@andre the juiciest parts actually goes further down the thread. The top upvoted posts does make the community look optimistic but the numerous comment chain and engagement below becomes actually painful to read. This is coupled with new threads being started and people chiming into said threads with a negative outlook. And if we look at twitter, it can actually give you cancer if you try hard enough.

The top posts aren't exactly full-on hyped either, it's a mix of slight optimism, cautiousness and neutrality. Or the post will be discussing about "funny element from anime/manga" with no concrete thoughts on what was shown. Standard Reddit flair. That is not exactly a bad sign but it shows you where the community is at: "I'm ready to scream I told you so if this flops" and a refusal to take a side or place their bets. There's an air of distrust and that is reasonable given what we know of Netflix, Bepop, the Producer, etc.

This series will not be judged as a standalone no matter how good it might be, and that will be sad. People are actually more excited to see this flop, to make memes out of this, to ride whatever TikTok video that is going to laugh at it, and to be the first ones that call out for "inaccurate portrayal this or that" for internet points rather than take it as a separate entity or to be objective enough to judge it fairly. I don't want to say that it is because a lot of One Piece fans are now much younger than we were 10 years ago or they have migrated to the community just because it is the trending thing to do (skipping arcs just to join a community to be "In" the next big thing) , but it certainly is. And unfortunately, they make up a significant part of the audience to be impressed upon.

I don't even know what the point of this post is and the circles I'm going but if this fails even if people genuinely can see the good in it, it is because the series has become way too big and the internet culture today of being cynical and bandwagoning, without even caring to form your own thoughts, will be insufferable to experience if and when it does come.

I think with Sanji, Oda kind of pigeonholed his vision into his narrative arc for Onigashima to be his identity crisis and his newfound powers. So either he completely overlooked the fact that he is in a country with a nationwide famine (resulting to a parent killing their own child) or that he noticed that discrepancy but had already penned down the Queen and Sanji's conflict in his head. I personally thought that some good points were raised and in hindsight, his narrative arc would have more character weight to it if he were to confront and defeat the person that was the primary cause of the famine. However, that would mean that, because he is ALSO in conflict with the use of his new powers, his narrative arc then would be weighted down by a little too much compared to the other crew members involved. I think it can be a valid point when you are handling a large cast of characters and don't want to do that for a myriad of reasons. But it is also equally valid to call it out as bad planning because there is a certain way to work around it without sacrificing characterization. Characters feel more like a variable and plot devices which is really something that One Piece has been insufferable for since the time skip.

I've said it and I'll say it again, Wano was not a good arc. Zoro being the one instead of Sanji reacting to the red bean soup wastage, Carrot being shelved despite everything signaling a bigger role before the ship landed on Wano, Yamato having so much potential but ultimately just exist, the Samurais being severely underutilized, the Flying six being a letdown, bullshit fake out deaths, bullshit actual deaths, a terrible, terrible handling of the companion pieces (Kinemon and Momo), Hiyori's handling, Zoro's non-existent "this is his arc" bullshit, and there are so, so many problems with the arc that showed Oda at both his best and his worst. People keep going on and on about how peak One Piece is because the world is so big and there are so many characters and I keep saying the same thing over and over again that it is the series biggest strength but also biggest weakness. Wano DIDN'T even need that huge of a cast. No, seriously. And I shudder to think about how a much, much larger cast is going to be handled in the end game.

Regarding the Sanji thing, I'm not defending the writing whatsoever but since the famine is a nationwide tragedy and Luffy is the main character, it stands to reason that Oda wants those themes to be the motivation, or at least one of the primary motivations, of Luffy's conflict with Kaido. And this isn't something new either because if we think back to Alabasta where the tragedy was the lack of rain leading to heavy periods of drought, Luffy does bring that up in his conflicts with Crocodile. We can even look towards Dressrosa which does the same thing. His ending line to Doflamingo before defeating him was about how suffocating/enslaved the country is and that defeating him would save the country from that tragedy. So really, it's not something new because for whatever reason, Luffy always has to represent what is wrong with the circumstances of the country before destroying said circumstances. At this point it is predictable and whether we like it or not, he is being written to be the saint/hero/jesus character and that he alone, will scream the moral punchline before absolving the countries of their tragedies.

