When I first started watching One Piece it was already a behemoth of a show. I was new to anime and manga at this point, and One Piece with its flashy characters and strange powers looked very interesting to me. There was apparently a massive war going on, which I would later learn was the Marineford war, but I started at the beginning, all the way in calm old east blue. I quickly fell in love with the characters, and by the time I reached Arlong Park, on which you can read my opinion in a post from earlier this month, I was completely sold on One Piece.
Volume 1 of Eden’s Zero
Today I want to take a moment to look at the success of One Piece, and why after more than a thousand chapters, the quality is still great. As a comparison I want to take a look at two other manga, both written by the same author: Hiro Mashima. I’m talking about Fairy Tail and Eden’s Zero. One of these failed at being big, but the other still has potential. This makes it sound like I wasn’t a fan of Fairy Tail, but hear me out.
I like Fairy Tail. I like Fairy Tail a lot. It’s another one of those shows that I find enjoyable, but I would never call good. But when I say I like Fairy Tail, there’s an asterisk. I like early Fairy Tail. Early Fairy Tail is so much fun. Natsu, Lucy, Erza, Gray, Juvia, Gajeel and the rest of the gang are all such fun characters. Hiro Mashima is very talented at creating fun characters. What Hiro Mashima is a lot less good at is long-term storytelling. He seemed to have a plan for several of the early arcs, and he set up a league of enemies, but that’s really all he had. On top of that, I think one of the selling points of a good action manga, is the power dynamic. If there is a fight going on, and I don’t find the way it’s going believable, that will take me out of it. This was very noticeable in the Grand Magic Games arc, I just wasn’t able to believe everything going on. On top of that, the time skip logic felt convoluted and uninteresting, and I quickly lost interest in Fairy Tail. If I may be so bold as to put forth a theory:
I think Mashima planned for the Barram Alliance to be the big villains, followed up by Zeref. I think everything else was filler that he added to keep the length of the manga going. I could obviously be very wrong about this, and I apologize to Mashima if I am, but I feel like those arcs felt like they had purpose, where some of the others just felt a bit pointless. Mashima is currently working on Eden’s Zero, which I like to unfairly call “One Piece in space.” It’s its own story of course, but I think Mashima realized what his issue was. With Eden’s Zero he has created a story where the characters travel from planet to planet. This means you have the long term story covered. Just think of an interesting arc, put it on a new planet and the audience will fully be on board with it, no pun intended. It also makes it easier to introduce villain groups and move on from them. They’re on a new planet, with new bad guys every arc.
One Piece High School art looking fabulous!
And this right here is the key to One Piece’s massive success and longevity. Of course, there are factors like Oda being a massively talented artist and storyteller, the world of One Piece being super interesting and well thought out, and the different factions being cool and fun. But you could say the same things about Bleach and Naruto, even Fairy Tail. But none of those had the setup of a long term plotline that made sense and allowed for different arcs. I think HunterXHunter has reached a similar success, although that seems to be permanently on hiatus now, so I feel hesitant to include it here. With One Piece, Oda will always have the option to think of a new island, move the crew there and have them go on a grand adventure. That’s less likely now that the story is moving towards an ending, but early on this was a huge help to the manga’s success. And now that Oda is “done” with One Piece, it’s easy enough for him to start writing the conclusion to this story. The final spurt towards the One Piece treasure on Laugh Tale, which has always been on the horizon, but never so close that the writing had to get sloppy. And this is why I am extremely excited to read and watch the conclusion to this story. I am confident that it has been well planned, thought out and will be extremely fun and satisfying. And I will be both sad and happy when it is finally over.
No. No it’s not. Now that that’s cleared up, see you all next Monday for my next update.
A good part of my collection
Fine, I’ll go into a little bit more detail I suppose. I’ll start this off by talking about my uncle for a bit. He’s a massive history and media enthusiast. He also properly knows his stuff and can talk about his interests for hours. He has a massive, massive collection of books, movies, posters, and all kinds of things that relate to this. I’ve asked him from time to time if he can ever read everything that he owns. To which the answer was a very convincing no. He has more books than anyone could read in their lifetime, let alone someone in their sixties. But after a certain while, that’s no longer the point. The point is to collect, to go up and down stores and book fairs to find something interesting you don’t yet have. It’s like collecting Pokémon cards in a way.
