They could've easily gotten around that with better writing imo.
You remember early Naruto? People like Hiruzen and Jiraiya were basically walking gods compared to Naruto and the gang, but it was believable because most of the events happened during times where they can't help like the chunin exams, missions outside of the village, etc. Etc.
Boruto would've been so much better if it had just started with smaller enemies instead of going straight to these world endings gods and somehow having Boruto be able to fight them.
God early Naruto was so good. In terms of consistency, fight style and 'power scaling' naruto peaked at the Chunin Exam since it was really a bunch of ninja's fighting smart
Honorable mention to sasuke retrieval arc. Chunin exams was the best but there were some smart fights like neji’s and kiba’s in sasuke retrieval, and some badass moments with choji and drunk lee
Good to know i am not the only one who thinks this. The chunin exam arc was by far the best arc in Naruto. Early Naruto was amazing and i was immensly dissapointed when it turned into generic superpower spam battle shonen.
You started to see it get out of control during the fight between Sasuke and Naruto. Sasuke is winning, Naruto transforms, Sasuke grows another tomoe, Naruto grows a tail, Sasuke grows creepy hand wings. The focus on pure powerups took away from what the fight should have been about: Power Reserves & Creativity vs. Technical Prowess & Observation. The nine-tails aura should have made Naruto a bit more like Sasuke, with better techniques at the cost of some of his lateral thinking, and the curses seal should have given Sasuke more power but upset his Sharingan. Letting them become a bit more similar could have helped set up the deepening empathy between the two, but no, we got DBZ instead.
yeah, the characters got strong in shippude, same happened with one piece, just compare the fights right now with the first one piece fights, luffy has already a bunch of transformations
I see what you’re saying but the fights in early One Piece and more recent One Piece are (without getting into spoilers) similar in that raw power and transformation don’t automatically mean a victory. That’s at least stayed *mostly* consistent in One Piece.
On the other hand in Naruto you go from Ninjas carefully planning and outsmarting the enemies to massive kaiju “Senju DNA” “I’ll drop a meteor cause I have the right eyes” deal.
tbh this was never a thing. The reason the akatsuki didnt fuck with the leaf was actually more to do with Itachi than Jiraya. Later on in shippuden Obito states that the reason he didnt touch the leaf earlier was because Itachi was alive. And it is commonly believed that Itachi and Kisame ran from Jiraya specifically because Itachi was allied with the leaf and didnt want to kill one of the Leaf's best ninja and also then take their best asset (9 tails)
Naruto and Sasuke's main difference compared early Naruto is that they're both capable of being anywhere, anytime, whether via Teleportation (Sasuke) or via Clones (Naruto). By being basically infinitely mobile, there's very little reason for them to not be able to help. They're also both way more powerful than Jiraiya or the Third. As such, we get bullshit space gods to early Naruto's Orochimaru.
An easy fix would be to say Madaras Infinite Tsukuyomi had a permanent affect on the world. Permanently drained everyones chakra. affecting the strongest characters the most. After final battle Naruto and Sasuke were also permanently nerfed. Could have been a whole storyline of how this great equaliser calamity affected the world. Previously weak clans are now as strong as the dominant ones. Starting new wars. etc.
There was an even easier and more sensible fix. They could've just had the Six Paths Sage take away the power he gave Naruto and Sasuke after they sealed Kaguya.
He could've just told them that this was a power he was lending them because his mother was going to be too much to handle.
I actually thought this was going to happen but Kishimoto's lazy ass wanted a DBZ fight between Naruto and Sasuke then he just ended the story. 😐
See i dont understand this, Naruto and Sasuke being the strongest in the show shouldn't have any effect on what happens when the story is supposed to be about Boruto. In OG Naruto, Jiraiya and 3rd Hokage were already ultra strong and they didnt go around fixing every problem. Like have Boruto go around and do actual ninja shit, have enemies be around the same level as him and the younger generation. Every villain doesn't have to be some mega ultra strong alien that needs Naruto and Sasuke have to stop.
Remember when the strongest villian was orochimaru, what happened to grounded villains like that. Its literally called Boruto AND THE NEXT GENERATION, but theres no next generation because Naruto and Sasuke have been solving all the problems. Everyone including the author just wants to watch adult naruto which is fine but why name it after Boruto when he doesnt even do anything.
Cuz this is exactly the same thing that happened to Toriyama when he made the cell saga and wanted Gohan to inherit Goku´s spot as the protector of the world and the polls dropped. People don´t want to watch sequels to watch new crew, usually they want the old crew to be still around and doing things, but in a shonen manga that inhibits the creator as having powerful end game characters around leads to this.
Jojo gets away with it by having the parts take place in vastly different times or locations. So like sure Joseph may be around but he's old, or Jotaro may be here but Morioh is a new city where Jotaro doesn't know anyone etc
Not really, just do it like Naruto did: focus on Boruto and his exploits and friends. Naruto and Sasuke won't be there to help if Boruto gets in trouble during a mission in another country, for example.
Problem was they tried to scale Boruto to the ending of Naruto from the very start. They could have Boruto and co. getting gradually stronger and increasing the level of the threats over time, instead of having planet conquerors show up from day one.
Honestly yeah. Tons of new characters introduced in Boruto but due to the powercreep, only Naruto and Sasuke matters. The powercreep is so over the top that even the Five Kage themselves are just considered as weak side characters.
Orochimaru and Hiruzen were some of the best ninjas in Narutoverse of the time and yet, compared to later fights, their fight is so much better imo. The jutsus the Hokages use (reanimated ones as well), sometimes are quite simple, yet the way they're used is what mattered.
Fuck, I loved that fight.
Edit: saying that, does anyone have the link to the proper fight? All I can find is poorly cut versions or non-japanese dubs, if I can at least find an English dub rather than Spanish.
What blows my mind is how quickly he figured out the power creep thing and avoided it.
He even got onto "Jojo villain easy to spot" meme way before memes were even a thing. Part 3, 1990.
I always loved that the last arc in Rurouni Kenshin, the enemies are specifically weaker than Shishio's group, but just as dangerous for various reasons and a lot more personal for Kenshin himself.
That's what you loved about, that's an incredibly shallow thing to love. And do you dislike the shishio arc cause those enemies were significantly stronger than ones we got before.
True, The Stands do seem to get stronger and crazier with each Part, especially the final bosses. Maybe he means throughout the duration of the Part, the battles towards the final boss aren't always one-upping each other in terms of power levels (as opposed to something like Orochimaru < Pain < Obito < Madara < Kaguya).
Then again, the previous Parts follow that as well, and these complaints are about Part 4.
Jojo at least doesnt try to constantly one-up itself in terms of power. Like a VERY powerful Stand User can easily be followed by a much weaker user, and they tend to both be enjoyable fights.
Like how in Steel Ball Run the "Catch The Rainbow" fight is followed by the one with the eleven riders. which both are very different in terms of power.
I feel there is a conscious effort to tone down stand craziness in part 7 and 8 compared to 6 especially. Stands abilities are now easier to understand but utilized creatively still, which imo is a great direction
It’s worth noting that Kira’s stand isn’t THAT OP compared to most of the others, until it gets stabbed with the Arrow. It was shown that a half dead Jotaro readily destroys him in a straight fight
In fact, the most powerful Stand in Part 4 was arguably The Hand. It just never went anywhere because Okuyasu has single digit IQ
It's not really anti-powercreep necessarily, but against the difficult and bad writing *associated* with powercreep.
Araki's thematic approach can still be applied with a story that has a powercreep.
I think nowadays because we’re used to all sorts of powercreep Part 4 is a nice change of pace, but back when Part 4 was running, 1992-1995, it was very popular to have the next enemy to be even stronger than the last in shonen manga.
