Ignore the comment of the imbecile below. I noticed how many comment sections of DB videos on Youtube he's in to the point he's notorious and he somehow equates that with stalking in his deluded mind.
That is, if you're still around. Seems unlikely, but I hope you're faring well.
I'd imagine it'd be less so convoluted or nonsensical and more so just cliche and predictable. We all know Luffy's too plot armoured to not become the Pirate King, we know he'll eventually defeat Blackbeard, etc. because Oda makes things far too formulaic and clear-cut. As for the deus ex machinas, the earliest ones would be in the CP9 Arc where Luffy, Zoro and Sanji suddenly get new transformations/power ups out of nowhere and such deus ex machinas only become more prevalent as the series went on, Luffy revealing he had Gear 4th in the Dressrosa Arc and him suddenly being able to increase his Kenbunshoku Haki when fighting Katakuri in the arc after it just by adapting to his opponent being the biggest examples.
Bleach has so many plot holes, even in its early stages. A lot of the earlier ones revolve around how nonsensical its afterlife is without any sense of cohesion. If Quincies can destroy souls, what even is the point in having a Hell in this universe when you could just employ a Quincy into Soul Society to be the executioner of evil souls? What's the point in Soul Society if souls can just be reincarnated, or the point in a living realm if souls just go live in Soul Society after death? If they're spirits, how come some can age or get sick like Hitsugaya and Ootake respectively? None of it makes any sense, and that's just for the first two arcs. After Soul Society, things get even dumber with inconsistent powerscaling (Shikai Byakuya can outperform someone far above an Arrancar Shikai Ichigo struggled with, despite Ichigo and Byakuya's Shikai being equal in power, so we're left to assume Byakuya became far stronger in a matter of days despite having lived decades or centuries), blatant contradictions like one Arrancar saying the Espada are ranked from 10 to 1 and than Yammy saying "who said the Espada are 10 to 1?" when revealing he's the 0th Espada and really dumb character decisions such as Yamamoto having Vice-Captains defend these pillars that are super important to not get damaged and Aizen sends some weak Espada to take them on, as opposed to both sides using their strongest fighters to attack or defend these integral strategic points. Then of course there's indeed Aizen's "I planned everything" despite there being several points where things didn't go as planned, him having the generic thing of getting a transformation, Ichigo getting a power up and the typical Shonen battle occurring in which Aizen Gary Stus his way into somehow not being killed despite his defeat.
The less said about the Thousand Year Blood War, the better. It indeed has Ichigo being a Gary Stu with how he's now part Quincy on top of part everything else, the battles are basically a game of power up tennis in one side dominating then the other powers up and back and forth, contrived training regimes to have irrelevant characters become far stronger and many other problems. I dropped it around the time it started heavily plagiarising Saint Seiya with the Captains needing to combine their power to break through an obstacle and from what I gather, the ending was both generic and unfulfilling.
I'd rate Joker an 8/10. It could've been a 9, but there's one part during a chase that's a pretty major case of plot armour. Other than that, it's excellent.
I think I've vaguely heard of it, but have no idea what it is.
They didn't explain Mihawk's origins yet, further driving that point in. The recent chapters still show the ending as being nowhere in sight and really test the audience's suspension of disbelief as Luffy is expected to beat Kaido's army despite having a severe disadvantage in numbers and manpower to the extent only some contrived deus ex machina power up can possibly allow him to plot armour his way through as he's done time and again. Oda indeed stated he'd probably wrap One Piece up after 5 years around the time he'd published a dozen or so volumes. He's said since it was due to wanting to explore more ideas about the world, though given an execution it's safe to say the real reason was he and Jump wanting to milk the series as much as possible.
Naruto introduced the child of prophecy point around when Pain got introduced, which ruin Naruto's character arc by the person who was supposed to get by through hard work and not special lineages was revealed to be of the most special lineage possible. Along with that, the points you mentioned, a poor handling of its support cast and increasingly more contrived ways of having new threats, it was a series that had potential but quickly went downhill after the Chunin Exam. Bleach is even worse as along with its plot holes, contrived power ups and overly archetypical characters, it never had any potential as it was just a Yu Yu Hakusho clone that quickly became the poor man's Saint Seiya.
I've probably seen similar usages of the trope before, seeing as how selective amnesia tends to use such things as an excuse for plot conveniences/inconveniences.
Watching the original 6 films should serve as decent framework for it. The KOTOR games help flesh out the concepts enough to go in blind, though having more material to draw from can be very helpful.
Joker was an excellent movie and, from the looks of it, probably the best of 2019. It explored its critique of mental health services well along with doing a good job exploring the extremes that come of political ideologies whilst remaining apolitical.
