A truly spectacular episode.

I think my only critique would be that with the sheer number of storyboard artists(who all did a good job), I think the episode sort of struggles having a uniting directorial voice.

Even in episodes like 1062, which had more than one storyboard artist, I felt Tanaka was much more capable of giving the episode a coherent narrative feel.

I sort of feel like 1017 had a similar issue, though I think that 1072 is the better directed episode where both halves feel very thematically, tonally and even visually corrected(there is a Katsumi Ishizuka homage at the end of the first half leading into the Katsumi Ishizuka animation directed portion of the episode). Shimaya seems very capable of allowing the staff under him to really use their talents, but I felt that resulted in the episode losing a little bit of a complete identity.

Even then, its still an absolutely fanatastic episode. All the staff involved deserve major credit for producing this. My complaint, is again, more of a nitpick than anything else.

@zeltrax225 said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:

@JazzMazz oh yeah I understand how this is different. I'm just saying both have pretty bad ways of handling their side characters and their gallery. The problem is MnHa as compared to Naruto + Bleach is that even when the other two series side characters are badly handled, their mains still shine pretty well (less Sakura). Like in Naruto there's Madara, Itachi, Kakashi and I'll even argue that Obito is more iconic/memorable than Shiragaki, even better written. Out of all the new ones, I like Miriko and that's about it, really. The new villains were pretty bad too. Stars and Stripes was new ...she's a meme now. But you are right : best jeanist was introduced early but it being introduced early doesn't necessarily mean that the character has weight to the readers. Nobody..I mean, nobody really cares? Midnight was introduced super early but then she died so, that's a thing. There's also this dude that died back then saving Endeavour who's supposed to make shields or something...it's a scene, I guess.

But now do I see your point : if BnHa actually has the Naruto years to work with, it will be able to develop characters like Best Jeanist and Midnight! Yeah, in the hands of another author maybe. I'm not being mean or anything but that's how Horikoshi has been operating since the Mafia arc or Bakugou vs Deku. He has little to no direction and is constantly relying on tropes + his precedents. If we compare let's say Best Jeanist and Midnight to characters like Guy, Asuma and Bee, why is one better and the other not as good (not as memorable)? It's never in the number of years/panels but rather in the execution. No way am I saying Naruto is this superior series (Yamato and Sai exist) but rather their relationships with other characters (main cast) that makes their presence shine. Gran Torino was a good way to evoke some character emotion that was never executed, and I loved the Mirio + Nighteye combination too. Endeavor's relationship with other characters is one of the better parts of the series ( getting really draaawn out by now). So you see my point, it's never "oh this guy does this big flashy attack with this flashback this chapter" so he's cool but rather how he acts + what he does or not do that impact the other characters we care about. Spinner's whole beef with Shoji only exist if you think deeper about it and felt terribly shoehorned in (because it is) as both characters had no meaningful relationship with each other and Shoji suffers even less development than Spinner. You mentioned training montage but that's generic and can be applied to anyone, since this is a case of discrimination + mutant hate...maybe something more relatable would have helped. The montage was just another one of those "ill draw something for this guy that is whatever" from Horikoshi.

Yeah I completely agree with this. I think that character connections as well as characters actually doing things that stick out in peoples mind is definitely more beneficial for making more memorable characters than simply basic personalities.

I think thats sort of what my suggestion was relating to. Have the characters do something memorable or stand out in some way in advance of them having these big multi chapter focused mini arcs. I think my suggestions were trying to get at potential ways to do that (being involved or doing something cool in an action scene is a potentially good way to make the character a bit more memorable, its
why someone like Mirko, despite not having a ton of character, is still a perfectly memorable side character). But yeah, for Shoji, I think that the actual stuff shown was fine(for the most part, the actual resolution was a bit weak), but I feel like it would have been easier to invest in this struggle if it was a more consist part of the character, or if that intentional flashback showing Shoji's backstory was actually shown much earlier in the story as a prelude to revealing that "mutant discrimination exists and is still a problem with hero society", which would then be resolved like 200 chapters later. Right now, I like what Shoji got, but it all feels very bunched up, and it feels a little disappointing because we know this is the final arc and we'll never get to see Shoji do anything really ever again.

