Masashi Kishimoto is a hack writer.

[mysecondlife]

I keep reading all these "Let the bad guy win"

and I'm reminded of Mass Effect 3 ending rage.

 

[AustinN]

I keep reading all these "Let the bad guy win"

and I'm reminded of Mass Effect 3 ending rage.

Yeah, but trust me, there was a lot more wrong with that ending than the bad guys winning.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

I think it?s more a problem with the demands of Shounen manga/anime than being a bad writer. I mean, heck, JoJo?s Bizarre Adventure had to literally

Spoiler

kill off the main characters of the sixth arc and reboot the fucking universe

before it could continue in a new, Seinen format. And Dragon Ball didn?t have a good ending. Jump had to practically drag Toriyama by his cash-packed buttcheeks by the Boo arc, finishing it with a plothole-filled Deus ex Machina (although, admittedly, Toriyama rarely ever planned his stories ahead)?and even then, Toei couldn?t help but create the atrocity that was DBGT because they apparently hadn?t drained the cash cow enough, to the point that even Vegeta became useless in comparison to the overpowered Gokuu.

And, despite being a Seinen, if you ask me?Berserk has been getting progressively more Shounen ever since the introduction of characters such as Isidro and Schierke, and I honestly think it?s never been the same since about the Golden Age arc. Heck, there are a lot of fans who, when they think of Berserk, they only ever think of the first two arcs (although, this may be partly due to the anime, which only covered those two arcs). It was that fucking good that it?s almost impossible to surpass it. I think the problem is that Miura made the story and its world so big (not to mention that

Spoiler

the sort-of main antagonist, Griffith, is now akin to a New Testament Jesus with fate on his side that it?s hard to see just how Guts or the Skull Knight will be able to defeat him, ignoring the fact that Guts? main goal is to cure Casca of her mental retardation now

) that he doesn?t know where to wrap it up after 20 years of working on his best manga. I don?t know how it?ll end, if ever, or even if it?ll live up to everyone?s expectations, since even Berserk at the moment is still better than the majority of mangas? best story arcs.

Actually, you know, scratch what I said about Shounen. It is just long-running series in general, and not just manga either. Family Guy had to kill off one of the most beloved characters as a hoax just to get more publicity. And btw, Fullmetal Alchemist (both versions) doesn?t count because it?s actually a comparatively short series and only really has one arc with a consistent set of protagonists and antagonists.

 

[Gizmo1990]

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.

I thought it was steadily going towards the conclusion.
All he needs to do is write that friendship defeats Madara, all the Ninja uniting against him or something.

The big problem he has is with Sasuke.
That has been a mess for a long time, how can you bring it to a conclusion in at least somewhat satisfying way?

He will probably write that Sasuke leaves to do whatever, have him help and then go on a journey to search for the truth or to become the Pirate King or whatever...

Madara isn't the problem.

He can be defeated, and that's the end to the bloody past of the Ninja world, then they can start building anew.


Sasuke's character-arc is a mess, and he is too popular a character to kill off (which would be an easy solution.)

I have never been able to understand why so many people like Sasuke. He is number 2 in the fictions biggest douche bag competition (only just losing to Snow from FF 13).

At this point I don't care how things with Madara end, Naruto will either kill him or turn him good with the power of friendship or Madara will die of bordem while Naruto is giving a speach about the power of friendsship, what I want as a last strip is Naruto and all of his friends beating Sasuke to death with extreamly heavy blunt objects. If that happens I will consider it to be the greatest ending in the history of manga/anime.

 

[AustinN]

How many people like Sasuke because they think his character is well written, and how many like him just because he's attractive?

I don't want to paint all of his fans with the same brush, but the Naruto fandom is kind of known for, uh...poorly constructed opinions.

 

[Auron225]

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.

Spoiler

I thought it was pretty awesome that if his plan had succeeded, then ultimately nobody would have suffered from it. Every evil thing he had ever done would have been undone. Within a minute - a monster had become understandable. It's just a shame his plan failed miserably... I'd probably have done the computations a few times before the whole mass-murderer thing...

Anyway - I don't see how exactly he has written himself into a corner. He's pulled more ludicrous stuff from his ass before. Something like all the other Bijuu transfering all their chakra to Naruto and having him focus it into kicking Madara's ass? That wouldn't shock me, and it's plausible... you know, cus its Naruto. Anything is f*cking plausible at this point.

Sasuke is still there. He has a sharingan. Sharingan will solve all your problems. Done.

Kakashi can still use his sharingan to warp stuff to other dimensions, right? Use it on Madaras eyes so he can't use his at all.

I just thought of 3 ways to kill Madara, and they could all be done at the same time if need be. And none of them would shock me more than I have been already. Maybe I should finish writing this thing - I'd have it done in 5 chapters.

 

[sextus the crazy]

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.

More or less this. It's too much work to make a tightly crafted series of extraordinary length. Not to mention, it works out, since I am no longer a child with infinite free time to watch stuff in.

 

[Tanis]

I don't think he's a 'hack', I just think he was forced by his bosses to write longer than he wanted to.

If anything I feel kind of bad for him.

It's not like he's the writer of Bleach.

 

[AustinN]

I haven't watched or read Naruto, but I've picked up a lot of second hand knowledge about it, and I'm not sure that all of it's problems can be blamed on the writer being forced to extend the story.

One of the most constant complaints I hear about Naruto is that it has a lot of themes, and ends up contradicting most of them. Revenge is bad...except when Shikimaru does it. People control their own destinies...but then Naruto ends up being part of a prophecy, and is distantly related to the guy who invented ninjitsu. You should work hard to achieve your goals...except Naruto and Sasuke both have an ability that gives them a leg up, and someone who actually does work hard like Rock Lee gets his ass kicked more often than not. Those all sound like things that are on the writer, not his bosses.

 

[Liam McAdam]

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?

I'm gonna be that guy and say this; Its not that Madara is unbeatable, its just that Kishimoto went out of his way to make sure that nothing short of *killing* Madara would seal the deal. The problem is, Kishi is too desperate to hold onto the message that he was trying to give to his young readers; killing the bad guy doesn't solve anything. The whole cycle of revenge? Basically a way to tell kids 'don't retaliate, don't kill, don't punish the guy who was mean to you'.

I would commend Kishimoto for sticking to his guns on that message, but he failed to uphold the previous messages. Naruto's screw destiny trope to Neji? Shippuden: Naruto is the Child of Prophecy. Hard work is the only way: Sasuke gets handed everything, Naruto succeeds because of Kurama, and Rock Lee- the epitome of hard work- fails to impact anything.

Kishi is just desperate at this point to not let his final shonen-style message be ripped to shreds by hypocrisy. Odds are he's gonna find a way to make Madara finally realize just how wrong he was and have a mental/emotional breakdown [courtesy of Sasuke, Izuna's look-a-like in the situation]