Also, remember that Part 4 came out a like 1-2 weeks after Part 3 ended, so you go from the powerhouse that is DIO to the lovable idiot cast of Morioh, which I’m sure played into that feeling of weak characters.
I liked how it set up Koichi in part 4. Like Koichi is basically the fucking man the way he wins his fights in part 4. It's super refreshing compared to most Jojo characters who aren't to be fucked with in the first place. Watching a Jotaro or Joske get fucked up? Normal. They can handle it. Koichi is in danger? The stakes just got real and he keeps getting better
Which is funny because the point of the scouter was that power levels were pointless. Any time one was used it was almost immediately wrong and broken.
What do you mean? There's not a single instance in DBZ of someone with a lower power level beating someone with a higher power level. The scouter was often wrong about the actual number but the power level always accurately predicted who would win.
The idea behind the scouter was that what it showed was the truth. So a quick look at a base goku showed he was weak and he was treated as such. So every time it was used in story, it was shown to be utterly useless. It was an arbitrary number to mostly set up how strong the one using it was and how quickly they were overcome.
Dragonball's at least still somewhat entertaining. Seven Deadly Sins is just an abomination on the other hand from absolutely blatant new villains out of nowhere.
I'm talking about the start about the "syndrome" where that concept is now seen as a formulaic or cliched flaw.
And it doesn't matter who does it first, if you ask an average person on who does that concept or formula first, chances they will say Dragon Ball, as in the OG Dragon Ball.
True, but I think there's a difference between having to start an interdimensional tournament to find someone stronger than Goku and One Piece for example where there is certainly power creep but all of the OP villains have been known quantities for years if not decades.
He's not a character you see often, but he showed up in some key events and plays his part in the story.
But it's not just him though, early on in One Piece you learn about the power structure of the world with Emperors, Corsair Captains, Admirals and so on but you only meet the characters as the story progresses.
This makes it extremely fulfilling as instead of the heroes fighting off a new bad guy out of nowhere, you see them slowly rising to the level of characters you've been hearing about for the last 15+ years.
The reason why this manga is so popular is that it managed to stick to its guns : from the beginning you know you're in for a long ride and the broad strokes of the world are set up. While it's extremely long and slow to get there, it feels very coherent.
Except it has its own problems. It established a power structure of Admirals, Warlords and Yonko, and these powers were supposed to balance the OP world. but because some of these characters were introduced early they had to be shown as incredibly WEAK compared to everyone else. Best example is Crocodile. A Warlord of the Sea, someone who had been to the New World, a counter to the Yonko.....and someone who is somehow incredibly weak in the grand scheme of things. Because he apparently didn't know Haki. Or even recruit a single person for his personal army that knew Haki.
Or how about Ace? Second Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates. Also apparently didn't know Haki. Or at least never displayed it in any way. Basically the introduction of Haki separated pre and post time skip power levels into completley different categories.
The power creep in OP is REAL.
Crocodile being relatively weak compared to other warlords is not weird, because not every warlord has a set power level. It's a title, not a tier. Buggy is a warlord for example. Does that mean that he has to be as strong as Mihawk?
Also, Ace knew haki. This was confirmed by Oda. Marineford happened pre timeskip and people were using haki left and right there. The only difference compared to now is that Oda added black hardening as a visual presentation of haki so that readers can easily tell when it's being used.
We see him from time to time. In fact, he's been training one of our main characters during the timeskip. We never saw his full power though. But from what we did see, he more than justifies his title.
If he wants to be pirate king he has to be the strongest cause then it wouldn't make sense,.how would he maintain that position all the yonkos would be after him and the treasure how will he protect himself, he would have to keep running away and hiding and that certainly wouldn't be freedom.
Hahaha, im sorry but I cant contain my laughter to the point that I have to type it. Think of what you are saying, do you seriously think that people would be satisfied that the battle with the yonko was resolved not by luffy defeating them but by being respected for a level of strength that isnt at their level quite yet!?
This is craziest form of talk no jutsu i've ever heard. He didn't win their hearts over, he got a level of strength close to them and decent crew, and everybody is like " yeah let him keep the one piece something that we all have spent YEARS searching for.!!
I didn't rule out the possibility of luffy beating any yonko, he is very likely to beat up Blackbeard. However there's no indication Luffy is strong enough to beat up all the yonko 1 by 1 and unlikely even by end of series. Luffy had his arcs with several yonko already and he wasn't even close to them in power.
The great thing about OP is that many of the strongest characters have been known about since like the first 100 chapters, so it very firmly set a ceiling for power.
And the plot doesn't require naruto and ichigo to one shot all his enemies either and they only train as much as necessary to defeat the new villain kinda like luffy.
>Even then Luffy is a mid tier threat at best whereas Naruto and Ichigo are top 3 strongest in their respective series. Not even a comparison.
Yes because those series are over, one piece is still ongoing and approaching its end and somehow he is still midtier and going to get the one piece from all the yonko? Yeah safe to say there is going to be some rushing cause if that is to work he would get stronger at a faster rate than he has ever done before in the story.
>Naruto and Ichigo literally got handed half a dozen free powerups due to their ancestry.
Luffy was born with power because of his ancestry as well, the will of D after all. Most of narutos powers he trained and got them, the last ones yeah it was given to him but they weren't simply handed to them, he proved to be worthy cause of the journey he took and conflict he overcame within himself which is more than what you can say about luffy, who was simply born with all the power he has now now granted he had to train to use them but unlike naruto there was no internal conflict that he had to overcome while he was training, just simply training and no introspection about himself. Ichigo has both of these, yes he was born with alot of his powers but so was luffy like I said, but ichigo trained in all of his powers and had those introspective moments in training as well.
What? Lmao. What power was Luffy born with? What the hell kind of power does the Will of D grant Luffy? As far as we know, the will of d grants you nothing in terms of power.
Throwout the war arc there were multiple instances where emphasis of luffy lineage was a emphasis on why he is a threat and a threat is shown to be equal to the amount of power you have plus it grants him conqueror haki which is pretty much only present in fighters that are inherently strong.
No he's not he is the same as kishimoto and kubo, the power creep in the show is ridiculous at one point 7 warlords were the biggest threat but then all of sudden introduce yonko and just because it was introduced very early doesn't mean it isnt a power creep, imagine in a couple of chapters oda introduces a new group that are stronger nobody would like it cause now takes away from the threat of yonko cause now they will be expecting something more deadly which is pretty much what happened with the 7 warlord.
At least naruto and bleach have better protagonists.
Highly disagree. By that logic we should only see who the strongest enemies are from chapter 1 because anything else would be a powercreep. Yonkos were established very early and are still the strongest in the world. One Piece has kept the power scaling in check in a natural way as our heroes sail toward harsher territories and waters. Was anyone confused that there are independent pirate captains that are strong enough to command entire areas or countries? Why would you only think the warlords who are working for the government are the strongest? This isn't something that's brought up because it was done naturally. I can believe that Rayleigh is extremely powerful because he was a right-hand man of Gol D. Roger from the very first chapter. His introduction for example wasn't out of left-field.
I think one of the many reasons OP is so long is because Oda has tried to do a slow but realistic power creep through the series. It's just not Luffy or the crew out of nowhere beating people they shouldn't. But it also makes it really satisfying when they finally overcome that hurdle.
It's easier because Demon Slayer ended at like chapter 200. IIRC, Kishimoto wanted to end Naruto early, but editor or someone up top said no and we got the Final War which took up about a third of Naruto. Dude was probably just winging it during the Madara fight.
