Well actual digi hunter x hunter is a deconstruction of shonen Jump because the magazine is called weekly shonen jump and hunter x hunter dosnt come out weekly.
It's not unique to anime either. If I had a dime for every time I browsed new books and found a crappy 'subversive' or 'dark' version of a classic fairy tale.... :/ Please stop making these. Your feminist grimdark take on Little Red Riding Hood is not a new or original idea.
hxh is good not because it is subversive, but it is subversive, every arc defy expectations first arc has the inverse tournment where the strongest fight only one time, meaning no increasing stakes second arc has the dansel in destress simply walk out, while the heroes are getting their powerups third arc they never get to the top of the arena, at least gon achieve to give the number back to hisoka, but doesn't defeat him in a "surprising" development mid battle fourth arc is the meeting between the heroes and the main villains, they never fight because they are too weak, the semi main character gets his vegeance, but it is useless greed island is the less subversive,they have a full trining arc, gon actually wins the game, get the prize and use it to get closer to his objective them we have chimera ant the most analyzed arc current arc is jojo battle royale
It's good when an anime is subversive but when it's trying to be subversive for no other reason than to be cool, that's crap. Same with grimdark writing.
@@tiagodarkpeasant That kind of subersivion is just called good story telling. In terms of a shounen it is just calling attention to the flaw story telling of the most mainstream shounen stories.
My stancd is simple: There are so many tropes that trying to "subvert" one makes you fall into another. Also, sticking to ia trope and subverting is not the point. The point is telling a compelling story.
Yes, I agree. Tropes are narrative archetypes that allow us to understand stories with ease. Subverting them is a narrative tool to tell compelling stories. In the end, tropes and subversion are just tools to tell stories ^_^
that is the thing, subversion is a tool, not the objective, you can be subversive and fail, if it leads to a worse story, like sao never fighting the fucking boss, just a maniac with hacks
i wouldn't really call it a normal shonen fight. saitama was more or less just taking the hits like they were nothing for most of the fight. most finale battles in anime have both characters pulling out all the stops, throwing down as many big and flashy powerful attacks at their disposal, neither one giving an inch as they struggle back and forth. saitama more or less just humors his opponent at the very end after he uses a "serious" move, if only so he wasn't entirely disappointed in the outcome of the fight when he realized how utterly and hopelessly powerless against saitama. even if the fight didn't end with one punch, it was still what, three punches? (not counting his consecutive punches which might as well have been overkill)
FeanixFlamage although you point is valid, what if saitama was actually being serious, and instead was bummed out at the end, thinking that the fight he just had was the best he was ever going to find. Just a thought. I'm not the most knowledgable and would not mind if you replied on this matter.
It's not about that. The point is that the show doesn't stay true to its core 'joke' and depicts an epic fight as it just wants to show cool fighting scenes as any other shounen. Saitama could've easily ended a fight after seeing that Boros could take his normal punch and Saitama doesn't do this just because he feels pity for Boros as he totally understands his situation as noone else and let him go all out just before he kills him, that's why Saitama uses 'serious punch' only when Boros makes his final move. A justified scene but that's not the point that is made here.
Hưởng Lê Văn Man. I wasn't patient enough and read ahead in the manga. After reading that part, that scene in episode 11 made so much sense. It was glorious.
"Gintoki has ended major dramatic arcs while screaming 'domestic violience' and hitting people over the head with the wooden sword" This just convinced me to start watching gintama
None of those things make Hunter x Hunter a deconstruction of the shonen genre, but these things do: Gon's unfailing optimism, a staple of the shonen protagonist, is the reason he can't accept Kite's death and insists he's alive even when it's clear to everyone else that he's gone. Killua's unyielding devotion to his friend, another staple of shonen manga, tears him apart and weighs on him so heavily that he breaks down under the expectations. It takes shonen tropes and examines them realistically, and it's not just the chimera ant arc that addresses those subversions: it's slowly built upon for the entire series. The violence and darkness aren't what makes it a deconstruction (or maybe not a full deconstruction, just.. deconstructive?) But that's definitely not the only thing that makes it great.
jillleigh99 Yeah the one thing I would use to label HxH as a deconstruction is Gon's character. The story presents him in a certain way early on and you're lead to believe he's just another happy-go-lucky Luffy or Goku kind of hero. Then as things go on you slowly discover that what defines him as a "classic" shonen protagonist are also the things that make him violently unstable and a danger to himself and his friends. The moment when a mass-murdering bomb maniac calls HIM crazy says it all, really
jillleigh99 ...I don't feel like you even hit the mark on what he was trying to accomplish with the video. He wasn't claiming that certain elements from HxH made it a deconstruction, rather that these elements don't make it subversive. Digi is saying the elements are only just good storytelling and nothing more.
Shadic6098 I feel as if the purpose of the video was to point out the elements that people often cite to argue that a show is a deconstruction,& showing that those points don't necessarily make a show subversive. With my comment I was trying to address some of the elements that I think do make it deconstructive & subversive, in a sense, because he didn't address them & because I'm always ready to sing the praises of hxh lol
If subvertion is the mainstream, doesn't that mean that, to actually subvert the tropes, you need to follow the suposed mainstream to default, in order to contrast with the actual mainstream of trying to subvert it?
so everything that isn't subversive _is_ subversive of the subversive. which means that in essence everything is subversive, - but if that's the case then we might as well say nothing is.
OK this video hit the nail on the head as to why it annoys me when people say hunter x hunter is good because it goes against the grain or whatever the fuck. DONT boil good narritives down soley to the fact that it goes against something, if it were that simple to create a story on the scale and quality of HxH then any dumbass with a pen and paper could make a story just as good. I never understood why people saying those things annoyed me so much until I watched this vid and now I'm almost more annoyed lol cause I can see more clearly how I'd argue they're almost objectively incorrect.
Really? Hunter x Hunter sure have those common anime tropes and storyline but I don't think someone could simply come up of how the story is structured and executed well like Togashi does. For example, the main four characters are not even always together in every arc and somehow Togashi manage to tell a story without feeling it out of place. If you read the manga further to the current arc, you will know what I mean. Not every mangaka do the story where the big main character like Gon completely out of the next arc without it being out of place but it manages to pull out naturally because Gon's journey to find his father ended. Many mangakas subverts expectations but done it poorly same for common or cliché storyline in anime, even though its repetitive as long as its done great its a good anime.
I'd ask you to do a video on how Fairy Tail fails as a Shounen action series, but that would mean that you'd have to watch Fairy Tail, and no one would have to suffer doing that.
As you were talking about shonen series being different, you should talk about World Trigger, another Shonen Jump series(and unfortunately an underrated one) that avoids most of the common cliches with the genre(letting the protagonist alone to save the world, use power ups, etc) Read it or watch it, but please talk about it man
+Digibro As you were talking about shonen series being different, you should talk about World Trigger, another Shonen Jump series(and unfortunately an underrated one) that avoids most of the common cliches with the genre(letting the protagonist alone to save the world, use power ups, etc) Read it or watch it, but please talk about it man
As you were talking about shonen series being different, you should talk about World Trigger, another Shonen Jump series(and unfortunately an underrated one) that avoids most of the common cliches with the genre(letting the protagonist alone to save the world, use power ups, etc) Read it or watch it, but please talk about it man
I think that having subversive elements in a story is not the same as building a whole series on a subversive foundation. One Punch Man is truly unique in the way that none of the dramatic tension hinges on whether Saitama will win or not. This alone changes the entire dynamic of the story, as it is no longer about the main character overcoming obstacles. But instead about meaningful interactions aside from doing battle, and existential problems a godlike human can provoke in people who are already very strong. Same goes with HunterXHunter. It subverses the convention that shounen protagonists are important people who affect important changes. Instead, it spends a ton of time fleshing out the antagonists, effectively making it an ensemble story, which is exceedingly rare in the shounen genre.
Subversion in HxH is to tell you card game mechanics with over 100 cards, then painfully in detail tell about abilities of some of them, use like 4 of them, then lately the mentioned cards render useless. I have never been trolled so much before
The HxH thing you did is not that subversive. One Piece, for example, was already playing with it in a shy way before, untill it became a strong point for characters like Hody Jones, Doflamingo, Señor Pink... And Jojo did that too before in Part 4.
11:28 "And all this time, *_I haven't even mentioned Jojo's Bizarre Adventure!_* Holy shit, do I even have to talk about it? Is there anything that it _hasn't done?_ Can anything else be said to 'play around with the genre in a big way' when part of the genre is this generation-spanning epic that's also rife with obscene violence, scatological humor, and plotting that's nothing but a maze of subversion?" tfw digi didn't talk about Jojo because _he didn't need to_
@Shaddy - He's not just talking about Shounen Jump though.. He specifically mentioned "Shounen Tropes", which includes other popular Non-Jump Shounens like Fairy Tail, Detective Conan, FullMetal Alchemist, etc.
Riley Jones - Actually FMA was/is very relevant when discussing the execution of shounen tropes. And anybody with credible knowledge on the genre should always consider it, in regards to the genre. Also, i specifically pointed out "*A bit* of credibility"- implied as little to none.
The great thing I've found about One Punch Man is not that it's subversive or nothing about its meta-jokes about different manga genres, rather I feel that the great point One Punch Man tries to make is the dedramatization of fiction. Everyone in One Punch Man is a typical shonen character and the story arcs are typical shonen story arcs, but Saitama it's introduced in the world of One Punch Man to make fun of the drama fiction normally carries. That's what it's Saitama, OPM's narrative makes Saitama the only real person in a world filled by characters. Aside from his powers. By introducing the blunt, normal, unintersting real life in a fictional world we see how stupid and intense and dramatic everything is in our fictions. That's why Saitama has all this dialogue about how strange/intense/over the top everyone is acting, to depict that gap between reality and fiction. He's doing nothing new, for sure, this narrative that tries to talk about fiction through the introduction of reality in a fictional world was made centuries ago in Don Quijote de la Mancha, for example. But I feel that OPM doesn't want to particularly make fun of shonen rather talk about the difference between real life and fiction and how they interact between each other. I think OPM uses shonen because it's the most "established" structure in the culture of the author and thus it's easier for the author to make his point. Good video btw! Sorry for the long text
I agree with your point and you actually made me think about OPM in a new light a bit, but interestingly enough, I didn't like OPM BECAUSE of it's de-dramatization. Seeing drama and emotions are what get us attached to characters, but Saitama's non-dramatic personality means we'll never see him "really" struggle with anything and that's what (IMO) made OPM forgettable.
Same here. I struggled with OPM. I struggled with wanting to like it, hearing from everyone it was so good, and then just.. not being able to. There's this pervasive atmosphere of nihilism and flatness from the non-dramatic tone it tries to strike as a blow against 'fiction drama', the way mass destruction happens seemingly at random and for no reason, the powerlessness of almost everyone in this world, that all combines perhaps in ways the author didn't quite intend. The show communicated very clearly that Saitama mattered, and literally that's it, so I hope you don't care about anyone else. Even Genos is never going to win or succeed, so while he's likable, why bother caring about him? All the other good guys are worse for the same reason; either they're jerks, or while they may be likable, they're all complete jobbers. Either I'm not supposed to take them seriously and they're jokes, in which case why am I getting multiple whole episodes of their courageous (yet entirely futile) struggle, and if I am supposed to take them seriously, why don't they matter narratively and all that? Same with villains. If they're all one-note 'I'm going to kill humans literally just because' then why is so much time and effort spent on them, and if they're not, why don't most of them have any depth? The villains in a parody superhero show are really a chance, and so far in season one, it's just, nothing.
Simple means of differentiating meaning v. function. Consider a $20 bill: -function (purpose/role): serves as a medium for exchange transaction -meaning (in context of question; value/worth/significance): the numerical buying power associated with the value 20.00 we attribute to it
+unsigned int Without getting into a debate of semantics, in retrospect, the inclusion of purpose was in poor taste in elucidating my point as I haphazardly included it as being synonymous despite the fact that purpose has intention behind it whereas a function can be an inherent property. In the money example, until we attribute value to it, it cannot serve it's intended functionality; its functionality is predicated on its value. Ultimately, this is very much an argument of whether or not existence precedes essence. The main point I’m trying to elucidate, as +IDKMJTOANIHITII noted, is that despite having a function that doesn’t necessitate any notion of value without us being the ones to ascribe value to it. Despite the role of fundamental particles, energy, forces, and the like, if one doesn’t attribute value to the constructs brought about by the amalgamation of them then it would follow that they have no relative value to that individual. Even iff these fundamental forces were objective depictions of reality, that wouldn’t constitute any reason for their being aside from the mere fact that “they are what they are.”
It's called a counterculture, it's a well documented reaction to the over-use of specific themes or styles in usually artistic fields. Read up on it sometime because it's extremely well explored and theres hundreds of cases of it throughout history. Once a saturation reaches a certain point only two things can happen, the new generation can embrace it and take a step further with it, or they can shun it, and in that case the media that they create will be a counter culture, and it'll usually be as drastically a fuck you to the media that can before it as they can possibly manage. This is the start of that counter culture, artists/writers seeing "well hey im sick as shit as this, I wonder if the market is too"
Once the counterculture is embraced, it becomes mainstream. After that, we just do it again and again, possibly taking inspiration from previous eras to create the "new" counterculture. It's pretty much the history of art, where the "new" culture is just a reaction to the previous one.
While I want to agree with you, I think humbly of how I am only 27. Started anime at age 3 or 4, and it could barely walk compared to the speed at which it's dosed out these days, all technology and such considered. So perhaps it has just started after all, but we're in a time where the attention span left over is diluted and diminishing with all that keeps flying to the screens. In other words, our time to care gets smaller and smaller as inflation of crap rises lol...but objective time wise, perhaps we could still consider this trend "new"?
"I don't like typical shonen" >only shonen they think they've watched is DBZ English dub >>also has watched/read other shonens without knowing or denying they're reading shonen A true cultured anime fan. Good video btw Digi.
I see what you're getting at but there is such a thing as "typical shounen". Sure there's outliers like Death Note, but they're just exceptions that prove the rule. Most are like inferior versions of Yu Yu Hakusho, DBZ and My Hero Academia.
But even in the Boros fight, it's revealed at the end that Saitama could have just taken him out with one punch by hitting him a little harder. He was just humoring the guy for the whole fight. Also, I think you brought this up yourself but OPM is more than just the One Punch gag. It's the overblown backstories, the heroes/villains/monsters who are simultaneously cool and completely mundane, having nowhere to go after you've reached all the potential you will ever have, and the adult lifestyle Saitama has. I think saying a series isn't subversive because it has the elements of the series it's subverting doesn't make sense. Unless I'm mistaken, you need those elements in order to subvert them. In OPM, it just happens to take those elements and bounce them off of Saitama being a really bored grown up, who values sale days, paying bills, noise complaints, and broken ceilings over dramatic entrances and drawn out fights.
I think his point is that any good Shounen series is subversive in it's own right, even the ones we think are setting the standard, like DBZ. Thus, OPM - or any other anime - being subversive, is nothing new.
TheRainSnake pretty sure in one punch man he fought boros because Saitama know what it feels like to be so bored and itching for a fight. Even in the end Saitama said it was tough to beat boros just so he could feel content for fighting Saitama. Saitama's compassion is something really amazing bout him
And Boros is mad at him for holding back, because he has the same dilemma as saitama, he deastroyed dozens of enemies for a worthy enemy, and saitama holds back. Hunter x hunter is smart and creative. that is why it is good. That and the author is a troll who loves keeping the audience on its toes, to subvert the expetations while still making logical sense. And he likes traps like alluka who has no specified gender.
