Leaving behind a strawhat

[Sindar]

Even then I think the story would have ended on a somewhat high note had Madara been the final villain. And instead of thinking about conjuring Kaguya up, he probably would have put more thought into Naruto vs Sasuke. We all knew that fight was coming anyway. It would have been disappointing to not have it. And we got those two incredible, incredible episodes.

My thing with Oda is that while he sets up a story in an island that would progress into something grand very well, when it progresses into action, or rather, a battle shounen, he tends to drag it longer than necessary. Be it the fight in the Punk Hazard arc, or the Dressrosa arc or this Whole Cake Island arc. Maybe that's because the anime adaptation is piss poor. Or maybe not. I can't judge it with a clean lens. Basically he does introduction and escalation well, but the part between that and resolution tends to be longer than necessary and it kinda drags down the story for me.

She's annoying alright lol. The only dialogue she has right now is "Weddingu Cakeii". But yeah she's like incredibly huge and is strong. Though I was surprised that Nami got her hands on Zeus.

I'm actually planning to drop the anime after the Reverie arc and start reading the manga from the Wano arc.

 

[MadaraUchiha]

 

[Sindar]

Isn't it an open secret that Kishi introduced Kaguya because Jump wanted Boruto?

I don't really think Oda cares about the anime. It's really shit right now and Oda would probably have a heart attack if he watches an episode of it. 
Also she was yelling "croquembouche" constantly before the Tea Party so it's even more annoying. 

Wasn't Reverie already talked about in the story? I do know that it's supposed to come after WC arc, and when I looked at the wiki it had like 8 chapters or something.
I'm tired of the term "world building though. As you said it's done correctly only sometimes and other times it seems like a bunch of info-dump, and since it feels like that you don't exactly care about anything because the rules aren't established properly. A very good example of world-building would be Harry Potter or the first Matrix. Bad would be something like SAO. 
One Piece has excellent world building as well. And most shounen anime out there have at the very least good world-building. Except maybe Fairy tail lol.

Is that how it was?.. Such a weird way to transition to a new show. In any case though, it wasn't done well, mostly because of the lack of prep work and planning. The concept itself is fine, but you can't just make the end game villain jump into the story like that. 

I am almost certain he does =) He works on the anime every week, like for a day or so, you can read it in his interviews (though I only know this from others who read the interviews, I don't read them myself; so dunno if you should take my word here). And anime would often gives us better info than the manga, resolving ambiguities and whatnot. I don't know how Oda feels about the quality, but he is a professional and he probably understands that there are compromises to be made. 

She did? xD That is funny. I think it was a small scene in the manga, never guessed it was extended in the anime.

Sure, but it was still a bit sudden when the WC switched to Reverie, I didn't expect it to come about when it did. So I thought anime-only viewers wouldn't necessarily expect it so soon either.


I mean, it describes what Oda is doing pretty well. Sure it is kinda too obvious, you suddenly get chapters that just explain things to you. But then, this is how world building is done in long weekly shounen manga =) Can't point to an example of a better way of doing that. 

It is not really fair to compare it to books or movies, those play by different rules. Matrix had a huge infodump mixed with some questionable philosophy talk when Neo woke up on the ship, before the story proceeded to turn into a Hong-Kong action film. It works well in the Matrix because it is all so dynamic and concise. OP has hundreds of times more info to provide, and it only has 10 minutes per week to do so, so the dynamics that a movie can produce wouldn't work the same way here. I am not saying it is perfect though. It is slightly more fair to compare it to Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings, which have unique worlds same as OP. And both, as far as I remember, avoided obvious infodumps (I might not have noticed though). But they are books, still an unfair comparison.

If I can not try to be objective for a second, I would say most of the shounen I've see seen have pretty poor worlds. Bleach's world in terms of writing is laughable, Kubo needed to invent an entire new dimension when he didn't know what to do. He ended up with ~7 or something. Naruto's world is barely anything to speak about, Fairy Tail's is even worse. I like what original FMA did, avoiding discussing the world in general but showing glimpses of it through the story. I think as a rule of thumb it usually turns out better when the writer knows all about his world before he starts writing it, which is why it doesn't usually end up well for weekly series and works so much better in books by methodical writers like Martin or Tolkien. Even Oda doesn't know all about his world I'm sure, at least it doesn't feel this way when reading OP.

 

[MadaraUchiha]

Is that how it was?.. Such a weird way to transition to a new show. In any case though, it wasn't done well, mostly because of the lack of prep work and planning. The concept itself is fine, but you can't just make the end game villain jump into the story like that. 