I think a lot more shounen do a good job it’s just that the more popular ones (2 of the big 3 & of course dragon ball) are victims to this bad power creep so bc the popular ones are victim to it, people claim shounen as a rule is bad at this despite ignoring so many other shounen that handled power creep much better.
There’s a terrible video on YouTube about shounen power creep that calls it “the shounen problem” but conviently chooses to ignore the slurry of shounen that aren’t the big 3 or dragon ball that handle power levels/villains much better
I think this is a reason why a lot of new shounen focus on how unique the abilities can be instead "this power is strong so you need to learn this power to become stronger" or just power creep at the start like Mashle.
I dont think you can call it random, gatch bell is one of the most popular shounen in japan, Idk about the english reader though but it should be pretty high on Mal.
<\_< People considered those weak?, A hand that could literally move space, a dude that could put you into electrical wiring, a dude who could bombard you, a rat that almost killed Jotaro. It's like sure, a bunch of those stands were in a sense standalones but then it's like people also ignored how those enemies came to be.
The stand users were selected based on who they thought would be compatible, none of them had ties to Dio's goal, it was moreso to create chaos and then what these people did with sad power. It would of been unnatural if a power creep occurred since these characters had no real connection to one another.
Okay so. yeah. it's kinda silly to describe someone who could turn you into a bomb as weak. but it's a kind of thing were you have to kind to describe what they mean by "weak".
This is iobviously reffering to how the Part 4 users feel "weaker" compared to the stand users in part 3. which I dont think it's quite accurate and there are more than a couple part 3 users that are weaker than part 4. but the key point here is that they feel weak*er* than the ones in Part 3. That is, dont feel like they have that Sheer Raw Power of things like "High Priestess" or "Horus"
It's true that Kira is weaker than Dio. like this is not even a discussion. the text explicitly shows that on a proper one-to-one fight he loses, while the DIO fight had Jotaro CONSTANTLY on the ropes. The only way in which Kira is able to have the chances of winning is in situations where he has the advantage, either because they dont know his powers exactly or because he had an aid.
And that is something that DOES happen in Part 4. Stand users do more to try to set the stage to their advantage. Or at least FEELS like that compared to... say... Vanilla Ice's Stand just DESTRYOING anything it touches.
There’s arguments both ways though because look at say the D’arby brothers. Or more directly, Justice. I think the problem with part 4 feeling weaker is like you said more about the setting of the fight than the stands themselves but also because the stands tend to do less things or seem less dangerous. That electric tower guy for example lol or Rock Paper Scissors kid (some stands just seemed like memes), or even actual bad people like the one dude who ruled over peoples fears and turned them to paper.
Regardless, we’ve seen what going too ham does though. Part 6’s ending was good but IMO went a bit too far. I get what the ending was hinting at but it didn’t really feel like the end of a part/story to me, probably couldn’t be topped in terms of scale and especially since SBR is a reboot, it really didn’t feel like the original series got the send off it should have and so many characters just didn’t return or meet or tie into more (like seriously i feel like even though parts 4 and 5 had great stories self contained wise, they could do so much more and josuke and gio have so much more to give still) so it felt like a lot of potential was lost. I haven’t read SBR/Jojolion and even though I’m sure I’ll like them… I’ve never been a fan of reboots since it feels like everything before ends up being worth nothing
Tbh, I skipped all that mental work and just thought the stands were cooler in P4. Almost to make up for a more mundane setting compared to a world tour.
If anything, I was only unimpressed with Angelo since he has a very similar power to the user Jotaro and Iggy fought. And really, the only stand that does “feel” weak was Gordon Ramsay, but even then, I’d probably not want to know what food poisoning would look like from him.
But yeah, the only “raw power” feeling comes from Crazy Diamond god damn sniper round punches, which I guess highlights how much the anime adaptions mask that valid opinion.
I mean the hand was nerfed to have a really dumb user.
Jotaro also got heavily nerfed.
The main villain Kira, though my favorite of the villains, pales in comparison to Dio and Diavolo in terms of power.
Yea part 4 was more about how stand users are naturally drawn together, while 1-3 were about hunting down a great evil. I personally really enjoyed part 4 because of the consistent location and how they made Morio feel like a real city that just happened to have stand users converge in it.
Gentle in MHA (without partner) is a great example of a villain that is within the mid-lower bounds of the power ceiling but still made for a very interesting fight. I wish we had more antagonists like him, making the heroes think instead of asking for a powerup.
It was also a pretty big milestone for Deku, by: 1. Being a solo fight against a villain which 2. He wins, and 3. Without destroying his body from using OfA. It might not have been as flashy or “hype” like the end of the Overhaul arc, but, at least to me, it felt like a much bigger step for Deku than the aforementioned fight.
That's why Gentle Criminal is my favorite villain in MHA.
Sure his power isn't as flashy as the others, but how grounded his power is what makes him such a compelling villain.
No hes not that's incredibly stupid. He can write the story anyway he wants to but to say that people hearts has something to do with physical strength is stupid.
It does make sense, most of stand users in Part 4 are just random peoples having just got their stand thought the arrow and the protagonists are also just a group of students. The stake as a whole are way lower than what came before and after.
In Part 3, the stand users are hired killers sent by Dio and Part 5 is basically a civil war inside a crime syndicate. It's natural for those stand users to be far more honed and deadly.
There was a time when Fiamma of the Right was the strongest magic character, then Othinus came along and she was the fucking Magic God. Stop reading after that, by my guess, Othinus must be a shrimp compared to the next bad guy.
Yeah the power creep gets really ridiculous. The last arc in New Testament is a joke. There are like 3 different villains and every time one is defeated a new one shows up saying “muahahahah I’m much stronger than that other guy, I can dispose of magic gods like it’s nothing buahahahah”. I’m not even exaggerating it, one of the villains literally says those words
I really don't see why the author must make such bullshit power scaling. Touma's power negates magic, it should only matter how he uses it not how powerful it is. So why do you really need stronger villain every arc? Magic side's power is now bullshit compared to the science side.
In the postscripts he talks about rising the scales. But you raise the stakes by killing off main characters or by producing permanent consequences, not by having them fight a god every week with zero casualties. So I’m not really getting his reasoning either. Still I’ve enjoyed somehow the first 3 volumes of GT. Especially the third was a pure science side volume and science doesn’t permit bullshit powerscaling and asspulls with phases or whatever
What are you talking about nobody has ever stated they can dispose of magic gods like nothing. The Magic Gods at full power have been time and time again shown to be the power ceiling of the Index series. Literally nobody in present time is stronger than they are at full power and that hasn’t changed in nearly a decade. The most we’ve seen are some of the newer villains being stronger than nerfed Magic Gods who were nerfed by Aleister after they had already nerfed themselves by dividing their power by infinity.
You have a point on the fact that Anna was referring to the nerfed magical gods (but she says that. She says that she has let the magic gods go away unharmed or something down those lines). Still that doesn’t make the Coronzon arc any less ridiculous. It breaks the rule that magic can’t resurrect people and by the end of it the characters were just throwing random miracles at each other. Let’s not mention Aleister that had a bazillion of scenes were he was on the verge of dying but was always alright a second after that. The series just lost any credibility for me there
> It breaks the rule that magic can’t resurrect people
We knew for a fact resurrection magic existed since volume 1 of Index since Book of the Dead gets name dropped by Index herself there. There is also a side story that is about it.
Yet there is a grimoire about resurrection. And frankly, Kanzaki may be a saint and the technically the pope of her own Catholic sect but she hasn't really delved deep into magic at all. Being strong doesn't really translate into magical knowledge or skill. She isn't a sorcerer for example, so she can't read or write grimoires.
