Are you going to post this on TGWTG or just keep it to Lordkat.com?
In addition, are you going to have other people on the show or just you two?
Is this going to be like TA or more freestyle because of the Q&A?

Could you give a list of all (or most of) the manga you've read or tried to read as a post in the forums? I realize this won't stop people from giving suggestions on stuff you have read, but it might help.

When you talked about Bleach, which at this time I really dislike for not ending it at the end of Aizen fight with Ichigo, you said that Chad's having Fullbring was not special. Which is not true in 433 of bleach Page 9-10 it explains why they have hollow like powers. It is because there parents were attacked by hollows and it spread to them in their genes. That being said I thought this arc was just like Vizard arc. Kubo needs to end Bleach and start over from scratch. My problem also with bleach is all soul peoples have almost the exact same extra abilities.

Chris n Toriko yes you are right it is fun but you should not read it for a while to not get fat it just like you can not watch football or Watch food network. I did this and it helps.

Jollyskulls

A lot of these critiques seem to stem from what are misunderstandings of what can be argued to be the author's intent as well as what I mentioned in the comments: this is weekly, so they're on a tighter schedule than a monthly serialization. Not to mention with series of this nature, there can be difficulties of foresight as to how these might relate, but we're not the author, so it's somewhat unfair to make the judgment of terrible storytelling. At the worst, you could say it's having a slump, but from a serialized standpoint, this isn't terrible writing, with characters being flawed and developing over time, as well as the dynamics between them. Naruto's episodic characters remain that; they don't come back unless it's for important reasons, like Mifune when he fought Hanzo. After that, I think he's pretty much not important, which makes the focus back on the Rookie 9, which is good.

This is why I try to follow as few weekly series as possible, since it's hard to keep all of it in check. One Piece is admittedly something I decided to follow when reading Thriller Bark, so technically I'd need to fill in the blanks from when I stopped reading around when they were going to recruit Sanji (yeah, pathetic, I know). At the moment, including Toriko, which I'm trying to catch up on a volume or two a day, I'm following 6 other series:Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, Defense Devil, Fairy Tail and Nurarihyon no Mago. I like to read mostly complete series, but that's another issue entirely.

muichi, Don't take any of this the wrong way. I'm just speaking my mind here. I feel very strongly about Bleach.

That said, it's hard for me to really defend or excuse the things Bleach does. You say it isn't bad writing, when the Hueco Mundo debacle left few characters who weren't trivialized, marginalized, or outright derailed. Just to rattle off a few examples, he brings Uryuu back, but has him matter for nothing, he brings Renji back but has his resolve matter for nothing, he brings Rukia in, but fight she has against the Espada pretty much ends her character arc... Which I wouldn't MIND, had she not spent the ENTIRE PREVIOUS ARC, several YEARS of panel time, completely useless, so that this comes out of nowhere, and resolves her character arc in one of the most heavy-handed and contrived manners I could ever hope to imagine.

It's not bad writing??? "Your mentor was eaten by a Hollow and then I ate THAT Hollow so now I have your master's soul!" The only reason that guy could say THAT BULLSHIT with a straight face is because he didn't actually have one!

If you want me to agree to disgaree, I'll say that the Fullbring arc could go either way, but that after the cascading series of nested failures that was Deicide and everything leading up to it, my hopes for this arc can be described as "low," and as such, I've stopped reading, at least until we see some REAL magic, anyway.

That doesn't change the fact that Hueco Mundo et all and all the fail they stood for is BURNED INTO MY SOUL, mind you...

Hueco Mundo wasn't meant to have characters that we would, for the most part, take seriously, excluding Nel and Grimmjow. I admit that is a problem, but you can't say it's unsolveable. But if you want it solved your way, you already seem to have unrealstic expectations from an author that is still in his first real series. He supposedly had a breakdown during Zombie Powder, so this a fresh start for him with Bleach. The importance of various characters can change depending on what the focus is. Vizards are probably going to come back, but the Fullbringers might be scattered to the wind or possibly become fodder for the next set of baddies, the Vastolordes. Or maybe Hell's denizens?

Rukia's usefulness is one thing, but her fight with Arroniro was not useless, since she was resolved after her flashback about Kaien. I don't think #9 was saying he actually had Kaien's soul, but it was psychological warfare to make Rukia weaker than she was, though one can argue her defeating him was a fluke, but nonetheless, she had a victory already in that she had gotten over what was a defining point of her character flaw; she blamed herself for Kaien's death, but now she really knows that Kaien did it to save her. She wasn't useless in the Soul Society arc, except that she wasn't fighting. A character's usefulness to a series isn't always based on their capacity to fight, though Kubo was at least trying to make her significant in both her attempt to fight off Grimmjow, her previous defeat of D-Roy and her eventual defeat of other opponents in Hueco Mundo arc; though Rudobon was an offscreen defeat, which disappointed me a bit. The thing is though, she does seem to have been relegated to a secondary or tertiary role for the moment. The fact that she almost always has to be saved by Byakuya or Ichigo does make her seem much less of an independent woman like Orihime is developing into. I can only hope Kubo enables her to get Bankai in the future for the eventual war that is to come against Aizen's improved army. It's been said that she has the capability to be a seated officer, so it's moreso about her proving herself to Byakuya, I think, that is making her development difficult in the series as a whole.

First big critique is that you got Izanagi wrong. What you described about hypnosis and doing anything you want within a near infinite amount of time, but only a few moments passing in real time, is Tsukuyomi, which Itachi first used on Kakashi. Izanagi has only been used by Danzou and this allows the person to basically alter reality on a personal scale and make it so that fatal injuries never happened. The big drawback is of course that the eye goes blind, so Danzou had 10 imbedded in his arm. If I had to say which is more broken, I'd say Susanoo, since Izanagi works once and then you're blind, Susanoo will work as long as you have chakra to sustain it

And on the overpowered nature of the Sharingan, it isn't REALLY overpowered; it is very powerful with very strong consequences for over use. If you use it too much, it's been proven by many observers, Uchiha and non Uchiha, that the user will go blind. Even a Mangekyou/Kaleidoscope Sharingan will eventually go blind with frequent use, which is why Itachi wanted Sasuke's eyes and why Sasuke got Itachi's eyes, since he knew he would eventually go blind without getting the Eternal Sharingan.

On the notion of unfair powers, I don't think you can tell me a perfect power that doesn't have weaknesses in any shounen, including Bleach. Any author knows that, just like with characters, any power needs a weakness/flaw to make it both realistic and relatable to people who like the powers. They don't want to feel overpowered, they want to feel empowered.

Edit:On Fairy Tail, I hope that Erza isn't going to end this arc herself, since she's had a similar incident with going into this samurai armor before, against Ikaruga in the Tower of Heaven arc. But I'm hoping Kana gets to actually use Fairy Glitter and prove herself to Gildartz so she can have some character development. Next, I'll do my critique of the dismissal of Bleach as seems to happen from one side or another every week, lol

With Bleach, you seem to neglect a lot of things about the last two arcs with Orihime, Chad and Uryuu fighting baddies and Ichigo still basically being the focus.

In Soul Society, Orihime, Chad and Uryuu were still pretty new and didn't realize the limits of their powers. Chad got his butt handed to him by a Captain, uryuu barely managed to beat Mayuri and then lost his powers temporarily, and even Ichigo had difficulties against Kenpachi especially. the same thing applies somewhat to Hueco Mundo; the guys were stronger, but they were still confronting inner demons, like Chad with the nature of his powers and Uryuu with the fact that his dad is actually a Quincy as well and trying to prove himself. They had victories, but then they lost and had to be saved by Shinigami.

Ichigo didn't have an easy time in Hueco Mundo either, he got impaled by Ulquiorra and Orihime had to save him and then he almost killed everyone in his path because he went Hollow Vizard and guess who stopped him (partly)? Orihime again. She's fast becoming the real support character in terms of being a tempering influence for Ichigo. Not that Chad and Uryuu aren't his buddies, but they're supporting him by fighting opponents that would just waste his power. It's not like they're Ichigo's tools; they're doing this because they know he's stronger than them overall because of his natural talent, but they want to help him in any way they can. That's really what's defined them as characters; you can't expect them to have their own arcs, but they will have big defining moments where they have realizations and have shining moments of awesome, like Uryuu against Mayuri, Chad against Gantenbein and hopefully Chad and Uryuu will have good fights as well against Fullbring enemies or something similar.

I think Chad and Uryuu will do much better this time around because they've experienced loss and failure before, so now they have a better idea of what they're up against and how to fight, since they've had more experience now than they had in the last two arcs where they were featured. They've beaten opponents almost as strong as their opponents in Soul Society when they were in Hueco Mundo, but just because they lose doesn't mean they cease being important characters; it just means they're flawed and are in need of personal
improvement with time, like any shounen character.

And you can't compare the present arc with the last two, since Ichigo hasn't really trained in the last 18 months since the timeskip, since he hasn't had any powers. He has latent skills, but Orihime, Chad and Uryuu have been the ones training their asses off while Ichigo was moping around because he was powerless. The fact that he's the center now is just because he's developing new powers and learning to control them. But it's not like Ichigo will ever cease being the overall focus, but sometimes we will shift away from him, like they did in the Fake Karakura Town arc for a good while.

Chad, Uryuu and Orihime's powers are also drastically different from Ichigo's because of the very divided nature Ichigo's heritage has; half Shinigami and half Fullbringer with deeper Hollow influences it seems. That's why the other three get moments, but Ichigo gets lots of chapters devoted to his inner world when he had his Shinigami/Visored powers for example. I'm predicting he may get a new internal world where he'll have incidents again, but maybe not.

Overall, I can see the critiques as what they are, but they seem to really not see the series as a whole but reducing it to parts.

The Orihime-Riruka conversation is supposed to develop Orihime’s personality and reflect that Orihime is very in tune with Ichigo or at least very devoted to him. Riruka seems to be a character who’s very jaded and doesn’t like Orihime being so optimistic and confident, not to mention the love triangle issue that’s been a bit subdued. And she called her an idiot, which was funny.

With this training arc, it’s more like Ichigo needs to get back his resolve, kind of an ironic parallel to Kisuke having to push him to get stronger when Ichigo re-acquired his Shinigami powers. Except now he’s got some combat experience, but he’s overthinking again, kind of like with Kisuke training him. He has to get back to instinct. I have to wonder about what blinding Ichigo will do. I predict an internal dialogue like he had with Zangetsu and Shirosaki commonly. Maybe they’ll even come back?

Unrealistic expectations about weekly action a bit again. Or to put it simply, impatience. This isn’t just a manga about fighting bad guys, there’s a lot of internal stuff with the characters and, dare I say, some drama. There was action this chapter at the beginning and end, albeit it’s a training spar kind of thing. Once Tsukishima makes his move again or sends some underlings, I think you’ll get your wish of good old fashioned combat between Fullbringers and…other Fullbringers, I guess. Sometimes they need to develop characters for a span of time, like Ichigo having internal dialogues or conversations about the state of things. With Ichigo now, there’s the emphasis that he’s technically flesh and blood. This injury isn’t like when he gets injured as a Shinigami, since he’s just a regular human now, no Shinigami powers as far as we can tell. Unless of course, the Fullbring reactivates his Shinigami heritage, which would not surprise me. I’d actually like an ironic parallel to his bursting out of the Shattered Shaft with the mask on, just with a new twist.

You can’t speed up the pace too much on this, since Bleach is a very introspective series. If you want fights all the time, Toriko seems good. One Piece has a nice balance like Bleach, but with the spiritual/supernatural aspects of Bleach being more emphasized, it becomes even more surreal and introspective than One Piece can with character development. There’s the whole soul/body duality, not to mention Ichigo’s duality between Shinigami and Hollow/Fullbringer.

I'm listening to the episode now, and I noticed that there was another mistake made: It was mentioned that the duo who made Bakuman are the same who made Death Note which is true, but not Hikaru no Go. Takeshi Obata worked with Yumi Hotta on that manga.

I can sort of understand that mistakes will be made because this is recorded live, but I wish they aren't made this frequently.

Killerbee’s backstory is a nice throwback to the comparison to be made between Gaara and Naruto. Naruto is somewhere in the middle, it seems, while Gaara is on the end of the spectrum where no one ever treated him like a person. Killerbee, from the beginning, seems to have established himself a friend in “A” (Raikage), so that he doesn’t really ever have the problem that Naruto and Gaara had and overcame with different, but similar, methods of gaining a trustworthy friend. The scene with the Fourth Hokage is not just thrown in, since it has an interesting parallel of sorts, since this is probably before Naruto was born, so Minato was familiar with the Jinchuuriki’s need to be loved, since he married Kushina, who was the Nine Tails’ host at that time. She emphasized that when she was talking to Naruto in his inner world as well, that the Jinchuuriki needs love. The Killer Bee/A relationship seems like it could be a foreshadowing to Naruto and Sasuke, since they said a similar thing that Naruto and Sasuke both said much earlier; that you understand someone deepest when you cross fists in a fight. Killerbee said at the end of last chapter, and it’s reinforced here, that when they touch fists, it’s a communicating experience.

Bleach had a nice development I think with Ginjo, because I was genuinely interested in his development as an anti-hero of sorts against Ichigo being an established hero of “Justice”. He was doing a very good job of acting as a villain, but then he turns around and reveals he was acting. There’s the revelation that Ichigo can see reiatsu again, which was good, but it’s up in the air as to HOW they’re going to get his Shinigami/Visored powers back, and whether it’s going to resemble his training with Kisuke, the Visoreds, or something else entirely. Ginjo’s certainly resembling Kisuke more and more, which makes me think he knows a lot more, which he’s already indicated before. Not to mention I REALLY want to see who this other Shinigami is that Isshin and Kisuke are talking to.

