If Yamato is supposed to be a parallel to Vivi, then it is an absolutely shitty version of it.

Vivi worked because we had 3 good chunky arcs of Vivi adventuring with the Straw Hats, bonding with them, she was the emotional thrust and heart of most of her tenure on the ship. Her staying made total sense for her character and came after a long internal debate with herself, the emotions of which Oda completely capitalized on with her farewell, still one of the most iconic scenes in the series.

Yamato on the other hand came at the ass end of the arc, didn't interact with any of the characters aside from Momonosuke and Luffy until after the raid and even then he barely had any interactions, Luffy never seemed to give a shit about him or have any sort of deep emotional connection with him even when he broke Yamato's cuffs, the symbol of Yamato's ten years of enslavement, Oda never capitalized on the emotional drama of that scene, he never seemed to register how important Ace was to Yamato, hell he never even found out Yamato made Ace's vivre card. There was no "People Die" moment like Luffy had with Vivi or the number of other similar moments Luffy had with Vivi as well as the other arc only companion characters. The most we ever got with Yamato and Luffy was a k, tx for holding off Kaidoh, a monumental accomplishment that saved who knows how many lives and he barely seemed to care. He never even got Yamato's name right until the last chapter.

And when it finally came to leave, Yamato's decision was completely offscreened, had no emotional weight, made zero sense for his character (Yamato wanting to tour Wano instead of leaving the first chance he got is as anti-Oden you can get) and made it feel like an afterthought instead of being an important part of the story. And for what? For a twist? What purpose did this twist serve? A twist just for the sake of a twist is never a good twist, it's just bad writing. When Vivi didn't join, it served to emphasize and build on her strength of character and her conviction and love for her people as well as catch you off guard with the surprise joining by Robin, whose joining wasn't out of left field but also subtly foreshadowed and felt like a satisfying pay off. Yamato not joining renders two years of build-up and panel time completely worthless, does not capitalize on any emotional drama or character building, it just feels like the whole thing was a total waste of time and a big fuck you to Yamato fans. A Shyamalan-esque style of writing that serves no other function but to surprise is the worst kind of writing, good twists should add to the story not take away, and I expected a lot better from Oda.

If this was supposed to be another rendition of Vivi, it is by far and away his worst that did nothing but to waste time, alienate fans and dumped a potentially fantastic character with a treasure trove of minable character drama. Yamato might just be the worst arc only side character in the series because Yamato never got the chance to be a character with an emotional connection to any of the main characters. Instead he's just going to be that one weirdo they barely met and remember. Vivi, Shirahoshi, Rebecca, freakin Bartolomeo and freakin Brownbeard made more of an impression on the Strawhats than Yamato!

Lol, gimme a day or two.

On the topic of Encanto, I cannot stand and don't understand what people saw in "Don't Talk about Bruno". Lyrics and music aside, it might be the lamest reason for a song I've ever seen. It's not even about anything. Hey remember when "Let it Go" was this amazing song about emotional catharsis and release? What does "Don't Talk about Bruno" have? I guess it's funny and wacky? Why did the song get to big, it doesn't emotionally resonate at all?

@TLC said in Ken Akamatsu thread (A.I. Love You, Love Hina, Negima, UQ Holder):

I don't give a shit about Negima and never will again. Akamatsu burned his bridges long ago as far as I'm concerned.

I'm sorry me from five years ago, you were completely right and I should have never doubted you. Okay my opinions aren't quite that extreme but why let reality ruin a good bit?

So I am going to go on full on spoilers in this review but they will be tactical spoilers, they are spoilers that I feel will not ruin the experience or on the contrary save you from having high expectations to only be disappointed. If you read this whole review, I ask that you simply trust me on this.

So I finished UQ Holder a couple of months ago but sadly the forums were down in the interim. This does not help as my memories of my thoughts aren't going to be quite as fresh but on the other hand it does help in processing and internalizing my emotions in order to make a hopefully more coherent and well structured review.

So the big question you're all asking, did I like it?