That’s not the only way to enjoy collecting, obviously. My uncle is a nice person, but he needs an office outside the house to be able to store everything. He’s arguably one bad day away from being a hoarder. He kind of is already, but since it’s all stored away and there’s nothing in the living room etc. there’s not really anything wrong with it. I’ve started a little bit of a collection myself. Now I don’t have nearly as much stuff as he does, and I probably never will. But I have gotten an affinity for collecting manga and light novels. There is something very satisfying about reading the actual volumes as opposed to reading the chapters week by week. You get some extras. There’s some translator notes, a little excerpt that the author wrote, cool cover art, advertisements for other manga, and last but not least you can put it on a nice shelf. Here’s a picture of part of my manga collection, interspersed with my signed Ninja Sex Party CDs, which I like to mention whenever I can, because they’re super cool.
Probably the coolest volume I own
I personally believe it enhances the experience. But both can be enjoyed separately as well. You can enjoy collecting something without ever touching it. To bring back an earlier example, I doubt the streamers that spent tens of thousands of dollars on Pokémon cards not too long ago are now playing the actual card game against each other. Then again, I could be wrong about that. The point is, there are different strokes for different folks. Some people like collecting something they can put in a box or on a shelf, to look at, but never do anything else with. And some people like collecting things that are actually useful. And me? I like both. I like stalling out a collection so I can look at it, but I also like taking a book off of the shelf and reading it. I hope to one day adorn it with lots of figurines as well. A portion to look at, and a portion to read.
What do you think of this? Do you like collecting manga, or something else? What’s your favorite thing about your collection? Mine is the often beautiful cover art.
I believe that all anime fans, or fans of any other form of media have a very specific moment where they fall in love with it. I don’t mean the first time you watch something and think to yourself ‘yeah, I enjoyed that.’ No, the moment I’m talking about is something a lot more specific. It’s that feeling you get when you realize you’re absolutely hooked. It’s that day where you look at your phone, or alarm clock back in my day, and realize that it’s suddenly 3 A.M and you have to get up at 7. It’s a moment of such pure joy, having discovered something that really matters to you. For me, that moment was the very first time I watched the Arlong Park arc in One Piece. To be more specific, it was the moment where Nami looked up, tears in her eyes, and asked Luffy to help her. It’s been more than a decade since I’ve seen this moment, and it’s so absolutely amazing that even just writing about it is making me tear up once again.
I was still a teenager when I was first introduced to anime. Of course, like so many before me, I had seen shows like Pokemon, Dragonball Z, Beyblade and Shaman King on TV, but I didn’t quite know that these were anime, and not just different looking cartoons. Although at the end of the day, anime were just cartoons in a different style most of the time, so I wasn’t really wrong.
And yes, Avatar can be an anime, no one cares as long as it’s good.
But when I was really introduced to anime, was when a classmate of mine was talking to a friend of his. They were both watching a show, and it sounded pretty cool, but I had no idea what it was. That’s when I was told that they were talking about anime and in my head I went ‘pffft, weirdos.’ This was back in 2009, when anime wasn’t as mainstream as it is now, but it was still up and coming. It was kind of weird to like anime, more so than it is today. But they seemed so excited and I couldn’t help but want to get some of that excitement, so I ended up starting to watch anime too. The shows I got recommended were Nyan koi, because my friend instantly recognized that I would be a degenerate, and One Piece, the show they were talking about. I decided to give both of them a shot, and I can shamelessly say that I thought both were pretty good. And although I was enjoying the early bits of One Piece, I didn’t think of it as more than a fun cartoon with a cool artstyle. Yes, Baratie was a pretty interesting arc and back then Sanji quickly became my favorite character. Then Nami left.
When Nami left the crew, in my head I went: “huh, she can just do that?” Obviously that wasn’t going to fly with the rest of the crew, but still, it seemed like a very bold story progression. And even when the arc started I wasn’t quite sure about these strange fishmen, and the direction the story was taking. Well, to make a long story short, there’s a reason my cat is called Nami. We get Nami’s emotional backstory throughout this arc and it is heart wrenching to watch. What is even crazier to me is that there is more to the story that gets revealed a decade of writing later. Blew my mind when it happened, but we’re not including that here today. What I want to talk about today is the emotional conclusion to the story, which happens in two parts and is masterfully executed.