Sanji isn't even the first because, in Punk Hazard, it would have made so much more sense and created more room for character development had Chopper played a key role in the defeat of Caesar. Had he even shown any sign of introspection or used any of what he encountered to further his dream and beliefs? But not really, because despite his utter hatred for what opposes his very core, he was willing to praise Caesar in an offhand and casual remark for comedic effect. Personally, I'm glad that more people are calling the series out for this but I have long resigned and understood that whatever happens before the time skip serves the crew as a whole (formative years) and whatever happens later exist only to serve Luffy and plot. Oda has made the shift from a plot that has prioritized characterization where there was a lot of heart in it, to a plot where characterization exist as a checklist to tick through because things now have to be "bigger", "grander", and with more character ideals in place.

Unlike post new world where there is a clear central theme to each island/arc, newer ones seem to be muddled with different character motivations (that would have been fine and is an amazing thing to think about, if all of them actually delivered), a bunch of things happening to serve the grander plot, a bunch of things happening that didn't need to happen, Luffy always has to be the one that connects with the damsel/companion piece in distress and god forbide if ANY of the other straw hats have anything to do with the climatic resolution regarding said companion piece, I had no fucking idea what the fuck was the point of Zoro befriending Hiyori even since it doesn't do shit for King's fight and his backstory and his motivations. And in the midst of it, oh wow, look, Oda is doing ANOTHER "world exposition/worldbuilding" instead of making a fight narratively driven again so his whole Lunarian thing stole a huge chunk of the spotlight too.

I can go on and on but honestly, the TLDR of it all is that characters are basically checklists and tropes. And for Oda, he feels like "having more is better" when it really, really isn't if you can't do them justice. I genuinely mean this when I say that we can remove half of the Samurai gang and nothing would've really changed. Having a lot of characters/motivations/plotlines would have been fine if he actually cared to stick the landing instead of changing his mind or forgetting his characters (remember what's his name samurai guy who was hyped up but amounted to doing a whole bunch of nothing? The pompadour hair?) or consistently portray them to be something and then have them turn out to be irrelevant, lackluster, or just to be a "variable ABC" who inevitably only reason to exist is to serve Luffy and his messiah crusade.

my heart when watching this episode: this is fun
my mind: stop thinking about the manga stop thinking about the manga stop thinking about the manga

It doesn't really help that Arlong Park's screentime and total duration were close to and almost the same as that of Syrup's. Which...would be fine if it was not THE arc of the entire saga. I've said this in another thread but a lot of the world lacks the charm of the source material and that is not because the live action medium disallow it to work. The liveliness and the feeling of a community is not something that is impossible to translate in this medium. The removal and irrelevance of certain key characters that form the very community that contributed to the bedrock of the straw hats as characters irritated me to no end once it became noticeable what they were doing. Islands don't feel like they have their own community and their own sense of life to them and exist just as a backdrop. When the straw hats were supposed to feel like a small of a greater whole, everything in this show shows the opposite: that they exist just for the straw hats to do things and have no agency of their own.

That's one thing I dislike and the other being how key characters like Luffy were handled but that's another rant of its own.
People tend to forget that what makes up the characters, especially ones like Luffy, is not when they decide to do an introspection and make conversation about said introspection. Rather, most of what makes the straw hats so lovable is how they interact and act with the people they've met and most of those said people and interactions were missing here.

Honestly, the length of the season (8 episodes) and its pacing does not do the series justice at all.

To be fair, that's how Luffy is most of the time. It's not just a movie problem. Like with Wano, okay so what exactly is he angry about? So he's angry with everything, the lack of food and the enslavement and the samurai and oden, okay but the last part was him saying a world with food for everyone. But we never really did get the emotional investment and payoff necessary. The Wano's big punch never came off as emotionally stockpiled as the ones in Enies or Alabasta. It has been a huge problem for a while now for every other character that is not a straw hat and Luffy is thrown into their situation and just strongly empathizes with them (because of his high empathy traits) but it falls flat because instead of representing "this means a lot to me" it represents "this is the right thing to do".