The only things I think they cut out of the UBW anime was the sex scenes, though I'm unsure what else as I could only tolerate about 7-8 episodes before dropping it. I think the series' popularity stems from the same reason as many other generic series; pandering empowerment fantasy with waifus of many different flavours to appeal to an audience concerned with such things, as well as people hyping up works with Urobuchi's name on it for base reasons (despite him being far from a good director and one of the most pretentious hacks to work in the medium).
Pre-timeskip One Piece I'd probably about a 6-6.5/10 as it still had a good focus on adventure, its characters were still interesting for the first two major arcs and the Summit War was a surprising turn of events for the series. As a whole though, I'd rate it as a 4/10 currently and only expect it'll go further downhill if the current chapters are anything to go by. The origins of Devil Fruits still remain unexplored, hence showing how damaging Oda's desire to mystery-bait rather than properly world build is. The dog-gun Lassoo is at least established to be an experiment of the scientist Vegapunk managing to infuse inanimate objects with Devil Fruit, though he himself remains yet another mystery.
I've only read the first 30 pages so I can't say for sure, though a lot of them tend to extend scenes far longer than necessary through character dialogue having them exposit aspects of their life in far more detail than necessary. I haven't seen the Count of Monte Cristo anime as I wasn't keen on watching what's essentially an alternate setting of it that seemed to have supernatural elements completely alien from the original novel.
I'm not that much into visual novels, so it's not one I've heard of. Good concepts with bad executions are ones I could make a long list for as even some of the worst series tended to have good ideas. In order to keep things brief, I'll only list a few major examples in that Attack on Titan had a good premise for its world before it was ruined by plot armour and Shyamalan-esque plot twists and Naruto had a good start until the chosen one aspect betrayed its premise.
It depends how integral historical accuracy is to a plot's events. For example, a movie like Braveheart is fairly damaged by its historical inaccuracies when they either have contrived reasoning for them and things such as completely changing the Battle of Stirling Bridge fail in honouring what made someone like William Wallace an engaging historical figure. On the flipside, a movie like 300 having historical inaccuracies is fine as it's told primarily as an embellished and biased account from the Spartans.
I've heard of the White Album anime, though I heard it handled the series' characters terribly. If wanting to view series with complex female characters, the best recommendations would be Rose of Versailles for Lady Oscar and Battle Angel Alita for its titular protagonist (mostly for the sequel Last Order). The female character I'd praise the most in fiction would be Kreia from Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II, though it's important to be aware of the philosophies of the Jedi and Sith to truly appreciate her complexity.
If looking for that kind of lack of romanticism in heroes, watching the Three Kingdoms TV drama is even more recommended for how it handled the complexity of Cao Cao. Outside of historical series Legend of the Galactic Heroes is, once again, recommended for this with such characters as Reinhard, Yang, Oberstein and Reuenthal.
I've heard the movie does a good job at balancing comedy and horror atmosphere, though from what I've heard the violence in it is explicit for the sake of it without offering more depth to the story. The most recent film I've seen was Joker as I don't live close to the cinema, making going there difficult.
I've heard of Chaos;Child and Dies Irae, though the general consensus seems to be that the anime adaptions of them are terrible.
You're spot on in that analysis of Fate/stay-night. Just save your time by dropping it because it just gets worse as it goes on when it comes to contrived plot twists and power ups. The UBW anime is the best version of it due to removing the unnecessary sex scenes, and even that's only minimally as it still plays out as a generic Shonen with harem elements.
Yeah, it almost always sells more than any other manga each year. Luffy can't turn his body into iron, per se. I believe that may be referring to his Busoshoku Haki after the timeskip making his body vulcanised rubber, which made sense until every other Busoshoku Haki suddenly start having the blackened appearance when using it. If you're referring to Gear 4th, that's indeed an asspull as there's several instances he could've used it prior. For when it went downhill, I started to notice it mainly after the timeskip, though upon re-evaluation, it started to take a noticeable dip after Alabasta with it only returning to form during the Summit War Saga.
As for series not ruined by a timeskip, I'd say there's a few examples. JoJo could technically count if treating some of the parts as timeskips, as can Gundam's Universal Century continuity to some extent (though it's essentially a hit or miss scenario). Dragon Ball can somewhat count as some of the arcs are better than those to precede it (the Saiyan Arc of DBZ being a major example) and whilst the series quality as a whole started to go down around the Freeza Arc, I'd still say the Cell and Boo Arc had some stand-out plot and character moments at least. There's also Vinland Saga which, whilst not as good as it was in the Askeladd Arc, is still far from being ruined.
I've heard of Gurren Lagann, but was never interested in watching it due to hearing how contrived a lot of things in it and it seeming like dumb fun at best, not to mention a lot of iconic imagery from it just piggybacking on the success of Ashita no Joe.