That's complicated. Because life can never be simple.

I like parts of it. I actually like whole chunks of it. I was actually for the most part really enjoying it until it decided to fall off a cliff and never recovered. I can actually point out the precise point the manga falls apart which would actually be amusing to me if I weren't so fucking depressed about it. Ken Akamatsu might be the most fucking cursed mangaka of the industry. Why is it that of the holy trinity that is Love Hina, Negima and UQ Holder, Love Hina was his best manga? It had the perfect length, developed all the characters it needed to develop and even had a nice cozy last volume or two with the main couple together and getting to enjoy their relationship.

Now while Negima and Love Hina are both great series whose potential was flushed down the drain, the circumstances surrounding them are different. Negima was absolutely great up until the last volume where Akamatsu forcibly wrapped everything up and ended things on an awful ending that only worked if you had the 10 volumes that it needed to work. UQ Holder was quite enjoyable for the most part, some missteps here and there, until it hits a point where Akamatsu was clearly told he had 2 years to wrap it up and proceeded to do a speedrun of 10 volumes of content in like 3. All the while trying to keep things together with gratuitous fanservice and bad prioritization rushing and offscreening important plot points to have endless chapters of the protagonist having graphic sex with one of the girls in his harem. Consecutively. And man, I don't even mind that shit, I think more manga should have an actual exploration of polyamorous relationships but priorities man.

Okay I've gone on too much putting the cart before the horse and should try to proceed with this in a more linear fashion. Something I wish the manga did...oh there I go again.

The basic premise is it's like 80 years after Negima, everyone you loved and cared about is dead except for the immortal characters and the ghost and we're resetting everything with a totally new protagonist named Konoe Tota. Because Akamatsu was too much of a coward to make Asuna the protagonist and having a manga without a male character seeing girls naked would be way too out of his comfort zone. I went in with the lowest of expectations, more interested in resolving the questions I had from the prequel series than actually getting emotionally invested in another Akamatsu series. Fool me once, shame on you but fool me twice....! I am sad to report I was shamed. Tota wants to climb the space elevator Negi built in Negima because that's where he will find his true dream or whatever. Yeah not as strong as Negi's, I want to find my dad which evolved into I want to surpass my father to live up ti his legacy and complete his work of saving the magical world. But in fairness, it's meant to suck as the whole point of Kotaro is he is a shell of his grandfather Negi (chapter 1 reveal) and he doesn't know what to do with himself. Magic is well known and widespread through apps however it has only been revealed to the public the last ten years due to circumstances preventing it from being revealed earlier. Tota is an orphan living in the boonies being taken care of by his foster mother/martial arts teacher Yukihime (who spoilers is actually Evangeline which if you read Negima you would figure out instantly even before the anvil sized hints they drop before the big reveal at the end of the chapter). A hitman comes after Evangeline because she still has a bounty and uses Kotaro to give her a gift which seals her powers so he can chop her to pieces and chops up Tota in the process. Evangeline however gives Tota her blood which he drinks to become an immortal vampire with regenerative abilities which he uses to beat the shit out of the assassin and save Evangeline and his friends. They then decide to leave the village find other immortals like them and fulfill Tota's pseudo dream of climbing the space elevator which anyone can do for like 100,000 yen lol

I actually really liked the first chapter, it focused on a really interesting core element which was the relationship between the protagonist Tota and his foster mother Yukihime who, spoilers is Evangeline The first volume was basically Evangeline and Tota going on a hike through Japan to find immortals like them which my lord do I wish was the series because it was a really fun, chill read until Yukihime reveals she already made a mafia organization full of immortals called UQ holder and then it becomes not shitty Fairy Tail. Like I am not against the genre switch but much preferred the manga when it was simpler.

