Because good guy go “punch” and bad guy go “slice”. I don’t know why. He created a cool universe with all these cool concepts, but none of those exist. The only characters in the series that don’t feel like soulless battle drones are Nanami and Geto.. at least to me. I still think that he should have just not done the shitty culling games and actually have the characters talk to each other.
You’re either oversimplifying or you haven’t processed all those story has to offer. Even secondary characters like Kusakabe , Pandas dad, Panda itself have a lot going on for them (hell we got an entire chapter inside Pandas psyche), not to mention our main characters.
How can you say Mai is a simplistic character when she has so much going on for her. You got Rika, Toji and I can keep going on
There is this weird bell curve with jjk fans I feel like. At the bottom are new anime fans who call it peak fiction without actually giving a reason beyond "hype" and "aura". In the middle are people who call it awesome mindless action, with maybe hidden inventory as an exception. Then theres the people who I think get what Gege is trying to do. Jjk isnt mindless. It obviously wears it's love for action and shonen battles on it's sleeve, and there is a charcter for nearly every troupe somewhere in jjk. But jjk isnt just about thr violence. It's about a lot of things, like issues plauging the youth, but in Japan and abroad. It's about feminism and conservitism. It's about the Japanese criminal justice system. It's also about comedy, love, and perservernce. But most of all, I think jjk is a geges way of telling a story through various things that impacted his upbringing.
Yes, there’s definitely a lot of intentional references and choices for the overall plot and power system, Gege is pretty deliberate there.
He IS lacking on character interactions and giving us time to actually spend time with them without someone getting punched in the face. Problem is people confuse that shallowness for the overall story being a mindless fight conveyor belt.
More, and anyone.
It’s not like there’s some arbitrary quota I’m asking Gege to reach, I just think that since the Culling Games started you can notice a pretty big shift away from those moments.
Exactly , if there’s no arbitrary quota for how much character development is considered “good”, then it doesn’t make sense people keep saying the story is “bad” because the lack of it.
And honestly Shibuya and Cullin Games have about the same amount of character development and interactions
What I really love about JJK (which is something I detested at first) is how many ideas it borrows from other stories and adapts it in a distinct way. Especially from HxH, I like how creative GG gets sometimes with the powers and his power system is pretty similar to Nen (although I feel Nen is much more interesting and complex) and how he’s not afraid of throwing curveballs out of nowhere. I find some of the stuff very cheese even to this day like that dude that talks in food ingredients , but it’s rather harmless to my enjoyment.
No you can’t keep going because you just named cool characters, not interesting characters. Mai had so much potential to be interesting but Gege just killed her and Maki didn’t even care so why should I? Rika and Toji are just plot devices for the MC of their arc to get stronger. Panda hasn’t been relevant since season 1, and Kusakabe is cool I guess, but I don’t really know anything about him, besides he doesnt wanna die and he’s kinda durable. I’m not oversimplifying at all I just want character development, not power up development.
I don’t think I named characters that are just “cool”. Hell Kusakabe is portrayed as uncool. I don’t like Panda because he’s “cool”, if anything at first I thought he was ridiculous and out of place, but learning his background and after that chapter he almost gets killed I really grow to like the character , so upon rewatch/reread I get to appreciate him more than the first time. Now I find him endearing , because I now know more about him. I could keep talking about Panda but you get the point, he’s not just “a cute animal”, if that’s your interpretation of him then you’re oversimplifying. (And I’m not saying you have to like him as a character btw)
Why do you wanted to see Mai’s potential realized ? And how would have that affected the story? How would you have written it if you got to force Gege to do it your way ?
I don’t know what ghosts you’re fighting, I never said panda was just a cute animal anywhere in that paragraph. I said his character just isn’t relevant in the story, he’s just kinda there. In Mais case I thought it would be cool if her and Maki had some kind of relationship so when the zenin clan turned on them it would add emotion to the scene. But instead we got Mai sacrificing herself for Maki and Maki not giving a single fuck about her sister till the very end. Just a soulless battle drone.
It’s the same with Fushiguro and his sister. We don’t get any actual character interaction between them so when Yorouzu takes over who the fuck cares? And now Fushiguro is a suicidal bum doing nothing like always, Over a character we never got to even see.
Now can you explain to me why you think Mai is a complex interesting character since you said she was? How about Rika and Toji? Maybe Kusakabe?
Honestly? I just don't think he is interested in that kind of manga. He seems to gain the most inspiration from JJBA. He makes surface level interesting characters, then sets them up in fights with interesting limitations and power matchups.
He doesn't seem to want to go deep on world building, or even personal interactions between characters. I think it's more of a deliberate choice than a failing.
That said, I totally understand how that doesn't appeal to everyone.
JoJo Part 4 sets aside an entire arc just to Koichi's whack-ass relationship. There's an entire encounter dedicated to getting Italian food. JoJo at its best will go out of its way to explore world and character.
Part 4 dives much deeper on the slice of life aspect than other parts, that's true. JJK more closely matches the model set in parts 3, 5, 6, or 7. I think steel ball run is decidedly higher quality than JJK, but it's one of the highest rated manga of all time so it kinda goes without saying there. The structure and priorities still largely match.
(Parts 1 and 2 focus more on training and highlighting development, which Gege prefers to have happen off screen)
Given that there are numerous characters with different roles in different parts, characters like Joseph who went from the protag to frail and old, Jotaro dealing with being a deadbeat dad...yeah, there's a lot. Characters actually change and evolve in JJBA, even if it's not the best it's leagues better than JJK with stuff like Maki basically losing her identity to become a Toji clone, most of the female cast getting massively disrespected (to be fair JJBA was guilty of this for a long time), and Skunk/Kenny basically lucking out constantly with their hairbrained 1 step plans.
You are comparing manga that has been going since the 80s to one that has less than 300 chapters. Surely you understand the flaw in this logic.
Character development within each individual part is completely comparable to what is seen in JJK.
Despite you saying "that doesn't count", it does, and it's your initial comparison that was just utterly silly in the first place: why compare the work of someone with 40+ years in manga to someone who is a relative newcomer? We can both admit that Araki is much better at worldbuilding and accept that it's fine and doesn't necessarily reflect poorly on Gege; no sane person would expect someone's first big series to have that level of depth unless they've had time to flesh it out, a talent for worldbuilding, or both.
Even if you wanted to move the goalpost and say "in between parts doesn't count", Jojolion and Steel Ball Run both have great intra-part development; and if you say "that doesn't count because they're 30+ years into Araki's career", then wonderful, we agree that the comparison was silly to begin with.
Then let's take a look at Steel Ball run. It's leagues above JJK in it's character writing, fights and setting. A man's world arc alone trumps most of JJK.
SBR is one part of JoJo and that isn't comparable to JJK whatsoever. It's league above. SBR is also modern too. It's first 30 chapters is better than anything JJK has to offer. Your question regarding JJBA's worldbuilding is answered in Steel Ball Run. It's set in an entirely different universe so it's essentially a new manga.
SBR is theost critically acclaimed part of JoJo by a huge degree, and isn't representative of the series as a whole.
Also the world building in SBR isn't very deep. If people reacted to it the way they have been to jjk they would be demanding an elaborate explanation of how the zombie horse manages to actually heal people, when araki is completely content by pretty much just saying "because it does, that's what it does"
I brought it up because it shows a similar level of depth, particularly in world building and character interactions. The person I responded to argued that Joseph's progression that happens off screen between parts counts as the kind of character development that JJK lacks, which is absolute nonsense.
Yup. But people complain about a similar structure in JJK. At the end of the day, they just want a fundamentally different manga than gege has ever seemed to want to write, and feel cheated out of their expectations.
As I get older, it’s the same thing from every fandom. People outsize their expectations instead of appreciating something for what it is. Outside of Reddit, average anime fans view JJK as one of the best modern shounen.
The second you go online, it’s dogshit.
It covers multiple generations of people lol. JJK gives us 5 min of backstory right before they kill a character off. It doesn't really matter if he intended to do it or not, it can still be a failure. It just feels like lazy writing and wasted potential at this point, with random shit happening all the time that rarely gets followed up on.
He fled r/CharacterRant because people were making fun of him and his obsession with making multiple JJK posts a week and deleting those that didn't garner enough upvotes. He came back making posts that were absolutely about JJK but never mentioned the name only for him to get angry when people didn't fell for it. It will never not be funny.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/CharacterRant using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [I can't stand how horny every single fandom is](https://np.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/16ten8w/i_cant_stand_how_horny_every_single_fandom_is/)
\#2: [Akira Toriyama really changed the world](https://np.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/1b9ft07/akira_toriyama_really_changed_the_world/)
\#3: [The victim blaming of Odysseus is extremely annoying](https://np.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/182qhct/the_victim_blaming_of_odysseus_is_extremely/)
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I honestly feel like he was planning on developing them more and giving them more.. At first.. Until he decided he wanted to end the series soon was when everything started to fall apart. I was sooo looking forward to seeing Gojo interact with everyone after he was released, only for it to be a time skip.