No he never had the ability to kill Boros. Boros was only going to die after he used up his energy to stop regening. Boros never stood a chance but saitama didn't have an out until Boros used all his energy for a single attack
You only get the appreciation of subversion when there's too many by the numbers shows flooding the market, which there is a lot of. You ma be able to draw parallels between a subversive show and a less self aware show, but it's really more about how it's presented than simply what is presented. What's interesting about Saitama isn't just that he's more powerful than anyone else and can stomp them with ease, which is how the gag is played. It's how it's effected his drive as the hero he set out to become. When it starts, he's frustrated with his power. He feels he's lost the very thing that he was living for. The drive to become the best, which is the raison d'être of most Shonen protagonists. They all keep moving forward because they want to be the most powerful, the most respected the most whatever in their particular universes. And they all come up against insurmountable odds to test their resolve. That all happened to Saitama before the show starts. Now he's reached the top and that's what's bothering him, (oh shoobedy do). The show doesn't dissolve into the standard shonen fair of training harder than ever before and pulling out all of the stops to surpass a looming threat. It becomes about how he can come to terms with being insurmountable and where his place in the world is. He goes from being a 'hero for fun' to simply being a 'hero'. He's no longer doing it for his own desires or to prove himself, he's doing it because no one else can. That's much more in-line with the complex motivations found in some Sienen. He routinely sacrifices his own reputation and desire to be credited to make sure that the heroes out there that are still on the journey he completed don't get disheartened or have the fickle public turn on them. That's what the shows about, one characters acceptance of a life without the thrills he initially desired and the pity he takes on the others who haven't realised that their goal is hollow. That's he reason the Boros fight goes on for so long. Aside from it being a beautiful piece of animation that they obviously wanted to spend some time on. It's because Saitama see's himself in Boros. And gives him the fight he wishes he could have. That's why there's so many parallels to Saitamas dreamt moleman fight, like the heart beat representing the rekindling of passion.
Good video! The Dragonball to Hunter x Hunter comparisons are undermined by how every good character in Dragonball either gets resurrected after every arc, or end up in a sort of afterlife where they are clearly still "alive" in a sense and can come back to Earth as long as they get permission. Ponzu getting shot in the face in Hunter x Hunter and Yamcha getting stabbed through the chest just doesn't carry the same impact because Yamcha is totally fine just one or two chapters later. One Piece completely limits its deaths to flashbacks and off-screen nameless marines... Except for poor Mr. 10. I completely agree that One Punch Man and Hunter X Hunter are good shonens, not just subversions. But they aren't the same as all the others either. One Punch Man's strong point is how Saitama is depressed that every fight is a curb stomp, and that's not the same as other characters beating mooks in one punch to show how much stronger they've become. I'd say what makes Hunter X Hunter stand out is that it establishes the rules for their abilities so thoroughly, and has all the makings of a regular action shonen, but cares so much more about trickery. Gon has defeated what, a single "boss" of the enemies? And even then it was through someone else's plan, with tricks outside his own abilities, and a literal trap. But because of Gon's personality, you still got an actual fight before the trap ended it instantly. At another point, a huge villain and a good guy has a massive fight, which the villain wins, but then succumbs to poisoning from a weapon completely outside of any abilities. It's a show that gives you enough of what you expect from the genre, but then upends it afterwards. It is also a subversion, not just a good shonen, and the other shonens having some humor on behalf of themselves or being comedy shows don't diminish that.
Digi interpreted the Boros fight all wrong. It's not that Saitama does defeat everyone with one punch, it's that he can defeat anyone with one punch. And he ignored/missed the end which reveals that Saitama did not fight anywhere near his full potential (though that much was obvious during the fight), and shows the emotions he has after not finding a worthy opponent once again even though Boros was by far the most promising candidate. When the series DOESN'T parody these tropes in this way and plays these tropes straight, such as in the current arc, it does so to let us better examine the personal issues of the characters involved (the heroes, in essence, and their raison d'etre ) and tests the ideals of heroism, among other recurring themes that pop up throughout the story. The Garou arc is a perfect example of this, but people on't understand until they either read the webcomic, wait until Murata catches up, or wait for season 2
As much as I usually agree with your points this argument was rather poorly put together with what seemed to be a bad understanding of the scenes in both HxH and OPM.
...MEH. Like, Meh to this entire argument, honestly. Especially the One Punch Man breakdown. The concept that the show remains a stereotypical action shonen series based on the end of the anime is broken, for a couple reasons. First, that the main joke of the show is the one punch aspect doesn't work, because routinely the humour comes from Saitama living out the drudgery and norm of his lifestyle, and the subversion of expectation that comes from that. He's the greatest hero ever, but lives in a tiny apartment and eats food on sale. He could destroy anyone in one serious punch, but he's still treated by his peers as a lackey because no one can BELIEVE he did that. But, if we want to focus on the action itself... Overdog posing as underdog is nothing new at this point, but it's *never* applied to the main hero in such a staggering way that even built-up bosses are threats to the main character before their training arc or powerup or fusion dance or what have you. Boros is never a challenge to Saitama, and at no point do we actually believe that. The "...Okay." moment in of itself is such a well known gag because we can't take it seriously when Boros believes he's powering up. And there in lies the difference. When Goku surprisingly wipes the floor with Nappa, or the Ginyu Force, or the Piccolo minion of the week, we're surprised by it. We're cheering because we'd been trained to take that enemy seriously and believe they'd be a threat, even to Goku. And even if we know he's going to crush them because there's someone higher up, we still believe he's going to have problems against the final bosses. Or that there'll be a cost. Or even a loss, in some bleaker shows. _That's Shonen, a story of growth for the protagonist(s)._ Saitama *never* has this concept applied to him. We *never* believe he's up against an actual threat. At most, we believe he's actually having fun with a fight, like we had shown to us early on with the Subterranean dream in episode 1. If you still believe the 'point' of One-Punch Man not killing an opponent in one punch is broken with Boros, even that argument should be fractured in your mind the second Boros states outright Saitama was holding back, dramatically so. That should be a solidifying moment that even if an opponent appears to survive a hit, that's just Saitama holding back to keep things semi-interesting. Forever making sure that we never feel threat for him ever again, and can focus instead on the comedy or tragedy of it. Which, again, is the focus. We're not looking at Saitama and finding him funny or interesting because we see him growing in any way. We're finding him funny because he's still suffering but from completely different problems than what we'd expect, and having just enough of a backstory and motivation to relate to. (This, incidentally, is why Sakamoto is a complete failure of a comedy to me. Because perfection can't be a joke if we have *nothing* human to connect to.) It's like watching a max-level player in a game who bought or cheated his account forced to sit through and complete every quest starting from level 1. Including the unskippable tutorial. Killing 100 rats is a grind normally, but this guy isn't even getting anything out of it. That boss all of his peers think is a big challenge and threat? He one-shots with a single auto-attack. And the quest-giver STILL treats him like the same lowly peon. *That* is different. So by the time he hits a level that the bosses AREN'T getting one-shot by a single auto-attack, do we believe he's now challenged? ...No. He's yet to put on his gear, cast any spells/abilities, or use any of this in concert. And when that uber-boss is gone in another few auto-attacks anyway, he's right back to killing rats. And we laugh at that suffering. I honestly challenge you to give me an example of a show that accomplishes that feeling, of a max level person in a level 1 world, and still having no challenge. Hilariously, not even "Trapped in an MMO" anime have an example of that. Sword Art Online pretends the character is getting stronger and has these challenges. Log Horizon has every character at max level, not just the main hero. Overlord has him max level and still getting challenged just because of his own innate weaknesses (See: Shaltear and most everyone in the manga.) And so on and so forth.
JacksonJin overall same, but Sakamoto was less so about his perfection but more so about the absurdity of his perfection. Just wanted to point it out. Essentially Sakamoto is funny because the way he does absurd things only for everyone to rationale it incomprehensibly
The differnce isn't in the micro. Like how long it takes for the enemies to be killed it's in the macro in that the characters goals are completly differnt. Most shounen finds glory in becoming stronger and protecting things. But opm the heroe is already at the limit of his strength and all he finds is loneliness and boredom. The hero understands boros desire for a good fight because boros is to strong to find one so the hero supresses his strength to give boros a good fight before finishing him off. Then in most shounens the goal of the story is essentially a power fantasy then in HxH it doesn't seem to be trying to fill a power fantasy so much as there are storyies and plots happening and the heroes themselves are a small part of the world or even the main events of the show and they grow stronger amidst it. Where everyone has there own goals and reasons which seem perfectly relateable and practical even most the villians. Because of this some of the supposed villians team with the main characters and some of the villians in the earlier episodes fight eachother later on like Hisoka and Chrollo do in the manga later on. In most shounens the villians are there only for the heroes to overcome and fill a power fantasy and in HxH the heroes seem to be actual people themselves and the MC and the things he does seem to be a much smaller part of the story itself. The main topic of the video is that it's not subversion its just good story telling but most anime has such little story telling or even attempt to do anything thats not near copyrighted from other stories that any story that has good story telling is almost guarenteed to have at least several aspects of subversion in them otherwise it would be exactly the same as say fairytale. Most of these stories have a differnce in goals or a differnce in point of view. Where say if most animes focused on the heroes becoming stronger another might focus on the pain of becoming stronger or the sacrafices to become stronger or on someone who is already strong but is haunted by past things he's done.
unassumption no, but i would say they have same concept, The first 15-20 were Ken is just Saving People from Warlords who talk shit and Then Ken Ends them anti-climactic with 100+ Fist, not until maybe 25 as remember when story gets super serious, Also unlike OPM, Fist was Meant To be taken Serious from start
I think what really made me like the manga is its absolutely autistic passion for world building, even the tea leaf that made the tea that the characters are drinking come from a tree with a specific way of harvesting its leaf in its own specific ecosystem oh and the animals there look like it come from Australia serial killer cousin.
Just Some Guy with a Mustache Now that you've mentioned it... I've always wanted to see an idealistic shonen protagonist that wants to become a hero encounter so much horrible and disfiguring shit to where by the end of the series, the idealism of said protagonist is gone and he even becomes suicidal due to the actions he made in order for his dream to become a hero come true. I want a character that starts out mischievious, playful and idealistic. But at the end, he's more mature, reserved, and shy; something along the lines of Jaden Yuki's character development from YGO GX. The only trait that stays constant about the protagonist is his 'determinator' nature, and even then that aspect of him goes from endearing to downright disturbing as the series progresses.
Its fun to see people criticize shows like Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach and One Piece for being standard and base line, without realizing that back in their day they were the revolutionary series for the genre, just like One Punch Man, Mob Psycho and I guess Hunter X Hunter is now.
Yeah, evolutionary is an exaggeration, but they all made a pretty big impact. Heck re-reading Naruto shocked me because I forgot how good it used to be.
You do realize that the Hunter x Hunter manga started running before Bleach and Naruto proper and just a bit later than OP, right? Even if we're talking anime only, the HxH and OP adaptations started at the exact same time too.
(Apologies for the long comment, but Hunter x Hunter is too good for me to not talk about it extensively, so bear with me). Hunter x Hunter is an amazing series not because it is a deconstruction of the shonen genre (which it isn't), but because it is a well-written celebration of the shonen genre. You can play around with the tropes of a genre and still be a part of that genre, and Hunter x Hunter, at its core, is a shonen action series - not an anti-shonen. One of the most common examples of this supposed "subversion" of expectations that I always see used is the Chimera Ant arc. In the Chimera Ant arc *(SPOILERS, of course - go watch Hunter x Hunter if you haven't already, and then come back),* a seemingly important character is killed off, there is an apparent tone shift, and the concept of a heroic power-up/transformation is flipped on its head. In regards to the first two, like you said in the video, these aren't examples of subverting Shonen tropes, but rather they are perhaps subversions of the reader's/viewer's expectations, and most good stories must possess the ability to do that. Personally, I was shocked when Kite died, but this isn't the first time that a seemingly important character has died in a Shonen story. Jiraiya's death during the Pain arc in Naruto or Krillin's death in the beginning of the Piccolo Daimo arc are both pre-existing examples of this concept. In fact, the entire Piccolo Daimo arc is similar to the Chimera Ant arc in that the tone of the show shifts, a major character dies to emphasize the sheer power of the foes that our heroes are confronted with, and our protagonist is completely overcome with rage. Dragon Ball may not have gotten to that extreme power-up transformation stage like it later would with the Super Saiyan, but it does use the idea of vengeance/redemption to progress the development of the protagonist much like the Chimera Ant arc does with Gon. The Chimera Ant arc may be incredible in how it presents itself, and it is strengthened more so by how innocent the first few episodes of the show seemed to be, but I think it's safe to say that almost if not every shonen action series does this. When you strip away the artistic flair of the Chimera Ant arc and boil it down to its basic elements, what you are left with is an action-oriented, "save the world" tale with elements of redemption and vengeance thrown into the mix. Even Gon's "reverse Super Saiyan" transformation at the end of the arc has been done before. In Naruto, the whole idea of the Nine-Tailed Fox transformation and its many variations is that Naruto's rage is overwhelming him and turning him into an uncontrollable monster. Heck, Dragon Ball even manages to pull a "reverse Super Saiyan" transformation at the peak of the Cell arc when Gohan ascends to a Super Saiyan 2. His emotions and his newfound power overwhelm him much like they do with Naruto and Gon. What makes Gon's transformation stand out above these other characters, however, is that the buildup to this transformation is so masterfully handled. In the case of Naruto, we know that he is a kind and playfully mischievous boy at heart, but he isn't exactly innocent in the way that Gon is portrayed at the start of Hunter x Hunter. Gohan shares this sense of innocence, but he has several moments where his rage hints at his hidden potential for destruction, and while Hunter x Hunter definitely hints at Gon's hidden power, there is never a moment before the Chimera Ant arc where Gon completely loses his mind. He displays his vast wealth of hidden strength on several occasions, but during these moments, he is always in control of himself and his powers. When Gon finally reaches Pitou, however, he has far surpassed his breaking point. We have had plenty of time to empathize with Gon up to this point, but in the case of Gohan and Naruto, we can't really sympathize with their opponents because, at this point, we only know of them as being treacherous villains. Sure, Pain eventually turns a new leaf, but we as an audience are only shown this after Naruto has already overcome his inner demons. In the case of Hunter x Hunter, we have come to hate Pitou throughout the massive buildup to the final battle, but when Pitou suddenly begins acting in a way that we can sympathize with, we start doubting whether Gon's convictions are entirely justifiable in the grand scheme of things, and this reflects in the way that Gon is framed during these final moments. He doesn't know how to react to these new developments, and neither do we, which is why his transformation hits all the more powerfully when we don't know who we should be siding with. To compare it to the Yorknew arc, Gon and Killua didn't want Kurapika to have to kill anyone, so when Gon inevitably kills Pitou in such a brutal manner, it seems like a complete betrayal to his own character. None of this depth can be expressed by the idea that "Hunter x Hunter is a deconstruction." From this, I want to touch on the tournament at the end of the Hunter Exam arc. This tournament is not a subversion of the shonen tournament arc as a whole, but it is, instead, a subversion of the typical tournament in general. A standard tournament is a single-elimination series of matches where the winner advances and the loser is eliminated, but in the Hunter Exam, the loser advances and the winner earns their Hunter License. This idea may be interesting in its own right, but the way that this concept is integrated into the narrative is what makes it work. Anyone could use this "anti-tournament" concept, but that doesn't inherently make the use of it good or interesting. What makes this concept so effective is that Togashi uses it to give Character B a fighting chance against a Character A who otherwise would have mopped the floor with Character B. Physical strength does not define a fight in this tournament: mental strength does, and Togashi executes that idea brilliantly through Gon's fight against Hanzo. I could talk for weeks about Hunter x Hunter, but I'm not here to write a novel about it. Hopefully this gets my point across, lol. (P.S. That cat is adorable, Digi, although I doubt that you made it this far in the comment if you've even seen it at all.)
Add newlines and create a new paragraph whenever you enter a different object to discuss. By doing that you make it so that people actually decide to read your stuff.
xDarkomantis Just make the video already. Jeez. You clearly already have a script. Just voice it, put appropriate background footage, and you've got a bangin' video.
I think what makes Gon's transformation so different and compelling is that he is aware and accepting of it. He goes from an innocent child to a point where he more or less straight up tells a guy that right and wrong are irrelevent since he's stronger and therefore decides the rules.
HxH is really "subversive" to the genre in that even though HxH focuses on battle, battle is never presented as the best solution of the central conflicts of the story. It is particularly true of the Yorknew City arc (Kurapika's arc), where battle was left hanging in the air with a kind of temporary cease fire treaty and no party involved has achieved their main goals. The world after the battle is not decisively better nor is it worse than before. In HxH we more often see characters are trying to avoid battles rather than to start one. It is not just because HxH is a more "realistic" series but more importantly the philosophical core of HxH is the futility and inevitability of battle. Thematically HxH departs from shounen genre to the extent it stresses the futility of battle; yet narratively it's pulled back to the genre's fundamentals to the extent it plays out the theme of futility within a story structure of conflicts which inevitably evolves into battles.