I have heard of both of them (though only the movie version of And Then There Were None), though have yet to read either despite The Count of Monte Cristo being a novel that would appeal to me. I've recently started reading Crime and Punishment, though I'm definitely procrastinating on reading in general.
If looking for military tactics, getting around to watching Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Babylon 5 or reading The Romance of the Three Kingdoms ought to be imperative. I have heard The Ravages of Time is a manwha that captures the strategic quality of the latter with interesting character studies, though I haven't read it myself yet due to personal reasons of being irked by the historical errors when it comes to the character ages and such. I'd also recommend some parts of Gundam in that area, mainly the 08th MS Team (though watching the original series or movie trilogy would be essential first for understanding the context).
I wouldn't really cite any of Vagabond's characters as stand-out ones.
A lot of the first 27 episodes are filler, so that may have been why you saw not much as happening.
The fights in the series are fine when excused by the context of its focus. The title alone makes it apparent that it will be romanticised and embellished in what the characters are capable of in the same way as something like The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The sequel retcons Kaoru's dad being dead as well as offers no explanation as to how Shishio's sword could endure the destruction of his hideout.
It doesn't have supernatural abilities (at least not until the later seasons). The power creep has more so in what the characters are capable of doing despite being normal humans and without any major advancements in technology making this change break immersion.
Visual/light novel problems tend to include Gary Stu protagonists, harem elements with most female characters being automatically drawn to the protagonist for flimsy reasons and villains often being one-dimensional heels. It doesn't help that this also includes needless sex scenes just to sell. Fate/stay-night is a major example of this when it included many of such scenes and yet both the fanbase and creators treat it as something that was just additional content, confirming it was just there to sell despite damaging the integrity of the series. Then there's also the utilisation of poor tropes such as amnesia, contrived power ups, etc.
That is mostly true. It's more excusable for the early arcs in which the crew is still being gathered and the situations/backstories are still all given some unique flare, but they quickly become repetitive after the first few arcs and make it painfully obvious who will join the crew. Some other repetitive things include contrived power ups, all characters placing their hopes on Luffy in a cliche Shonen manner and general repetitive character traits. I have absolutely no hope of the finale and its reveals being worth it as not only has the length and teasing of it for so long made it a reveal that can't be satisfy the fans without alienating others (especially after the most recent chapters), but cracks have already shown several times in Oda's ability to keep continuity strong.
Even if he was a secondary character, not giving him the slightest bit of catharsis after the amount of time he took up was bad writing. I gave it a 2/10 as I really found nothing that made it worthwhile compared to Ashita no Joe or Real and it doesn't help the art of the manga is terrible.
Favourite season of Babylon 5 was probably either 3 or 4, in which the events of the plot start to reach their peak in tension and stakes as well as fully show what makes it stand out from other sci-fi series through its character development and themes. It was indeed one of the early examples of a live-action tv series in the west that had strong plot continuity and story arcs. The only earlier example I can think of is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which precedes it by a couple of months, though that's essentially a lesser version of Babylon 5 due to having weaker plot continuity and focus from what I've heard.
I read 21st Century Boys and it really isn't good nor necessary. It has the same flaws that the later chapters of the manga have such as the sci-fi technology inserted into the setting being something that really tests the audience's suspension of disbelief and overall just seems like milking that damages the original run's ending by making it seem like it was running in circles. I wouldn't say Vagabond's focus trails off, more so that the pacing just becomes far slower than it needs to be.
I'd completely disagree on some of those points on Rurouni Kenshin, particularly the repetitive nature of the first cast and the handling of character development. Whilst the Tokyo Arc has a standard plot, it's how the villains within it tie to Kenshin's philosophy that makes it engaging, albeit nowhere near as much as the Kyoto Arc. I would also say that the supporting cast were fleshed out fine and, whilst some were quite archetypical (eg. Sannosuke) each one was given time to shine in a way that made sense in either the Kyoto or Jinchu Arcs, with the latter offering decent character development for Kenshin, Kaoru and Aoshi.
I have heard what Watsuki did and it was absolutely deplorable. Even separating art from the artist, however, it's good that the sequel was cancelled as the opening chapter already retconned a fair bit of information for contrived plot twists.
I wouldn't know if it's improved or not, but the early events certainly were bad due to its premise as a setting where no character is safe being betrayed by how plot armoured the main trio are, as well as some level of power creep later on with how humans go from rarely being able to take down a single Titan with an entire unit to having characters solo Titans later on. I haven't played Muv-Luv, though have heard the first game at least had all the typical problems associated with the visual/light novel genre.
It's very true that One Piece gets repetitive. This ranges from most arcs having the exact same structure (especially after the timeskip) to gags being repeated several dozen times after they stopped being funny. For the mystery aspect, there are many things about One Piece's world such as the One Piece, Will of D, Voice Century, etc. that rather than being naturally revealed as time goes on, all get only snippets revealed due to the author's desire to save everything for the final arc, causing many events to be stretched out more than necessary.