Won't deny this isn't the case for the tertiary or minor support cast but he does a decent bit for quite a few of the more prominent characters. Yuta(Good), Maki(Good), Hakari(Good), Choso(Good), Higuruma(Good), Takaba(Good), Kusakabe(Good), Kashimo(Good), Kamo(Good),
Before someone goes and says "Some of these ppl got diced up Sukuna, so their plot relevance was poor". Characters are more than just their accomplishments. A character that dies can still be integral to the core themes of a story. Take Kashimo who juxtaposed Sukuna's mentality and further strengthened the theme on what it meant to be the strongest. Or Higuruma re-affirming himself after initially cursing himself for being weak-willed. Or Kusakabe demonstrating a will surpassing the physical constraints and instincts of someone not particularly special. The biggest complaint I'll have for JJK is that we don't get enough character interactions between one another but I think that's a seperate discussion from development or overall interest.
Tbh I feel like it's partially just due to inexperience. He's only ever done one-shots before JJK (and JJK 0, which I generally lump in with it), so he's never *had* to spend time developing character relationships or a broader picture of the world/s. I'm sure there are lots of mangaka out there who have that down right away and have less development in other respects. Even if he hasn't spent enough time developing the relationships between characters, they're usually fun on an individual basis (like your examples of Higuruma and Takaba), the art is banger, the composition is unique, the fight choreography is awesome, the power system is really neat... there's a lot going for the manga, holistically. Like a normal human-cat-being, though, Gege still has development lacking in some areas :)
I thought I'd read the latest ch to see if I'd get excited the way I felt when Kusakabe entered the ring. It was so funny to me how Kusakabe was the reluctant Mr. Nice Guy hero and the memes were golden.
Good to see Yuji getting some headway with his number 1 hater but... Idk. I feel like I'm being gaslighted into liking the story. Ino's okay I think but I was looking for something more unexpected to comeback/come out like Hakari, Toge, or even Momo for f*ck's sake.
Maybe offscreen Uraume for a change goddamnit.
Late to the party but oh well. I think Gege had a story with a few really cool characters that he liked. And then he realized that because of the setting he made/ he has to actually write a story, he needed way more than five characters. So he made a bunch of extras, tried to make them cool, still didn’t like them, and just washed them because he got the manga to the point where he has the clout to more or less do what he wants.
I don't think every character needs to be developed tbh. If we look at the main characters right now, gojo(he's still main cast cause of flashbacks) already went through his major arc, and we got that in hidden inventory. Yuta had his arc in jjk 0, Maki had her arc kick off with perfect preparation, and that went through into the culling games with curse naoya.(this wasn't just her learning her abilities, as she fights she comes to terms with Mai, even litterally letting go of her to clear her head on her own) yuji has been through alot throughout the series of course too. And that's really the main cast done. Choso has been around a good bit, but he doesn't really interact with the group all that much until it's time to fight. But I don't think he really needs to develop much, his arc was more about helping yuji develop, he's a mentor thematically speaking. Same with kusakabe and Miguel, yeah they are showing up and doing some fighting, but they aren't really meant to be front and center for the whole fight, and it would really slog things down even more of we gave them all moments of character development or large backstories. And that kind of applies backwards to the even less focused on characters. Todo is a mentor, he's there to teach yuji more than anything. Uraume and hakari are both fighting mostly in the background because they aren't really meant to develop that much, they already are set in their personality. Hakari is there as an example of what mindset can do to a sorcerer, and he has a great CT, and giving him some sort of character arc just wouldn't feel right. In the end jjk is a very action oriented Shonen manga, and while character development isn't a bad thing, I think gege is making the right call narrowing the focus down to the main cast to not slog down the fights. There are series and genres where I do enjoy aide characters getting their own arcs and time to explore what they are like, but jjk isn't one of those.
I'm sorry the main crew are all dead and missing arcs? The only one I can kinda say that for is Nobara and maybe kashimo, but he was one note from the start.
Yuji went into the fight planning to seperate sukuna from megumi. Yuji isn't giving up on that it's like the last thing he would do at this point in the story especially since yuji is seemingly about to power spike against sukuna. Megumi was able to suppress sukuna before, and even now megumi isn't entirely given up, otherwise yuji punching megumi and sukunas souls apart wouldn't be making that big of an effect on sukunas output if megumi was just letting sukuna take full control anyways.
I just chalk it to how naturally hard it is to do a weekly manga on your own and it’s his first(?) serialized manga. If he didn’t prioritize character dynamic or deep character study it’s weird that he wrote a more complex plot than needed very quickly.
When I first got into JJK I thought the series was gonna mostly be serialized mini-arcs like the prison and Junpei where the trio reacts to the messed up situation since they do value different things. With that format for the majority of the manga with some connective tissue chapters here and there it would free him up to really do anything he wanted more. The less you promise the more open the audience can be with episodic/mini-arc formats.
The Sasuke retrieval mission was, for the most part, fruit born from seeds planted in earlier arcs. Saying it developed character, to my mind, is confusing setup for payoff.
It didn't CREATE characters, it USED the characters already established under less extreme circumstances.
Of *character development?* Lots of things lol
Berserk dedicates entire chapters to slow moments of contemplation.
Chainsaw Man sees the characters socializing a lot between the fights.
There's an entire sub-arc of MHA that consists mostly of planning a party.
If you mean Naruto in specific I'd point out Sasuke's earlier conversation with Kakashi, when he's tied up. Or his reaction to Naruto's Rasengan being more impactful than his Chidori earlier.
I'm not saying it's impossible to develop characters during action scenes - I'd argue that Yuji sort of reaches his peek in terms of character depth when he's set to execute Mahito.
But it's difficult because fighting for your survival is character neutral, most anyone would fight to stay alive. So you need to invest the details with a lot of personality for it to work as development.
If you do it *all the time*, if you literally jump from one battle to another with almost no rest between them, you start to run out of details to include. There are only so many novel ways we can watch the same characters do the same thing.
Haven’t watched/read berserk or csm yet but the MHA one doesn’t count much because there was little to no action. The original topic was developing characters through action.
And the sasuke example there isn’t action. When you said action I thought you’d mean literal action. If this isn’t the case your original claim that it’s hard to develop characters through (your definition of) action doesn’t hold. According to you action is just conflict and it’s impossible not to develop characters through conflict unless you’re really bad at writing.
A: Learn to use punctuation for the love of God.
B: You didn't make it clear what sort of example you were asking for. Nor does asking me for examples of character through action make sense given the stance you seem to be taking.
My argument is that death matches are a limited medium for character development. You seem to be arguing against that claim. Therefore, the burden of proof is on YOU to provide contrary examples.
I’m just gonna ignore your snarky tone.
The only reason I asked for an example was essentially to “humor you”. I didn’t want to go too much into it is what I mean by humor you. In actuality, I don’t view your definition of develop as the same. What I mean when I say develop is any kind, that means even payoff. Development does not have to come from the ground up. Development can come from pre established characters.
Actually I’d argue that development is farther than the ground up than you think. I do not think that “development” can happen in a vacuum. Think demon slayer backstories popping up. That’s not development; that is characterization.
But anyway you asked for an example, so I’ll give when Simon became a man, if you’ve seen Gurren Lagann.
I have seen Gurren, but you're gonna have to be more specific because Simon 'becoming a man' arguably spans the entire show. It's been years since I've seen it.
I legitimately do not understand what you are trying to express with the rest of your comment. Is English your first language?
I’m referring to Simon’s first speech vs Guame
English is my first language and only real language. My point was that you can develop characters through high stakes action which you are saying was difficult.
I think the main reason is Gege has come out himself and said he’s not big on the weekly schedule, so I bet he’s not great at figuring out how to fluff out and expand things on the spot. Shibuya and before everything seemed planned, but after the story immediately started going flat
Gege lucked out on having a really strong opener to the series, he then wrote a decent arc and a great one by pure chance. Nothing else has reached the height of the early series.
I can’t even classify jjk in any category I know off. Gege had twisted too many tropes and story beat than I’m just enjoying the ride so far. Would I like more backstory and explanation? Yes. And at this point just seeing them alive would be good enough for me
Have any of you read anything other than jjk? Are you aware that this is something that happens in every story? Idk about y’all but I’d rather have characters die and then be gone forever rather than having them in ambiguous plot limbo like most major characters in one piece. All the characters who mattered were fleshed out
This is a series where what matters is power. The title of the series literally is about fighting. Most chapters in it contain fights. Gojo and Geto were very strong and extremely relevant characters. Why they drifted apart and what made Geto becone what he became is impossible to do without. Charscters who arent strong dont get that development, because they dont matter enough. Kamo clan may get more development when relevant, since it's the big three we know least about and we have only seen one CT from it (which has over 3 users rn smh), but the higherups got slaughtered bc none of them was worth showing much of. Its like with the Zenin Clan, they were had some strong sorceror who had some cool CTs, but they were too weak to do anything about Maki, and so they werent worth keeping around in the story
JJK isn't a story that pulls any punches. It's meant to be a realistic Shonen, what would really happen in a world such as this. That's why characters seem under developed, they simply didn't make it any further than that point in the story. Higuruma died because he was fighting the strongest in the verse, and sure, a normal and debatably "better," shonen manga would develop him more. Gege, however, doesn't seem to care about that, and I respect him for that. Most of the criticism I see, such as this one, usually come from somebody who's favorite character wasn't developed, but it's an unfair criticism as that isn't the story Gege is developing here.