I feel like this video picked an absolute strawman to argue whether HxH is an example of subversion of tropes. The reason HxH is considered a subversion of tropes/deconstruction of shounen is not because it's dark. What makes it a subversion is that it handles common tropes of the shounen genre in a way that goes completely against how they're typically used. Gon transforming to fight Pitou is not a moment of triumph, as compared to Goku turning into a Super Saiyan, but rather a moment of exceptional weakness for the character. The tournament being interrupted is not a subversion of the tournament arc trope, but rather the fact that the tournament itself had nothing to do with characters being stronger than one another and was structurally different to any other tournament arc. Major story arc villains are presented as obstacles to be overcome in dramatic battles only for these to almost never occur (Chrollo is captured and his nen is sealed without him doing anything, and Meruem is defeated by an atomic bomb). These are subversions of the trope of major villains being defeated in climactic battles with the hero. Have we ever seen a One Piece story arc villain being defeated in any way besides a punch from Luffy? This is where 'subversion' comes from.
goku's super saiyan transformation wasn't a triumph either, goku changes into a completely different person, enjoying the suffering of his oponent and telling his own son he is going to kill him if he doesn't leave to get revenge on frezzer, lets not forget goku doesn't get a happy ending at the end of that arc, namek explodes and goku aparently dies being a tragic ending where goku lose himself in hatred. if your going to tell me "oh well that totally doesn't matter because goku escapes" then i can say that momment doesn't matter because gon is heal up by a deus ex machina in the next arc. Gon transformation is NOT the anti-supersaiyan momment, on the contrary, is the closest recreation to what happened to goku.
@@slifer875 I could be wrong since I've never seen DBZ, but was that too out of character? Wasn't he always brutal, and I know at least one of those characters were an awful husband and father. So maybe the contrast is that Gon is so bright eyed and goes onto hurt the person he loves most (Killua) and completely lose himself, to compare to Goku who as far as I know, was always brutal and looking to pummel someone. Also, it doesnt matter that Alluka brings Gon back, because the subversion is not that they'd kill the character off, but that he had the ability to be so cruel and mutilate his enemy's body even after their death when we had seen him be so innocent before. (That doesn't mean the progression wasn't natural or even lightly foreshadowed). Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is just my thoughts on the situation
@@Fillardmillmore don't believe the memes, goku wasn't a terrible father, quite the opposite he loves his family. He is a martial artist but he doesn't want to kill his oponents and doesn't take pleasure on inflicting pain or humiliating someone, goku went a head and broke frieza both physically and mentally out of pure anger, the english dub censors and changes many things in the dialogue, in the japanese version he wants frieza to live only to suffer in shame for the rest of his sad existence. The only other time goku got that angry was when a picoloo minion murdered krillin and goku went on a shorth rampage...
Thn again, there's no point in just showing that these things can happen in other shows. its the sum of it's parts that makes an anime like hunterxhunter what it is. and the WAY it does said things. i don't think there's anyone out there saying HxH is only good because it's subversive. but i do think most people appreciate the show a lot because it's CONSTANTLY doing such subversive things. and that's something that not many others are doing. that's why it grabbed the attention of so many people.
I actually like HxH not just because its subversive but it does surbversion in a logical way. It doesn't feel out of place because its fits to the characters decisions and actions. Many shows tried this but it feel force because it doesn't fit the story and character decisions and actions.
I appreciated One Punch man because, although I haven't seen to many shonen anime or read much manga on it, the show admits that Saitama will win right from the get-go. It doesn't needlessly ask the question of "Oh, will our hero be able to save the day?!?" because the answer to that is pretty much always yes. You do have a good point though, that it's not all that different. Loved your perspective on that
It’s the same objections that horror movie fans have when people call Hereditary or Babadook “subversive and thoughtful” horror. It implies that the genre itself is inherently low brow and cannot contain thoughtful storytelling.
You analyze OPM based on it's fights when it's less about the fights and more about Saitama's struggle with being broke, bald, overshadowed, and not receiving the recognition he deserves. So yes, OPM does fall into SOME standard shounen tropes if you only look at the fights. We already know how all the fights are going to end. That's why the appeal of the show is deeper than that. Judging OPM on it's fights is like judging Madoka Magica on the girl's costumes and saying it's a standard magical girl anime. Sure, that's one of the major reasons it's classified into that genre, but you would be overlooking everything that makes the show different.
The interestin thing is saitama longs for a good fight, because he loves the excitement, but is doomed to never have is and because of that he is bored constantly.
To add to what you said, the fights are just visuals and the different mechanics/techniques are not explained explicitly and it can be whatever the author comes up with. If you watch OPM to seriously debate about character fighting ability, then you dont get the idea of anime at all 😂😂
I feel like a lot of people take for granted how old and influential Dragon Ball is. I wasn't alive for most of it's manga run, but I've seen people who were talk about how it was pretty subversive for its time and how Toriyama likes subverting expectations. Nowadays, Dragon Ball and its tropes are so ingrained in culture and have been copied so many times, that people just don't think about that. It's become the standard.
You should of listed Fist Of The North Star which is a king of Shonen Jump the main character's fighting style allowed him to easily make people explode, not to mention other characters being able to do things like slice people with their bare hands to the point they can dice them like vegetables or slice the flesh so deep they think they're freezing due to their raw nerves being exposed.
Well to subvert something, you have to specifically make your audience believe you're doing something, but then not. If a show was trying to subvert the idea of getting a new power up, just never having your character learn anything new isn't subversion. You have to have your character be given something that at first sounds like a power up/new move... But it turns out to have been fake or the opposite.
Okay, so I wanna be clear that I personally think someone taking what is considered cliche and wrote and doing it well enough to stand above the reast is just as, if not more commendable then taking a story in a new and unexpected direction. However, implying that the tone of two shows can be well represented by simply showing parallels in the literal characters and events isn't really a fair argument. Stories kill of hundreds if not thousands of people consistently, it's kind of a thing escalation in media does habitually. Entire worlds get destroyed as an afterthought once fights get too big. However how said destruction is portrayed, and how seriously the media takes said action is what sets the tone. To give a grossly exaggerated example to demonstrate my point, MC is fighting an unstoppably evil unquestionably bad guy. MC chases bad guy into castle defended by bad guys knights and fights his way to the throne room, where he finally corners the bad guy and ends his tyranny. Take situation two, as MC rushes after bad guy towards the castle, we get flashes of an innocent young girl playing with her mother in the castle yard, hugging her dad knight. We see the alarms go out about the approaching MC and the lil girl hides in a barrel. Same fight ensues, but this time the dad knight is among the soldiers, MC kills him as easily as the rest, and we get a scene of his head rolling dawn a stairwell and his lifeless eyes starring into space, as we flash to the daughter so is quickly crying and telling herself that her big strong dad will protect them. What the MC did in both cases was the same, his actions no different. Knights commonly had families and people who relied on them. and obviously when they die they leave those people behind. My example though likely flawed and low quality doesn't come anywhere close to world destruction, but they could both be easily portrayed as 'the main character wipes out an entire castle of guards in his quest to kill bad guy' Personally, I think the largest difference is when a story is aware that it's depicting tragedy. and I think media being aware of what it's actually portraying is what people want, and most people default to considering deconstructions to be the only way to get that. A perspective I disagree with personally. but that's a comment for a future inordinately length comment, I'm already only tangentially related.
Underrated comment. In some other anime planets are being destroyed and wiped out in seconds but in attack on Titan the rumbling which is basically almost the end of the world is causing fights between fans whether it was the right thing to do or not and you can really understand both sides
This is why I like GIntama, they just make small stories of very old tales, even using historical references to a certain extent. It's genre is unheard of in the anime industry but in every aspect it repeats the most classic tropes, perfecting their pace, enhancing their messages, to draw out the essences of fiction. Remember Gomene, Jerry?
I don't know if I want to watch the entire anime to see that part, since if you didn't watch one piece back when it had few episodes it might get hard to get into. But that depends if the show still gets your attention for that long
I think the 'difference' in these anime/manga are more because of something else. Character relatability. As someone who has tried to look into xianxia at some point in time, I was blown away, absolutely blown away, by the stereotype of the 'evil character'. It was almost always someone who was jealous or thought himself to be high and mighty, to then be crushed or humiliated. A hurdle for the protagonist to overcome and nothing more. Think back to the difference between goku in db and goku in dbz. In db he was this little naive kid that wanted to experience the world. It was fun because you could relate to his naive side, his childish side and have his strength play off this childish side. In dbz he was a musclebrain that punched things and become more powerful. If only he died when he should have and let gohan take over, having a coming of age thing without his father to look after him. That would have been a much more interesting show to watch. I think people are too focused on the tropes. Tropes are ideas that work. Its why they turned into tropes. A shonen story will not suddenly become a slice of life. The fighting will still happen, the progression of the character's strength will still happen. If you can create a new 'trope', a new template to work from, great! But I think the characters should be the main focus
The feeling I get from others saying an anime is "subversive" is that they have incredibly low expectations of anime. For all that they like anime, the majority of anime is not good, and when asked, they (more like, my friend) will say that anime is trash. That I should celebrate X or Y for being "subversive and that's why it's good" when it's just normal, good characterization.
Thanks for saying this! I also have a great love for shounen and recently saw a video where someone said HxH was subversive, and it ticked me off the same way. HxH is very of its genre, it just excels at being of its genre. It certainly pushes boundaries, but at its core the point is not that it is a deconstruction. OPM I would still consider a deconstruction because it gets into the psychology of someone who fights are too easy for, but writing that I realize there was already some of that boredom with Goku. Wow, DBZ really did more and had more thought than I realized.
One little nitpick though about the part with Boros. It's not that Saitama does defeat everyone with one punch, it's that he can defeat anyone with one punch. And you ignored/missed the end which reveals that Saitama did not fight anywhere near his full potential (though that much was obvious during the fight), and shows the emotions he has after not finding a worthy opponent once again even though Boros was by far the most promising candidate.
You fail to mention that one of the common tropes in Shonen Anime is the Power-Up Trope, in which a character gains a transformation or a new power that would allow the character to defeat the opponent. In Dragon Ball, this is exemplified with the Super Saiyan form. One Punch Man subverts this trope by making Saitama the most powerful character ever, but the fact that he is that powerful and is seeking a real challenge to make him unleash his full power, opts him to fight his opponents at the minimum level. Saitama's battle with Boros, and later with Garou in the manga/webscomic, indicates that Saitama was fighting most of his opponents at the minimum level of power, only opting to raise it when he meets opponents that show to have more potential. Going back again to Dragon Ball for comparison, Goku defeating most of the minor villains was due mainly to his incredible strength, but by no means did he fight them at full power and is reserved mainly for the major villains. And even then, there would be some points it was not enough, so Goku needed either a new technique, or a new way to increase his strength via training or whatnot to finally gain the advantage. So the comparison here is that Goku gets stronger through training, whereas Saitama has reached his maximum power (if there even is one), and is intentionally nerfing himself for the sake of a more challenging fight. When you look at it, One Punch Man's subversions are from series like Dragon Ball and similar, but not other Shonen Anime like Death Note and even that of Rurouni Kenshin.
Powerups are not as common as you'd think. In One Piece the characters had to train for two years off screen and still did not gain much but some power level boost. (not counting Luffy's Gears). In Fullmetal Alchemist, any "powerup" is really just the characters learning a hidden secret about alchemy and exploiting that new found knowledge. Also you still misunderstood what Subversion means. Saitama is no different from Luffy or Goku, One Punch Man just makes a joke out of it while the other two series has the super character distracted by something else.... One punch man does that too actually.
Saint Seiya, Heavenly Sphere Shurato, Demon Prince Zenki, Sakigake! Otokojuku, Ninku, Hell Teacher Nube, & Flame of Recca are among the many Shonen anime that follows the Power-Up Trope. Other Shonen titles like Hikaru no Go and Rurouni Kenshin do not use those tropes for the simple reason that it does not apply to the theme and style of anime they are. These are the types of Shonen anime in which One Punch Man subverts, or parody, if you will.
***** I'm not surprised, considering many Anime fans today only know the usual series like One Piece and Naruto, but never heard of others that came before and during, such as Flame of Recca. Others like Samurai Troopers (Ronin Warriors) tend to be popular only during their time, but is often left unknown by today's fans except those who have seen it when it was still new.
No, actual academics just note if it exists in a show or not and move on. The only people who treat subversion as a mark of quality are the kind of buzzword slinging pseudo-intellectuals who think Ergo Proxy is deep.
Ponzus permanent death was in no way similar to yamacha or hakus and here's why. Yamncha came back from it. He got impaled through his chest in a world where death isn't a threat. Haku (who was reanimated) was the adversary. He was not innocent, and his death wasn't a surprise or Malicious. He basically committed suicide to save someone he loved. It was not gruesome. Ponzu was portrayed as a bright, happy side character with a hunters skill. Her death was sudden and horrific. She was a character we knew since the first arc, and she was shot over and over while her body laid twitching, then she was eaten. These ARE NOT the same.
This isn't feasible when a lot of shonen anime is predictable nowadays. For something to be fun and enjoyable, it has to do something relatively different from the norm, and a lot of modern shonen anime can't really do that when the roots of the genre (Naruto, DBZ, etc.) have been established. The closest thing we have to this is FSN (most especially Heaven's Feel), and that movie trilogy/route in the VN plays out as less of a shonen anime and more of a psychological horror within the perspective of a supposed (emphasis on supposed) shonen protagonist like Shirou Emiya.
*Some of the examples you made didn't make any sense.* In HxH a whole crowed gets sprayed with bullets and a whole planet in DBZ getting destroyed is not the same. In HxH, you can see normal people with bullets holes in them and a whole room full of blood!! In DBZ we just see a planet destroyed(almost like a firework show) and It's left for us to imagine their destruction. Two different Examples! and the other example you made about the guy dying for centuries, that's not gore and it's not even close to a guy eating the skull of a LIVE Person and then speting it on another guy almost like a bullet, Whose scenes are not remotely the same on the level of gore. there is other examples, but I don't time to write them.
That wasn't his point. Sure HxH is more graphically violent than some other series, but even then, there are tons of gory manga out there. The point is that it's not any more inherently violent than most other series, it just depicts that violence more viscerally.
Yea. I want to agree with Digibro. But his examples just aren't right. Goku doesn't kill his enemy because he likes fighting with worthy opponents. He certainly doesn't want anyone in the world die. While the action put the entire world in danger, it's certainly not as morally offensive as someone killing ppl on his own whim. And the story is done in a lighthearted way and you didn't see anyone die on the screen when the Earth exploded. It never tried to make you feel Goku is a bad person. Main characters in One Piece never really killed ppl in an as violent way or show that they actually killed them. Most of the villains with their names mentioned finally live. Except the one from the filler arc before entering Grandline, which is uncharacteristic for One Piece. (Well, fillers are generally poorly written.) Death Note is the opposite of typical Shonen genre. Poor choice of things to compare with.
What about the time when Gero strangled a guy and you saw his head pop off? Or when Cell absorbed that rich dude and you saw him slowly melt away? What about the time Gohan killed the Cell jrs and you saw their dismembered body parts and eyes? Or the time Dodoria snapped a namekian's neck? Or the time Freeza tour Nail's arm off? Let's not forget Freeza's cut in half body. Some of my examples are straight from the manga but even so Dragon Ball can be pretty gory.
the population was wiped out by super buu, he simply used the wrong clip. random mafia getting gun down? big deal, how about tons of innocent people going about their daily lives getting impaled by energy beams raining down from super buu.
I hope Digi reads this or anyone who could give an interesting response. Strangely enough I like how fairy tail keeps to the formula of a shonen and doesn't change too much. Note this is possibly due to the fact that i limit myself to about a season a year but regardless. Sometimes i feel like just having that show thats simple yet effective at what you enjoy is somewhat overlooked, not every show needs to be deep or have a greater meaning to it. I enjoy the fact that in shonen's that sometimes nothing changes. Its kinda similar to real life in a way when people promise to change themselves but don't and no one really cares. That doesn't mean i don't like change, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has quickly become one of my favorite things ever due to how much everything changes all the time thus i can't miss a single detail. But i can safely say just like getting burnt out on a show that never changes, i can get burnt out on a show that constantly changes too much. See Hunter X Hunter as well one piece past fish man island. I got tired hearing about the new thing that throws everything to the side, how this is a moral ambiguity, etc. And I always end up wanting a simple story of good vs bad with easily defined characters, consider it junk food maybe,but its makes me really happy and satisfied which to be honest is something that is kinda hard to do as it seems the world becomes a more cynical place where people can't just have a little fun. I think what I'm trying to say is that I appreciate how sometimes a show sticks to a formula changing very little over time just as much as one that changes things dramatically. I would really like to hear any opinions on this. And please not one's that are all, "Your taste's in shows is shit."
