Ottservia

That’s just a blatent lie One Piece is a weekly manga. You can't compare it to a single game You missed my point. I’m not really comparing the two in terms of quality. I’m just using One Piece as an example of a story that’s extremely long simply due to the fact that it took the time to flesh out its world and characters. You want a more fleshed world or cast of characters? Then you have to dedicate sufficient screentime within your story to develop that stuff which in turn increases the length of the story or the number of supports in this case. I don’t even need to point to One Piece. The Arrancar arc in Bleach is like 300 chapters long. Why? Because Kubo likes his side characters too much and wanted to flesh them out more so he gave them more screentime but dedicating equal screen time to that many side characters made the arc over 300 chapters long because almost every character had something to do be it a dedicated fight or whatever. My point is that if you want more fleshed out characters then give them more supports. More screen time = more opportunities for development. Less screentime = less opportunities for development. It’s just basic logic really

Counterpoint one piece. The reason why One piece is as beloved as it is is because it has had over 1000 manga chapters to flesh out its world, characters, and setting. Sure good writing plays a part in that but the more good writing you have in your story the better, right? A story doesn’t become bloated because there is too much good writing. That very idea is utterly ridiculous. No what makes a story bloated is when there are way too many moving parts to the point where the focus becomes lost amidst the convoluted fog. Which is usually rare when the writing is good.

Well I mean if you want a more fleshed out world, story, and cast of characters yes, a longer book/story is always better than a shorter one. It’s just basic logic. A character with more screentime is always gonna be more fleshed out and better developed than a character with less screen time. Like I don’t understand how anyone could come to the conclusion that less screen time for a character equates to them being more fleshed out. That just doesn’t make any sense.

Can we stop with this mentality that more supports = bad because that’s just blatently not true. If anything more supports are always a good thing. Why? Well more supports means more character interaction which means more opportunities to flesh out characterization and development therefore leading to more fleshed out characters as a whole. Less supports means less opportunities to flesh out those things thus resulting in more shallow characters. Meaning more supports are always better. And fates’s characters aren’t bad at all. How about Instead of being dismissive of characters solely based their archetype, you actually dig a little deeper and try analyzing them for what they are and what they represent. Trust me, there’s more beyond the surface you just gotta put in the effort to look for it

Not what I meant. The AI will intentionally pit you up against opponents that directly counter your team which is cheap to say the least. I mean at that point it’s a matter of prediction and you have a 50% chance of guessing correctly. Also if the Haxorous is boosted then Sylveon isn’t surviving regardless but if it’s banded or scarfed then you can play around that. Really it just depends on the situation. There’s also the relatively high chance of iron tail missing so I will agree with this but only if the ambush spawns are designed properly

Bringing up things like the battle tower as an example for accounting for crit and stuff is not example because 1. The battle tower cheats and the AI uses competitive strategies and team comps with fully EV trained and IV bred pokemon. The game kind of to know your shit before hand. 2. depending on the game you can actually cheese it relatively easily. In X and Y there’s a strat involving truant Durant that turns the battle maison into a walk in the park. also as someone who plays hardcore nuzlockes and battles competitively in smogon OU, playing around the crit is part of the fun. Cause you can play around the crit. It’s the number 1 rule of any hardcore nuzlocker. Cause the chances of losing a Pokémon to a crit is low but it’s almost never zero so when coming up with strategies against say champion Cynthia you always have to factor the crit into your calculations. The same goes for competitive battling though to a slightly lesser extent. For your specific example regarding Haxorous, any competitive battler worth their salt should have at least a decent idea of what moves Haxorous gets and typical sets run by it. Most Haxorous will be running anti-fairy coverage cause it’s just common sense(though why it would be iron tail and not poison jab is beyond me) and if you know anything about competitive Pokémon then a Haxorous carrying earthquake should not surprise you because if a physical attacker can get earthquake then 9 times out of 10 they’re gonna be running earthquake because it’s fucking earthquake one of the best moves in the entire game. You also have to consider defensive and speed stats as well. Like I said, if you know what you’re doing you would almost never send Sylveon in on a Haxorous to revenge kill unless you know you can survive a hit because Sylveon is super slow and is not taking a poison jab running off of a base 147 atk stat unless of course maybe if the Sylveon is max defense. I don’t know how that calcs out though. Though my point is pokemon is a bad comparison because with pokemon, pvp modes especially, you should already have sufficient knowledge of the meta and common strategies with each pokemon going in if you ever hope to succeed. I know from experience. If you don’t understand what your opponent’s pokemon are capable of in comparison to yours then you’re just not gonna win and every competitive battler will tell you that.