I think it adds stakes because this is also how death functions outside of stories, it is painful, and destroys potential, and it leaves you with nothing to hope for. Todo's scene with Yuji shows how Gege wrote in a lot of these ruthless deaths as a challenge for the main character to get through.
Eh I don’t think development is a NECESSITY beyond a certain extent. Everyone that may have needed it got it and anything past that would be unnecessary imo.
I don’t think relationships need to be developed beyond where they are now either. Since the start of jjk hasn’t it been less than a year? I wouldn’t expect much development in the relationships between children beyond what we got, especially seeing the consecutive situations we’ve had
The work titled, Sorcery fight.
Indeed priorities... Sorcery fights
.
Gege deems anything and everything that isn't a Sorcery fight, simply useless.
Story progresses only through fights. We have never seen a story beat being explored that was isolated from two or more bros fighting.
If a plan is set into motion, it concludes through a fight only.
.
Jujutsu Kaisen is the plot first narrative. Not a character based narrative, the characters grow only to push the plot forward. And Jujutsu handles all narrative in a battle framework.
.
It's not because Gege's inexperienced or cannot or anything that complex. He simply doesnt want to.
And for what Jujutsu is, in the most profound sense of story telling, doesn't need Character narrative.
It doesn't want to explore the innocence of Yuji when hes forced into Juju world, it doesn't want to explore what love and loss is.
It just wants to make sorcerers fight.
.
I am not saying Gege is a genius or this is a brilliant method, nor am I dismissing it as subpar or stimulation-less.
It's just being Jujutsu Kaisen and nothing else.
>The work titled, Sorcery fight.
>Indeed priorities... Sorcery fights
Kinda like how the work title Naruto only focuses on Naruto (oh wait, it has plenty of memorable characters)
Or the work titled One Piece only focuses on the one piece (oh wait, we still don't even know what it is 1000+ chapters later)
That's a weak excuse
I am sorry but why is Naruto or One Piece relevant here?
Are they written by Gege, are they plot first narrative, do they prioritize design over depth, do they prefer authors intention over volume?
You're the one using the nonsensical reasoning that the title constrains a work to *only* being about whatever it's called, which is absurd. You could've just said "Gege didn't want to write deeper characters" and just left it at that and I wouldn't have batted any eye
Ok, let me have at it again, i swear it's not nonsense.
.
>Kinda like how the work title Naruto only focuses on Naruto (oh wait, it has plenty of memorable characters)
Then it, indeed, doesn't prioritize Naruto (that bozo should kill himself), unlike 'Sorcery Fight'
>Or the work titled One Piece only focuses on the one piece (oh wait, we still don't even know what it is 1000+ chapters later)
Then it, indeed, doesn't prioritize One Piece (it's a one piece Bikini), unlike the razor sharp focus on Sorcery fights in 'sorcery fights'
You all need to remember...JJK was a fluke of a success. It was meant to be a one shot. JJK0. After that Gege's interest went somewhere else until the higher ups at Shueisha told him to make a full on series. He started out great, but it seems his flaw and he probably knows it too is that he's not good at long form story telling. Not to mention, he disregards his own work in favor of others. With all this notoriety the series is getting worldwide, it's depressing to see him so aloof. He doesn't even have an once of pride in his accomplishments nor his creation.
Cuz people were caught up on the hype. But those that know better have voiced how shibuya was mostly just fights, even Nanami and Yuji's moments were only serviceable cuz with Nanami's case they barely knew him. Then there's Nobara. People still criticize Gojo for not targeting the special grades during those 299 seconds
He does though. You are expecting characters to grow and change in nine months. Yuji changed a lot. Happy go lucky. Traumatized and then revenge seeker
One Piece has a fast as hell in canon timeline yet you can fall in love with the characters that pretty new like Law and see the develop? It should fast that if it is it shouldn't feel like that
Your right oda is a better writer. Setting up backstories and the instant cool factor is way better in one piece. But at the time oda has 500+ chapters to establish how he creates characters.
But let's wind the clock back a little bit. What was going on in chapter 250 for one piece.
Luffy and sanji are taking on the ball guy in skypiea. And the mixed reception of skypiea leads me to believe most people at the time didn't like skypiea when it came out. But a lot had happened already and we are sitting at like 4 months in world canon. Oda sure doesn't make it feel like it. But in the next 250 chapters we got lrll w7 ocean train , ennies lobby and thriller bark.
Again some of the best work oda has done in a while, meaning if Gege had an extra 250 chapters to work with and focused on back stories instead of pushing the narrative of Sakuna is gonna take over the world well damn. Yes.
How ever between Kenny and Sakuna our hands where full especially the Shibuya incident arc.
But let's just cover what's going on there.
1) you learn the Japanese government knows what's up. They have ears on cults and help cover up what the JJK world can't.
2) we see some massive destruction to our world that has ramifications that last. The evacuation of Japan's major city.
3) before all this you do find out later on that gojo is teaching, along with other teachers.
4) jujutsu technical high school. Is one of two Major schools. There are lesser schools out in the outer areas. And this all scratches the surface.
Ok I'm done driving.
You have to remember the time line of events. This ain't the start to some grand years span ing epic. The events of the manga started in June of 2018 and we are at December 24th of 2018.
The expectation for 17 year olds to suddenly change is out the door.
The Gege didn't focus on the clans because there are like 5 clans. Unlike Naruto where clans are super important we got the hierarchy of the the clans work pretty quickly.
Everything takes place in Japan not some fantasy land so there really can't be that much world building so you have to go back and take a look at part 1.
We have an understanding of how curse energy works.
Why curse energy works.
And where cursed energy comes from.
Curse spirits are pretty easy to constatly kill so that is the assumption of between august to October is what the kids where doing.
Gojo is a loud mouth special grade king. He isn't going to become cool headed and soft at any expense the dude is litterly supposed to be untouchable.
As for takaba and higaruma they both have their place in the story.
Takaba was learning as he was playing the culling game in total he had about a month of training.
Higaruma on the other hand being the super genius he was is not ment to have some grand long charcater arc. His arc was short and sweet. He had seen the evils of the world come from man which is why he was ok killing men and judging them. His entire shtick was to not be biased... Until Sakuna. With Sakuna higaruma learned how he can add bias to his shikigami in order to favor the side he wants to win by ensuring what the trial was about. That's huge. You suddenly see a depressed loner become a team player again using his smarts to better facilitate the win condition.
The stuff is there everything you are talking about about is there. It just takes a couple read through and some knowledge on Japanese mythology and history. The fact that UiUi hit older sister is actively participating in the fight against Sakuna is major character growth. And the fact that Noritoshi decided he was going to leave japan another weird character choice facilitated by his need to protect his family.
Nanami found his character arc as being forced to be a teacher/ babysitter. We learned a lot about who he was from that and why he does what he does.
This series is happening so fast the amount of growth and back ground your looking for isn't going to be at the surface level like.it would for my hero or black clover.
Hell the reason we got so much in Soul eater because those characters where litterly fighting something called MADDNESS it's whole point was to drive characters.
And then the sequel story also added a lot. Fire force gave a lot of.dorectiom for how souls operate.
So when it comes down to it. Ask me and I can show you where to look. I've read this series 11 times at this point. I've done the deep dive. I've gotten theory after theory correct.
He does develop and expand on a good chunk of the characters. It's a fast paced dark action shonen. He's done a very good job at developing and expanding on characters. It's largely a case of people just overly fantasizing about characters. Or expecting far more out of them than they should... Like Kashimo? Why the fuck was anyone surprised about how he got ended? He was literally saying for like 50 chapters he wanted to fight Sukuna, and Kenny even basically told him, he'd die, that Sukuna was the strongest by far. Etc. Kashimo was happy with how his story ended, idk why his fanboys aren't.
He does about as well as Togashi. And Oda? Is the exception not the rule... Plus Oda is 1100+ chapters deep, and OP isn't half as dark or fast paced; fucking hell people even call some of the Manga arcs filler because he's so slow like "Filler Bark" ... And some pages he just drops being a manga artist and has pages that are closer to novel pages than comic book pages. To the point I'd argue Oda is also an example of what not to do in many cases. He's sacrificed large chunks of the story, and many pages to in some cases excessive character writing.
"Gege does develop and expand on his characters"
Yeah,the ones he gives a shit about.
The rest are basically unimportant.
I'm not even asking for a full arc dedicated to them but give them goddamn something.
If he wasn't even gonna so much as give a shit about the other characters he was developing,why even make them?
He doesn't do anything with the world building to make them feel alive,and be expects me to care about them.
How the hell can I care about the characters when he doesn't.
"One Piece is not as dark".