After getting Nami’s backstory, and having the Straw Hats run around the island for a while, some hijinx with Zoro and Hachi, we start getting to the meat of the story. Nami is done with Arlong, her frustration and pain has reached the limit and she breaks down, violently stabbing her Arlong tattoo. When Luffy stops her she pleads him to help her. I’m tearing up writing this because I love this arc so much. What Luffy does next makes the emotional impact of this moment so much bigger than I thought it could. Up until now we have been told time and time again how important the straw hat is to Luffy. Buggy damages it and it’s the first time we see Luffy get angry, he is super careful with it whenever he can, and protects it with his life. But this time around, he leaves it with Nami while he goes to kick Arlong’s ass. Straw Hat Luffy gives his most prized possession to Nami while he goes to defeat her demons. It’s beautiful. I can look at it every single day and still bawl my eyes out every time. This beautiful moment is followed up by the Straw Hats walking to Arlong Park, which is a goosebumps inducing moment for sure. These goofy looking guys who have been mostly messing around and been silly have no smiles on their faces anymore. Nami is one of them, and someone hurt her. They will pay.
This brings us to the second part of the emotional conclusion. I will gladly admit that the fights themselves, although creative, aren’t the most interesting fights I’ve ever watched. I can name several fights in the story that were way cooler, especially some of the more recent ones. But when it comes to pure emotional impact, this fight, as well as the one in Enies Lobby several hundred chapters later, are easily at the top. In the conclusion of the fight, Luffy breaks Arlong’s face, destroys his base and destroys Nami’s map making room. The maps she’s been making for Arlong, and not for herself, scatter to the winds. Nami is now free. The combination of these two moments, and the conclusion to this arc was the moment I never looked back.
Although it’s not without flaws, One Piece is still my favorite piece of media. It reached chapter 1000 just before I am writing this piece, and it inspired me to talk about my favorite moment of the series. It’s not like there aren’t amazing, hype inducing, gut wrenching or mind blowing moments later on. It is just that the emotional conclusion to Arlong Park was so incredibly well done that I truly believe nothing will ever surpass it. If there is any piece of advice I can give someone who isn’t sure to watch this series, it’s to give it a shot and watch the first +/- 50 episodes. I believe that will be enough to know if you like it or not, and I promise you that it will include one of the most amazing moments I have ever seen. There are many amazing arcs in One Piece just like the one I talked about today, and I plan to look at a lot of them in more detail at a later date, but I had to start off by writing about the moment I fell in love with the series. It would bring me great joy if I could convince just a single person to give the show a chance. There’s a lot to unpack that’s hidden behind a goofy artstyle and a seriously daunting amount of episodes. Please leave a comment if you have a moment from a series where you fell in love with it as well.
Are enjoyable stories different from good stories, and does that matter?
This is a topic I have been sitting on for a while, and I’m not sure what to think about it. Let me start by explaining what I mean with the title, and how the question sprung to mind. There are many stories out there that I think are enjoyable. The issue is that once you go onto a forum to discuss your favorite books, manga, anime or tv shows, there will often be people who find issues with the things you like. Over time this got me thinking about some of the shows I really enjoy, and what makes them good. Back then I drew the conclusion that there might be a difference between a good, well written story and something that is enjoyable but not particularly good.
To give a better idea of what I’m talking about, I want to use the anime ‘Is it wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon?’ Or ‘Danmachi.’ I have often said that I thoroughly enjoyed the anime, and now that the most recent season wrapped up in December, I still stand by that statement. I’ll give a quick description of the show for those unfamiliar with it: Bell is an adventurer who’s special. He lives in a town that has a large dungeon at the center, and the adventurers living in this town join familia. These are, as you may have guessed, families. These families are led by the gods. Think of figures like Loki, Hermes, Hephaestus, Ganesha and more. My religious knowledge isn’t quite up to speed to know who they all are exactly, but I’ve read enough fiction to have a rough idea. These gods have the ability to level up the adventurers, whenever they reach the required skill to do so. It’s kind of like a video game, and when it first started airing it got lumped in with the other Isekai shows that were booming. It is a bit different though, in the sense that it is more of a traditional fantasy show insead.
The important question is; would I call Danmachi good? Yes and no. There seem to be a lot of interesting things going on all at the same time. Why is Bell leveling up so fast? What are these gods up to, some of them definitely seem shady. Why are the gods here in Orario (the town they live in) and what is the dungeon exactly? On the other side of the coin is a story that seems to be very focused on the here and now, not really exploring enough (in my opinion) of these interesting plotlines. Now I will admit that I have yet to read the source material, and I plan on doing so because I have a suspicion that it’s a lot better than the show, but I’m not including that in this analysis. The anime on its own has been running for 6 years now, starting out in 2014. That’s 6 years without delving into the more interesting story elements. It feels like I’m watching the introduction of a story, and we have yet to reach the middle part. Now it is important to remember that in many, if not all, cases the anime is used as an advertisement for the original work. The idea is to give a glimpse into the story and then urge you to buy the light novels (or manga in other cases). So from a marketing perspective it’s not a bad way to go about it, because it certainly has me interested. It’s very enjoyable for sure.
