Anime/Manga Journal

[Annubis]

Wut? Inu-Yasha is 100% shoujo.

[Raze]

 Inuyasha, regardless of it's demographic, is a lot like naruto in that everyone hates it because it ruined it's own reputation, but actually wasn't too bad at the start. It's a show you can enjoy for 40-50ish eps. Just know it's going to climax and be time for the story to end and the bad guys going to get away.

[Aeolus]

The tl;dr of Inuyasha is that it starts as an entertaining shonen style collectithon then by the second season that all but ditches that to become a full time romantic comedy for the remainder of the decade.

Even the bait and switch wouldn't have been so terrible if the plot wasn't put into suspended animation for the better part of a decade or if the show itself didn't devolve into that one early commercial from Adult Swim that consisted of nothing but the two leads shouting each others' names at each other with the occasional sword upgrade for Inuyasha thrown in to continue the pretense (seriously, whenever Inuyasha went "Oh shit! A new barrier!" it was time for a new story arc (or for Kagome/Kikiyo to save the day), but whenever Miroku went "Oh shit! Bees!" it was time to ignore him for the rest of the episode which was usually about two seconds into the episode's fight, and then there's Sango and Shippo, although at least the former did well enough with her stupidly huge boomerang and flying, flaming, murdercatfoxthingy).

Yeah. Guess who fell into that trap! This guy! I didn't even bother watching the ending because I already knew by that point that it was just going to consist of wrapping up every goddamn plot thread the space of one season and ending with both Inuyasha and Miroku getting their respective girls.

And then the author immediately started a new series that was exactly the same thing except more ghosts instead of demons.

Which, by the way, don't bother with Rin-ne or whatever its called. Its guaranteed to be garbage.

[Mickeymac92]

Well, I'll admit to only watching one season and then a few episodes here of there of later seasons. What I watched at least felt like every other shounen show I ever watched, albeit ten times worse. A collection of overpowered misfits out to beat the big-baddie and his minions. You guys saying I just got lucky and only saw the actual action parts?

[Dice]

It seems a lot of the shounen shows do really well, the author catches on, and makes their shit too fucking long.  I hate when plot threads keep getting introduced and then tangling up, only to [barely] be resolved later.  I hear Naruto is only getting more and more retarded as it goes on.  Bleach, sort of, knew when it quit.

I thought the first bit of Inu-Yasha was almost masterful.  Then it got really dragged out.  Rin-ne is getting really mixed reaction from peeps.  ...with all due respect to Rumiko, for the like 30+ years she's been a comicker, you'd think she'd be slightly better at drawing; but I guess that can be chalked up to "her own personal style" just kinda looking like that... I guess.

I thought Fushigi Yuugi did a pretty good balance of action/romance, it's geared towards women for sure, but maybe the same women who would also jump ship to read a shounen magazine.

[Kevadu]

Inuyasha is shounen, but it'

Wut? Inu-Yasha is 100% shoujo.

Nope, totally shounen.  I mean, this author is a woman, but that doesn't make it shoujo...

...with all due respect to Rumiko, for the like 30+ years she's been a comicker, you'd think she'd be slightly better at drawing; but I guess that can be chalked up to "her own personal style" just kinda looking like that... I guess.

Heh, look at Adachi, easily the most prolific author of shounen sports manga ever.  But his characters still look the same as they did in the 70s...the background are gorgeous, but I'm pretty sure it's the assistants who do all of those.

[Ranadiel]

Yeah. Guess who fell into that trap! This guy! I didn't even bother watching the ending because I already knew by that point that it was just going to consist of wrapping up every goddamn plot thread the space of one season and ending with both Inuyasha and Miroku getting their respective girls.

So since you said watch and not read, I assume you saw the anime and didn't read the manga? If so then....the ending doesn't actually resolve anything as I recall. The manga continued running for another 5 years or something after the anime ended and the anime just had a non-ending. I believe you are right about the manga's ending for the most part, but I've forgotten most of the details of how the series ended.

Overall I did Inuyasha, but yeah it does really drag.

[Mickeymac92]

I thought Inuyasha: The Final Act in 2009 was supposed to finish the series?

[Chronix112]

You think Naruto is bad? Most people either dropped, bitch about  or just indifferent to everything after the fall of Aizen arc in Bleach. That is not counting the ones that gave up slugging trough  the Hunco Mundo arc.

[Annubis]

There was that whole season in the anime about the extra dolls that just killed it.