Because it just makes for bullshit, unbalanced, and unfair game design. The turnwheel only works when the game isn’t designed around it especially for newer players who find the idea of classic mode daunting. It’s a good way to ease them into the experience. The problem becomes when the turnwheel is used as a fundamental part of a map’s design. Take Petra’s paralogue for example. It’s a pretty simple map at first but once you cross a certain point not too far in, you are immediately swarmed by dozens of reinforcements with hardly any prior warning which forces you into an unfair situation where you could lose a unit not due to any fault of your own but rather something the game did which you could have never have had accounted for. Now of course divine pulse allows you to rewind and reposition your units accordingly now that you’ve seen the oncoming threat but it’s still fundamentally poor game design cause it essentially forces you to use divine pulse by intentionally putting the player into unfair situations they could not have planned for which kind of goes against the point of a tactics gameif you ask me. It doesn’t bother me as much as alastor but I do understand where he’s coming from

Says the Naruto fan who stars a privileged youth that didn’t have to work for anything. if you couldn’t already tell I’m being sarcastic

I would agree until you consider how the eight gates actually work. They’re essentially strength multipliers much like the kaioken it’s based off of so Lee’s sixth gate is not as strong as Gai’s simply because he’s weaker than Gai. And base Gai is already roughly kage level on his own cause he scales to Kakashi who is confirmed to be a kage level shinobi even without sharingan. So it’s essentially taking a kage level shinobi and multiplying that strength 100s of times over. thinking about it like that yeah now it makes sense why he would scale to Juubi Madara

I mean it’s not like the eighth gate is something he can use more than once. It’s called the gate of death for a reason. Yeah sure he could’ve used it at any point in the series and trivialize any fight but that also means he would have died and I doubt Guy is the type to throw his life away when he doesn’t have to. Also it was already well established that the eighth was capable of granting a person power well beyond that of a kage. And Kage are known to go toe-to-toe with tailed beasts so the eighth gate being able to grant Gai that much power makes sense

I get it man. Life is like that. And it wasn’t like I was expecting a response right away. I just wanted a response at all. Also forgive my bluntness there. I know life is hectic and I get where you’re coming from. It’s just a little irritating to see a response and it not acknowledge the main point of my post. You get me? Yeah I get what you mean. And it’s not like I don’t understand why most people have misgivings about Kaguya. I used to be the same way. It’s just after rereading Naruto recently and getting a better understanding of the story as a whole I can’t help but feel those complaints are misplaced. It’s not like I don’t understand where those complaints are coming from I just don’t like the way people act as if those complaints of actual narrative faults of the series because they’re not. Or to put it another way I don’t like it when people call it bad writing when it’s not. Because for it to be bad writing it would have to be inconsistent with things the stor had already established which it isn’t in fact it fits perfectly for what message the story is trying to convey as I have clearly demonstrated. I have zero issue with people having and voicing those complaints because that’s just how personal preference works. If you don’t like something then you don’t like something. That’s just how it is and I can’t change your mind. Again it’s just a matter of personal taste. What I do have an issue with is claiming something is bad writing simply because it didn’t fit your personal preferences. Cause that’s not how that works. Like how hard is it to simply say you didn’t like something and move on? Why do you gotta justify it by saying it’s bad writing when clearly is not. Like it’s fine to not like Kaguya for whatever reason you have but to say she doesn’t add anything to this story or that she is detrimental to it is simply incorrect cause she does belong in this story and adds to the themes in a way that would otherwise be incomplete had she been removed from the narrative. Like I don’t care much for Kaguya either but that shouldn’t limit my ability to meet this story on its own terms and figure out what is trying to say with these narrative decisions regardless of whether I personally liked them or not.

I mean you still have yet to respond to any of the points I made about Kaguya so even the ones I directly quoted you for and quite frankly I find it a tad rude you’re asking for a response on something I quoted when you still haven’t given a proper response to what I said to something I directly quoted you for. That aside, I do agree with what you were saying about Naruto vs Sasuke being handled well and being the true ending because it was the true ending to the series. The only part I disagree with is the idea stuff was bad because it wasn’t for reasons I’ve already stated. On Orochimaru, I also agree that it’s just funny to see such an intimidating antagonist be put in those scenarios.