With Fairy Tail, I think it was pretty established that Gildartz was going to win, the fight between Rustyrose, Fried,Bixlow and Elfman, among a few non participants was more up in the air, but Rustyrose was outmatched really at that point, so he was pretty much guaranteed to lose too, especially since Elfman had figured out one weakness, though we never figure out EXACTLY what the weaknesses of his magic that Rustyrose said there were. I’m assuming it’s a matter of maintaining more than a few of these creations out of thin air, but meh. I’m waiting to see the development with Gray and Ultear, along with Hades.

I have a very big critique in YRoT's recent WMR with Hajime No Ippo and the One Punch deal. First off you skipped the fact Ippo FLIPPED THE GUY AROUND WITH THE PUNCH, for a series that vaguely had realism suddenly punching someone into a backflip is awesome. Second you said that Hisano had a 'flawless plan'...which when he explains this plan of his then admits IT WAS ALL BULLCRAP and that Ippo was actually almost flawless in his rhythm. Next you complained about the build up, first off training isn't always about Ippo training for the next fight, he's not got a stronger neck so counter fighters won't trouble him as much, next the build up was to show Hisano's life is and Ippo has ruined it one way or another leaving for growth of his character, which growing a character is always better for your manga then a good fight, which jesus christ people act like there can even be a worse fight then Kobyiyashi Kenta. If anyone says otherwise bullcrap, hugging for an entire episode/2-3 chapters? NOT A FIGHT. Next there have been times where the exact thing has happened in real boxing, with people paying tens to maybe hundreds to buy tickets and drive all the way to see a fight only for it to end that way, THAT is disappointment.

Still not convinced? Then let me tell you of what a REAL example of built up Hype leading to a poor conclusion is. In Katekyo Hitman Reborn we were introduced to a character called Genshiki. Now up until this point we've only had 1 good battle arc of the two in the series and halfway into that arc all the fights were bland DBZ style charge up Finishers then use them. Genshiki had systematically beaten the Swordsman of the team, who was a BORN NATURAL, and THEN beat the most overpowered character of the series TWICE in both Adult and Present day self WITHOUT BREAKING A SWEAT, so now you're thinking there's going to be some badass fight between him and the main character right? THE MOMENT THEIR EYES MEET not only does Genshiki lose his shit he somehow becomes a total pussy and loses even when basically becoming a demon to the main character's Kamehameha (which it almost identically is) and dying. Why? Cause the main character reminded him of a girl he helped mind rape. And he lost his shit out of FEAR and not guilt. THAT is the ANTI-THESIS of hype, not something that can realistically happen and that HAS happened and was put in paper form

God I just nerd raged harder then I should have, I am sorry, but it only upsets me that you talked about Naruto like it was good and then bash Ippo in the same episodes, rubs me the wrong way.

Hi there, my name is StrangeFellow, i do various anime reviews across the great wide intarwebs and occasionally stumble across some shows chock full of fanservice and plain stupid overall.

You stated in the podcast that if done correctly the fanservice could be fine and fun, but i'd like to point out the very simple fact that ultimately fanservice is a crutch for lesser shows to use.

Allow me to explain,
Anime and Manga and other forms of entertainment, video games included, offer us a form of story telling, they bring us the experiences of the characters and allow us to enjoy their adventures and troubles, their triumphs and failures. We learn and grow with them and in so doing, gain insight into ourselves. Thus is the power of a story.

When fanservice is involved you lose a good fistfull of that, because no longer is the writer and artist intended our focus to be on the story or characters, they now want us to shift the focus onto the nubile figures we see before us. Its a tease for the balls, not the brain, and while i'm sure a lot of people enjoy it, i would say that as it doesn't further the aforementioned mediums in any substantial way. What do we gain from seeing character A's underwear? Nothing lasting, nothing that sticks with us and makes us remember the character as anything more than mindless titilation.

Now logically it makes no sense to remove all fanservice from everything, as I previously stated, people enjoy it, and it moves the books and dvds along. A company couldn't make citizen kane if it didn't have the cash obviously, but its the putting in places it doesn't belong, or making a show ABOUT fanservice that bothers me. In the formers case, i can't express how many times i've been frusterated when a character flashes underwear or nudity at me when im engrossed in a story. Those in charge of the product probably intended to hook us with it and then draw us into the story, but for me it only makes me frusterated that a character I like is being debased.

And in the laters case, you have to ask what insite do we gain from a show that consists only of a string of characters constantly preening themselves in blatant ways? Even if its silly or dumb, i just dont think there's anything to be gained from that.

Oooooof course this is just my opinion, and dont get me wrong, i know WHY the do this kind of thing, its just not the sort of thing i'd like to see.

StraaangeFellow Ouuuut

Flaming Chris and Nik over their opinions in related to manga series is not critique.

Maybe I misheard, but in the podcast i thought i heard them say that if we had different opinions, to state them here, thats why i wrote this. I didn't mean to flame, if im wrong, i'll remove this blog post, with an apology.

A dissenting opinion is not the same as an accusatory post conveying the tone that Chris and Nik are ignorant based on their tastes.

Now, because I posted right right after you doesn't mean I was directing it towards you specifically. It was more of a general statement based on a trend I see in this thread and saw, very much so, in the chat during recording. I apologize to you specifically if you feel that I had attempted to single you out.

I'm under the impression that, like you guys said, there is a point where fanservice becomes obtrusive to the action or the drama of the scene. However, there are such examples where the fanservice is blatant, and actually becomes something that goes hand in hand with the "action", one such manga being To Love Ru. To Love-Ru is a very fanservice-heavy manga where the plot is simply harem, but couple that with some actually well rounded characters including one of the best done tsundere's I've ever seen(this coming from someone who usually despises tsunderes).

In fact, when a personal creator crisis happened and the manga ended prematurely in Jump, it recontinued in another magazine, and is ongoing either bi-monthly or monthly, I forget the schedule, as To Love-Ru Darkness, where:
a) the plot went from a wacky-slice of life harem story to an intentional harem scheme by one of the girls, as well as an ongoing subplot that is quickly becoming more prominent about a human soldier type character
b) the fanservice became dialed up to thirteen and became nearly pornographic
Somehow, for me anyway, To Love-Ru Darkness works, despite the overabundance of fanservice. Even in serious moments where (spoilers) there includes a nipple-sucking scene, forced by a villain on one of the girls, by another of the girls(underage!), I can understand that it can be seen as horrifically creepy, but I found the scene creepy not because it was an slightly underage girl doing it to an older girl, but the fact that the villain was using this to disgrace the one subject to it, which really added a bit of disgust towards the villain in question.

If fanservice can be considered anything included in a story to appease the fans, I'm surprised you didn't mention Katekyo Hitman Reborn! as something that uses blatant female pandering. Once KHR made the shift from gag manga to straight up action shounen, the character art became much more bishounen. To such an extent that virtually every single damn character is male and is prettier than the last. No joke, when(spoilers) in the recent development in KHR Daemon steps out in Mukuro's body, I thought for a minute it was actually a girl. It's really only to make the female readers read, which isn't a bad thing, but it really does push my suspension of disbelief. I'll buy these guys can shoot flames of multiple elements, but everyone also being ridiculously man-beautiful? Not so much. Must be all the Italian genes.

Contrast something like One Piece, which Oda has developed an ongoing evolving style of art where people (men and women alike) vary wildly in their attractiveness, but females get their fanservice from how some of the crew are handsome and very ripped and show it, and the men get fanservice because....because Oda gazongas.

To wrap up my rambly mess before it spirals out of control, a lot of what you all said is true, and personally, I AM writing a shounen-esque story right now and there will be fanservice. It won't be as gratuitous but it won't be completely absent either. It all comes down to how much you can stomach, honestly,

Oh! My bad, i didn't actually mean to be a dissenter, i was stating my own opinion, thats all. I didn't mean it to come off that way, that is 100% my bad.

"Titillation Manga" is basically what I classify a manga that is 99% fanservice with a plot that sucks. Basic examples are Eiken, Hen and Ikkitosen (sorry if I misspelled that but who cares?) which are all awful awful awful awful awful awful awful manga. And yet, these manga are very successful with around 100 chapters each and all because they have big ol’ titties flapping about. I don’t blame anyone for reading them, hell I’ve read around 2 volumes of Eiken and Ikki and a lot more of Hen than I would like to admit. It’s just interesting how these manga can get so popular when their individual plots are dull as dirt. The mangaka must have realized this and just added titties because they REALLY wanted to get serialized. Anyway that’s something that I don’t think you guys have had much experience with but I think it’s such a fascinating topic. I sometimes even look at all the new Ecchi manga just to try and dissect how the fanservice works and how it’s different. Love the show. OH you guys should talk about all the American "manga" that I've seen at Barns & Noble. That would make a good topic.

I know you guys didn't mean for it to sound this way, but having three men discussing the portrayal of women in manga and whether or not fanservice exploits them or not sounded a bit...creepy. I mean, maybe something may not seem particularly offensive to you or from your perspective reading the manga as a guy, but from my point of view having a great deal of fanservice in a manga makes me feel that the story is being written specifically for male readers, that the female characters are being drawn and written specifically to appeal to men.

That's just my opinion though, and I know not all girls think that way, but next time you guys are discussing a subject related to women in manga and their possible exploitation, why not have a girl guest?

I’m pretty late, but I’ll chime in with thoughts on the fanservice issue and the chapter comments.

Fanservice can serve the same function as comedy, serving as a balance to a serious tone in a manga in general. Gags can serve a similar function without being gratuitous, such as Bleach does similarly with fanservice. Merely emphasizing a character’s physical features, such as what Bleach does with some female characters (Rangiku, Neliel, Yoruichi) doesn’t suggest unnecessary fanservice. Ikkitousen, Eiken, etc seem to be more pandering. in that they don’t serve the same purpose except perhaps in Ikkitousen with the battle damage being necessary in some sense. Fanservice can be tasteful in the same way erotic art can be tasteful. It’s that fine line between erotica and pornography that gets tricky. There are authors I read, like Oh Great and Isutoshi, but their characters are either eroticized for general sensual appreciation of the erotic female form (Tenjou Tenge) or they’re eroticized because of the perverse nature of the anti-hero protagonist (Aiki). These are both seinen manga, of course, so there is a shounen manga example to use.

Ken Akamatsu does fanservice in the humorous sense with Love Hina and Negima, so he’d actually be a more ideal example. I’m neither prude nor pervert in that sense. Manga is an art form and its freedom should be preserved. I don’t jack off to any of the eroticized aspects of manga, though I suppose I get a bit of stirring in my loins occasionally.But it’s rarely there for the ero purposes of arousal so much as ecchi in the sense of a comic awkwardness or a very free/liberated sort of approach to sex that views it as natural, which syncs with Shinto as a major religion in Japan.

I think that the twist the editor was indicating for One Piece was robin observing that the Poneglyph was suggesting an apology.

Killer Bee seems like the most exuberant Jinchuuriki, which is a remarkable thing to say compared to Naruto.

The new design reminds me of a Hollow, which might be a strong indication. I don’t like that he doesn’t have the katana anymore, but it’s a nice change of pace from Bankai. The twist with Tsukishima being his cousin is a twist that I think will be indicating his powers. Or it might be Ichigo being forgetful, though I’m doubting that. It seems a bit lazy of Kubo to have Tsukishima’s power be so similar to Aizen’s in manipulating people, in this case manipulating memories and such. The big reveal this time around was more the transformation getting a two page splash, but now Ichigo’s new form is admittedly presented in a large panel, but not the entire page. Ichigo’s going to probably have a more advanced transformation, that seems reasonable. Not to mention we’re getting a new twist indicating an eventual confrontation. Not to mention the obvious observation that he’ll be fusing his powers. And yes, Orihime fanservice with hotdogs.

While I can agree on your thoughts this week about Tsukishima and his powers, I don't care because I loved this chapter and pretty much everywhere I looked people liked it. The end of the previous was an "oh fuck" moment, and this just exemplified it. The chapter is so good because of Ichigo's character; Ichigo relies heavily upon his friends, and seeing them turn against him is horrific. Just look at his face! Tatsuki has always been underplayed, despite having one of the closest relationships to Ichigo. And then to top it all off, he finally relaxes and trusts Ikumi (they had a similar scene in a previous chapter) and then BAM finishing blow, he has absolutely no one to trust. It's pretty much nightmare fuel for Ichigo.

My theory is that this whole arc is a dream or hallucination. There are actually several clues to this so far:
- The whole "WAKE UP ICHIGO" dream that Ichigo had. This is common in sci-fi to have waking moments during dreams within alternate realities.
- We just sort of appear in this timeline. They mention this in Inception, that in dreams you never really think about how you get there; you just accept the way things are.
- Strong coincidences in timing in this chapter, that are unquestioned. He just *happens* to run into Ikumi outside, and then just *happens* to me Ginjou.
- Like I said before, this chapter itself is very much like a nightmare. Ichigo faces his worst fears, and is too scared to even consider fighting. When you're in a nightmare, do YOU ever think about fighting? - Tsukishima doesn't actually attack him, he just walks slowly around scaring the shit out of Ichigo.

And overall the chapter was just really fucking creepy.

Jinbe’s Fishman Karate expertise suggests moreso that he’s going to be a potential crew member. Every one before has had that expertise AND backstory. Plus, Jinbe can actually hurt Luffy. Brook’s power is fun and Robin’s clone power could also be Soru where she moves super fast, maybe it’s just me.