The ED was kinda cool though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTPVMlfVglA
Nice song at least.

[Aeolus]

I thought Inuyasha: The Final Act in 2009 was supposed to finish the series?

It was. The final act was literally the last couple of chapters of the manga. They ended up skipping at least an arc or two in the process but its Inuyasha and nothing of value was lost. Also I did read at least one chapter of the manga, the final one, to see if the Internets' vitriol was as warranted as it seemed. It was.


Bleach's problem was that it came up with this plotline involving things like Hollows and the hunting of them down and then the Soul Society arc happened which should've been a derail but ended up being so popular that basically every arc since tried to replicate that instead leading to, among other things, battles that consisted of "Now it is I who is behind you!" shenanigans and power levels that were completely arbitrary beyond the measurement of who could press their sword against another person's sword harder.

And Naruto's problem was that at first it started by focusing on the titular character's growth from being a dipshit loser to fulfilling his dream, but he was too much of a dipshit loser so the series wisely dispersed the focus onto his peers from his class as well making battles and events a team effort but then they also wanted to make angsty emo Sasuke into the main character despite being nothing more than a dipshit loser so they basically had him single-handedly hijack the plot and turn it into crap about asian wizards demanding your shottingguns.

[Klyde Chroma]

wow folks..... since my last post but a few days ago about entertaining a shonen title there has been absolute freakin' gold posted by your guys!!! seriously, informative stuff friends... waaaay too much for me to reply to individually....

but the long and the short of it is, whether a few aforementioned titles qualify as shonen or not is irrelevant.... I have ample direction on what to check out, which I can't thank you for enough! oddly enough i have never seen ANY of most of what was discussed despite how long I have been watching anime...

In response to a few things though....

Yes, I have watched soul eater.... that had a part in me entertaining the idea I could enjoy something in this direction...

Thank you for clearing up that shonen means "for boys"... I actually had no idea... I thought it meant "a lot more then 12 or 24 episodes"-LoL

@dice... I too have commitment issues when it comes to anime.... long series scare me... I want to conciously work to amend this...

[Annubis]

long series scare me...

That's the reason I'm never ever starting Ramna.
I missed it back then and it's just too much now.

[Chronix112]

long series scare me...

That's the reason I'm never ever starting Ramna.
I missed it back then and it's just too much now.

watch seasons 1-3 the rest of it is skipable

[Ranadiel]

I thought Inuyasha: The Final Act in 2009 was supposed to finish the series?

I either forgot about that or never heard of it. >.>

Bleach's problem was that it came up with this plotline involving things like Hollows and the hunting of them down and then the Soul Society arc happened which should've been a derail but ended up being so popular that basically every arc since tried to replicate that instead leading to, among other things, battles that consisted of "Now it is I who is behind you!" shenanigans and power levels that were completely arbitrary beyond the measurement of who could press their sword against another person's sword harder.

And Naruto's problem was that at first it started by focusing on the titular character's growth from being a dipshit loser to fulfilling his dream, but he was too much of a dipshit loser so the series wisely dispersed the focus onto his peers from his class as well making battles and events a team effort but then they also wanted to make angsty emo Sasuke into the main character despite being nothing more than a dipshit loser so they basically had him single-handedly hijack the plot and turn it into crap about asian wizards demanding your shottingguns.

Bleach has a lot of problems. I think another of Bleach's bigger problem is that, or at leas I have heard that Kubo said that, the way that Kubo handles writer's block is that he just sits down and designs more characters and then later on he injects them into the storyline.....so every single arc we get a new batch of characters from Kubo's latest rounds of writer's block that we are supposed to care about. However we don't because the sheer number of them results in none of them getting enough time to care. Also there is the fact that every arc since Soul Society has been a repeat of: new villian group is introduced, Ichigo develops new power set(real reason Bleach is on its final arc? Kubo has run out of power sets to give Ichigo), Chad and Orihime are worthless, Ichigo undergoes special training to develop a new uber technique(except in Fullbringer I guess), and then Ichigo solos the final boss that no one else could possibly handle.

As for Naruto, it has actually gotten better in the current arc. I wouldn't call it great, but I do think it is good. Of course that is in large part because Sasuke has vanished from the plot, hopefully until the inevitable confronation between him and Naruto and because the rest of the cast has actually gotten involved in events. Naruto's extended cast really is one of its strong points, so when it focuses solely on Naruto it is at its weakest......and the whole year of Sasuke was absolutely horrible. Hopefully it will continue on its upswing until it finishes up for good.