ben0119

That must have been shouted down by all the fanboying and obnoxious praise being lavished on HxH for years, and people crying about how it would never get licensed or come to Toonami. If only Toonami got HxH, then we could all be saved! And I'm not going to blame over-hype for my massive disappointment and dislike of the show, either, since JoJo was hyped to the moon and that show blew my expectations away with how awesome it was. I haven't really heard anyone praising the 99 series til you and Top_Gun. Then that means less credit can be given to Togashi's "genius." =3 I agree with a lot of that. The "comedy" in FMAB, which isn't even funny, by the way, is out of place and always at the worst moments. Was quite annoying. Don't think we can blame that on "translation," either. The first 13 episodes are rushed. I like the way that material was covered in the original series better. I cared about Hughes a lot more and felt his death way worse in the original. People told me this was how it was supposed to be and Hughes was never supposed to be that important of a character. Just one of those people that gets killed early on to show things are getting serious and kicking into high gear. And I'm like, that's supposed to be a good thing? But, for whatever it's worth, most people that have only seen Brotherhood don't seem to have an issue with the pacing or handling of the early material. So maybe if we never saw FMA03 we wouldn't have a worse impression of the beginning of FMAB. It's always tricky when you're seeing essentially two versions of the same thing like that. Either way, I'll take the first 13 episodes of Brotherhood over HxH's in a heartbeat. Yeah never read the FMA manga. I think I planned on it after Brotherhood ended but never got around to it. That doesn't sound bad. I do remember Gon contemplating failure about something, but it wasn't that. Think it was the badge thing.

No, but being different doesn't automatically make it better. Like I said, don't really care for Gon or Killua. So, if you're going to have a shifting cast, you need to at least have all of them be appealing characters. Bleach got brought up earlier, with how Ichigo, and plenty of other characters, for that matter, wouldn't appear for long periods of time. With that series, you don't mind swapping between characters because you tend to like them. Just about everybody has multiple characters they're big fans of. And even if it's a case of someone you don't want to watch at that moment, you aren't going to watch, say, Hitsugaya's personal journey for a hundred episodes before you get back to the rest of the cast. It's also worth noting that HxH set up the false pretense and expectations during the Hunter Exam that Gon, Killua, Kurapika, and Leorio would be a team, the main cast. These are the characters we would be following for the rest of the series. They even make a promise to reunite when they split up at the end of the exam. This gives the impression the separation will be temporary, and everyone's paths will eventually meet once again. But nope, it turns out this is the Gon and Killua show, with occasional Kurapika side stories, and I guess Leorio died on the way back to his home planet. How else was HxH different? Let's go down the list of some of the "brilliant subversions of the shonen genre," shall we? Oh hey, isn't subversive that a shonen fighter won't have fights? Wait. Yeah, let's play with candles. You know, it reminds me of those games Yami Yugi would play before the cards came into the series. Except there it was actually interesting and fun to watch. So Togashi takes this kind of concept and manages to make it boring and lame. We had entire episodes dedicated to sitting and talking, running and talking, tedious, obnoxious tests, hunting for a retro game console, opening a door, climbing a wall, talking to a butler on the phone, playing some stupid dice game. Just, blah. Yeah, it's real "different." But, it's not interesting. Not exciting. Do please lecture me on what was so groundbreaking and mesmerizing about that game Gon played with the butler. Hey, let's build up an entire arc to the final exam, it will be a tournament. Okay, the way the tournament works is a little different, but that's fine. We're going to get to see some fights. Time for the big blowoff of the exam! Wait, no, no. We're not going to do that. We'll just off-screen it all. Climaxes don't need to be seen on-screen. One credit I will give was the moment with Killua and his brother, probably one of the only great moments in the show up until that point. In the first 30-something episodes the show was unable to establish a believable fantasy world that was interesting and made sense. Nobody cares when anyone dies. A world wide club card with ridiculously great perks and a license to kill is given out freely to people like Hisoka. Nobody cares when anyone dies and you can pretty much kill anyone at will, but there's a jail. I suppose Togashi put the jail in because he thought it was the right thing to do? It's like he's not even sure. A family of assassins are treated like celebrities and tour groups visit their house, which is just SO WACKY AND FUNNY, but... makes no sense. Really, the show's "logic" is all over the map. I guess this is all just another subversion. We don't need to get our audience to care about the show's world right away, right? Let me think of an unconventional show. Ah, how about Moribito? Not always the most action-packed series. And things often aren't handled the way one would expect. Hell, there was a whole episode with Chagum exposing someone cheating at a gambling game of some kind. But, it was an interesting episode. It was fun to watch the way it all played out. There's a lot of conversations, but they're interesting conversations, and you care about the characters having them. For a good while the show builds up a confrontation between two groups, but when the two actually meet, they talk to each other like people and realize they really have no reason to fight. I was clapping my hands right there, because the trope of misunderstanding fueled feuds drives me up the wall. And there are some really great action scenes, and they feel earned. I cared about the characters there. I don't care about much of anyone or anything in HxH, and as I said, the few things I did care about, the show pissed away with its constant puttering around. I'm all for unconventional. But whatever unconventional thing you're doing needs to actually be interesting. It's not good just because it's different.

