Masashi Kishimoto is a hack writer.

[anthony87]

I wouldn't call him a hack writer, just a shounen writer.

As much as I love me some Naruto though I am started to get a bit bored with this whole God Mode Madara thing we've got going on.

Erza was beaten, but the power of her friends got her through a guy she couldn't even hit. Naruto will likely go the same way, friendship power savez teh wrold!

That's pretty much my main gripe with Fairy Tail. I still read it every week mind you and despite what I say above about Madara I still accept that Naruto and Bleach would have explanations for the power even if that explanation is crap.

With Fairy Tail it just seems to be;

"Oh no, I'm losing!"
"Hey! Don't forget that we like you!"
"Shit! You're right!"
*Wins in one shot*.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Well, in defence, any series that goes on for this long is bond to suck.

This defense might have received a point from me, if Naruto had ever, at any point, actually been good.

 

[sumanoskae]

Naruto is the worst manga with the coolest premise I've ever seen; I hold out a small measure of hope that someday a better writer will rewrite the series.

 

[crazygameguy4ever]

I really like both Naruto and Beach series.. but I gotta admit.. as much as I would miss them.. part of me wishes they had both ended some time ago. When speaking specifically about the Naruto series.. it's only ongoing still be cause Shueisha publishing doesn't want to lose it's cash cow. It's been published for over 14 years straight now.. does any series that's been ongoing for that long still hold up for that well?Naruto's creator Masashi Kishimoto makes millions of yen a year off the manga and the Naruto merchandise so he could quit any time and be ok but can't probably because of his contract... even if he wrote a definitive ending for the manga.. you can bet Shueisha publishing would want him to write a sequel series or something.. Naruto will probably never end as long as it continues to make Shueisha publishing an ass load of money every year.

 

[Queen Michael]

And as far as I'm concerned, the biggest problem with Masashi Kishimoto's writing is that he thinks the best way to create "deep" characters is to write a sone-dimensional character and create some point in the past where s/he was sad.

that's a very common problem with characterisation in nearly every medium. I do agree but I'd go further than saying it's a quirk of his.

But he does it so very extremely. A character will have exactly one emotion and one sad event from the past.

 

[The White Hunter]

He isn't a hack, its just that his series has been falling apart for years, after bloody years of it, its not a stretch to consider he could mess up and write himself into a wall. Its hard to keep a consistent decade old series to keep going flawlessly.

Most long running series slip up, Kishimoto just seems to have slipped up big time on this particular fight, at least he is being honest.

Yeah it's fair to assume that he didn't know where to go with it and shonen jump basically told him to write more :/ Shame as the series had so much potential.

It's unfortunate more manga authors don't plan things out as well as Eichiro Oda does.

Edit: The only reason One Piece hasn't been fucked by shounen jump is that they're pretty fucked if they lose Oda, One Piece is the most popular manga still after all.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Isn't that the point of most anime, though? Especially Shonen anime? It's made to sell toys and market the manga comics. It's the stuff that makes it over seas to Toonami and garners a juicy western audience. Attack on Titan will likely go a similar route, even if it isn't as long.

Yep.

Which is why the best anime series generally have 26 episodes.

Nothing beats the 26-ep formula yo. If you can make Bebop on 26 eps the rest is just a waste of time.

 

[MiskWisk]

Sadly, I think Kishi had a plot at one point and then just said "f*ck it" (or whatever the Japanese equivalent is). I now feel like I am reading because I have read so much of it and now end up saying to myself "I will finish this if it kills me". Guess I really want my closure.

Depressingly, Kishi has actually got me reading fan-fics. Even more depressingly, I can find a few that leave me going "Why the hell didn't Kishi do that? It would have been much better!"

 

[Arkhangelsk]

He probably had a proper ending in mind in the beginning, but as the series had to continue and the demand increased, I think he's forced to just think of ways to up the ante to keep people interested. Problem is that you still want the struggling hero, an all mighty hero would be boring. I think the success of the show might have forced him into this situation a bit. There are only so many ways you can up the ante.

 

[Uratoh]

On the solving 'how on earth are they going to beat this villain?' problems...we have Nox from Wakfu.

Spoiler: ZOMG SPOILERS

Nox wins, he drains the life force of an entire race to power his machine, and uses all the collected energies he's amassed over 200 years to go back in time...'twenty miserable minutes!'. he'd been developed well enough that while it was clear he was out of his mind, he seemed to think he was doing 'good in the long run' as it were...so when his master plan doesn't work due to his misunderstanding temporal physics, he...corrects what little he can and then...gives up. The protagonist, the only one who knows what actually happened, tells his friends to just let Nox go, since it's over.

Nox is one of the best villains I've ever seen, ever. Just because he had such a complicated backstory and motivation. Looking awesome didn't hurt, either.

 

[Amir Kondori]

I don't watch the show but sometimes constraints can be a good thing. Maybe he won't win, but will lose in an interesting way. Or through defeat attain victory, like luring him into an unsafe position, something like that.

No one likes to see a main character die but a self sacrifice to take out the big bad to end a show is not a terrible idea.

 

[Teh Jammah]

Pft, ending Naruto is easy. It's going to pretty much happen one of two ways.

Sasuke dies. Naruto gets his eyes (because Madara just proved instant transplants are totally a thing) which totally instantly evolve into the rinnegan because uber-plot-hax-no-jutsu and Naruto then uses Kyuubi-Sage-Mode-Rinnegan-Susano'o-all-element-amaterasu-rasengan-bijuudama-kamehameha-no-jutsu.