So some advantages UQ has over Negima is that it actually starts a lot better than it. It's funny how Negima was this really fanservicey romcom that evolved into a serious, mature shonen while UQ Holder had the opposite evolution where it started a lot more grounded and serious until Akamatsu just gave up and threw in endless fanservice and sex chapters. Because the cast is far smaller than Negima the initial cast is a lot more fleshed out and conceptually interesting as Akamatsu fuses character ideas and has less of a cast to juggle (though ultimately he ends up using his cast far poorly than when he had 30+ characters lol) And there are some really great characters in this manga.

There is Kuromaru, a bird tribe swordswoman made immortal through village experiments. Like every swordswoman before her in an Akamatsu series, she also has an emotional conflict of prioritizing her happiness with her skills but in this case taken to the next logical step as their race is androgynous until a certain age where they must choose to be male or female and Kuromaru doesn't know if she wants to be a male to protect Tota as a warrior or female to be protected as his lover. So Kuromaru is essentially trans and yes, I know that feeling of queasiness that Ken panty shot Akamatsu is going to tackle gender identity themes but for the most part I thought this was well executed with Kuromaru learning the obvious lesson on they can be whatever gender they want and do whatever they want regardless of the gender given they live in a world where magic power makes the biological differences in the sexes irrelevant. I mean that's not tackling the ideas of being non-binary but let's not push our luck and just be happy Akamatsu was even trying.

There is Karin, a super immortal who literally cannot be killed or harmed by anything because she has the protection of God and whose true identity I won't dare spoil because it is so unhinged.

There is Kirie, a fusion of Chisame and Asuna in loli form, whose immortality is basically about setting save points for herself. She is technically the best girl in the harem but my god, have you seen Karin's amazing thicc ass? I'm very easy to please.

Oh yeah all those characters I just listed are in Tota's harem.

Characters that Tota does not want to fuck include:

Santa the poltergeist/ghost who was bullied into suicide and swore revenge on his tormentors until UQ Holder managed to convince him to join their group.

Ikkuu: A pretty boy robot whose actual body has been in a coma for 70 years.

These are usually the default team in most arcs.

I like the main girls, Santa is pretty good albeit underutilized and Ikkuu sucks and I don't get why he is in so many arcs.

And then there is Tota the protag. Man do I wish I liked him more than I do. I mean I don't think he's awful, it's unfair to compare him to Negi Springfield, one of the best protagonists in shonen manga, but it's just, he's just bland. Like he has his moments, he works best in extreme situations or when he's worried about Evangeline but eh... like I really don't know what Akamatsu was going for with him. I guess split the difference between Negi the intellectual and Nagi the meathead, I like the idea of Tota trying to escape from being a tool his whole life, trying to live up to a legacy when he was never intended to, it's fine I guess...?

So for me the truly standout S tier Jack Rakan characters are :

Dana Ananaga Jagannatha: She is a highdaylight walker who lives in the rift outside time and space, she is Evangeline's former master and has total control over perspective. It's a really fun magic, she can pluck you from a distance like you are super tiny or smush them like an ant. She is the female Jack Rakan of the series where Jack was the epitome of men, she is the epitome of Woman who prioritizes doing everything elegantly and beautifully while being this super thicc gigantic of a woman (think Ursula from Little Mermaid). She is great.

Jinbei Shishido: My absolute favorite character in the manga, a samurai who ate the flesh of a mermaid to grant very poor immortality, he cannot age but has limited regenerative ability and his body is covered in scars. He makes up for it with amazing combat ability and a cool ass ability called switcheroo where he can switch any two things within 300 meters and even use it twist and bend space to tear objects and people apart. He has a fight against Juuzouu Shishimi, a tree immortal who can literally cut anything (including concepts and manga panels) and it's literally one of my favorite fights of all time up there with Negi vs Jack Rakan. It was such a sick fight.

And....right after that fight the manga falls apart.