Even in Dressrosa, what he actually cares about foremost became clouded with first, his anger towards Doffy treatment of Rebecaa, okay then Bellamy, okay then Law, okay and then Rebecca again. He never really spent any time with them or anytime in the location (Dressrosa) enough to actually make it believable for us the audience to think he is emotionally invested. Instead, it's just "he's that good of a guy". Against Z, Tesoro, Bullet and others, it always came off as "guy bad, luffy good, punch". Luffy didn't demonstrate or said anything to show that he was a foil to all 3 and if he did, it was not significant. The villains are, depending on the film, interesting and nuanced. But most of the time their relationship with Luffy isn't.

A foil to this is Alabasta, which does it perfectly well as Luffy travels around the country and forms a relationship with a key citizen (the old man) and has formed a strong relationship with Vivi. Crocodile is also a well-written foil to Luffy. Enies Lobby also did this extremely well because instead of Luffy giving a shit about Pluton, the shipwright problems, or the WG being an ass, he only cares about Robin and Usopp, the emotional investment is there and pays off so damn well with his final push against Lucci (that involves BOTH Robin and Usopp).

The movies, I think, that did this pretty well and have captured emotional investment are RED and also 6. I'm really typing all this just to say I really like what they did with RED in terms of relationships lol.

Anyway, it actually would be a lot better if he is just invested in a single character's suffering and rolls with it but the way Oda does it now is just cramped pack every single character that was affected by the big bad to line up to meet Luffy. But eh considering the direction Oda is heading with the entire Joyboy/messiah/saviour thing, it is what it is.

That's why I thought WCI was so good and breath of fresh air with the arc just being about Sanji and Luffy's relationship with him.

I like Kaidou and the good movie villains, I just don't like how their relationship with Luffy is either all over the place or forced to be meaningful.

this chapter is so cool i dont really care about all the bad writings anymore i mean i do if i have to rate this series objectively but did i say how cool the art and this chapter was because it really was.

I'm sorry but Jinbei's characterization was pretty bad in relative to everyone else (well except Usopp). His backstory had his own spotlight taken by Fisher Tiger and Otohime and you never felt that he was the ONE that was core and center for the dream of fishman equality. He also hasn't done much to push that dream throughout his years as a pirate/shichibukai either. I don't feel any agency from him compared to everyone else. Him and Fisher had a bond but never one that felt as exclusive as say Law Corazon, Nami Bellemere, Franky and Tom either. He doesn't do much for a character and even his quirks came later when Oda felt like he had to introduce them to make him feel more like a straw hat. Which is really to say he felt the least organic addition to me. I like him as a character and has found him a really cool one since Impel Down (I was young and was full of myself that he would join for sure) but as the years passed I just wished he would have been better served as an alliance member.

If you've played any JRPGs, his the old man/middle aged character that joins the party late game that you have respect for because you've seen him around and know he is a cool guy but ultimately is not that emotionally invested in him to use him except for harder boss fights where you need his stats.

I finished watching the adaptation and everything considered, this is a 6 for me.
When they nailed it, they've nailed it. But everything else outside of what they've done right was lackluster and felt like a shallow shell of what was the source material's otherwise great character work. I'm being completely serious when I say that the live action has removed more than half, say 80%, of characterization that the manga had. It was shallow, felt shallow and gave most people who watched it nothing much to think about or to really feel about. This largely had to do with the pacing and a bunch of creative directions that I disagree with but mostly have to do with my newfound appreciation for manga as a medium and how thankful I am to have been able to read the source material because One Piece as a whole truly only works in that form. The first season of live action didn't surpass that, nor did it need to, but it was also unnecessary outside of a little distraction you'll get.

Fantastic work by the actors all around. Emily Rudd stole the show. Inaki as Luffy still hasn't grown on me. Mackenryu had a great showing. Pretty much all of the straw hats were cast well and outside of Luffy, felt very much like their anime/manga counterparts but in real life.

It's a solid 6. It's not great, not that bad but nowhere close to being meaningful either.