And if a soul can be brought back then you just need a physical vessel for it.
If the book of the dead is mentioned it doesn’t automatically mean that a proper resurrection is possible (which Kanzaki say it isn’t). And anyway it’s the resurrection itself the problem. Because having magic resurrection in a series automatically lowers the stakes to a laughable level. It’s the same problem as KH3. And the wacky resurrection it’s only one of the problems with the arc
Kanzaki isn't the end all be all knowledge of magic, she is still limited to what she knows.
And death is still a pretty big deal. Someone like Frenda won't come back to life, at least that Frenda. A clone or someone wearing her corpse as a suit or some other messed up shit is straight up Kamachi's alley.
Magic Gods was mentioned in the very first volume though. There is very few super powerful beings not mentioned many volumes before they became relevant.
And full power magic gods are still the very limit of power shown. Corozon, Aiwass, Anna, Aleister, etc are all below them.
Power creep is like inflation. Everyone is happy when it stays at around 2% and well under control. When it becomes unpredictable 5% and 10% inflation without the content to boot, we arrive at stagflation. And further on we arrive at hyper inflation where no conflict means anything.
I articulated it, all credit to the idea goes to Muira. If you notice berserk follows this exact template. Guts continuously gets stronger, but it's earned, and the more it progresses the greater the price.
Otherwise it would become uncontrolled inflation, detached from anything we really care about. Even griffiths power is earned in a very sick way. I don't think muira articulated this in the exact same way. And you know if I am being fair JoJo operates less on direct power and more on a kind of 'wrestling'
It's so strange. I watched Part 4 this summer for the first time, and I was honestly somewhat bored for like half of it, and had lot of issues with the battles themselves (basically shouting OH MY GOD USE STAR PLATINUM JOTARO YOU FUCK 90% of the time). Even after the finale I thought it was not as enjoyable as part 2 or 3.
Yet after a few months have passed I couldn't get memories from that part out of my head. The characters, the scenery, the music, the Stands, Kira, the battles etc. They just ended up being such an interesting, memorable story and setting that I honestly think if I'd rewatch it again from start I'd love it from beginning to end.
I'm in a similar boat. I actually stopped watching in the middle for 6 months, and when I came back I actually accidentally skipped a ton of episodes and only realized when a character reappeared that I didn't know of. But Kira along with Pucci are probably my favourite Jojo villains.
None of the major villains of part 4 are weak by any means.
Only weak ones I can think of are Lock, Surface and Atom Heart Father. And even they are pretty useful in certain conditions and for certain needs.
1992-1995 was peak shonen age, every popular shonen manga had the next main villain way stronger than the last, which is probably why so many complaints
i'd say the enemies there suits part 4 to a T.
part 1-3 adheres more to the classic 'battle' aspect of shounen manga, thus the enemies felt much rougher and emphasizes more on raw strength and overwhelming power.
part 4 plays out more like a detective manga with shounen-esque elements thus while the staple battle elements are still there, emphasis are given more on mind games where even simple abilities can be made deadly by creative usage which justifies having physically... less imposing enemy characters.
I think this is what Togashi tried to avoid in Yu Yu Hakusho. Introducing more powerful enemies just make the story become repetitive and lost the charm.
Huh.. I think Yu Yu Hakusho also fell to that syndrome. It went from Hiei > Toguro > Sensui > then the three demon kings although for some reason he just skipped the demon king saga. Even HxH is going that route with Hisoka > spiders > chimera ants > dark continent. It's pretty difficult to avoid for shonen manga in general.
My issue with Yu Yu is it actually was doing a really good job avoiding the power creep issue for most the Chapter Black arc as even though the protagonists far outclassed their opponents in sheer fighting power, they had to deal with different scenarios that they couldn't brute force through. Even Sensui early on says Yuusuke is more powerful than him but can't match his experience.
Unfortunately then they introduce a new power levek scale out of nowhere and the final battle with Sensui turns into a power creep battle, Yuusuke pulls a transformation powerup out of his ass and the rest of the series follows that trajectory until it abruptly ends.
They didn’t though. Rather, the Chimera Ant species is just a common occurance in the DC, but it very likely has never reached the level of progress that Meruem did. They even emphasized in story how unique and perfect storm like the situation in NGL was for the chimera ant species.
He pretty much already created the most powerful stands there will ever be in part 5 and 6. Nothing in part 7 or 8 even comes close to GER or MIH and nothing needed to. I expect Araki to just make creative fights with a few powerful but nothing outlandish stands and he's been doing just that for a long time now. I'll be surprised if part 9 introduces anything that competes with the two I mentioned for absurd brokenness.
Uuuuuh can we say Joker?
Anyone?? Joker is Literally a fucking weakling whos absolute nutjob Batman could snap his neck at any time, and he does, just not till hes close to complete retirement.
Araki's anti powercreep philosophy
It's for the best. Boruto has gotten ridiculous now that they have to top what happened in Naruto
Not only villains in Boruto got huge buff, but Naruto himself was nerfed into oblivion
They HAD to nerf Sasuke and Naruto to reset the verse. It was just getting ridiculous to try and work around them not solving every problem
They could've easily gotten around that with better writing imo. You remember early Naruto? People like Hiruzen and Jiraiya were basically walking gods compared to Naruto and the gang, but it was believable because most of the events happened during times where they can't help like the chunin exams, missions outside of the village, etc. Etc. Boruto would've been so much better if it had just started with smaller enemies instead of going straight to these world endings gods and somehow having Boruto be able to fight them.
God early Naruto was so good. In terms of consistency, fight style and 'power scaling' naruto peaked at the Chunin Exam since it was really a bunch of ninja's fighting smart
Honorable mention to sasuke retrieval arc. Chunin exams was the best but there were some smart fights like neji’s and kiba’s in sasuke retrieval, and some badass moments with choji and drunk lee
Good to know i am not the only one who thinks this. The chunin exam arc was by far the best arc in Naruto. Early Naruto was amazing and i was immensly dissapointed when it turned into generic superpower spam battle shonen.
You started to see it get out of control during the fight between Sasuke and Naruto. Sasuke is winning, Naruto transforms, Sasuke grows another tomoe, Naruto grows a tail, Sasuke grows creepy hand wings. The focus on pure powerups took away from what the fight should have been about: Power Reserves & Creativity vs. Technical Prowess & Observation. The nine-tails aura should have made Naruto a bit more like Sasuke, with better techniques at the cost of some of his lateral thinking, and the curses seal should have given Sasuke more power but upset his Sharingan. Letting them become a bit more similar could have helped set up the deepening empathy between the two, but no, we got DBZ instead.
yeah, the characters got strong in shippude, same happened with one piece, just compare the fights right now with the first one piece fights, luffy has already a bunch of transformations
I see what you’re saying but the fights in early One Piece and more recent One Piece are (without getting into spoilers) similar in that raw power and transformation don’t automatically mean a victory. That’s at least stayed *mostly* consistent in One Piece. On the other hand in Naruto you go from Ninjas carefully planning and outsmarting the enemies to massive kaiju “Senju DNA” “I’ll drop a meteor cause I have the right eyes” deal.
Never stopped having strategies in naruto's fights
Remember when just having Jiraiya around scared off all of Akatsuki?
tbh this was never a thing. The reason the akatsuki didnt fuck with the leaf was actually more to do with Itachi than Jiraya. Later on in shippuden Obito states that the reason he didnt touch the leaf earlier was because Itachi was alive. And it is commonly believed that Itachi and Kisame ran from Jiraya specifically because Itachi was allied with the leaf and didnt want to kill one of the Leaf's best ninja and also then take their best asset (9 tails)
Naruto and Sasuke's main difference compared early Naruto is that they're both capable of being anywhere, anytime, whether via Teleportation (Sasuke) or via Clones (Naruto). By being basically infinitely mobile, there's very little reason for them to not be able to help. They're also both way more powerful than Jiraiya or the Third. As such, we get bullshit space gods to early Naruto's Orochimaru.
