Top Gun

People have joked for a while about the Luffy Princess Fan Club. Run by Barto, of course.

Nope!

Gonna just ignore the drooling sperging here for all our sakes. I've already provided multiple justifiable reasons. The majority of people we follow in the series have been killing for most of their lives, and those who haven't largely have an intimate familiarity with death. (See: Kurapica) They're not going to blink too much at having random people die around them. As far as the public at large goes, look at Heaven's Arena: it's obviously a clear expy for the Roman Colosseum, right? Tell me, was the Roman public particularly horrified at the idea of gladiatorial combat to the death? Not at all. Even pre-Enlightenment Europe largely had no problem with duels to the death among the aristocracy. If there are real-world examples of a general public either unconcerned or even actively entertained by acts of deadly violence, is it that much of a stretch of logic to see the same portrayed in a fictional universe? (Honestly it's even a bit of a reflection of the expected audience reaction. Would anyone watching the scene where the random background mooks failed at cliff-diving for eggs be expected to think anything other than, "Lol, sucks to be them"?) This is one place where I think the 2011 adaptation does a bit of a disservice. The 1999 version spends a full episode with Gon's earlier childhood, and it's made much clearer that despite living with his aunt, he spent a great deal of that childhood basically running around in the wild. Admittedly I probably oversold the "this is possibly why death doesn't bug him" angle, but at the very least he didn't have much in the way of normal interactions with society. And while I wouldn't go nearly so far as to claim that Gon is a sociopath, the show does establish early on that he has different reactions to people and situations than one might expect, and it's built up as part of his character. I'm not sure how a main protagonist differing from the norm is "off-putting" when it's as old a trope as fiction itself. The very fact that it obviously isn't a good idea tells you something about the Hunter Organization, doesn't it? Remember that Netero, the chairman of the organization, interviewed each of the remaining candidates halfway through the exam, and yet he doesn't seem to give a damn about the type of person Hisoka obviously is. So it's very obvious that the Organization, at least as represented by Netero, is essentially amoral: they're seemingly interested in enlisting the strongest individuals, regardless of their temperament or proclivities. (Even the examiner in charge of the Trick Tower portion of the Exam was a pretty scummy guy.) So the series is making it clear early on that we as viewers shouldn't necessarily trust the motivations of the Organization. This is a perfect example of what I meant by "show, don't tell": this aspect of the story is presented to the viewer in a certain light, the viewer is left to draw their own conclusions as to why it's so, and the story is free to expand upon the reasons why later on. I'm not going to claim that it's simply because the Organization wants to keep tabs on dangerous individuals, since I don't have enough evidence to make that argument either way, but I'm free to speculate until the series provides additional information later on. At the end of the day, if you want to say that some of the things HxH does aren't working for you, that's just fine by me. But trying to pass these off as "bad writing" instead of personal preference is where I take issue. I won't sit here and claim that the series is perfect, but I certainly will defend how it establishes its characters and worldview as perfectly adequate.

This page needs one too!

What is there to comment on? Yes, people die. Everyone taking the Exam knows and accepts this. Despite the sheer difficulty in even getting to the Exam's first stage, and despite the risk of death at every phase of it, people are still willing to try for it in droves because of the massive benefits that being a Hunter conveys. There's not any need to harp on what is essentially a basic fact of the setting. Soooo other characters being upset when an important character dies yet not really caring when background mooks die is "bad writing" now? The sort of dichotomy that pretty much every story ever written engages in, because it's a direct reflection of the audience's emotional engagement? This is just silly. Again, it's made clear very early on that Gon doesn't exactly hold by general societal norms. He befriends Killua based on his instincts about what sort of person Killua is, and the fact that he happens to have been raised as an assassin doesn't faze Gon at all. To date, Killua has only killed one person in front of Gon: a mass-murdering psychopath who was himself intent on killing Killua and was standing between the group and progressing through the Exam. While the method Killua chose was certainly...extreme, the kill itself was hardly undeserved, and Gon had no real reason to comment on it. (For reference, Kurapica threatens his own opponent with death an episode or so prior.) And when Gon hears about what Killua did in the final round of the Exam, he recognizes immediately that Killua was coerced into killing someone, and this drives his anger and determination to get Killua back. (See also: Gon willingly letting a fellow competitor walk freely towards Hisoka without warning so that he could get a clear shot at Hisoka's badge. He doesn't blink too much at death.) I'm not familiar with enough of the story to say if Togashi ever expands on the Hunter Organization's overall place in the world, but I think it would be extraneous information this early in the story; I'd certainly be interested in learning more about it eventually. It's not hard to imagine the Organization as being relatively amoral in its nature, but if one of its members did cause enough trouble I'm sure they'd have no qualms with policing their own. Simply repeating "illogical" or "bad writing" without providing any sort of real critical analysis doesn't make it so. Most of your complaints are trivially explained away or are extraneous to the story that's actually being told.