@MDL as much as I ranted about the series writing in the past and as much as I stand by my points about its flaws, what you've said is undeniable and he is a very passionate individual who cares a lot about what he is doing.
To add on, you can really tell that he loves his characters. The manga release deadline is insane but you'll have him posting his sketches and illustrations on his twitter (that you can't find in the manga, which meant that he loves what he does so much and is willing to do more for his fans). He even goes out of his way to give each character screentime and respect for this final arc even if he doesn't have to and is on all grounds justifiable to not do so (his health, for one) and we are talking about doing it for characters that aren't popular too. You can tell how much he loves his craft.

Even if the power spikes were bad writing, I think we can all benefit sometimes from remembering that this is a teenage manga whose goal is to inspire the younger generation. And he does a hell of a good job at that and has not failed the genre. Another huge plus that he brings onto the table besides the obvious great art is his character designs. They are good, memorable and beloved and we're talking about an ensemble cast that has no uniformity to them. There's a lot of credit to given there for him to be able to pull that off.

Maybe the bad writing was editorial, or maybe he was lost and had to fall back on tropes, but he's also a very young artist/storyteller and has spent years of his life penning a story without any chance for a break or to really take a break and plan. It is only fair to take a step back and realize that he was and is someone who has always tried to do his best.

And that is worthy of a whole lot of respect. I shit on the story and writing a lot but I only have the utmost respect towards him as an artist, creator, and person.

@King-Cannon I can see why it was done but I also didn't like it. The children at Syrup village add a lot to Usopp's character, Shells town even if we were there for a brief time really showed how corrupted and feared Morgan was. Coco village felt like it was worth fighting for because of how much we know about the community there (Genzo serving a role similar to a parental figure, Nojiko always being there for Nami). All of that felt lost with this adaptation. Baratie, the location that is arguably the most well done out of the rest, pretty much functions just like every other kitchen to the viewer. You don't feel the craze, closeness and brotherhood that you've experienced in the manga between the chefs either.

This adaptation does a lot of what is known to be "doing for the sake of doing" and does that for the sake of not upsetting the fans. Gin's scene is a very good example of ticking off a checklist to include everything but also losing a huge chunk of its original intent and what made the delivery so good. The connection between Gin's starvation, Baratie's existence and why it exist for both pirates and marines, along with Sanji's backstory never felt like it all fall into place. This goes for Usopp where his intention was also to protect the village yet the LA framed it as mostly Kaya and that you walked away thinking "well, he probably want to protect the village cos he's a "good" guy" as opposed to the original material where the villagers actually do miss his antics and see him as a part of the place.

I get it. I get the whole "this is for western TV angle" where you need to have 3-4 POVs, characters have to be relevant for future seasons, people need to be NPCs to prop key characters up, etc. But I've always thought that a huge part of what makes early One Piece so great was the importance given to "minor characters" and the interactions that make up the heart of the series which in turn make the world feel more alive and different. I'm on the side that believes that the entirety of the Garp/Coby storyline can be scrapped and the time to be used to expand on the characters and the bonds that the straw hats have with others. And then we might actually have an 8 episode that doesn't move at a breakneck pacing where you barely get to know someone and they are gone. This is especially so when both of them only appear a lot further down the road (if the LA is successful and in a miracle timeline, 8-10 years we'll get post EL).

It's really a matter of weighing the scales. The LA utilizes Luffy's exposition and his encounter with

to hammer in that he is someone worthy of being the pirate king and that he has this depth to him. The manga, with its cast of minor characters such as Chou Chou (the dog) and actions such as Luffy's refusal to listen to Nami's past, shows that he is different, self-assured and is a good person at heart. Here, we have Luffy constantly doing more telling than showing such as the constant use of the word "good" pirate in the show. I'm not saying whether one is objectively better or worse for the audience (I do see the POV that this might be a better approach to hammer in Luffy's character to the audience) but that I much prefer how he is very often a character who you can get an insight on through how he acts and connects with the minor characters in the world.

man i wish croc had a better color scheme. that bright purple just ain't it man. and also take out law eyecatcher even if he's going to be relevant(in the sense that he sees the crew again) it's not going to be at least 3 years later

franky's carpenter teacher having screentime and more closure than Hyogoro ever did will never not be funny. Everyone and their mother thinks of him as the convenient plot device for Luffy's power up. Used and discarded.

