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Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) manga thread of TOTAL SPOILER PANDEMONIUM
- Thread starter Branduil
- Start date
While I think there's been quite a few signs that Isayama is planning ahead, I certainly wouldn't argue that mangaka always are. Urasawa Naoki is almost as careless as Lindelof/Cuse, for example.
Crash Station
Member
Not really. A long serialization kind of makes it so you can't plan everything out even if you have most of it outlined and/or the ending 100% in your mind. Things change, whether it be by the author's will or not.
It does feel a hell of a lot like Lost.
The Titans are attacking! Their motivations are mysterious yet horrifying!
They can suddenly teleport!
I can't remember what happened!
I can turn into a titan!
She can too! And her!
Some of them can talk!
One of them is hairy and super intelligent! And can probably turn people into titans too!
The wall is made of titans!
My friends were genocidal all along!
Fuck this.
The Titans are attacking! Their motivations are mysterious yet horrifying!
They can suddenly teleport!
I can't remember what happened!
I can turn into a titan!
She can too! And her!
Some of them can talk!
One of them is hairy and super intelligent! And can probably turn people into titans too!
The wall is made of titans!
My friends were genocidal all along!
Fuck this.
I can only think of 20th Century Boys on where he did that.
But then again, almost all of his stories are ridiculously complex.
Yeah, no. The reveals so far actually work in retrospect, as if they had been *gasp* planned all along. That's very much unlike Lost.
It could go wrong, sure, but Lost never "went right" to begin with.
The Johan plot in Monster, Billy Bat...
I haven't read Pluto yet, but I find it hard to believe that one didn't quickly devolve into a nonsensical shaggy dog story as well.
When there's no rhyme nor reason, I think "messy" is more adequate.
Wrong. Lost totally "went right" for many seasons. That's why it was so popular. They said they never introduced a mystery without knowing the answer, and for 3-4 seasons at least, that seemed very much to be the case. They would give good "surprise" reveals at the end of seasons which always lined up with stuff they teased or hinted at earlier.
It wasn't until towards the very end when the CORE mysteries were "revealed" that it's clear they didn't give a fuck about those from the start. Let's not retcon stuff. Shingeki is exactly like Lost, the only difference is that Lost ended, and this hasn't yet.
Can't wait to lick all your bitter tears.
Crash Station
Member
To be fair, there is quite a bit of foreshadowing surrounding stuff, or this guy wouldn't have called the Reiner and Bertholdt thing a year before it happened.
That of course isn't your only complaint and won't make you like the series, regardless of whether the revelations work or not. Just drop it.
It wasn't until towards the very end when the CORE mysteries were "revealed" that it's clear they didn't give a fuck about those from the start. Let's not retcon stuff. Shingeki is exactly like Lost, the only difference is that Lost ended, and this hasn't yet.
Can't wait to lick all your bitter tears.
You'll be licking it yourself.
If there's one thing GAF good at over the years, it's being wrong.
You'll be licking it yourself.
If there's one thing GAF good at over the years, it's being wrong.
Cool. You're part of GAF too, so I guess I'm looking forward to seeing you being wrong!
Crash Station
Member
There wouldn't be this much fighting if that school comedy spin-off would get translated already.
Plot-wise? Nah.
Nah, you could tell it was BS very early on.
Magic numbers? Yeah, I bet there's going to be a perfectly satisfactory explanation for those!
A computer that's set up in such a way that you have to enter those numbers every 108 minutes? Why, I'm sure the writers could tell us exactly how that makes sense! And why you have to do so manually, too!
Hieroglyphs in the doomsday countdown? Yup, there will be surely be a good explanation as to why scientists bothered with those!
Shingeki no Kyojin could fuck up a lot of things down the road, sure, but it's definitely doing a much better job than Lost so far. You can tell the guy is planning ahead (at least to some extent), whereas you could tell the Lost guys never had any fucking clue. Weird that you can't tell the difference, actually.
Either way, I hope the next chapter will be full on exposition with no action.
Whoa...that is some amazing analysis.
Whoa...that is some amazing analysis.
Lost was much more enjoyable early on than Shingeki is at this point. I have zero doubt about that.