Here's a valid question: would that benefit the story in any tangible way? Would it aid the narrative that Togashi is telling? Because I don't really see how it would. Hell, if anything I think a reaction to a couple of background characters who don't even get any dialog would feel jarringly out-of-place. "Here, have an artificial shocked reaction over randos that no one gives a damn about!" The Hunter Exam is a very dangerous trial that frequently turns deadly for the foolish and unprepared, and any of the entrants who knew anything at all about it going in would implicitly understand and accept this. They all had more than enough to worry about with keeping themselves alive and dealing with the challenges of the exam. Most of the candidates, people like Hisoka and Killua, have been surrounded by and/or directly caused death for their entire lives. Why should anyone blink at what's going on? You keep talking about wanting all of this extraneous background as to why lives are cheap in this world, but at the end of the day isn't it enough to simply know that they are for now? It's a principle of good storytelling to keep the narrative as trimmed-down as it possibly can be without compromising what needs to be told, and the Hunter Exam is a perfect example of "show, don't tell" in terms of establishing a particular tone. The lack of characters' reactions says far more about the setting than any sort of narration ever could. There's ample time later for Togashi to further explore the overall social situation of his world if he chooses, but it would be very much extraneous and out-of-place this early in the story. As for Gon, the reason I cited his childhood was to demonstrate that he didn't have a standard upbringing. Yes, he was raised by his aunt, but he spent a great deal of time out in the wild, which is what honed his extraordinarily acute senses. For my money it's also a big part of what makes Gon somewhat unique among shounen protagonists. He initially comes across as your typical plucky happy-go-lucky Goku-mold Jump lead, but dig a bit deeper and there's a certain coldness below the surface. Gon frequently has trouble with controlling his emotions, and his entire motivation for going after Hisoka is simple revenge for a perceived personal humiliation. He's already flat-out threatened to kill at least one other person thus far, something that the likes of Goku or Luffy or Naruto would never do. Normal societal conventions are essentially alien to Gon: while Leorio and Kurapica recoiled at Killua ripping that murderer's heart out, Gon didn't bat an eye at it, simply because he'd already pegged Killua as a Good Person that he liked. They were friends, so it simply didn't matter to him. In the same way, he barely noticed when Hisoka killed multiple people around him, because the desire to beat him was paramount. Honestly it's this sort of interesting dynamic that made me a fan of the series, because Togashi's able to play these standard shounen conventions perfectly straight, and then turn right around and subvert them in surprising ways.

Ugh, what the fuck. I've been willing to kill for a Blu-ray release, but I'm not buying it if they fucked it up that royally. Guess I'll have to go the Aniplex route and wait for the UK BDs.

Remember when we didn't get shitty threads like this? It was a magical time.

Peer-reviewed studies or GTFO.

...because he spent the majority of his childhood running around in the wild dealing with wild animals and thus implicitly understands the principle of kill-or-be-killed? Seriously, this takes about five seconds of thought. Because clearly every fictional universe abides by the same ethical standards as our own, right? Combat to the death is a ridiculously common trope. And just where have we seen "everyone murdering everyone"? The vast majority of the people in the HxH universe live perfectly normal, mundane lives. The people we've spent time with throughout the course of the series thus far represent what could euphemistically be described as its fringe: mercenaries, trained warriors, assassins. Last time I checked, those types tend to do a great deal of killing and dying in the real world too. Like, if you're going to troll, at least be mildly entertaining. This shit is just boring to debunk.

