like it. Artificially fast moving plot aside there's some good build up going on. And there's some interesting abilities that the characters use. Sometimes with a lot of imagination. (Naruto and Shikamaru especially). And like I said it is a good story, but it seems to be poorly organized.


It'd make a better video game or campaign setting than a Manga, I think.

[Blayze]

Plot seems to suddenly be advancing WAY too fast right now too.

I disagree. We're actually getting progression at the moment, which is a wonderful thing in manga -- especially when compared side-by-side to Bleach every week. Naruto is the one that seems to be progressing at an acceptable pace. Bleach on the other hand... let's just say I'm drawing parallels with Maison Ikkoku here...

[nothingclever]

All opinions, positive or negative, are welcome.

I hate Naruto. I hate the terrible lackluster art that people try to say is good or event decent. The faces suck, the clothes suck and the depictions of combat suck. Silly people try to say it's good because two other poorly drawn mangas, Bleach and One Piece, are super popular and visually suck as much. What they don't understand is that no matter how many people read the manga the art doesn't become any better. It's pretty much objective. There's extremely little detail and depth. Everything is about terrible face and eye close ups. Because the author can't draw faces properly he sticks whiskers on his protagonist and silly piercings and tattoos on his enemies to add some detail.

The story is garbage. Character motivations are a joke. A big bad guy decides to wipe out villages and hold nations hostage because his puppy died and people said things to him he didn't care for. Another character has his whole family killed and decides that anyone that judges him needs to have his family and friends all killed to even begin to understand him a little.

The themes are terrible. "Power of friendship" and "prepubescent teens can do anything" are the predominant values expressed.

No, they just don't like talking about Naruto.

Yup.

I blame Naruto.

So do I.

[13_CBS]

Now my question is...how much of the above is because the mangaka is lazy/is a poor artist and how much of it is because of the schedule crunch?

Edit: Not to excuse the apparently poor quality of the art, of course, but just out of curiosity.

[UltraDude]

I'll add that I don't hate Naruto, and still keep up with it out of actually still liking a few facets of it; like many shounen manga, it suffers from the supporting cast being far more likable and interesting than the main characters.

[Rogue 7]

I will pretty much echo everything that 13_CBS said, as it pretty much hits my opinion of the manga square on the head. I find it to be quite good for what it is, which is, obviously, a shonen fighting manga. I don't go into it expecting very deep storylines or terribly complex character motivations, because, well, it's a damned shonen fighting manga. I'm here to watch characters beat the ever-living snot out of each other.

For instance. There are 5 Ninja Villages, 6 if you count Sound. Of them, only the Leaf Village seems to really have any history. You get a smidge here and there, but for the most part it's all pretty generic bad guys outside the Leaf. The group that seems to have the most history outside the leaf is paradoxically the newest, which is the Sound.

And which promptly gets discarded after it's purpose in the story is done.

I honestly enjoy this aspect of the worldbuilding, and I think Naruto actually has excellent worldbuilding. It means you can fill in the blanks yourself and make things the way you want to.

[tyckspoon]

The themes are terrible. "Power of friendship" and "prepubescent teens can do anything" are the predominant values expressed.

It's a Shonen Jump property. Power of Friendship is an editorial mandate. And the teens are well past prepubescent by now, thank you very much.

I stopped seriously caring about the story itself a while ago, like several others here. IMO, it's mostly managing to swing wildly between new heights of absurdity and flat out suck (notable recent low points: fight scenes that pass for reasonably good Magic Eye drawings, in that if you look at them cross-eyed in the right way you might be able to figure out what is supposed to be happening.) Now I'm mostly following it for the new absurdities and especially for the half-explored good ideas that even now still get strewn about in the wake of the shonen cliche train.

[Lord Seth]

Pre-time jump had a lot of problems with it (Sakura being almost completely useless, an annoying amount of deus ex machinas) but it was still fun reading. I thought it improved after the time jump initially, but then it went downhill so badly that I just stopped reading it.

EDIT: I think this guy sums up my feelings about Naruto better, and more comically, than I can. (I don't necessarily agree with his thoughts on the other manga, but on Naruto he's almost completely spot-on with what I think)

[Blayze]

It means you can fill in the blanks yourself and make things the way you want to.

That's not evidence of good worldbuilding, that's exactly the opposite. Anybody can half-ass something and not explain why things are the way they are.