There's more to Evangelion than just being a deconstruction. The point of this video, I believe, is to say that a brilliant show is more than just it's subtext.
I think Evangelion is not just a mere deconstruction because the "mecha-genre like fights" are the least important thing about it. I mean they are great, filled with amazing animations and art, and every time they fight they are risking the whole world, but they are just a plot device.
theMoporter It is according to the video Digi linked at the start of this one, since it actually has something to say about the subject matter it tackles. It does also point out that something being deconstruction is just a start of the conversation, not the end of it.
Eva is NOT a deconstruction of mecha, but more of a return to form to classic anime that had darker themes - the ending was above all else a reference to Devilman's apocalyptic, depressing finale. It subverts some shitty cliches from what Anno found to be "autistic" (his wording, not mine - his use sounds similar to the 4chan one) 90s otaku anime cliches. The claims of Eva being a deconstruction of mecha come from judging the mecha genre based on shitty babified 70s versions of Go Nagai properties - not the original manga versions (Getter Robo in particular was always very dark and bizarre) and while ignoring Gundam, which did moral shades of grey and "what if a teenager REALLY had to pilot a mecha" in freaking 1979. Anno didn't hate anime & manga in the 90s. He just hated modern anime & manga.
As expected, this also applies to "subversive" shows within other genres. I constantly hear people praise Madoka for being subversive, but most people don't realize that it's just about as dark as Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura. And considering that Madoka is my favorite anime, it kinda feels like people are missing the whole point of why it's so great.
Really great video, I always like to hear why good shows are good. There is one thing in Hunter x Hunter that I think is genuinely subversive and that's the "super saiyan" moment. When Gon overpowers Pitou the tone is sad and dark, and the event has terrible consequences.
I fucking love Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. It's not really shounen though, at least anymore. It's seinen. But I still see what you're coming from. It's in my top 5 of all time.
So satire on shounen doesn't equal subversion? Got it. Now I wonder how Digi feels about this whole fad about making "dark" and "edgy" Magical Girl shows.
I am so sick of those and I want them to die... People are just trying to replicate the success of KLK and PMMM without any of the effort that made those shows so phenomenal. Also Princess Tutu, Pretear, and Revolutionary Girl Utena were darker, more sophisticated shoujo shows so it's not even true to say that the genre by itself is saccharine. So that means that simply making the one darker doesn't make something a deconstruction. I'm not sure if it's Digi or some other RUclipsr who pointed this out in a video about how PMMM is not really a deconstruction so much as it's a straight magical girl show with a tragic tone, which had been done before. It still has a happy ending, after all.
Sailor moon had the world end after one season, and had basically the same eventual conclusion as pmmm. Not to mention Revolutionary girl utena. Magical girl shows were always gritty shit.
its pretty simple. any anime that not pertaining to friendship would be consider subverting the genre. mainly because its breath of fresh air to see an anime creator try something new. dont really blame people for thinking that way. people dont like redundancy. there no really such thing as being original but if creators at least made an attempt animes would be a whole lot better
the concept of the reconstruction has become more prevalent recently, with the example being: gundam is mecha, evangelion is deconstruction of mecha, gurren lagann is reconstruction of mecha, where they take the lampooning of the genre in stride and execute on the tropes to show why those tropes became popular. shonen is a massive genre, to the degree that "action cooking" is a seperate concept from "volleyball", yet both can be (and are) shonen. looking at it from such a broad perspective means that nothing is going to seem subversive because there's so much information and the so-called "genre" is moving in every possible direction at once. it would be like saying "this book is subverting the tropes of being a book". looking at it on the smaller scale, you can find the subversions much more clearly. one punch man may not be a subversion of shonen action, but it IS a subversion of the "unbeatable hero" archetype, because it shows how boring that is. even the example of boros, as cool as it was, is a subversion because you never get the feeling that saitama is in danger or that boros presents a threat to him. the fact that saitama spends most of the battle being drawn in his goofy deformed style is part of the subversion. compare that to dragonball, where goku is unbeatable, but it tries to build tension, and goku beating someone in a single attack is treated as a joke at the victim's expense, rather than a joke at goku's. every joke is at saitama's expense in OPM.
I never thought of Hunter X Hunter 2011 as anything other than a Shounen show that was done really really well. The Chimera Ant arc was fucking beautiful.
Garrett Carter People in One Piece do die. Lots of them. One Piece has a optimistic tone, but it's set in a world where people with power constantly fight for more power. Didn't Digibro show you a video of that happening.
Garrett Carter One piece has many dying in flashback and in a cruel way too. I just dont want someone to die and come back later, thats just bull shit(Dbz did that constantly) And Some times one piece gets too dark(like zeff eats his own leg to survive, law travels under corpses to get out of town after his family being massacred)
King is fine. Flowers started going down a path that was not interesting in the least. Oh now we have the unknown from the entire series branch family coming and wanting to cause problems for the new protagonist? It was not strong in the slightest. Yeah it isn't done in terms of translations, but it finished in Japan in Oct. 2014, and the fact that we don't see any translations is typically indicative of the lack of interest from translators.
Flowers is not finished in the same sense that the original Shaman King was not finished: it got axed and rushed. The author got the opportunity to go back and redo the ending of the original one, but flowers wasn't really successful at all, so it just ended like that. I don't know about Flowers, since it really wasn't all that interesting at all, but I'd be happy with a SK remake that expanded into the Kang Zeng Bang ending added later.
Is nice to see that you are bringing up those videos, i really hope to see more references like that in the other anime related channels and spread the knowledge
Skipping whole arcs of such a great show seems like a real loss. Plus if I was to crown the top 3 arcs I would probably put the Yorknew City arc over the arena one, though you do need to watch the arena one for combat mechanic context. Really though I see no reason to skip arcs without forming an opinion of them yourself.
I already watched that video before the comment. I do how he delivers the explanation and the references he uses. Definitely a good video to give that point.
People who don't get OPM seem to me in most part hard line otakus who have no hobbies but anime. One needs to see rebirth and new 52 superman in comics, and what happened in last few years to get why OPM got the praise it did.
I think that this desire comes from wanting something new and original, something that wows you in a way that you didn't know how. However, that can also stem from a yearning to be into a show that you can tout as "intellectual" and "2deep4u" as you said. We mistakenly attribute certain tropes as inherently cliched and trite when more often than not, that often comes down to the execution itself as there are many ways to play around with tropes as there are tropes overall.
If you want something that willfully subverts shonen tropes in a way that is meaningful on a grander scheme and makes an extremely thoughtful point about the emotional damage that a "hard work and guts equals victory" mindset can create, read the Fist of the North Star spin-off Jagi Gaiden by Sinichi Hiramoto (you might know him as the creator of HELLS/Hell's Angels). You don't even need to know shit about FoTNS, it's a fantastic self-contained story.
This was a great video! I never really thought HunterXHunter was particularly subversive. Maybe it went into more mature themes and lingered on the psychological implications of characters having to do what they normally do in a shonen action series, but I don't think it was particularly revolutionary in that regard. Spoilers for HxH coming up: In particular, people cite stuff like the idea that Gon's "power-up" against Neferpitiou was unusually presented as horrifying and really bad as opposed to triumphant and inspiring, even though presenting shonen power-ups as not always a good thing is just as much a staple of the genre. If we use Dragon Ball as an example, I think people get so caught up in the badass moments and the 'hope of the universe' speeches that they forget Goku becoming a Super Saiyan has the exact same horrifying implications as Gon suddenly turning into an adult. It's the main character getting a drastic change in both appearance and personality, to the point he's saying he won't forgive him and is even so blinded by rage he's not going to listen to reason. He's suddenly 'not Goku' anymore. Like Gon, he's become completely unrecognisable.
I think it has to do with the way it’s executed but another reason why I think hxh does a better job because every character needs to pay for the power up(ranging from gon to alluka)(you had a power up to kill a villain *boom* now you’re a living corpse,you want to save your dying friend *boom* go on and battle to get alluka to him,you want to use a genie like creature *boom* Play by a complex set of rules which genuinely make you question whether or not this is worth it. Doing all of this makes it look like a believable story which follows its own rules and not an asspull)
He has some of the best and most details in all of manga while remaining fun and interesting. The most shown example is kurapice, who shows that gaining power for revenge limits you otherwise literally, and cares about his friend, even abadoning his revenge for a time for them. And yu yu hashiko does play around with its elements cleverly as well. The main hero gets a power up by becoming part ancient demon, and gets feared and hunted from the spirizual society afterwards.
There's an interview of the guy who wrote infinite jest, in which he talks about how postmodernism has a bad tendency to merely critique, without offering anything new.
Holy Squapagoli!!! You are my absolute favorite anime based RUclipsr of all time. I'm sad that I didn't subscribe to this channel sooner, considering one of your videos is the only reason I decided to stick with Hunder X Hunter in the first place! I'm absolutely in love with how complete your understanding of storytelling and directing is, and how well you articulate yourself.
He hasn't finished a single one of Gintama's seasons, so he can't say anything about it yet. But he has stated that it might be his favorite anime ever once.
I think lots of people feel that HxH is subversive simply because it subverts their expectation of "All Shonen Anime is bad", simply because they dont like most shounen anime and yet somehow ended up loving HxH. I know because, for the most part, this is my case. Except I dont think "All shonen anime is bad", but more like "Im aware that most shonen anime just doesnt appeal to me".
*unholy screeching of WATCH BOKURANO* Okay, okay, that's out of my system now. Bokurano is genuinely subversive imo, but the catch is it's not a "subverted mecha show" It's not a mecha show at all! It's a psychological tragedy that happens to involve giant robots, and while it's definitely not for everyone I still find the fact that it came out in 2007 borderline criminal because that means it got overshadowed by all the other great 2007 anime.
Digi, I've been watching you for QUITE a long time now. Back when I was a really cringe-worthy child in middle school watching your MLP videos (we try to forget that), all the way til now. I've thoroughly enjoyed most of your work. The way you script and convey your opinions in your videos has always been a reason why you're one of my favorite youtubers nowadays. You dont seem to come off too narcissistic in your opinions, being very open minded and constantly bringing up counter arguments. So thank you for making your videos, and please continue to, because many people enjoy them.
Hunter hunter is still Darker than most Shonen. A character being brutally murdered by multiple gun shots leaves more of an impact than a pink monster thing throwing a huge pink ball at the planet. Especially when Shonen like one piece and dragon Ball z have been tagged as a kids show while hunter X hunter has not. Any violence on Shonen like that means nothing. It makes you feel nothing.
You're totally right minus that the majority or even broad population of fairy tail fans ever got reviled at it or that it became too predictable. It's got a new season coming and more OVAs and a movie that isn't greenlit yet. I mean come on, ya good guys usually win, but the twists and surprises are common enough that you can't not laugh or feel a little thrill or general amusement throughout every episode.
You're awesome, all you dudes are awesome. I just discovered JacksBlade after finishing OPM. I loved this video... It carries a lesson far beyond anime narrative... "Mastering the fundamentals" can apply to any form of popular art or narrative building. :D
Well actual digi hunter x hunter is a deconstruction of shonen Jump because the magazine is called weekly shonen jump and hunter x hunter dosnt come out weekly.
togashi with the 1000000 trillion iq play
This
what did togashi mean by this??!
FUUUUUCK
Genius
tl;dr - People are mistaking competent writing for being subversive.
It's not unique to anime either. If I had a dime for every time I browsed new books and found a crappy 'subversive' or 'dark' version of a classic fairy tale.... :/ Please stop making these. Your feminist grimdark take on Little Red Riding Hood is not a new or original idea.
hxh is good not because it is subversive, but it is subversive, every arc defy expectations
first arc has the inverse tournment where the strongest fight only one time, meaning no increasing stakes
second arc has the dansel in destress simply walk out, while the heroes are getting their powerups
third arc they never get to the top of the arena, at least gon achieve to give the number back to hisoka, but doesn't defeat him in a "surprising" development mid battle
fourth arc is the meeting between the heroes and the main villains, they never fight because they are too weak, the semi main character gets his vegeance, but it is useless
greed island is the less subversive,they have a full trining arc, gon actually wins the game, get the prize and use it to get closer to his objective
them we have chimera ant the most analyzed arc
current arc is jojo battle royale
It's good when an anime is subversive but when it's trying to be subversive for no other reason than to be cool, that's crap. Same with grimdark writing.
The expectation is shit writing. Competent writing subverts the expectation.
@@tiagodarkpeasant That kind of subersivion is just called good story telling. In terms of a shounen it is just calling attention to the flaw story telling of the most mainstream shounen stories.
I dont even care if things are subversive or main stream. I just like good stories.
Same here. No point in being different or subversive if it's also boring as shit.
CidGuerreiro1234 yeah you're right but how the fuck is jojo subversive
You said it all.
@@CidGuerreiro1234
Totally agree.
Here here
Why can't a good show just be a good show? Why does everything have to be revolutionary? Media over-saturation maybe?
We just crave something new.
@@matt0044 that crave is a fatal flaw
Some people like to feel "smart/intellectual." I should know the feeling firsthand; been there, done that.
probaby
@@cavendish2925 its a phase, Im over it and went back to the Narutard that I was as a kid.
My stancd is simple:
There are so many tropes that trying to "subvert" one makes you fall into another.
Also, sticking to ia trope and subverting is not the point. The point is telling a compelling story.
Yes, I agree.
Tropes are narrative archetypes that allow us to understand stories with ease.
Subverting them is a narrative tool to tell compelling stories.
In the end, tropes and subversion are just tools to tell stories ^_^
that is the thing, subversion is a tool, not the objective, you can be subversive and fail, if it leads to a worse story, like sao never fighting the fucking boss, just a maniac with hacks
...totally jumped over the fact that Saitama wasn't trying at the end of S1 and his opponent pointed it out as he was dying.
DxBlack Well regardless, the fight didn't end with one punch.
That wasn't his point. His point was that it just turned into a normal shonen fight.
i wouldn't really call it a normal shonen fight. saitama was more or less just taking the hits like they were nothing for most of the fight. most finale battles in anime have both characters pulling out all the stops, throwing down as many big and flashy powerful attacks at their disposal, neither one giving an inch as they struggle back and forth. saitama more or less just humors his opponent at the very end after he uses a "serious" move, if only so he wasn't entirely disappointed in the outcome of the fight when he realized how utterly and hopelessly powerless against saitama. even if the fight didn't end with one punch, it was still what, three punches? (not counting his consecutive punches which might as well have been overkill)
FeanixFlamage although you point is valid, what if saitama was actually being serious, and instead was bummed out at the end, thinking that the fight he just had was the best he was ever going to find. Just a thought. I'm not the most knowledgable and would not mind if you replied on this matter.
It's not about that. The point is that the show doesn't stay true to its core 'joke' and depicts an epic fight as it just wants to show cool fighting scenes as any other shounen. Saitama could've easily ended a fight after seeing that Boros could take his normal punch and Saitama doesn't do this just because he feels pity for Boros as he totally understands his situation as noone else and let him go all out just before he kills him, that's why Saitama uses 'serious punch' only when Boros makes his final move. A justified scene but that's not the point that is made here.
So in summation, good Shounen aren't good because they avoid old tropes, they're good because they use them well in one way or another.
It's not the tools, it's how you utilize them.
going to give you 3 likes for that comment
Genius man
Bingo. This is why I like My Hero
Phenomenal video my friend, you covered all my favs haha and thank you for the shout out haha im honored and happy to have Helped ^_^
How can I get a JoJo body though?
8 hours of training every day for 20 years.
Depends on what part you're after!
I'm after *the body* part of a body.
Lio Mei
I meant story parts like Stardust Crusaders or Vento Aureo...
O___O
Someone was going to mention it eventually but One Punch Man has its own Hercule. Great video by the way.
King?
+OniLink that's a spoiler
Hưởng Lê Văn Man. I wasn't patient enough and read ahead in the manga. After reading that part, that scene in episode 11 made so much sense. It was glorious.
AnonEars mumem rider?
Naw, Mumen rider is perfectly aware of how he compares to other heroes, and he actually is still badass for doing his best.