Ichigo is stopped by his friends in that he doesn’t want to involve them. If he was alone, he’d probably have acted, but he doesn’t want to endanger his friends, which is part of his stubborn individual personality. I might not be the only one who thinks Tsukishima’s power is a bit suspicious in being hypnosis of sorts, similar to Aizen’s. Manipulation of memories is pretty different than manipulating senses. We’ve seen that manipulating senses isn’t perfect, since Yamamoto made sure it was Aizen even with all the main 5 senses altered. With Tsukishima, there will be more of a bonds-kizuna/comrade-nakama moment, I think in breaking the powers. I think Kubo is moving up with the progression, though Tsukishima hasn’t cut Ichigo and Ginjo, since he indicated everyone else was manipulated. I don’t think the mind control is perfect, since it might even be able to be broken through bonds of friendship. I’m skeptical of that Tsukishima prediction, though it could happen. I’m not betting anything, since I’m not touching Chris’ salami period.

The reveal of the other 6 Jinchuuriki as the Six Paths of Pain with both Rinnegan and Sharingan made me go “Holy crap!!” We saw a bit of the 2 tails and 4 tails, though only the 2 tails even fought slightly. What’s wrong with getting defeated by friendship in Naruto? It proves that these are human characters, not just machines fighting in mechanical fashion for the mission. It makes these ninjas seem sympathetic instead of just these strict disciplinarians that don’t have any shred of emotions.

I don’t see how Sasuke versus Itachi wasn’t focused on some character development and Sasuke developing in his evil and Itachi showing his humanity when we hadn’t seen that. The illusion fight was expected though. Two Uchiha fighting each other, what else would you expect? It’s like asking what would happen between two Jinchuuriki: would they release their Beasts or not?

Toriko revealed the new ingredient for real, I think. Surprise Apple could be the ingredient and there would be involvement with the Bishokukai. The fact that they listed it in the menu 10 as Surprise Apple makes me think the arc will be centered around it. The previous centering around the Food Temple and food luck association was good for developing the universe and also show how important food luck is in the Toriko universe.

Rollo T, seriously, don't read Negima because it has all of the tropes you hate repeated over and over again in one of the worst arcs in manga history. The school festival arc in Negima is the longest and most pointless arc ever. It had glimers of amazing potential piled down with a 30+ chapter tournament that had not rhyme of reason for being, annoying filler and a stupid final battle. The final boss sucked because we know next to nothing about him/her that we don't care. There were only about 3 chapters that were good because they had good complex character development about people that the reader would normally not care about. Overall avoid Negima or if you can't just prepare for a VERY disappointing 3rd arc.

You guys are so lucky you don't read Medaka Box. Kumagawa is one of the worst villains ever because he's just not intimidating or threatening and his arc was so batshit insane and stupid I wanted to kill myself. Also Defense Devil actually got good for 3 chapters where it went back to what happened in the beginning with mysteries and Phoenix Wright and stuff but then it went back to shit afterwards. Seriously, fuck Kumagawa.

Psyren as a parallel to Gantz seems a bit off, considering the cast stays pretty small and the characters that die genuinely die for the most part. There are instances of characters coming back, but I won’t spoil how it happens. Psyren is its own series because there isn’t some god-like entity that you seem to describe Gantz as. There’s some unpredictability due to the nature of the “Game” of Psyren. Though I guess Gantz has the point system, so…meh.

In the universe of Naruto, it’s like they never really thought of projectile weapons using gunpowder. It’s a universe of a particular development of technology. Admittedly, it’s weird, but it’s like arcanepunk, I’d say. Maybe they just don’t like guns?

I liked the introduction of the main Hordy minions, especially Zeo, since his pattern is so fun and he’s like a chameleon. Ikaros/Icarus the squidman was kind of…absurd, but still cool. Daedalus/Daidaros the giant squid is a nice touch on the mythology. I predict a Sanji fight. Hyouzou goes against Zoro and Zeo…maybe fight Robin? Dosun can fight Chopper, but Daruma is weird; possibly Usopp? I think Hordy’s gonna get all mutated or something with the Energy Steroids. A tiny Sea King you say? Maybe he’ll get some cool Haki?

It seems like the author is going with smaller chapters, like Surprise Apple and Chicken Tiger’s Egg. I’m hoping he gets into a more significant chapter with the list Ichiryuu gave him. I think they had 4 ingredients left? I think we’re supposed to learn a larger lesson from this, not get emotionally attached to the character. We can feel emotionally sympathetic in the situation, but that’s more general than specific, I agree. The larger lesson about food seems significant in that we see these characters are admirable. Next chapter sounds like it’ll be a big development though.

With that Fairy Tail Fighting Festival arc ending, it was a send off in the sense that Luxus was still their friend even if he was kicked out of the guild, which I think was what happened at the end of the arc, since he tried to kill everyone and threatened his grandpa to give up his title of guild master. They were willing to forgive him, is that a bad thing? It’s better than what I recall Usopp getting when he left the crew of his own free will. Luxus is kind of background now that we have that Lacryma thing revealed about him. We saw him sometime recently in the Tenrou Island arc, and I think he’s going to fight against Hades, but that’s speculation on my part.

Franky against Dosun seems a bit off to me, somehow. I like Chopper against Dosun. But Sanji against Zeo doesn’t make as much sense, since he’s more subtle and not a hand to hand fighter. Muchi against Sanji makes some sense with the fire weakness. Daruma could go against Nami, but he could go against Brook too, possibly. Zeo strikes me as fighting against Robin or Brook possibly, but Vander Decken against Usopp or Robin works too because of the sniper or hand themes that could conflict. Here’s my basic prediction for now.

Daruma v. Nami and Brook
Dosun v. Chopper and Franky
Zeo v. Robin
Icarus Much v. Sanji
Vander Decken v. Usopp
Hyouzou v. Zoro
Hody Jones v. Luffy

Magnet element shuriken user was a bit out of left field, but it tried to give us more of the elemental combinations that people are curious about, like Scorch Release with the chick that mummified people, Explosion, which was only recently revealed to be a Nature combination and not just a secret technique that Deidara used, and Dust, which is apparently super broken and can break things down at the molecular level, which Oonoki and Muu used. Gaara’s dad using gold dust is kind of random too, but it’s still a cool contrast to Gaara, though I would’ve thought his dad using sand would’ve been pretty interesting as a conflict of two users of the same technique. I don’t think it’s a bad thing for Gaara to confront his dad, since it would really resolve the issues he still has with his family fearing him in his past. I think he needs this just to confront the person that is really the biggest antagonist to him, since he tried to make him feel unloved, when we realize he is loved by his mother.

Ichigo will have to defeat his friends without killing them, probably, which is going to be the difficult part, though even going against his friends who insist he is insane is going to be hard unless we have some twist of Ichigo evolving his powers and being able to remove Tsukishima from their pasts, which seems a bit unlikely. Maybe he’ll just beat the truth into them? Hopefully we get to see a new form of Left Arm of the Devil. The weekly nature of the serialization makes it tricky to advance the plot effectively when we have the emotional and dramatic aspects of this part of the story, requiring it to stop at points where we have a climax. Technically Ginjou didn’t start the fight with Tsukishima, he started to fight his own teammates in another room and left Ichigo to fight Tsukishima. I don’t think he was stupid, especially since he seems to believe strongly that Ichigo has the potential to wipe the floor with Tsukishima in his new form.

Zeref’s importance isn’t just that he can kill everything, it’s that he was the “Dark Mage” that posed the greatest threat to the magic world. His neutrality is what makes him dangerous, it seems to me. He kills people reluctantly at this point, though there may have been a time when he did it willfully. The Acnologia power and finally killing off Zancrow doesn’t suggest that he necessarily kills everyone, since he suggested that Juvia and Medley aren’t dead, but merely unconscious. Zeref’s nature as a villain is probably going to be a development instead of a sudden leap into being evil. Maybe he’ll actually have involvement somehow with the fight against Hades, though that fight could conceivably take a month or so of chapters. And then there’s my speculation that Luxus will come back after his exile and help.

I think there were some important moments in One Piece you neglected to talk about. Hody revealed he actually killed Otohime, for one, and that the human was set up. Not to mention an interesting thing about Madam Shirley being Arlong’s sister. The twist I found really compelling that Shirahoshi apparently already knew Hody hated her mother so much that he was willing to kill her. And the end with Vander Decken throwing a freaking ship at Fishman Island really shocked me. It was a set up chapter, but I found it interesting in itself.

With Naruto, I think Kishimoto’s trying to really resolve Gaara completely so that there isn’t any ambiguity about his past, particularly with his father.

The guy with the unknown Fullbring is called Shishigawara. And yes, he is kind of odd to be seen in a serious light, but I guess Kubo is trying to make him seem more intimidating, since he did indicate he was more than willing to fight the last time we saw him threatening Orihime. He wanted to serve Tsukishima as his underling, so it’s interesting in that sense. I wonder if he’s actually one of the people who hasn’t been cut by Tsukishima’s Fullbring, since it would make his loyalty come into question and make him more interesting as a character, in that he is loyal to Tsukishima without having been cut by Book of the End, but then changes his loyalty somehow.

I think Tsukishima’s power is more dangerous than Aizen’s, since Kyouka Suigetsu didn’t affect reiatsu perception, which is how Yamamoto and Retsu were able to either confirm his actual body or notice differences in the fake corpse he made 100s of chapters back. It’s easier to be skeptical of your senses and rely on something that’s more practiced, such as spirit sensing in Bleach. But memories, they’re a little trickier, if Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories showed us anything. We don’t even realize that our memories could be manipulated.

I wouldn’t call Aizen broken, btw, since he really just takes advantage of something we take for granted; that our senses are ultimately reliable all the time.

And they have kind of done a Bleach movie already about memories, Fade to Black. But it was certainly different in many ways.

I liked Jackpot Knuckle. Probability manipulation is certainly something that makes it unpredictable, but at the same time able to be assessed, since it only manipulates the probability of what his Fullbring touches, from what I can gather. Not to mention your observations really solidify why he’s a tertiary character, his aptitude in battle is purely based on fortune. He’s also stupid enough to have revealed his power, so now Ginjou would’ve had to just dodge his blows, but, well, he got cut by Tsukishima, so now, it looks like Uryuu will have to come in and save the day.

I don’t think this is a plothole if you think about it in terms of the dual power of Tsukishima’s Fullbring. On the one hand it can supposedly cut through anything, which is how he sliced Uryuu’s arm off. On the other hand, he can also stab you without hurting you and then insert himself into your past memories (like he did with Orihime and Sado, both of whom made the observation that they got cut, but there was no wound, unlike Uryuu). It seems that Tsukishima could have conceivably not viewed Uryuu as a threat and just injured him, without the secondary effect of hypnosis, which technically he COULD have done before he cut off the Quincy’s arm. But it probably isn’t the case that he hypnotized Uryuu, which will allow him to “break” the spell, so to speak, in my opinion.

I think Tsukishima might just be an anti villain. I agree it’s probably a temporary arc. Reminds me of Demon King Piccolo in Dragon Ball, except he was an evil villain, not a villain that’s ambivalent as Tsukishima is.

Naruto vs. Itachi chapter is, if nothing else, was just Kishimoto saying that Naruto vs. Itachi will be the climax. The Seven Swordsmen are probably getting sealed, but we don’t know yet.

Toriko was absent for a few weeks anyway, I don’t see why you guys couldn’t at least talk about how Sunny has a giant snake! (albeit a child of the original) and that they’re actually going after an ingredient close to or in the Gourmet World. Some serious stuff, finally.

I think you got it slightly mixed up with Hody’s revelation about Otohime. He said he killed her himself with the gun and framed the human. It was mostly right, just that Hody did indeed kill Otohime by his own hands. He’s certainly not afraid to get his hands dirty.

I wonder if any of my predictions are going to be right. It was a nice twist with the ship, since Vander Decken had revealed he had thrown a ship with his Mato Mato Fruit powers, so you could’ve conceivably thought that the Noir was going to crash, but then that would’ve been a bit rushed. Caribou is trickier, since he’s Logia type and we only know his one weakness, barrels, lol.

Itachi and Nagato are just revealing their weaknesses, so the fight is more to showcase Itachi and Nagato’s powers, but also their weaknesses. And I think the reason they can still talk is that Kabutomaru is controlling so many of these ninja zombies that he can’t possibly suppress all of their will with the amount of chakra he has. He can suppress their volition and such, but they can still talk, so it’s kind of a trade off for having these nearly mindless soldiers fighting for you. Originally they were free of his control, but then he starting manipulating them again. He could’ve used those kunai with seals on them to make them mindless, but it might’ve still drained his chakra a lot. The other solution is to seal their mouths shut, but then they’d just be wandering around with nothing to say, since they can’t talk. I think Kishimoto’s doing this since Itachi and Nagato are both basically not evil anymore and bear no ill will towards the Leaf Village, so now they’re just finishing their roles in the story. The battles aren’t meant to be taken with the same kind of intensity as Sasuke vs. Itachi or Naruto vs. Nagato, since those were more important to the story at hand. The main villains now are Kabutomaru and Madara, really, so the fights with them will be the main focus.

With Konan, it was apparently more like 6 hundred billion or something. It was a really high number.

I liked the twist in Bleach 458, and it makes you wonder about the relationship between Tsukishima and Ginjo, not to mention Ginjo’s relation to the Substitute Shinigami, since he’s using the badge with his Fullbring. I think this will be a way for Ichigo’s fusion powers to awaken. Ginjo’s motivation versus Tsukishima’s motivation is probably what’s going to distinguish them.

Ginjo didn’t want to just steal Ichigo’s Fullbring when he unlocked it, since he was weakened when Ichigo released his power, remember? He couldn’t have just stabbed him then. He had to weaken him with this fight against Tsukishima, etc . And he was still under Tsukishima’s Fullbring, so he wasn’t technically evil at that point, so he had no motivation to steal Ichigo’s Fullbring until this chapter.