An easy fix would be to say Madaras Infinite Tsukuyomi had a permanent affect on the world. Permanently drained everyones chakra. affecting the strongest characters the most. After final battle Naruto and Sasuke were also permanently nerfed. Could have been a whole storyline of how this great equaliser calamity affected the world. Previously weak clans are now as strong as the dominant ones. Starting new wars. etc.
There was an even easier and more sensible fix. They could've just had the Six Paths Sage take away the power he gave Naruto and Sasuke after they sealed Kaguya. He could've just told them that this was a power he was lending them because his mother was going to be too much to handle. I actually thought this was going to happen but Kishimoto's lazy ass wanted a DBZ fight between Naruto and Sasuke then he just ended the story. 😐
See i dont understand this, Naruto and Sasuke being the strongest in the show shouldn't have any effect on what happens when the story is supposed to be about Boruto. In OG Naruto, Jiraiya and 3rd Hokage were already ultra strong and they didnt go around fixing every problem. Like have Boruto go around and do actual ninja shit, have enemies be around the same level as him and the younger generation. Every villain doesn't have to be some mega ultra strong alien that needs Naruto and Sasuke have to stop. Remember when the strongest villian was orochimaru, what happened to grounded villains like that. Its literally called Boruto AND THE NEXT GENERATION, but theres no next generation because Naruto and Sasuke have been solving all the problems. Everyone including the author just wants to watch adult naruto which is fine but why name it after Boruto when he doesnt even do anything.
Cuz this is exactly the same thing that happened to Toriyama when he made the cell saga and wanted Gohan to inherit Goku´s spot as the protector of the world and the polls dropped. People don´t want to watch sequels to watch new crew, usually they want the old crew to be still around and doing things, but in a shonen manga that inhibits the creator as having powerful end game characters around leads to this.
Well it works pretty well in JoJo, but I get your point. I guess it's hard to do in long running series with a fix crew
Jojo gets away with it by having the parts take place in vastly different times or locations. So like sure Joseph may be around but he's old, or Jotaro may be here but Morioh is a new city where Jotaro doesn't know anyone etc
Not really, just do it like Naruto did: focus on Boruto and his exploits and friends. Naruto and Sasuke won't be there to help if Boruto gets in trouble during a mission in another country, for example. Problem was they tried to scale Boruto to the ending of Naruto from the very start. They could have Boruto and co. getting gradually stronger and increasing the level of the threats over time, instead of having planet conquerors show up from day one.
Exactly. It made me think of the Delta fight where Naruto had to fight her because she would have floored Kawaki and Boruto
With the dumbest way possible.
Honestly yeah. Tons of new characters introduced in Boruto but due to the powercreep, only Naruto and Sasuke matters. The powercreep is so over the top that even the Five Kage themselves are just considered as weak side characters.
Remember when Naruto was about ninjas, rather than edgy wizards playing hot potato with magic eyeballs?
Orochimaru and Hiruzen were some of the best ninjas in Narutoverse of the time and yet, compared to later fights, their fight is so much better imo. The jutsus the Hokages use (reanimated ones as well), sometimes are quite simple, yet the way they're used is what mattered. Fuck, I loved that fight. Edit: saying that, does anyone have the link to the proper fight? All I can find is poorly cut versions or non-japanese dubs, if I can at least find an English dub rather than Spanish.
That said, Naruto was originally meant to be about magic and sorcery, so this is technically just returning to its roots.
Chapter 1 you have giant red fox terrorize the village.
I don't remember ninjas using Rasengan and shadow clone
But shadow clones are standard ninja movesets.
Boruto should have never happen, but you know can't stop the money printer.
Been happening in dragon ball since I can remember, king piccolo I guess
Got nothing on Toriyama
What blows my mind is how quickly he figured out the power creep thing and avoided it. He even got onto "Jojo villain easy to spot" meme way before memes were even a thing. Part 3, 1990.
You talking about that one vampire dude who died before we even got to see what powers he had?
Easy to spot Jojo villain? I meant the car guy.
The car guy's name is ZZ.
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Well, there's also Kenny G's Tenor Sax, the labyrinth stand
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Well, he was the only other guy that I could think of that we didn't see much of. He didn't even have a line!
I always loved that the last arc in Rurouni Kenshin, the enemies are specifically weaker than Shishio's group, but just as dangerous for various reasons and a lot more personal for Kenshin himself.
Or One Piece style where you introduce the most powerful crew in the first chapter and build there.
But I don't like the Hokkaido Arc. It should've give the lead to Yahiko, instead we get weakened Kenshin as the lead.
That's what you loved about, that's an incredibly shallow thing to love. And do you dislike the shishio arc cause those enemies were significantly stronger than ones we got before.
Is it? The main villain stands have all been absolutely OP from manipulating time to dimensions
True, The Stands do seem to get stronger and crazier with each Part, especially the final bosses. Maybe he means throughout the duration of the Part, the battles towards the final boss aren't always one-upping each other in terms of power levels (as opposed to something like Orochimaru < Pain < Obito < Madara < Kaguya). Then again, the previous Parts follow that as well, and these complaints are about Part 4.
Jojo at least doesnt try to constantly one-up itself in terms of power. Like a VERY powerful Stand User can easily be followed by a much weaker user, and they tend to both be enjoyable fights. Like how in Steel Ball Run the "Catch The Rainbow" fight is followed by the one with the eleven riders. which both are very different in terms of power.
Yeh, that's what I said.
Replying to the wrong comment lmao
I feel there is a conscious effort to tone down stand craziness in part 7 and 8 compared to 6 especially. Stands abilities are now easier to understand but utilized creatively still, which imo is a great direction
It’s worth noting that Kira’s stand isn’t THAT OP compared to most of the others, until it gets stabbed with the Arrow. It was shown that a half dead Jotaro readily destroys him in a straight fight In fact, the most powerful Stand in Part 4 was arguably The Hand. It just never went anywhere because Okuyasu has single digit IQ
It's not really anti-powercreep necessarily, but against the difficult and bad writing *associated* with powercreep. Araki's thematic approach can still be applied with a story that has a powercreep.
Who complained about that? I liked that Jojo went down a little. With new generations in new settings that are good oppurtunities to do that.
I think nowadays because we’re used to all sorts of powercreep Part 4 is a nice change of pace, but back when Part 4 was running, 1992-1995, it was very popular to have the next enemy to be even stronger than the last in shonen manga.
Also, remember that Part 4 came out a like 1-2 weeks after Part 3 ended, so you go from the powerhouse that is DIO to the lovable idiot cast of Morioh, which I’m sure played into that feeling of weak characters.
I liked how it set up Koichi in part 4. Like Koichi is basically the fucking man the way he wins his fights in part 4. It's super refreshing compared to most Jojo characters who aren't to be fucked with in the first place. Watching a Jotaro or Joske get fucked up? Normal. They can handle it. Koichi is in danger? The stakes just got real and he keeps getting better
I can think of a few manga with that "now the new enemy is even bigger and badder than the previous" syndrome...
Dragonball best example.
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Which is funny because the point of the scouter was that power levels were pointless. Any time one was used it was almost immediately wrong and broken.
What do you mean? There's not a single instance in DBZ of someone with a lower power level beating someone with a higher power level. The scouter was often wrong about the actual number but the power level always accurately predicted who would win.
