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Bad storywriting3/30/2023 ![]() The power problem has long plagued shonen and other action-focused anime. These are, perhaps, the most commonly violated. However, the most problematic of world rules deal with character abilities. It can jar people from a story, but if the writing is solid everywhere else, most will overlook this problem. For the most part, world rule breaking is a minor problem. ![]() But sometimes a story seems to forget various political rules or other rules of a magic system. Now there are some anime like Konosuba! that make a show of breaking world rules for comedic effect. Likewise, in Fullmetal Alchemist, particularly in Brotherhood, it got to the point where most of the characters seemly ignored the idea of equivalent exchange. While other dragon balls were used to get around this rule, after a certain point the rule didn’t really apply. Namely, they could only revive someone once. For example, in Dragonball Z much fuss was made about the nature of the dragon balls. Breaking world rules often happens after the author makes a big deal of a certain unbreakable principle. It’s hard to keep your story world’s rules in mind as you try to come up with stories for several years. This problem may result from the structure of manga. Shonen also likes to break its own rules. For being action-oriented, shonen likes to break this principle. The viewer can’t predict the outcome of any conflict and that mystery creates tension. It can become a gimmick, but if a writer handles this right, the villain becomes more threatening. Of course, you can do this too much like Game of Thrones. The cast wants to be thinned, which would’ve increased the tension. Bleach lacks for threat because none of the “good guys” fail in a meaningful way. True roadblocks means some characters, including main characters, die or fail utterly. Tension ratchets when the heroes face true roadblocks, which never really happens in Bleach. This can involve changing to other characters at the same tension point, but flashbacks (which we will address later) kill tension.īleach disappointed me for doing these pull-backs and not having skin in the fight. Holding the viewer in tension only works when you remain immersed in the main story line. While you could argue asides, flashbacks, and otherwise filler keeps the viewer wondering what will happen when we finally return, in practice it only dulls the tension. In good suspense writing, you hold the reader as long as you can at the peak of a tension point. This habit of pulling back violates good writing principles. One Piece ruined itself in my eyes by doing the same at nearly every conflict peak when I gave it a year-long honest try. In Naruto, these asides carried on for several episodes, to the point where I couldn’t remember what fight I started watching. By pull-back, I mean random flashbacks or switches to subplots just as the hero confronts the villain. I’ve seen pull-back throughout shonen in particular. I suspect my Western idea of tension differs a bit from a Japanese idea of tension. I’ve pondered if it is a cultural norm because it’s so common in anime and Japanese novels I’ve read. ![]() ![]() I haven’t decided if anime’s pull back during peak tension comes from Japanese culture or just anime’s force of habit. They also tie together, encouraging each other in a spiral that results in mediocre anime, or at least anime that doesn’t reach its potential. But in the end, these habits of anime–killing tension, breaking world rules, escalation of power, getting lost in complexity, flashbacks, and undoing everything–are just bad writing. It’s just how anime is, we say when we notice these problems. Habits we as fans often take for granted. Anime has problems with its story telling habits.
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