Hello all, and welcome to my little soap box.
I have been here for about a year and a half and I love discussing things on the various threads here. From posting insane theories based on little substance in the One Piece Manga section, to reading posts of great substance in the news thread, I’ve enjoyed it all. The only problem is that there is no section where I can just unload things I want to say, because there is no thread which it is relevant, and I’m pretty sure the mods would get more fed up with me if I tried to make threads on rants I have on random things.
Therefore I made this little thread where I can post to my heart’s content without pissing more people off. It’ll contain everything you love (or more likely everything you hate) about The Franky Tank. Long texts of incoherent rambling that you only get the point by the end of it, if even that. Stretches of logic which makes you wonder how I function in life. And last but not least, lots of terrible humor much which is self-deprecation, because I love that kind of stuff. Maybe by doing this I can become somewhat competent at writing posts.
Being serious for a moment though, there is one thing I would like to say. Being that these posts will be long, they will be in spoil tags for space. Also, because some of the rants I have will be about pieces of fiction, I will put warning before each spoiler to give you an idea about what the rant is about, and potential spoilers. With that out of the way…
The following contains spoilers of Bleach, Naruto, Fairy Tail, and History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi.
! One thing that seems to come up in threads such as Fairy Tail and Bleach, among the other terrible series, is why any of us still read if we hate it. Indeed, I sometimes wonder why I haven’t dropped Bleach entirely. Kubo is content to make things up on the fly, and decisions such as making Unohana the first Kenpachi or making Ichigo a little of everything with his sword spirit being Bach the whole time. Even now we have a dull fight where Shunsui uses his Bankai which many have been waiting for years, which has no effect. Then the sniper guy turns into an owl, which despite being a prophet refuses to tell us how many licks it actually takes to get to the center of a tootsy pop. Perhaps only Bach knows and that’s why so many people followed him in the end.
! Despite the mess that is Bleach, there is the little good that happens every once in a while. Mayuri fighting the giant hand of God was entertaining, despite the fact the man was supposed to be worse than all the villains combined. That’s why I stuck with Naruto until the end despite how long it dragged. Sure, changing the villain from Obito to Madara to Bunny Lady then ending with Sasuke was terrible, but I still had some fun along the way. It was also at the point that I had been following the damn series for so many years that I felt obligated to finish it. For me to truly just drop a series that I’m deep into, it really needs to be something that I feel is a waste of space and has no value. That’s why the only series that I dropped reading was History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi.
! The first problem was that I only got so far because of a deal I made with a friend. He reads and catches up to One Piece while I do the same for his favorite series. It’s no wonder that I barely talk to him anymore, because I found out what taste he really has, and that I really got a shit deal in the end. There were glimmers of potential in the series at the start, but too much crap stood out that the little shiny specks didn’t help increase the value. Kenichi was a dull protagonist, whose eventual reason for becoming the strongest was he wanted to be stronger then the girl he loves so he could ask her out on a date. I’ll have to expand on this at a later time, as I want to talk about characters and sexist attitudes they may have. All you need to know is that it wasn’t compelling, and becoming the strongest for that reason was assanine. There was also something about wanting to protect people or something else, but I can’t be bothered to remember a one dimensional character such as Kenichi.
! One of the biggest sins was how the interesting side cast was ignored completely for just Kenichi. Bleach and Naruto had this problem at times, but Naruto allowed the others to shine at one point, and while terrible Bleach has been giving time to some of the others. Kenichi introduced all these other styles of fighting and character design, but they just get shown to be part of the posse and never do anything. They train and talk with each other, but the most they do is get in a skirmish that doesn’t amount to anything. The alien looking guy was the one that I liked the most and I felt he should’ve been the main character. Bringing all these different fighters together and from his perspective show him rise to the top of some type of thing would’ve been vastly more interesting than what we got.
! Despite the fact I cared so little, I trudged along. Part of it was easier because at the time I had 400+ chapters to go through, so I could at least see if anything amounted to something. Also, if I’m one thing I’m a man of my word, so I went through because of the promise. With some focus on the masters, I was hoping that it would get a bit better. In some cases it got better, as they had some personality. On the other hand, they got so much focus Kenichi wasn’t the focus. As much as I disliked him, it was his series so it seemed like bad writing for him to get sidelined. There was some build up to something big happening, with foreshadowing of a characters death so I went on to give one last try.
! The big event was that the disciples from the evil organization was going to take down the protagonist group. Unfortunately all tension was lost when the stuff was happening in a water park, where all the group were in swim suits.
! This is where I have to talk a little about fan service and how harmful it can be. In Fairy Tail, we had a big war going on which is supposed to determine the fate of the world. During the first invasion, Lucy gets in naked with Brandish for reasons. While stupid, I don’t get as angry compared to Kenichi. Both do insane amounts of fan service, but Fairy Tail is inept at building actual tension and urgency that anything happening is just something to laugh at. In this case, Kenichi had been successful at building tension and for once I was invested in what was going to happen. It was destroyed instantly in this case, and made worse with the tension trying to increase while more of the girl’s swimsuits were falling apart.
! While use of sexuality is used a lot for fan service and cheap pleasure, there is a place for it and can increase tension or used for other positive aspects. It can be used to humiliate people, show vulnerability, be used to show how despicable people are, etc. Use it correctly and it can be brilliant.
! Kenichi made the mistake of using sexuality for fan service while trying to show a dark and tense situation. During a battle with an expert trying to get revenge against a master of the dark society, we are constantly getting play by play action by Miu’s boobs. Something happens, then a close up of Miu’s boobs is shown while they, sorry, Miu says what just happened. For what is supposed to be an intense life or death situation, I kept getting thrown out of it because of the fan service. The guy dies and doesn’t get revenge, but I can’t be arsed to give a damn because apparently Miu’s boobs were more important.
! I read on a little longer but ultimately gave up. Apparently the evil society was controlling the government, and the masters were going to have to fight for their lives, but there was no tension. A year later the series ended and I learned that nothing really happened. Everyone survived the encounter and stuff happened. I could find out where I left off and finish it, but I have no urge to finish something devoid of any substance. I can get entertainment out of other terrible series. I can use it as prime examples of what not to do. But Kenichi lacks any pleasure, and it’s a hole of nothingness that I can’t get enjoyment out of criticizing it. Even now just making this post feels pointless that I almost didn’t want to do it. I would like nothing more than this series to just be purged from my mind and that I never have to think about it again.