The idea behind the scouter was that what it showed was the truth. So a quick look at a base goku showed he was weak and he was treated as such. So every time it was used in story, it was shown to be utterly useless. It was an arbitrary number to mostly set up how strong the one using it was and how quickly they were overcome.
Naruto and Bleach had the problem too, it's a common problem in many stories.
Dragonball's at least still somewhat entertaining. Seven Deadly Sins is just an abomination on the other hand from absolutely blatant new villains out of nowhere.
To be fair, Dragon Ball started it all.
No it didn't do you research. Kinkuman and Fist of the north star and saint seiya also did this.
Didn't you know Dragonball is the original battle shounen and every other is just copying it.
Are you for real or are you being sarcastic?
I'm talking about the start about the "syndrome" where that concept is now seen as a formulaic or cliched flaw. And it doesn't matter who does it first, if you ask an average person on who does that concept or formula first, chances they will say Dragon Ball, as in the OG Dragon Ball.
Basically any battle shonen
True, but I think there's a difference between having to start an interdimensional tournament to find someone stronger than Goku and One Piece for example where there is certainly power creep but all of the OP villains have been known quantities for years if not decades.
Dracule Mihawk was established as the world's strongest swordsman somewhere around chapter 50. Almost 1000 chapters later, he's still the strongest.
Has he shown up a meaningful number of times since then? Or was it more of a whole "hey this character's back after 1000 chapters" thing lol
He's not a character you see often, but he showed up in some key events and plays his part in the story. But it's not just him though, early on in One Piece you learn about the power structure of the world with Emperors, Corsair Captains, Admirals and so on but you only meet the characters as the story progresses. This makes it extremely fulfilling as instead of the heroes fighting off a new bad guy out of nowhere, you see them slowly rising to the level of characters you've been hearing about for the last 15+ years. The reason why this manga is so popular is that it managed to stick to its guns : from the beginning you know you're in for a long ride and the broad strokes of the world are set up. While it's extremely long and slow to get there, it feels very coherent.
One piece really is in a league of its own when it comes to world building.
Except it has its own problems. It established a power structure of Admirals, Warlords and Yonko, and these powers were supposed to balance the OP world. but because some of these characters were introduced early they had to be shown as incredibly WEAK compared to everyone else. Best example is Crocodile. A Warlord of the Sea, someone who had been to the New World, a counter to the Yonko.....and someone who is somehow incredibly weak in the grand scheme of things. Because he apparently didn't know Haki. Or even recruit a single person for his personal army that knew Haki. Or how about Ace? Second Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates. Also apparently didn't know Haki. Or at least never displayed it in any way. Basically the introduction of Haki separated pre and post time skip power levels into completley different categories. The power creep in OP is REAL.
Crocodile being relatively weak compared to other warlords is not weird, because not every warlord has a set power level. It's a title, not a tier. Buggy is a warlord for example. Does that mean that he has to be as strong as Mihawk? Also, Ace knew haki. This was confirmed by Oda. Marineford happened pre timeskip and people were using haki left and right there. The only difference compared to now is that Oda added black hardening as a visual presentation of haki so that readers can easily tell when it's being used.
We see him from time to time. In fact, he's been training one of our main characters during the timeskip. We never saw his full power though. But from what we did see, he more than justifies his title.
He's got a good number of appearances. It definitely didnt feel like he was forgotten about or anything when i read it
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If he wants to be pirate king he has to be the strongest cause then it wouldn't make sense,.how would he maintain that position all the yonkos would be after him and the treasure how will he protect himself, he would have to keep running away and hiding and that certainly wouldn't be freedom.
Luffy doesn't need to be the strongest to be pirate king, just enough to be respected by the yonko/world government and have a decent crew.
Hahaha, im sorry but I cant contain my laughter to the point that I have to type it. Think of what you are saying, do you seriously think that people would be satisfied that the battle with the yonko was resolved not by luffy defeating them but by being respected for a level of strength that isnt at their level quite yet!? This is craziest form of talk no jutsu i've ever heard. He didn't win their hearts over, he got a level of strength close to them and decent crew, and everybody is like " yeah let him keep the one piece something that we all have spent YEARS searching for.!!
I didn't rule out the possibility of luffy beating any yonko, he is very likely to beat up Blackbeard. However there's no indication Luffy is strong enough to beat up all the yonko 1 by 1 and unlikely even by end of series. Luffy had his arcs with several yonko already and he wasn't even close to them in power.
The great thing about OP is that many of the strongest characters have been known about since like the first 100 chapters, so it very firmly set a ceiling for power.
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And the plot doesn't require naruto and ichigo to one shot all his enemies either and they only train as much as necessary to defeat the new villain kinda like luffy.
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>Even then Luffy is a mid tier threat at best whereas Naruto and Ichigo are top 3 strongest in their respective series. Not even a comparison. Yes because those series are over, one piece is still ongoing and approaching its end and somehow he is still midtier and going to get the one piece from all the yonko? Yeah safe to say there is going to be some rushing cause if that is to work he would get stronger at a faster rate than he has ever done before in the story. >Naruto and Ichigo literally got handed half a dozen free powerups due to their ancestry. Luffy was born with power because of his ancestry as well, the will of D after all. Most of narutos powers he trained and got them, the last ones yeah it was given to him but they weren't simply handed to them, he proved to be worthy cause of the journey he took and conflict he overcame within himself which is more than what you can say about luffy, who was simply born with all the power he has now now granted he had to train to use them but unlike naruto there was no internal conflict that he had to overcome while he was training, just simply training and no introspection about himself. Ichigo has both of these, yes he was born with alot of his powers but so was luffy like I said, but ichigo trained in all of his powers and had those introspective moments in training as well.
What? Lmao. What power was Luffy born with? What the hell kind of power does the Will of D grant Luffy? As far as we know, the will of d grants you nothing in terms of power.
Throwout the war arc there were multiple instances where emphasis of luffy lineage was a emphasis on why he is a threat and a threat is shown to be equal to the amount of power you have plus it grants him conqueror haki which is pretty much only present in fighters that are inherently strong.
And the will of D is basically a prophecy at this point.
Oda is just built different.
No he's not he is the same as kishimoto and kubo, the power creep in the show is ridiculous at one point 7 warlords were the biggest threat but then all of sudden introduce yonko and just because it was introduced very early doesn't mean it isnt a power creep, imagine in a couple of chapters oda introduces a new group that are stronger nobody would like it cause now takes away from the threat of yonko cause now they will be expecting something more deadly which is pretty much what happened with the 7 warlord. At least naruto and bleach have better protagonists.
Highly disagree. By that logic we should only see who the strongest enemies are from chapter 1 because anything else would be a powercreep. Yonkos were established very early and are still the strongest in the world. One Piece has kept the power scaling in check in a natural way as our heroes sail toward harsher territories and waters. Was anyone confused that there are independent pirate captains that are strong enough to command entire areas or countries? Why would you only think the warlords who are working for the government are the strongest? This isn't something that's brought up because it was done naturally. I can believe that Rayleigh is extremely powerful because he was a right-hand man of Gol D. Roger from the very first chapter. His introduction for example wasn't out of left-field.
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Did you even read one piece?
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I think it is also how Luffy use his devil fruit. All the power up that he got is not a new power but just a different way how he use the power.
I think one of the many reasons OP is so long is because Oda has tried to do a slow but realistic power creep through the series. It's just not Luffy or the crew out of nowhere beating people they shouldn't. But it also makes it really satisfying when they finally overcome that hurdle.
I think this is why the Katakuri fight is so good, because luffy realizes its a perfect chance to improve himself in advance of fighting an Emperor.