A lot of those are details which only seem more important than they are in retrospect. When the show was actually airing a lot of those things you mentioned were a matter of "is it really a plot point or is it a coincidence which some characters just notice more than others". When writing serialized fiction, it's very common to throw a mix of actual hints and red herrings. It doesn't mean it is not planned ahead.
The actual mysteries in the early seasons where about the Others, the nature of the hatch (who built it, what the Dharma Initiative is, etc), etc. It's really easy to look back on something and go "well all of that was nonsense, LOL!" but it's clear that when it was actually airing lots of people were engaged by the mysteries and speculating about possibilities. JUST LIKE SHINGEKI. Lol.
Weird that you're trying so hard to completely distance something you like from something you dislike, even though the real reasons why they're both massively popular are because of the similarities in the narrative style and how it baits people along.
Even if we assume that the author in Shingeki planned everything ahead right from the start, I'll say that it doesn't matter at all if in the end he can't take advantage of that and deliver the narrative in a satisfying way. This is something Urasawa is REALLY good at. He might be pulling total crap out of his ass, but he does so in such an engaging way that most people are spellbound by the events until long after they occur and given enough time to think about it all the plot holes appear.
The way reveals are done in Shingeki are just laughable and amateur. So even if he did plan them ahead, he's just not good at telling the story well. In the end everything anyone has in their head are just ideas, and it's about how they are executed which makes entertainment great.
Angelus Errare
Banned
I'm caught up on the manga now. Really good stuff, I thought early on that Reiner was the armor titan because they looked alike, but then I dismissed it when I saw him always helping and fighting the other titans.
Also Misaka is a beast, dear god.
Also Misaka is a beast, dear god.
That's just you being weird!
My point was that those are all telltales of a story written without care nor foresight.
But those aren't even red herrings, that's the thing. They're "new mysteries" that clearly weren't thought through at all and couldn't possibly go anywhere satisfying.
You could absolutely tell while the show was airing (and very early on, like I said). I know I did.
Sure, but I'm talking about how they differ, here: the planning. And that's a pretty big difference!
I agree about the execution being rough around the edges. I'll take that over Urasawa's insulting nonsense any day though. "It's great as long as you don't think about it" isn't quite my idea of a compliment! ^^
I don't find Urasawa's stuff insulting at all. It's entertaining, and honestly after decades of consuming such stuff, I think that people who actually get too invested into mysteries and wanting everything to tie up nicely and have satisfying answers probably deserve to get owned anyway. What matters is the journey, not so much the destination. If the destination was all nicely planned out but the journey is annoying and not enjoyable, what's the point? On the other hand, if you have a good time reading something and the moment to moment stuff is exciting and fun, who really cares if at the end of it there's no deeper meaning to some of the context? Ideally you can have both, but that so rarely happens it's stupid to even expect it imo.
I'll take anything Urasawa does any day over Shingeki because Urasawa actually has interesting characters and narratives, even if he tries too hard on the "mystery" angle. Shingeki is just a shounen action manga with more gimmicks. The characters and story events really don't do the setting any justice at all.
Passive Assassin
Member
If it turns out like Lost, I'll declare horror shounen dead.
Considering how much emphasis Urasawa puts on those mysteries, I can't agree, here.
About the "journey"...
I find it quite enjoyable to try and solve the "mysteries" of a story, or to go back to previous volumes and realize a new reveal actually makes a lot of sense in retrospect. To me, that makes for a nice journey.
On the other hand, I find it insulting when a writer pretends to offer a complex plot despite the fact it's painfully obvious he has no idea where he's going, doesn't give a damn, and simply bets on the readers not actually thinking about what's going on. A bit hard to enjoy the journey, there. (Picking that shit apart can be a lot of fun though! Lemons -> lemonade.)
Can't say I agree about the characters and narrative... Tenma's "Fugitive" plot is the last decent thing I remember from Urasawa (again, I haven't read Pluto, but I'm not optimistic).
And to clarify my position about Shingeki no Kyojin...
The few reveals we've had so far "check out" and seem to have been planned out ahead of time, which is something that I appreciate and encourages me to, at the very least, give the author the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the remaining mysteries.
