AnimeSennin wrote:Are you the same as me in thinking that the earlier part of HnK, before everyone grew up, is the better part? I think it should have ended after that first part, or maybe even earlier. It's been way too long since I read it for me to give any particular details, though. I remember something about long lost brothers, and things like that. Have you heard any comments from Buronson or Hara as to why they went this route?
Nah. I like (most of) the latter parts of HnK plenty. I mean granted it still has its issues: Kenshiro no longer really has as strong of a personal stake in the plot during the later story arcs as he did earlier on when he was up against Shin and his corrupt brothers with a clear mission, instead taking on something of a more aimless vagabond archetype similar to a Zatoichi-type of character. Which to me isn't really all THAT bad of a development for the series honestly... it just means that it loses some degree of “focus” for some people I guess. Doesn't bother me: wandering warrior stories are some of my favorites, and with Fist of the North Star's whole Mad Max post-apocalyptic universe its hardly an out of place or ill-fiting concept in the slightest.
Bringing back Bat and Lin as adults was something of a double edged sword: on the plus side, they're now WAY more interesting characters. As kids, they were kinda just Ken's little cheerleading squad, and aside from some tragic back stories (which due to the very nature of the Fist's setting is something of a dime a dozen), there's not really a whole lot to them as characters, outside of getting a few harmless and generally non-irritating bits of comic relief. As adults they actually get to DO things and be proactive and effect major change in the plot, and there's a lot more depth to them and their characterizations in comparison to when they were just child refugees tagging along with Ken. Bat actually gets a frigging character arc for god's sake.
On the quasi-negative-ish side, they sorta come back mainly as a means to instill in Ken a much more personal reason for assisting the Hokuto Army and getting involved in their fight against the Tentei army and the Kingdom of Shura. The way its done makes perfect sense granted: the entire shtick behind the Hokuto Army in the first place (people who've been saved by Ken banding together and standing up for themselves against further wannabe despots in the name and memory of both the man and his martial art style that had single-handedly saved all their asses time and again) makes tons more sense with established characters like Bat and Lin, who'd been friends and traveling companions with Ken for years and had gotten to know him far better than your typical faceless wasteland survivor, leading the way.
But all the same, Ken's status post-Raoh as your standard wandering warrior going around helping people and righting wrongs as he comes across them in order to help instil at least some semblance of justice to a deeply fucked up world (something he was pretty much already there at even before anyhow) didn't really need the extra incentive provided by Bat and Lin returning. If the Hokuto Army were simply some random bunch of rebels fighting against Jakoh's tyranny, Ken would've all but certainly thrown his lot in with them and helped them out anyway, simply because he could and that's the kind of person he is. Having Bat and Lin brought back in to make the situation more closely connected to Ken, while not really all that big of a deal either way, feels sorta unnecessary and perhaps belaboring the point a bit.
Or rather at least that's how it comes across to me: like I said before, there are those who feel that the series was stronger when it had a clearer through-line of Ken searching for Yuria, getting revenge against Shin, and settling his rivalries with his adoptive brothers, and I suppose that throwing in Bat and Lin as leaders of the Hokuto Army in the latter arcs was done to continue to give Ken that kind of personal stake in the story (not that it helped matters much for those same people anyhow). I think that the first half of the series works beautifully for all the same reasons that most everyone else does, but once Raoh's out of the picture, if you're gonna continue the story further beyond that point you gotta change things up a bit. I love the harsh, brutal world of the series enough that I have no problems whatsoever continuing to follow Ken through it and meeting more psychotic, malevolent dictators and tyrants and other assorted colorful freaks and barbaric killers along the way, purely for the sheer joy of it.
And I'm ultimately really not bothered all that much by Bat and Lin returning either way. Really I'm just nitpicking there. I mean I don't find them entirely necessary to give Ken motivation, but with that being said, it'd have probably been pretty stale and boring to just have Ken helping this group just because. Something a bit more than that would probably add at least some extra dimension to the scenario. I'm not sure if that something extra should've been Bat and Lin necessarily, but honestly there are probably far, far worse alternatives. And I do like their adult character designs a lot, as well as how much their characters are expanded on and developed...