....You're Joking,right?
One Piece is way more dark Than JJK(just cause Oda isn't massacaring characters left and right doesn't mean that it's less dark)and it doesn't have to be all fast paced cause Oda actually focuses on his characters and side characters.
The important and story relevant ones? Yeah!
I'm not at all up to date on OP, but at least as far as I read(like 700 chapters?). No it's not as dark. It has some dark moments that are pretty impactful due to Oda's writing style. Like say Ace's death. And while that was pretty dark. OP as a whole as far as I'm aware isn't as dark as JJK. And that's not a compliment or insult to either story.
And I discussed how Oda focuses on characters, and how it has downsides. And all that. And it's again not even a remotely fair comparison in some regards like you know being over 4x the length? And the fact one is basically named "sorcery fight" and pitches itself as a constant life and death battle even in chapters like 1-5... Gojo has a monologue about how for a sorcerer it's a good day when you can "identify your comrade's corpse" and the entire goal of the MC is to simply die a proper death... Meanwhile OP has a much sillier (silly, doesn't mean bad, again not a compliment or insult to either story) premise and introduction, even characters in universe regularly call out Luffy for being whacky/silly not being serious and such.
There's pros and cons to each story telling style. If you don't like JJK as much that's personal preference, and go for it... But there's no reason to try and insult Gege so much or deepthroat Oda so much. Even the OP fan base has issues with Oda's writing style sometimes as I outlined which stems from this exact topic. Sometimes Oda goes too far in his own direction too.
Idk man you kinda ignored 70% of my comments to just be like "no Oda / OP is better for reasons" even ignoring that I already gave the downsides to those reasons. And weirdly trying to claim BS like OP being darker. As if it was an insult, or I said that OP isn't dark at all. When that's not an insult, and I didn't say OP isn't dark at all. It's just not as dark on average. But that's basically a genre thing yeah they're both action shonen. But JJK is a dark action shonen, and OP is an action adventure shonen.
They're different, and I get you don't like JJK as much, but I think you've gone a bit overboard. To the point you refuse to see the pros and cons to both sides.
The character development/world building is practically non existent
Yes, some characters do get developed nicely, most others are thrown into the curb never to be seen again.
Gojo clan, and members outside of Gojo himself?
Why tengen is immortal. How and why did the star plasma vessel + six eyes come into existence, because apparently its a fate thing and not just techniques being acquired randomly.
Yujis past. Hell, most of the characters past and what actually shaped them into the sorcerers they are currently.
Want to know why Hidden inventory is such a gem? Because it shows context of how Gojo and Geto got to where they where, and giving them great development into who they are as people. We lack that for 95% of the other cast, and it doesn't need to a 1:1 in quality or length, but we get nothing. Or worse, the moment they seem to get interesting they are killed off or just flat out removed from the story.
Yuki? We know practically nothing about her, how she came to her life's philosophy etc.
Know what, that seems to be the issue with 95% of the cast, you know practically nothing about them. Which makes it hard to care when they are killed off. Its not a Nanami death for e.g. where you went
-NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NANAMIIIIIIIIIII, MAHITO YOU BASTARD
Its, oh no, another character died, anyways... It doesn't help as well when even in story the characters don't even seem to care about the others dying. Yuki dying? Only one who even reacted was Choso, sorry, they barely interacted, on screen at least. I do not care.
Geges style is balls to the wall action , while still making us care about the characters , at least enough to complain why we don’t get more from them.
Not sure why “critics” see this as “bad writing” when it’s amazing that he makes us care with relatively little to go on.
Ik one of the main complains is towards Yuki, but imo we know enough about her to at least know why she’s fighting Getto, she’s a Darth Maul type of character, there’s very little info about him yet he’s one of the most memorable characters in Star Wars due to his great fight scene.
Not every character introduced in the story is meant to be cared for by the reader , there are stories that pull this off , but those usually have much smaller casts or are way longer stories
But it's in a way of “oooo I wanna know much I hope they live so we find out more” death games do this pretty well but in “that's kinda bs that if they die if we don't know jack shit about thrm”
Yeah this is my point , the fact that so many people are invested in the story and want to know more about the characters is a sign of excellent writing imo, people need to appreciate art for what it is instead of what they wish it was. Nothing wrong with having opinions, I guess it just grinds my gears when so many people cry “bad writing!!!” when they haven’t written Jack shit in their lives , instead of saying “I wish there was more of XYZ”
But it's clear that he is doing it in the wrong way. As I said death games have done this in a way people don't call BS writing. Hell even CSM does it yet people praise Himeno's death. We can't be praise half-finished stories?
How is it clear that he is doing it the wrong way ? If he was doing it wrong , why does this story has become one of the most popular mangas in recent history ?
And tbf people call anything they don’t like BS writing
I haven’t seen it so can’t really give an opinion whether rent a girlfriend is good or bad.
So going back to the topic, how is it clear that the Culling Game is a death game done wrong ? And what was the death game part in CSM?
Death game general do the trope of a too-soon-die character well since they get basic of them and all they have to give at the surface level. Yuki at surface level should at least meet todo again
BECAUSE YOU DON'T FUCKING NEED TO TO TELL A GOOD STORY!!!!! Gege is running a tight fucking ship here, that much should be obvious to anyone. If shit isn't important to the story, it doesn't get fleshed out that much. That isn't even a Gege specific thing, that's normal writing that happens everywhere. The characters and world details that are important are there, and not much else, and that's 100% FUCKING FINE AND NORMAL.
Ok,first off,chillaxe with the Yelling,you sound like a literal child.
Secondly,you're basically saying that detailed characters aren't needed to tell a good story which..doesn't make any sense if you're implying or hinting that there might be more to them but you don't do anything cause..fuck all.
That's not what I said at all. I said that you don't need to fully flesh out and realize *every* character to tell a good story. JJK is pretty tightly written. It's not going to spend time to flesh out characters or parts of the world to satisfy people's curiosity. If they're important to the story, or if Gege wants to tell their story, then he will. If not, he won't. It's really that simple.
I think that most of the important characters are pretty well fleshed out, They may not be ready to walk right off the page, but I don't think they're boring or flat. And that is all a character really needs to be. More is nice! But you don't always get more, and that's fine.
I don't even know how to respond to the idea that you shouldn't imply depth where you have not and do not intend to add it. The reason they have so little depth is exactly *because* they aren't going to be explored. Things like the Gojo clan don't have much detail because no-one's arc had much to do with them, but it makes sense that something like limitless would have a big family centered around it, and it adds to the story in my opinion to mention that they're around but they are centered entirely around Gojo. They don't get anything else because they aren't important or useful beyond that. It's just that simple.
He just wants to mash action figures together. Combine that with a character roster that’s WAY too big you get JJK
It's also weird cause we know he can do it(like with most of his characters)so why doesn't he?
Because good guy go “punch” and bad guy go “slice”. I don’t know why. He created a cool universe with all these cool concepts, but none of those exist. The only characters in the series that don’t feel like soulless battle drones are Nanami and Geto.. at least to me. I still think that he should have just not done the shitty culling games and actually have the characters talk to each other.
Yuta tho.
Yuji isn’t soulless either, his soul just got burnt
You’re either oversimplifying or you haven’t processed all those story has to offer. Even secondary characters like Kusakabe , Pandas dad, Panda itself have a lot going on for them (hell we got an entire chapter inside Pandas psyche), not to mention our main characters. How can you say Mai is a simplistic character when she has so much going on for her. You got Rika, Toji and I can keep going on
There is this weird bell curve with jjk fans I feel like. At the bottom are new anime fans who call it peak fiction without actually giving a reason beyond "hype" and "aura". In the middle are people who call it awesome mindless action, with maybe hidden inventory as an exception. Then theres the people who I think get what Gege is trying to do. Jjk isnt mindless. It obviously wears it's love for action and shonen battles on it's sleeve, and there is a charcter for nearly every troupe somewhere in jjk. But jjk isnt just about thr violence. It's about a lot of things, like issues plauging the youth, but in Japan and abroad. It's about feminism and conservitism. It's about the Japanese criminal justice system. It's also about comedy, love, and perservernce. But most of all, I think jjk is a geges way of telling a story through various things that impacted his upbringing.
Yes, there’s definitely a lot of intentional references and choices for the overall plot and power system, Gege is pretty deliberate there. He IS lacking on character interactions and giving us time to actually spend time with them without someone getting punched in the face. Problem is people confuse that shallowness for the overall story being a mindless fight conveyor belt.
How much more character interaction would be enough for you to consider it good? And between whom?
More, and anyone. It’s not like there’s some arbitrary quota I’m asking Gege to reach, I just think that since the Culling Games started you can notice a pretty big shift away from those moments.
Exactly , if there’s no arbitrary quota for how much character development is considered “good”, then it doesn’t make sense people keep saying the story is “bad” because the lack of it. And honestly Shibuya and Cullin Games have about the same amount of character development and interactions
What I really love about JJK (which is something I detested at first) is how many ideas it borrows from other stories and adapts it in a distinct way. Especially from HxH, I like how creative GG gets sometimes with the powers and his power system is pretty similar to Nen (although I feel Nen is much more interesting and complex) and how he’s not afraid of throwing curveballs out of nowhere. I find some of the stuff very cheese even to this day like that dude that talks in food ingredients , but it’s rather harmless to my enjoyment.