[Yarram]

I've been enjoying Naruto, probably because of the way power scales in it. There is clearly a maximum power level in Naruto that hasn't been shown in any of the other manga/anime series' that I've read, other than Histories Strongest Disciple.
It was always obvious from the start of Naruto that Naruto was going to become the most powerful character in the series, but what I like is that all of his enemies have been deliberately shown at the start of the series, as well as their general power levels, and they still havn't been surpassed by him yet, neither had his mentors until recently, but only because when Nagato attacked Konoha, Naruto had all of Konoha's resources behind him, where as Jeriah went alone against an enemy he had no understanding of.
Unlike Bleach and Dragonball, there is no "leveling up" or Super-Powered enemy arse-pulls.
I guess I ignore parts of Naruto that I find questionable though, as I have a tendency to try and enjoy things, even if they are poor quality. Except for music, and Twilight, which after getting to the point where he sparkles, I just had to put down in disgust.

[Blayze]

Unlike Bleach and Dragonball, there is no "leveling up" or Super-Powered enemy arse-pulls.

What?

Kyuubi against Haku.
Curse Seal Level Two.
Sasuke training his *chakra control* by running up a tree for a night or so -- and becoming ten times faster as a result.
"You have ten puppets? WELL I HAVE A HUNDRED SO THERE"

To name a few.

[Xuincherguixe]

I honestly enjoy this aspect of the worldbuilding, and I think Naruto actually has excellent worldbuilding. It means you can fill in the blanks yourself and make things the way you want to.

Yeah, that doesn't seem like world building. It's more like getting a model airplane kit with some of the pieces missing.

[Coplantor]

No, they just don't like talking about Naruto.

You know? For people who doesn't like to talk about NAruto they had a lot to say...

I haven't read Naruto, but a friend of mine does, he is really dissapointed at the manga right now due to the end of Paine's arc.

Spoiler

Show

And because people seem to be stupid, based on who they've chosen to be the new Hokage.

[Xuincherguixe]

I think that we've gone way past the point of spoilers by this point.

But, since you did it anyways...

Spoiler

Show

Naruto convincing Pain to give up his quest to build an A-Bomb capture the tailed beasts and use their power to terrify people into peace although a bit questionable, does fit with the themes of the story.

... Bringing everyone back from the dead after killing them? That's just stupid. What is this, Marvel?


Danzo pretty much had to become the new Hokage for a number of reasons. People making bad choices seems to one of the major themes. There are people who do not want peace. Be it for glory, or revenge, or because they're afraid of looking like wimps.

There were no other good candidates really. Kakashi, Shikamaru, and Naruto aren't experienced enough. And the first two likely aren't powerful enough (seems to count for a lot).

He makes for a good target. For both Naruto and Sasuke. Even Madara really. What it basically comes down to is that he's the Hokage, because his regime is going to be toppled.

... Possibly as soon as next issue. Unlikely, but the way the plot is racing ahead it's not impossible. None of the other Hokage candidates are likely to get a lot better soon. So it's probably going to go back to Tsunade unless he gets killed off too. Which is probably going to happen soon.

I don't think it's going to be long before Naruto becomes Hokage.

Of course, a downer ending isn't out of the question either. Naruto fails to bring back Sasuke, and fails to become Hokage. He dies doing something heroic. Maybe they put his face up on Mount Rushmoore Ninja anyways because it was just that awesome what he died doing.

[Neko Toast]

I hate Naruto. I hate the terrible lackluster art that people try to say is good or event decent. The faces suck, the clothes suck and the depictions of combat suck. Silly people try to say it's good because two other poorly drawn mangas, Bleach and One Piece, are super popular and visually suck as much. What they don't understand is that no matter how many people read the manga the art doesn't become any better. It's pretty much objective. There's extremely little detail and depth. Everything is about terrible face and eye close ups. Because the author can't draw faces properly he sticks whiskers on his protagonist and silly piercings and tattoos on his enemies to add some detail.

To comment on the art style rant, clearly you've never seen Shin-Chan. The art of that show is far from great, but that doesn't mean it's a terrible series.

Also, this is the third time that I've seen you and each time your opinion has seemed rather harsh, despite this one not referring to its audience in a negative way. Still, I think you can try a little harder to not be so abrasive.

Back on topic, I don't necessarily like the show, but at the same time I don't dislike it. This and other shows like it (One Piece and Bleach are done in a similar style) are just not my cup of tea. I think seeing the beginnings of the dubbed version may have been a turn off for me as well, but I've seen later episodes and it does seem to get better.

When I do watch the show, I always find myself rooting for Naruto. He's quite the lovable underdog.

[Thrawn183]

When I think of Naruto, I literally have to think of it as either pre- or post-time skip. They're just so different.

I really liked pre-time skip Naruto. Yeah, it had some issues with virtually all the female ninjas being pushovers, but I felt like it progressed in a manner that actually made sense. Naruto was creative in how he fought, his changing of villains/jerks into the good guys made sense: he could connect with gaara as another vessel with a tailed beast, neji's hang-up was thinking he couldn't go against fate and Naruto shows him you can make your own destiny.