I was speaking more on the line that the lack of repercussions towards events in their social/personal life in relation to the game. For instance, the Chinese player went on so much about being unbeateable and needing to prove himself that you'd expect his loss to be something that causes him to re-evaluate everything or go into a downward spiral (think someone like Wolf from Ashita no Joe), yet none of that happens and he simply just takes it.
I'd say Ashita no Joe would count towards that category very slightly as despite showing potential, its slow pace caused it to not really show its quality until about halfway through the Rikiishi Arc. The anime version of Hokuto no Ken could also count with the amount of episodic filler that takes up the first arc. Outside of anime, Babylon 5 and Star Wars: The Clone Wars would be ones that could be included. Babylon 5 lays out a lot of ground work for the brilliance to come of it, though it isn't something that will become as evident to a first-time watcher until near the end of Season 2. For The Clone Wars, it has similar matters with a lot of episodes in Season 1 not being that engaging outside of a select few scenes, though Seasons 2 and 3 start to show what the series is capable of and Seasons 3-6 certainly show the quality the series has in enhancing the Star Wars universe.
It isn't on Netflix. It's on Disney's new streaming service Disney+.
It's less so the anime on Netflix, of which there are quite a few good ones, and more so those created specifically to be viewed on Netflix such as Neo Yokio. The best Netflix-exclusive anime is probably Devilman Crybaby, and that has some pretty major problems in its fast pace limiting character drama and some levels of pretentiousness.
From what I've seen, the character writing was kept intact for the main cast at least. Not sure about the side characters.
20th Century Boys is good, but fairly overrated. It's the most entertaining of Urasawa's work, but a lot of its concepts require a huge suspension of disbelief and the antagonist's motives through his backstory were underwhelming. It's nowhere near Monster's level, but makes for a somewhat good thriller nonetheless. Vagabond is good at creating atmosphere and covering historical events, but takes extremely long for much character growth to happen (the protagonist takes 30+ volumes to gain significant growth), which is a problem when it's a character-driven work. Vinland Saga has it beat by far in all categories but art quality (including using a farming arc to develop the protagonist). As far as ronin manga go, both Lone Wolf and Cub and Rurouni Kenshin are better choices.
That feeling of disappointment in an interesting premise and poor execution is so common I'd find it hard to count how many series it can apply to. Two that come to mind immediately would be Attack on Titan starting out with an interesting premise for its world before becoming filled with plot armour for the main three and mystery-bait that ended up ruining the premise, as well as One Piece starting out with interesting characters and a good balancing of tone before gaining all the common problems of Battle Shonen, as well as refusing to allow the characters to grow beyond caricatures of themselves and overusing the mystery aspect without any revelations for far too long. As for Ping Pong, I read the manga and found it extremely underwhelming with the lack of repercussions from the game or the characters' social lives damaging the plot and character writing, highlighting the main problem of the sports genre (and why Ashita no Joe will always be the best sports manga).
I haven't seen The Mandalorian due to not wanting to support Disney, though from what I've heard of trusted reviewers it's average at best and is also essentially the poor man's Lone Wolf and Cub in space.
It's mainly the art that a lot of people hate about what's been shown with the new GitS anime. It may still be good despite the art, though I severely doubt it with how all the anime designed for Netflix consumption have been disappointments.
From what I've heard, the tv series and movies do a good job keeping the tone of the manga, though neither have fully adapted the story or even some of its main highlights.
You're correct about Hokuto no Ken. Chapter 137 and onward (and its anime Hokuto no Ken 2) basically retcon a whole lot of information for the attempt of making its main threat more connected to previous characters, not to mention it having a major retcon that ruins Kenshiro's character for similar reasons to how Naruto was ruined in the later arcs of his series.
The books are still on hiatus as they've been since 2011. Comparing its pacing to the show, it's only up to where Season 5 and a little of Season 6 were.
I'd say it's mixed as far as which is better (or less worse) for Elfen Lied. The manga has more sense of a conclusion and some attempt at character development (even if more of a timeskip rewrite) but also has far worse pacing and heavier harem elements, as well as the ending ramping the incest factor up to 11.
From what I've heard, Mushishi is good in creating atmosphere, but is otherwise lacking in much in a story due to being too episodic and repetitive.
The prequel trilogy is the one with Anakin. The sequel trilogy is the modern one made by Disney. Some of the main contradictions consist of Rey being so powerful with no training, light speed kamikazes making any previous space battles seem pointless, Force Ghosts being able to interact with the physical realm invalidating their inactive role in the OT (and in this very trilogy, for that matter), Luke getting some major character assassination, Palpatine's survival making the original 6 films redundant and all that is just scratching the surface on the black hole of bad writing that is the sequel trilogy.