"Gintoki has ended major dramatic arcs while screaming 'domestic violience' and hitting people over the head with the wooden sword" This just convinced me to start watching gintama
None of those things make Hunter x Hunter a deconstruction of the shonen genre, but these things do: Gon's unfailing optimism, a staple of the shonen protagonist, is the reason he can't accept Kite's death and insists he's alive even when it's clear to everyone else that he's gone. Killua's unyielding devotion to his friend, another staple of shonen manga, tears him apart and weighs on him so heavily that he breaks down under the expectations. It takes shonen tropes and examines them realistically, and it's not just the chimera ant arc that addresses those subversions: it's slowly built upon for the entire series. The violence and darkness aren't what makes it a deconstruction (or maybe not a full deconstruction, just.. deconstructive?) But that's definitely not the only thing that makes it great.
jillleigh99 Yeah the one thing I would use to label HxH as a deconstruction is Gon's character. The story presents him in a certain way early on and you're lead to believe he's just another happy-go-lucky Luffy or Goku kind of hero. Then as things go on you slowly discover that what defines him as a "classic" shonen protagonist are also the things that make him violently unstable and a danger to himself and his friends.
The moment when a mass-murdering bomb maniac calls HIM crazy says it all, really
jillleigh99 ...I don't feel like you even hit the mark on what he was trying to accomplish with the video. He wasn't claiming that certain elements from HxH made it a deconstruction, rather that these elements don't make it subversive. Digi is saying the elements are only just good storytelling and nothing more.
Shadic6098 I feel as if the purpose of the video was to point out the elements that people often cite to argue that a show is a deconstruction,& showing that those points don't necessarily make a show subversive. With my comment I was trying to address some of the elements that I think do make it deconstructive & subversive, in a sense, because he didn't address them & because I'm always ready to sing the praises of hxh lol
+jilleigh99 That...sounds genuinely mature, and interesting.
If subvertion is the mainstream, doesn't that mean that, to actually subvert the tropes, you need to follow the suposed mainstream to default, in order to contrast with the actual mainstream of trying to subvert it?
GGWP Your deconstruction of deconstructivist mainstream is making my head hurt x_x
Really makes you think huh
GGWP subception
so everything that isn't subversive _is_ subversive of the subversive. which means that in essence everything is subversive, - but if that's the case then we might as well say nothing is.
I think you found the secret to the success of fairy tail.
OK this video hit the nail on the head as to why it annoys me when people say hunter x hunter is good because it goes against the grain or whatever the fuck. DONT boil good narritives down soley to the fact that it goes against something, if it were that simple to create a story on the scale and quality of HxH then any dumbass with a pen and paper could make a story just as good. I never understood why people saying those things annoyed me so much until I watched this vid and now I'm almost more annoyed lol cause I can see more clearly how I'd argue they're almost objectively incorrect.
Really? Hunter x Hunter sure have those common anime tropes and storyline but I don't think someone could simply come up of how the story is structured and executed well like Togashi does. For example, the main four characters are not even always together in every arc and somehow Togashi manage to tell a story without feeling it out of place. If you read the manga further to the current arc, you will know what I mean. Not every mangaka do the story where the big main character like Gon completely out of the next arc without it being out of place but it manages to pull out naturally because Gon's journey to find his father ended. Many mangakas subverts expectations but done it poorly same for common or cliché storyline in anime, even though its repetitive as long as its done great its a good anime.
@@rexgeorgerodriguez7620 plenty of writers can and have, read more instead of sucking off Togashi so much
I'd ask you to do a video on how Fairy Tail fails as a Shounen action series, but that would mean that you'd have to watch Fairy Tail, and no one would have to suffer doing that.
Luckily, this guy did ruclips.net/video/rwrNiZqFaAk/видео.html
yeah, just watched his, but his doesn't go in as much depth as i'd like it to like yours :/
As you were talking about shonen series being different, you should talk about World Trigger, another Shonen Jump series(and unfortunately an underrated one) that avoids most of the common cliches with the genre(letting the protagonist alone to save the world, use power ups, etc) Read it or watch it, but please talk about it man
+Digibro As you were talking about shonen series being different, you should talk about World Trigger, another Shonen Jump series(and unfortunately an underrated one) that avoids most of the common cliches with the genre(letting the protagonist alone to save the world, use power ups, etc) Read it or watch it, but please talk about it man
As you were talking about shonen series being different, you should talk about World Trigger, another Shonen Jump series(and unfortunately an underrated one) that avoids most of the common cliches with the genre(letting the protagonist alone to save the world, use power ups, etc) Read it or watch it, but please talk about it man
I think that having subversive elements in a story is not the same as building a whole series on a subversive foundation. One Punch Man is truly unique in the way that none of the dramatic tension hinges on whether Saitama will win or not. This alone changes the entire dynamic of the story, as it is no longer about the main character overcoming obstacles. But instead about meaningful interactions aside from doing battle, and existential problems a godlike human can provoke in people who are already very strong. Same goes with HunterXHunter. It subverses the convention that shounen protagonists are important people who affect important changes. Instead, it spends a ton of time fleshing out the antagonists, effectively making it an ensemble story, which is exceedingly rare in the shounen genre.
That first part is basically just Superman.
Subversion in HxH is to tell you card game mechanics with over 100 cards, then painfully in detail tell about abilities of some of them, use like 4 of them, then lately the mentioned cards render useless.
I have never been trolled so much before
The HxH thing you did is not that subversive. One Piece, for example, was already playing with it in a shy way before, untill it became a strong point for characters like Hody Jones, Doflamingo, Señor Pink...
And Jojo did that too before in Part 4.
11:28 "And all this time, *_I haven't even mentioned Jojo's Bizarre Adventure!_* Holy shit, do I even have to talk about it? Is there anything that it _hasn't done?_ Can anything else be said to 'play around with the genre in a big way' when part of the genre is this generation-spanning epic that's also rife with obscene violence, scatological humor, and plotting that's nothing but a maze of subversion?"
tfw digi didn't talk about Jojo because _he didn't need to_
He lost a bit of credibility by not mentioning Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.
FMA wasn't published in Shonen Jump.
@Shaddy - He's not just talking about Shounen Jump though.. He specifically mentioned "Shounen Tropes", which includes other popular Non-Jump Shounens like Fairy Tail, Detective Conan, FullMetal Alchemist, etc.
ShinachiHChan it wasn't necessary to bring up FMA. So to say "he lost credibility" is sort of ridicolous
Riley Jones - Actually FMA was/is very relevant when discussing the execution of shounen tropes.
And anybody with credible knowledge on the genre should always consider it, in regards to the genre.
Also, i specifically pointed out "*A bit* of credibility"- implied as little to none.
The great thing I've found about One Punch Man is not that it's subversive or nothing about its meta-jokes about different manga genres, rather I feel that the great point One Punch Man tries to make is the dedramatization of fiction. Everyone in One Punch Man is a typical shonen character and the story arcs are typical shonen story arcs, but Saitama it's introduced in the world of One Punch Man to make fun of the drama fiction normally carries.
That's what it's Saitama, OPM's narrative makes Saitama the only real person in a world filled by characters. Aside from his powers. By introducing the blunt, normal, unintersting real life in a fictional world we see how stupid and intense and dramatic everything is in our fictions. That's why Saitama has all this dialogue about how strange/intense/over the top everyone is acting, to depict that gap between reality and fiction.
He's doing nothing new, for sure, this narrative that tries to talk about fiction through the introduction of reality in a fictional world was made centuries ago in Don Quijote de la Mancha, for example. But I feel that OPM doesn't want to particularly make fun of shonen rather talk about the difference between real life and fiction and how they interact between each other. I think OPM uses shonen because it's the most "established" structure in the culture of the author and thus it's easier for the author to make his point.
Good video btw! Sorry for the long text
I agree with your point and you actually made me think about OPM in a new light a bit, but interestingly enough, I didn't like OPM BECAUSE of it's de-dramatization. Seeing drama and emotions are what get us attached to characters, but Saitama's non-dramatic personality means we'll never see him "really" struggle with anything and that's what (IMO) made OPM forgettable.
Same here. I struggled with OPM. I struggled with wanting to like it, hearing from everyone it was so good, and then just.. not being able to. There's this pervasive atmosphere of nihilism and flatness from the non-dramatic tone it tries to strike as a blow against 'fiction drama', the way mass destruction happens seemingly at random and for no reason, the powerlessness of almost everyone in this world, that all combines perhaps in ways the author didn't quite intend. The show communicated very clearly that Saitama mattered, and literally that's it, so I hope you don't care about anyone else. Even Genos is never going to win or succeed, so while he's likable, why bother caring about him? All the other good guys are worse for the same reason; either they're jerks, or while they may be likable, they're all complete jobbers.
Either I'm not supposed to take them seriously and they're jokes, in which case why am I getting multiple whole episodes of their courageous (yet entirely futile) struggle, and if I am supposed to take them seriously, why don't they matter narratively and all that? Same with villains. If they're all one-note 'I'm going to kill humans literally just because' then why is so much time and effort spent on them, and if they're not, why don't most of them have any depth?
The villains in a parody superhero show are really a chance, and so far in season one, it's just, nothing.
jojo is love jojo is life
*chew*
What I got from this video:
1) People don't actually know what subversion and deconstruction means;
2) Jojo is the tits.
Miselus subversion appently means to shake-up the system of something
Wespa64 Love and live, I agree.
Subversive, I don't think so.
Android 19 DUWANG
Is there really any meaning in anything aside from that which we ourselves ascribe meaning to?
Not really, no.
#nihilisticthoughtswithRichTits
function /= meaning
also we cant be sure to perceive them the way they really are
so no, not even that
Simple means of differentiating meaning v. function. Consider a $20 bill:
-function (purpose/role): serves as a medium for exchange transaction
-meaning (in context of question; value/worth/significance): the numerical buying power associated with the value 20.00 we attribute to it
+unsigned int Without getting into a debate of semantics, in retrospect, the inclusion of purpose was in poor taste in elucidating my point as I haphazardly included it as being synonymous despite the fact that purpose has intention behind it whereas a function can be an inherent property. In the money example, until we attribute value to it, it cannot serve it's intended functionality; its functionality is predicated on its value. Ultimately, this is very much an argument of whether or not existence precedes essence. The main point I’m trying to elucidate, as +IDKMJTOANIHITII noted, is that despite having a function that doesn’t necessitate any notion of value without us being the ones to ascribe value to it. Despite the role of fundamental particles, energy, forces, and the like, if one doesn’t attribute value to the constructs brought about by the amalgamation of them then it would follow that they have no relative value to that individual. Even iff these fundamental forces were objective depictions of reality, that wouldn’t constitute any reason for their being aside from the mere fact that “they are what they are.”
It's called a counterculture, it's a well documented reaction to the over-use of specific themes or styles in usually artistic fields. Read up on it sometime because it's extremely well explored and theres hundreds of cases of it throughout history. Once a saturation reaches a certain point only two things can happen, the new generation can embrace it and take a step further with it, or they can shun it, and in that case the media that they create will be a counter culture, and it'll usually be as drastically a fuck you to the media that can before it as they can possibly manage. This is the start of that counter culture, artists/writers seeing "well hey im sick as shit as this, I wonder if the market is too"
Once the counterculture is embraced, it becomes mainstream. After that, we just do it again and again, possibly taking inspiration from previous eras to create the "new" counterculture. It's pretty much the history of art, where the "new" culture is just a reaction to the previous one.
While I want to agree with you, I think humbly of how I am only 27.
Started anime at age 3 or 4, and it could barely walk compared to the speed at which it's dosed out these days, all technology and such considered.
So perhaps it has just started after all, but we're in a time where the attention span left over is diluted and diminishing with all that keeps flying to the screens. In other words, our time to care gets smaller and smaller as inflation of crap rises lol...but objective time wise, perhaps we could still consider this trend "new"?
Sounds like a personal problem. Don't imprint your personal problems with the medium and think it's the general feel of the world.
ur argument about OPM is invalid cause Tornado is best grill
so yah
take dat digimon!
Blizzard is pretty sweet too. Dem curves...
ur al rong
asuna breast gill
U all have shit taste in waifs im sorry guys
Kutao Izumi you spelled mosquito girl wrong
You are all wrong, Genos best Waifu
"I don't like typical shonen"
>only shonen they think they've watched is DBZ English dub
>>also has watched/read other shonens without knowing or denying they're reading shonen
A true cultured anime fan. Good video btw Digi.
But only shounen i ever truly liked is Yu Yu Hakusho
ew275x Said stigma is slightly below "real anime"
luckily, we now have a solution, and that solution is my hero academia.
The _original_ DBZ dub at that. Kai's dub is way more faithful with it's twists and turns.
I see what you're getting at but there is such a thing as "typical shounen".
Sure there's outliers like Death Note, but they're just exceptions that prove the rule. Most are like inferior versions of Yu Yu Hakusho, DBZ and My Hero Academia.
But even in the Boros fight, it's revealed at the end that Saitama could have just taken him out with one punch by hitting him a little harder. He was just humoring the guy for the whole fight.
Also, I think you brought this up yourself but OPM is more than just the One Punch gag. It's the overblown backstories, the heroes/villains/monsters who are simultaneously cool and completely mundane, having nowhere to go after you've reached all the potential you will ever have, and the adult lifestyle Saitama has.
I think saying a series isn't subversive because it has the elements of the series it's subverting doesn't make sense. Unless I'm mistaken, you need those elements in order to subvert them. In OPM, it just happens to take those elements and bounce them off of Saitama being a really bored grown up, who values sale days, paying bills, noise complaints, and broken ceilings over dramatic entrances and drawn out fights.
I think his point is that any good Shounen series is subversive in it's own right, even the ones we think are setting the standard, like DBZ. Thus, OPM - or any other anime - being subversive, is nothing new.
TheRainSnake pretty sure in one punch man he fought boros because Saitama know what it feels like to be so bored and itching for a fight. Even in the end Saitama said it was tough to beat boros just so he could feel content for fighting Saitama. Saitama's compassion is something really amazing bout him
And Boros is mad at him for holding back, because he has the same dilemma as saitama, he deastroyed dozens of enemies for a worthy enemy, and saitama holds back. Hunter x hunter is smart and creative. that is why it is good. That and the author is a troll who loves keeping the audience on its toes, to subvert the expetations while still making logical sense. And he likes traps like alluka who has no specified gender.
No he never had the ability to kill Boros. Boros was only going to die after he used up his energy to stop regening. Boros never stood a chance but saitama didn't have an out until Boros used all his energy for a single attack
@The Fantom Convoy Yes, it is.
It's in Shounen Jump. That makes it Shounen.
You only get the appreciation of subversion when there's too many by the numbers shows flooding the market, which there is a lot of.
You ma be able to draw parallels between a subversive show and a less self aware show, but it's really more about how it's presented than simply what is presented.
What's interesting about Saitama isn't just that he's more powerful than anyone else and can stomp them with ease, which is how the gag is played. It's how it's effected his drive as the hero he set out to become.
When it starts, he's frustrated with his power. He feels he's lost the very thing that he was living for. The drive to become the best, which is the raison d'être of most Shonen protagonists. They all keep moving forward because they want to be the most powerful, the most respected the most whatever in their particular universes. And they all come up against insurmountable odds to test their resolve.
That all happened to Saitama before the show starts.
Now he's reached the top and that's what's bothering him, (oh shoobedy do). The show doesn't dissolve into the standard shonen fair of training harder than ever before and pulling out all of the stops to surpass a looming threat. It becomes about how he can come to terms with being insurmountable and where his place in the world is.
He goes from being a 'hero for fun' to simply being a 'hero'. He's no longer doing it for his own desires or to prove himself, he's doing it because no one else can. That's much more in-line with the complex motivations found in some Sienen. He routinely sacrifices his own reputation and desire to be credited to make sure that the heroes out there that are still on the journey he completed don't get disheartened or have the fickle public turn on them.
That's what the shows about, one characters acceptance of a life without the thrills he initially desired and the pity he takes on the others who haven't realised that their goal is hollow.
That's he reason the Boros fight goes on for so long. Aside from it being a beautiful piece of animation that they obviously wanted to spend some time on. It's because Saitama see's himself in Boros. And gives him the fight he wishes he could have. That's why there's so many parallels to Saitamas dreamt moleman fight, like the heart beat representing the rekindling of passion.
Good video!
The Dragonball to Hunter x Hunter comparisons are undermined by how every good character in Dragonball either gets resurrected after every arc, or end up in a sort of afterlife where they are clearly still "alive" in a sense and can come back to Earth as long as they get permission. Ponzu getting shot in the face in Hunter x Hunter and Yamcha getting stabbed through the chest just doesn't carry the same impact because Yamcha is totally fine just one or two chapters later. One Piece completely limits its deaths to flashbacks and off-screen nameless marines... Except for poor Mr. 10.
