@kouch_lee said in Hiatus x Hiatus III: Goodnight, Sweet Princes:
For me, the biggest hurdle lies, precisely, on assigning personalities or distinctive traits to all these characters. They all talk the same. Their thought process is identical.
And I don't see Togashi giving it his all, honestly. More words don't immediately mean more (or better) content. I almost feel like he's stalemating things, to be honest.
I get what you are trying to say but think you are mistaken here for several reasons. For one, we cannot take the English (or actually any other) translation as basis to judge if Togaahi himself is designing characters that all sound the same. One if the big hurdles for mastering Japanese is that you have a crapton of speech patterns depending on far more things than "just" age, gender, social status or dialect. A LOT MORE. Translations mostly leave that out and if anything point out manga specific quirks, like for example in OP we have decided on Strawhatter for Mugiwara-ya when Law speaks. Unless I'm mistaken this seems to OP specific and not based actual Japanese speech patterns. So for all we know, HxH just like many other series actually do distinguish here. It would be a minor thing but it would still be there.
Another way how I would agree with your point is that people have to speak differently to be distinguishable. That is not what I would consider a requirement but a bonus that adds more flavour. Just like at any social group in real life and for the most part, the people within that group will sound similarly. I mean I know that we as OP readers are a bit conditioned to have people really hammer home the differences in how they speak but that is something that might fit well within the OP world but doesn't really mix well with other worlds. Especially on HxH which has a different flair it would stick out like a sore thumb if in their introductory chapter a group of characters would speak using quirks and/or catchphrases to hammer home "this one is the cool guy, this one the hot head, this the bland dude..." rather than actually say something of value. This is not how HxH works.
Lastly, I would also say that we have at least one guy, who actually does something in his dialog that makes him stick out, that being the various ways he calls Tserriednick (sp?). It might be a small thing but it seperates him in the way he speaks. And honestly I much appreciate characters have such little things than shouting things like "perorin" in your face every sinlge line. One Piece itself used to be more clever about this. My favorite example here is Dalton, who simply added a pointless bit of information to his senteces like "..also I like chestnuts". It was used sparingly and it was not too intrucive. But it was noticable enough. Much better than characters who brabble "jamon, jamon, NEPTUNE!" at the audience, which makes them seem to have only one braincell more than a friggin' Pokemon.
Now, One Piece is not the ideal either, I admit, where characters are oftentimes defined by a single trait, and if that trait happens to be annoying then. . .good luck with that. That also simplifies their interactions and reactions, giving little room for surprises. But still. . .man, I immediately recognize even tertiary characters.
Anyways, comparing apples and oranges here, specially at this point - I don't think two series can be more different than current HxH and current One Piece.
Actually I do think it is fair to compare the two as I do think that part of the problems come with being conditioned by One Piece and sometimes forgetting to tune that mindset off. That's not just me talking about you but rather including myself here. Also it's a street that goes both ways where I have to sometimes remind myself that OP is OP and has its own unique flair. But man does some of its flair rub me the wrong way. And that not because of another series but just because it throws me off.
Again I'd like to use another old OP example to show how the series itself actually did better without having us look at a different IP. I'm talking about Zambai. At first this dude was as generic as it get's since he looked like everybody else in the Franky Family. But as the story progressed it he pushed himself more to the front as the acting second in command of the FF. He was never labeled as such. He was never given a character name box. He simply acted. And it gacve us moments doing the partner scene between Luffy, Paulie and Zambai himself and for my culminated in him shooting a giant in the face with a bazooka. That was amazing. There can be more clever ways to have characters stand out. Even in One Piece. Dumbing things down is not a neccessity. Btw, I know that's not what you are asking for. I'm mainly talking about something I don't like in OP and use OP itself as an example to show how Oda has shown to handle things better.