Or he ends it the same way he ends every fight. Talk-no-Jutsu into friendship-no-jutsu.

... or possibly the first followed by the second.

Either way Naruto then becomes ninja jesus and lives happily ever after, albeit getting none from Sakura while continuing to friendzone Hinata.

Kishi can have that one for half my usual rate.

 

[Dr. Cakey]

Well, in defence, any series that goes on for this long is bond to suck.

Something like that?

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Eh, when a show/comic's this popular, the writing tends to be a little... lackluster. Besides, I usually don't watch/read super-long anime/manga, I don't have the time, patience, or attention span for such things. But considering how ungodly popular shows like Naruto are, they'll probably keep going for a few more years. Sigh...

 

[TheIceQueen]

And I'm suddenly reminded about this which might be a tad NSFW

Spoiler

<youtube=BTlH_riQDN8>

Yeah, long running anything will jump the shark, or run into problems now and again. Having some time to get one's self out of a slump, or getting writing help from others might be worthwhile. Then again, I used to write alot, and fell out of it hard, and for years. I can't really talk about how to get out of writer's block.

It's funny how dhim manages to work his fetish even into a Machinima published video. That certainly takes balls to do.

OT: Typically, in these cases, the writers have little choice but to pull a deus ex machina and hope that people don't find it crushingly un-satisfactory. But I stopped watching Naruto ages ago. I've tried on three seperate occasions to watch it, but I just can't get very far. Still, it would not be nice for those who do view it to have an ending that leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Or they could just pull a One Piece and have it neeeeeveeeer end.

 

[zehydra]

Isn't that the point of most anime, though? Especially Shonen anime? It's made to sell toys and market the manga comics. It's the stuff that makes it over seas to Toonami and garners a juicy western audience. Attack on Titan will likely go a similar route, even if it isn't as long.

Yep.

Which is why the best anime series generally have 26 episodes.

With the exception of Monster of course.

 

[KazeAizen]

Sooo... we had this little discussion about a month ago, about wheter or not Naruto was hated, and I answered that the reason I (and I suspect a lot of other people) dislike the series, is because it's become increasingly poorly written.

Well, guess what? Kishimoto just came out during the Shonen Jump held Jump Festa event, and admited that he had no f***ing clue how the main character is supposed to be able to defeat the main villain. He's out of ideas...

What. A. Piece. Of. Crap.

He's written himself into a corner, made his beloved Uchiha God Mode Sue too powerful, and now he's realised what every other person on the planet has: the main character can't win. This is worse than Aizen in Bleach, and will probably share that series retarded pre-timeskip conclusion as well...

Why did I ever even like this series?

Here's the problem. While most of these series are A to B style stories after a while they operate like American comic books. In that they need to keep content coming for months on end and find ways to extend certain arcs. You sir just need to chill out though. So butt hurt over something so stupid. At least its ending and out of the three it has the best writing but according to you that's like saying one pile of shit is better then another pile of shit. He hasn't completely written himself into a corner. Not the way Kubo did if you think about it. You sir just need to calm your tits and maybe not read this stuff anymore if you've "gotten to old" for it or whatever the excuse of the week is.

 

[waj9876]

This is why The Simpson, Family Guy, Ranma1/2, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and any other long runner with at least partially non-episodic events will have/do have really bad endings that are simply not satisfying.

I'm sorry, but how was the ending to Ranma1/2 unsatisfying? There was a serious arc about Ranma fighting a phoenix/human hybrid who was basically a god, all to save Akane (As usual.) and he admitted his feelings for Akane, to Akane.

Also, it was totally episodic. Except for the "serious" arcs, which could be movies, if the anime didn't give up before the manga finished.

 

[sanquin]

--snip--

Eh, maybe you're right. I just read some people talking about Kubo being forced to continue through his contract. Oh well, doesn't really matter. Either rushed or not planned ahead, the previous and the current arc just felt off in a bad way.

 

[FPLOON]

Naruto is the worst manga with the coolest premise I've ever seen; I hold out a small measure of hope that someday a better writer will rewrite the series.

You mean get the "Dangon Ball Z Kai" method... Call it "Naruto Revolution" or something... and its ending, yet predictable, is exceptional to what this rewrite is trying to do... (No filler... No BS...)

OT: If the dude was a hack, then the series would be sucking LONG before the first big Naruto vs Sasuke fight that went "nowhere"... Then again, how can you plan ahead on a series that became more popular and more demanding that you would have expected? It happened to Kubo and it's [still] happening to Kishimoto...

I mean, unless you're a on-going gag manga, a series with a majority of its chapters be and/or are stand-alone, or has control over its popularity (HA! Could almost not write that with a straight face), the ending isn't going to be that "WOW! I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING!" or that "BEST CONCLUSION OF ALL TIME!" moment...

Isn't that the point of most anime, though? Especially Shonen anime? It's made to sell toys and market the manga comics. It's the stuff that makes it over seas to Toonami and garners a juicy western audience. Attack on Titan will likely go a similar route, even if it isn't as long.

Yep.

Which is why the best anime series generally have 26 episodes.

Those are the only ones (besides the "exceptional" 13-episode series) I actually end up wanting to buy on DVD... with only a few exceptions being FullMetal Alchemist (both series) and Shin-Chan...