@Kaiolino said in Western Comics thread:

Peter Parker sleeping with Ms. Marvel’s mask is very, very weird.
@Time-Control-Magician said in Western Comics thread:
@Kaiolino said in Western Comics thread:

Peter Parker sleeping with Ms. Marvel’s mask is very, very weird.

There’s always a least one weird moment in comic books that defy reasoning or logic.

But yeah this might be even beyond that.

This is a bit creepy and very much annoys me as a fan of Ms Marvel.

I never want Peter and Ms Marvel to interact ever again after she comes back. Keep her away from this weird sad freak of a man.

Why the hell did he take from where she died and kept it for himself? She didn't give it to him. Why didn't he give it to someone who knew her(literally anyone, any of the champions, Iron Man, Captain marvel)? Why is he using the mask of a teenage super hero he barely knew as some weird guilt trip memento trophy that he sleeps next to when he wants to feel sad?

What were they thinking???

I still can't get over that the main character in this book we're supposed to sympathize with over the death of Kamala is freaking Norman Osborn. I hate it.

@Shiebs said in Western Comics thread:

Well I am super looking forward to Jonathan Hickman’s G.O.D.S series

What about all of you? Any comic book series coming up that you are looking forward to?

I guess I'm looking forward to Al Ewing on Immortal Thor(I liked Thors character design, powers and speech pattern growing up, so I got an omnibus for Walter Simonsons run on the character). I liked Immortal Hulk.

I guess I'm also looking forward to Al Wing on Avengers inc?

This was an insanely good episode.

I think that presentation wise, Hori is still top notch. The panelling and artwork does a fantastic job conveying the emotional gravitas that Hori is clearly going for. However, the story attached feels very messy, and not in an intentional way.

Its a pretty common thing for stories to have not completely satisfying conclusions to give readers something to think about, but the conclusion to this fight feels like it doesn't seriously contend with a lot of the questions it raises to try and reach a short term immediate answer.

That could be said for a lot of the plot line resolutions. I do actually like the fact that Touya and Endeavour might survive, I think that is more compelling than them getting killed off. Presentation wise though, that part was probably the weakest conclusion wise.

The heteromorph plot was probably the strongest marginalization allegory in the series. Heteromorph discrimination is a much better metaphor in MHA than what the X-men has with mutants because in MHA, nearly everyone has powers, and the explicit reason that Heteromorphs are discriminated against, is not because they are uniquely dangerous, but because people don't like how they look. They're just considered outside the norm for their appearance(this is different from Toga, who is actually someone who is quite dangerous). That plot line also had greeat presentation, but was super underbaked and reached a very milquetoast answer.

@Captain-Krupp I'm pretty sure there was tons of COC lightning in 1044.

Just checked, during his debut, there was tons of it. There was loads of lightning coming off Luffy during the transformation.

Its not an anime addition.

Yeah, this felt like an unintentionally unsatisfying conclusion.

Like, I think a big part of it is that we are supposed to believe that Sukuna was just superior to Gojo and just had the upper hand, but thats not really what was shown.

The last like 3 chapters were mainly consisting of Gojo dominating the physical battle and Sukuna getting continually more and more banged up. Even though I think the explanation makes sense and ties into what has already been said about Sukuna's skills to copy abilities he sees, the presentation leaves a bit to be desired.

Also, I do sort of have to raise some questions about Gojo's death.

Like, didn't they say that Gojo had largely recovered a lot of his energy as well as RCT due to Blackflash? If thats the case, since Reverse cursed technique comes from the head as opposed to the stomach, shouldn't he technically have a chance to heal himself?(especially considering how broken Gojo's RCT actually is)

Or is getting bisected like a finishe finisher sort of move?

Although I did like the afterlife stuff, the transition feels intentionally very cheap. Its sort of falls into the notable short comings that I felt Wano in the manga had, with skipping over of major plot or story beats to get to the next one.

@desa said in Jujutsu Kaisen:

Sukana is more hyper strong than he is the strategist.

Thats proven to be strong with how he outwitted Gojo pretty much the entire fight.