I completely agree that One Punch Man and Hunter X Hunter are good shonens, not just subversions. But they aren't the same as all the others either. One Punch Man's strong point is how Saitama is depressed that every fight is a curb stomp, and that's not the same as other characters beating mooks in one punch to show how much stronger they've become.
I'd say what makes Hunter X Hunter stand out is that it establishes the rules for their abilities so thoroughly, and has all the makings of a regular action shonen, but cares so much more about trickery. Gon has defeated what, a single "boss" of the enemies? And even then it was through someone else's plan, with tricks outside his own abilities, and a literal trap. But because of Gon's personality, you still got an actual fight before the trap ended it instantly. At another point, a huge villain and a good guy has a massive fight, which the villain wins, but then succumbs to poisoning from a weapon completely outside of any abilities. It's a show that gives you enough of what you expect from the genre, but then upends it afterwards. It is also a subversion, not just a good shonen, and the other shonens having some humor on behalf of themselves or being comedy shows don't diminish that.
The fact that I take issue with you saying "good guy and bad guy" supports your point further
Digi interpreted the Boros fight all wrong. It's not that Saitama does defeat everyone with one punch, it's that he can defeat anyone with one punch. And he ignored/missed the end which reveals that Saitama did not fight anywhere near his full potential (though that much was obvious during the fight), and shows the emotions he has after not finding a worthy opponent once again even though Boros was by far the most promising candidate.
When the series DOESN'T parody these tropes in this way and plays these tropes straight, such as in the current arc, it does so to let us better examine the personal issues of the characters involved (the heroes, in essence, and their raison d'etre ) and tests the ideals of heroism, among other recurring themes that pop up throughout the story.
The Garou arc is a perfect example of this, but people on't understand until they either read the webcomic, wait until Murata catches up, or wait for season 2
As much as I usually agree with your points this argument was rather poorly put together with what seemed to be a bad understanding of the scenes in both HxH and OPM.
TheDavoo He had correct examples but it's how he correlates amount killed with how dark a story is rather than how it was carried out.
...MEH.
Like, Meh to this entire argument, honestly. Especially the One Punch Man breakdown.
The concept that the show remains a stereotypical action shonen series based on the end of the anime is broken, for a couple reasons. First, that the main joke of the show is the one punch aspect doesn't work, because routinely the humour comes from Saitama living out the drudgery and norm of his lifestyle, and the subversion of expectation that comes from that. He's the greatest hero ever, but lives in a tiny apartment and eats food on sale. He could destroy anyone in one serious punch, but he's still treated by his peers as a lackey because no one can BELIEVE he did that. But, if we want to focus on the action itself...
Overdog posing as underdog is nothing new at this point, but it's *never* applied to the main hero in such a staggering way that even built-up bosses are threats to the main character before their training arc or powerup or fusion dance or what have you. Boros is never a challenge to Saitama, and at no point do we actually believe that. The "...Okay." moment in of itself is such a well known gag because we can't take it seriously when Boros believes he's powering up.
And there in lies the difference. When Goku surprisingly wipes the floor with Nappa, or the Ginyu Force, or the Piccolo minion of the week, we're surprised by it. We're cheering because we'd been trained to take that enemy seriously and believe they'd be a threat, even to Goku. And even if we know he's going to crush them because there's someone higher up, we still believe he's going to have problems against the final bosses. Or that there'll be a cost. Or even a loss, in some bleaker shows. _That's Shonen, a story of growth for the protagonist(s)._ Saitama *never* has this concept applied to him. We *never* believe he's up against an actual threat. At most, we believe he's actually having fun with a fight, like we had shown to us early on with the Subterranean dream in episode 1.
If you still believe the 'point' of One-Punch Man not killing an opponent in one punch is broken with Boros, even that argument should be fractured in your mind the second Boros states outright Saitama was holding back, dramatically so. That should be a solidifying moment that even if an opponent appears to survive a hit, that's just Saitama holding back to keep things semi-interesting. Forever making sure that we never feel threat for him ever again, and can focus instead on the comedy or tragedy of it.
Which, again, is the focus. We're not looking at Saitama and finding him funny or interesting because we see him growing in any way. We're finding him funny because he's still suffering but from completely different problems than what we'd expect, and having just enough of a backstory and motivation to relate to. (This, incidentally, is why Sakamoto is a complete failure of a comedy to me. Because perfection can't be a joke if we have *nothing* human to connect to.)
It's like watching a max-level player in a game who bought or cheated his account forced to sit through and complete every quest starting from level 1. Including the unskippable tutorial. Killing 100 rats is a grind normally, but this guy isn't even getting anything out of it. That boss all of his peers think is a big challenge and threat? He one-shots with a single auto-attack. And the quest-giver STILL treats him like the same lowly peon. *That* is different. So by the time he hits a level that the bosses AREN'T getting one-shot by a single auto-attack, do we believe he's now challenged? ...No. He's yet to put on his gear, cast any spells/abilities, or use any of this in concert. And when that uber-boss is gone in another few auto-attacks anyway, he's right back to killing rats. And we laugh at that suffering.
I honestly challenge you to give me an example of a show that accomplishes that feeling, of a max level person in a level 1 world, and still having no challenge.
Hilariously, not even "Trapped in an MMO" anime have an example of that. Sword Art Online pretends the character is getting stronger and has these challenges. Log Horizon has every character at max level, not just the main hero. Overlord has him max level and still getting challenged just because of his own innate weaknesses (See: Shaltear and most everyone in the manga.) And so on and so forth.
JacksonJin overall same, but Sakamoto was less so about his perfection but more so about the absurdity of his perfection. Just wanted to point it out.
Essentially Sakamoto is funny because the way he does absurd things only for everyone to rationale it incomprehensibly
The differnce isn't in the micro. Like how long it takes for the enemies to be killed it's in the macro in that the characters goals are completly differnt. Most shounen finds glory in becoming stronger and protecting things. But opm the heroe is already at the limit of his strength and all he finds is loneliness and boredom. The hero understands boros desire for a good fight because boros is to strong to find one so the hero supresses his strength to give boros a good fight before finishing him off.
Then in most shounens the goal of the story is essentially a power fantasy then in HxH it doesn't seem to be trying to fill a power fantasy so much as there are storyies and plots happening and the heroes themselves are a small part of the world or even the main events of the show and they grow stronger amidst it. Where everyone has there own goals and reasons which seem perfectly relateable and practical even most the villians. Because of this some of the supposed villians team with the main characters and some of the villians in the earlier episodes fight eachother later on like Hisoka and Chrollo do in the manga later on. In most shounens the villians are there only for the heroes to overcome and fill a power fantasy and in HxH the heroes seem to be actual people themselves and the MC and the things he does seem to be a much smaller part of the story itself.
The main topic of the video is that it's not subversion its just good story telling but most anime has such little story telling or even attempt to do anything thats not near copyrighted from other stories that any story that has good story telling is almost guarenteed to have at least several aspects of subversion in them otherwise it would be exactly the same as say fairytale. Most of these stories have a differnce in goals or a differnce in point of view. Where say if most animes focused on the heroes becoming stronger another might focus on the pain of becoming stronger or the sacrafices to become stronger or on someone who is already strong but is haunted by past things he's done.
10:00 Fist of the North Star did 1 punch man when Dragon ball was new
*One Touch Man
unassumption no, but i would say they have same concept, The first 15-20 were Ken is just Saving People from Warlords who talk shit and Then Ken Ends them anti-climactic with 100+ Fist, not until maybe 25 as remember when story gets super serious, Also unlike OPM, Fist was Meant To be taken Serious from start
Except Kenshiro actually struggled in some fights and was defeated by Souther once.
toriko is rad, dude. it also makes me stupidly hungry
which is why i dropped it at ep 1. i can't afford the amount of food it makes me crave
MrAwesome45 the manga is worse. sooo much detail in the first 3 pages jfc
ya i saw the first chapter's few first pages and i got hungry that day i didn't eat for 20 hours so you can imagine how that fucked me up
I think what really made me like the manga is its absolutely autistic passion for world building, even the tea leaf that made the tea that the characters are drinking come from a tree with a specific way of harvesting its leaf in its own specific ecosystem oh and the animals there look like it come from Australia serial killer cousin.
Long Rùa and the jelly that changed flavors while eating it~
Welp, time to read toriko some more. Wish me luck
All ive gotta say is: ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA
Christian Choo muda muda
MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA
OP Man meh i still love the shouting of those beautiful oras, mudas and doras
Isaac Argesmith it lives up to the "bizzare" in its name
Christian Choo Arrivederci!
Basically different doesn't mean subversive
Also thanks for talking about opm I really liked this segment
And thanks for giving jojo that praise
Simply put, Hunter x Hunter 2011 is the greatest anime of all time. Thanks so much for this video digi it's truly appreciated!
no, that's The Nutshack.
your name is hilarious XD
One Piece is better.
If HxH2011DRA says it, you know it is true. Hey buddy :)
TalesOfNerdia
You know it! Good to see ya man ;)
Now you've done it. Now I want to hear your thoughts on the Shounen Protagonist archetype.
Just Some Guy with a Mustache Now that you've mentioned it...
I've always wanted to see an idealistic shonen protagonist that wants to become a hero encounter so much horrible and disfiguring shit to where by the end of the series, the idealism of said protagonist is gone and he even becomes suicidal due to the actions he made in order for his dream to become a hero come true.
I want a character that starts out mischievious, playful and idealistic. But at the end, he's more mature, reserved, and shy; something along the lines of Jaden Yuki's character development from YGO GX. The only trait that stays constant about the protagonist is his 'determinator' nature, and even then that aspect of him goes from endearing to downright disturbing as the series progresses.
Its fun to see people criticize shows like Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach and One Piece for being standard and base line, without realizing that back in their day they were the revolutionary series for the genre, just like One Punch Man, Mob Psycho and I guess Hunter X Hunter is now.
Yeah, evolutionary is an exaggeration, but they all made a pretty big impact. Heck re-reading Naruto shocked me because I forgot how good it used to be.
You do realize that the Hunter x Hunter manga started running before Bleach and Naruto proper and just a bit later than OP, right? Even if we're talking anime only, the HxH and OP adaptations started at the exact same time too.
Everybody uses HXH to compare to naruto but the problem is that they are still both different series. One is about hunters and one is about ninjas.
but they became repetitive and just recycles the formula
It's fun at first before it gets obnoxious with pretentious fans of more "subversive" series saying shonen like it's an insult.
(Apologies for the long comment, but Hunter x Hunter is too good for me to not talk about it extensively, so bear with me). Hunter x Hunter is an amazing series not because it is a deconstruction of the shonen genre (which it isn't), but because it is a well-written celebration of the shonen genre. You can play around with the tropes of a genre and still be a part of that genre, and Hunter x Hunter, at its core, is a shonen action series - not an anti-shonen. One of the most common examples of this supposed "subversion" of expectations that I always see used is the Chimera Ant arc. In the Chimera Ant arc *(SPOILERS, of course - go watch Hunter x Hunter if you haven't already, and then come back),* a seemingly important character is killed off, there is an apparent tone shift, and the concept of a heroic power-up/transformation is flipped on its head. In regards to the first two, like you said in the video, these aren't examples of subverting Shonen tropes, but rather they are perhaps subversions of the reader's/viewer's expectations, and most good stories must possess the ability to do that. Personally, I was shocked when Kite died, but this isn't the first time that a seemingly important character has died in a Shonen story. Jiraiya's death during the Pain arc in Naruto or Krillin's death in the beginning of the Piccolo Daimo arc are both pre-existing examples of this concept. In fact, the entire Piccolo Daimo arc is similar to the Chimera Ant arc in that the tone of the show shifts, a major character dies to emphasize the sheer power of the foes that our heroes are confronted with, and our protagonist is completely overcome with rage. Dragon Ball may not have gotten to that extreme power-up transformation stage like it later would with the Super Saiyan, but it does use the idea of vengeance/redemption to progress the development of the protagonist much like the Chimera Ant arc does with Gon. The Chimera Ant arc may be incredible in how it presents itself, and it is strengthened more so by how innocent the first few episodes of the show seemed to be, but I think it's safe to say that almost if not every shonen action series does this. When you strip away the artistic flair of the Chimera Ant arc and boil it down to its basic elements, what you are left with is an action-oriented, "save the world" tale with elements of redemption and vengeance thrown into the mix. Even Gon's "reverse Super Saiyan" transformation at the end of the arc has been done before. In Naruto, the whole idea of the Nine-Tailed Fox transformation and its many variations is that Naruto's rage is overwhelming him and turning him into an uncontrollable monster. Heck, Dragon Ball even manages to pull a "reverse Super Saiyan" transformation at the peak of the Cell arc when Gohan ascends to a Super Saiyan 2. His emotions and his newfound power overwhelm him much like they do with Naruto and Gon. What makes Gon's transformation stand out above these other characters, however, is that the buildup to this transformation is so masterfully handled. In the case of Naruto, we know that he is a kind and playfully mischievous boy at heart, but he isn't exactly innocent in the way that Gon is portrayed at the start of Hunter x Hunter. Gohan shares this sense of innocence, but he has several moments where his rage hints at his hidden potential for destruction, and while Hunter x Hunter definitely hints at Gon's hidden power, there is never a moment before the Chimera Ant arc where Gon completely loses his mind. He displays his vast wealth of hidden strength on several occasions, but during these moments, he is always in control of himself and his powers. When Gon finally reaches Pitou, however, he has far surpassed his breaking point. We have had plenty of time to empathize with Gon up to this point, but in the case of Gohan and Naruto, we can't really sympathize with their opponents because, at this point, we only know of them as being treacherous villains. Sure, Pain eventually turns a new leaf, but we as an audience are only shown this after Naruto has already overcome his inner demons. In the case of Hunter x Hunter, we have come to hate Pitou throughout the massive buildup to the final battle, but when Pitou suddenly begins acting in a way that we can sympathize with, we start doubting whether Gon's convictions are entirely justifiable in the grand scheme of things, and this reflects in the way that Gon is framed during these final moments. He doesn't know how to react to these new developments, and neither do we, which is why his transformation hits all the more powerfully when we don't know who we should be siding with. To compare it to the Yorknew arc, Gon and Killua didn't want Kurapika to have to kill anyone, so when Gon inevitably kills Pitou in such a brutal manner, it seems like a complete betrayal to his own character. None of this depth can be expressed by the idea that "Hunter x Hunter is a deconstruction."
From this, I want to touch on the tournament at the end of the Hunter Exam arc. This tournament is not a subversion of the shonen tournament arc as a whole, but it is, instead, a subversion of the typical tournament in general. A standard tournament is a single-elimination series of matches where the winner advances and the loser is eliminated, but in the Hunter Exam, the loser advances and the winner earns their Hunter License. This idea may be interesting in its own right, but the way that this concept is integrated into the narrative is what makes it work. Anyone could use this "anti-tournament" concept, but that doesn't inherently make the use of it good or interesting. What makes this concept so effective is that Togashi uses it to give Character B a fighting chance against a Character A who otherwise would have mopped the floor with Character B. Physical strength does not define a fight in this tournament: mental strength does, and Togashi executes that idea brilliantly through Gon's fight against Hanzo. I could talk for weeks about Hunter x Hunter, but I'm not here to write a novel about it. Hopefully this gets my point across, lol.
(P.S. That cat is adorable, Digi, although I doubt that you made it this far in the comment if you've even seen it at all.)
Add newlines and create a new paragraph whenever you enter a different object to discuss. By doing that you make it so that people actually decide to read your stuff.
xDarkomantis Just make the video already. Jeez. You clearly already have a script. Just voice it, put appropriate background footage, and you've got a bangin' video.
It has the same tone as yoyo hashiko the authors earlier manga with some heroes having the same moralities, in this case because they are demons.
I think what makes Gon's transformation so different and compelling is that he is aware and accepting of it. He goes from an innocent child to a point where he more or less straight up tells a guy that right and wrong are irrelevent since he's stronger and therefore decides the rules.
HxH is really "subversive" to the genre in that even though HxH focuses on battle, battle is never presented as the best solution of the central conflicts of the story. It is particularly true of the Yorknew City arc (Kurapika's arc), where battle was left hanging in the air with a kind of temporary cease fire treaty and no party involved has achieved their main goals. The world after the battle is not decisively better nor is it worse than before. In HxH we more often see characters are trying to avoid battles rather than to start one. It is not just because HxH is a more "realistic" series but more importantly the philosophical core of HxH is the futility and inevitability of battle. Thematically HxH departs from shounen genre to the extent it stresses the futility of battle; yet narratively it's pulled back to the genre's fundamentals to the extent it plays out the theme of futility within a story structure of conflicts which inevitably evolves into battles.