I didn’t quite answer the question that I put at the start of the last paragraph. I admitted the story was enjoyable, but does that mean I think it’s good as well? For me, this lies a bit more complicated, as I am quite critical of stories. I consider myself a fledgling writer, and I try to look at stories with that in mind as well. I think the characters in Danmachi are what sells the story. If you didn’t think the characters were interesting, you would probably stop watching. To add to that, I think the long term plot is appealing as well, setting up questions that I would love to see answers to. But the short-term plot is… lacking. This is where I start getting more subjective, since it is very possible other people really enjoy the short-term storytelling, but I do not. That’s not to say that I think it’s bad, but I just think it’s a bit average. It feels like fantasy-tropes put into an interesting setting without doing anything that makes it really stand out. If I had to name a similar show I would probably pick something like My Hero Academia. It sets up interesting questions, but the answers so far seem unsatisfying. So I would say both shows are enjoyable, but not what I would call really good.
Now the most important question of the day; does it matter? Honestly, I don’t think it does. Not a lot, at least. From a literary perspective I think it falls a bit flat and that means it’s not really being inventive. But at the end of the day, we consume media for entertainment, and if it’s entertaining enough it doesn’t really matter if it’s adding something completely new and innovative or not. I do believe that if a story does something innovative it can certainly elevate the story, but the same thing can be said about a story that’s not particularly inventive, but executes everything really well. That is how I felt about the early parts of My Hero Academia for example. I like it when a show does something creative that catches me by surprise, and the shows I end up liking the most are the kinds of shows that surprise me with their story. But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy shows that don’t innovate. I thought Danmachi was very enjoyable, and I hope anyone who reads this piece considers giving it a watch. And who knows, I might come back to this topic once I’ve read the light novels, and see if my perspective has changed. Either way, thanks for reading, and please tell me your opinion on this subject. Am I talking out of my ass or do you think there’s some truth in what I’m saying.
I wrote the first draft for this about two months ago, when the Noblesse anime had just started airing and I was about one third of the way through the God of Highschool webtoon. When I finished writing it I wasn’t quite confident in what I wrote so I decided to put it on hold. Now that I’ve caught up with God of Highschool, and the Noblesse anime seems to be coming to an end, I feel more confident in my opinions, and my thoughts on certain parts have changed as well. So today I want to talk about each of the three webtoons that recently got anime adaptations, this being; Noblesse, God of Highschool and Tower of God. I will talk about each of their strengths and why I believe the adaptation failed to do the source material justice.
Seira J. Loyard
Let’s start with the one that I have the most straightforward opinion about; Noblesse. Noblesse’s story is kind of bland. I’m sorry, it just is. It has fun characters, and the cast works great off of each other, but the actual story has never been very interesting in my opinion. Group of bad guys show up, Frankenstein and or Rai defeat them without any real effort, some of the bad guys join the good guys, and we go back to the status quo. All while they look stunningly handsome doing so, obviously. The anime focuses on the story, and rushes through the source material because of it. I’ve been reading the webtoon alongside the anime, and after a 30 minute OVA + 11 anime episodes it has covered roughly 190 webtoon chapters. That translates to about 17 chapters per episode, although it is a lot closer to 9 or 10 chapters per episode if you consider the fact that the OVA covered 90 chapters.
Frankenstein definitely not being a crazy person
Then what was cut? Good question, with a simple answer. They seem to have cut a small arc that is honestly not important depending on how many sequels they plan, but was quite funny. The second thing they seem to have cut is a lot of the comedy. The Noblesse webtoon is funny. It is very funny. Frankenstein and Rai as characters shine when it comes to funny moments. Later on Seira and Regis add a lot of humor to the story as well. I regularly found myself chuckling on the 7 am train while reading this webtoon, which is something I don’t often do. I think getting good comedy done in a comic isn’t easy, and Noblesse delivers on this time and time again. To me, this is the biggest reason why the anime feels as bland as it does. It lacks humor. I think this show would have been a lot better if they went for a slower paced story, that didn’t cut the jokes in favor of quick action. Now it’s just a generic action flick with handsome vampires.
The main cast during their early days.
