@Ravaha:
Its funny that I don't see you making similar statements to him and others calling others Sanji fanboys.
Yes, I read Berserk in 2009, I liked it and right when it got to the best part, the author kind of gave up. I think the author has only released 10 chapters in 7 years. I have read some other stuff as well. I didnt read Vagabond, mostly because I didnt like the initial chapters.
Its easy to see why the Chinese light novels, Chinese Manhua, and Korean Webtoons are overtaking Japanese Manga internationally on every single manga site. The humor is very straight forward and more mature. The humor is not weird like the humor in most manga. The stories are completely unique from the rest of the world. The Chinese stories have a better mythology to build the fantasy novels on. The light novels make great use of demons, spirit beasts, power ranking systems, interspatial rings, training, and much more. The Korean webtoons release 60+ page chapters in color weekly. They have the quantity advantage and are not lacking in quality. I would rank Tower of God, Soul Land, Battle Through The Heavens, Tails of Demons and Gods, Magi, Maoyuu Maou Yuusha, and Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari ahead of One Piece at the moment.
Just a year or two ago One Piece was my #1
I would still have Full Metal Alchemist, Kekkaishi, and Inuyasha in my top 5. I also love yu yu Hakusho, Naruto before Jiraiya died, Noblesse, and Magi.
You've read Berserk which is a Seinen, and yet claim these are shit compared to Shounens. I fail to understand this logic.
Too bad you gave up on Vagabond way too early imo, if you had continued reading it it gets much better. For me it's right there with Berserk.
Vinland Saga is also a good read, so I highly recommand it.
So all in all I think Seinen as a genre is pretty good, the only complaint I have about most seinen titles is the erratic schedule. Like you said it seemed as if Miura gave up on Berserk. While it's true that there haven't been that many chapters released as of late, he is still trying to release something.So I don't think he's entirely giving up.
To me humour isn't the first thing I look for in a manga, I think it's a matter of preferences. You might not get the Japanese humour or just Oda's, but there are plenty of titles that are funny.I happen to like Magi's humour for example. I really don't get this comparison between Korean light novels and manga, there is a demand on both, and mangas such as One Piece are still doing rather well in terms of sales. So I really don't see it as Korean and Chinese light novels replacing manga altogether, just that right now people are more aware of said novels existence than in the past and are looking for them.It's not just manga anymore, and I think both can thrive, and just as there is shit manga out there, I bet there is shit Korean and Chinese novels too.Because once something becomes mainstream and it becomes more of a product if you will, of course the quality won't be as good as if it was in the past.So the market will be flooded with just as many average titles as what we see with Japanese manga these days.
One thing that I don't like about Manhwa(and I speak only about them since I've read a few titles in the past) is that they do copy mangas sometimes. For example Shin Angyo Onshi was pretty much inspired by Berserk, there's a lot of similarities between the two, and sadly it comes off as a pale copy of Berserk. Other titles that I really loved got discontinued, like Priest which I really loved btw, but the author never finished it.
So it's not as black and white as you make it sound. Last but not least I really believe that if something becomes unbearable to read, it's best just to drop it. Magi is doing this for me right now, so I'm seriously thinking about dropping it.
Also something that should be obvious, the quality of a work during its first stages isn't the same as the one in its latter stages. Most titles become less interesting, and even repetitive. And some are worse than others, for example when the author is just having plot twists after another for no reason. Or when you feel it's the same shit over and over again (coughBleachcough). It's pretty rare that an author would live up to the expectations and have a consistent quality in his work, and I can say this about Berserk too, even though it's prolly the best manga I've ever read. I also don't understand why things have to change, just because there was a time skip.And that doesn't apply just to One Piece, I say it for every manga. If there isn't some real character development then those changes won't make sense, and would be out of character. So in Luffy's case some expect him to become wiser and stop fooling around, when he was always an idiot, and probably always be. Just because he's two years older now doesn't mean he has to act all serious and stuff.
So I don't know, perhaps if you can accept these so called flaws as something that is natural, and that pretty much any work suffers from you'd be able to still enjoy it. If not then I suggest moving on to something else, and I'm sure you'll have no problem replacing OP with some other Korean or Chinese LN, since those are superior.:happy: