/animu/ - Anime & Otaku Culture

Eh, I'm gonna have to disagree on Toguro being done poorly. At the end of it, Sensui was a greater threat, but I don't recall Toguro being hyped up as the end all be all ultimate strong guy. Strong as hell and miles beyond Yusuke yes, but ultimately just a demon who in his own words isn't very talented and only knows how to make his muscles bigger. And even though there are bigger fish out there, there aren't all that many. It's not like some series where as soon as the last villain is defeated, everything afterwards is just as strong or stronger.

It also helps that there's a lot more to him than meets the eye even though you don't get the full picture until after he dies. It makes his words and actions during the Yukina Rescue and Dark Tournament arcs take on meaning you never would've thought about the first time through.

It's not a problem with Toguro, but with the writer continuing to raise the stakes seemingly against their own wishes. The entire Chapter Black arc was written to have Yusuke and friends fighting enemies that overwhelming force wouldn't work against, but halfway through the Sensui fight this was abandoned in favor of Sensui suddenly having multiple personality disorder and his "true self" inexplicably pulling more and more power out of nowhere.

I haven't even bothered with anything after that because of how disappointing the Sensui fight turned out to be.

>>63079

>The entire Chapter Black arc was written to have Yusuke and friends fighting enemies that overwhelming force wouldn't work against, but halfway through the Sensui fight this was abandoned in favor of Sensui suddenly having multiple personality disorder and his "true self" inexplicably pulling more and more power out of nowhere.

Yeah… I really loved Chapter Black right up until that point. It always seemed like Sensui was one step ahead of Yusuke's group and despite being nothing to them in terms of raw power, their abilities made them deadly in a way shonen heroes are ill-equipped to deal with. I think you may have hit the nail on the head with

>the writer continuing to raise the stakes seemingly against their own wishes

though. I can't say for certain, but I can't help but suspect executive meddling played a role in the 180 during the Sensui fight from Sensui being physically weaker than Yusuke, but far more skilled to him overwhelming everyone easily with raw power… Meddling certainly fucked up the final arc

Speaking of, the Three Kings arc started setting up to be a massive war between the factions of demon world with Yusuke, Hiei, and Kurama all being recruited to separate sides and seemed like it had a lot of potential… And then the suits wanted more punching and it got turned into a tournament that was quickly glossed through. I really liked the ending though… Not of the tournament itself (the way that ended was ok I guess), but of the series as a whole in the last episode after the tournament wrapped up. Maybe it was a bit cliche, but I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.

>>63079

>>63080

Shonen chump's editorial staff strikes again, color me surprised. I didn't mean just Toguro though, there are other examples of this contrivance that show up constantly, I just picked him as the OP image because he was the most blatant example. It's funny to remember that Kinnikuman invented power levels for the sake of pointing out that numbers are unreliable and stupid, and illustrated this with 950K guys routinely beating people who were in the tens of millions.

>>63203

>It's funny to remember that Kinnikuman invented power levels for the sake of pointing out that numbers are unreliable and stupid, and illustrated this with 950K guys routinely beating people who were in the tens of millions.

I have always hated power levels, and not just because they're poor writing. They also make people obsess over them. I remember that when people still paid attention to Bleach, people would keep saying that it was stupid that Rukia managed to kill some high power level dude specifically because he had a much higher power level. What happened was that the dude was holding her up near his face with her pointing her broken sword at him, and conveniently remembering that she had some secret sword-repairing skill (stupid as hell, but not what people were complaining about), piercing his head. What's the point of reading any sort of battle shounen if you want power levels to decide anything, without any regard for context?

>>63325

Good example, and the problem is that power level autists think that any given series is an rpg, and that Blank's number represents every single stat rolled into one. To follow through on your clorox example, who gives a fuck if the enemy can out muscle/ki-blast the main character if he has a fucking sword piercing his brain? Do Bleach fans think that the characters are moving and thinking at the speed of light and that they open up dimensional pockets to speak to one another while in motion? Dbz spics love that excuse.

Thinking about it further, toriyama is precisely stupid enough to think that power levels entail everything about a person's capability, and that this is the way it "should" be. Fucking hack.

>>63314

<"By the way my alter-ego just happens to be a cyborg but only his right hand."

I'm beginning to understand why bamco's Jump titles only use Toguro.

>>63906

>I'm beginning to understand why bamco's Jump titles only use Toguro.

The worst part is it was a pretty good fight up to that point. The series ended over 20 years ago, but I'll toss on some courtesy spoilers anyways.

I mentioned before that Sensui admits that Yusuke is better physically… He's stronger, faster, and better at taking a hit… but since Sensui is far more experienced, and a more skilled fighter, he has the upper hand. So what does Yusuke do? Jumps in an underground lake in the cave they're fighting in and goes for a swim leaving Sensui just as confused as everyone watching it. Then he rips his now wet shirt off and snaps it around Sensui's wrist so he can't dodge or block anywhere near as effectively as before. He starts going about it like a street brawl, which is the one area he's definitely got more experience. and it's pretty clever. Then bam, gun hand out of nowhere and everything goes down hill from there.

Fuck, they could've done the same damn thing with a mundane gun and done some subtle foreshadowing… He's always got it at his hip and never uses it. Or Sniper leaves one behind before he goes to fight Yusuke. It could've just been an energy blast. Nope. Gun hand. The multiple personalities came out of nowhere as well. If you're going to do something like that then some minor difference in Sensui's behavior between appearances leading up to it would've gone a long way to it not seeming like it was pulled out of Togashi's ass. And then of course, after Yusuke dies again (and promptly gets better), everything established gets thrown out the window? Sensui wants Kuwabara to cut the barrier between the human and demon worlds and Kuwabara knows this? Clearly the smart thing to do is to cut it. Sensui actually was a death seeker and wanted to die in the demon world? Why the hell did he need to do… Anything he did… to accomplish that? He needed Atsuki to open the portal, but that's about it. And Atsuki had been working with him for decades already. The fact that all of Sensui's psychics ended up surviving also took a lot of the weight out of it. A big part of the arc was him testing what the protagonists would be willing to do if that's what it took to stop him. The lingering possibility that maybe Sensui is right when he says being the Spirit World's whipping boy leaves a stain on your soul and that in a few years, Yusuke could easily end up no different. It's a bit of a cliche, but the arc managed to pull it off really well up until it invalidated it all at the end.

And the whole thing was a big fucking 180 out of nowhere. Maybe I'm just making excuses because I still love the series, but that screams executive meddling to me.

>>63920

It's alright anon, you only need to vent because you saw the glimmer of potential the series had before the editorial staff crushed it's throat. This is why every single dbz discussion turns into a debate of when it turned to shit, never if.

i ma just glad there have been no forced revivals of YYH like what happened to DB and Saint Seiya

Here, I'll give you how this shit works, and why it makes my blood boil. You can quote me on this:

>I'm the MC, and I want to be the best ever!

>Oh no! Baddies are doing bad things, and some of them are stronger than me

>But some aren't, let's defeat them first

>Phew, now we defeated not-so-strong baddies, let's try fighting big-bad

>Fucking big-bad is strong as fuck, he kicked our asses

>Arc where we fight other seeminly stronger-than-me baddies, but we defeat them anyway, either by luck or because I found out about a new power

>Time to take on teh Big Bad. Fight takes multiple episodes, we defeat him. In the process, or soon before the fight, the REAL Big Bad is revealed, but he's for another arc

>Phew, now that we defeated Big Bad, it's time to lower the stakes and meet new characters.

>WTF, some new characters are stronger than me!? Even thoug we had one hell of a time defeating previous Big Bad. Where the fuck were you fuckers and why didn't you take on Big Bad before, you fucking fucks?!

>New arc is about defeating/befriending new characters

>New baddies are introduced, they are related to Real Big Bad

Rinse and repeat

>>64902

Shounen Jump is the magazine I can think of that's the most notorious about this. Probably as you say, the biggest problem is editors. In Jump's case it's probably a desperation to recapture their golden age by pushing manga structurally similar to the ones that made them big. It's easy to write into a corner though if you only approach fights from a raw strength standpoint.

One popular example though from Jump that really should be noted is Jojo, it keeps itself fresher by more or less starting over in each 'section' and even within sections there really isn't a drastic power creep because raw strength is rarely the only determining factor in the fights.

>>64908

>One popular example though from Jump that really should be noted is Jojo, it keeps itself fresher by more or less starting over in each 'section' and even within sections there really isn't a drastic power creep because raw strength is rarely the only determining factor in the fights.

While i do agree that JoJo is an interesting experiment of how Araki managed to kept the series fresh for 20+ years of its whole run, JoJo is on an entirely different level compared to the usual bread and butter shonen because JoJo is actually Seinen, not Shonen. You also have to remember that Shonen jump (and other Shonen magazines as well) will have to churn out chapters on a weekly basis. This puts the writing department of the story into a crunch since the art must comes first before the whole story.

JoJo only managed to work since Araki only have a barebones understanding of what he actually wanted to end it upon, wrote the story as he drew it along and still managed to make it as impactful as possible. Asspulls aside, even Araki can't manage this breakneck pacing that the weekly schedule enforced upon him.

Also that 20+ years of making comics under your belt really does Araki wonders when it comes to making comics in of itself

Sensui was a greater threat for a different reason.

Toguro is still GOAT in terms of raw power.

>>65035

>because JoJo is actually Seinen, not Shonen

Glad somebody actually said it.

>>65035

>>65576

Jojo is stupid shit written by a retard for retarded children. It's 100% shonen.

>>65575

He was initially and that's why the arc started strong because of it. It devolved quickly once the fight started though.

>>65613

Go watch your shows ironically, faggot

>>64908

>>65035

Honestly I think Jojo had some problems of it's own with power creep up to the universe reset, it's just that it's not as blatant as it is in other battle manga. Excepting Kira it's a pretty straight line upwards. And then there's the plot hole of why GER didn't negate Stairway to Heaven to which the PS4 game resolved in secondhand with "fuck you it's heaven".

>>64908

Jojo hasn't been published in Shounen Jump for a 14 years now. Moreover special considerations and exceptions were made for it multiple times during it's serialization there. Not that there wasn't conflicts or even outright censorship, which is what caused Araki to jump ship from Shounen Jump in the first place.

To be fair though Ultra Jump is owned by Shueisha which owns Shounen.