If they just did that with Tsukishima stabbing Ichigo with BotE, it would be too easy and Ichigo wouldn’t be motivated by his friends, like he is with the plot that Ginjo used. Not to mention de powered Ichigo is not a complete pushover. He’s still aware if someone tries to sneak up on him, though admittedly there would be a limit there. Not to mention a lot of this seems to really focus on Ichigo, so pulling a Tsukishima on Ichigo would miss the point of what this arc is meant to do for Ichigo’s character. The chapter ending reminds me of when Ulquiorra revealed himself to be number 4 instead of number 1. Seems like many times when Ichigo’s stabbed in the chest, bad things happen for who stabbed him.

The waterfall originates from the Gourmet World, it’s impossibly awesome by its nature. It pummels everything into dust. I like Sunny developing his Spatula into a Super mode now. I’m waiting for an arc where we met Coco and he reveals new powers. Sunny has more feelers now, so maybe Coco will get x ray vision or something and even more poison in his body?

I like that Natsu gets this new power of Lightning and Fire together, kind of like against Gerard and eating Lacryma. Laxus being an exiled member is important about his short fight with Hades before he gives the power to Natsu and power him up.

With Tropical’s question, as it’s concerned with Naruto in particular, I think there’s a distinction of destiny and fate in terms. Destiny is not the same thing as fate and I think that Neji was talking about fate; that is, something you can’t stop even with your actions. Not to mention Neji was talking about internal clan problems with the Hyuga Branch and Hyuga Main, so in some sense, Neji was criticizing Naruto because he didn’t know Naruto’s heritage and thought he was a nobody. But even if he did know he was from “royalty”, he’d probably still be raging against Naruto, because the kid basically didn’t show much of any talent in the academy and that’s partly why Neji was so critical of Naruto wanting to be Hokage. Naruto was a crappy student, for the most part, and in that sense, his wanting to be Hokage was stupid to Neji, because he thinks that people are fated to be Hokage by birth in some sense, they can’t just work at it. Though that would be ironic for Neji to criticize Naruto on if he knew his father was a Hokage himself, but then, that’s why it was before that was revealed that Neji was behaving like a pompous jerk. There’s also potential conflict with Lee, who worked his butt off to be an awesome ninja in his own right.

Destiny, on the other hand, is something outside of your choice, but is something that your choices affect in a sense. Naruto was treated like a pariah in the village, so there is a sense that he might have been destined for greatness, but he doesn’t even realize it completely himself, until he finds out his father and mother are such great shinobi. But he doesn’t make a big deal out of it. He just fights because he cares for his friends and he wants to live up to his father and mother’s legacy in some sense, though not for power, but to protect those important to him, which has been a theme since the Zabuza arc with Sasuke nearly dying and then Naruto getting pissed off and summoning the nine-tail’s power temporarily.

Of course there could be changes in the author, and forgetting original ideas, but there could be implicit ideas that the author has from the start, which Kishimoto has spoken of in some form or another. Working hard regardless of your weakness in other areas is something that applied to Naruto and Lee, for example.

I don’t think Naruto is special apart from his working towards being strong. He’s used the one talent he had since the beginning of the series, Shadow Clones, and gotten past barriers that would’ve stumped virtually any other person. His Rasengan training, his Wind Nature Rasengan training and recently the Tailed Beast Bomb training, all of them have involved Naruto applying his Shadow Clones in different ways and that’s what makes him unique and not just destined to be powerful. He has an ingenuity that’s not genius level, like Shikamaru, but it’s nonetheless impressive.

I think Naruto earned his power. The time skip had him training to increase his chakra without using the Nine Tails, and he did it. Even before that, he had to train really hard to get anywhere, such as the Shadow Clone thing, or his Rasengan. He didn’t just understand it intuitively, he had to get hints, he had to be guided. That means he isn’t special by birth, he’s special by his will and effort he puts into things. Not to mention Naruto wasn’t originally thought to be the chosen one. Jiraiya himself thought that Minato was the chosen one, but then Minato insists to Kushina that Naruto is the chosen one, implicitly.

I dunno where you expected Change123 to go in terms of plot, since it is a bit up in the air as to how it could have progressed. The fact that it went in a particular way is just how it went. I’ll admit the critiques are justified, but a lot of this might have to do with understandings of the psychology involved in the series.

I also like the reality of the fighting in this series. If you compared it to, say, Riki-Oh, another series I recommend, then you’d see that Change123 takes the verisimilitude very seriously. There’s only a few rare instances where someone actually fights unconsciously and they’re only from two characters. Not to mention the color system they use for describing fighting styles, which I really enjoyed. There is the use of acupuncture at one point, but that’s as close as you come to pseudoscientific explanations in the martial arts involved.

The fanservice is certainly very Japanese and I agree it really never distracted me, but it did sometimes throw me off, since it was used for those in between moments of the fighting, though Mikiri usually brought up some pseudo fanservice during battle because she has E-F boobs, which is bigger than any of the other girls, yet she’s the child personality.

The locker scene with the girls molesting Motoko might reflect the tendency in Japan for girls to be more touchy feely and such and it isn’t considered lesbian, it’s just part of being a high school girl. Apparently, if you have a shrinking violet acquaintance who has a perfect figure, you have carte blanche to feel her up and joke about how jealous you are.

I also really like the psychological aspects with Kannami, the blond genius prodigy who gives us most of the scientific and academic background to the nature of Motoko’s Dissociative Identity Disorder (I’m not even a psych major or minor, and I loathe the use of the terms Multiple Personality Disorder or Split Personality Disorder, because they’re both antiquated and unused in the psychological community, from what I understand).

They did say that there can be changes in a person’s body when they take on an alter (split personality, whatever), but they’re not anything on the genetic level, it’s more anatomical. Muscle tone, that sort of thing. Which supposedly explains why their faces change and their body type changes ever so slightly. I don’t think it was ever said that their eye color or hair color changed, though it is black/white, so it’s not as evident. It might just be an aesthetic choice, since, as you said, they are easily distinguished by hair style and facial structure already.

What makes Kousukegawa relatable is not that he is normal, but has muscle tone, like many other characters from other shounen manga. It’s that he’s like every real otaku for the most part; he is physically a wimp and yet he has this strength of character that is inspiring.

With Zero and the other alters, a lot of the theory of how it works is that they don’t disappear, they just meld into each other, since it’s said they’re all basically Motoko at heart and once they’re all together, Motoko is psychologically sound in a sense and never has those problems again, which is why I liked the ending; it really resolves that.

Motoko’s mom’s family, I think, was supposed to be like these awesome ninjas working in the shadows throughout Japan’s history and they are kind of behind the scenes of everything, which can make them seem evil, though I’d just say they’re dangerously neutral. It seems like some of them want to use Zero as a weapon, but then there’s her grandmother, who’s more ambivalent about what her plan was.

I agree Jin and Takezou, Jin especially, didn’t get enough screen time or interaction, but with Takezou, he seems to be much older, so he understandably doesn’t get as involved. Jin, on the other hand, is more secretive, so it’s somewhat explained in that sense that he’s very much keeping himself hidden because he knows how dangerous it is to get entangled with the ninja group, or whatever it is.

Change123, if nothing else, presents how difficult it is to merge psychological themes with martial arts themes. There’s the progression of HiFuMi and then revealing Zero, as well as the nature of Motoko’s relation to HiFuMi and Zero in terms of DID.

One Piece definitely promises some penultimate battles, though Oda’s probably going to take some twists with who gets pitted against who, except the more obvious ones. I couldn’t help but notice Usopp kept getting Nami’s boob in his face, also.

I don’t know if I would say Itachi is God, but I would agree that there is a bit of excessive focus on the various powers of Sharingan at this point. Hopefully this is the end, though Madara probably still has his own Ass Pull moment coming up, since he has a master Sharingan and a Rinnegan.
Itachi is probably going to either get killed or possibly release himself from the jutsu by some sensitive moment, though he’s probably close to that now, although he’s still a zombie, he’s just not a puppet anymore.

I’ll admit the explanation in Bleach of motivation for this evil plot is not realistic or logical storytelling or motivation, but if nothing else, it makes Ginjou a flawed character and a different sort of villain from Tsukishima or Aizen, for the more obvious comparison. Aizen was never one to waste any moment and had everything planned out 5 moves ahead. Ginjou, not so much. Maybe a few less moves ahead.

Also, I think Ginjo knew enough about Ichigo and his relationship with people to realize that even if there was a slight chance he might fail, he knew it would be more interesting in the sense that it would torture Ichigo, it would make him suffer. And that is a motive for a villain of his caliber, to watch someone suffer because of something you did, but also because of that person’s own weakness. Ichigo’s weakness is his friends; so making him suffer because of his inability to convince his friends of their mistaken belief about Tsukishima and then his inability to protect them once his Fullbring is gone would make Ginjo really satisfied and that’s what makes him a real villain, he’s sadistic.

This isn’t the same form revelation with the temporary Skeleton Fullbring; this is a two page spread, which, if the history of the series has shown us anything, that usually indicates that stuff’s about to get real. I think Ichigo has become a new hybrid again, now Fullbring/Shinigami. He lost his Fullbring, but not his Fullbringer powers, to qualify.

The last transformation sequence happened 7 chapters ago and that was a single page splash; this is two, that makes it more significant, and I don’t think you have much justification to deny that. There’s a lot of significance here, not only with Rukia doing what she did in the early chapters to give Ichigo his first Shinigami power. And that second sword Nick notes is probably related to what Kisuke and Isshin did in chapter 448 and 449 involving that mystery Shinigami, who was probably Rukia.

The sword is probably a combination of her and Isshin’s reiatsu, which in some way makes him get really awesome Shinigami powers, possibly because Rukia was the first to activate his powers and Isshin is the origin of his Shinigami potential. Rukia stabbed Ichigo with her sword, although I dunno if it was the exact same one she has now: it might have been Sode no Shirayuki or not. But now it’s not her sword that she’s stabbing Ichigo with, it’s a more particular sword that Kisuke probably already had an idea for to get Ichigo’s powers back AGAIN. Remember that he didn’t have his first Shinigami power for long before Byakuya took it away. So now if you think of it like that, it’s kind of more transition.

How has Ichigo not earned this? He worked his ass off to get Fullbring power and now you’re saying just because he gets help from the few friends that haven’t turned against him that he hasn’t earned his spirit powers? Maybe I’m missing something. He can see spirits, we saw that clearly enough around 451. Now he’s a Shinigami/Fullbring hybrid theoretically, so now he can put Ginjo to shame even with what is a powered up Fullbring.

Ichigo could still see Rukia and such, so clearly he still has his spiritual power. Just because he lost Fullbring doesn’t mean he lost all the abilities it gave him. He can theoretically still Fullbring things. He just doesn’t need the Fullbring he had. It was a transition, I’d say. But I’m not Kubo, so I won’t say I read his mind or anything. That’s just the vibe I get.

I thought that Jinbe fighting Hody would be a possibility and it should be awesome for development. The Energy Steroids would be the only way they’d probably even stand a chance, unless they have super awesome secret techniques, which only seems possible for some of the characters, like Zeo.

It seems like the symbolism with Naruto being the “third part” is more related to Jiraiya’s books, possibly, not to mention that he originally thought Nagato was the chosen one since he had the Rinnegan. There’s always the relation of different generations to each other that Naruto has been emphasized since we have the newest and youngest generations relating to and surprising the older generations throughout the series.

Perhaps I’m naïve, which wouldn’t surprise me, but I don’t see how the change in perspective and the like was a bad thing. Just because we focus on Sasuke for a while doesn’t detract from enjoying the series as a whole. The story shouldn’t have to always focus on Naruto and such in order to keep someone interested. Sasuke as an antagonist is something that was compelling to read for me as well as the progress up to it post time skip. Honestly, what many people are waiting for now is features of Team Guy and Team 8, since Team 7 and Team 10 have gotten featured significantly through the series enough.

I think there was only a small group who gave their reiatsu to the sword that gave Ichigo his powers back: Ikkaku, Renji, Kenpachi and Byakuya, though Hitsugaya does throw off that theory a bit, but admittedly you may be right in that popularity is determining who gets featured and those characters are all pretty consistently popular in the polls, from what I remember. They’re (almost) all the ones who fought him and either lost or drew to him and also enabled him to get stronger. There’s a sort of irony and appropriateness to the circle finishing around here with Ichigo regaining his powers with their reiatsu.

They took so long to get there because Kisuke always takes time for preparation and in a sense it’s more appropriate now for them to come and fight the Fullbringers, though I can’t imagine how they could hold a candle to what are basically 4 Captain level Shinigami. Ginjou and Tsukishima, maybe, but not the other 5 or so that are lingering.

As to why their reiatsu was needed, I’m thinking it has something to do with Isshin’s reiatsu as well, since he was probably involved. There will be an explanation, we just have to wait another week. Don’t expect the author to just explain everything like that.

I don’t think everyone grew out their hair so much as restyled it. Kenpachi is a whole other animal, because he doesn’t believe in taking baths or combing his hair anyway. Rukia actually appears to have cut her hair, as has Hitsugaya, but the others, sans baldy Ikkaku, don’t really seem to me to have grown out their hair, but instead just let it down or pulled it up. Renji’s had a few styles, and now Byakuya doesn’t feel the need to wear those little hairclip things he was known for in Soul Society.

There’re other weird things in Soul Society besides the wolf anthro Shinigami Komamura, but if anything, the explanation is simply that everyone’s soul is different and thus they take on different forms. Take Mayuri, even though his general appearance is self modification, but we have seen him otherwise and he has blue hair; that’s kind of odd, isn’t it? Not to mention the 13 Court Guards have the audacity to put what amounts to a 10 year old as the second in command of one of their divisions. The wolf man is quite tolerable compared to that level of idiocy.