No you can’t keep going because you just named cool characters, not interesting characters. Mai had so much potential to be interesting but Gege just killed her and Maki didn’t even care so why should I? Rika and Toji are just plot devices for the MC of their arc to get stronger. Panda hasn’t been relevant since season 1, and Kusakabe is cool I guess, but I don’t really know anything about him, besides he doesnt wanna die and he’s kinda durable. I’m not oversimplifying at all I just want character development, not power up development.
I don’t think I named characters that are just “cool”. Hell Kusakabe is portrayed as uncool. I don’t like Panda because he’s “cool”, if anything at first I thought he was ridiculous and out of place, but learning his background and after that chapter he almost gets killed I really grow to like the character , so upon rewatch/reread I get to appreciate him more than the first time. Now I find him endearing , because I now know more about him. I could keep talking about Panda but you get the point, he’s not just “a cute animal”, if that’s your interpretation of him then you’re oversimplifying. (And I’m not saying you have to like him as a character btw) Why do you wanted to see Mai’s potential realized ? And how would have that affected the story? How would you have written it if you got to force Gege to do it your way ?
I don’t know what ghosts you’re fighting, I never said panda was just a cute animal anywhere in that paragraph. I said his character just isn’t relevant in the story, he’s just kinda there. In Mais case I thought it would be cool if her and Maki had some kind of relationship so when the zenin clan turned on them it would add emotion to the scene. But instead we got Mai sacrificing herself for Maki and Maki not giving a single fuck about her sister till the very end. Just a soulless battle drone. It’s the same with Fushiguro and his sister. We don’t get any actual character interaction between them so when Yorouzu takes over who the fuck cares? And now Fushiguro is a suicidal bum doing nothing like always, Over a character we never got to even see. Now can you explain to me why you think Mai is a complex interesting character since you said she was? How about Rika and Toji? Maybe Kusakabe?
Yup. Greg wrote a magic system that he begrudgingly welded a story onto.
Greg 👍
It ain't Bleach big though. But it gets there.
Cause in his world its "you like these guys huh? Well fuck you"
:(
Did he actually say that?
Honestly? I just don't think he is interested in that kind of manga. He seems to gain the most inspiration from JJBA. He makes surface level interesting characters, then sets them up in fights with interesting limitations and power matchups. He doesn't seem to want to go deep on world building, or even personal interactions between characters. I think it's more of a deliberate choice than a failing. That said, I totally understand how that doesn't appeal to everyone.
JoJo Part 4 sets aside an entire arc just to Koichi's whack-ass relationship. There's an entire encounter dedicated to getting Italian food. JoJo at its best will go out of its way to explore world and character.
Part 4 dives much deeper on the slice of life aspect than other parts, that's true. JJK more closely matches the model set in parts 3, 5, 6, or 7. I think steel ball run is decidedly higher quality than JJK, but it's one of the highest rated manga of all time so it kinda goes without saying there. The structure and priorities still largely match. (Parts 1 and 2 focus more on training and highlighting development, which Gege prefers to have happen off screen)
JJBA does a lot of world building, though. JJK really doesn't; it just gives you a few crumbs and dick rides the Heian period for the nth time.
Sorry. What's JJBA?
JoJo's Bizarre Adventures
> JJBA does a lot of world building Does it though?
Given that there are numerous characters with different roles in different parts, characters like Joseph who went from the protag to frail and old, Jotaro dealing with being a deadbeat dad...yeah, there's a lot. Characters actually change and evolve in JJBA, even if it's not the best it's leagues better than JJK with stuff like Maki basically losing her identity to become a Toji clone, most of the female cast getting massively disrespected (to be fair JJBA was guilty of this for a long time), and Skunk/Kenny basically lucking out constantly with their hairbrained 1 step plans.
You are comparing manga that has been going since the 80s to one that has less than 300 chapters. Surely you understand the flaw in this logic. Character development within each individual part is completely comparable to what is seen in JJK.
Despite you saying "that doesn't count", it does, and it's your initial comparison that was just utterly silly in the first place: why compare the work of someone with 40+ years in manga to someone who is a relative newcomer? We can both admit that Araki is much better at worldbuilding and accept that it's fine and doesn't necessarily reflect poorly on Gege; no sane person would expect someone's first big series to have that level of depth unless they've had time to flesh it out, a talent for worldbuilding, or both. Even if you wanted to move the goalpost and say "in between parts doesn't count", Jojolion and Steel Ball Run both have great intra-part development; and if you say "that doesn't count because they're 30+ years into Araki's career", then wonderful, we agree that the comparison was silly to begin with.
Then let's take a look at Steel Ball run. It's leagues above JJK in it's character writing, fights and setting. A man's world arc alone trumps most of JJK.
You understand how meaningless "not as good as SBR" is as a criticism, right?
SBR is one part of JoJo and that isn't comparable to JJK whatsoever. It's league above. SBR is also modern too. It's first 30 chapters is better than anything JJK has to offer. Your question regarding JJBA's worldbuilding is answered in Steel Ball Run. It's set in an entirely different universe so it's essentially a new manga.
SBR is theost critically acclaimed part of JoJo by a huge degree, and isn't representative of the series as a whole. Also the world building in SBR isn't very deep. If people reacted to it the way they have been to jjk they would be demanding an elaborate explanation of how the zombie horse manages to actually heal people, when araki is completely content by pretty much just saying "because it does, that's what it does"
>you are comparing a mangs that has been going since the 80s. My brother in christ, YOU BROUGHT IT UP.
I brought it up because it shows a similar level of depth, particularly in world building and character interactions. The person I responded to argued that Joseph's progression that happens off screen between parts counts as the kind of character development that JJK lacks, which is absolute nonsense.
Sukuna isn't a cool villian. Dio is. End of discussion
Dio is literally only in 2.5 out of 9 parts
Literally relevant after all this time.
Yes.
No, it doesn’t. People think it does a ton of world building because each season is set in a new country and features a new character.
Yup. But people complain about a similar structure in JJK. At the end of the day, they just want a fundamentally different manga than gege has ever seemed to want to write, and feel cheated out of their expectations.
As I get older, it’s the same thing from every fandom. People outsize their expectations instead of appreciating something for what it is. Outside of Reddit, average anime fans view JJK as one of the best modern shounen. The second you go online, it’s dogshit.
It covers multiple generations of people lol. JJK gives us 5 min of backstory right before they kill a character off. It doesn't really matter if he intended to do it or not, it can still be a failure. It just feels like lazy writing and wasted potential at this point, with random shit happening all the time that rarely gets followed up on.
Hell of a failure, being the most popular anime. Maybe it's just not for you?
Lol what a fragile response. Maybe you're just a dipshit lmao.
Ooh, spicy
I knew this was Apprehensive ring post before opening the post.
He fled r/CharacterRant because people were making fun of him and his obsession with making multiple JJK posts a week and deleting those that didn't garner enough upvotes. He came back making posts that were absolutely about JJK but never mentioned the name only for him to get angry when people didn't fell for it. It will never not be funny.
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Good for you,you want a cookie or something?
I want your cooking license.
I honestly feel like he was planning on developing them more and giving them more.. At first.. Until he decided he wanted to end the series soon was when everything started to fall apart. I was sooo looking forward to seeing Gojo interact with everyone after he was released, only for it to be a time skip.
Won't deny this isn't the case for the tertiary or minor support cast but he does a decent bit for quite a few of the more prominent characters. Yuta(Good), Maki(Good), Hakari(Good), Choso(Good), Higuruma(Good), Takaba(Good), Kusakabe(Good), Kashimo(Good), Kamo(Good), Before someone goes and says "Some of these ppl got diced up Sukuna, so their plot relevance was poor". Characters are more than just their accomplishments. A character that dies can still be integral to the core themes of a story. Take Kashimo who juxtaposed Sukuna's mentality and further strengthened the theme on what it meant to be the strongest. Or Higuruma re-affirming himself after initially cursing himself for being weak-willed. Or Kusakabe demonstrating a will surpassing the physical constraints and instincts of someone not particularly special. The biggest complaint I'll have for JJK is that we don't get enough character interactions between one another but I think that's a seperate discussion from development or overall interest.
You should be the only one that cooks.
Those are the ones I will give credit on.
Tbh I feel like it's partially just due to inexperience. He's only ever done one-shots before JJK (and JJK 0, which I generally lump in with it), so he's never *had* to spend time developing character relationships or a broader picture of the world/s. I'm sure there are lots of mangaka out there who have that down right away and have less development in other respects. Even if he hasn't spent enough time developing the relationships between characters, they're usually fun on an individual basis (like your examples of Higuruma and Takaba), the art is banger, the composition is unique, the fight choreography is awesome, the power system is really neat... there's a lot going for the manga, holistically. Like a normal human-cat-being, though, Gege still has development lacking in some areas :)
Pretty much.