So there is a lot of great stuff in this manga, a lot of cool fights, cool ideas, really creative powers that play around with the medium in very visually interesting ways. It's set 80 years after Negima ended and it does a nice job of making subtle references to Negima and bringing old characters or their descendants into the story in cool and interesting ways (until it got too hard and made me wish Akamatsu played it safe and just set it 10-20 years after Negima). One of the early arcs involves a fight against Fate which was well executed and really intense and had one of the most amazingly savage beatdowns I've ever seen delivered by Fate. We go back to Mahora academy and Mana is the principle and she invites Tota into the next big Mahora Martial arts tournament where magic is public now and it's gonna have the greatest martial artists from the real world, underground and magical world and it was gonna be held at the top of the tower and Negi Springfield sends an invitation and he is going to be there but it's actually Negi Ialda, Negi who failed to save his father and was in turn taken over by the Mage of Beginnings and it's this really super exciting build up....!

And then we have a loli boat race and after the loli boat race Negi and his apostles show up and the tournament never happens...I mean the actual fight against Negi and his apostles were cool and Asuna shows up to to help save the day and don't even ask me how that makes sense and for the longest time, I was like it's fine, one day we will have that martial arts tournament, no way Akamatsu hyped up that super cool tournament only to just give us a loli boat race but then the space elevator got blown up and I'm like we are never getting that tournament huh...?

Wait, I am still talking about good things. Uh, what the series does with Evangeline is fantastic, it really feels in some ways like a what if we made a manga about Evangeline, we get more details on her history, her early beginnings, how she got her bounty and how she basically single-handedly prevented mars from ever invading earth and even made them instigate an isolationist policy to never incur her wrath and how Evangeline is basically a fucking hero and I don't even care it's a retcon, it's awesome.

Yeah this manga for the most part was really enjoyable doing really cool, interesting unique things and I was enjoying my ride.

And then Akamatsu starts speedrunning the story, things that should have been fleshed out and focused on like Tota going to fucking mars (though there is a sweet scene where Evangeline finds statues of Ala Alba members in New Ostia and she laughs her butt off because her old classmates are heroes), and then there's a mission to finish off Negi Ialda once and for all but oh no, the mission was sabotaged and there's a 43 year timeskip and Tota has amnesia and the world is ravaged by covid that spreads through the internet (yes this was written during covid) and Tota has to go around and find his friends during the apocalypse like it's final fantasy six, most of whom are super horny for him after 43 years, one of whom spends all 43 years flying in the cold vacuum of space but the moment Tota shows up to save her they just end up having sex in space because I sure know when I spend four decades in the cold vacuum of a never ending abyss, I get super horny the moment my love interest shows up to save me.

And the team is brought back together and Tota finds out Evangeline killed Negi Ialda so now it's Evangeline Ialda who is the final boss and this happens OFF FUCKING SCREEN COMPLETELY RUINING THE BUILDUP OF TOTA FACING OFF AGAINST NEGI. And there is this big climactic battle where the Lifemaker throws every apostle he has plus Asuna and Konoka and Setsuna and Chisame!?! (who doesn't do anything because the fuck is she gonna do?) and Nodoka and Yue and Jack and Al and all the Avverencus models and all the other models and some new models and some high daylight walkers and Nagi and Tota manages to use some Mcguffin to revive Negi and regain control of all the controlled apostles and there's this epic climax where Negi and Tota do a double attack finisher while Chaorin shows up out of nowhere to freeze time and yes I know I am literally spoiling the climax, I am telling you now to NOT CARE and it will hurt a lot less. Because I feel so bad for Akamatsu, I can see what he is doing, he trying his very best with the little time he has to please his fans and do this Avengers endgame final battle except it doesn't work because it doesn't have nearly the level of buildup it needs to work and it just comes off as pandering and when you have fucking Jack Rakan on the enemy team and he doesn't just immediately wipe the floor with you, you just make him look fucking bad. It's trying to be this final hurrah and it's just not and I feel so bad for Akamatsu because I do not think he wants to do it this way but his hands are tied. Plus you know he's tired and burnt out and he needs to run for office and become a politician and I don't even begrudge him of getting out of this shitty industry that does nothing but grind fresh, creative minds into paste.

...

