Mag Talk Weekly Shonen Jump [2011] - Discussion and TOC Talk - Part 1

[Zeltrax]

Heck, I am gonna re-read everything that has happened so far and compare how many things have happened, I am fairly sure Oda or Kishimoto would have taken a lot less chapters than Kubo took..

That's how the pacing in Bleach is.
I've learned to deal with it.

The funny thing is that if Kubo would have stick to its formula BLEACH would no doubt be at least top 5 in the TOC..

That is exactly what I'm trying to say.

 

[Teeba]

This is all so bittersweet to me. I dropped Bleach right in the middle of the fake Karakura Town arc, and I never thought I'd ever pick it up again. When I heard Kubo was "restarting" the whole manga to show the aftermath of Aizen, I found myself not only reading it again, but actually enjoying the plot! I wanted Bleach to poll horribly during all the times I was bored to tears, not the time I'm actually gaining interest in it again.

Though Kaiten's criticism is totally valid -- currently the manga is in between being a sequel and a new concept, and that not a good place to be in.

On the plus side, the Beelzebub fangirl inside me is incredibly pleased right now. I was looking back at some of the old discussion threads, and it was met with some serious criticism when it first started. I hope it continues to be a hit in Jump alongside Toriko.

 

[StrangerAtaru]

Guys, seeing BLEACH on bottom 5 confirms my theory. As I have been saying since BLEACH Soul Society started..
Kubo Tite has always been pulling a Kurumada on us (Kurumada from Ring Ni Kakero and Saint Seiya fame) I always knew it!! Heck, even Kubo Tite himself declared himself a Kurumada fan (And To-Love Ru too but that's beside the point).
What I mean is that for me BLEACH was always a Saint Seiya clone manga.. It was just the characters, how the Soul Society was developed it was very reminiscent of Kurumada's style:
-In Saint Seiya there is this place called the 12 Houses where each house is guarded by a Saint with a Gold Cloth i.e. Aries house is guarded by Aries saint, mm... Gotei 13 anyone? Also there are lots of similarities between the Saints and the Gotei members, yeah I know Shonen characters tend to be cliched but heck.. Even Gemini and Aizen are pretty much the same thing.
-Seiya pulls Deus Ex Machina after Deus Ex Machina. Ditto Ichigo.
-Saori Kido dammsel in distress. Rukia in SS. Orihime in forgot its name arc.

And now the last thing I predicted.. Kubo would continue its manga like Kurumada did with Saint Seiya, and as history has shown us it will rank very, very bad..

Although BLEACH has lasted longer than SS did and probably won't get cancelled, SS glorious days were in the 12 Houses Arc, Poseidon was so-so although fans were getting tired of the repetitivity of SS (Its pretty much the same as BLEACH fight, fight, fight) Poseidon arc is like Hueco Mundo Arc.. Hades arc was scheduled to be animated and all yet the anime adaptation was cancelled it was like 10 years later the OVAs appeared in early 2000s.. Supposedly SS anime was cancelled because the toy line didn't sold as it used to, since TOEI dropped SS anime then Kurumada got lower and lower rankings in JUMP and thus SS ended abruptly, it had a good ending but it showed it was very abrupt.. I.e. the battle against the last villian is less than a volume while other villian fights were longer..
Anyway I don't think BLEACH anime is gonna be cancelled, why then would they have continue with filler? But Kubo Tite needs to speed up, make more material per chapter!

I think someone else may have made the Saint Seiya comparison before but it is valid. Considering how similar both the Soul Society (yeah, two Ss...coincidental I notice) and the Gold Saint arcs were (heroes trying to save a member of their group with a limited time and a whole bunch of "evil" beings who are actually allies but aren't due to circumstances) , you could think that maybe it was done either intentionally or unintentionally...but then even if I think Soul Society was overrated, at least that was much more paced compared to the Kubo of now...and now he's finally getting a wake-up call regarding the mess he's pulled.

 

[jorped]

Beelzebub in a better spot than Naruto is just way to weird, at least for me

 

[Crude]

Now I know that this thread shouldn't focus too much attention on one particular series, but seeing as Bleach has fallen to the bottom of ToC I just have to talk about it.