Maybe Kubo changed Bleach’s direction because he knew an episodic and predictable series involving Hollows would’ve been a bit too boring. He had to get some background with the Soul Reaper/Shinigami world, and he did. Afterwards, we get to fighting more advanced Hollows, albeit they’re technically hybrids, so it’s as if Hollows have been tossed to the side as a plot element, except indirectly with the Fullbring arc. Just because Bleach changes from what it originally was doesn’t mean it doesn’t retain elements, such as the Substitute Shinigami aspect that is being revisited with Ginjo’s character and presumably his past which will be visited eventually. I’ll admit that it’s never going to go back to fighting Hollows, but that was more a general established beginning that led into other plot elements that go back to the Hollows as the original evil, so to speak; Aizen wanting to Hollowify Shinigami, for example and wanting to Shinigamify Hollows as well. The notion of gaining power that is reflective of the base desires of Hollow is reflected in non Hollow characters, particularly Aizen, of course. Not to mention the interesting idea of Fullbringers that also relates back to the relation of Hollows and Humans that was part of the beginning of the series.

With the characters, it’s not as if they haven’t had their moments, but there’s a difficulty with Hueco Mundo characters like Grimmjow and Neliel in that they’d have to either commute, so to speak, or permanently move from Hueco Mundo into the human world, which would be a relatively difficult thing to do, even for Urahara and his gigai. Sado, Orihime, Rukia, Uryuu: they’ve had their moments and seem to be developing in such a way that they will get better moments in the future. If you’re being impatient about characters getting moments all the time, then you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. It’s not as if Orihime and Sado didn’t get a decent moment with the Fullbring arc, albeit we didn’t see any improvement with Sado’s powers, unlike Orihime, who at least got another power. And now we have Rukia reappearing. Uryuu had a moment, though admittedly, he’s seemingly being relegated to a character who is the first to get seriously injured. I only hope with further training with his dad, perhaps, he can improve and be an interesting character for fights, since he’s a Quincy, that are all but extinct.

Ichigo has a comedic aspect to him, but it’s not his character flaw that makes him relatable. His flaw has always been that he overthinks things and is trying to shoulder all the responsibility himself. It’s a stereotypical shounen quality I’ve observed, such as in Naruto, but unlike Naruto, Ichigo is a genuinely intelligent character who just happens to focus too much on needing a reason to fight, which has been constantly rebutted by his inner hollow and Kenpachi in the vein that you don’t always need a reason to fight; sometimes you fight purely by instinct. Of course, we’ve gotten the flipside of his character flaw that benefits him in that he gets stronger when he’s fighting to protect someone (another shounen cliché of sorts), so in a sense, it’s a double edged sword like any character flaw; it can hinder them and help them depending on the situation. Ichigo’s comedic aspect isn’t negated by him being a straight man, since the straight man is a part of the Japanese comedy duo that you see a lot with certain manga, like Pokemon Special Diamond and Pearl for an explicit example. He can still be funny even if he’s the sane one compared to all the other crazy people, though Rukia is a close second for straight man behavior in terms of Bleach’s comedy. Ichigo doesn’t have to be goofy to be a funny character, he can be funny because he’s so relatable to people who are more serious. Naruto and Luffy are relatable to people who are more spontaneous.

Ichigo’s always had his pride of sorts, which is intertwined with his friends, since he’s willing to fight off all those thugs to protect Chad, who is basically a pacifist in many cases. In terms of Hueco Mundo, a lot of what motivated Ichigo was similar to Rukia’s situation, though now it’s evident that a lot more is at stake, such as the revelation that Aizen would use Karakura Town as the basis for the King’s Key, threatening everyone Ichigo loved from his hometown. And then there’s Grimmjow just egging Ichigo on to get stronger in a way that’s different from Ulquiorra, who was actually reminiscent of Byakuya in that he regards Ichigo as “trash”. Grimmjow is more like Kenpachi in that he just wants to find the strongest opponents and he senses that Ichigo is strong, but that he’s holding back, which was similar to what Ichigo was doing against Kenpachi. Once Ichigo starts getting over his limiting perspective on things, he gets that much stronger, but of course, without the tempering influence of his friends and his motivation to protect them, there is the risk we’ve seen that he could go out of control. That’s practically a part of his character as a whole, since he’s almost divided between his rational self that’s smart and kind against his thug like self that’s more brutal and willing to hurt people beyond what’s necessary, though it’s admittedly not as evident before he becomes a Hollow/Shinigami hybrid, which is really where his proverbial dark side came out. However, it was a literal second personality instead of a part of his personality initially.

There was still a personal investment for Ichigo with Aizen trying to get the King’s Key and that was Aizen looming over Karakura Town and planning to kill everyone there just to get the necessary energy to create the King’s Key. It’s not as close as with Orihime being kidnapped, but you seem to neglect that fact which admittedly isn’t emphasized enough by Kubo. If it was, maybe it would make it more relatable to Ichigo. “Aizen is threatening everyone in my hometown, so that’s why I keep fighting,”

Again, I don’t think you were paying attention with Orihime. Aizen already saw the potential of her power to reject things through Ulquiorra’s eye, so that’s why she was kidnapped. And her involvement throughout the Hueco Mundo arc was that she was being used as a tool and constantly had the threat of her friends’ lives being in danger in fighting the Espada that was keeping her there. That was how Ulquiorra kept her from trying to resist him; he threatened the lives of all of her friends. Orihime has a character development in Hueco Mundo in that she starts to become more assertive, which was a problem she had, especially with the use of Tsubaki, a power we’ve only seen succeed once and since then, it’s constantly failed. With her character development, we had investment with her; with her being a damsel in distress being used by Aizen as a part of his plot, we have a reason for the involvement of not only Ichigo, but everyone else. Albeit Renji’s an oddball in that group, since he really never had any direct involvement with Orihime.

Ichigo still held importance in the Karakura War arc if only because he was indicated by many characters to be so immensely powerful that he’d be the only one who could beat Aizen. A particular example was Unohana noting that his reiatsu was intense and he only had half his Shinigami outfit intact, which was supposed to be an indication of how much reiatsu you have. So it’s kind of like in Naruto with Kisame’s clone being noted by Neji to have basically the same amount of chakra as Naruto did when he fought Neji two years ago. Aizen’s the one who emphasizes why Ichigo is important, albeit it does take a while because the plot is centered for so long on a secondary conflict that exists between Aizen and Yamamoto. Ichigo was pushed to the side, but he can’t genuinely be the main focus all the time. Most of the time, yes, I think one can argue Ichigo has pretty much always been at the center, but he has to share the spotlight a bit with a 2000 year old Shinigami who was the only person that even held a candle to Aizen’s power post Soul Society.

Just because the moments are sporadic throughout the series doesn’t mean that the core cast of Ichigo’s friends doesn’t get development. Uryuu’s admittedly gotten more focus, since his dad was part of his motivation to be stronger. But Chad and Orihime have people special to them who are long dead, especially Chad with his abuelo. But as individuals, they’ve gone through difficulties as well, especially Orihime. Chad has had to learn to be more humble, not to mention recently I’m thinking he’ll be learning not to be so headstrong. Orihime has learned to be more assertive and not as dependent on everyone else. Uryuu has learned to be humble as well, though more importantly, I get the feeling he’s learned that he has to face the immense fear he confronts, especially because he doesn’t have the healing and protective powers of Orihime and he’s not as physically tough as Chad, so there’s a definite part of his character that has had to push past the physical limitations that he has. Just the training he did before Soul Society wasn’t nearly enough. It was when his dad came to him and put him through the wringer that we saw a vast improvement. Heck, he maintained Hollow patrol when Ichigo lost his powers, though the reason he’s kind of been shafted this time around is probably because he wasn’t aware of the danger so much, because these are humans, for the most part. So it’s not surprising in hindsight that he got beaten.

I think with Uryuu’s Quincy heritage and Chad’s Abuelo and Hollow powers, we will see resolution, since there is still the need for Uryuu to match or surpass his father and for Chad to balance his need to be a shield with his desire to be a sword, so to speak. Uryuu’s already had decent focus on his backstory, especially initially with engaging against Ichigo and resenting him because he thinks of him as a Shinigami primarily. Chad has had revelations as late as Hueco Mundo, but admittedly he didn’t get a lot of focus on his powers in the Fullbring arc except with the direct revelation that his powers are from a Hollow attack. Orihime interests me a lot, because we still don’t know the exact nature of her powers. If they’re Shinigami based, they’ve been theorized to be more Kidou based or like a different kind of zanpakutou. If they are Fullbring, they’re more unique, not strictly Hollow based necessarily.

I don’t think Yamamoto would let Orihime, for instance, bring back his arm. Not to mention it’s possible that since he used it in a high level Kidou, I don’t think even she could bring it back, since it’s theoretically gone forever. There may be limits to her power, such as time. In short, she can’t bring back people who are already reincarnated elsewhere. And in the case of Kidou 99, she can’t bring back the limb that was sacrificed to the Kidou. Of course, Yamamoto might just be a stubborn old man and say that she should let him be.

Ichigo was trying to scare him, I think with the second slash, though he might’ve genuinely been out of practice with Getsuga Tenshou, so that could explain why he missed even if he was focusing on hitting him. I’ll admit there is a parallel between YuYu Hakusho and Bleach with Ginjo as Sensui (not Shinsui. I guess you fused Shinobu and Sensui together as one name). We might get a flashback, but who knows. The Fullbrings and Tsukishima will return in 462, but I imagine you’ve already read it. You’re being impatient again, but not everyone has the same pace, I guess with character revelations and returns.

It was a nice balance for the Strawhats in One Piece and it’s moving onto the upcoming fight on the ship Noah that’s been indicated. I think most of my predictions for fights of New Fishman vs. Strawhat are going to be wrong. We established Chopper vs. Daruma at least. Sanji vs. Ikaros will probably be there as well, mostly with the fire weakness that was established.

Toriko popularity contest was fun. Coco’s probably my fave character, actually. The connection between the difficulty of getting through the waterfall into the Gourmet World and then Komatsu being the only person in the group that could’ve gotten the ingredient is a nice touch that’s been emphasized a few times before, I think. Komatsu will always be a weaker character, but his strength of heart is what makes him an admirable and important character. The food luck thing that was established in 145 or so is important to this as well, since it’ll be more important as we get to even harder ingredients on Ichiryuu’s list, of which I think we’ve got less than 5 to go.

I really like how Shirahoshi took it upon herself to take the full brunt of the ship, then got stabbed by Vander Decken. When I saw her appear and try to sacrifice herself, it got me a bit emotional. Hody’s practically taken enough blows that would beat many other villains prior to him. Luffy hasn’t yet demonstrated the full capabilities with Color of Armaments, such as with Gear 2nd or Gear 3rd, which he’s shown once against fighting the Kraken with Elephant Gun.

I don’t know what you mean by Gear Fourth, unless you mean the form when he took all the Shadows into him, which is commonly called Nightmare Luffy. He can’t do that again, btw, since the shadows are weak to light and could only be used in the darkness of Thriller Bark’s position. I doubt there’ll be Gear Fourth anyway, moreso a possible combination of Second and Third. Luffy’s control of Gear 2nd is pretty advanced now. Similarly, he hasn’t used Color of Armaments on his whole body, which would be pretty intense.

I can see Franky solving bigger enemy problems with the mecha Iron Pirate Franky Shogun (that’s it’s name, iirc), though I’m not sure how much bigger in scale he is compared to, say, Wadatsumi. I don’t think he’s going to fight him, he’s kind of given up to a great extent and he wasn’t a big threat before, iirc. Surume, the Kraken, was the one to beat Wadatsumi up before, because he’s actually immense, not just bigger than average; probably Giant size. He dwarfs Shirahoshi and I don’t think Franky Mecha is bigger than Shirahoshi; at most he’s about her size now.

It seems unfair to criticize Kubo’s titling in English when you’re native English speakers yourself. Heck, Kubo’s dabbled in Spanish as well. There’s a point to the title, since Orihime inquires about why Ichigo’s sad, remember?

Ginjo didn’t say anything about his background yet, that was all Hitsugaya explaining before Byakuya cut him off to start the battle.

I like how Tsukishima’s getting a bit more characterization. Not only is he calm and collected, so to speak, but he has a dark side with his Book of the End. He was genuinely intimidating me, kind of like Ginjo when he was revealed to be evil.

On the supposed plothole, I don’t think the rest of Xcution is or was evil, so to speak, they were just selfish and wanted more power. The alliance with Tsukishima is unknown, since it’s difficult to trust exactly what Ginjo says in relation both to himself and Tsukishima, because the roles might be reversed. Riruka seems to indicate she didn’t want the powers, so that’s already a problem with your criticism of consistency on their being bad guys. Not to mention I don’t think Tsukishima altered Ginjo’s memories in relation to the other members, just to himself. There may have already been an unspoken deal with Ginjo and the Xcution members anyway, that he would give them the Fullbring powers when Ichigo gets them and he steals them.

When he said they were taken, it was probably in the sense that he viewed Tsukishima as an enemy and thus, those Xcution members were friends of his. Not necessarily good guys technically, but to Ginjo, they were friends. A lot of it gets into that three way relationship of Ginjo, Tsukishima and the other group of Xcution members. They may not all be evil, though, as I noted with Riruka. She didn’t seem to want enhanced Fullbring powers. And I’m also curious as to where the Jackpot Knuckle guy, Shishigawara, went. I’m guessing he’s not important anymore. He was kind of just Tsukishima’s underling, not officially a member of Xcution necessarily.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it, you are being impatient with Kubo. But at the same time, you seem to think that this has a predictable twist as with other characters. Perhaps these characters are not meant to be as important overall as the Shinigami, Vizard or Arrancar, or at least what’s left of them (Grimmjow and Neliel). I admit they’ll be probably easily beaten after they find out the nature of these enhanced powers, but the bigger point might not be so evident.

It might be a bad climax, but only because you insist on reading the series in chunks and not following it on a weekly basis as it updates. I think it’ll be different in that these characters will be made regular humans with no Fullbring powers, theoretically. Maybe Ginjo will steal back all their Fullbring powers and become a super Fullbring to fight off super Ichigo. That can conceivably make them interesting in that they just become another tool for Ginjo to use instead of valued team members, like Ichigo’s friends. Kind of a compare/contrast method.