By the standards of most time travel stories, it wasn't too bad, though still offered some significant problems in ignoring the obvious conveniences it'd provide and limited some of the character drama in the climax.
I've heard of the new GitS anime and how it's already received a negative response. Indeed, there's no modern anime that catch my interest, save for more seasons of JoJo and Vinland Saga. A Lone Wolf and Cub anime would really be appreciated though, especially after the traction it's gained from discussion on The Mandalorian being the poor man's version of it actually making it happening a possibility.
There are quite a few Shonen with more complex characterisation when looking at older titles. Hokuto no Ken (particularly the manga) has some very underrated character writing, so long as you don't read past chapter 136.
Final Season of Game of Thrones was unbelievably terrible. The show had been really bad ever since Season 5 and gradually got worse with each season, but Season 8 was easily one of the worst written stories I've ever seen for all the reasons you may have heard.
Elfen Lied is indeed a very bad series for its inconsistent characterisation, generic harem elements (including incest) and having a lot of explicit violence with no depth behind it. The only reason it probably gained any traction was due to the audience who viewed it likely having not seen any of the far more detailed and entertaining gore schlock of 80s/90s OVAs.
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That is, if you're still around. Seems unlikely, but I hope you're faring well.
Bleach has so many plot holes, even in its early stages. A lot of the earlier ones revolve around how nonsensical its afterlife is without any sense of cohesion. If Quincies can destroy souls, what even is the point in having a Hell in this universe when you could just employ a Quincy into Soul Society to be the executioner of evil souls? What's the point in Soul Society if souls can just be reincarnated, or the point in a living realm if souls just go live in Soul Society after death? If they're spirits, how come some can age or get sick like Hitsugaya and Ootake respectively? None of it makes any sense, and that's just for the first two arcs. After Soul Society, things get even dumber with inconsistent powerscaling (Shikai Byakuya can outperform someone far above an Arrancar Shikai Ichigo struggled with, despite Ichigo and Byakuya's Shikai being equal in power, so we're left to assume Byakuya became far stronger in a matter of days despite having lived decades or centuries), blatant contradictions like one Arrancar saying the Espada are ranked from 10 to 1 and than Yammy saying "who said the Espada are 10 to 1?" when revealing he's the 0th Espada and really dumb character decisions such as Yamamoto having Vice-Captains defend these pillars that are super important to not get damaged and Aizen sends some weak Espada to take them on, as opposed to both sides using their strongest fighters to attack or defend these integral strategic points. Then of course there's indeed Aizen's "I planned everything" despite there being several points where things didn't go as planned, him having the generic thing of getting a transformation, Ichigo getting a power up and the typical Shonen battle occurring in which Aizen Gary Stus his way into somehow not being killed despite his defeat.
The less said about the Thousand Year Blood War, the better. It indeed has Ichigo being a Gary Stu with how he's now part Quincy on top of part everything else, the battles are basically a game of power up tennis in one side dominating then the other powers up and back and forth, contrived training regimes to have irrelevant characters become far stronger and many other problems. I dropped it around the time it started heavily plagiarising Saint Seiya with the Captains needing to combine their power to break through an obstacle and from what I gather, the ending was both generic and unfulfilling.
I'd rate Joker an 8/10. It could've been a 9, but there's one part during a chase that's a pretty major case of plot armour. Other than that, it's excellent.
They didn't explain Mihawk's origins yet, further driving that point in. The recent chapters still show the ending as being nowhere in sight and really test the audience's suspension of disbelief as Luffy is expected to beat Kaido's army despite having a severe disadvantage in numbers and manpower to the extent only some contrived deus ex machina power up can possibly allow him to plot armour his way through as he's done time and again. Oda indeed stated he'd probably wrap One Piece up after 5 years around the time he'd published a dozen or so volumes. He's said since it was due to wanting to explore more ideas about the world, though given an execution it's safe to say the real reason was he and Jump wanting to milk the series as much as possible.
Naruto introduced the child of prophecy point around when Pain got introduced, which ruin Naruto's character arc by the person who was supposed to get by through hard work and not special lineages was revealed to be of the most special lineage possible. Along with that, the points you mentioned, a poor handling of its support cast and increasingly more contrived ways of having new threats, it was a series that had potential but quickly went downhill after the Chunin Exam. Bleach is even worse as along with its plot holes, contrived power ups and overly archetypical characters, it never had any potential as it was just a Yu Yu Hakusho clone that quickly became the poor man's Saint Seiya.
I've probably seen similar usages of the trope before, seeing as how selective amnesia tends to use such things as an excuse for plot conveniences/inconveniences.