@Nobodyman im just here to say that its my first time playing the Mario RPG and my god does it bring so much more character to the Super Mario world. The only rpg I really played and completed was Superstars saga and I loved it and always thought people viewed the Mario brothers the same way I did with Superstars Saga.

I mean they do but not really. The cast is more one-note than anything for everyone else that has only played the platformers. But man, I can really see how Mario RPG is the heart for everything that happened after. I love it and just wish I have the time to play more (I'm also playing wonder).

It's a good year for Mario.

I still can't get over how Takaba and Hiruma are going to the ones that will be the two biggest antagonists undoing.
This guys weren't even sorcerors and pretty much popped out of nowhere in this arc.
Yet somehow I didn't hate the handling of Takaba and grew to like him. I already like Hiruma but here's hoping Gege's wank for Sukuna doesn't get in the way of how he's going to be handled.

Of course, I agree that a compromise is necessary when you want to get your product out there in the most successful state. That is how anyone would view it as the bar for commercial success and if really good? You'll create a legacy. I'm going to assume that the former (monetary/more fame) is significantly less of a concern for him than the latter, along with the obligation he has to end the story for the audience. And when things such as money and fame become less of a consideration, you'll start to concern yourself with those perfect standards you'll have to meet in your mind. I mean, take Avatar 2 for instance, and how fucking long that took. Money and Popularity is a thing, sure but he wanted his vision of what is perfect to be there even if that costed him everything else. He doesn't care. I know its the technology that he was waiting for but my point is you can't tell me that the general audience will care enough about the tech as much as he did....except until they got the movie and then it blew people away because of how good it is (writing and everything else was fine, but obviously not THE thing).

I'm not saying that whatever Togashi is going to produce, is able to produce, is going to be the equivalent of realistic water on screen because they are in two different domains. But I hope I got across the point that just like how Cameron won't release the movie until the tech is there and he is satisfied with he (willing to take his time + various other costs), Togashi won't release the entire blueprints for the narrative arcs of his characters (Kurapika,Leorio,Spiders,Chrollo,Hisoka,Pariston,Gin) until he is satisfied with what is going to be put out there. In this very roundabout of speech, he sees himself as the "technology" and how he uses it that no one else is able to replicate. It sounds absurd. I understand but I can't deny how having Togashi there throughout the entire series and applying his vision is vastly different from any other solution. I also didn't realize that there were so many of them characters left to write and if he wants to each give them a Gon-equivalent, and if I compromise here, a Pitou-equivalent narrative arc while tying them with the arcs of other characters it already sounds like writing hell.

Maybe my entire argument is that he is a pain-in-the-ass personality to work with (with respect to his health) or otherwise known as the mad scientist equivalent(at the very least a genius with tendencies the common man couldn't understand) approach to his work. There's no help that changes it in a tiny bit with Togashi though because, like I've said, everything about how he writes and draws just can't be duplicated. I'm not trying to express some kind of twisted adulation for him here but it is pretty evident with the way he writes how unique a creator he is.

Can he compromise and at the very least write the backbone for what will be the character arcs of the ones the audience is invested in? Yes. and sure if he really does push himself he might be able to write them all to a satisfying conclusion and I say that knowing that he has problems going to the toilet and standing up with the state of his back but yes, if we really want that then he could at the expense of whatever free and little time in life that he has left. But he would forego control of his composition, paneling, art, and all the little details that make manga-manga. If we really want to push it then maybe he can also do the storyboards/sketches for what is at least 50-100 chapters and then leave it to someone else to execute it. But that's a really tight argument to make because even for a master, it still takes a shit load of time. If what people are asking for is the writing + the storyboards at the level and standards that they expected from HxH, they are pretty much asking him to give up the rest of his life for this.

I don't really (maybe a little) care about the lazy ones who are coasting off life because they earned more than enough so they don't write anymore but I do have some sympathy for an individual who gave more half of his life/health for work and is now bedridden. It might seem manageable as per Bakuman but I'll argue that the deliberation and planning to deliver something like Chimera Ant is likely more of a pain the ass to do as compared to every other series. He took breaks during that arc that likely helped change/affect the course of the arc. I don't know, I just think it has to be when all you think about is your work.