That's not to say I'm not worried about some of those though.
There would be the motivations of the spies. Why did they attack the walls? Why did they wait five years to attack the second wall? Why are they so interested in Eren? Why drop all pretenses now?
There would be the secret of the walls. Why is it guarded by that cult? Why is that cult so influent? Why would it be fair game for Historia's family to spill the beans?
There would be the motivations of Eren's father. What was he hiding? And if that secret is so important, how come his 10 year old son saying he's interested in the outside world is all it took for him to go "a'ight, remind me to show you what's in the cellar, then!"?
It seems quite tricky.
I think you just put too much stock in the mystery element of such stories. I'm not saying they're not bullshit, but just like with Lost, I find that the character development and interactions in an unusual situation are much more satisfying than trying to figure out what happens and piecing everything together backwards. The foundation of the stories are the characters and situations, and not the mystery.
The mysteries in stories are often just there to keep people guessing and used as an extra gimmick to encourage the audience not to drop a serialized story. It's an age old plot device, and historically the majority of the time the actual answers don't satisfy anyone, but what makes a story stand the test of time is how enjoyable the characters were and how much people enjoyed reading or watching those characters go through the situations they're presented in.
In Shingeki there is no character motivation to keep reading it. The situations are generic action game scenarios which boring objectives. There isn't any actual development or interaction other than people shouting at each other and acting all confused most of the time. This isn't good storytelling. This dramatization for children - which is fine really, except when the fans try to pretend it is more than that and is somehow "mature" or "deep" or "unique". It's not, it's just another shounen action package wrapped in a different package with worse art and more ZOMG MYSTERIES. And ultimately that's why it's so popular. Not because of good characters or narrative crafting, but because ZOMG MYSTERIES.
When discussing why the work took off so quickly and became so popular, it is impossible not to compare it to Lost because that's the hook. Whether the mysteries are eventually satisfying or whether the author planned it all beforehand doesn't really matter when studying the reasons for its success. Whether the solutions to the mysteries are well planned or not doesn't matter because by the time people actually find out, it's too late. Just like Lost. The majority of the audience are not really interested in how well planned something is - only how interesting the mysteries are.
For Urasawa's works, even if you take away all the mysteries, there is meat under the artificial suspense. The characters are interesting people, and they explore interesting themes. 20th Century Boys when viewed as a mystery manga is a complete and utter waste of time. But yet I don't regret reading it one bit because it was extremely interesting.
Let's look at it as a character study about a bunch of kids who grew up in the 60s and 70s, dealing with the modern world as adults. There's a lot of interaction which has nothing to do with the mysteries at all. Their flashbacks served as a window into what an older era of Japan was like, with a lot of commentary on social issues and the change in the times as the decades went by. The story explored themes like religion, ambition, what people wanted out of their lives, the consequences of a culture of bullying in schools, etc. By creating an over the top scenario in a real world setting, Urasawa simply creates an excuse to put these characters in many different scenarios in different places, to explore these themes. Even if we take away all the mysteries and suspense, there is something worthwhile being said there.
I felt that for most of its run, Lost was the same way. The mysteries were just an excuse to tell different types of stories. The Island puts all these different characters together, and their flashbacks allow an exploration into the lives these different people led - a conman, a doctor struggling with living in his father's shadow, a convict, mental patients, a survivor of war being unable to escape his past, etc. There's a wide canvas of stories which are interesting and say something about the world we live in. The mysteries allow them to come together and interact, and also gives the audience something to speculate about between episodes.
I think that for people who are only interested in validating a story based on how well planned the mysteries are, it really seems like missing the forest for the trees. In every mystery story, the details are usually either plot progression points or distractions. They're not the essence of the story.
Uh, isn't the teleport thing just them using 3DMGs from within the transformation smoke.
Anyways, after following Gantz for a billion years I think any ending or resolutions SnK poops out will be good enough for me.
Thing is, I think Urasawa/Nagasaki and Lindelof/Cuse fail on both accounts. It's not just the "mythology" of their stories that's rotten: the characters and their arcs (or what passes for arcs) often are downright terrible. The characters in Shingeki no Kyojin really aren't breaking any new grounds, far from it, but I'll gladly take that over the incoherence of the 20th Century Boys and Lost cast.