Well a lot of people were basically writing off '99 as an afterthought and that 2011 was the one you should watch. The fact that 2011 follows the manga closer really isn't helping your case... That means we can't even pass this off on a poor adaptation. The source material is just blah. Again, nobody should have to get through 30 episodes of crap to get to the supposedly good stuff. You're supposed to be building up the world and the lore, and getting people invested in your characters in that time. Then that sets you up to have some epic stuff later on. If I don't care about the story now, why would I care later?

I don't know. Critics disagree. And have you ever noticed how they tend to like movies no one else actually likes? Quality is subjective. I'm allowed to not like something and/or think it is bad, and that doesn't mean I can't make distinctions in writing and story quality. People are allowed to think shows you like are bad without being subhuman, Top_Gun. Yeah because Hiatus has been so fucking compelling. It spends its time explaining at length mundane things it thinks is interesting, building up to events and then either not delivering or off-screening them, focusing on characters that are annoying at best and boring at worst, and throwing what few characters of interest there are to the wayside. The show's world is boring, nonsensical, and empty. Show is a complete sausage fest. I'm still annoyed with Gon. He's boring but at the same time acts bizarrely. For some reason Togashi expects us to be invested in a quasi-sociopathic character with little personality. Killua is the biggest smug little shit, but at least he feels like an actual person that could exist. Kurapika and Leorio were likable, decent characters. Hisoka was fun. They made the show bearable. But then, well... nothing happens. And now I know Kurapika won't appear for over a hundred episodes because "subversion," and Leorio is apparently a footnote already. So yeah, I'm glad I stopped watching when I did and regret getting as little invested as I ever did. It was a waste of my time. I wouldn't call it "not particularly good," but I wouldn't call Bleach perfect by any means. I give it a 10/10 on MAL but that's purely on my personal enjoyment and not objective critical quality. There's no such thing as true objectivity by the way. Well, I guess Togashi is really good at crafting a boring story. ;D Say what you will about Bleach, but I'm invested in its characters, the world, the lore, the events. I care about it. I wanted to see what would happen to the characters and where they would end up. With Hunter x Hunter, can't say I cared about much in it, and what little I did care about, the show managed to piss away with its constant puttering around. I'll even go one further. I don't even really like Attack on Titan, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't somewhat invested with finding out what happens to some of the characters and learning more about the world and its mysteries. Maybe I'm warming to it, even, who knows. Hell, Shippuden is fucking horrid for the most part, with lots of poor execution of things and just general shittiness with the direction of the story in a lot of areas, but I'll sit there and watch it because at one time I actually liked Naruto, and I am kind of interested to see what happens to some of the characters. HxH had its chance to make a positive impression on me and it failed. That's how this works. You need to reel someone in from the beginning. Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, Fullmetal Alchemist, Dragon Ball, InuYasha, plenty of other shows, they hook you from the first episode and kick things off with a bang. HxH started with a whimper and the empty promises of "IT GETS BETTER!" So... yeah. I guess you missed the part where I said someone could have watched Cowboy Bebop + FLCL instead of the first 30-something HxH episodes and spent their time far wiser. So I was never holding up Bleach as some pillar of perfection. I dunno'. I think I'll just keep going with my theory that Togashi was replaced with an alien clone, like Michael Jackson. > Because how the hell else does the guy that supposedly created Yu Yu Hakusho make this crap? I mean, you guys have even admitted that the '99 show was better for the first parts of the story. So, people that want to say that was all "build up" and "slow burn" (LOL) forgot that it needs to actually be interesting. Otherwise you're not going to stick around for the supposedly better stuff that comes later.