Bleach in my opinion started going awry right after Orihime got kidnapped. Before that point we had the cool introduction arc, the awesome SS arc (a little overrated maybe, but it's pretty good storytelling for a shounen series) and the Arrancar/Vizard arc, which was also pretty good. Bleach was never that fast when it came to pacing, the chapters were slow but still acceptable. Then came the Hueco Mundo arc and the pacing seemed to have gotten even slower, perhaps because the plot just wasn't as interesting compared to past arcs. The Deicide arc kind of sprucced things up a bit and to me it seemed the pace was a lot faster, perhaps even a little too fast (Ichigo vs Aizen for example).
I didn't mind the fact that Deicide wasn't the end of Bleach. After all, there are still a lot of things that need to be covered such as all the bankai moves we've yet to see, the two corpses Mayuri found, Ichigo's dad, Zero Division, the king and also the royal guard. Had the series ended right after the Aizen fight, I would definitely not be satisfied. However, I just can't imagine anyone else being the main villain but Aizen. I think the Deicide arc could've been used as a stepping stone to the next arc which would focus on the king and all those other elements which have yet to be explained. This new arc is just weird. Like a lot of you have said, it feels like a different manga. I've nothing against introducing Fullbring characters to the story, mainly because the humans in the series have largely been ignored. This new arc however, should have made an effort to include plot points that have yet to be explained. What I'm trying to say is that instead of focusing on a brand new set of characters, the series should be focusing on elements which actually have something to do with the overall plot. I've actually enjoyed this week's chapter and the last few (minus Ichigo's fullbring), but everything seems so detached from the rest of the series, not to mention the pace has become even slower. As a Bleach fan, I hope Kubo will try to make an effort again when it comes to the series' plot.

I'm kind of bummed out seeing as Hokenshitsu's been canned. It wasn't exactly my favourite series, but it was still enjoyable. It might be more me loving the artwork though . I hope Aimoto Sho's next series will be even better!

 

[Zeltrax]

Actually I'm not so sure, I saw the choice to prolong Bleach after the end of Aizen more like a decision from the editorial department than Kubo himself. A bit like they were deciding to let Naruto end (it's heading there) and make up for it by stretching Bleach as far as they can. Because story-wise, it did not make sense at all, and I certainly hope Kubo's ego isn't that big. Either way, I can't see Jump letting go of it any time soon.

Bleach is almost twice as long as Shaman King was btw, it ran for 10 years now, it's in the top 10 of Shueisha's best-selling series of all time and it sells much more than SK did. Then again I'm probably biased because I never liked SK.

Didn't Kubo himself said that Bleach is to continue for another 10 years?
Kubo ego is big, if irc he said he had no idea wat to do with his plot and make them up as he go along, I might have confused that with someone else tho.
But like kaiten said, bleach wont be cancelled anytime soon.

 

[StrangerAtaru]

Didn't Kubo himself said that Bleach is to continue for another 10 years?
Kubo ego is big, if irc he said he had no idea wat to do with his plot and make them up as he go along, I might have confused that with someone else tho.
But like kaiten said, bleach wont be cancelled anytime soon.

That was Kubo's words. He also admitted the Arrancar stuff went on way longer than expected because of their popularity. (and Kubo's slowness but let's leave that be)

 

[k-dom]

Beelzebub in a better spot than Naruto is just way to weird, at least for me

Except Beelzebub is much more interesting than Naruto at the moment. At least it's funny and I enjoy reading it.
This week Naruto chapter was boring as hell, and for a cliffhanger, we have another bunch of resurrection. I will just quote Madara : "Not entirely to my taste but whatever".

 

[juUnior]

the awesome SS arc (a little overrated maybe, but it's pretty good storytelling for a shounen series)

I wouldn't say its overrated - actually I consider SS arc of Bleach manga one of the best storytelling not only in fighting shounen series, but in general. The building of the story, fights, presentation of all Soul Society, the mindf**k at the end was at its peak. I'm, like everyone else, based, but I sincerely believe that Bleach manga was a fantastic fighting shounen till the beginning of arrancar arc <with SS arc being one of the best things which could possibly appear in fighting shounen title> The rest is.. everyone knows <not to bash arrancar arc, it has it good moments, but still.. and the recent 'part 2' stuff: like someone wrote - its like a completely new manga so far> Not to mention HOW the style of Kubo changed: before he was able to put into chapter much more, now its just big panels going here and there thus diminishing the content to its maximum. Somewhat sad.

 

[Crude]

Yeah, the Soul Society arc just seems a lot more intelligent compared to the Arrancar arc. For one, it seems like the whole arc was planned beforehand, whilst the Arrancar arc seems like something that Kubo came up with as he wrote it.

 

[meeedoooz]

i want to ask, why are they agreeing to naruto ending if they are willing to stretch bleach that much ? naruto is a million seller with a huge fan base all around the world and if it continues it will have more sales than Db and all the other mangas ( except one piece ) so why are they agreeing to it ending ? unless they and kishi intend to pull a " bleach " on us it will end very soon

 

[[Cross]]

i want to ask, why are they agreeing to naruto ending if they are willing to stretch bleach that much ? naruto is a million seller with a huge fan base all around the world and if it continues it will have more sales than Db and all the other mangas ( except one piece ) so why are they agreeing to it ending ? unless they and kishi intend to pull a " bleach " on us it will end very soon

Well for one, Naruto has an actual structure. So an end can be foreseen, a final enemy visualized, and the end game is around the corner. Comparing Kishi with Kubo, it makes more sense that Kubo could kill off the big bad and continue the story, Kishi on the other hand seems to be committing with the story that he's trying to end (though this war seems to be stretched out quite a bit).

It's true that anything can happen, however Bleach's fall from grace is probably an indicator that they shouldn't try continuing after a supposed end. That in mind, they probably wouldn't want to keep it going.