I feel like I've given waaaay too many examples for Lost elsewhere already, so er... Kanna, maybe? Would you actually defend 20th Century Boys' Kanna and her arc?
Then again, my post had nothing to do with studying the reasons for its success either! ^^
But like I said above, I agree with you about that, sure.
Maybe a lot of viewers can't tell (or aren't even interested in) the difference between poorly planned mysteries and well planned ones, sure, and maybe that difference really doesn't matter much when discussing the reasons behind the success of a show, indeed. But when you can tell the difference, when it matters to you... well, it makes a (pretty big) difference to you. Obviously. ;þ
[20th Century Boys spoilers]
When Kenji comes back at the end as a convenient messiah (because fuck Kanna after all), it's not exactly a triumph in terms of character writing though, is it? Raped by the nonsensical plot!
Well, I think you're being very charitable, there... It all felt quite simplistic (and often downright naive) to me.
Maybe they're only watching the TV show? Or they have forgotten some details from the manga...
That odd lightning bolt as the colossal titan appears probably isn't helping matters. Not sure why the TV show added that. They have some weird ideas.
The 60m Titan appeared from out nowhere, not accompanied by expected footsteps for something so large, and vanished quickly. That leads to everyone thinking it can teleport but then 3DMG-equipped humans being able to transform into Titans!
I somewhat disagree with this. There have been multiple destinations where it seems the author was waiting with a baseball bat which they slammed in my face. Even if the journey was somewhat pleasant, it's still very important to stick the landing. The ending doesn't have to be something like the Sopranos but as long as it doesn't make you regret spending time in that universe.
Shrug. I just don't agree. There are good attempts at telling different types of stories, and some are better than others, but I appreciate that sort of storytelling way more than the sort of tripe in Shingeki these days. I don't see a point of us going back and forth with "I disagree" and "I disagree too" over and over though.
I really thought the series was going to settle down and actually do character building and worthwhile storytelling after Eren sealed the hole and they accepted what he was. But nope, they're more interested in just doing fights all over the place and having people shouting instead. Sorry, but that's just garbage to me, especially when you have a world which could be potentially much more interesting if they bothered to have balanced storytelling.
Anybody think that it feels like the author has been phoning it in lately? It's been getting steadily worse for a long time and has been laughably bad since the Ymir chapter. I mean, yeah, it looks like it's been planned out for a long time and some of the ideas were neat but dat execution. So lazy.
Exactly. I mean, as long they're slashing titans and stuff I like it.
When people starting using reasoning like this, they will just feel empty when its reaching to the point where Bleach ended up now.
They told me God's Beard was wrong, but goddamn... he was right!!!!
Bleach got terrible really fast though. It's people's own fault if they're still reading that.
Agreed. Besides, even if it weren't quite off-topic anyway, I'd probably find it a bit difficult to argue over 20th Century Boys and its characters, as it's been a while since I last opened a volume or discussed all that... ^^;
I agree that the series really doesn't do much in terms of character development, but I find the story rather compelling.
I mean, I liked how Eruvin-however-it's-spelled-in-the-translations figured there were spies among their ranks and came up with that plan to find out who they were. And now that we know, it's like Lost with Ethan and Ben, except, well, there might actually be something to find out.
I also liked how Reiner became suspicious of Ymir... and yet was revealed to be a titan himself without that being contradictory.
And hell, I thought that last reveal was actually refreshing in how it completely did away with the usual dramatic effects (they're not acting like villains! *gasp*). There again, stark contrast with Urasawa who always uses the exact same effects. Not so effective anymore, Urasawa, sorry! At this point, it's just tired (and vaguely hilarious).
But it used to be funner
No...that's just the pain of waiting for a new chapter creeping in.
Crash Station
Member
Nah. It took a few years. Not sure if we're past that point in SnK or not.
Eight Diagram Bat Fighter
Banned
For a person that really hates this manga, Duckroll sure does post here often. That is some dedication.
Crash Station
Member
Hatewatch/hateread is the soul of anime/mangagaf.