Final chapter was decent, wrapped it up as best as he could. Negi got a nice harem with Asuna, Chachamaru, Chisame, Nodoka, Yue, Konoka!?! and Setsuna!?!?! BUT NO AYAKA, MAKIE OR KUFEI BECAUSE THEY ARE FUCKING DEAD EVEN THOUGH THEY LOVED NEGI WAY MORE going.

So something I have obviously neglected to mention, does UQ Holder at least give closure with Negima?

So Volumes 38-40 are dedicated to what we will call the good and bad ending timelines of Negima. Good timeline being the Negima timeline and bad ending timeline being the UQ Holder timeline. The key difference being whether Asuna was in the final battle or not. The idea being that without Asuna, Negi could not have succeeded in saving his father. In this timeline we also see Negi reject Nodoka and Yue threesome polyromance (fucking idiot) and confess to his true love just to get rejected (it's okay they eventually get married, a lot of things happen that would fill ten volumes, the story says so, because fuck you if you wanna see some of it). It's all very nice and sweet and with really good panel layouts clearly something the Akamatsu team wanted to draw for a long time. And then fast forward to the final battle on an asteroid heading towards Earth. And...I mean it was fine. It doesn't live up to your imagination at all but it never could because we're talking about something that needed 10 volumes and it's crammed into like one monthly volume. Instead of having individual battles between Apostles and Al Alba, you just get chaotic groupshots and characters posing without any actual fight choreography. Negi vs Nagi was good but again could have been way better. Kotaro...was there, staying behind protecting Natsume and the other girls. Oh you see when Al said all of 3-A took part in the final battle, he was full of shit, most of them just watched on a space ship or stayed on Earth. Akamatsu did the shortcut thing of having Evangeline have a tea party with the cheerleaders and have Eva say how surprised she was that even they helped contribute to the mission. I don't know what the fuck they did, painted the ship or something, who the fuck knows, that extra coat of paint was important to team morale or something. Also Nagi wakes up in a hospital bed and his reunion with Negi, Eva and Asuna is literally only like a few silent panels instead of a conversation BUT MY GOD WE CAN SPEND FIVE PAGES ON KIRIE HAVING A LEWD WET DREAM ABOUT TOTA!!! Look I don't wanna sound ungrateful, Akamatsu did his best and it's nice to have what we have but you know, the stories I really cared about Negima will never be told, no Sayako/Headmaster romance, no Ayaka's family story, no Kaede village story, no twins and their furry princes story. I can't say it's not disappointing but it is what it is I guess. In terms of plot stuff, it doesn't even fill in what happened with Nagi's master Filius Zect or the Gravekeepers Palace. Amateru and the pactio system. Though UQ on the whole does at least flesh out Ialda and actually gives him an interesting character motivation.

I thought the bad timeline was a lot more interesting actually, Negi failed lost a lot of people he loved and is emotionally broken and has to be nursed and cared for by Evangeline who breaks out of her bratty shell and becomes a mature adult and decides to change her look to look like Arika to make Negi feel better and WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO ARIKA, AKAMATSU, WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO NEGI'S MOTHER YOU PIECE OF SHIT, YOU JUST WRITE IN THE BACK OF THE FINAL VOLUME IT'S A MYSTERY THAT IS UNTOLD LIKE YOU EVER PLAN TO TELL US ARGHHHHH....and it's this really nice and bittersweet story and yes they do end up doing it but it at least was tastefully done and it has its inevitable conclusion and then we go back to the present and have to be reminded that Tota exists. So without Asuna, the ever looming threat of the Lifemaker derailed Negi's Blue Mars project and the real world took a lot longer to introduce magic and there ended up being a lot more insecurity and wars and poverty and it became a World that needed Tota to exist opposed to the good time line where he was never needed because they had the broken cheat code called Asuna. Which I always thought made no sense because they never explained why they needed to seal Asuna immediately after graduation when Zazie's sister said Mars still had a good decade before the illusion broke down and the final fight only happened five years after graduation so they never needed to lose their trump card in the first place and arghhhh

Well...I think that about wraps it up.

