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.

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!

I just don't understand what people see in the song. I don't think it's particularly good, funny or emotionally resonant. Like yeah I guess it's technically impressive how they wrap several melodies together but none of the particular melodies are actually good or stand out and the lyrics aren't really about anything other than ha ha family superstition is weird. Like how about you talk about who Bruno was, the horrible things he did, how hurt and broken the family was with his leaving, something that matters not "We talked about him and my goldfish died, so sad :(". I don't wanna knock people for enjoying it, I just do not understand why the song blew up the way it did when there are so many better Disney songs from Moana or Coco or even Encanto itself. Like the best song in the movie by far was What Else Can I Do? It was emotionally resonant, had far better lyrics, music and visuals and actually drove the story forward. I would take Under Pressure more than the Bruno song even if the song sucked and the voice actor clearly couldn't sing because at least it's about something relatable.

@Robby said in Channel Awesome, AVGN, and other web review shows:

@TLC said in Channel Awesome, AVGN, and other web review shows:

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,

Because the lyrics and music were good. And its like 8 different characters doing 8 different songs in a 2 minute blast so if there's any 20 second bit you like you can latch onto that or you can do it with friends.

And the Seven-Foot Frame, Rats Along His Back bit is super meme worthy.

I think the Moana soundtrack was better overall, and obviously neither has anything on Hamilton, but...

You bring up Let it go. The emotional catharsis and message had little to do with its success, and Idina Menzel belting it out did, The same way her performing Defying Gravirty in Wicked happened. Yeah its a good song but it needs THOSE vocals singing as loud and unrestrained as possible really sold it. To the point they restructured the entire damn movie when they hit upon that and turned Elsa from the villain to the co-lead. Same way the Lion King wasn't supposed to have african words in the songs originally but then Lebo M did the demo and that opening note just sold it and there was no going back. (To the point they just reused that for the horrid live action version,)

The catharsis is in doing THAT part loud, but most people can't casually sing those bits. Everyone can sing all of Bruno without strain. They're different songs that do different things and appeal in different ways, its a weird comparison to make. Beatles and Michael Jackson both had number 1 hits but where would you even start comparing them?

It's not about what type of songs they are, it's about what message they give. Obviously Idina Menzel blowing her vocal cords out only works because of what the song is about, it would be ridiculous if she went hard on a more chill and relaxed song. But my point is Let It Go is about something that matters. I guess the only thing the Bruno song has is ...it's catchy? I guess that's all it takes? I personally don't even see it because I just listened to it and it just is a bad tune and doesn't stick to my head at all but that's just me.

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 Hiatus x Hiatus III: Goodnight, Sweet Princes:

Here's what will happen. Togashi is going to rush the story and kill off a bunch of characters in this inheritance arc because he is long bored of them and wants to spice up interest. People will praise it as a genius masterstroke of a move that was clearly long planned and a brilliant subversion of the shonen genre. He will then pump out a volume or two until he gets bored and lazy again, invent a bunch of meaningless characters and subplots that will go around in circles and have pages and pages of walls of text monologues that will belabour the same point over and over because that's far easier to do than actually telling a story and then go back to another hiatus where the cycle will repeat itself again.

Okay? Cool.

Well guys, guess I have to eat some humble pie. I gave Togashi too much credit and thought he would be embarrassed enough to progress the plot a smidgen but I guess he was content to skip SOMETHING happening and going straight to meaningless characters and subplots going in circles.

But hey, we at least got that AMAZING Spider flashback that he talked about always wanting to show. All three chapters of it. Where half of it was dedicated to explaining how dubbing works. And the other half was just my friend died and I was sad so I started a gang. See I always liked the Spiders and I don't think anything ruins their mystique more than making it so most of them were childhood friends who got together because a poorly developed imouto character got killed by random criminals. We don't even get the catharsis of the criminals being killed or any sort of meaningful character development other than I guess the string nen user liked that one random doctor lady she met once and that's why she decided to become a Doctor who uses string nen. But hey, if you HxH fans are satisfied by the crumbs you're given, who am I to judge?

Have fun tearing my post apart, I sure as hell won't be replying to anything you guys say. Don't wanna be accused of being confrontational, you see.

See you in four years!

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.

@Ivotas said in Hiatus x Hiatus III: Goodnight, Sweet Princes:

@pariston_hill said in Hiatus x Hiatus III: Goodnight, Sweet Princes:

And here's why we don't let the thread open.

One might think thread bans would be a good idea.

You are free to like what you like as I am free to dislike what I dislike.

I don't see why you have to go so far as asking for members to get booted from a thread for the sacrilege of pointing out what has happened many, many, times before.

Don't worry, I have no plans to rain on anyone's parade, my apathy for this series at this point is immeasurable. I said my piece on the big return and I am done. You can enjoy your little echo chamber of positivity to your hearts' content. I don't intend on ruining things for anyone.

Just don't get mad at me if what I predicted comes to pass.

I'm only speaking from experience given the mangaka's track record. I would be happy if I were wrong.

I doubt I will be but who knows.

Peace.

Here's what will happen. Togashi is going to rush the story and kill off a bunch of characters in this inheritance arc because he is long bored of them and wants to spice up interest. People will praise it as a genius masterstroke of a move that was clearly long planned and a brilliant subversion of the shonen genre. He will then pump out a volume or two until he gets bored and lazy again, invent a bunch of meaningless characters and subplots that will go around in circles and have pages and pages of walls of text monologues that will belabour the same point over and over because that's far easier to do than actually telling a story and then go back to another hiatus where the cycle will repeat itself again.

Okay? Cool.

I'm sorry, I might be hallucinating things, was a hero in our series about heroes so ineffective and incompetent in buying 2 seconds of time that his only recourse was to present and slap his ass at the final boss?

And this was our lead up to Deku's epic return?

Lol this manga is a joke

If this fight doesn't end with anything less than Ricardo permanently retiring Woli, I will be very upset.