Spotlight Manga: Fire Punch MAL Manga Information Page: Fire Punch MAL Score: 7.64 (scored by 26,075 users) Ranked: #1777 Popularity: #166 For the next two weeks I would like to have a discussion about the manga that focuses on the key elements that we here on MAL use to critically rate a manga: Art, Characters, Story, and Enjoyment. I would like everyone to approach this thread as if you were going to write a review and structure your initial post like this: Art - insert rating Characters - insert rating Story - insert rating Enjoyment - insert rating Art - discuss any pros and cons of the art styling used in the series, try to include some specifics. Character - describe any of the things you liked or didn't care for in regards to specific characters in the series etc... If you are having trouble writing up a review or coming up with specific pros and cons, please don't worry. Just do the best you can with it and if you can only write two or three sentences about any of the 4 elements then that's OK. Not everyone here is currently at a level which will allow them to articulate their thoughts and opinions. After your initial post is made you can feel free to civilly discuss issues of contention. I am sure there will be many opinions expressed here that some of us will disagree upon and criticise and it is for that reason that this entire club exists. So I hope everyone has fun and I am really looking forward to seeing how this discussion will develop. You Decide results: Fire Punch (Manga) (20/06/21) - Yes: 4 - No: 11 - Haven't Read: 43 ~ Abstained: 0 - 26.67% |
HiroM_Aug 6, 2021 3:01 AM
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| It has more than edge to offer, which is still plenty, but ultimately didn't feel very memorable due to how messy it gets in the middle part and beyond. The same can be said about Chainsaw but to a lesser extent. |
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| Is it indeed more than edgy shit but I don't think those things make it worth calling an outstanding manga, let alone a good one. It's such a convoluted and pointless narrative that I don't see the value someone would get out of reading it. There are lots of "things" that in a vacuum could be interesting if they were developed into something more substantial but that never happens. More often character relationships, motivations, goals, themes, ideas just get wiped out, contradicted, or diluted to a point where it's hard to care anymore. Action is cool but not really constant or consistent enough to attract attention as an action manga either. |
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Gundroog said: Is it indeed more than edgy shit but I don't think those things make it worth calling an outstanding manga, let alone a good one. It's such a convoluted and pointless narrative that I don't see the value someone would get out of reading it. There are lots of "things" that in a vacuum could be interesting if they were developed into something more substantial but that never happens. More often character relationships, motivations, goals, themes, ideas just get wiped out, contradicted, or diluted to a point where it's hard to care anymore. Action is cool but not really constant or consistent enough to attract attention as an action manga either. Out of interest, which ideas/themes would you say got contradicted, and which wiped out? |
You all need to watch Nami. |
abystoma2 said: Gundroog said: Is it indeed more than edgy shit but I don't think those things make it worth calling an outstanding manga, let alone a good one. It's such a convoluted and pointless narrative that I don't see the value someone would get out of reading it. There are lots of "things" that in a vacuum could be interesting if they were developed into something more substantial but that never happens. More often character relationships, motivations, goals, themes, ideas just get wiped out, contradicted, or diluted to a point where it's hard to care anymore. Action is cool but not really constant or consistent enough to attract attention as an action manga either. Out of interest, which ideas/themes would you say got contradicted, and which wiped out? The whole thing about revenge and eye for an eye was horrible. It starts as the central motivation for Agni before his motivation becomes whatever someone else tells him to do or trying to gaslight a woman who looks like his sister. On one side trying to kill someone is treated as a legitimate reason to live on; on the other, many moments describe revenge as pointless. Even when Agni meets Doma and decides that he should live on, there's a mention of how genuine Doma's apology is. Although in context, it probably was genuine, it still just leaves the question of whether or not revenge is any more justified if the target of said revenge is genuinely remorseful or not. It throws many mixed messages along the way, and even if the end might be "revenge bad," the manga could not have covered it worse. This also ties into the theme of education and belief, which goes nowhere. Doma tells Agni that he burned his village because as cannibals, they would form a culture where they lack knowledge/education to use other options once the food is gone. They will attack others and eat each other instead. However, he also says that he at that point in time was uneducated because he lacked the knowledge that his entire belief and value system was built around an action movie passed as footage of god dishing out justice. There are two problems with this. On a micro level, the scene sucks because it doesn't make sense to tie cannibalism to education. People can easily pass down knowledge and morals about what's right and wrong. There were still people in that village who refused to eat human meat and they would eat deer or resort to other options. Cannibalism is very much a last resort rather than a "culture" or a bud of one in this situation. Overall though, this is another concept that just doesn't go anywhere. There are multiple points where it's brought up. The main ones are this scene with Doma, the birth of Agniism, and the birth of Behmdorg. Two of the latter represent two sides of the coin. Behemdorg's religious cult was formed to both keep people complacent and control them by presenting orders of the leadership as god's commands. Agniism was formed for people to cope with the harsh setting they're put into, eventually looping back to Behemdorg's way of doing things once people are established and Sun uses it to control them while still using it to cope. This whole thing just exists and gets brought up multiple times but never reaches some sort of conclusion and never forms any sort of thought on the matter. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, who cares I guess. It's an interesting idea to go into cause in a harsh setting like this you could delve into a lot of things that would affect someone's worldview and character development but in Fire Punch, everyone is basically a normal post-apoc character that doesn't have much going on outside of trying to eat and sleep. Even people who stand at the root of ideologies don't believe them and only use them to further their own goal and people who buy into those ideologies don't really act on them at any point to show off the consequences. There's also the half-meta character in form of Togata who consistently comments on what's happening from the narrative standpoint. I think she's the main reason why some people bring up "this manga commentates about violence in media bla bla bla" and other similar points. Yeah, I can kinda see where they're going with that but there's no commentary, and her tendency to do this just abruptly stops. Out of the things she does bring up, the main things seem to be the need for someone to do something vile so that they can enjoy the hero beating them up and how the expectations dictate what happens to them. It's hard to tell where people saw a commentary in this cause the manga doesn't build on this. If you stretch some things around you could say that Agni going from a righteous avenger to a god/devil while feeling like a lost kid could be some sort of comment about the binary view on good vs bad forces characters into roles but eh, I'm getting an aneurysm just trying to make something out fo what could just be a shitty character personality quick. Speaking of Togata she also ends up as a very underwhelming character. Going from a mysterious figure with vast skills and knowledge that uses it for her entertainment to a depressed teenager with gender dysphoria that just suddenly kills herself to "save" Agni. I have no idea what Fujimoto's thinking was on that. Then there's also a motif of people being shaped up by the expectations of people around them. Sun becomes a religious fanatic presumably because as he was suffering on the firewood table he kept telling everyone that Agni is a god so they asked him to talk more and more and make more stories, after which he also started simply making stuff up like "eating Agni's eyeballs will make you see better". Judah becoming a puppeteer that is forced to deceive other people to keep everything in check. Her also becoming Luna's substitute because Agni needed it to cope. Agni later becoming a Sun substitute for Neneto because she lost Sun. It reoccurs too often not to be something that's intentionally meant to be something more because Fujimoto easily could've gone in another direction instead of that whole part about playing house and especially Neneto part. Despite that, it's simply a thing that happens without any real mention. |
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| @Gundroog Well, the motivation shifting to "whatever someone else tells him to do" makes sense as one of the themes is losing and finding a will to live. So a shift between own motivation and just mindlessly following others fits. Reverenge as a reason for living and reverenge being pointless are not exclusive to each other - it works when you have nothing else, but (iirc) it was never stated to be a *good* reason, and the plot itself is about shifting to a different reason (or at least attempting to do so). Well, my interpretation of the plot, that is. I would in fact say that the "mixed messages" are a strong point of Fire Punch - it gives the reader multiple colliding ideologies/points of view, of which usually neither is perfect. As in reality, things are rarerly black and white, and frequently the choice is more of a "what I dislike the least". "There are two problems with this" The first one has a simple answer - Doma was wrong, and slaughtered the people based on an insufficient judgement. For the second one, again what you consider a lacking I see as the final decision over the concept presented being up to the reader, which I not only don't consider to be a bad thing, I even enjoy. It seems our experiences with this manga vary wildly, but thank you for writing such lenghty reply. |
| You all need to watch Nami. |
| @abystoma2 It comes down to what everyone finds satisfying enough to enjoy, and personally, I don't see much value in saying "real life is more complex than good or evil" when this point or this message only goes as far as that. Even something like Silver Spoon had a way more interesting approach to the same idea. Killing an animal, you basically raised seems cruel. Still, it provides a different perspective of respecting the animal for the food and materials it provides, not wasting any single part of the life you took. Clockwork Orange also has a similar theme. It shows you a protagonist who acts like a complete degenerate and entertains himself and his friend at the expense of other people because he has no control over his violent impulses. However, when he is put through a rehabilitation program, he becomes a lifeless husk who only seeks to abide by the rules and do what's right at the expense of his own desires, ambitions, and personality. These works have a seemingly basic point, but they go an extra mile to explore something interesting. With Silver Spoon, they put you in the shoes of an average person who likely never had to kill what they eat and then provide a nuanced perspective of how it feels and how people rationalize what they do without telling you how to feel about it. Clockwork Orange shows the obvious problem in lack of control over selfish impulses and that sterile obedience to law and morals can be terrible. I just don't see what Fire Punch does that would make its themes and points remotely comparable to either. What is there to make "mixed messages" a strong point, it doesn't say anything about it, it doesn't provide a new perspective, it just does nothing. Similarly, when or where does it explore the theme of things not being black and white and picking a lesser evil. Like yeah, that does happen in real life, I'm pretty sure most people are intimately familiar with that so does Fire Punch deserve any sort of narrative credit for it? Interpretation works in the same way, if there's nothing there to me feel differently about the subject of interpretation then is that good writing? I know this comes down to personal opinions and experiences so I'm not saying it's bad or wrong, but it's one of the reasons why it's easy for me to dismiss Fire Punch as a whole bunch of edge without much else to show or say, I haven't gotten anything out of the narrative that would make me care about it or put it above other mediocre manga. |
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