(no subject)

[timepiececlock]

I had someone on the Adult Swim board today tell me emphatically that Inu Yasha and Ranma 1/2 were shounen anime.

Let's stop and think about this. Now, "shonen" anime means "boy" anime. Intended for young-adult or teen male audiences.

For example, Naruto. Dragonball Z. Anything Gundam.

But IY or Ranma 1/2 ?

Yeah, Ranma had a lot of fighting. And yeah, IY has a good amount of fighting.

And yes, they might be or have been run in a shonen manga magazine (I don't know if they have or not, but it's certainly possible.)

But anyone who thinks that Rumiko Takahashi is writing for boys probably doesn't know very many girls.



Also probably hasn't seen/read very much of either series.

Comments

part 1

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

You most definitely have to finish Trigun. You didn't even get to the part where the Gung Ho Guns show up in episode 11, did you? That's where the whole big snowball into hell really takes shape. I got three words for you: head in bag. ::shudder::

Yes, Trigun is very deceptive in its beginning. It's deceptive about the characters, about the world they live on, about everything. But what you don't really understand until you've finished watching it (this is not a spoiler, just an observation), is that the entire series, from start to finish, is a deep character analysis of Vash. It's all about what's going on his head. You get sucked in by this goofy guy, but then you realize you're not seeing the whole picture at all. It was really amazing to me the first time I went and rewatched it from the beginning having seen the entire run... there's so much there that I didn't pick up at first in terms of foreshadowing and vague little hints dropped.

And oh my god, the angst. Trigun was the angstiest anime I had ever seen until I watched FMA. At first I thought Fushigi Yuugi was sad. Then I watched Trigun, and I realized I knew nothing about pain until I tried this dude's life. And then I watched FMA, and I realized that not only do you have a few main characters of mind-blowing angst... EVERY character has mind-blowing angst. Main or minor characters.

I think the fact that a lot of people who like Naruto like FMA is more a timing coincidence than anything: both are smart, exciting shows with interesting plots and smoothly developed characters, and they're both airing in Japan and being fansubbed right now.

At first I compared FMA to Trigun, because the extreme tones of tragedy mixed with humor is very similar, as is some of the settings in FMA. And the style or well-developed characters with clever dialogue is similar, and the fact that both shows occur in English-speaking worlds is similar. That's mostly about tone and atmosphere.

But in terms of storyline, FMA has a much larger scope to it that, yeah, could be compared to Naruto. All the politics in FMA, and the large cast of characters... that's kind of like the politics in Naruto, and the many individual characters. Trigun is about Vash, and to an extension about the people immediately around Vash because of how they affect him. It's a small set of characters with plot focused tightly on one person. FMA is like Naruto in that it's about not just the main characters but the entire society that they live in that matters. And sometimes the main characters are only a small piece of the overall big picture of events.

FMA might be the very best anime I have ever seen. Depending on how these last upcoming 4 episodes go... if the ending is as fantastic as the whole, FMA will be peerless.