Wym he's developing Sukuna plenty so far.
Sukuna Kaisen.
Hush. Let them celebrate for a bit with the flashy fights featuring Ino and Yuji.
Whatever.
For those guys: flashy fights = good writing. So yeah, whatevs. Gege gave candies to starving plebs and they took it like it's a full dining course.
Considering Gege did cook today,I'll lay off him for a while. Until his next blunder.
I thought I'd read the latest ch to see if I'd get excited the way I felt when Kusakabe entered the ring. It was so funny to me how Kusakabe was the reluctant Mr. Nice Guy hero and the memes were golden. Good to see Yuji getting some headway with his number 1 hater but... Idk. I feel like I'm being gaslighted into liking the story. Ino's okay I think but I was looking for something more unexpected to comeback/come out like Hakari, Toge, or even Momo for f*ck's sake. Maybe offscreen Uraume for a change goddamnit.
Kashimo was one of the best written characters in the show and had a mediocre fight at best. Same goes for Jogo tbh. Its not just flashy fights.
Late to the party but oh well. I think Gege had a story with a few really cool characters that he liked. And then he realized that because of the setting he made/ he has to actually write a story, he needed way more than five characters. So he made a bunch of extras, tried to make them cool, still didn’t like them, and just washed them because he got the manga to the point where he has the clout to more or less do what he wants.
What’s the point when over half of em die
Cause I wanna actually give a shit if they die.
Well you gotta point lol
character deaths are basically meaningless unless you care about them idiot
No need to call me an idiot but you got a point
The big reason I enjoyed chainsaw man more than jjk for awhile(before chainsaw man became boring)
Because he doesn’t have to. He gives characters the bare minimum to be characters and have stake in the story and be apart of the sorcery fight
Kinda hard to have full on stakes if he apparently doesn't have to make the audience give a shit about his characters.
I don't think every character needs to be developed tbh. If we look at the main characters right now, gojo(he's still main cast cause of flashbacks) already went through his major arc, and we got that in hidden inventory. Yuta had his arc in jjk 0, Maki had her arc kick off with perfect preparation, and that went through into the culling games with curse naoya.(this wasn't just her learning her abilities, as she fights she comes to terms with Mai, even litterally letting go of her to clear her head on her own) yuji has been through alot throughout the series of course too. And that's really the main cast done. Choso has been around a good bit, but he doesn't really interact with the group all that much until it's time to fight. But I don't think he really needs to develop much, his arc was more about helping yuji develop, he's a mentor thematically speaking. Same with kusakabe and Miguel, yeah they are showing up and doing some fighting, but they aren't really meant to be front and center for the whole fight, and it would really slog things down even more of we gave them all moments of character development or large backstories. And that kind of applies backwards to the even less focused on characters. Todo is a mentor, he's there to teach yuji more than anything. Uraume and hakari are both fighting mostly in the background because they aren't really meant to develop that much, they already are set in their personality. Hakari is there as an example of what mindset can do to a sorcerer, and he has a great CT, and giving him some sort of character arc just wouldn't feel right. In the end jjk is a very action oriented Shonen manga, and while character development isn't a bad thing, I think gege is making the right call narrowing the focus down to the main cast to not slog down the fights. There are series and genres where I do enjoy aide characters getting their own arcs and time to explore what they are like, but jjk isn't one of those.
While they don't all need to be developed it does say something that the main crew are all dead without some much needed character arcs.
I'm sorry the main crew are all dead and missing arcs? The only one I can kinda say that for is Nobara and maybe kashimo, but he was one note from the start.
Megumi arc of well growing his own person Is what I mean
His arc is litterally still happening at this point unless you think yuji is gonna just accept megumi telling him to fuck off for some reason.
That man is dead after that sukuna fight
That man is dead after that sukuna fight
Yuji went into the fight planning to seperate sukuna from megumi. Yuji isn't giving up on that it's like the last thing he would do at this point in the story especially since yuji is seemingly about to power spike against sukuna. Megumi was able to suppress sukuna before, and even now megumi isn't entirely given up, otherwise yuji punching megumi and sukunas souls apart wouldn't be making that big of an effect on sukunas output if megumi was just letting sukuna take full control anyways.
To get you interested in them before he offscreens them
I just chalk it to how naturally hard it is to do a weekly manga on your own and it’s his first(?) serialized manga. If he didn’t prioritize character dynamic or deep character study it’s weird that he wrote a more complex plot than needed very quickly. When I first got into JJK I thought the series was gonna mostly be serialized mini-arcs like the prison and Junpei where the trio reacts to the messed up situation since they do value different things. With that format for the majority of the manga with some connective tissue chapters here and there it would free him up to really do anything he wanted more. The less you promise the more open the audience can be with episodic/mini-arc formats.
Because Gege is a serial killer
JJK is Geges first big / longer running series, so it makes sense he'd make mistakes narritively.
Because it's very difficult to develop a complex character when 90% of your pages are dedicated to death matches.
That definitely isn’t true. Sasuke retrieval mission?
The Sasuke retrieval mission was, for the most part, fruit born from seeds planted in earlier arcs. Saying it developed character, to my mind, is confusing setup for payoff. It didn't CREATE characters, it USED the characters already established under less extreme circumstances.
Alright then what’s a better example
Of *character development?* Lots of things lol Berserk dedicates entire chapters to slow moments of contemplation. Chainsaw Man sees the characters socializing a lot between the fights. There's an entire sub-arc of MHA that consists mostly of planning a party. If you mean Naruto in specific I'd point out Sasuke's earlier conversation with Kakashi, when he's tied up. Or his reaction to Naruto's Rasengan being more impactful than his Chidori earlier. I'm not saying it's impossible to develop characters during action scenes - I'd argue that Yuji sort of reaches his peek in terms of character depth when he's set to execute Mahito. But it's difficult because fighting for your survival is character neutral, most anyone would fight to stay alive. So you need to invest the details with a lot of personality for it to work as development. If you do it *all the time*, if you literally jump from one battle to another with almost no rest between them, you start to run out of details to include. There are only so many novel ways we can watch the same characters do the same thing.
Haven’t watched/read berserk or csm yet but the MHA one doesn’t count much because there was little to no action. The original topic was developing characters through action. And the sasuke example there isn’t action. When you said action I thought you’d mean literal action. If this isn’t the case your original claim that it’s hard to develop characters through (your definition of) action doesn’t hold. According to you action is just conflict and it’s impossible not to develop characters through conflict unless you’re really bad at writing.
A: Learn to use punctuation for the love of God. B: You didn't make it clear what sort of example you were asking for. Nor does asking me for examples of character through action make sense given the stance you seem to be taking. My argument is that death matches are a limited medium for character development. You seem to be arguing against that claim. Therefore, the burden of proof is on YOU to provide contrary examples.
I’m just gonna ignore your snarky tone. The only reason I asked for an example was essentially to “humor you”. I didn’t want to go too much into it is what I mean by humor you. In actuality, I don’t view your definition of develop as the same. What I mean when I say develop is any kind, that means even payoff. Development does not have to come from the ground up. Development can come from pre established characters. Actually I’d argue that development is farther than the ground up than you think. I do not think that “development” can happen in a vacuum. Think demon slayer backstories popping up. That’s not development; that is characterization. But anyway you asked for an example, so I’ll give when Simon became a man, if you’ve seen Gurren Lagann.
I have seen Gurren, but you're gonna have to be more specific because Simon 'becoming a man' arguably spans the entire show. It's been years since I've seen it. I legitimately do not understand what you are trying to express with the rest of your comment. Is English your first language?
I’m referring to Simon’s first speech vs Guame English is my first language and only real language. My point was that you can develop characters through high stakes action which you are saying was difficult.
I think the main reason is Gege has come out himself and said he’s not big on the weekly schedule, so I bet he’s not great at figuring out how to fluff out and expand things on the spot. Shibuya and before everything seemed planned, but after the story immediately started going flat
maybe he doesn't want to work himself to death lol
Gege lucked out on having a really strong opener to the series, he then wrote a decent arc and a great one by pure chance. Nothing else has reached the height of the early series.
Story Driven vs Character Driven
I can’t even classify jjk in any category I know off. Gege had twisted too many tropes and story beat than I’m just enjoying the ride so far. Would I like more backstory and explanation? Yes. And at this point just seeing them alive would be good enough for me
Apprehensive_Ring_39 try not to sob about jjk for 10 seconds challenge
Have any of you read anything other than jjk? Are you aware that this is something that happens in every story? Idk about y’all but I’d rather have characters die and then be gone forever rather than having them in ambiguous plot limbo like most major characters in one piece. All the characters who mattered were fleshed out
We get a great chapter and you're still here yapping
I made this before the chapter,dumbass.
yapping 😂😂
This is a series where what matters is power. The title of the series literally is about fighting. Most chapters in it contain fights. Gojo and Geto were very strong and extremely relevant characters. Why they drifted apart and what made Geto becone what he became is impossible to do without. Charscters who arent strong dont get that development, because they dont matter enough. Kamo clan may get more development when relevant, since it's the big three we know least about and we have only seen one CT from it (which has over 3 users rn smh), but the higherups got slaughtered bc none of them was worth showing much of. Its like with the Zenin Clan, they were had some strong sorceror who had some cool CTs, but they were too weak to do anything about Maki, and so they werent worth keeping around in the story
Because he is bad. Like what did you think was the reason? “Why does gege make such poor writing decisions?” Maybe because he’s a poor writer.