Yeah but that’s exactly why it works. The story even calls attention to this when Sasuke tries to sneak up on him and fails and Madara states “In order to protect something… something else needs to be sacrificed. Be they friend, brother, or even my very old child. I gave you plenty of time…” which is supposed to echo what Hashirama said to him when he stabbed him in the back. It’s supposed to highlight Madara’s point in regards to the human paradox and hypocritical nature of Hashirama’s so called “peace”. Cause all things considered Sasuke should have been able to sneak up on him. He’s an Uchiha that looks like Madara’s younger brother but he can’t because Madara is willing to sacrifice his own Uchiha child for the sake of his goal much like how Hashirama sacrificed him. It’s hypocritical but that’s his point in that hypocrisy is inevitable in this contradictory shinobi world full of duality. Madara wanted to rise above that hypocrisy and neutralize the human paradox with the infinite tsukuyomi but in doing so he contradicts himself which is punctuated perfectly by black zetsu literally stabbing him in the back. The symbolism there is two fold. 1. It shows Madara can’t even trust himself to watch his own back because he thought black zetsu was his own will. The only thing he could trust was himself but this symbolically shows he can’t even do that which only serves to highlight his own hypocrisy. 2. It shows Madara could never become the god he strove to be because he was only human with human flaws. Madara wanted to rise above the dualistic nature of humanity but in not respecting his humanity he fell into the same contradictions as Obito. In not respecting his humanity and treating others as tools to his ends. He himself was manipulated as a tool by someone greater. Someone who existed outside the contradictory world of shinobi. As I stated earlier, Kaguya is the god Madara strove to become. He viewed others as nothing more than tools to his end and was manipulated by someone who felt no differently. Like I keep saying Kaguya represents the extremes of Madara’s ideals as well as the shinobi world as a whole. She has no heart. She has no contradictions because ultimately she is not human. She is the perfect shinobi. The perfect tool ready and willing to discard anything for the sake of her goals even turn others into tools by absorbing their chakra. Once again it serves to highlight Madara’s own hypocrisy. It just makes sense from a thematic perspective for Madara to go out this way. He thought he could rise above his own humanity but he never could. Him going out this way only serves to highlight that fact. Madara could not have been defeated in any other way. That depends what do you think about all my Kaguya analysis that I’ve posted in this thread.

I mean Madara also had a weakness though and that’s exactly how he was defeated. Like does no one remember his back? And how he couldn’t trust anyone to stand behind him except for Hashirama who took advantage of that weakness to literally stab him in the back. Seriously the way Madara went down was foreshadowed ever since those flashback chapters. And it’s not even that subtle either. It’s explicitly stated multiple times that Madara’s weakness was that he couldn’t trust anyone to watch his back and two people he let that shield down for ended up betraying that trust in the end. It’s not contrived at all at least in the way you’re defining it

If there’s one thing I love about Naruto as a story is it’s exploration of themes about finding hope in a world full of nothing but despair. The shinobi world is a world of nothing but endless conflict and I love how Kishimoto portrays war in this story in that everyone is a victim of this endless cycle. Like the whole point of the land of waves and chunin exams is that Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke are actual child soldiers meant to die for their nation. Like the shinobi world is a really fucked up place and how different characters respond to this despair is interesting to see.

And there you go with the arbritrary rules thing again. The problem here is that you are acting as if foreshadowing is some hard rule of writing when it’s not. Like who said writers need to foreshadow everything? They don’t because there are no hard rules in regards to writing and to think otherwise is simply close minded. Also no the burden of proof lies with you. Cause I’ve already proved why Kaguya is a good villain. I’ve already fulfilled my burden of proof but you haven’t. You disagree with my claim you have to put in the effort to disprove it. And Kaguya isn’t even my favorite villain in the series. That honor goes to Obito.

There’s a massive difference being critical of a story and thinking a story should bend to your personal preference. You do not understand that difference as you have clearly shown Okay? Where is your evidence cause I do not see any. Give me quotes, examples from the text, etc. that prove that her being outsider to this plot is objectively bad writing like you seem to claim cause I can provide plenty of that information for my side of the argument. You can’t seem to though cause I have yet to see it. Therefore my argument is stronger. You end it like this and your argument looks weaker.