Watching the original 6 films should serve as decent framework for it. The KOTOR games help flesh out the concepts enough to go in blind, though having more material to draw from can be very helpful.
Joker was an excellent movie and, from the looks of it, probably the best of 2019. It explored its critique of mental health services well along with doing a good job exploring the extremes that come of political ideologies whilst remaining apolitical.
Oki~~
Pre-timeskip One Piece I'd probably about a 6-6.5/10 as it still had a good focus on adventure, its characters were still interesting for the first two major arcs and the Summit War was a surprising turn of events for the series. As a whole though, I'd rate it as a 4/10 currently and only expect it'll go further downhill if the current chapters are anything to go by. The origins of Devil Fruits still remain unexplored, hence showing how damaging Oda's desire to mystery-bait rather than properly world build is. The dog-gun Lassoo is at least established to be an experiment of the scientist Vegapunk managing to infuse inanimate objects with Devil Fruit, though he himself remains yet another mystery.
I've only read the first 30 pages so I can't say for sure, though a lot of them tend to extend scenes far longer than necessary through character dialogue having them exposit aspects of their life in far more detail than necessary. I haven't seen the Count of Monte Cristo anime as I wasn't keen on watching what's essentially an alternate setting of it that seemed to have supernatural elements completely alien from the original novel.
I'm not that much into visual novels, so it's not one I've heard of. Good concepts with bad executions are ones I could make a long list for as even some of the worst series tended to have good ideas. In order to keep things brief, I'll only list a few major examples in that Attack on Titan had a good premise for its world before it was ruined by plot armour and Shyamalan-esque plot twists and Naruto had a good start until the chosen one aspect betrayed its premise.
It depends how integral historical accuracy is to a plot's events. For example, a movie like Braveheart is fairly damaged by its historical inaccuracies when they either have contrived reasoning for them and things such as completely changing the Battle of Stirling Bridge fail in honouring what made someone like William Wallace an engaging historical figure. On the flipside, a movie like 300 having historical inaccuracies is fine as it's told primarily as an embellished and biased account from the Spartans.
I've heard of the White Album anime, though I heard it handled the series' characters terribly. If wanting to view series with complex female characters, the best recommendations would be Rose of Versailles for Lady Oscar and Battle Angel Alita for its titular protagonist (mostly for the sequel Last Order). The female character I'd praise the most in fiction would be Kreia from Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II, though it's important to be aware of the philosophies of the Jedi and Sith to truly appreciate her complexity.
If looking for that kind of lack of romanticism in heroes, watching the Three Kingdoms TV drama is even more recommended for how it handled the complexity of Cao Cao. Outside of historical series Legend of the Galactic Heroes is, once again, recommended for this with such characters as Reinhard, Yang, Oberstein and Reuenthal.
I've heard the movie does a good job at balancing comedy and horror atmosphere, though from what I've heard the violence in it is explicit for the sake of it without offering more depth to the story. The most recent film I've seen was Joker as I don't live close to the cinema, making going there difficult.
You're spot on in that analysis of Fate/stay-night. Just save your time by dropping it because it just gets worse as it goes on when it comes to contrived plot twists and power ups. The UBW anime is the best version of it due to removing the unnecessary sex scenes, and even that's only minimally as it still plays out as a generic Shonen with harem elements.
Yeah, it almost always sells more than any other manga each year. Luffy can't turn his body into iron, per se. I believe that may be referring to his Busoshoku Haki after the timeskip making his body vulcanised rubber, which made sense until every other Busoshoku Haki suddenly start having the blackened appearance when using it. If you're referring to Gear 4th, that's indeed an asspull as there's several instances he could've used it prior. For when it went downhill, I started to notice it mainly after the timeskip, though upon re-evaluation, it started to take a noticeable dip after Alabasta with it only returning to form during the Summit War Saga.
As for series not ruined by a timeskip, I'd say there's a few examples. JoJo could technically count if treating some of the parts as timeskips, as can Gundam's Universal Century continuity to some extent (though it's essentially a hit or miss scenario). Dragon Ball can somewhat count as some of the arcs are better than those to precede it (the Saiyan Arc of DBZ being a major example) and whilst the series quality as a whole started to go down around the Freeza Arc, I'd still say the Cell and Boo Arc had some stand-out plot and character moments at least. There's also Vinland Saga which, whilst not as good as it was in the Askeladd Arc, is still far from being ruined.
I've heard of Gurren Lagann, but was never interested in watching it due to hearing how contrived a lot of things in it and it seeming like dumb fun at best, not to mention a lot of iconic imagery from it just piggybacking on the success of Ashita no Joe.
I have heard of both of them (though only the movie version of And Then There Were None), though have yet to read either despite The Count of Monte Cristo being a novel that would appeal to me. I've recently started reading Crime and Punishment, though I'm definitely procrastinating on reading in general.