…up until the way more problematic manner in which the whole “love triangle” aspect of Bat and Lin returning is handled. The concept, on paper, is perfectly sound and makes total sense. Lin, like Bat, had been hero worshiping Ken since she was little, and had something of an innocent little crush on him back then. Combine that with all the times he'd saved her skin over the years, and it totally follows that later on in adulthood her feelings for Ken might grow into some sort of lonely, misguided romantic longing for him. Basically almost the same exact dynamic that Nancy Callahan had with Hartigan in Sin City. Where things differ from that however is here you have Bat thrown into the mix who himself had over the years grown to develop feelings for Lin, and of course when factoring in Ken's ridiculous martial arts abilities, Bat's gonna have some inadequacy issues comparing himself to Ken.
Right so all of this is perfectly fine, totally logical, and makes for a pretty decent and totally painless enough little love triangle subplot. Except during the very last leg of the manga (a portion that's totally missing from the anime which stops smack at Kaioh's defeat), there's a whole boatload of nonsense involving Lin getting amnesia and almost marrying Bat and Bat getting killed and revived and... honestly I'm not even gonna go into it. Its all pretty damned stupid and painfully embarrassing and just thinking about it gives me a headache. This part is EASILY the single worst thing in the entire damned manga by a long shot, and the one and only thing that even kinda redeems it in any way whatsoever is that Hara's art is (of course) utterly gorgeous and drool-worthy as always. But the resolution of the love triangle here is so convoluted and soapy it honestly doesn't deserve the magic of Hara's pencils making the whole thing look WAY better than it in any way deserves to.
Well the art, and of course the gore levels, which are as off the hook as you'd expect it to be for HnK, but you know...
Point being, that part of the manga sucks and should never have gotten past the “random idea spitballing” stage, plain and simple.
The “long lost brothers” thing you're thinking of is two major reveals; the first is that the last major villain of the series, Kaioh, is actually the biological brother of Raoh. The common complaint against that is basically that Kaioh is a thinly veiled repeat of Raoh himself flogged out to sorta have the fan favorite antagonist back again (at least in spirit) without actually somehow resurrecting him from the dead in some contrived way... which in and of itself in the manner that its done (bringing out a suspiciously similar brother) is just as contrived anyway.
While I mostly agree with this, to me its offset by the fact that Kaioh doesn't really become an important factor until way, way late into the proceedings; there are a whole veritable slew of other, perfectly good villains who take up the spotlight for gigantic swathes of the latter half of the series (Falco, Jakoh, the Gento fighters, Han, etc.) and who are boatloads of fun in their own various, over the top ways. Its not like we go immediately from the death of Raoh and then straight to his long lost, groan inducingly similar brother; there's a LOT of material in between Raoh's final defeat and the reveal of Kaioh as a prominent threat, so that by the time he really comes in the whole Hokuto Army storyline has had a whole lot of breathing room to endear itself to the reader/viewer before something of an eye rolling development turns up near the very end.
The other is Hyo who turns out to be the biological brother of Ken himself. This is far less of an issue than it is with Kaioh because Hyo is a way more original, unique character who I've never really had a problem with either way. He's not some weird clone or cheap knockoff of anybody (the way that Kaioh ultimately is of Raoh, more or less), and his interactions with Ken provide some good moments (and some kickass fights too of course). The only real problem with Hyo is that when combined with the Kaioh thing, it definitely feels like one long lost brother too many which sorta cheapens the effect Hyo might have otherwise had.
Basically I agree that the second half of the series has a lot more problems than the first half does, but honestly when all's said and done its still tons of fun in spite of its issues. Some misgivings about Kaioh aside, its got a bunch of cool villains (and new allies like Ein, who's just so ridiculous you can't help but love him), plenty of great fights, more weird Hokuto techniques, copious helpings of gore, increasingly fucked up atrocities committed against random innocents, heated rivalries and blood feuds, and more than enough stoic badassery to spare. Essentially all the things that make Fist of the North Star what it is.
