Soul Eater up to volume 14

[snarp]

For some reason I thought this was the last volume… I guess I’m happy it’s not?

But I’m disappointed by the sense I’m getting that, in the long run, no shounen manga dares stand in the way of the almighty Shounen Jump formula. For one thing, the formula seems to require that the female characters either stop getting fight scenes, or make them the froofy passive-looking metaphysical kind.

For another, there seems to have been an executive decision that Soul Eater lose his hat, acquire a hairstyle somewhere between present-day-Ichigo’s* and Edward Elric’s, and completely change the shape of his face and eyes. Because it’s not okay to have a protagonist who doesn’t look exactly like every other protagonist?

Also, Black ★ Star has suddenly become the number-one angstiest member of the cast? The guy who pronounces a little star in the middle of his name to emphasize how special he is? The one who was introduced as a parody of Naruto!? Yet he is now More Special Sasuke! It’s like the manga’s IQ is progressively getting lower.

If Patty ends up getting angst, too, I’m just going to retreat into writing fanfic where everyone’s an adorable moron again.

-

* Hey, remember the good old days when Kubo Tite actually had a recognizable personal style? Whatever happened to those days? THE SHOUNEN JUMP FORMULA HAPPENED TO THOSE DAYS. If Mizuno Junko ran a manga in Shounen Jump, within twelve months it would become a story about a fourteen-year-old boy overcoming his rocky relationship with his dad through montage-intensive training to become the best evil naked zombie drug dealer gigolo nurse.

** I just checked and Soul Eater actually runs in Shounen Gangan, not Shounen Jump. Close enough!

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)

Comments

[starlady]

It's actually sort of more depressing that it runs in Gangan and yet fell prey to the WSJ formula, since that means the Gangan editors are following WSJ's lead.

I remember those glory days when Bleach wasn't ridiculously generic. Every so often there will be a few panels that will recall that time, and then it will be back to fight!porn.

[snarp]

It's like a plague. A plague of passive-girl-needs-rescued story arcs.

I've completely given up on Bleach. I tried so hard! But then I got to that fight scene with Ichigo and Nell and Orihime and someone I forget against an ugly guy that I absolutely didn't care about, and it went on for what felt like a whole volume. At one point Kenpachi burst in, and it looked like he was going to wipe the floor with the guy! But after two more chapters the fight still wasn't over. At that point I spontaneously achieved bankai, and it turned out that my awesome bankai form was The Pile Of Other Things To Read.

[starlady]

Yeah, it just went on way too long. One of my friends sent me volumes 36-40 from Japan, and I figure I'll page through those, and then I don't care anymore. The next step will be to sell back all my other volumes.

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

This makes me sad. I was thinking of buying this manga.

[snarp]

Well, the later volumes are still good for what they are - that being, a Typical Shounen Manga. It's just that the first six volumes or so were something different and quirkier. I'm just disappointed by the change.