 

[Jaymie]

Think about it like planes. Naruto is flying pretty high, but Kishi knows that it won't have gas forever, so he's slowly starting to land it gracefully. If Kishi does things correctly, Naruto will land right before it runs out of gas, and people will remember it as a great series that wasn't dragged out past its due date and had an excellent ending.

Kubo is flying Bleach with no intentions of stopping. We all know how that's going to end up. It's going to sputter (as it's doing now), and eventually crash.

One Piece is a freaking space shuttle, so let's not talk about that.

 

[meeedoooz]

so that's why the editors aren't forcing kishi to continue for at least another 4 years or so like they did with akira untill there is 1 or 2 mega hits to replace it ?

 

[xi0]

Theoretically, they could continue Naruto due to the vastness of the world and all the unseen things in it. I think it would still be successful even then, but to compare it with Bleach...Jaymie is pretty much right, Bleach has lacked any concrete story arc since Soul Society. As good as Hueco Mundo was at times, the premise was pretty much a copycat of Soul Society. I'm not as down on this new reinvention as some people are, as I'm still waiting to see where this is all going, but it's clear Kubo is flying by the seat of his pants, and he's been successful at doing so for many years now...but I think it might be catching up with him.

I always said the Bleach is a much better read if you read it by the volume, as the fights don't seem to drag on so much. That being said, I think Bleach would do much better in a monthly magazine because of this. Not saying it would be more successful, just saying it'd be more enjoyable to read that way, in my opinion.

Oh, and three cheers for Kanou returning

 

[Kaiten]

I still want to see if Kanou lives up to his reputation ^_^

The difference between the two is that the way Kishi is writing it, winning the war will resolve the overarching plot of the series. Love vs hate, peace vs. war, everything Naruto stands for will be upheld when the war is won. That has never stopped mangaka from coming back, look at Fist of the North Star and St. Seiya. But it does not look like he is planning to keep going for another twelve straight years after bringing the story to a logical end. A few failed follow ups could always change that. Kubo never wrote Aizen as the last boss, nor did he reveal everything fans would want to see. He never explained Isshin's back story, did not have every captain bankai (including Aizen).

 

[xi0]

Well, you could judge for yourself by reading Pretty Face and Mx0, the latter being a pretty solid series that was ended prematurely.

Let's be honest, I think Kishimoto wants to end Naruto, and it looks like it's headed there. It's not out of the realm of possibility that it could be continued past the final boss being defeated though, a lot of it depends on Sasuke.

 

[perroloco]

xi0 wrote:
I always said the Bleach is a much better read if you read it by the volume, as the fights don't seem to drag on so much. That being said, I think Bleach would do much better in a monthly magazine because of this. Not saying it would be more successful, just saying it'd be more enjoyable to read that way, in my opinion.

I actually thaught so too... Then I realized that Tite would probably stretch the chapter anyway so ultimately the content of a month would be less than 4 weekly installments, I am not talking of pages but of actual development, which is slow as hell even with weekly serialization.

The thing is that Tite needs to change how he does chapters if he really wants BLEACH to last other 10 years until his perfect ending, he really is pulling a Kurumada like I said, Kurumada too didn't want Saint Seiya to end where it did (Volume 28, Hades arc) no, he had at least planned Zeus arc (and a rumored Chronos arc, but.. I don't think he did..)
Which leads me to..

kaiten wrote:
That has never stopped mangaka from coming back, look at Fist of the North Star and St. Seiya.

I can't say about FoNS but Saint Seiya was cancelled back in its time, Kurumada wanted to do a Zeus arc so its not like it was stretched.. IMO BLEACH wasn't stretched neither, Kubo wants to continue it, we had seen certain hints of a following arc.. Sadly he is taking way too long..

xi0 wrote:

Let's be honest, I think Kishimoto wants to end Naruto, and it looks like it's headed there. It's not out of the realm of possibility that it could be continued past the final boss being defeated though, a lot of it depends on Sasuke.

I haven't read Naruto on a long time, but kinda know of the current events (which I wont get in details because of spoilers) but basically this looks like the final arc, yet I could see Kishimoto prolonging Naruto, really if we think about it Naruto is all about parallels, how Naruto is related to x character and x character is related to x character.. I.e. (Trying not to spoil people) Naruto being pupil of x which had other 3 pupils and which was one of the x Ninjas.. Those pupils.. etc.. Sasuke being pupil of x... Sakura being pupil of x.. They are all parallels.. And maybe if Kishimoto wants to continue this path, he could make Naruto and the characters grow, but the story as people have said is all about closing these threads of fate, so hopefully this is the last arc, it would make perfect sense to continue but with all the big revelations and especially the characters that have appeared in this arc it would make perfect sense to be the last arc.

 

[Zeromcd]

Hokenshitsu no Shinigami's final chapter will be published in the 2011 Summer Jump NEXT.

 

[Kubukurin]

I hope it will be longer and with a color page!