The Espada weren’t meant to necessarily be characters we would see to the end of the series. Especially with the implication that Aizen was seeking out the Vastlorde to theoretically make into even stronger Arrancar.

Another factor occurs to me besides impatience and that is expecting the creator to conform to your expectations. That’s just setting yourself up for disappointment and frustration every release. I honestly thought Kubo would just have Ginjo kill off those four guys, since they’d really served their purpose. But they’re probably still gonna get killed off, or at least depowered by Ginjo sucking their powers back into him to enhance his Fullbring. I don’t think Soul Society will intervene with Ichigo and Ginjo’s fight. They’re stepping in on those stray Fullbrings at the most, I predict.

The setup for Naruto’s entrance was a bit weak, I’ll admit, but it’s a bit expected with Naruto saying he’s going to the battlefield. Temari doesn’t have Kage level chakra, I think, is what’s she’s indicating.
That Mizukage with the clam is really bizarre, though the Raikage who is all but indestructible, it seems, is also scary.

More suspense is why they do that with cutting off characters mid sentence. That Tsuchikage may get out, or he might’ve known something about the other Kages’ weaknesses.

Sasuke’s eyes are technically Itachi’s original eyes, so it’s probably a combination of the pattern from Itachi and Sasuke’s eyes when they evolved post time skip. Sasuke’s script doesn’t have to make him sound like Ansem; he could instead be like Riku in that he’s the main character’s friend instead of the main antagonist and will change to be a brooding character, nonetheless.

I hope Sunny’s Gourmet Cells evolve more. Not to mention about what Coco and Zebra’s animal friends would be. I’m genuinely curious about that.

The villain might be that one member of the Bishokukai, Kuromado, with that really tall hat.

I listened in on your cast of the episode and I have to say you only covered about half of what is wrong with Naruto. The smaller parts but still there. The biggest unmentioned is still Sakura, who has done nothing but be a problem. In the first half of the series she couldn't fight for shit, and let's not forget they TOTALLY drop the whole fact she was supposed to know a lot about Genjutsus mentioned by Kakashi in the bell test. Her fight with Ino (which was stupid by the way) was boring and in all honesty should have been a win for Ino because she has a Kekkei Genkai, another dropped element. Also her 'confession' to Naruto when she FINALLY REALIZED NARUTO MIGHT LIKE HER was fucking horrible

I say dropped twice now because that's what Kishimoto does A LOT, he drops plot elements and other things SO MANY TIMES. Like I said Kekkei Genkais were dropped after Part 1 and never really used that often anyway, he dropped the fact Yamamoto was a clone of the First Hokage, he dropped the concept of missions, which could have been used as a way to introduce characters, maybe even the other carriers of the Bijuu and make us care about them when Akatsuki kills them. Or maybe have more one off villains that help build Naruto, not just go from Akatsuki member to Akatsuki Member learning a new form because why not. I'm sure there's more.

Also Naruto as a fighter isn't brought up, Naruto has for all intents and purposes two moves. Rasengan and Shadow Clone. Rasen Shurkien and all other forms are just that, a different version of the same move. Remember Uzumaki Barrage? (Then again remember Taijutsu?) Naruto has little variation on attacks, and you really don't get a sense he'd ever be a strong character without that move, even Tendou Souji from Kamen Rider Kabuto and my LEAST favorite main Rider can answer when someone says "Don't use your overpowered shit" if you say to Naruto "You can't use Rasengan or any variants on it" what does he have? NOTHING but making copies that get destroyed in one hit. For being a Wind User we see him do nothing with it other then make his one move stronger.

Lastly going on your topic of Hinata getting the shaft in the Pein arc, this is not the first time Kishimoto has done this. You mentioned the whole Naruto vs Neij fight being about Destiny. That is the problem it became a battle over Destiny, when in fact Naruto SHOULD have been fighting for Hinata, who tried her best to fight Neji and earn his respect only to be hated by him because of something she has no control over. Not to mention, you know he tried to KILL HER. But let's forget that and talk about DESTINY!

Overall you guys did make a lot of good points but there's still a truckload of shit to add to the pile of shit.

Her abilities aren't technically Kekkei Genkai, which would be genetic inheritance (even though that's not how it works in real science, but that aside), they're considered Hiden or Secret Techniques in the same vein as the Nara and Aburame clan's techniques. Just a little thing there. And it's Yamato who's the clone of Senju Hashirama, but you might've done this really fast after the show came out.

Villains with backstories can be likeable and killed off regardless or ambiguous and made as anti heroes within the group, and Naruto has done both a few times through the series, notably Zabuza and Gaara respectively.

With Naruto as the main character, I’d agree that no one else could really be the focus, since Naruto is an underdog, but he has experience in battle and a creativity you don’t see with other characters besides maybe Sasuke, and that’s rare usually, since he’s the token genius. Naruto has had to work hard, but he has talents acquired from his mother and father that are a mixed bunch. Rock Lee is different in that he worked hard at a single thing to be a near expert at it, taijutsu. They both epitomize the value of hard work in different ways. Rock Lee has his own series of sorts, though, called Rock Lee’s Springtime of Youth.

Maybe I haven’t read a lot of shounen, but the notion of death being a reality of life seems to be emphasized throughout in one way or another. Bleach admittedly has the reincarnation issue, but it’s never really come up with a character we can tell is reincarnated from a previously dead character (not that it would matter, because I think they’ve said their memories of their previous life are erased). One Piece only really has death in flashbacks and not so much in the present series, excluding 2 major character deaths within the last year. I never really got the idea from One Piece that a pirate’s life was dangerous on the level of a ninja in Naruto except maybe with the notion that there are these Sea Kings and stuff, but mostly, One Piece set itself up as an adventure action series instead of an action/martial arts/supernatural sort of series which both Bleach and Naruto really seem to focus more on.

The characters developing in the context of a war-ridden world is, I agree, one of the things that makes people think when they read this series. Each of these Rookie 9 alone approaches the imminent death that is emphasized at various points, especially Forest of Death, in a different way, and this is most prominent with Team 7. Naruto presses on, Sasuke panics and then toughens up extremely and Sakura panics and then has a better change than Sasuke, albeit Sasuke is meant to be flawed in a different way and change eventually.

Each villain in Naruto has their own backstory which affects how they conclude in terms of their presence in the story. Kisame’s death was because of his pride especially, he didn’t want to die by the hands of the enemy and such, so he did the next best thing. In that sense, he reflects the idea of a ninja that I think was noted historically in Japan, very self sacrificing agents.

Itachi is meant to be tragic in that he did villainous things for admirable and even semi virtuous reasons, protecting a family member. He made a deal with the devil to do it, but he did manage to preserve his clan, albeit the future of it would be a mountain of hard work to even bring it to half of its presence it had before the massacre. Itachi and Sasuke’s fight wasn’t ever meant to be primarily physical. Any physical conflict was mitigated for the most part in exchange for focusing on their use of Sharingan for genjutsu and also their genius level ninjutsu, particularly Sasuke’s Kirin, which took advantage of his dual chakra nature of fire and lightning. I liked the fight, if only because it was layers upon layers of strategies, like a chess game of sorts.

Pain is another tricky one to analyze because he is almost a walking contradiction by the end since he had a position of benevolence in Rain Village, but also views everyone else as lesser beings until Naruto makes him realize that he’s just like everyone else in suffering because of war and that Pain can’t change war by waging more war. In this way, Pain repents of his proverbial sin and does a metaphorical God move in bringing everyone back to life for the purpose of giving them a second chance to improve the future.

The theme of the youth improving the future in spite of the present mess the elders made is something that I love about Naruto and how the younger characters inspire even pessimistic older characters, such as Kakashi.

With Zabuza, there’s actually a subtle connection to Madara, since I think Madara was the one actually behind the 4th Mizukage who arranged the graduation ceremony from which Zabuza emerged the victor. So in a way, Madara was the one who made the monster known as Zabuza who was nonetheless not a total monster because of Haku’s influence.

Madara and Orochimaru have been interesting, albeit Orochimaru has gone through three previous bodies (probably more if you count flashbacks), and technically is subsisting through Kabuto, since he’d technically be considered gone in terms of his soul after the Itachi fight. Madara’s presence is bigger, since he’s basically the progenitor of the Uchiha clan and really has been orchestrating a lot of the events prior to the series’ beginning and throughout, such as the Zabuza thing I noted (he motivated that war), he probably was a strong force behind the scenes in the Third Ninja War war involving the Rain Village and Hattori Hanzo (with his giant salamander), not to mention he pretty much set Itachi and Sasuke down their respective paths and was the main reason why Minato put himself and Kushina into the Kyuubi seal and thus even made Naruto what he is today.

If he didn’t exist, Naruto would’ve probably been terribly normal and ineffective as a ninja, mostly because he wouldn’t have the chakra required to do the amazing things he did throughout the series. Madara is functioning as a parallel to Aizen, albeit Aizen willfully planned these things, Madara probably isn’t making as big a deal about the events he brought about indirectly, but he probably still knows, being all shadowy and stuff.

I think Madara has his own flaws of sorts, since he’s completely insane even if he has a lot of Xanatos Gambits that have worked out through the centuries he’s lived since he faked his death or whatever.

I don’t see how Sasuke’s hatred overwhelming Orochimaru after he tried to take over Sasuke’s body is a bad thing, because it establishes Sasuke as an important character who has inherited Madara’s legacy of sorts. Even the Kyuubi says that at one point he hasn’t felt that much hatred since Madara. Orochimaru’s “death” by Itachi was more a reflection that Orochimaru, being a desperate and craven character, couldn’t stand up to a character that was just overall better, because he didn’t jump all over the place trying to get all the ninjutsu in the world. Orochimaru and Madara both have a similar flaw as villains that we can agree upon, I think. They’re so power hungry they fail to recognize any threat to them because they believe themselves to be unbeatable.

Kabuto’s an interesting villain as well, though he’s fast becoming a clone of Orochimaru, almost literally, because of how the injection of his cells affected Kabuto and apparently their personalities are overlapping a bit. Nonetheless, I liked Kabuto as a villain because of his being initially something of a character you thought might be a good guy, but then Kishimoto sort of rushed his revelation of being a bad guy. And there’s the revelation of the fifth body he resurrected and how that could make Madara just comply with his demands like that. Madara didn’t just casually agree to ally with Kabutomaru, he was coerced a good deal by the threat of the power Kabutomaru had and the influence to boot that could’ve thrown off his big giant moon illusion plans.

I can agree that the secondary characters have gotten less focus than Sasuke or Naruto, especially Hinata and Shino (everyone else has gotten decent moments overall, albeit Kiba just had the moment in the Save Sasuke Arc) but I don’t see how Sasuke behaving in a flawed way is a bad thing. Any real person would do these sorts of things in the face of having his entire known family massacred by his brother and treated like a genius all the while bristling with rage against this villain that he made his brother out to be. Then you have him pushed into a situation where he has to sacrifice his pride to get the power he needs through training under an enemy (Orochimaru). He joined him because Orochimaru appealed to his adolescent pathos, his desire for power and self realization were both things Orochimaru could abuse to make a new vessel in the future.

After that, he eventually learns his brother was actually looking out for him the whole time, but then takes that message the wrong way and vows revenge on the village. In a sense, Sasuke has just demonstrated how much of a one track mind he has; everything centers on revenge. Most of his presence for the series even post time skip was all to get revenge on Itachi. After that, now he wants revenge for Itachi in the form of destroying the Leaf Village. Not to support the fangirls and fanboys, but he is a compelling anti hero with varied loyalties because he’s willing to sell his proverbial soul to the devil (multiple times) in order to get what he wants. That doesn’t make him a douchebag, it makes him a desperate person, which I think people can relate to. I dunno about the shounen audience, but Sasuke has a sort of relevance as a seinen character to adults who feel like they can relate to Sasuke in that they’ve made bad choices to try to get what they want.

I’m a big NaruHina shipper of sorts, but I can understand in hindsight why Naruto didn’t linger on it, and that’s because he’s still a little kid personality wise. He doesn’t think about real romantic love and he doesn’t think of Hinata that way, even if he’s gotten hundreds of hints that she likes him genuinely. His focus on Sakura is childish and probably based mostly on her love-hate relationship with him anyway. He may eventually get over it, but it doesn’t decrease the importance Hinata and everyone else has to him. He truly appreciates and wants to protect everyone in Konoha Village, which is part of his character that makes him ideal to be Hokage. Just because he doesn’t see Hinata in a romantic light doesn’t mean that you can’t see the importance of why he reacted the way he did. As to why he didn’t linger on it: he’s patently stupid at times and very much present focused, never lingering much on the past and focused on the future only as it relates to being Hokage.

I’ve talked about the whole Naruto and destined child thing before, so I’ll put it as concisely as I can. Naruto knows he is special, at least in terms of his heritage, not the prophecy of the toads. And in spite of Naruto knowing his lineage, he doesn’t use that as a defense for why he can risk his life for the village; he does it because he cares for the village as a member. He does all the things he does out of the goodness of his heart and never has made it a point to self aggrandize through bringing up his parents, especially since he didn’t know who they were for the longest time. And now that he does, does he make a big deal to people who object to his acting in the war? No.

We continue to see Naruto as a character who doesn’t care about the people who preceded him except in their influence upon him as a person. He doesn’t ever make a claim that he is destined to be Hokage; he always insists, like Luffy as the Pirate King, that he will be Hokage. That’s why I’d continue to root for Naruto; he is ambitious to protect other people, not for his own ego.