@hideoushorrendous said in 1079: "Morning Comes! Luffy and the Others Rest!":

why the fuck they dyed him green ??? it's black in the manga!!

Is it also black in the coloured manga?

Yeah, this felt like an unintentionally unsatisfying conclusion.

Like, I think a big part of it is that we are supposed to believe that Sukuna was just superior to Gojo and just had the upper hand, but thats not really what was shown.

The last like 3 chapters were mainly consisting of Gojo dominating the physical battle and Sukuna getting continually more and more banged up. Even though I think the explanation makes sense and ties into what has already been said about Sukuna's skills to copy abilities he sees, the presentation leaves a bit to be desired.

Also, I do sort of have to raise some questions about Gojo's death.

Like, didn't they say that Gojo had largely recovered a lot of his energy as well as RCT due to Blackflash? If thats the case, since Reverse cursed technique comes from the head as opposed to the stomach, shouldn't he technically have a chance to heal himself?(especially considering how broken Gojo's RCT actually is)

Or is getting bisected like a finishe finisher sort of move?

Although I did like the afterlife stuff, the transition feels intentionally very cheap. Its sort of falls into the notable short comings that I felt Wano in the manga had, with skipping over of major plot or story beats to get to the next one.

The people at Toei literally throwing a champagne party. They wanted Kaido's ass deader than the people of Wano lol.

Those animators could go their entire lives never drawing scales ever again and it would still be too soon.

Actually one of the best episodes of the arc and the entire series lol.

A truly spectacular episode.

I think my only critique would be that with the sheer number of storyboard artists(who all did a good job), I think the episode sort of struggles having a uniting directorial voice.

Even in episodes like 1062, which had more than one storyboard artist, I felt Tanaka was much more capable of giving the episode a coherent narrative feel.

I sort of feel like 1017 had a similar issue, though I think that 1072 is the better directed episode where both halves feel very thematically, tonally and even visually corrected(there is a Katsumi Ishizuka homage at the end of the first half leading into the Katsumi Ishizuka animation directed portion of the episode). Shimaya seems very capable of allowing the staff under him to really use their talents, but I felt that resulted in the episode losing a little bit of a complete identity.

Even then, its still an absolutely fanatastic episode. All the staff involved deserve major credit for producing this. My complaint, is again, more of a nitpick than anything else.

@Captain-Krupp I'm pretty sure there was tons of COC lightning in 1044.

Just checked, during his debut, there was tons of it. There was loads of lightning coming off Luffy during the transformation.

Its not an anime addition.

I think that presentation wise, Hori is still top notch. The panelling and artwork does a fantastic job conveying the emotional gravitas that Hori is clearly going for. However, the story attached feels very messy, and not in an intentional way.

Its a pretty common thing for stories to have not completely satisfying conclusions to give readers something to think about, but the conclusion to this fight feels like it doesn't seriously contend with a lot of the questions it raises to try and reach a short term immediate answer.

That could be said for a lot of the plot line resolutions. I do actually like the fact that Touya and Endeavour might survive, I think that is more compelling than them getting killed off. Presentation wise though, that part was probably the weakest conclusion wise.

The heteromorph plot was probably the strongest marginalization allegory in the series. Heteromorph discrimination is a much better metaphor in MHA than what the X-men has with mutants because in MHA, nearly everyone has powers, and the explicit reason that Heteromorphs are discriminated against, is not because they are uniquely dangerous, but because people don't like how they look. They're just considered outside the norm for their appearance(this is different from Toga, who is actually someone who is quite dangerous). That plot line also had greeat presentation, but was super underbaked and reached a very milquetoast answer.

@pariston_hill said in Western Comics thread:

@Time-Control-Magician I think they only made her a Inhuman because they thought at the time they wouldn't get the movie rights from Fox, and tried to push their Kree-Mutant folk.

I believe that was the artists original intention, but the writer(likely with editorial suggestion), decided to make her an inhuman.

TBH, it helped her stand out since being an inhuman was never a particularly important part of her early run(though it was brought up in a few stories, it was never the corner stone of her character).

@Time-Control-Magician Yeah, the costume isn't great.

Honestly, seen a recolouring with a bit more red and I think its a big improvement.