In conclusion. Is this a good series? Overall I regret to say...no. But for two thirds of it, it was.

Does it give the closure you needed for Negima, sorta?! Should I just read volume 38 for the Negima stuff? I mean I guess you could, you would be missing out on cool stuff.

Is the series worth it? I want to say yes so much. I can't really say yes. But I mean if you read Negima, you are kinda obligated to? If you read Negima and loved it like I did, make sure you have a drink with you for that last third. If you haven't read Negima, fuck no, you will be so lost and confused, you have to read the prequel series so you can be disappointed TWICE like the rest of us. I don't know what Akamatsu was thinking making this a secret sequel like he did, he should have just been upfront about it and made it 20 years after or had Asuna as the protagonist, it's like Akamatsu was trying to please old fans and new fans and ended up please no one.

I have never been a fan of a creator who has given me so much joy and yet so much misery and none of it is really his fault but my god do I wish I lived in the timeline where Akamatsu got to just do all the things he wanted to do without the compromises he had to make.

But there's just nothing else to do but accept that these amazing stories are never going to be told and that just really sucks. Ah well, I can always think about the good parts I guess.

...

DID SHE DIE DURING CHILDBIRTH!?! NAGI MARRIED EVANGELINE IN THE GOOD TIMELINE, DID SHE DUMP NAGI'S ASS HOW COME NEGI OR ANYONE ELSE NEVER BRING THIS UP!?!

There are like two black characters in this entire manga and the one hero Hori decided to have take the heat by the heteremorphs for not understanding what it means to be racially discriminated is the black dude lol.

Wow that was like one of the worst piece of writing I've ever read in a manga. Like the last time I remember being absolutely left breathless by a piece of literature due to the sheer incompetence of what I was seeing was probably the end of Attack on Titan. But at least AoT was enjoyable on a so bad it's good level but this kinda makes me angry on a this is bad it's kinda offensive level. Like the sheer ineptitude of what I am seeing makes me question why Gege is even allowed to pass as a mangaka if he think this is acceptable.

@kevo_koma said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:

@TLC said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:

Also for all the rep the anime gets for being super good, it feels like UFOtable spends more money in flashy hitsparks and far less on actual proper scene composition.

an example where their scene composition has been bad?

I dropped the anime after the first season but from what I've seen here and there

this shit, I know a lot of anime fans lose their shit over this.

No real choreography, camera work, scene composition, just a bunch of money thrown to make the flashiest looking mess of colors while the camera slowly rotates around the characters.

If you like this, you do you, I just find it boring.

Also for all the rep the anime gets for being super good, it feels like UFOtable spends more money in flashy hitsparks and far less on actual proper scene composition.

The series peaked at the Red Light District. The final arc is a bit better than the swordsmith arc but not by much. It was too rushed, clearly needing at least one more arc to flesh out characters and set up the finale. The power creep was too much when you went from needing multiple people taking on the weakest member of the super evil group to 2 to 3 people being able to beat the top tier villains. All the villains have pretty much the same tragic backstory except for Upper 2 who was the most interesting villain (and unfortunately had the least screen time). Muzan never really developed beyond being a boring I wanna be immortal villain and felt less powerful and threatening as much as he was absurdly tanky and spongey. And

I think the biggest sin is despite the story being founded on and marketed on the relationship between Tanjiro and Nezuko and how they had to help protect and save each other, Nezuko was essentially written out of the final arc and barely mattered in the story at all other than the very end where instead of contributing in the conflict, all she could do was scream oniichan and act like a cute imouto to bring her brother back to her senses.

Yeah I went into this excited but it's shockingly dull. Good production and characters can only go so far when you don't have a story to tell. Studio should have just saved the money polishing the new season in 2024.

As someone who went in with low expectations, I actually quite enjoyed the film. Look, ideally an A+ story like Turning Red or the Lego movie would always be appreciated but I personally did not see it necessary for this film. I don't wanna sound dismissive or that I am making excuses for the film. The movie had some flaws I could have done without like the godawful modern pop music or some of the illuminationisms you see a lot in that studio's films. With that said it's probably their best film to date.