I...honestly don't know. I probably should. It's either one of my great-grandparents or my great-great grandparents, I think.

I'd agree with this. The Hunter Exam in particular felt a lot more compelling in the 1999 version, and the bits of filler content that were added did a lot for fleshing out the characters. I've wound up feeling very similarly about this series as I did Brotherhood vs. the original FMA anime: the later adaptations breeze through the early material too quickly and take some time to find their legs, but they definitely become worthwhile after that.

I don't think I've watched non-anime [as] since at least 2010. Maybe a short stretch of VB premieres online somewhere, but that's it.

Our options are Comcast or Verizon FiOS. So it's either pure unadulterated shit or slightly diluted shit!

Also a masterful troll, don't forget that!

The vast majority of meteors that create fireballs like this range from the size of a small pebble to maybe a meter or two across. Not only would it be impossible to track them, there'd be no reason to anyway.

The Allman Brothers created the best goddamn driving music known to man.

Swinging back to the OP here, I think the primary difference is that Luffy has a very strongly-defined sense of justice and compassion. He does take some inherent joy in fighting, and he repeatedly insists that he be the one to personally take on the Big Bad of the arc (as if it would happen any other way), but for all his protests against wanting to be a hero ("They have to share the meat!"), he jumps right into the role if people are suffering or being oppressed. That goes triple if it's someone he considers to be a friend, even if that person had fought against him in the past. (See: the greatest punch in anime history.) His seeming stupidity could be better described as single-mindedness: he has the innate ability to see straight through to what's necessary to help someone, and lord help you if you're the ass he needs to kick in order to do so, even if it makes him an enemy of the entire world. And Cille already did a great job of explaining how Luffy has an inherent trust in his crew's abilities: he values them because they can do things he can't, and he knows that they can hold their own when times are tough. In turn, the rest of the Straw Hats are driven to be stronger in order to help Luffy fulfill his goal. Then you look at Goku, who...fights. And trains to fight. And that's about it really. He's in it almost entirely because he likes to fight, and he doesn't strive to get stronger in order to better protect people, but instead for its own sake. Yes he has friends and family, and he does care about them in his own way, but they're always secondary to his drive to be the strongest fighter in the universe. Hell, he's repeatedly put the entire planet (and more) in grave danger just for the sake of fighting his opponent at their full power. As much as he loves punching people, that's not something Luffy would ever do. (Also we all know that DBZ Abridged totally nailed how Goku's kids were conceived. "He said one week...I'm using it.")

*looks back at OP* https://www.youtube.com/embed/P5iqYuFmzqg

brb choking on massive amounts of irony And would anyone like to explain to ben what "taking it personally" actually looks like? Or should we all save ourselves that collective migraine?

Man you really have shit-tier tastes across the entire spectrum don't you?

hyyyyyype

Honestly it is something of a running gag that "nobody dies in One Piece except in flashbacks" (right up until it isn't anyway), and yeah there are a few cases like Pell's where by all reason someone really should have snuffed it, but it's easy enough to laugh off. The thing with DBZ is that there is A LITERAL DEUS EX MACHINA RIGHT IN THE NAME OF THE FRANCHISE. And that's not really a problem at all in the early days of Goku freaking out over Bulma's missing balls, because everything's kind of goofy and nothing's being taken seriously. But when you get to DBZ and there are these all-powerful villains and threats of massive destruction and apocalyptic stakes, any sense of dramatic tension gets sucked right out of the room as soon as you realize that any bad things that happened will get undone in the blink of an eye anyway. Hell, even Goku's "final death" at Cell's hands is a total joke when you see him immediately afterwards chilling all happy in the afterlife, and he's seemingly able to talk with anyone he wants at any time anyway. It makes me wish that Toriyama had stuck with the happy-go-lucky earlier tone of the series, because the alternative just doesn't hold up.

And yet you remain socially oblivious and can't separate terrible personal taste from dispassionate analysis. So have fun with that.

I normally mock people for saying this, but holy fuck tell me that second half wasn't scripted.