The second webtoon I want to tackle is God of Highschool. That’s right, I’ll be your contradiction! (cue the dubstep.) No? Alright, moving on. God of Highschool was… confusing. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. I was constantly amazed by the fight animations, especially the fight that turned into calligraphy, I love creative stuff like that. I believe the official term for scenes like these is ‘sakuga’ or a scene that has considerably higher quality animation than the rest. It’s great because your eyes get treated to art in motion. I think this contributed a lot to me deciding to read the source material after watching what was a disappointing anime.
The webtoon also has some issues. There is some questionable pacing here and there, and especially the later arcs feel like the story is just repeating itself to an extent. I also think some of the villain writing is weak, but the villain of the current arc, on the other hand, is absolutely fantastic. Then where did it go wrong in the adaptation? I mentioned it earlier, but GoH gets confusing. There are a lot of different factions, characters with different allegiances and strange but interesting power systems. The anime dumps all of that information on you very quickly and from then on assumed everything was understood. The webtoon spends more time with some of these concepts, and explains them better. It was a lot more clear to me who the Six were, and who Nox was and what they represented. At least the amount we are told early on. I think the verdict on this one is the same as I would give Noblesse; watch the show and if the concept seems interesting read the webtoon, because it’s leagues better.
The third of three beasts to tackle is Tower of God. Tower of God is fantastic. I can honestly say I haven’t been this excited while reading a comic since I originally read One Piece. But let’s take it one step at a time and start with the adaptation. Now I didn’t think the adaptation was bad at all. As a matter of fact, I thought it was one of the better shows that aired that season. But reading online about the gripes people had with it, I couldn’t say I didn’t agree at all. Bam is not a very interesting character. The pacing is a bit fast, and there isn’t a ton of story yet. It feels like a prologue of sorts. I agree with all of those points, but I enjoyed the show regardless of those issues. Bam is boring early on, but this is kind of the point. A large theme in the story is Bam exploring who he is, and gaining a sense of self. What does he care about, who is important to him. This doesn’t happen in the anime because, as stated above, it only covers the prologue. It’s an introduction of the world, characters and powers. After that the characters are actually thrown into the real world, and out of the tutorial area. Looking back on the anime now, after reading the source, I think the criticisms are very fair. I honestly think the anime would have disappointed me as well, had I read the source material ahead of time.
Look at our boys, still young and carefree.
I will now be heading into minor spoiler territory, so be aware.
Bam is a special boy. That’s fairly obvious with him being in a cave and everything, but there is something behind all of this. There is also a reason why he was chosen as an irregular, that doesn’t happen often. As the story progresses, we see Bam get stronger, but more importantly, get a real personality. It takes him a while, but he starts to think for himself, gain a sense of morality beyond being a simp for Rachel, and have real goals. But the tower is a cruel place, and staying alive is a hard thing to do. Having to grow stronger at a fast pace in this world is a tough challenge to face, but Bam is special. Not only is he special, he is very kind, which helps him in gaining allies. He works hard for this, and very few things ever go right immediately. Although I don’t think Bam will ever die, as most protagonists are meant to make it to the end of their story, I do think the dangers of the tower are actually scary sometimes, and it wouldn’t surprise me if main characters die on the regular.
I want to mention two more things about ToG that I think level up the quality of the story. The first is that characters move in and out of the story naturally. People are always climbing the tower, and sometimes characters will just leave and not come back for 300 chapters. They never seem to be forgotten though, and the world is ever moving. This gives a sense of depth to the world that I think isn’t really rivaled by many shows. The second is arguably the most minor but it really helps me believe the story. Characters change clothes a lot. There’s no Natsu wearing the same stinky clothes for 400 episodes, or Naruto switching ninja garb once or twice a decade. Almost every time we see characters again they are wearing something completely different, and it’s so refreshing.
Dowon, a character introduced very late in the Webtoon, and one of my favorites in design.
I feel like I’ve been rambling again, which tends to happen with these kinds of posts. As you might have noticed at this point, I’m quite passionate about these three series. I think all three are very good, and on par with some of the best manga out there, especially Tower of God. What I would like to suggest is that anyone who likes reading gives them a shot. The anime of each of these are definitely watchable, they’re not terrible by any means, but if the concept of each show attracts you, then the webtoon is definitely the way to go. Tower of God is completely free on the webtoons app, and God of Highschool is free barring the latest 3 chapters. Noblesse is a bit more tricky. You can do what I’ve been doing, and read 2 free chapters a day, or you can pay to unlock the whole thing. It’s honestly worth it to show support to any of these authors, as they are all very talented.