Orochimaru was a great villain because he appeared so dang evil, Kabuto left you desperate for more information. We didn't get a huge amount of detail about the other characters, but it wasn't really all that important, because we knew what we needed to.

Then came the time skip. Naruto really felt like he came back weaker. In addition, people kept heaping praise on him, but what they said didn't match what was actually shown. As an example, Naruto and Sakura fight Kakashi full out and in a whole day they can't beat him (when he supposedly has a very limited amount of stamina) without using knowledge that no normal enemy would have. Yet, all the characters run around saying that Naruto is suddenly on par with Kakashi? Then there's also the emotional immaturity. Even in the very beginning, the manga makes a big deal about how Naruto was actually really emotionally mature about failure, and loss. Yet after the time skip, practically the mere mention of Sasuke and Naruto loses it. Naruto also lost all his creativeness in battle. He continually lost his cool in battle and wouldn't follow orders from Kakashi. All in all it felt like he came back from a few years training as if he'd become an immature brat.

Then we have the Uchiha. I don't like how the entire plot has come to revolve around the Uchiha. That's all I'm going to say on that one.

Finally, I don't like that Naruto somehow never found out that the 4th Hokage was his father.

Now, I can say that I like where things have headed recently, mostly because the manga has had some time away from Sasuke and the Uchiha. Naruto finally feels like what I had expected after the time skip. The fights have become interesting again and I feel like I'm suddenly interested in what's going to happen. Oh, though I don't like how the conversations have been handled recently. I felt like Naruto's conversation with Pain was pathetic, he basically told him he should stop what he was doing because he was going to bring peace to the world....somehow. Even worse, when Hinata told Naruto she loves him... yeah he freaks out at the time, but since then? It's as if it never even happened.

So I still read the newest chapter every week, but only recently have I actually been excited by it.

[KnightDisciple]

Yeah, the "Hinata gets hurt, Naruto jumps all the way to six freaking tails, but then later it's just meh" bit frustrated the Hell out of me.

...Maybe because I think they're a cute potential couple, but still.

[Thrawn183]

I more meant that he hasn't talked to Hinata about it. It's as if the two of them never even met during the fight.

[tyckspoon]

Finally, I don't like that Naruto somehow never found out that the 4th Hokage was his father.

Did you miss the chapter(s) where they told him, then? And the one where

Spoiler

Show

He talked to his dad's spirit that was tied to the final seal on the Nine-Tails?

Also Kakashi having a little chat with his own dad right before all of Konoha got rezzed, which was a blatant waste of pages. I'm probably in this until the end, now, but the only fights I'm likely to really care about are going to be when Sasuke gets his butt handed to him (gogo Killerbee! Also WTF Kishimoto on the 'bite Karen for healthpacks' thing.)

[Kaez]

I dunno why people have issues with Bleach, sure yeah there is super awsome level ups (Shikai, Bankai, Vizard/Arrancar, Ressurection Form, 2nd level of that, and that's just Shingami and Arrancar) but at the same time it looks like the only thing left for Ichigo to do is learn a little more from his Inner Hollow (prolly Cero and a few tricks)

The current arc has been by far the best arc in the manga and I enjoy it. I even bought a few of the volumes (the early chapters 1-8 and 17-19 :P).

Sorry to get off topic of Naruto (I don't read it, but I've noticed a lot of people hating Bleach). Now if Death Note becomes a topic, I'll contribute (first Manga series I read/paid for)

[Thrawn183]

Did you miss the chapter(s) where they told him, then? And the one where [snip] (gogo Killerbee! Also WTF Kishimoto on the 'bite Karen for healthpacks' thing.)

I more mean, that Naruto grew up not knowing. And that Jiraiyah didn't figure it out/tell him if he did. It's like not knowing your father was prime minister, and nobody ever telling you.

As for the Karen thing, I remember reading somewhere that Kishimoto wasn't even planning on Sasuke's group staying together but he was given an order to do so. Result? We get members of Sasuke's party suddenly developing powers they never had previously.

[13_CBS]

I dunno why people have issues with Bleach, sure yeah there is super awsome level ups (Shikai, Bankai, Vizard/Arrancar, Ressurection Form, 2nd level of that, and that's just Shingami and Arrancar) but at the same time it looks like the only thing left for Ichigo to do is learn a little more from his Inner Hollow (prolly Cero and a few tricks)

Eh...I have my own opinions of Bleach, which I shall unleash like a swarm of angry bees when we come around to discuss it.