He really didn't do anything this season, did he?

But how can that be when he was riding on his shoulder?

Yeah what was up with that one?

No flying whales or dinosaurs! Boooooo!

The rest, yes, but Ten Ten was pretty much always a nothing character.

ROFL

Haha oh god. To be fair, Pain is on a whole other level. It took some major training and creativity for Naruto to even be able to do anything against him. Pretty much all the Leaf Ninjas have gotten whooped by Pain. But, even if it makes sense here, as we've paid attention to the show, we know that there's a pattern here.

You talking about later in Super or something? Depends on if she's as old as she was at the end of DBZ. They're might be a mid-way part of the transformation.

PAIN WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?! Now you did it. Nine Tails has busted loose. Pain talking like a damn Sith Lord.

Why just casually cut to the real Pain after all this build up? He should have been revealed when he was actually found by The Leaf. I really don't see how ostricizing Naruto was productive. You'd think they'd show some gratitude, since the village would've been destroyed without Naruto. And why didn't the Hokage tell everyone to knock it off? Oh snap, she said it. Made her stand. But this would have a lot more meaning if Hinata hadn't barely appeared in the show. So stupid. Look at those production values go up! Nice. Why the hell would you pick on a kid that's basically royalty? Idiots. Still think the cartoonishly senselessly evil bullies are hilarious in this show. Remember when one of them tossed a dog in a river? Reminds me of Stephen King bullies.

Since when were Lupin and Fujiko an item. Is that clown a really fruity muscleman or a Nicole Bass type? When Luca started talking about his dream, it reminded me of One Piece. Fujiko tied tied up hanging upside down in that outfit! <3 Oh man all her outfits were great in this episode! Come on now, Fujiko isn't a complete sociopath. What a complicated and mysterious woman! ::spin:: She made money but she also saved him.

They are. Why do you think readers through a fit and gave the Fullbring Arc low marks? Because Kubo took the Soul Reapers out of the picture to focus on the original "main cast." I like them, but the sad fact remains that people ended up liking the Soul Reapers more than the main cast. Yes, I know Rukia and Renji are Soul Reapers, but you know what I'm talking about. You know I quit watching Hiatus months ago, right?

What makes a good story and good writing is subjective. I could say the same to you calling that trainwreck Unicorn "fantastic." For whatever you want to say against Kubo, Bleach is at least enjoyable. Entertaining, interesting, engaging. Hiatus is just a big ball of nothing. In fact, when Kishimoto, heh, "adapted" his material from it, he made it actually entertaining! :-D I'll take Naruto before the time skip over Hiatus any day.

Yeah, it's kind of silly, that whatever those motives were, Kaneki thought they weren't ill-willed, even after what he did to him and to Toka. And wasn't Jason part of his organization? If they aren't "bad ghouls," why would they have him around? I suppose you could make the argument that he's their Mado, to show how there is bad on both sides, but Aogiri isn't some official government group. They don't have to keep him around because he's "useful." Which, he isn't. All he does is torture people. I thought they were supposed to be some giant evil ghoul faction bent on... taking over territory? Not sure what happens after they do that since no humans will be sticking around for them to eat, and we saw how fast the Doves responded. So yeah I guess it's not clear. And yeah very abrupt given we don't really have a full understanding of Aogiri Tree. Come to think of it, we still don't even know why they wanted Kaneki. And yet they've just let him join after he killed Jason, and don't seem to be "using" him for anything special compared to what other members are doing. *sigh*

The show wasn't very subtle about it. The way she reacted to hearing Kaneki's name was immediately suspicious. Still silly that we're supposed to care about a "shocking reveal" of this author lady who was only talked about until now being a prominent ghoul in Aogiri Tree.

It was just a job! We were just following orders!

So no one thought it was suspicious that Rize just happened to have the same blood type as Kaneki, allowing the organ transfer to happen? Uhh, Kaneki didn't go missing right after the surgery. Doctor I can see.

So why the hell are they imprisoning ghouls? Wouldn't it be safer to kill them? Thought that's what the Doves were all about. And how are they feeding them?!

I think it's supposed to be that author the characters were talking about before. And apparently she's a crazy cat lady type.

Yeah, I feel like that's been hinted at before. Wasn't he watching something with binoculars in an earlier episode?