That's the whole argument and I agree it is entirely possible to do that even if I would still be happy if he just gave it up and spent the rest of his life, taking it easy and not constantly worrying about his work and the shame that comes with it especially when his back is killing him. I think you'll at least not mistake it as something that can be done in a month or two, or even six, and more like a marathon for him to even achieve that (leaving out layouts/blueprints for characters). That's the human aspect of the argument and even if we ignore that, I'm going back to my previous post about the problems with having a successor, how the work will not feel like Togashi's, how his approach is more on the fly than anything else, etc.

He wants to tell his story but he is baggaged by so many concerns that matters to him that we won't be able to know and can only guess of. You can't guarantee that none of what he fears will not come true either. And if he chose not to kill himself more for his work and not to risk it, then I respect that. The risk might seem like nothing or a nonconcern to us but to a creator and to someone like him, it's not that simple. I'm in the camp that having conclusive narratives while important can still be compromised when weighted on the scales of everything else that concerns him and how the work will turn out.

I have to emphasize again to end this long-ass reply that none of the opinions from your side/the camp that wants more is necessarily wrong. It is correct from the commercial/business/content standpoint and can even be right from a human/empathetic standpoint (if he does finish it, it's a HUGE weight off him and he can enjoy life). I'm just debating and expanding a whole fucking lot on the why he doesn't want it and to try and see it from his perspective and I think that perspective he has can also be right. No one is more concerned about ending it and the series than him, no one person toss and turn around in sleep more than he does, so it was never going to be as simple as a black and white problem.

akane harem banashi

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

@zeltrax225 said in Hiatus x Hiatus III: Goodnight, Sweet Princes:

You mean the exact thing Miyazaki has done multiple times?

I meant his deliberation over every single frame and him being increasingly annoyed by his staff when they failed to depict his vision. This didn't come out of my ass and was captured on film. His high standards have exasperated people around him and even his own son was weary of it.

Whisper of the Heart, Arriety, and Poppy Hill are all films he just did writing and boarding on, and left the bulk of the actual work and directing to other people and they came out great. Whisper of the Heart is my second favorite Ghibli film.

Didn't he make a snark comment towards the director during the press conference of Whisper of the Heart? I need to dig out the source but don't get me wrong, I'm sure Miyazaki has a lot of affection and love for him. You can refer to this interview or the eulogy to get where I'm coming from but my point is that he still had to push himself and adhere to Miyazaki's standards. He probably fought tooth and nail for it(I don't know) but the information we get depicts Miyazaki still being in control.

Nadia Secret of Blue Water was taken from notes and concepts he did that eventually tuned in Laputa, but taken in a whole different direction and it's one of my favorite animes. It doesn't feel like a Miyazaki movie, but you can still see some of him in it even without knowing his involvement, I knew it felt like one of his years before I knew about his involvement.

I really hate to be writing this because for everyone else it doesn't matter and I'm self-aware enough to know that this can sound pretentious. But traces of Miyazaki vs Miyazaki all over are two really different cases. I'm not arguing about whether Blue Water is better or that it has to be Miyazaki to be good, that's not my point. Generally no one is going to be THAT elitist and go hurr durr thats not Miyazaki enough you normies but there are going to be people who have seen enough and know film/animation by the book to catch that and not like/like it but one thing you can be sure of is there will be a distinction.

but if someone else wanted to take the manga as storyboards and adapted it for an 8 hour epic someday? Using the same artists and musicians and co-workers that have been at ghibli for decades? I'd been all in on that.

Sure, I will too. I generally don't care that much to the extend that I place people on pedestals despite everyone below them working their ass off. But there will be a distinction/difference because of the kind of person (influence,creative) that Miyazaki is. And because you and I might not be able to feel it doesn't change that fact.

I loved Nino-Kuni, and that's just Ghibli working with a game developer, not even any involvement from Miyazaki, but alot of those loving touches were all over it.