I’d argue strongly that he was never destined, but disposed to be do. He had the skills, he just had to be willing to use them for the right reasons. Had he not been raised by Iruka, for instance, he might’ve been this awful monster like Gaara, for instance. Naruto’s had to push through difficulties, like the Rasengan training or the water walking training, which Jiraiya helped him more immensely than Ebisu ever could have. To put it simply, his being a child of destiny is background. Naruto had a difficult time against the Third Raikage recently, but then he thought of an unexpected strategy to beat him. As powerful as he is, he also is an underdog still in having to fight so many different opponents, many of which outshine him initially.

I don’t think Naruto ending with at least partially a message of forgiveness in the face of monstrous sin and crimes would be a terrible thing. If it was brushed off that Sasuke tried to murder everyone and betrayed all loyalties he had before, then yes, I would agree, but I think if nothing else, the ending would have Sasuke go into self imposed exile, ala Aoshi Shinomori from Rurouni Kenshin, though there wouldn’t be the return like Aoshi has. Naruto himself has indicated that he wants to change things about how the village is run, and one of those things would be how they treat Missing Ninja/Ninja Criminals. In Sasuke’s case, he is like a brother to Naruto and Naruto genuinely believes through their clash of fists, that he is still a good person. And their final battle will be the turning point of Sasuke understanding himself as well as Naruto and Naruto understanding Sasuke. I don’t pretend to be able to predict the ending, but I don’t think it’s so focused on ninja duty and death that Kishimoto will have some ending where he kills off Sasuke.
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We have a user of Lava Element in Cloud Village apparently according to this chapter, kind of unexpected

Vander Decken’s use in the series is slowly dwindling, I’d say, but who knows what he’ll do (we all do, the chapter’s out)

I thought that too, but I wasn’t nearly as confident as you guys, since Kubo writes however he wants and if he throws you a curveball, so be it. I liked how it developed, though I admit it could’ve gone on a bit longer if Giriko (Time Tells No Lies) had maybe used some other powers to try to hurt Kenpachi, but then resorting to Hulking out.

I think Kenpachi killing even a human this way is within his character range of being a brutal anti hero. This is a human Hollow hybrid of sorts, you might say, so I imagine Kenpachi doesn’t see him as just a human as Chris hastily concluded.

Bishokukai base is at least on the border of Gourmet World, if not directly over it. Hopefully all these new chefs will be important along with Setsuno.

I call B.S. on this Ume guy being Staajyun (common spelling of his name), mostly because Ume’s hair was lighter color, Staajyun’s is black. Not to mention it’d be cool to see a chef with that hairstyle as an adult. He might be an important character, he might be a temp character to contrast with Komatsu. Who knows?

Ultear’s redemption progressed normally enough, especially since she tried to kill herself in penance. Meredy’s understanding of Ultear’s pain is a good thing. Is forgiveness such a hard thing for you to understand? Ultear realized prior to this that her mother didn’t hate her, so she was already changing into a better person. I’m not equating remorse with deserving forgiveness, but she was also forgiving herself, so I think it’s a dual process.

Hey guys! Love the podcast. I was introduced to it recently, so I've been going back and listening to old episodes and RolloT's comment during the July 31st podcast comparing Luffy's use of Haoshoku Haki to Naruto's status as "Ninja Jesus" irked me a little. It has not been stated that Haoshoku Haki is something someone is born with, only that very few people have it. In addition, Haki literally means confidence or ambition, while Haoshoku means conquering king. Put together, I interpret Haoshoku Haki to mean that those individuals who possess it have such confidence in themselves (and the strength to back up that confidence) that they are able to overpower the wills of others, not because they are destined to, but because of WHO they are as people. I mean, this is just my opinion and my theory, but if you look at the list of people who are confirmed Haoshoku Haki users, (Luffy, Whitebeard, Hancock, Shanks, Rayleigh, Ace) all of them are very strong willed and confident in themselves.

Oh, and here's a helpful tip for pronouncing Japanese words: the vowel sounds are ALWAYS the same. Japanese doesn't have hard or soft sounds like Western languages. For example, Luffy's name is never pronounced "Luh-fee" (not that you guys do that).

Keep up the good work!

Welp, I think what we have found out is that it pays to read questions before the show so we can sort them out. But overall good podcast. I enjoyed your dialogue and hope you enjoy your new recomendations. Good luck and goodnight.

Jollyskulls

If nothing else, Decken has finally had his powers turned against him. It took me a bit to figure out what happened, but when I did, I was stunned. It continues to establish Hody’s heartless nature: he’ll even sacrifice his so-called allies to advance his goals. Decken wasn’t decapitated, so he wasn’t instantly killed at least. So he might be able to turn things around still, if only one more time.

If Oda kills him off, he’s going to have a crowning moment of awesome, I imagine. But you’re right that he doesn’t kill even pretty terrible villains off, he always gives them a chance for redemption in the future. Crocodile’s a big example.

I liked how they set up the battles with official statements like that. Jinbe and Sanji didn’t occur to me until I realized, “Wait they both fight hand to hand/foot to foot,”

Since Zoro got a one on one battle, we have 5 left, so here’s who’s left in the New Fishman Pirates: Zeo, Daruma, Dosun and Ikaros (who won’t get to fight against the guy with his weakness, which I guess makes sense from a writing perspective). With 4 people, that suggests only one would necessitate a 2 on 1 fight, but I dunno who it would be except possibly Dosun.
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What Yukio said was probably just reflecting that he resents Toushirou for being a pretty boy or that Yukio probably likes stereotypes and tropes from manga or video games where the character powers up because of such a situation where they are kind of pushed to their limits. It’s a weird banter between them, I’ll admit, but not absolutely bizarre, since he’s just reflecting on a trope in manga or anime that many readers would probably be familiar with.

Technically it’s not Karakura Town, I don’t think. It’s a facsimile level that Yukio made, if I had to guess. Admittedly it’s lazy, but it has a certain importance to Ichigo, if nothing else. And he’s technically fighting with Uryuu as support of sorts.

They don’t technically fly, they just run/walk on air by concentrating the pressure under their feet. It’s background stuff, technically, but I wouldn’t call it flying by any measure; levitation at best.
It’s like Kubo is doing what Oda’s doing in establishing battles, but there is admittedly some whiplash involved. He’s focusing on the fight between Byakuya and Tsukishima, mostly because he wants to show off how much more badass and super fast Byakuya has become.
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It was expected almost that Naruto was going to fail, since he still needs to have limits to his ever growing powers with the new Tailed Beast Chakra form.

I think they were saying it was impossible more than contradictory, but that’s translation for you. The idea is that inevitably one of your attributes is going to be stronger than the other in terms of defense or offense. Not to mention the Raikage’s armor was his freaking skin, so it’s a little obvious in hindsight that he wouldn’t be able to withstand his own electrified hand piercing into him, especially if the armor is earth based, which by Naruto elements, is weak to lightning.

Naruto has first-hand experience against Gaara’s shield, I think, or at least has seen his improvement after the Leaf Village Invasion against Kimimaro. Naruto kind of has that confidence in Gaara because he knows him by the battle he had, even though he really didn’t see his shield all that much. Lee knows his shield the best, I’d say.

With Fairy Tail, the villains are usually a foil, I’ve noticed, for the protagonists. Some of them even become good guys, like Laxus and Gazille (albeit he’s also a double agent, last I recall). Master Hades was a villain I liked, albeit like Gerard/Jerard (however his name is spelled) he was defeated by a super powered Natsu eating something he wasn’t supposed to and using uber Dragon Slayer magic.

Hades is allegedly much stronger than Gerard was, so him being defeated by the whole of Fairy Tail is more meaningful, especially once we have another villain turned ally, Ultear, aiding them.

It’s that ability to change people to being better through combat infused with emotion that makes me stick with Fairy Tail.

The new villain, Zeref, makes me feel like he’ll be that sort of villain with flaws, who is nonetheless compelling as someone who has evil intent. Hades had a weakness too, the Grimoire Heart and the revelation that his weakness was such a thing is interesting, since he was originally thought to be just amazingly skilled, since he was the 2nd master of the guild.
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With Aizen, I found his biggest villainous appeal, and also his flaw, was his megalomania. He wanted power at the cost of everyone around him. As long as he got power, he didn’t care if he had to kill even his most trusted allies. And he definitely didn’t think twice about using the Espada as experimental tools or purely experiments to beat people he’d otherwise have not stood as good of a chance against, like Yamamoto. His getting the best of people wasn’t just because he was good, it was because he was always retaining information about people, especially with Ichigo. Not to mention with Shinji it was supposedly pure instinct that allowed him to win, not even depending entirely on his senses, since he had long since abandoned that pure empiricist notion in terms of fighting. His desire to always push past his limits is admirable, but the way he seeks to do it is what is supposed to make us view him as a villain.

Looking at his power ups in an isolated sense without reference to his character as a whole can easily make him seem as if he never had weaknesses. But Ichigo has always been the character central to Aizen’s defeat. Albeit the first time he even fought him, of course he was going to lose. The second time, Aizen already knew that Ichigo was going to try to ambush him, so he prepared accordingly. It’s that over predicting that is another flaw that makes Aizen a villain you can still see flaws in and not make him out to be completely unbeatable, which he admittedly tends to do. But the reason he does it is because he has a psychological approach to battle that makes it very easy for him to goad his enemies into revealing their weak spots. That’s how he beat virtually everyone; turning them against each other and using the Espada as tools to reveal the tougher Shinigami’s abilities, like Stark with Shunsui or Wonderweiss against Yamamoto in sealing his power and making him weaken himself to save everyone else from getting burned alive by his fire power.

I think Aizen’s defeat was reflective of his megalomania. Subconsciously or unconsciously, it makes some sense that he wants to be normal, since without the power he has, he wouldn’t have been so ambitious or been motivated to become more powerful than he already was. Of course, it gets into an issue of what “normal” constitutes, because if he was too normal, he wouldn’t have even been of any importance to the series. But technically Ichigo was just speculating. We may never get an exact explanation, but that sort of introspective observation about Aizen being so powerful that he wants to be normal so he won’t be compelled to seek out power is interesting, albeit it doesn’t excuse Aizen being so power hungry that you see him slowly going insane because of the power he gets, but then loses because of how the Hougyoku seems to work. It’s funny you’d compare Aizen to a God-like figure, because it’s through the progression of him getting beaten in some sense by Gin, by Yamamoto and by Ichigo that we see him getting desperate and thus not truly unbeatable, albeit I think technically he wasn’t powering himself up (he couldn’t anymore, he was already at his limit anyway), it was the Hougyoku the whole time.

Once you reach a certain point of power, you lose your sense of danger, which I think is what Aizen’s inevitable weakness was: once he got too powerful, he didn’t realize that there could be someone that can actually match him. Or in the case of Kisuke, he didn’t keep his defenses up and try to predict what Kisuke would do and that’s why he lost in part. Aizen doesn’t just reflect well off of Ichigo as he progresses, but also Kisuke especially, since he’s admitted that only Kisuke rivals him in pure intelligence and such, though he’s also admitted that had he gone up against Yamamoto as he was initially, he still would’ve lost.

With villains always winning, you have to look at it in perspective. Aizen seemingly winning only makes sense if you ignore that he keeps losing his lackeys left and right and only has one thing to fall back on; in his case, the Hougyoku. And his return is going to probably entail a similar issue. He might have allies waiting in the wings that we didn’t know about, but fundamentally, those allies will be beaten and then it’ll be him against an Ichigo he never even thought could exist (Fullbring + Shinigami + Final Getsuga Tenshou?)
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I don’t think I got a single fight prediction right. Oda’s that random. Brook going one on one is going to be interesting, since the last time he did that, he got his ass kicked pretty bad thanks to Ryuuma. I almost thought he could’ve helped Zolo, although he wouldn’t really need it. And yeah, Nami and Robin may not get their own fights, unless someone else from the crew comes up. Or they fight against Caribou, lol.

I thought Brook could’ve fought Ikaros though. But then they switch around and one of my predictions earlier was apparently spot on: Chopper vs. Dosun. No one’s fighting Vander Decken, so that’s out, but most of these are one on one, surprisingly. But then, these are the new and improved Straw Hats, so why not.

With Nami getting saved by Brook, it was kind of happenstance, since he was about to ask her to show her panties again. Robin was seemingly ready to fight, but it just happened that Zoro was more eager to fight than she was.

I like Robin, she’s just very mysterious still in terms of personality, because she’s had to live such a dangerous life that she had to make it hard to read her, I think.
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I was wrong again on how it would go. More whiplash inducing shifts in perspective. Shishigawara is Jackpot Knuckle guy, one of the longer names, lol. He hasn’t even gotten the power-up the others got, mind you, so he may get beaten quicker.

Renji is apparently that awesome that he can start beating the crap out of powered up Jackie and take her blows like they’re nothing.

These battles are probably just establishing their power, since we may be getting the eventual fights against the Vastlorde in the final arc.

Tsukishima is rarely the psychopath compared to Ginjou, I think. He’s more collected overall than Ginjou is, but he has those moments in terms of his powers, which does reflect in part their Hollow nature.

There are two females technically, since I think Jackie’s considered female along with Riruka.
Riruka’s also sane because she stated that she didn’t want the power up from Ginjou. I think that shows she’s more human than the others.
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Seems like the Mizukage are always the ones who twist things and make it the most difficult battle. Jokey Boy is apparently the name of the technique.