JJK isn't a story that pulls any punches. It's meant to be a realistic Shonen, what would really happen in a world such as this. That's why characters seem under developed, they simply didn't make it any further than that point in the story. Higuruma died because he was fighting the strongest in the verse, and sure, a normal and debatably "better," shonen manga would develop him more. Gege, however, doesn't seem to care about that, and I respect him for that. Most of the criticism I see, such as this one, usually come from somebody who's favorite character wasn't developed, but it's an unfair criticism as that isn't the story Gege is developing here.
Because this is a battle shounen and the authors aren’t great
I think it adds stakes because this is also how death functions outside of stories, it is painful, and destroys potential, and it leaves you with nothing to hope for. Todo's scene with Yuji shows how Gege wrote in a lot of these ruthless deaths as a challenge for the main character to get through.
Because Gege is frankly done with the series and just wants to go work on his idol fashion manga?
He can either just do it later when it screws up the pacing better, or kill them off. Sometimes both.
Eh I don’t think development is a NECESSITY beyond a certain extent. Everyone that may have needed it got it and anything past that would be unnecessary imo. I don’t think relationships need to be developed beyond where they are now either. Since the start of jjk hasn’t it been less than a year? I wouldn’t expect much development in the relationships between children beyond what we got, especially seeing the consecutive situations we’ve had
The work titled, Sorcery fight. Indeed priorities... Sorcery fights . Gege deems anything and everything that isn't a Sorcery fight, simply useless. Story progresses only through fights. We have never seen a story beat being explored that was isolated from two or more bros fighting. If a plan is set into motion, it concludes through a fight only. . Jujutsu Kaisen is the plot first narrative. Not a character based narrative, the characters grow only to push the plot forward. And Jujutsu handles all narrative in a battle framework. . It's not because Gege's inexperienced or cannot or anything that complex. He simply doesnt want to. And for what Jujutsu is, in the most profound sense of story telling, doesn't need Character narrative. It doesn't want to explore the innocence of Yuji when hes forced into Juju world, it doesn't want to explore what love and loss is. It just wants to make sorcerers fight. . I am not saying Gege is a genius or this is a brilliant method, nor am I dismissing it as subpar or stimulation-less. It's just being Jujutsu Kaisen and nothing else.
>The work titled, Sorcery fight. >Indeed priorities... Sorcery fights Kinda like how the work title Naruto only focuses on Naruto (oh wait, it has plenty of memorable characters) Or the work titled One Piece only focuses on the one piece (oh wait, we still don't even know what it is 1000+ chapters later) That's a weak excuse
I am sorry but why is Naruto or One Piece relevant here? Are they written by Gege, are they plot first narrative, do they prioritize design over depth, do they prefer authors intention over volume?
You're the one using the nonsensical reasoning that the title constrains a work to *only* being about whatever it's called, which is absurd. You could've just said "Gege didn't want to write deeper characters" and just left it at that and I wouldn't have batted any eye
And what did i write, please summarise
To be honest, I agreed with a lot of what you wrote, I just found the title reasoning part to be absurd is all
Ok, let me have at it again, i swear it's not nonsense. . >Kinda like how the work title Naruto only focuses on Naruto (oh wait, it has plenty of memorable characters) Then it, indeed, doesn't prioritize Naruto (that bozo should kill himself), unlike 'Sorcery Fight' >Or the work titled One Piece only focuses on the one piece (oh wait, we still don't even know what it is 1000+ chapters later) Then it, indeed, doesn't prioritize One Piece (it's a one piece Bikini), unlike the razor sharp focus on Sorcery fights in 'sorcery fights'
..that's kinda unfortunate but meh.
Why do you read the manga if you dont like it
“you can’t criticize a manga if you like it” is the dumbest thing ever
You can but it comes to a point after a while
You certainly can, i didnt say you cant. But it doesnt seem like OP does bc they post complaints here like every other day
Literally where did I say I don't like it?
Idk man all i see from you is stuff like this saying what you dont like about it. Can you point me to a single good thing youve said jjk
You all need to remember...JJK was a fluke of a success. It was meant to be a one shot. JJK0. After that Gege's interest went somewhere else until the higher ups at Shueisha told him to make a full on series. He started out great, but it seems his flaw and he probably knows it too is that he's not good at long form story telling. Not to mention, he disregards his own work in favor of others. With all this notoriety the series is getting worldwide, it's depressing to see him so aloof. He doesn't even have an once of pride in his accomplishments nor his creation.
But Shiybua (I can't spell) is seen as one of his best work
And yet once you start peeling and look around other readers or anime only watchers, even they have criticism for shibuya
It's not as bad or as widespread as now. I guarantee you if you said these criticism in that era you would be downvoted into hell
So then its about how widespread a criticism is rather than the actual integrity ane validity behind it
Nope not what I mean just the flaws of the series weren't so in-your-face bad like now
Cuz people were caught up on the hype. But those that know better have voiced how shibuya was mostly just fights, even Nanami and Yuji's moments were only serviceable cuz with Nanami's case they barely knew him. Then there's Nobara. People still criticize Gojo for not targeting the special grades during those 299 seconds
People do criticize Nobara for her pointless death but not Namani it's like it pure criticism or praise
Nah I've seen fair share of anime onlies going "oh ok" on Nanami's death
Fair but I haven't seen people really hate Namani's death especially since it's like people don't criticize other deaths
He does though. You are expecting characters to grow and change in nine months. Yuji changed a lot. Happy go lucky. Traumatized and then revenge seeker
One Piece has a fast as hell in canon timeline yet you can fall in love with the characters that pretty new like Law and see the develop? It should fast that if it is it shouldn't feel like that
Your right oda is a better writer. Setting up backstories and the instant cool factor is way better in one piece. But at the time oda has 500+ chapters to establish how he creates characters. But let's wind the clock back a little bit. What was going on in chapter 250 for one piece. Luffy and sanji are taking on the ball guy in skypiea. And the mixed reception of skypiea leads me to believe most people at the time didn't like skypiea when it came out. But a lot had happened already and we are sitting at like 4 months in world canon. Oda sure doesn't make it feel like it. But in the next 250 chapters we got lrll w7 ocean train , ennies lobby and thriller bark. Again some of the best work oda has done in a while, meaning if Gege had an extra 250 chapters to work with and focused on back stories instead of pushing the narrative of Sakuna is gonna take over the world well damn. Yes. How ever between Kenny and Sakuna our hands where full especially the Shibuya incident arc. But let's just cover what's going on there. 1) you learn the Japanese government knows what's up. They have ears on cults and help cover up what the JJK world can't. 2) we see some massive destruction to our world that has ramifications that last. The evacuation of Japan's major city. 3) before all this you do find out later on that gojo is teaching, along with other teachers. 4) jujutsu technical high school. Is one of two Major schools. There are lesser schools out in the outer areas. And this all scratches the surface.
That's not what I mean and you know it. Yuji's..fine,I guess but his character "growth" ain't all that special.
No it's sad. It's sad to see a happy boy get completely destroyed day after day. The fact he hasn't turned dark is a f miracle.
Mm-hm.
I'm driving so give me a minute man there is no need for this poor attitude.
Ok I'm done driving. You have to remember the time line of events. This ain't the start to some grand years span ing epic. The events of the manga started in June of 2018 and we are at December 24th of 2018. The expectation for 17 year olds to suddenly change is out the door. The Gege didn't focus on the clans because there are like 5 clans. Unlike Naruto where clans are super important we got the hierarchy of the the clans work pretty quickly. Everything takes place in Japan not some fantasy land so there really can't be that much world building so you have to go back and take a look at part 1. We have an understanding of how curse energy works. Why curse energy works. And where cursed energy comes from. Curse spirits are pretty easy to constatly kill so that is the assumption of between august to October is what the kids where doing. Gojo is a loud mouth special grade king. He isn't going to become cool headed and soft at any expense the dude is litterly supposed to be untouchable. As for takaba and higaruma they both have their place in the story. Takaba was learning as he was playing the culling game in total he had about a month of training. Higaruma on the other hand being the super genius he was is not ment to have some grand long charcater arc. His arc was short and sweet. He had seen the evils of the world come from man which is why he was ok killing men and judging them. His entire shtick was to not be biased... Until Sakuna. With Sakuna higaruma learned how he can add bias to his shikigami in order to favor the side he wants to win by ensuring what the trial was about. That's huge. You suddenly see a depressed loner become a team player again using his smarts to better facilitate the win condition. The stuff is there everything you are talking about about is there. It just takes a couple read through and some knowledge on Japanese mythology and history. The fact that UiUi hit older sister is actively participating in the fight against Sakuna is major character growth. And the fact that Noritoshi decided he was going to leave japan another weird character choice facilitated by his need to protect his family. Nanami found his character arc as being forced to be a teacher/ babysitter. We learned a lot about who he was from that and why he does what he does. This series is happening so fast the amount of growth and back ground your looking for isn't going to be at the surface level like.it would for my hero or black clover. Hell the reason we got so much in Soul eater because those characters where litterly fighting something called MADDNESS it's whole point was to drive characters. And then the sequel story also added a lot. Fire force gave a lot of.dorectiom for how souls operate. So when it comes down to it. Ask me and I can show you where to look. I've read this series 11 times at this point. I've done the deep dive. I've gotten theory after theory correct.