Ni No Kuni was great but it's also not Miyazaki. I'm reiterating what you've said but I think your point is as long as it captures the feeling of Ghibli and delivers what is satisfactory to the audience, it is still a great work regardless of the involvement of Miyazaki. I agree. It's a commercial success, it's a creative success, it's a gameplay success. It hits all the bars and standards for being excellent. But that's not what I'm talking about here. Even if a scenario where Miyazaki collaborates with a developer and they publish a game happens, there is no certainty that it will fare better than Ni No Kuni. But there will still be a difference. "But that's common sense, of course if two person were to be creative, they'll be different" and I agree but, putting aside that we are all less special than we think, Miyazaki and Togashi are juggernauts and standouts that the difference actually does matter and are individuals so unique enough that they are able to terraform an entire genre.

Or, to use a creator that actually died, Robert Jordan wrote 12 volumes of Wheel of Time and died before finishing. Brandon Sanderson wrote the last 3 and did a fantastic job. It's not the story Jordan would have given us.

That's my point. It's not the work he would have given his audience. Your position is fair because even if Togashi were not to be the one who wrote the series to the end, the consumer/readers and society as a whole would still view HxH as a success upon its conclusion. It's a desirable scenario for everyone except for the author/writer who prioritizes his work to be one that only he can tell and that no one else should divert(be it minute details or not) for him.

There's also the fact that Togashi is Togashi and no one else is Togashi. You'll understand that the very minute someone tries to adapt his style. Unlike Berserk where Miura likely had a completed story arc for the trio, Togashi does shit like the princes, nen, and giving minor/side characters 10 pages. This is the part where you'll say well maybe don't and concentrate on writing the conclusion for Kurapika(and 10 other loose ends).
My reply to that is that's asking him to do something that he doesn't want to just do and out of his usual method of writing. No other authors go on such Togashiesque deviations/tangents as Togashi does and whether you like it or not, it's what he does. Am I saying that he doesn't plan things out to the detail that other writers does and do write what is interesting on the fly? Probably. Is that what he does that is special to him. Absolutely.

I have to constantly emphasis that I don't see anything wrong from where you are coming from in terms of a content/commercial standpoint and that every story deserves a resolution. But I like you to think of it as going to a restaurant run by someone who has been cooking, I don't know, your favourite bowl of noodles or your slice of pizza. You've been going there for years and you and the chef both understand why it is different from the rest. Now the chef passes and some franchise comes in and tries to replicate that recipe but because of the craft and the individuality of the chef that they'll never be able to replicate, you'll be able to taste the difference.

You might or might not still like it, the world will love it, but you can't say for sure that the chef will like that. There's a lot of reason why he doesn't like what is done to his dish but none of the consumers will even get an inkling/grasp of what he is feeling. This is especially so when money/fame is no longer a concern.

Berserk is ongoing now after the authors death. We'll always know its not exactly what Muira would have done. The art isn't the same, the character stuff won't be as good, and its probably going to be a bit more rushed. But it IS the story he spent his life trying to tell, as best as his friend and personally trained studio can recall it. It's an imperfect resolution but it will at least be resolution as close to his desire as possible.
What is best for him AND the audience? To get help and tell it while he can, or to never tell it at all?

Yes, it won't be as good and it won't be as Togashi but yes it will deliver an outcome for everyone else. Everything you stated is better for the audience than it is best for him. And even "best for the audience" is debatable because fans would realise that no matter how Togashiesque someone else adapt the writing, it's not from him. Pariston brought it up earlier regarding the process and the experience you get just from experiencing the writing/art from an artist that can be vastly different from just wanting a conclusion/the seeking of knowledge.
Anyway, from his perspective, it might not matter as much. He might prefer having no resolution than having one that is half-assed or done by someone else or doesn't include his 10 tangents/side characters (that even if you find it a flaw, the guy loves it and see it as his masterstrokes) or whatever reasons there may be. He doesn't need the money, he doesn't need the fame, he does feel bad for his audience and his inability for a resolution which is why he felt obligated/decided to release the interview and that statement/chapter of the World Tree

He's already stated that if he dies he wants his wife to finish it... and that actually seems like the worst possible outcome, Naoko Takeuchi's art and storytelling are so drastically different and their strengths in such different places it seems like a terrible match and that it would just be a very rushed obligation, rather than anything guided through a team while he's still alive.