I mean I totally understand and even completely agree with the main point of issue here regarding the second half: Ken's story is finished with the deaths of Raoh and Yuria. The entire goal of the series has been accomplished. Where else do we really need to go from there? Well I'm personally rather fond of the point that the second half of the series was driving at; that even with all his own feuds and personal battles settled, Ken is still stuck alone surviving out in this hellhole of a wasteland and his life, like all the rest of the nuclear survivors, is going to be one never ending series of conflicts and hardships.
Even though his personal battle is over, the fight to survive out in the ruins of civilization will never, ever be over, and there will always be power hungry madmen ready and willing to fill the voids left by people like Shin, Souther, Jagi, and Raoh and so forth, while good people like Toki, Mamiya, Shu, and Rei are hopelessly overmatched and outgunned in comparison (for all their bravery and heroism, they have a tendency to get killed and all), and that Ken will probably spend the rest of his life protecting what sad, tiny little pockets of humanity is left against them. Basically even though its over, its never
really over. Its suitably downbeat and bittersweet, and that's the essence of Fist of the North Star: finding those tiny little specs of hope within an endless abyss of nihilism.
True, all of this is very much implied throughout the whole series anyhow, so with the Raoh and Yuria dead, we probably didn't
need to see any more and could safely infer what the rest of Ken's travels on his own would be like, which basically relegates the second half of the series to essentially wheel spinning... but the thing is, its mostly FUN wheel spinning. Really, really fun.
Far as I'm concerned, if you can't at least smile at stuff like Ken twisting Bask's entire freaking arm from wrist to shoulder into a mutilated, grotesque corkscrew, you might need be blood tested for fun deficiency.
AnimeSennin wrote:I'll agree with that. Toriyama can make really beautiful and imaginative artwork when he tries, but the artwork wasn't why I was reading Dr. Slump. I did like a lot the art that he made for the cover pages, however.
And as for dicking around, well, it may be better to say that he preferred to use a simpler style. As much as I love gekiga, it doesn't have to all be like that.
I never said that. Toriyama's done an occasional piece here and there that might almost, quasi-straddles the line into gekiga, but 95% of the time his work is as far removed from that as you can get, even when he goes for maximum detail, and I still love much of it plenty. What I meant was that the vast bulk of Slump's interior art is way below the full capacity of what Toriyama can do as an artist. Which makes sense as its simply just a cute little gag manga he made just for shits and grins (that just happened to take off into a runaway success amongst the tykes and in the wider Japanese pop culture of the early 80's).
But like you said, he can and has done much, much better in terms of detailed art. Slump's certainly not the kind of manga where the art NEEDS to be shaded and detailed to perfection, but when comparing it against something like Kishiwada, it just doesn't hold up since Kishiwada's art is comprised of Tony Takezaki (who is mostly every bit as good of an illustrator as Toriyama) totally on his A game and giving it his all. Slump is a great manga for small children, but Kishiwada is a great manga for adults... and between those two options, I will always prefer and take the latter over the former.
I do agree however, that lots of the random cover and assorted promo art that Toriyama had done for Slump is much more up to scratch.
AnimeSennin wrote:And you know you can't get away with saying that you like other things from Toriyama besides Dragonball and not tell me what and get away with it
Just what are you thinking of here?
Go!Go! Ackman, Sand Land, and a gigantic slew of Famicom and Super Famicom RPG art that he's done would most assuredly fall under favorites of mine. Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger are the obvious ones there, but his art for the first Torneko no Daiboken (which is a Dragon Quest spinoff) is another one I actually really like. And of course Tobal No. 1 because you know... Tobal is just awesome in general.
One can only hope for the best in whatever the future may bring, but it'd certainly be worth a forehead slap (or thirty) if we basically went though the kinds of idiocy we went through the last ten or so years only to just come right back around full circle again to where we began as a subculture. As utterly ecstatic and giddy as I'd be to see that come to pass, if only so that I can once again look forward to more than a tiny handful of good titles on the horizon, not to mention self identify as an anime enthusiast once more without the need for a truckload of caveats and a burlap bag over my head, sweet Jesus what a thoroughly pointless detour through creepy manchildsville this would mark.