I feel like this video picked an absolute strawman to argue whether HxH is an example of subversion of tropes. The reason HxH is considered a subversion of tropes/deconstruction of shounen is not because it's dark. What makes it a subversion is that it handles common tropes of the shounen genre in a way that goes completely against how they're typically used.
Gon transforming to fight Pitou is not a moment of triumph, as compared to Goku turning into a Super Saiyan, but rather a moment of exceptional weakness for the character. The tournament being interrupted is not a subversion of the tournament arc trope, but rather the fact that the tournament itself had nothing to do with characters being stronger than one another and was structurally different to any other tournament arc. Major story arc villains are presented as obstacles to be overcome in dramatic battles only for these to almost never occur (Chrollo is captured and his nen is sealed without him doing anything, and Meruem is defeated by an atomic bomb). These are subversions of the trope of major villains being defeated in climactic battles with the hero. Have we ever seen a One Piece story arc villain being defeated in any way besides a punch from Luffy? This is where 'subversion' comes from.
ρlague In the last arc Jack was taken out without even fighting Luffy
The end of the elecion arc was subversive, and the end of meruem. Hunter x hunter has lots of subversive parts.
goku's super saiyan transformation wasn't a triumph either, goku changes into a completely different person, enjoying the suffering of his oponent and telling his own son he is going to kill him if he doesn't leave to get revenge on frezzer, lets not forget goku doesn't get a happy ending at the end of that arc, namek explodes and goku aparently dies being a tragic ending where goku lose himself in hatred.
if your going to tell me "oh well that totally doesn't matter because goku escapes" then i can say that momment doesn't matter because gon is heal up by a deus ex machina in the next arc.
Gon transformation is NOT the anti-supersaiyan momment, on the contrary, is the closest recreation to what happened to goku.
@@slifer875
I could be wrong since I've never seen DBZ, but was that too out of character? Wasn't he always brutal, and I know at least one of those characters were an awful husband and father. So maybe the contrast is that Gon is so bright eyed and goes onto hurt the person he loves most (Killua) and completely lose himself, to compare to Goku who as far as I know, was always brutal and looking to pummel someone. Also, it doesnt matter that Alluka brings Gon back, because the subversion is not that they'd kill the character off, but that he had the ability to be so cruel and mutilate his enemy's body even after their death when we had seen him be so innocent before. (That doesn't mean the progression wasn't natural or even lightly foreshadowed). Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is just my thoughts on the situation
@@Fillardmillmore don't believe the memes, goku wasn't a terrible father, quite the opposite he loves his family.
He is a martial artist but he doesn't want to kill his oponents and doesn't take pleasure on inflicting pain or humiliating someone, goku went a head and broke frieza both physically and mentally out of pure anger, the english dub censors and changes many things in the dialogue, in the japanese version he wants frieza to live only to suffer in shame for the rest of his sad existence.
The only other time goku got that angry was when a picoloo minion murdered krillin and goku went on a shorth rampage...
Thn again, there's no point in just showing that these things can happen in other shows. its the sum of it's parts that makes an anime like hunterxhunter what it is. and the WAY it does said things. i don't think there's anyone out there saying HxH is only good because it's subversive. but i do think most people appreciate the show a lot because it's CONSTANTLY doing such subversive things. and that's something that not many others are doing. that's why it grabbed the attention of so many people.
I actually like HxH not just because its subversive but it does surbversion in a logical way. It doesn't feel out of place because its fits to the characters decisions and actions. Many shows tried this but it feel force because it doesn't fit the story and character decisions and actions.
I appreciated One Punch man because, although I haven't seen to many shonen anime or read much manga on it, the show admits that Saitama will win right from the get-go. It doesn't needlessly ask the question of "Oh, will our hero be able to save the day?!?" because the answer to that is pretty much always yes. You do have a good point though, that it's not all that different. Loved your perspective on that
Dragon Ball > Dragon Ball Z
So there!
Of course.
fact
You don't even discuss that
What are you talking about?
there is only Dragon Ball
dbz is much better. Comedy and goofy characters
It’s the same objections that horror movie fans have when people call Hereditary or Babadook “subversive and thoughtful” horror. It implies that the genre itself is inherently low brow and cannot contain thoughtful storytelling.
Nowadays it is
You analyze OPM based on it's fights when it's less about the fights and more about Saitama's struggle with being broke, bald, overshadowed, and not receiving the recognition he deserves. So yes, OPM does fall into SOME standard shounen tropes if you only look at the fights. We already know how all the fights are going to end. That's why the appeal of the show is deeper than that. Judging OPM on it's fights is like judging Madoka Magica on the girl's costumes and saying it's a standard magical girl anime. Sure, that's one of the major reasons it's classified into that genre, but you would be overlooking everything that makes the show different.
The interestin thing is saitama longs for a good fight, because he loves the excitement, but is doomed to never have is and because of that he is bored constantly.
He’s just using the elements of the stories that fits his argument, this video is pretty bad actually
To add to what you said, the fights are just visuals and the different mechanics/techniques are not explained explicitly and it can be whatever the author comes up with.
If you watch OPM to seriously debate about character fighting ability, then you dont get the idea of anime at all 😂😂
I feel like a lot of people take for granted how old and influential Dragon Ball is. I wasn't alive for most of it's manga run, but I've seen people who were talk about how it was pretty subversive for its time and how Toriyama likes subverting expectations. Nowadays, Dragon Ball and its tropes are so ingrained in culture and have been copied so many times, that people just don't think about that. It's become the standard.
You should of listed Fist Of The North Star which is a king of Shonen Jump the main character's fighting style allowed him to easily make people explode, not to mention other characters being able to do things like slice people with their bare hands to the point they can dice them like vegetables or slice the flesh so deep they think they're freezing due to their raw nerves being exposed.
This is my new all time favourite video of yours, probably because I love this genre.
B-but OPM does it all ironically
Somehow it doesn't add anything new, I'll have to disagree
More importantly, is a seinen
The Sea King was in no way ironic.
My comment was in all ways ironic. I even stuttered, c'mon bois...
***** What's irony
Basically, a show being different isn't necessarily subversion, it's just good storytelling?
Well to subvert something, you have to specifically make your audience believe you're doing something, but then not. If a show was trying to subvert the idea of getting a new power up, just never having your character learn anything new isn't subversion. You have to have your character be given something that at first sounds like a power up/new move... But it turns out to have been fake or the opposite.
Okay, so I wanna be clear that I personally think someone taking what is considered cliche and wrote and doing it well enough to stand above the reast is just as, if not more commendable then taking a story in a new and unexpected direction. However, implying that the tone of two shows can be well represented by simply showing parallels in the literal characters and events isn't really a fair argument. Stories kill of hundreds if not thousands of people consistently, it's kind of a thing escalation in media does habitually. Entire worlds get destroyed as an afterthought once fights get too big. However how said destruction is portrayed, and how seriously the media takes said action is what sets the tone.
To give a grossly exaggerated example to demonstrate my point, MC is fighting an unstoppably evil unquestionably bad guy. MC chases bad guy into castle defended by bad guys knights and fights his way to the throne room, where he finally corners the bad guy and ends his tyranny.
Take situation two, as MC rushes after bad guy towards the castle, we get flashes of an innocent young girl playing with her mother in the castle yard, hugging her dad knight. We see the alarms go out about the approaching MC and the lil girl hides in a barrel. Same fight ensues, but this time the dad knight is among the soldiers, MC kills him as easily as the rest, and we get a scene of his head rolling dawn a stairwell and his lifeless eyes starring into space, as we flash to the daughter so is quickly crying and telling herself that her big strong dad will protect them.
What the MC did in both cases was the same, his actions no different. Knights commonly had families and people who relied on them. and obviously when they die they leave those people behind.
My example though likely flawed and low quality doesn't come anywhere close to world destruction, but they could both be easily portrayed as 'the main character wipes out an entire castle of guards in his quest to kill bad guy'
Personally, I think the largest difference is when a story is aware that it's depicting tragedy. and I think media being aware of what it's actually portraying is what people want, and most people default to considering deconstructions to be the only way to get that. A perspective I disagree with personally. but that's a comment for a future inordinately length comment, I'm already only tangentially related.
Underrated comment. In some other anime planets are being destroyed and wiped out in seconds but in attack on Titan the rumbling which is basically almost the end of the world is causing fights between fans whether it was the right thing to do or not and you can really understand both sides
that's the entire point of the video
This is why I like GIntama, they just make small stories of very old tales, even using historical references to a certain extent. It's genre is unheard of in the anime industry but in every aspect it repeats the most classic tropes, perfecting their pace, enhancing their messages, to draw out the essences of fiction. Remember Gomene, Jerry?
One Piece episode 767 With the minks is the best example of an old shounen subverting expectations.
I don't know if I want to watch the entire anime to see that part, since if you didn't watch one piece back when it had few episodes it might get hard to get into. But that depends if the show still gets your attention for that long
I think the 'difference' in these anime/manga are more because of something else. Character relatability.
As someone who has tried to look into xianxia at some point in time, I was blown away, absolutely blown away, by the stereotype of the 'evil character'. It was almost always someone who was jealous or thought himself to be high and mighty, to then be crushed or humiliated. A hurdle for the protagonist to overcome and nothing more.
Think back to the difference between goku in db and goku in dbz. In db he was this little naive kid that wanted to experience the world. It was fun because you could relate to his naive side, his childish side and have his strength play off this childish side. In dbz he was a musclebrain that punched things and become more powerful.
If only he died when he should have and let gohan take over, having a coming of age thing without his father to look after him. That would have been a much more interesting show to watch.
I think people are too focused on the tropes. Tropes are ideas that work. Its why they turned into tropes. A shonen story will not suddenly become a slice of life. The fighting will still happen, the progression of the character's strength will still happen. If you can create a new 'trope', a new template to work from, great! But I think the characters should be the main focus
The feeling I get from others saying an anime is "subversive" is that they have incredibly low expectations of anime. For all that they like anime, the majority of anime is not good, and when asked, they (more like, my friend) will say that anime is trash. That I should celebrate X or Y for being "subversive and that's why it's good" when it's just normal, good characterization.
You talk about all of these shows, but no Inuyasha. I'm hurt.
It wasn't in Jump.
Ben Link rekt
+Digibro But didn't you say that was the case also for One punch man? 11:20
Digibro Yeah, but it feels very Shounen to me. Oh well, maybe you could make a video on it in the near future?
Shounen doesnt automatically equal Shounen Jump
Long story short, watch Hunter X Hunter 2011. LOL
Thanks for saying this! I also have a great love for shounen and recently saw a video where someone said HxH was subversive, and it ticked me off the same way. HxH is very of its genre, it just excels at being of its genre. It certainly pushes boundaries, but at its core the point is not that it is a deconstruction.
OPM I would still consider a deconstruction because it gets into the psychology of someone who fights are too easy for, but writing that I realize there was already some of that boredom with Goku. Wow, DBZ really did more and had more thought than I realized.
Thanks for mentioning Goatama.
One little nitpick though about the part with Boros. It's not that Saitama does defeat everyone with one punch, it's that he can defeat anyone with one punch. And you ignored/missed the end which reveals that Saitama did not fight anywhere near his full potential (though that much was obvious during the fight), and shows the emotions he has after not finding a worthy opponent once again even though Boros was by far the most promising candidate.
John Marco Reyes no, he just beats people in one punch because he is stronger than them..
If you realise One punch man biggest subversion is its ending(And isn't it a subversion on super heroes?)
You fail to mention that one of the common tropes in Shonen Anime is the Power-Up Trope, in which a character gains a transformation or a new power that would allow the character to defeat the opponent. In Dragon Ball, this is exemplified with the Super Saiyan form. One Punch Man subverts this trope by making Saitama the most powerful character ever, but the fact that he is that powerful and is seeking a real challenge to make him unleash his full power, opts him to fight his opponents at the minimum level. Saitama's battle with Boros, and later with Garou in the manga/webscomic, indicates that Saitama was fighting most of his opponents at the minimum level of power, only opting to raise it when he meets opponents that show to have more potential.
Going back again to Dragon Ball for comparison, Goku defeating most of the minor villains was due mainly to his incredible strength, but by no means did he fight them at full power and is reserved mainly for the major villains. And even then, there would be some points it was not enough, so Goku needed either a new technique, or a new way to increase his strength via training or whatnot to finally gain the advantage. So the comparison here is that Goku gets stronger through training, whereas Saitama has reached his maximum power (if there even is one), and is intentionally nerfing himself for the sake of a more challenging fight.
When you look at it, One Punch Man's subversions are from series like Dragon Ball and similar, but not other Shonen Anime like Death Note and even that of Rurouni Kenshin.
Powerups are not as common as you'd think. In One Piece the characters had to train for two years off screen and still did not gain much but some power level boost. (not counting Luffy's Gears). In Fullmetal Alchemist, any "powerup" is really just the characters learning a hidden secret about alchemy and exploiting that new found knowledge.
Also you still misunderstood what Subversion means. Saitama is no different from Luffy or Goku, One Punch Man just makes a joke out of it while the other two series has the super character distracted by something else.... One punch man does that too actually.
Saint Seiya, Heavenly Sphere Shurato, Demon Prince Zenki, Sakigake! Otokojuku, Ninku, Hell Teacher Nube, & Flame of Recca are among the many Shonen anime that follows the Power-Up Trope. Other Shonen titles like Hikaru no Go and Rurouni Kenshin do not use those tropes for the simple reason that it does not apply to the theme and style of anime they are. These are the types of Shonen anime in which One Punch Man subverts, or parody, if you will.
ryoga316 I have not heard of a single anime you mentioned, so yeah...
***** Lol I said not counting gears, havent got that far yet,
***** I'm not surprised, considering many Anime fans today only know the usual series like One Piece and Naruto, but never heard of others that came before and during, such as Flame of Recca. Others like Samurai Troopers (Ronin Warriors) tend to be popular only during their time, but is often left unknown by today's fans except those who have seen it when it was still new.
THANK YOU
You have no idea how much I love this video for saying everything I've been thinking.
Subversion is overrated. People act as if subversion automatically makes something good. Academics wank over the idea.
No, actual academics just note if it exists in a show or not and move on. The only people who treat subversion as a mark of quality are the kind of buzzword slinging pseudo-intellectuals who think Ergo Proxy is deep.
Ponzus permanent death was in no way similar to yamacha or hakus and here's why.
Yamncha came back from it. He got impaled through his chest in a world where death isn't a threat.
Haku (who was reanimated) was the adversary. He was not innocent, and his death wasn't a surprise or Malicious. He basically committed suicide to save someone he loved. It was not gruesome.
Ponzu was portrayed as a bright, happy side character with a hunters skill. Her death was sudden and horrific. She was a character we knew since the first arc, and she was shot over and over while her body laid twitching, then she was eaten.
These ARE NOT the same.
Who even cares about Ponzu?
Can't we just accept a shonen for being fun and enjoyable when it is fun and enjoyable?
This isn't feasible when a lot of shonen anime is predictable nowadays.
For something to be fun and enjoyable, it has to do something relatively different from the norm, and a lot of modern shonen anime can't really do that when the roots of the genre (Naruto, DBZ, etc.) have been established. The closest thing we have to this is FSN (most especially Heaven's Feel), and that movie trilogy/route in the VN plays out as less of a shonen anime and more of a psychological horror within the perspective of a supposed (emphasis on supposed) shonen protagonist like Shirou Emiya.
*Some of the examples you made didn't make any sense.* In HxH a whole crowed gets sprayed with bullets and a whole planet in DBZ getting destroyed is not the same. In HxH, you can see normal people with bullets holes in them and a whole room full of blood!! In DBZ we just see a planet destroyed(almost like a firework show) and It's left for us to imagine their destruction. Two different Examples!
and the other example you made about the guy dying for centuries, that's not gore and it's not even close to a guy eating the skull of a LIVE Person and then speting it on another guy almost like a bullet, Whose scenes are not remotely the same on the level of gore.
there is other examples, but I don't time to write them.
That wasn't his point. Sure HxH is more graphically violent than some other series, but even then, there are tons of gory manga out there. The point is that it's not any more inherently violent than most other series, it just depicts that violence more viscerally.
Yea. I want to agree with Digibro. But his examples just aren't right.