I want to bring up the consideration that having his wife finish it is a bad option from a rational point of view. But you have to remember that he probably spoke to her a lot about the story and where it goes so in his eyes there's no one other person who understands it more than him. There's at least that to think about because you're thinking of someone who can elevate his art or follow it like a subordinate would but he is thinking of someone who can be loyal to his vision.

If going from story point A to D is all that matters then just get anyone else to write it. If King, Martin, Sanderson, Rowling, Oda or Inoue Takehiko were to be given an outline of Chimera ant and asked to stick closely to it, you'll still be guaranteed a different experience. If Murata, Oda, Araki were to draw it and stick to Togashi style, you'd also get a different experience. Alternatively, if someone can emulate his artstyle and writing pretty closely, you'll get something like Boruto where the soullessness of it all just screams at you. It might be better, it might not be but it sure won't be the same. When the satisfaction of reaching point D matters more to the readers than the execution of it (which can only be done by a certain person), you'll get a different experience(and depending on how the dominoes fall, might as well be another series). Once again, I'm not arguing whether that's a good/bad/right/wrong/successful way to go about it, I'm saying that disregards the work that is put into the process of going from A to D which can only be attributed to the individual creator.

This was a long post and I'm pretty much broken down by all the replies I have to do which I don't even know why I'm doing but that's really all I have to say (which was a lot). I get the opinion from the other side and I'm simply defending the opinion of uh, the other other side. It's all words, we'll never know how he truly feels but I did enjoyed the discussion we've had.

@Robby he wasn't in full control or had enough control to be able to write what he wanted to write. Or its continuity was something he didn't want or it can be a mixture of both. The issue here is the amount of control he had and the amount of control others had over him and his work. It boils down to the same principle of not letting someone influence what you want to do.

Let's say if Hayao Miyazaki or any other director decided to make another movie and sketched and wrote the draft for everything and unfortunately(touch wood, for arguement's sake, disclaimer that I don't wish it on him) passed away before, or somewhere in the middle and the staff carried on and published the film under his name. On paper, yes, it is a Hayao Miyazaki's work but if we are being real, we know the guy would often change things, be specific about particulars, delay things, until it fits his vision. But because he is no longer around and has no control now, that was never going to happen. This is how I feel regarding Togashi and the entire dilemma. He's still around but he is sick and if he was to be put into a position where he had to release chapters on a strict schedule, he will not be able to do what he has been doing because of the lack of control due to the commital stance that he has promised to take. This is the same logic if someone else were to continue his work after his passing.

I'm not saying whether that's bad, good, or the way to go/not go. I'm just throwing up a perspective here. There are works that can only be produced by certain individuals (geniuses, masters, whatever you term them) if they are a part of the process from start to end. Look, I'm all for more chapters and I'm fine if it goes that way but the artist not wanting that is understandable because it is his own child in his eyes.

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

You said "there is no "oh I'll publish another book that ties into shogun/lord of the rings" method for the manga industry" and I gave a ton of examples of exactly that.

the equivalent of that in the manga industry is not a spin off by a different author or a one shot. That's like saying you get 2-3 chapters a decade later about a side character. I'm talking about an entire book by the same author that can be inferred back to the first one. The equivalent of that is another serialization that attempts to run the same length. It's not the same. There is an example with Rurouni Kenshin and UQ Holder, sure. But both cases STILL have to serve the format of serialization/being ongoing for several years, something which Togashi cannot afford because of his health.

@Robby yeah but that's all easier said than done. Which is my whole point for the past few pages. It's not as if there weren't any precedents of that collaboration failing and ruining what was a great work. There's a lot of them out there. There's a high chance of that happening once you relinquish that sphere of control over to someone else. YYH probably taught him that, I don't know for sure but I like to think it did. I'm just here flagging out the points that he is concerned about and is rightfully so to be. Everything you've said regarding collaboration rings true and is very fair but it also takes a ton of work despite what it seems. There's also the entire conversation regarding how he himself has that pride and vision that propels him to want to finish it himself but that's a whole conversation that've been talked to the death in the previous pages.