I am almost certain he does =) He works on the anime every week, like for a day or so, you can read it in his interviews (though I only know this from others who read the interviews, I don't read them myself; so dunno if you should take my word here). And anime would often gives us better info than the manga, resolving ambiguities and whatnot. I don't know how Oda feels about the quality, but he is a professional and he probably understands that there are compromises to be made. 

She did? xD That is funny. I think it was a small scene in the manga, never guessed it was extended in the anime.

Sure, but it was still a bit sudden when the WC switched to Reverie, I didn't expect it to come about when it did. So I thought anime-only viewers wouldn't necessarily expect it so soon either.


I mean, it describes what Oda is doing pretty well. Sure it is kinda too obvious, you suddenly get chapters that just explain things to you. But then, this is how world building is done in long weekly shounen manga =) Can't point to an example of a better way of doing that. 

It is not really fair to compare it to books or movies, those play by different rules. Matrix had a huge infodump mixed with some questionable philosophy talk when Neo woke up on the ship, before the story proceeded to turn into a Hong-Kong action film. It works well in the Matrix because it is all so dynamic and concise. OP has hundreds of times more info to provide, and it only has 10 minutes per week to do so, so the dynamics that a movie can produce wouldn't work the same way here. I am not saying it is perfect though. It is slightly more fair to compare it to Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings, which have unique worlds same as OP. And both, as far as I remember, avoided obvious infodumps (I might not have noticed though). But they are books, still an unfair comparison.

If I can not try to be objective for a second, I would say most of the shounen I've see seen have pretty poor worlds. Bleach's world in terms of writing is laughable, Kubo needed to invent an entire new dimension when he didn't know what to do. He ended up with ~7 or something. Naruto's world is barely anything to speak about, Fairy Tail's is even worse. I like what original FMA did, avoiding discussing the world in general but showing glimpses of it through the story. I think as a rule of thumb it usually turns out better when the writer knows all about his world before he starts writing it, which is why it doesn't usually end up well for weekly series and works so much better in books by methodical writers like Martin or Tolkien. Even Oda doesn't know all about his world I'm sure, at least it doesn't feel this way when reading OP.

I don't think Kishi's that bad. He did build up Madara to be a prominent figure in the story for a long time, and for him to introduce a story line like that out of left-field feels like outside interference. I mean, alien races, chakra pills, these things were never hinted at throughout the story.

Yeah I guess he does. But it still doesn't excuse Toei. One Piece is more of a remnant of the last decade as far as shounen anime are concerned. 

I'm not comparing One Piece to anything. I'm just talking about world building in general. I always try to look at different media differently and only try to compare stuff from the same medium.
And as far as Naruto's world is concerned I disagree. At least up until Kaguya was introduced everything does seem proper. Sure the power scales slowly(mind you slowly) started becoming imbalanced, with the introduction of Rasen Shuriken, Mangekyo, Rinnegar, Nine Tailed Cloak, but it was still not that bad.
And technically if you've read the Lord of the Rings book, it's more like a history text book than an actual novel for the most part. Tolkein mostly writes about the lore and the environment than the story or the characters. The movie is something different for sure.

 

[Sindar]

I don't think Kishi's that bad. He did build up Madara to be a prominent figure in the story for a long time, and for him to introduce a story line like that out of left-field feels like outside interference. I mean, alien races, chakra pills, these things were never hinted at throughout the story.

Yeah I guess he does. But it still doesn't excuse Toei. One Piece is more of a remnant of the last decade as far as shounen anime are concerned. 

I'm not comparing One Piece to anything. I'm just talking about world building in general. I always try to look at different media differently and only try to compare stuff from the same medium.
And as far as Naruto's world is concerned I disagree. At least up until Kaguya was introduced everything does seem proper. Sure the power scales slowly(mind you slowly) started becoming imbalanced, with the introduction of Rasen Shuriken, Mangekyo, Rinnegar, Nine Tailed Cloak, but it was still not that bad.
And technically if you've read the Lord of the Rings book, it's more like a history text book than an actual novel for the most part. Tolkein mostly writes about the lore and the environment than the story or the characters. The movie is something different for sure.

I feel like the whole last fight with Madara and Obito taking turns as leads and nothing really happening, it wasn't planned this well. It was epic, sure. If it was a Bleach fight I wouldn't say anything, probably. But it is Naruto. You can have Jiraiya and Naruto vs Pain, done in stages and with proper dramatic structure, and with all sorts of emotional ties to the characters we care about, or Sasuke vs Itachi with the subsequent reveal, and then drop the ball with the final fight. I suppose Obito's story was decent, and Madara's into was done great, but come on, that fight was hundred+ chapters long unless I am mistaken. I think Kishimoto didn't try hard enough. The whole war arc felt like that.