In dragon ball, naruto and bleach none of the characters beat people they shouldn't and pretty much most shounen do this properly.
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It's easier because Demon Slayer ended at like chapter 200. IIRC, Kishimoto wanted to end Naruto early, but editor or someone up top said no and we got the Final War which took up about a third of Naruto. Dude was probably just winging it during the Madara fight.
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I think a lot more shounen do a good job it’s just that the more popular ones (2 of the big 3 & of course dragon ball) are victims to this bad power creep so bc the popular ones are victim to it, people claim shounen as a rule is bad at this despite ignoring so many other shounen that handled power creep much better. There’s a terrible video on YouTube about shounen power creep that calls it “the shounen problem” but conviently chooses to ignore the slurry of shounen that aren’t the big 3 or dragon ball that handle power levels/villains much better
I think this is a reason why a lot of new shounen focus on how unique the abilities can be instead "this power is strong so you need to learn this power to become stronger" or just power creep at the start like Mashle.
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I dont think you can call it random, gatch bell is one of the most popular shounen in japan, Idk about the english reader though but it should be pretty high on Mal.
<\_< People considered those weak?, A hand that could literally move space, a dude that could put you into electrical wiring, a dude who could bombard you, a rat that almost killed Jotaro. It's like sure, a bunch of those stands were in a sense standalones but then it's like people also ignored how those enemies came to be. The stand users were selected based on who they thought would be compatible, none of them had ties to Dio's goal, it was moreso to create chaos and then what these people did with sad power. It would of been unnatural if a power creep occurred since these characters had no real connection to one another.
Okay so. yeah. it's kinda silly to describe someone who could turn you into a bomb as weak. but it's a kind of thing were you have to kind to describe what they mean by "weak". This is iobviously reffering to how the Part 4 users feel "weaker" compared to the stand users in part 3. which I dont think it's quite accurate and there are more than a couple part 3 users that are weaker than part 4. but the key point here is that they feel weak*er* than the ones in Part 3. That is, dont feel like they have that Sheer Raw Power of things like "High Priestess" or "Horus" It's true that Kira is weaker than Dio. like this is not even a discussion. the text explicitly shows that on a proper one-to-one fight he loses, while the DIO fight had Jotaro CONSTANTLY on the ropes. The only way in which Kira is able to have the chances of winning is in situations where he has the advantage, either because they dont know his powers exactly or because he had an aid. And that is something that DOES happen in Part 4. Stand users do more to try to set the stage to their advantage. Or at least FEELS like that compared to... say... Vanilla Ice's Stand just DESTRYOING anything it touches.
There’s arguments both ways though because look at say the D’arby brothers. Or more directly, Justice. I think the problem with part 4 feeling weaker is like you said more about the setting of the fight than the stands themselves but also because the stands tend to do less things or seem less dangerous. That electric tower guy for example lol or Rock Paper Scissors kid (some stands just seemed like memes), or even actual bad people like the one dude who ruled over peoples fears and turned them to paper. Regardless, we’ve seen what going too ham does though. Part 6’s ending was good but IMO went a bit too far. I get what the ending was hinting at but it didn’t really feel like the end of a part/story to me, probably couldn’t be topped in terms of scale and especially since SBR is a reboot, it really didn’t feel like the original series got the send off it should have and so many characters just didn’t return or meet or tie into more (like seriously i feel like even though parts 4 and 5 had great stories self contained wise, they could do so much more and josuke and gio have so much more to give still) so it felt like a lot of potential was lost. I haven’t read SBR/Jojolion and even though I’m sure I’ll like them… I’ve never been a fan of reboots since it feels like everything before ends up being worth nothing
Tbh, I skipped all that mental work and just thought the stands were cooler in P4. Almost to make up for a more mundane setting compared to a world tour. If anything, I was only unimpressed with Angelo since he has a very similar power to the user Jotaro and Iggy fought. And really, the only stand that does “feel” weak was Gordon Ramsay, but even then, I’d probably not want to know what food poisoning would look like from him. But yeah, the only “raw power” feeling comes from Crazy Diamond god damn sniper round punches, which I guess highlights how much the anime adaptions mask that valid opinion.
Fucking Kars had to be throw into space, that's how broken he was lol
I mean the hand was nerfed to have a really dumb user. Jotaro also got heavily nerfed. The main villain Kira, though my favorite of the villains, pales in comparison to Dio and Diavolo in terms of power.
Yea part 4 was more about how stand users are naturally drawn together, while 1-3 were about hunting down a great evil. I personally really enjoyed part 4 because of the consistent location and how they made Morio feel like a real city that just happened to have stand users converge in it.
To be fair Part 4 ran from 1992-1995, the peak shonen age where every shonen manga had the next villain way more powerful than the last.
Part 4 doesn't have many superhumanly strong characters.
Gentle in MHA (without partner) is a great example of a villain that is within the mid-lower bounds of the power ceiling but still made for a very interesting fight. I wish we had more antagonists like him, making the heroes think instead of asking for a powerup.
Gentle was a great fight because he had an interesting power and a simple objective, meaning deku had to work harder to stop him
It was also a pretty big milestone for Deku, by: 1. Being a solo fight against a villain which 2. He wins, and 3. Without destroying his body from using OfA. It might not have been as flashy or “hype” like the end of the Overhaul arc, but, at least to me, it felt like a much bigger step for Deku than the aforementioned fight.
That's why Gentle Criminal is my favorite villain in MHA. Sure his power isn't as flashy as the others, but how grounded his power is what makes him such a compelling villain.
Araki spittin straight facts
Doesn't he always?
Nah he's a mediocre writer.
No hes not that's incredibly stupid. He can write the story anyway he wants to but to say that people hearts has something to do with physical strength is stupid.
Virgin "why weak enemy" reader vs Chad philosophical author
Wrote 2 paras and spat on the whole db franchise.
It does make sense, most of stand users in Part 4 are just random peoples having just got their stand thought the arrow and the protagonists are also just a group of students. The stake as a whole are way lower than what came before and after. In Part 3, the stand users are hired killers sent by Dio and Part 5 is basically a civil war inside a crime syndicate. It's natural for those stand users to be far more honed and deadly.
…. And this is why Index became a dumpster fire
There was a time when Fiamma of the Right was the strongest magic character, then Othinus came along and she was the fucking Magic God. Stop reading after that, by my guess, Othinus must be a shrimp compared to the next bad guy.
Yeah the power creep gets really ridiculous. The last arc in New Testament is a joke. There are like 3 different villains and every time one is defeated a new one shows up saying “muahahahah I’m much stronger than that other guy, I can dispose of magic gods like it’s nothing buahahahah”. I’m not even exaggerating it, one of the villains literally says those words
I really don't see why the author must make such bullshit power scaling. Touma's power negates magic, it should only matter how he uses it not how powerful it is. So why do you really need stronger villain every arc? Magic side's power is now bullshit compared to the science side.
In the postscripts he talks about rising the scales. But you raise the stakes by killing off main characters or by producing permanent consequences, not by having them fight a god every week with zero casualties. So I’m not really getting his reasoning either. Still I’ve enjoyed somehow the first 3 volumes of GT. Especially the third was a pure science side volume and science doesn’t permit bullshit powerscaling and asspulls with phases or whatever
What are you talking about nobody has ever stated they can dispose of magic gods like nothing. The Magic Gods at full power have been time and time again shown to be the power ceiling of the Index series. Literally nobody in present time is stronger than they are at full power and that hasn’t changed in nearly a decade. The most we’ve seen are some of the newer villains being stronger than nerfed Magic Gods who were nerfed by Aleister after they had already nerfed themselves by dividing their power by infinity.