That still does not prove my claim false. The reason Kaguya works at all is because she exists outside the dualistic world of shinobi. Think about it, Madara wanted to neutralize the human paradox by becoming a god that rose above the dualistic nature of humanity. What is Kaguya? Oh that’s right a god that exists above the dualistic nature of humanity. Hmmmm it’s almost as if Kaguya is an extension of that idea. An extension of Madara’s goals and ideals as well as those of the shinobi world as a whole. She wanted to turn everyone into mindless white zetsu tools which is a perfect parallel to how shinobi are viewed as tools by the shinobi system but in this case it’s extremely literal. Kaguya herself meanwhile also represents the perfect shinobi explained by Haku. She is a being who has completely cut away her heart and wants to do the same to the rest of the world through the infinite tsukuyomi. The word shinobi can be interpreted two different ways with the kanji that makes it up. 忍 normally translates as endurance but when you look at the radicals that make it up(“刀” meaning blade and “心” meaning heart) you can interpret it as “heart cut away by blade” which is what Kaguya is. This idea is further compounded with black zetsu saying that all of shinobi history was nothing more than a tool to facilitate Kaguya’s revival but he’s wrong. Shinobi history is more than that. Shinobi are not tools. Shinobi are human. Shinobi are those that endure and it is that fact that defines shinobi history not Kaguya. The fact that this theme was already established with Zabuza does not negate the fact that Kaguya also encapsulates this theme perfectly. In fact it does the opposite. It enhances that theme. And if you want any explicit evidence for this go reread the kaguya fight because all of what I just explained is explicitly stated at multiple points throughout that fight. Yeah but at the end of the day who’s the one writing this story? Oh that’s right NOT YOU! Kishimoto is the one writing this story so unless you are his editor you have zero say on what happens in this story. This is HIS story not your story. Why can’t you get that through your head. Your personal preferences don’t matter in regards to constructive narrative criticism. Because it’s just that personal preference which you are free to express and discuss but your personal preferences are not objective narrative flaws and it is pretentious and entitled to think otherwise

Can I just say I despise this argument as well for a number of ones: 1. The themes of a story are not subjective. It’s not like shrodinger’s cat. The context and ideas behind certain plot elements or narrative decisions don’t just randomly change every time you read it. No that’s not how that works. What’s written is written and the meaning and context of those words don’t change once the story is finished. 2. Sure it’s a lot of interpretation but the important thing here is evidence. I’m not gonna say Naruto was ever a story about hard work vs talent because there’s no evidence within the text to support that claim at all. Yeah sure it could just interpretation to say Naruto is a story about overcoming the cycle of hate but the difference between this and the hard work claim is that it has far more evidence in the story to support it making it the stronger claim and if you disagree then the burden of proof lies with you to debunk it. 3. And this is more specifically a manga thing but these series are being published in a weekly magazine. Mangaka are under serious pressure to create interesting stories each week under threat of their series being canceled. Not everything is gonna be planned out ahead of time or go smoothly. You also have to acknowledge that once a chapter is published the mangaka cannot go back and redo it. Once it’s published it’s a part of their story whether they like it or not. This is especially important to consider when you realize that stories evolve over time. These artists aren’t stagnant. They’re constantly improving their craft and sometimes the story ends up going in a direction that was completely from what was built up. It’s just how the industry works. If they come up with a cool new idea for their story that would require them to change things from the chapter that was just published well tough luck. They have to work that idea in some other way. It’s just the way the industry is. 4. And this is kind of an extension to the second point but if Kishimoto truly wanted to give Kiba more screentime he very easily could have. There were plenty of opportunities like during the war or against pain. But he doesn’t probably because he didn’t view Kiba as an important enough character to develop at this point in the story. Developing Kiba’s character wouldn’t have added anything to the story he was trying to tell so he simply didn’t bother. Does it suck for fans of that character? Sure it does but it’s not an objective flaw of the story because at the end of the day it is Kishimoto’s story and he can do whatever he wants with it. If he didn’t want to further develop Kiba’s character then he shouldn’t have to. 5. a writer never does anything without reason. Nothing in a story is meaningless. Everything in a story has meaning and analysis is all about finding that meaning. Don’t dismiss things as not mattering when you could instead aim to find out why they do. You say Kaguya adds nothing to the story? How does she add nothing? Prove that to me. I’ve already proven what she adds to this story as in she acts as a physical manifestation of the flaws of the shinobi system. Yeah themes aren’t everything but she does add those things which isn’t nothing meaning the claim that she adds nothing is false. Once again the burden of proof lies with you. Yeah this is good and I would do the same if he actually bothered to give that same courtesy to Kishimoto but he doesn’t and that’s the problem here. He’s not giving Kishimoto the benefit of the doubt and spouting nonsense about his story without providing substantial proof for his claims