Sure.

Okay. I mean, it also kinda depends on what we are talking about. If you mean "how good this fictional world is", then it is one thing, if it is "how well the features of this worls are introduced", that is another. The later is almost always done by big sections with explanations and even infographics. And it is to be expected. Manga is a visual genre, it relies on the pictures to tell a story, and technical info about the worls doesn't really translate into pictures that well, I feel like. Maybe there is a way to do it smoother than what OP does, but I don't remember examples. Novels have easier time there, blocks of text don't stand out there.

But if you meant to talk about the worlds themselves, I think it is fair to compare anything, pretty much. OP isn't the greatest fantasy world, for sure, but it is decent I think. I would say the same about Game of Throne's world. Tolkien's world is way richer, it is trully a masterpiece. But yeah, you are right, the world takes so much place in the books, they feel dry. Which is a good thing I think, cause everything but the world in LotR is childish or silly, to a degree. I've jest re-read is a few months ago and I was surprised by it. It is not nearly as great as I thought it was back at school when I was reading it the first time xD

I won't even count power scaling as part of the world. Naruto's world is what, ninja villages, chakra powers, some history and that is all?.. If you take just the pre-time skip part, it is pretty okay. The chakra power made some sense back then, the world consistetd of Konoha and alien villages in the background, the history was just the the Fox, Madara and old Hokages, more or less. It was all concise and sort of dense. But, by the end of the series it lost the cohesion. Chakra became just magic, it could do more or less anything. The world no longer made sense. Who rules the world? How do the nations live? Any details about what they did during the ninja war? What was going on with the world before the ninja war? I can go on and on, and the answers to my questions will not be very detailed or satisfying. It was no longer dense, you have a dozen gaping holes for every bit of info the story provided. That is a problem.

 

[MadaraUchiha]

I feel like the whole last fight with Madara and Obito taking turns as leads and nothing really happening, it wasn't planned this well. It was epic, sure. If it was a Bleach fight I wouldn't say anything, probably. But it is Naruto. You can have Jiraiya and Naruto vs Pain, done in stages and with proper dramatic structure, and with all sorts of emotional ties to the characters we care about, or Sasuke vs Itachi with the subsequent reveal, and then drop the ball with the final fight. I suppose Obito's story was decent, and Madara's into was done great, but come on, that fight was hundred+ chapters long unless I am mistaken. I think Kishimoto didn't try hard enough. The whole war arc felt like that.

Sure.

Okay. I mean, it also kinda depends on what we are talking about. If you mean "how good this fictional world is", then it is one thing, if it is "how well the features of this worls are introduced", that is another. The later is almost always done by big sections with explanations and even infographics. And it is to be expected. Manga is a visual genre, it relies on the pictures to tell a story, and technical info about the worls doesn't really translate into pictures that well, I feel like. Maybe there is a way to do it smoother than what OP does, but I don't remember examples. Novels have easier time there, blocks of text don't stand out there.

But if you meant to talk about the worlds themselves, I think it is fair to compare anything, pretty much. OP isn't the greatest fantasy world, for sure, but it is decent I think. I would say the same about Game of Throne's world. Tolkien's world is way richer, it is trully a masterpiece. But yeah, you are right, the world takes so much place in the books, they feel dry. Which is a good thing I think, cause everything but the world in LotR is childish or silly, to a degree. I've jest re-read is a few months ago and I was surprised by it. It is not nearly as great as I thought it was back at school when I was reading it the first time xD

I won't even count power scaling as part of the world. Naruto's world is what, ninja villages, chakra powers, some history and that is all?.. If you take just the pre-time skip part, it is pretty okay. The chakra power made some sense back then, the world consistetd of Konoha and alien villages in the background, the history was just the the Fox, Madara and old Hokages, more or less. It was all concise and sort of dense. But, by the end of the series it lost the cohesion. Chakra became just magic, it could do more or less anything. The world no longer made sense. Who rules the world? How do the nations live? Any details about what they did during the ninja war? What was going on with the world before the ninja war? I can go on and on, and the answers to my questions will not be very detailed or satisfying. It was no longer dense, you have a dozen gaping holes for every bit of info the story provided. That is a problem.

I guess I expected that arc to be stretched out, as in that war may have a pause and then would resume in the future. The problem was that it was a full blown war taking place over hundreds of chapters.
Plus the other problem was that both Obito and Madara became Jinchuuriki so it was tiresome. Kishi could have done things better for sure. But I never liked the war arc to begin with. A lot of things were repetitive.