I actually wish it was like half an hour longer which is weird to say of me when I think 90 minute films are a rare breed that needs to come back. What was nice though is because of the brisk pace, if there was a joke that didn't land, it was over in a flash and we can move on to the next joke that did. The characters and story were fine and serviceable. Again, obviously in an ideal world, it would have been better if it was more than that, but I thought it was entertaining enough and more to the point the movie succeeded with flying colors in its most crucial aspect which was its visuals and world building. The movie really did a great job in looking good and making Mario World look like a really awesome, fantastic place and even went the extra mile to make it look like a real society with internal politics and geography and everything. Plus some of the performances were just stellar, Jack Black deserves some award for Bowser.

I realize writing this that I'm probably making the same defense as the Avatar films. Yeah but difference being Mario film is half the length and the world building was far more visually impressive and well thought out than James Cameron spending billions of dollars on discount Native American land with remixed animals and lots of nonsensical floating mountains.

Yeah I dunno what else to say, I thought the film was really fun and satisfying, a delicious steak is great but sometimes a good cheeseburger is all you need?

Yes 5 is a corner stone of Precure so it makes sense it gets the 8 years later follow up especially since characters following their dream careers was a major part of that story. Would also be really nice to see if any of the romances ever went anywhere.

With that said, I don't get Mahou getting a sequel, was it that popular? I figured Heartcatch, Princess and Huggto would be higher on the priority list.

Yamato's character was a complete betrayal of everything the series once stood for and it's what finally broke me of any hope and optimism I once had for the story. It's what opened my eyes and made me see how burnt out Oda is and how incapable he has become of steering this massive ship he's created. This isn't me just being salty, regardless of how you feel about the character, whether you loved or hated him, it all comes down to a simple fact. A character gave up their dream to explore the world. Yamato spent a decade on that island, starving and freezing and being tortured. It is nothing but a stew of bad memories and trauma, people he cared about died trying to protect him. He was always trying to run away and explore the world so he could finally be free and emulate his idol. But when the time came to leave, Yamato was not allowed to by the flimsiest of writing excuses.

Now you can point at Brook and Jimbei and say how they didn't join immediately until they took care of certain baggage, there is a massive difference between I have to take care of x and I will join right away and I gotta stay and take care of this brat for who knows how long because despite everything that happened, he still can't take care of himself (completely undermining said character's whole arc in the process, like what was even the point of the Green Bull fight!?!) especially when Oda is clearly full steam ahead to wrap up the story as quickly as possible.

You can try and make comparisons with Vivi and I can point out that a) Vivi got to go on three arcs worth of adventures, had plenty of bonding time with the crew and we got our fill of her and will continue to do so b) she loved her goddamn country and didn't want to leave opposed to Yamato who fucking hated it there and wanted nothing more but to leave but had to stay because of RESPONSIBILITIES. You know who had responsibilities? Jimbei, he had a crew to look after but they told him to be selfish and think of his own happiness. Because first and foremost the story used to be about finding your own personal happiness.

You can say there's still a chance he'll join eventually and to that I would say please don't waste my time because joining post One Piece ending for one panel doesn't goddamn count and is an emotional cheat. I wanna be like my idol and go on the greatest adventure ever while missing out on the greatest adventure ever.

What disgusts me the most about how the character was written is how much Oda clearly didn't give a shit about him. Yamato was clearly written out of a flit of passion in order to fulfill some narrative goal and to streamline the story. There's nothing wrong with that, that's how Oda and a lot of writers work and they build on top of what they create. But the way Yamato was handled was so transparently utilitarian. You drop all these interesting character and story hooks, being a child of an Oni, wanting friendship and to be accepted, his one and only friend dying and not being there to help him, wanting to be accepted and be part of a group of people who have been ruthlessly massacred by his own father. And then you proceed to do absolutely nothing with any of these things.