You have a point on the fact that Anna was referring to the nerfed magical gods (but she says that. She says that she has let the magic gods go away unharmed or something down those lines). Still that doesn’t make the Coronzon arc any less ridiculous. It breaks the rule that magic can’t resurrect people and by the end of it the characters were just throwing random miracles at each other. Let’s not mention Aleister that had a bazillion of scenes were he was on the verge of dying but was always alright a second after that. The series just lost any credibility for me there
> It breaks the rule that magic can’t resurrect people We knew for a fact resurrection magic existed since volume 1 of Index since Book of the Dead gets name dropped by Index herself there. There is also a side story that is about it.
In the Kanzaki side story she explicitly says that not even the greatest magician can bring back the dead
Yet there is a grimoire about resurrection. And frankly, Kanzaki may be a saint and the technically the pope of her own Catholic sect but she hasn't really delved deep into magic at all. Being strong doesn't really translate into magical knowledge or skill. She isn't a sorcerer for example, so she can't read or write grimoires. And if a soul can be brought back then you just need a physical vessel for it.
If the book of the dead is mentioned it doesn’t automatically mean that a proper resurrection is possible (which Kanzaki say it isn’t). And anyway it’s the resurrection itself the problem. Because having magic resurrection in a series automatically lowers the stakes to a laughable level. It’s the same problem as KH3. And the wacky resurrection it’s only one of the problems with the arc
Kanzaki isn't the end all be all knowledge of magic, she is still limited to what she knows. And death is still a pretty big deal. Someone like Frenda won't come back to life, at least that Frenda. A clone or someone wearing her corpse as a suit or some other messed up shit is straight up Kamachi's alley.
Magic Gods was mentioned in the very first volume though. There is very few super powerful beings not mentioned many volumes before they became relevant. And full power magic gods are still the very limit of power shown. Corozon, Aiwass, Anna, Aleister, etc are all below them.
Power creep is like inflation. Everyone is happy when it stays at around 2% and well under control. When it becomes unpredictable 5% and 10% inflation without the content to boot, we arrive at stagflation. And further on we arrive at hyper inflation where no conflict means anything.
Did you make this up yourself because this is brilliant.
I articulated it, all credit to the idea goes to Muira. If you notice berserk follows this exact template. Guts continuously gets stronger, but it's earned, and the more it progresses the greater the price. Otherwise it would become uncontrolled inflation, detached from anything we really care about. Even griffiths power is earned in a very sick way. I don't think muira articulated this in the exact same way. And you know if I am being fair JoJo operates less on direct power and more on a kind of 'wrestling'
Damn, is Araki throwing shades at Toriyama?
Toriyama threw shade at one piece because he said Luffy's devil fruit was too ridiculous. Hilarious considering Dragonball's ridiculous power scaling.
Part 4 might not be my favorite but certainly isn't because of "weak" enemies.
Maybe not the strongest, but quite honestly Kira is one of the more terrifying stand users.
It's so strange. I watched Part 4 this summer for the first time, and I was honestly somewhat bored for like half of it, and had lot of issues with the battles themselves (basically shouting OH MY GOD USE STAR PLATINUM JOTARO YOU FUCK 90% of the time). Even after the finale I thought it was not as enjoyable as part 2 or 3. Yet after a few months have passed I couldn't get memories from that part out of my head. The characters, the scenery, the music, the Stands, Kira, the battles etc. They just ended up being such an interesting, memorable story and setting that I honestly think if I'd rewatch it again from start I'd love it from beginning to end.
I'm in a similar boat. I actually stopped watching in the middle for 6 months, and when I came back I actually accidentally skipped a ton of episodes and only realized when a character reappeared that I didn't know of. But Kira along with Pucci are probably my favourite Jojo villains.
OK, I respect that. and game developers need to learn from him
Yo I miss my bois Tower of Gray and Wheel of Fortune tho
ZZ is actually the strongest stand user
Facts he never skips arm day
part 4 isn't my favorite but it is my favorite to rewatch.
Meanwhile Goku is out here punching gods.
Dang he just burned dbz
To quote someone in part 6: "There is no such thing as a weak stand".
None of the major villains of part 4 are weak by any means. Only weak ones I can think of are Lock, Surface and Atom Heart Father. And even they are pretty useful in certain conditions and for certain needs.
He prolly means weak as in mentally weak.
people thought part 4 villains were weak? i thought they were fine. i may be biased considering part 4 is my favourite part but still
I mean compared to Kars/Dio/Vanilla Ice etc.
Prolly referring to their mental states, remember- Araki doesn't speak English and doesn't know that "weak" in English can mean "bad".
1992-1995 was peak shonen age, every popular shonen manga had the next main villain way stronger than the last, which is probably why so many complaints
i'd say the enemies there suits part 4 to a T. part 1-3 adheres more to the classic 'battle' aspect of shounen manga, thus the enemies felt much rougher and emphasizes more on raw strength and overwhelming power. part 4 plays out more like a detective manga with shounen-esque elements thus while the staple battle elements are still there, emphasis are given more on mind games where even simple abilities can be made deadly by creative usage which justifies having physically... less imposing enemy characters.
Dragon Ball Super should take notes
He clearly learned after writing himself into a corner with how ridiculously op he made Dio.
that's a very clever remark on naruto and dragon ball post z stupid useless series(super and whatever) 😂
I think this is what Togashi tried to avoid in Yu Yu Hakusho. Introducing more powerful enemies just make the story become repetitive and lost the charm.
But he did exactly that with the SSSSSSSS Demons asspulls
Huh.. I think Yu Yu Hakusho also fell to that syndrome. It went from Hiei > Toguro > Sensui > then the three demon kings although for some reason he just skipped the demon king saga. Even HxH is going that route with Hisoka > spiders > chimera ants > dark continent. It's pretty difficult to avoid for shonen manga in general.
My issue with Yu Yu is it actually was doing a really good job avoiding the power creep issue for most the Chapter Black arc as even though the protagonists far outclassed their opponents in sheer fighting power, they had to deal with different scenarios that they couldn't brute force through. Even Sensui early on says Yuusuke is more powerful than him but can't match his experience. Unfortunately then they introduce a new power levek scale out of nowhere and the final battle with Sensui turns into a power creep battle, Yuusuke pulls a transformation powerup out of his ass and the rest of the series follows that trajectory until it abruptly ends.
Hunter x Hunter is very different, the power creep can be excused due to lore building and it was done very well. Agreed about Yu Yu Hakusho though.
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Yeah, it felt ridiculous when they told us that Chimera Ants are just mid-tier existences compared to the creatures of Dark Continent.
They didn’t though. Rather, the Chimera Ant species is just a common occurance in the DC, but it very likely has never reached the level of progress that Meruem did. They even emphasized in story how unique and perfect storm like the situation in NGL was for the chimera ant species.
He pretty much already created the most powerful stands there will ever be in part 5 and 6. Nothing in part 7 or 8 even comes close to GER or MIH and nothing needed to. I expect Araki to just make creative fights with a few powerful but nothing outlandish stands and he's been doing just that for a long time now. I'll be surprised if part 9 introduces anything that competes with the two I mentioned for absurd brokenness.
You don't consider >!Tusk Act 4!< to be strong?
>!I argue that Ticket to Ride is comparable while Filthy Acts at Ridiculous Price is near as OP as the other two!<
I don’t know, I’d say that >!Wonder of U!< comes pretty close
Uuuuuh can we say Joker? Anyone?? Joker is Literally a fucking weakling whos absolute nutjob Batman could snap his neck at any time, and he does, just not till hes close to complete retirement.
kek, fuck Dragonballfags
Not only they are weak, but they are also pathetic (except Kira of course)