If there is anything I want you readers to take away from this, is that Tower of God is fantastic, and anyone not reading it is missing out! Please let me know your opinions on these Webtoons, as well as any suggestions, I’m really hoping for similar gems!
This contains spoilers for the My Hero Academia manga up to chapter 292.
Shonen Jump is a beast of its own in many ways. It has delivered some of the most amazing manga I have ever read. It has its flaws but I will defend One Piece for the rest of my days. I think that both Naruto and Bleach have some amazing qualities, and even though I think both dropped in quality later on in their run, I still consider them part of the big three, like many. Somewhat recently people have started talking about a new big three. Manga that are offered as suggestions for this are mostly Black Clover and My Hero Academia. I will put my opinion on Black Clover in another post, but to summarize; I think it is very effective at what it does. It’s a shonen action comedy manga that lives or dies by its characters, and its characters are great. The manga I want to talk about today is the other one, My Hero Academia. This text will contain spoilers for anyone who has not read the manga, so please keep that in mind as you proceed.
I was one of many people who read My Hero Academia right as it started coming out. I remember reading chapter one and immediately being drawn in. This was going to be the next big thing, I could feel it. Many others did the same, because it quickly rose in popularity to the point where it got an anime soon after starting. And to me, the first few arcs were very good. I especially enjoyed the whole Overhaul arc, and I thought there were some clever hints in the story that allowed for Lemillion to eventually get his powers back. (Which I admit was a hype moment in the latest chapter). It’s after that where I started getting worried. I did not like Gentle. I appreciate what the author was going for, but I just couldn’t get into that arc. I did admittedly enjoy it more when it got animated, which I still can’t really explain why. The following arc that was centered around the villains had an interesting start, but the ending wasn’t quite what I wanted it to be. At this point I was still very much with My Hero Academia, and barring One Piece it was my favorite ongoing manga. It’s the current arc that changed this for me though. I would like to break down why I think the current arc is scary to me.
What was the main selling point of the current arc? For me it was quite obviously the concept that heroes are fallible, maybe even making society racist to a certain point. This is the theme that the manga hit upon earlier on as well, with Stain. Not every hero is a good person, and not every villain had a fair chance in life. Mental health being neglected is a big issue that we face in modern society that could be reflected in My Hero Academia and brought to an extreme. Most people with mental health issues don’t end up founding a villain organization bent on the destruction of society. I think.
This brings me to how I think this arc could succeed. Because I’m worried about My Hero Academia not because I think it will fail, but because I also see its potential. Potential that might be hampered because it is in Shonen Jump. Shonen Jump has been getting darker over time in its themes I think, which is good. But I’m not sure if this will be visible in My Hero Academia per se. This arc had a chapter titled “The day when heroes vanished from the city.” This was chapter 259. To me, this strongly implied that the author was going for a chaotic conclusion to this arc. The heroes will fail to save the people, society will riot against the current system, and the hero society that we know will disappear, resulting in chaos. Best Jeanist was murdered by Hawks, who couldn’t live with having done this, and retired. Endeavor would die at the hands of his own son (which still might happen), and society would collapse, with Re-Destro and the Liberation Army taking over. And that would be the end of this arc.
At least that is what I hoped for. What we seem to be getting instead is more of a bait and switch. I think Endeavor might still die, but Hawks clearly did not kill Jeanist. Even worse, Jeanist showed up with no proper explanation to what went down like some deus ex machina. And this is why I’m worried. I’m worried that this bait and switch means that somehow the heroes will pull through. Lemillion is back, Jeanist is back, things still look hairy, but when has a fight ever looked favorable for the good guys in a shonen jump manga? As far as I am aware, no one of importance has died yet at this point in the arc, and I think the manga is going to keep it that way. I think with the missing heroes swooping in suddenly they will save the day somehow. Not win the fight per se, but at least chase away the villains. What I would much rather see is the heroes losing. Endeavor, Jeanist, Hawks all gone from the picture, the remaining heroes persecuted and hiding elsewhere. Not only would this make for a great narrative where the heroes go into hiding, train and come back to try and fix society again, but it also opens the door for a new way of life. Maybe heroes as they are right now are not the solution for society. Maybe the next generation of heroes will have to figure this out somehow. Perhaps find inspiration in a foreign country during a training arc.
But I believe the series isn’t meant to run for that long, so what I think is more likely to happen is that everything gets resolved in this arc and society goes back to the boring way it was.
Opal Kaharis 