Like Rebecca is probably the worst character in the story but even she felt like at least Luffy gave a shit about her. Her relationship with her father was the emotional centerpiece of Dressrosa, there was an emotional catharsis to her reunion, her happiness and joy was the final bullet point of the arc. Yamato is like who cares? He is just accepted as part of the samurai with no fanfare, his father died, his one ticket off the island as well as a chance to visit his dead friend's grave just left and all of it is just such a waste. Like all of it was an emotional goldmine if Oda cared enough to try. Like when Luffy tagged back in the fight after Yamato was holding back his dad, that was the perfect opportunity to have an emotional scene where Kaido scoffs at Yamato about not having friends and never being accepted by the samurai and Luffy shouting back at him how he's full of it and Yamato is his friend and Momonosuke shouting at him that he is the shogun and he will definitely be accepted by him. Wouldn't have needed to add anything page wise, just a few small changes would have had a major effect on how the character was handled, Yamato would have felt like an actual person with a story and not a tool of plot convenience and merchandise.

His fucking not joining was an afterthought handled in flashback. That is absolutely absurd and something that used to be unthinkable for someone of Oda's caliber of writing. Like how could you have spent so much pages and screentime on this character and then just throw them into the trash like they're a minor character?

And this isn't just salt. This isn't just me being angry a character I liked didn't get to join the crew. This is a symptom of a much bigger problem. The story used to be about giving emotional life lessons on living a good life full of fulfillment and freedom and choosing your own destiny. It used to go through painstaking depth into fleshing out every character, even the most minor, as much as it could to give them some level of depth and agency. It used to go the extra mile to mine any emotional weight it could out of a scenario because the author cared enough to try and tell a good story.

Now it's just fucking boring lore dumps and fast tracking plot threads and using up characters like they're disposable and throwing them away.

And I didn't used to be this jaded and cynical, I was the biggest let's wait and see with the Wano arc and even after the anti-climax that was the ending of that arc, I was still ready to believe that it was just a one off fluke, that it just got too big and things got away from Oda, that Oda still cared and still had his passion and wanted to tell good stories and treat his characters with a modicum of respect.

Then Oda off-screen a Strawhat not joining and that broke me.

Over 15 years of loyally watching the anime and reading the manga. Now I can't enjoy the story anymore.

This isn't me trying to be malicious or being a hater or being butthurt, this is what I honestly feel. If you can still enjoy the story, power to you, I can't get any joy out of it anymore. Big moments like OH MY GOD IT'S A ROCKS PIRATE CLONE or OH MY GOD AN ELDER STARS IS DOING SOMETHING used to freak me out with excitement. Now they just bore me.

I just wanted Oda to tell a good story but he's not interested in that anymore, he is too caught up with trying to finish his story as quickly as possible, tying up as many loose threads as he can and to cement his legacy. Sorry if you disagree, I wish I didn't feel this way either.

Also first adult cure. This is shaping up to be quite the team.

I thought this was an absurdly good year for anime filled with new adaptations of heavy hitter franchises and surprise sleeper hits. So I thought it'd be fun for people to compile a list of their favorite anime. I like top tens because I think it's the right amount of fun and challenging to pick ten from the massive list of anime I watched this year but feel free to put more or less anime on the list if ten isn't the right number for you.

So without further ado;

1. Birdie Wing: Golf Girls' Story
2. Bocchi the Rock!
3. Uncle from Another World
4. Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury
5. Stone Ocean
6. The Eminence in Shadow
7. Lycoris Recoil
8. Call of the Night
9. Ya Boy Kongming!
10. Princess Connect! Re:Dive (Season 2)

Special mentions: Ranking of Kings, Akiba Maid War, Cyberpunk Edge Runners, Love After World Domination, Kaguya-sama: Love is War-Ultraromantic, SpyxFamily, Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (Season 4), Mob Psycho 100 (Season 3), Blue Lock, Chainsaw Man, Urusei Yatsura, Do It Yourself!