Insipired by David Welsh’s latest Flipped column, in which he revisits several ongoing series, John Jakala revisits some manga series he stopped reading and wonders, what went wrong?
Battle Royale - The first manga I dropped before finishing, I believe. At first I was enjoying the tale of teenagers trapped on an island and forced to kill each other (in the same way you might enjoy a mindless exploitation flick — what new gruesome method of death will they dream up next?), but after reading the highly superior original novel, the over-the-top violence and gratuitous sex seemed even more unnecessary and exaggerated than before. (Keith Giffen’s reworked script, which added a nonsensical reality TV angle to the story and tried too hard to be shocking, certainly didn’t help.)
Made it to: Volume 5, but only because I was still preordering my comics online back then; I’d wanted to drop it after volume 3.
While I have tons of unfinished manga on my shelves, that’s more due to lack of finances on my part than a disinterest in a particular series.
What about you though? When did your favorite series jump the shark?
Update: Johanna offers her thoughts on the matter.
June 28th, 2007 at 8:44 am
Death Note, around # 7. Folks reading the seires can pretty much guess the exact SCENE where it goes from being really fun and engaging to “Wha? Did they just..??” and from then on it’s been like experiencing a far inferior sequel (although, in all fairness, the art continues to be supremely good).
Of course, I haven’t completed 11 yet and still have 12 waiting for me, so maybe things get redeemed.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:16 am
No, they don’t.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:50 am
What, no link?
It is interesting to hear when different people grew dissatisfied with Death Note. As I said on my blog, I didn’t mind the changes Sean B is referring to (I actually found them interesting and daring) but the last few volumes wore me down with their endless exposition. It would have been nice if writer Tsugumi Ohba had trusted readers to fill in the blanks / connect the dots on their own instead of spelling it all out for us. I don’t remember the earlier volumes being quite as bad in that regard. In fact, trying to put the pieces together on your own was part of the fun initially.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Gah! John, I’m sorry, I completely forgot to put the link in. I’ll fix that now.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:23 am
“It would have been nice if writer Tsugumi Ohba had trusted readers to fill in the blanks / connect the dots on their own instead of spelling it all out for us.”
LOL. Well, I’m not sure if this is the same thing, but it seems the last few volumes I’ve read have had page after page of dialogue like this:
“Please don’t do that, because it will only make things more difficult.”
“More difficult?”
“Yes. It will only make things more difficult.”
“So you don’t want me to do that because it will make things more difficult for you?”
“Yes, it will only complicate things.”
“So, if I do that, it will make things more complicated for you?”
“Yes. You are just getting in the way.”
“So..you’re saying I’m just getting in the way if I..”
and so on and so on…LOL.
And while I can see where the shift in the story is an unexpected development, and it really couldn’t have continued on for too much longer as it was, I just haven’t felt the same level of intelligence in the story. It really does feel like it’s spinning its wheels.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:54 am
So Bendis was doing the American scripts? (That’s actually a pretty funny idea: Manga as written by American comic creators. We already had Keith Giffen’s Battle Royale, but how about Brad Meltzer’s Fruit Baskets? Frank Miller’s Oh My Goddess? Mark Miller’s Naruto? “If I were rescripting Naruto sales would really go through the roof!”)
And thanks for adding the link, Chris!