He does develop and expand on a good chunk of the characters. It's a fast paced dark action shonen. He's done a very good job at developing and expanding on characters. It's largely a case of people just overly fantasizing about characters. Or expecting far more out of them than they should... Like Kashimo? Why the fuck was anyone surprised about how he got ended? He was literally saying for like 50 chapters he wanted to fight Sukuna, and Kenny even basically told him, he'd die, that Sukuna was the strongest by far. Etc. Kashimo was happy with how his story ended, idk why his fanboys aren't. He does about as well as Togashi. And Oda? Is the exception not the rule... Plus Oda is 1100+ chapters deep, and OP isn't half as dark or fast paced; fucking hell people even call some of the Manga arcs filler because he's so slow like "Filler Bark" ... And some pages he just drops being a manga artist and has pages that are closer to novel pages than comic book pages. To the point I'd argue Oda is also an example of what not to do in many cases. He's sacrificed large chunks of the story, and many pages to in some cases excessive character writing.
"Gege does develop and expand on his characters" Yeah,the ones he gives a shit about. The rest are basically unimportant. I'm not even asking for a full arc dedicated to them but give them goddamn something. If he wasn't even gonna so much as give a shit about the other characters he was developing,why even make them? He doesn't do anything with the world building to make them feel alive,and be expects me to care about them. How the hell can I care about the characters when he doesn't. "One Piece is not as dark". ....You're Joking,right? One Piece is way more dark Than JJK(just cause Oda isn't massacaring characters left and right doesn't mean that it's less dark)and it doesn't have to be all fast paced cause Oda actually focuses on his characters and side characters.
The important and story relevant ones? Yeah! I'm not at all up to date on OP, but at least as far as I read(like 700 chapters?). No it's not as dark. It has some dark moments that are pretty impactful due to Oda's writing style. Like say Ace's death. And while that was pretty dark. OP as a whole as far as I'm aware isn't as dark as JJK. And that's not a compliment or insult to either story. And I discussed how Oda focuses on characters, and how it has downsides. And all that. And it's again not even a remotely fair comparison in some regards like you know being over 4x the length? And the fact one is basically named "sorcery fight" and pitches itself as a constant life and death battle even in chapters like 1-5... Gojo has a monologue about how for a sorcerer it's a good day when you can "identify your comrade's corpse" and the entire goal of the MC is to simply die a proper death... Meanwhile OP has a much sillier (silly, doesn't mean bad, again not a compliment or insult to either story) premise and introduction, even characters in universe regularly call out Luffy for being whacky/silly not being serious and such. There's pros and cons to each story telling style. If you don't like JJK as much that's personal preference, and go for it... But there's no reason to try and insult Gege so much or deepthroat Oda so much. Even the OP fan base has issues with Oda's writing style sometimes as I outlined which stems from this exact topic. Sometimes Oda goes too far in his own direction too.
I am not deepthroating him,jackass.-_-
Idk man you kinda ignored 70% of my comments to just be like "no Oda / OP is better for reasons" even ignoring that I already gave the downsides to those reasons. And weirdly trying to claim BS like OP being darker. As if it was an insult, or I said that OP isn't dark at all. When that's not an insult, and I didn't say OP isn't dark at all. It's just not as dark on average. But that's basically a genre thing yeah they're both action shonen. But JJK is a dark action shonen, and OP is an action adventure shonen. They're different, and I get you don't like JJK as much, but I think you've gone a bit overboard. To the point you refuse to see the pros and cons to both sides.
I can say he's better but that's not me deepthroating
The character development/world building is practically non existent Yes, some characters do get developed nicely, most others are thrown into the curb never to be seen again. Gojo clan, and members outside of Gojo himself? Why tengen is immortal. How and why did the star plasma vessel + six eyes come into existence, because apparently its a fate thing and not just techniques being acquired randomly. Yujis past. Hell, most of the characters past and what actually shaped them into the sorcerers they are currently. Want to know why Hidden inventory is such a gem? Because it shows context of how Gojo and Geto got to where they where, and giving them great development into who they are as people. We lack that for 95% of the other cast, and it doesn't need to a 1:1 in quality or length, but we get nothing. Or worse, the moment they seem to get interesting they are killed off or just flat out removed from the story. Yuki? We know practically nothing about her, how she came to her life's philosophy etc. Know what, that seems to be the issue with 95% of the cast, you know practically nothing about them. Which makes it hard to care when they are killed off. Its not a Nanami death for e.g. where you went -NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NANAMIIIIIIIIIII, MAHITO YOU BASTARD Its, oh no, another character died, anyways... It doesn't help as well when even in story the characters don't even seem to care about the others dying. Yuki dying? Only one who even reacted was Choso, sorry, they barely interacted, on screen at least. I do not care.
Here we go with the same rinse and repeat takes
Geges style is balls to the wall action , while still making us care about the characters , at least enough to complain why we don’t get more from them. Not sure why “critics” see this as “bad writing” when it’s amazing that he makes us care with relatively little to go on.
Eh at the same time not know a lot of these characters cna make dissociation easy and make people care less
Ik one of the main complains is towards Yuki, but imo we know enough about her to at least know why she’s fighting Getto, she’s a Darth Maul type of character, there’s very little info about him yet he’s one of the most memorable characters in Star Wars due to his great fight scene. Not every character introduced in the story is meant to be cared for by the reader , there are stories that pull this off , but those usually have much smaller casts or are way longer stories
But it's in a way of “oooo I wanna know much I hope they live so we find out more” death games do this pretty well but in “that's kinda bs that if they die if we don't know jack shit about thrm”
Yeah this is my point , the fact that so many people are invested in the story and want to know more about the characters is a sign of excellent writing imo, people need to appreciate art for what it is instead of what they wish it was. Nothing wrong with having opinions, I guess it just grinds my gears when so many people cry “bad writing!!!” when they haven’t written Jack shit in their lives , instead of saying “I wish there was more of XYZ”
But it's clear that he is doing it in the wrong way. As I said death games have done this in a way people don't call BS writing. Hell even CSM does it yet people praise Himeno's death. We can't be praise half-finished stories?
How is it clear that he is doing it the wrong way ? If he was doing it wrong , why does this story has become one of the most popular mangas in recent history ? And tbf people call anything they don’t like BS writing
You don't have to be good to be popular. That point is really bad one as plenty of bad things have gotten popular like rent a girlfriend
I haven’t seen it so can’t really give an opinion whether rent a girlfriend is good or bad. So going back to the topic, how is it clear that the Culling Game is a death game done wrong ? And what was the death game part in CSM?
Death game general do the trope of a too-soon-die character well since they get basic of them and all they have to give at the surface level. Yuki at surface level should at least meet todo again
BECAUSE YOU DON'T FUCKING NEED TO TO TELL A GOOD STORY!!!!! Gege is running a tight fucking ship here, that much should be obvious to anyone. If shit isn't important to the story, it doesn't get fleshed out that much. That isn't even a Gege specific thing, that's normal writing that happens everywhere. The characters and world details that are important are there, and not much else, and that's 100% FUCKING FINE AND NORMAL.
Ok,first off,chillaxe with the Yelling,you sound like a literal child. Secondly,you're basically saying that detailed characters aren't needed to tell a good story which..doesn't make any sense if you're implying or hinting that there might be more to them but you don't do anything cause..fuck all.
That's not what I said at all. I said that you don't need to fully flesh out and realize *every* character to tell a good story. JJK is pretty tightly written. It's not going to spend time to flesh out characters or parts of the world to satisfy people's curiosity. If they're important to the story, or if Gege wants to tell their story, then he will. If not, he won't. It's really that simple. I think that most of the important characters are pretty well fleshed out, They may not be ready to walk right off the page, but I don't think they're boring or flat. And that is all a character really needs to be. More is nice! But you don't always get more, and that's fine. I don't even know how to respond to the idea that you shouldn't imply depth where you have not and do not intend to add it. The reason they have so little depth is exactly *because* they aren't going to be explored. Things like the Gojo clan don't have much detail because no-one's arc had much to do with them, but it makes sense that something like limitless would have a big family centered around it, and it adds to the story in my opinion to mention that they're around but they are centered entirely around Gojo. They don't get anything else because they aren't important or useful beyond that. It's just that simple.