If looking for military tactics, getting around to watching Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Babylon 5 or reading The Romance of the Three Kingdoms ought to be imperative. I have heard The Ravages of Time is a manwha that captures the strategic quality of the latter with interesting character studies, though I haven't read it myself yet due to personal reasons of being irked by the historical errors when it comes to the character ages and such. I'd also recommend some parts of Gundam in that area, mainly the 08th MS Team (though watching the original series or movie trilogy would be essential first for understanding the context).
Also, Happy Birthday.
wish you many many happy returns of the day, have a good one!
A lot of the first 27 episodes are filler, so that may have been why you saw not much as happening.
The fights in the series are fine when excused by the context of its focus. The title alone makes it apparent that it will be romanticised and embellished in what the characters are capable of in the same way as something like The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The sequel retcons Kaoru's dad being dead as well as offers no explanation as to how Shishio's sword could endure the destruction of his hideout.
It doesn't have supernatural abilities (at least not until the later seasons). The power creep has more so in what the characters are capable of doing despite being normal humans and without any major advancements in technology making this change break immersion.
Visual/light novel problems tend to include Gary Stu protagonists, harem elements with most female characters being automatically drawn to the protagonist for flimsy reasons and villains often being one-dimensional heels. It doesn't help that this also includes needless sex scenes just to sell. Fate/stay-night is a major example of this when it included many of such scenes and yet both the fanbase and creators treat it as something that was just additional content, confirming it was just there to sell despite damaging the integrity of the series. Then there's also the utilisation of poor tropes such as amnesia, contrived power ups, etc.
That is mostly true. It's more excusable for the early arcs in which the crew is still being gathered and the situations/backstories are still all given some unique flare, but they quickly become repetitive after the first few arcs and make it painfully obvious who will join the crew. Some other repetitive things include contrived power ups, all characters placing their hopes on Luffy in a cliche Shonen manner and general repetitive character traits. I have absolutely no hope of the finale and its reveals being worth it as not only has the length and teasing of it for so long made it a reveal that can't be satisfy the fans without alienating others (especially after the most recent chapters), but cracks have already shown several times in Oda's ability to keep continuity strong.
Even if he was a secondary character, not giving him the slightest bit of catharsis after the amount of time he took up was bad writing. I gave it a 2/10 as I really found nothing that made it worthwhile compared to Ashita no Joe or Real and it doesn't help the art of the manga is terrible.
Favourite season of Babylon 5 was probably either 3 or 4, in which the events of the plot start to reach their peak in tension and stakes as well as fully show what makes it stand out from other sci-fi series through its character development and themes. It was indeed one of the early examples of a live-action tv series in the west that had strong plot continuity and story arcs. The only earlier example I can think of is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which precedes it by a couple of months, though that's essentially a lesser version of Babylon 5 due to having weaker plot continuity and focus from what I've heard.
I'd completely disagree on some of those points on Rurouni Kenshin, particularly the repetitive nature of the first cast and the handling of character development. Whilst the Tokyo Arc has a standard plot, it's how the villains within it tie to Kenshin's philosophy that makes it engaging, albeit nowhere near as much as the Kyoto Arc. I would also say that the supporting cast were fleshed out fine and, whilst some were quite archetypical (eg. Sannosuke) each one was given time to shine in a way that made sense in either the Kyoto or Jinchu Arcs, with the latter offering decent character development for Kenshin, Kaoru and Aoshi.
I have heard what Watsuki did and it was absolutely deplorable. Even separating art from the artist, however, it's good that the sequel was cancelled as the opening chapter already retconned a fair bit of information for contrived plot twists.
I wouldn't know if it's improved or not, but the early events certainly were bad due to its premise as a setting where no character is safe being betrayed by how plot armoured the main trio are, as well as some level of power creep later on with how humans go from rarely being able to take down a single Titan with an entire unit to having characters solo Titans later on. I haven't played Muv-Luv, though have heard the first game at least had all the typical problems associated with the visual/light novel genre.
It's very true that One Piece gets repetitive. This ranges from most arcs having the exact same structure (especially after the timeskip) to gags being repeated several dozen times after they stopped being funny. For the mystery aspect, there are many things about One Piece's world such as the One Piece, Will of D, Voice Century, etc. that rather than being naturally revealed as time goes on, all get only snippets revealed due to the author's desire to save everything for the final arc, causing many events to be stretched out more than necessary.
I was speaking more on the line that the lack of repercussions towards events in their social/personal life in relation to the game. For instance, the Chinese player went on so much about being unbeateable and needing to prove himself that you'd expect his loss to be something that causes him to re-evaluate everything or go into a downward spiral (think someone like Wolf from Ashita no Joe), yet none of that happens and he simply just takes it.