Yeah that also happened when I tried to be nice. Both roads in regards will lead to unfavorable outcomes. Might as well stop pretending to be nice just to have it thrown in my face later. He’s been implying it the entire time and it’s making me sick. If you want an example just look at the last paragraph of his first post. Saying Kishimoto isn’t a good writer. That’s a pretentious statement if I’ve ever heard one. You should it’s a really good video

If someone is gonna say stupid shit about Naruto I’m gonna call them out on it. I simply despise when people act like they know the story better than the author and demand that the story conform to their personal preferences. The only reason I’m being so abrasive is because I’ve heard these arguments a million times before and I’m starting to get sick of it. I’ve already tried being nice that didn’t work so excuse me for taking the more blunt approach. what did you think about the video I linked btw?

Ah yes because those two lines out of context without any of the elaboration totally makes my statement invalid

I’m not dismissing those people. What I am saying though is that if the story is not doing what you want it to do then it’s not an objective narrative flaw but rather personal preference. And if that’s the case just stop reading. You clearly are not enjoying the story which means the story just isn’t to your taste and that’s fine. It’s fine to express that opinion but it’s not the story’s fault for not conforming to your personal preferences and I think it’s rather pretentious and entitled to think that the story should conform to your personal preferences. Like I said this isn’t your story. This is Kishimoto’s story. A story has zero obligation to pander to you. Don’t like it don’t read it. It’s that simple

Then the story isn’t for you just simply don’t read/watch it. It really is that simple. Because this is the story Kishimoto wanted to tell. This is his story not yours so you don’t get to decide what’s important or how it should’ve ended. So stop acting like personal preference is an inherent narrative flaw and move on. Don’t like it don’t read it. You’re the type to say Neji was right aren’t you?

If you thought that’s all their characters amounted to then I’m sorry you need go watch the series again cause you clearly were not paying attention. To start, Obito is the perfect foil to Naruto who were both idealistic and naive young boys that wanted to change the world. Obito witnessed the worst possible thing he could’ve when he exited that cave and because of that lost all hope in the world. He realized this world was nothing more than a living hell. A world where something like that should happen at all shouldn’t be allowed to exist. It was the shinobi system that allowed for these circumstances. Obito gave up on the world not because he was destined to for being an Uchiha no he chose to abandon the world. That is a very clear point made when Naruto and Kakashi confront him despite him saying otherwise. He said he had no choice but to fall but he did have a choice and the outcome of it was standing before him in Naruto. And even despite everything, he never lost hope and it was Naruto that made him realize that and allowed him to reclaim himself. the same goes for Madara. Think about it a lot of what Madara said would happen could be interpreted as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If he had simply stayed and compromised with Hashirama things would not have turned out the way they did. Madara realized that true peace was impossible due to the dualistic and paradoxical nature of humanity and so strove to become a god that could rise above that paradox and guide the world toward peace by finding a cure to the human paradox. That cure being the infinite tsukuyomi. Kaguya is the god Madara only strove to be like. He could never become a god because he was only human with human flaws. Kaguya is different she isn’t human. She is a god that exists outside the dualistic paradoxical world of shinobi. She views shinobi as nothing more than tools to her ends much like how the shinobi system itself views shinobi as nothing more than tools for their nation. In not respecting his own humanity Madara fell into the same flaws as Obito in being manipulated as a tool by something far greater than he ever could’ve imagined. Symbolized perfectly by black zetsu stabbing him in the back which was his one weakness because he let that shield down again like with Hashirama. In the end Madara could not even trust himself to watch his own back. and Sasuke well I think this video does the topic justice better than I ever could