Goku doesn't kill his enemy because he likes fighting with worthy opponents. He certainly doesn't want anyone in the world die. While the action put the entire world in danger, it's certainly not as morally offensive as someone killing ppl on his own whim. And the story is done in a lighthearted way and you didn't see anyone die on the screen when the Earth exploded. It never tried to make you feel Goku is a bad person.
Main characters in One Piece never really killed ppl in an as violent way or show that they actually killed them. Most of the villains with their names mentioned finally live. Except the one from the filler arc before entering Grandline, which is uncharacteristic for One Piece. (Well, fillers are generally poorly written.)
Death Note is the opposite of typical Shonen genre.
Poor choice of things to compare with.
His argument wasn't violence but rather a dark underlying tone.
What about the time when Gero strangled a guy and you saw his head pop off? Or when Cell absorbed that rich dude and you saw him slowly melt away? What about the time Gohan killed the Cell jrs and you saw their dismembered body parts and eyes? Or the time Dodoria snapped a namekian's neck? Or the time Freeza tour Nail's arm off? Let's not forget Freeza's cut in half body. Some of my examples are straight from the manga but even so Dragon Ball can be pretty gory.
the population was wiped out by super buu, he simply used the wrong clip. random mafia getting gun down? big deal, how about tons of innocent people going about their daily lives getting impaled by energy beams raining down from super buu.
I hope Digi reads this or anyone who could give an interesting response.
Strangely enough I like how fairy tail keeps to the formula of a shonen and doesn't change too much. Note this is possibly due to the fact that i limit myself to about a season a year but regardless. Sometimes i feel like just having that show thats simple yet effective at what you enjoy is somewhat overlooked, not every show needs to be deep or have a greater meaning to it. I enjoy the fact that in shonen's that sometimes nothing changes. Its kinda similar to real life in a way when people promise to change themselves but don't and no one really cares.
That doesn't mean i don't like change, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has quickly become one of my favorite things ever due to how much everything changes all the time thus i can't miss a single detail. But i can safely say just like getting burnt out on a show that never changes, i can get burnt out on a show that constantly changes too much. See Hunter X Hunter as well one piece past fish man island. I got tired hearing about the new thing that throws everything to the side, how this is a moral ambiguity, etc. And I always end up wanting a simple story of good vs bad with easily defined characters, consider it junk food maybe,but its makes me really happy and satisfied which to be honest is something that is kinda hard to do as it seems the world becomes a more cynical place where people can't just have a little fun.
I think what I'm trying to say is that I appreciate how sometimes a show sticks to a formula changing very little over time just as much as one that changes things dramatically. I would really like to hear any opinions on this. And please not one's that are all, "Your taste's in shows is shit."
Good analysis. And the channels you recommend seems pretty cool, thanks.
i have never thought of the lovecraftian implication of Dragonball Z powerlevels
Isn't Neon Genesis Evangelion considered to be deconstruction?
Just asking, not making any points.
There's more to Evangelion than just being a deconstruction. The point of this video, I believe, is to say that a brilliant show is more than just it's subtext.
I think Evangelion is not just a mere deconstruction because the "mecha-genre like fights" are the least important thing about it. I mean they are great, filled with amazing animations and art, and every time they fight they are risking the whole world, but they are just a plot device.
theMoporter
It is according to the video Digi linked at the start of this one, since it actually has something to say about the subject matter it tackles. It does also point out that something being deconstruction is just a start of the conversation, not the end of it.
it is, and it was.
Eva is NOT a deconstruction of mecha, but more of a return to form to classic anime that had darker themes - the ending was above all else a reference to Devilman's apocalyptic, depressing finale. It subverts some shitty cliches from what Anno found to be "autistic" (his wording, not mine - his use sounds similar to the 4chan one) 90s otaku anime cliches. The claims of Eva being a deconstruction of mecha come from judging the mecha genre based on shitty babified 70s versions of Go Nagai properties - not the original manga versions (Getter Robo in particular was always very dark and bizarre) and while ignoring Gundam, which did moral shades of grey and "what if a teenager REALLY had to pilot a mecha" in freaking 1979.
Anno didn't hate anime & manga in the 90s. He just hated modern anime & manga.
As expected, this also applies to "subversive" shows within other genres. I constantly hear people praise Madoka for being subversive, but most people don't realize that it's just about as dark as Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura. And considering that Madoka is my favorite anime, it kinda feels like people are missing the whole point of why it's so great.
No matter how many times I see it, everytime The Best Guy Ever breaks out the power drills I die in a happy giggly fit, I love it so much!
Really great video, I always like to hear why good shows are good.
There is one thing in Hunter x Hunter that I think is genuinely subversive and that's the "super saiyan" moment. When Gon overpowers Pitou the tone is sad and dark, and the event has terrible consequences.
I fucking love Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. It's not really shounen though, at least anymore. It's seinen. But I still see what you're coming from. It's in my top 5 of all time.
What's in your top 5?
So satire on shounen doesn't equal subversion? Got it.
Now I wonder how Digi feels about this whole fad about making "dark" and "edgy" Magical Girl shows.
I am so sick of those and I want them to die... People are just trying to replicate the success of KLK and PMMM without any of the effort that made those shows so phenomenal. Also Princess Tutu, Pretear, and Revolutionary Girl Utena were darker, more sophisticated shoujo shows so it's not even true to say that the genre by itself is saccharine. So that means that simply making the one darker doesn't make something a deconstruction. I'm not sure if it's Digi or some other RUclipsr who pointed this out in a video about how PMMM is not really a deconstruction so much as it's a straight magical girl show with a tragic tone, which had been done before. It still has a happy ending, after all.
Sailor moon had the world end after one season, and had basically the same eventual conclusion as pmmm. Not to mention Revolutionary girl utena.
Magical girl shows were always gritty shit.
its pretty simple. any anime that not pertaining to friendship would be consider subverting the genre. mainly because its breath of fresh air to see an anime creator try something new. dont really blame people for thinking that way. people dont like redundancy. there no really such thing as being original but if creators at least made an attempt animes would be a whole lot better
the concept of the reconstruction has become more prevalent recently, with the example being: gundam is mecha, evangelion is deconstruction of mecha, gurren lagann is reconstruction of mecha, where they take the lampooning of the genre in stride and execute on the tropes to show why those tropes became popular.
shonen is a massive genre, to the degree that "action cooking" is a seperate concept from "volleyball", yet both can be (and are) shonen. looking at it from such a broad perspective means that nothing is going to seem subversive because there's so much information and the so-called "genre" is moving in every possible direction at once. it would be like saying "this book is subverting the tropes of being a book". looking at it on the smaller scale, you can find the subversions much more clearly.
one punch man may not be a subversion of shonen action, but it IS a subversion of the "unbeatable hero" archetype, because it shows how boring that is. even the example of boros, as cool as it was, is a subversion because you never get the feeling that saitama is in danger or that boros presents a threat to him. the fact that saitama spends most of the battle being drawn in his goofy deformed style is part of the subversion. compare that to dragonball, where goku is unbeatable, but it tries to build tension, and goku beating someone in a single attack is treated as a joke at the victim's expense, rather than a joke at goku's. every joke is at saitama's expense in OPM.
I never thought of Hunter X Hunter 2011 as anything other than a Shounen show that was done really really well. The Chimera Ant arc was fucking beautiful.
Are you kidding me? Everyone knows that nobody dies in One Piece.
You know, unless you absolutely have to. And sometime you still survive
Garrett Carter People in One Piece do die. Lots of them. One Piece has a optimistic tone, but it's set in a world where people with power constantly fight for more power. Didn't Digibro show you a video of that happening.
Garrett Carter One piece has many dying in flashback and in a cruel way too. I just dont want someone to die and come back later, thats just bull shit(Dbz did that constantly) And Some times one piece gets too dark(like zeff eats his own leg to survive, law travels under corpses to get out of town after his family being massacred)
BestGuyEver isn't underappreciated. It's just that, despite his talent and passion, he never uploads anything
They need to bring back Shaman King
DJ - D20 After Shaman King Flowers, I'd rather it stay dead and buried.
flowers was pretty much the same as shaman king only a generation later and not at all finished how did that make you not like shaman king?
King is fine. Flowers started going down a path that was not interesting in the least. Oh now we have the unknown from the entire series branch family coming and wanting to cause problems for the new protagonist? It was not strong in the slightest. Yeah it isn't done in terms of translations, but it finished in Japan in Oct. 2014, and the fact that we don't see any translations is typically indicative of the lack of interest from translators.
Flowers is not finished in the same sense that the original Shaman King was not finished: it got axed and rushed. The author got the opportunity to go back and redo the ending of the original one, but flowers wasn't really successful at all, so it just ended like that.
I don't know about Flowers, since it really wasn't all that interesting at all, but I'd be happy with a SK remake that expanded into the Kang Zeng Bang ending added later.
Is nice to see that you are bringing up those videos, i really hope to see more references like that in the other anime related channels and spread the knowledge
I always used to call it "Hunter Times Hunter" before subscribing to this channel. I've never seen the anime, if that helps.
Same, I thought it was Hunter ex Hunter
Even to this day I still call it Hunter ex Hunter, although I still have yet to watch it
Yeah, haven't watched it either, my friend used to and I thought it was hunter ex hunter
Dafuq you doing then? Watch it god damnit!
Skipping whole arcs of such a great show seems like a real loss. Plus if I was to crown the top 3 arcs I would probably put the Yorknew City arc over the arena one, though you do need to watch the arena one for combat mechanic context.
Really though I see no reason to skip arcs without forming an opinion of them yourself.
I wonder what digibro thinks about D.Grey-man.
***** nothing.
One-Punch Man is a satire, Digibro
But I agree with everything you just said
OPM is most subversive on the subject of western superhero comics.
You can watch the explanation here ruclips.net/video/ipTD5MXHrBo/видео.html
I already watched that video before the comment.
I do how he delivers the explanation and the references he uses. Definitely a good video to give that point.
People who don't get OPM seem to me in most part hard line otakus who have no hobbies but anime. One needs to see rebirth and new 52 superman in comics, and what happened in last few years to get why OPM got the praise it did.
I think that this desire comes from wanting something new and original, something that wows you in a way that you didn't know how. However, that can also stem from a yearning to be into a show that you can tout as "intellectual" and "2deep4u" as you said. We mistakenly attribute certain tropes as inherently cliched and trite when more often than not, that often comes down to the execution itself as there are many ways to play around with tropes as there are tropes overall.
If you want something that willfully subverts shonen tropes in a way that is meaningful on a grander scheme and makes an extremely thoughtful point about the emotional damage that a "hard work and guts equals victory" mindset can create, read the Fist of the North Star spin-off Jagi Gaiden by Sinichi Hiramoto (you might know him as the creator of HELLS/Hell's Angels). You don't even need to know shit about FoTNS, it's a fantastic self-contained story.
People praising Subversive Deconstruction anime is peak hypocrisy
I forgot that this video exists
This was a great video! I never really thought HunterXHunter was particularly subversive. Maybe it went into more mature themes and lingered on the psychological implications of characters having to do what they normally do in a shonen action series, but I don't think it was particularly revolutionary in that regard.
Spoilers for HxH coming up:
In particular, people cite stuff like the idea that Gon's "power-up" against Neferpitiou was unusually presented as horrifying and really bad as opposed to triumphant and inspiring, even though presenting shonen power-ups as not always a good thing is just as much a staple of the genre. If we use Dragon Ball as an example, I think people get so caught up in the badass moments and the 'hope of the universe' speeches that they forget Goku becoming a Super Saiyan has the exact same horrifying implications as Gon suddenly turning into an adult. It's the main character getting a drastic change in both appearance and personality, to the point he's saying he won't forgive him and is even so blinded by rage he's not going to listen to reason. He's suddenly 'not Goku' anymore. Like Gon, he's become completely unrecognisable.
I think it has to do with the way it’s executed but another reason why I think hxh does a better job because every character needs to pay for the power up(ranging from gon to alluka)(you had a power up to kill a villain *boom* now you’re a living corpse,you want to save your dying friend *boom* go on and battle to get alluka to him,you want to use a genie like creature *boom* Play by a complex set of rules which genuinely make you question whether or not this is worth it. Doing all of this makes it look like a believable story which follows its own rules and not an asspull)
He has some of the best and most details in all of manga while remaining fun and interesting. The most shown example is kurapice, who shows that gaining power for revenge limits you otherwise literally, and cares about his friend, even abadoning his revenge for a time for them. And yu yu hashiko does play around with its elements cleverly as well. The main hero gets a power up by becoming part ancient demon, and gets feared and hunted from the spirizual society afterwards.
There's an interview of the guy who wrote infinite jest, in which he talks about how postmodernism has a bad tendency to merely critique, without offering anything new.
2:59 "Killua pulls this guy's beating heart" reminds of Kakauzu a lot.
Holy Squapagoli!!! You are my absolute favorite anime based RUclipsr of all time. I'm sad that I didn't subscribe to this channel sooner, considering one of your videos is the only reason I decided to stick with Hunder X Hunter in the first place! I'm absolutely in love with how complete your understanding of storytelling and directing is, and how well you articulate yourself.
do some sort of Gintama video !
it's starting again
He hasn't finished a single one of Gintama's seasons, so he can't say anything about it yet. But he has stated that it might be his favorite anime ever once.
Oh shucks, I said it because the starting it's final season in January, so I thought it would be appropriate for him to start to talk about it
kokokokokoko quinto Yeah, I know. I haven't finished a single season of Gintama either so I can't say i'm super excited, but regardless.
I think lots of people feel that HxH is subversive simply because it subverts their expectation of "All Shonen Anime is bad", simply because they dont like most shounen anime and yet somehow ended up loving HxH.
I know because, for the most part, this is my case.
Except I dont think "All shonen anime is bad", but more like "Im aware that most shonen anime just doesnt appeal to me".
Yeah go brainwash these shounen lovers to watch JoJo...it's the only right thing to do.
ONE OF US.
Supertron
Tsk Tsk. Tsk Tsk Tsk. YES, I AM!
Don't you mean read?
Robert Fitzgerald MUDA
NEETmoreAnime Jojo part 1 to 6 are shounen
*unholy screeching of WATCH BOKURANO*
Okay, okay, that's out of my system now. Bokurano is genuinely subversive imo, but the catch is it's not a "subverted mecha show" It's not a mecha show at all! It's a psychological tragedy that happens to involve giant robots, and while it's definitely not for everyone I still find the fact that it came out in 2007 borderline criminal because that means it got overshadowed by all the other great 2007 anime.
Digi, I've been watching you for QUITE a long time now. Back when I was a really cringe-worthy child in middle school watching your MLP videos (we try to forget that), all the way til now. I've thoroughly enjoyed most of your work. The way you script and convey your opinions in your videos has always been a reason why you're one of my favorite youtubers nowadays. You dont seem to come off too narcissistic in your opinions, being very open minded and constantly bringing up counter arguments.
So thank you for making your videos, and please continue to, because many people enjoy them.
Who needs to subvert tropes when you can just steamroll thru them with pure fabulousness and constant posing?
You know what makes HxH subversive? It's actually good.
hahahahaha
LJK401 WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU HERE?!
Andrew Rogers Hello fellow RWBY HATR.
Andrew Rogers Not the hugest fan of Digi at times, but when he makes a good video, he makes a good video.
LJK401 Huh, you did call him cancer at one point.
Hunter hunter is still Darker than most Shonen. A character being brutally murdered by multiple gun shots leaves more of an impact than a pink monster thing throwing a huge pink ball at the planet. Especially when Shonen like one piece and dragon Ball z have been tagged as a kids show while hunter X hunter has not. Any violence on Shonen like that means nothing. It makes you feel nothing.
0--R3APER--0 blood doesn't make things OMG so deep
One punch man (which is a subversion of super heroes) has a darker ending
0--R3APER--0 Nah, they both give you the same feeling of apathy, epspecially if you didn't know them well enough or didn't like anything about them.
You're totally right minus that the majority or even broad population of fairy tail fans ever got reviled at it or that it became too predictable. It's got a new season coming and more OVAs and a movie that isn't greenlit yet. I mean come on, ya good guys usually win, but the twists and surprises are common enough that you can't not laugh or feel a little thrill or general amusement throughout every episode.
You're awesome, all you dudes are awesome. I just discovered JacksBlade after finishing OPM. I loved this video... It carries a lesson far beyond anime narrative... "Mastering the fundamentals" can apply to any form of popular art or narrative building. :D