Muu may not come back, but he may get released in order to explain the weakness of the technique, or Old Man Tsuchikage will reveal the weakness in flashback. A lot of this is the backstories of the Kage in relation to older ones.
~~~~~
I hope the other chefs have some relevance, especially the cyborg looking one.

New GT Robo fight maybe?

I don’t think I could think of my top 5 heroes off the top of my head, but most of mine are either very serious without much humor, like Riki-Oh from Riki Oh; very serious and focused on the plot, which doesn’t allow for much comedy; or Akira Kongou from Kongou Banchou; definitely a badass, but who also doesn’t understand what a cellphone is and loves pudding.

I agree with Chris that a persistent and memorable quality of a hero is what makes them effective and popular overall. Luffy to me is not only simple, but his love of meat is the first thing that immediately pops into my head. Ironically, the same thing kind of exists with Naruto in terms of ramen, though that’s gone away pretty much entirely since we’ve gotten to time skip. The comedic aspect I think exists even with Ichigo, but it’s not as memorable, since he’s the straight man, not the goofball.

Ichigo as a hero is admittedly tricky because Kubo’s style of writing involves the message that other shounen manga also say, especially shounen action manga; that is, you shouldn’t try to shoulder everything yourself and there ought to be a recognition that you are only as strong as your friendship. Kubo just takes it to a more extreme conclusion of sorts, that a hero can’t be truly strong without his friends. Ichigo’s deep concern for his friends is what makes him a relatable character, even though he also has that exterior appearance that suggests that he’s a punk or a thug, when in reality he’s a nice guy.
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This Mizukage is apparently the 2nd in the chronology, since the 4th was a puppet ruler behind Madara. These zombie Kages have been in sequence anyway, like Third Raikage and Second Tsuchikage and 4th Kazekage, since the 3rd was made into a zombie puppet by Sasori.

The Jokey Boy technique was pretty cool and Gaara’s solution with the gold dust was expected, but also out of nowhere almost. Apparently, it’s not called Jokey Boy, since that’s just the initial translation of the romaji of the kanji. The literal translation from Japanese to English is Steaming Danger Tyranny, which is equally weird, but makes much more sense.

There is indeed some awkward erotic sexual innuendo with the technique’s method and what people say about it. Nice that the Tsuchikage didn’t really help him much in the fight, so Gaara’s more independent now as a Kage.
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Jackie apparently could self destruct, which is weird. Jackie felt a connection to Renji in that he is willing to try to save her, which is how she is humanized moreso than Giriko, who is one of the more monstrous Fullbringers who is almost inhuman in their regard towards others.

Yukio’s backstory was a bit rushed, but it’s interesting how Hitsugaya relates to him in a sense as a young boy who people distrust in a sense and felt abandoned in a sense as well, but got real friends with Momo and Rangiku, among others.

Yukio’s annoying because he’s overconfident, which is why people didn’t like Aizen, lol.
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I imagine they’re not dead, but it’ll be a while before we see them again with this time skip starting. The Acnologia Dragon will probably come back, as well as Zeref, but it’s all speculation for the most part.

I didn’t see the holding hands thing as bad, especially since they mentioned that it was supposedly used to enhance Fried’s defensive magic by sharing all their mana (or whatever they call it) by physical contact. It’s a common theme in the manga, but it’s not used so much that it’s annoying. Each of these characters can stand on their own, but it’s not a sign of weakness to be inspired by comraderie and get stronger in some sense through that. You can’t do all this kind of stuff on your own, you know.

The girl out of nowhere is bizarre, but at least she didn’t talk, which would’ve just made her more excessive in her deus ex machine quality. She might have something to do with some prophecy. The first instinct in my mind is that she could be Lucy’s mother, or at least have some relation to that, but there’s so many other possibilities, since the world of Fairy Tail has people like Makarov’s son, who I forgot was revealed to be the head of an evil guild which was using Gajille as a double agent.

There’s a lot of intrigue that Fairy Tail has and the nature of the magic in the world, not to mention the magic unique to Fairy Tail, like Fairy Law and Fairy Glitter, two of the three Fairy Magics. Perhaps they were saved by the third Fairy Magic of Fairy Friendship, lol.

Maybe the woman has something to do with the first master as well, but as I said with Acnologia and Zeref, this is primarily speculation. Maybe I suspend my disbelief easier with fiction that Chris, but I didn’t find it that ridiculous and you got a bit hysterical at the end with the notion that this in any way was an “end” to the series, but I don’t blame you as a comedian, I suppose.

erm, it might just be me but during the latest podcast I think that YROF's mic might have shut down or something every tenth word or so. It's far from hard to understand what he is saying, but it's kinda annoying nonetheless.
still a lot better than the last episode.

I wanted to express my appreciation to YRoT and RolloT for your review of Angel Densetsu. If it wasn't for your review, I never would have read it, and I would have missed out on a great manga.

On the subject of a different manga, I think there is an aspect of the Naruto/Neji fight that neither of you picked up on. The true power of that fight is not about how Naruto and Neji are different, the punk vs. the prodigy, but about how they are the same.

As a son of the younger brother of the Hyuga family head, Neji's ultimate fate is to be sacrificed to protect the legitimate heir Hinata, just like his father was sacrificed. And he's PISSED about that. On the other hand, Naruto's fate is to be trapped in a neverending struggle against the Kyubi inside him. If he ever loses control, he'll be taken over by the Kyubi and massacre the village.

Thus, both Naruto and Neji are fighting against fate. For all Neji's talk about fatalism, he's fighting just as hard as Naruto in his own way, except that he doesn't realize it. But Naruto does understand what Neji is going through, and this gives him a psychological edge.

I seriously thought you would at least talk about what someone in the forums thought was a pretty “bullshit” move, to use their terminology. The revelation that the mystery person revived by Edo Tensei/Impure World Resurrection in chapter 490 and now summoned by Muu in chapter 559 was actually Madara Uchiha throws a lot of the story into question, at least with regards to what Tobi has told everyone. Did he lie to Sasuke about everything? Did he tell certain things that were true? Who is he actually?

People are speculating that he could be a second half of Madara after he used a technique like Muu did in separating himself into two people, but I’m skeptical of that. The other people being thrown around as possible culprits are Uchiha, such as Madara’s brother Izuna. That seems likely, though I’m thinking it could be possible that it’s Shisui Uchiha, though his motivation seems less there than with Izuna or maybe Kagami Uchiha, who was a contemporary with the Third Hokage and probably Orochimaru as well. Lots of speculation to be done there.

Admittedly, there’s Muu, the 2nd Tsuchikage, posing a slight threat, but the main problem for the 4th Ninja War now is a combination of Madara Uchiha controlled by Kabutomaru and Tobi with his Six Paths of Pain that are Jinchuuriki with a Sharingan and Rinnegan for eyes.

There’s also the obvious climax approaching with the Eight and Nine Tails fighting and hopefully not getting captured. Naruto’s in a pinch too because he’s expended a lot of power just eliminating the White Zetsu chakra clones of people that were disrupting the Ninja Alliance’s focus.

And there’s people gushing over that little moment between Naruto and Hinata, which I liked, since it shows that Naruto acknowledges Hinata and wants to protect her because he respects her. Even if he hasn’t returned Hinata’s feelings, he recognizes her now, so there’s more obvious potential for the relationship to develop.
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On the Fairy Tail timeskip Chris dismissed offhand as silly, I admit it’s a bit odd, but it’s not a bad thing to focus on characters that haven’t really had any development. Now we get a feeling that they might get a moment, albeit only until they’re inevitably overshadowed by the main cast. But we have Droy getting fat and Leedas reverting to what was apparently his original size of a slim guy, not a fat guy. Makao’s gotten more wrinkles and the guild as a whole has collapsed in 7 years to a shadow of its former self, picked on by the new guild Twilight Ogre, who occupies the same town.

Makao being the fourth master makes sense in regards to virtually any other mage not coming even close to his power in terms of the remaining guild members. He took on those 20 Balkans by himself and beat 19 of them, which attests to how good he was. Most of the other members we hardly know much about them beyond what their magic is, if even that in some cases, though my memory is fuzzy with the girl with glasses wearing a cape, for instance. I don’t think anyone but hardcore Fairy Tail fans would’ve recognized the boy as Romeo, Makao’s son from chapters 2 and 3. The theory that this was a flashback to Zeref would’ve been interesting, even though it’d be really odd for him to wear Natsu’s clothes, lol.

The first post under the Show should be what manga get reviewed this week and in what order.

We’ve seen both of Tobi’s eyes at least once when he fought Konan and she supposedly killed him, but he used Izanagi and saved himself at the last minute, which technically would’ve blinded one of the Sharingan he seemingly had. That seems to counter the theory that he’s Obito in that he originally had 2 Sharingan. And at the moment, he has a Rinnegan and Sharingan, but so does Madara’s corpse, however Kabutomaru did that in 460. My theory relates more to the Sage of the Six Paths or perhaps Izuna, though admittedly he hasn’t been referenced enough for us to be genuinely interested.

If you don’t care about the Uchiha clan, then to be honest you might as well just not read Naruto anymore, since you’re probably going to see a good amount of them as the series reaches the conclusion; Sasuke, Madara, Itachi, and possibly Izuna or other members thought to be dead. It’s been established since the flashback regarding Senju Hashirama (1st Hokage) and Madara Uchiha that his clan was one of the founding groups of Leaf Village. They’re not going away, especially since they had so much clout and so much power, both politically and in terms of raw talent in their ranks. The parallel of Sasuke to Madara as Naruto is to Senju is interesting as well, albeit technically Naruto is only barely a parallel to Senju, since Naruto’s element is Wind, Senju’s were Earth and Water to use the Wood Element.

I’ll admit the Sharingan and Rinnegan are both becoming horribly broken and ad nauseum in their use by Kishimoto as threats in the Ninja War, but they have been noted to have explicit weaknesses, albeit it becomes harder to exploit them when you combine them together.

Naruto’s not perfect, he had to be supported since he keeps over exerting himself and needing to rest. There’s also a difference between the Shadow Clones and the splitting technique Muu used a few chapters ago. Shadow Clones can be regarded as mind independent in some sense, but also controlled by the user, whereas Split Clone seems to require connection of the two clones to dissipate.
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The extent of Tsukishima’s power being revealed is a nice twist and does constitute a sort of time travel, which is an advantage that he has against anyone who isn’t so powerful as to be able to pull something unexpected out of nowhere, which I think Byakuya may eventually do, though we seem to be shifting perspective in 469, so it won’t be as focused as we thought it would be.

Tsukishima doesn’t control Senbonzakura at all; that would be what Szayelaporro tried to do with Mayuri’s Zankpakuto way back in Hueco Mundo. This is more that Tsukishima knows Senbonzakura backwards and forwards, knows all the secrets, one of which he’ll reveal in 469 which I really like. But I imagine Byakuya still knows Senbonzakura better than Tsukishima does, since it’s his Zanpakutou and he no doubt has a secret technique that he has been holding out.

Byakuya got cut because he still underestimated Tsukishima, mostly because he only knew a part, if any, about Tsukishima’s ability. He thought the entire ability revolved around cutting people, but as Ginjo established much earlier, he can cut anything, so it’s no surprise that you could conceptually extend his ability to inanimate objects, which would actually be a boost to his Fullbring powers, if we understand them to involve Fullbringing objects, so his power is in a sense a real manifestation of that which we don’t see much, except with Ichigo Fullbringing the concrete to increase his jump one time.

I think they mentioned Byakuya’s range limitation implicitly, though that was in Shikai when he fought Ichigo back in Soul Society, so we don’t know about his range in Bankai, which might be a trump card if Byakuya still knows something he learned recently about his Bankai that Tsukishima doesn’t.

I agree that it’s a matter of pride for him, especially being a member of one of the 4 most influential families in Soul Society, and quite possibly one of the strongest captains who is still relatively young in the Gotei 13, even compared to Hitsugaya, who according to the stats you can find, is only 10 points overall lower than Byakuya. Though these stats are probably relative within a certain time in the series anyway.
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Ryuu leaving for the Gourmet World and making Match the Boss is a nice twist I didn’t see, though I think a lot of the older generation are probably going to be in trouble when it turns out the Bishokukai is nearly as strong as they are, even Midora against Ichiryuu for instance.

I dunno where you get the idea that Ryuu is joining the bad guys, especially since he was asked by Yosaku, who I’m fairly certain has never been established as an antagonist.

Livebearer as a villain is certainly intimidating, particularly because it seems like he gets food directly pumped into his system as we saw. I wonder if Match will get to fight him first or if he’ll get to fight another swordsman, ala Zoro in One Piece virtually every time. Toriko seems like an obvious choice, though if Coco’s with him, Livebearer may have some dangerous tricks up his sleeve, like the Devil Serpent.
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The time skip establishes bonds between the guild moreso than have to change things with the main cast. The secondary cast changed physically, the main cast was in a time capsule.
We’ve now established all three Fairy magics too, which I like: Fairy Law, Fairy Glitter and Fairy Sphere.

Mavis might have had some other reasons to keep them preserved for 7 years. Technically it is a time skip, just not explicitly for the characters’ looks. Again this is presumption on your part of what you think a time skip ought to be. There may very well be other changes that are radical that will surprise us without having to change the character’s costumes and looks.

WMR : Doubt

Thanks for saying the chapter number before the review it makes it easier if you watch the review later or if you watch older reviews.

I believe RolloT is right about Tobi being Kakashi.

Chris, Nik. I hope you’re happy.

When I ascended to nerdiness, I swore never to watch anime or read manga. IT WAS MY GOLDEN RULE. I was to stay away from the Japan. I romped and stomped in the fields amongst the daisies, content with my MST3K and my LordKaT and my Star Trek.

Content, that is, until you guys came along with your precious podcast.

Next thing I know, I hear you guys talking about One Piece and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and I come to the horrific realization that it sounds GOOD to me! You see, lately for me, television has been stale and boring. I was looking for something different, more fantastic.

That’s when you poisoned my innocent little brain with your Japan! I started reading Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure yesterday! AND IT’S AWESOME! I’m also planning to read One Piece, and I’m thinking about reading Liar Game, Beelzebub, and maybe Toriko. You jerks.

How am I going to tell my Dad? How do I tell him that I’ve contracted manga?!

I am completely addicted to Jojo now. I hope you’re happy.

…

I’m still not watching any anime though. No one can make me.