I'd say Ashita no Joe would count towards that category very slightly as despite showing potential, its slow pace caused it to not really show its quality until about halfway through the Rikiishi Arc. The anime version of Hokuto no Ken could also count with the amount of episodic filler that takes up the first arc. Outside of anime, Babylon 5 and Star Wars: The Clone Wars would be ones that could be included. Babylon 5 lays out a lot of ground work for the brilliance to come of it, though it isn't something that will become as evident to a first-time watcher until near the end of Season 2. For The Clone Wars, it has similar matters with a lot of episodes in Season 1 not being that engaging outside of a select few scenes, though Seasons 2 and 3 start to show what the series is capable of and Seasons 3-6 certainly show the quality the series has in enhancing the Star Wars universe.
It's less so the anime on Netflix, of which there are quite a few good ones, and more so those created specifically to be viewed on Netflix such as Neo Yokio. The best Netflix-exclusive anime is probably Devilman Crybaby, and that has some pretty major problems in its fast pace limiting character drama and some levels of pretentiousness.
From what I've seen, the character writing was kept intact for the main cast at least. Not sure about the side characters.
20th Century Boys is good, but fairly overrated. It's the most entertaining of Urasawa's work, but a lot of its concepts require a huge suspension of disbelief and the antagonist's motives through his backstory were underwhelming. It's nowhere near Monster's level, but makes for a somewhat good thriller nonetheless. Vagabond is good at creating atmosphere and covering historical events, but takes extremely long for much character growth to happen (the protagonist takes 30+ volumes to gain significant growth), which is a problem when it's a character-driven work. Vinland Saga has it beat by far in all categories but art quality (including using a farming arc to develop the protagonist). As far as ronin manga go, both Lone Wolf and Cub and Rurouni Kenshin are better choices.
That feeling of disappointment in an interesting premise and poor execution is so common I'd find it hard to count how many series it can apply to. Two that come to mind immediately would be Attack on Titan starting out with an interesting premise for its world before becoming filled with plot armour for the main three and mystery-bait that ended up ruining the premise, as well as One Piece starting out with interesting characters and a good balancing of tone before gaining all the common problems of Battle Shonen, as well as refusing to allow the characters to grow beyond caricatures of themselves and overusing the mystery aspect without any revelations for far too long. As for Ping Pong, I read the manga and found it extremely underwhelming with the lack of repercussions from the game or the characters' social lives damaging the plot and character writing, highlighting the main problem of the sports genre (and why Ashita no Joe will always be the best sports manga).
It's mainly the art that a lot of people hate about what's been shown with the new GitS anime. It may still be good despite the art, though I severely doubt it with how all the anime designed for Netflix consumption have been disappointments.
From what I've heard, the tv series and movies do a good job keeping the tone of the manga, though neither have fully adapted the story or even some of its main highlights.
You're correct about Hokuto no Ken. Chapter 137 and onward (and its anime Hokuto no Ken 2) basically retcon a whole lot of information for the attempt of making its main threat more connected to previous characters, not to mention it having a major retcon that ruins Kenshiro's character for similar reasons to how Naruto was ruined in the later arcs of his series.
The books are still on hiatus as they've been since 2011. Comparing its pacing to the show, it's only up to where Season 5 and a little of Season 6 were.
I'd say it's mixed as far as which is better (or less worse) for Elfen Lied. The manga has more sense of a conclusion and some attempt at character development (even if more of a timeskip rewrite) but also has far worse pacing and heavier harem elements, as well as the ending ramping the incest factor up to 11.
From what I've heard, Mushishi is good in creating atmosphere, but is otherwise lacking in much in a story due to being too episodic and repetitive.
By the standards of most time travel stories, it wasn't too bad, though still offered some significant problems in ignoring the obvious conveniences it'd provide and limited some of the character drama in the climax.
I've heard of the new GitS anime and how it's already received a negative response. Indeed, there's no modern anime that catch my interest, save for more seasons of JoJo and Vinland Saga. A Lone Wolf and Cub anime would really be appreciated though, especially after the traction it's gained from discussion on The Mandalorian being the poor man's version of it actually making it happening a possibility.
There are quite a few Shonen with more complex characterisation when looking at older titles. Hokuto no Ken (particularly the manga) has some very underrated character writing, so long as you don't read past chapter 136.
Final Season of Game of Thrones was unbelievably terrible. The show had been really bad ever since Season 5 and gradually got worse with each season, but Season 8 was easily one of the worst written stories I've ever seen for all the reasons you may have heard.
Elfen Lied is indeed a very bad series for its inconsistent characterisation, generic harem elements (including incest) and having a lot of explicit violence with no depth behind it. The only reason it probably gained any traction was due to the audience who viewed it likely having not seen any of the far more detailed and entertaining gore schlock of 80s/90s OVAs.