Forum - View topicShonen-esque battles/action scenes of anime/manga.
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AntiOtaku
Posts: 2 |
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Initially I only wanted to discuss one specific topic but realized just how possibly huge and multi-faceted and on top of that I woudn't be surprised if related off-topic discussion comes as a result.
He original question I wanted to ask before making the header more general was "Why did anime/manga develop such a unique fight choreography?" I mean if there's one thing anime/manga is famed for, it is the style of fight direction. From people punching and kicking each other midair DBZ style to range projectile battles where two opponents are stuck planted on the ground as they try to concentrate on using all their energy to overpower the enemy's blasts like in with theirs as typical i Yu Yu Hakusho to master swordsman quickly vanishing and wiping out an army with hundreds of blows per second a la Rurouni Kenshin, fight choreography is one of the things that make anime stands out. In fact a common reason why so many haters can't stand anime/manga is because of this unique bizarre style of fight choreography and these many same haters will often make an exception for anime that "doesn't feel animesque" with relatively realistic battle drawings and scenes such as Cowboy Bebop and Ghost In the Shell. Hell at least half of the Cowboy Bebop fans I met state that one of their frustration is finding other anime series with more down to earth battle scenes as opposed to the flashy superpowered scenes of DBZ and YYH combat. At the same time its presicely this unique style of battling why so many anime fans have stuck to watching anime for years. I remember the first time I saw Saint Seiya's Galaxian Tournament arc when I was finally giving anime a chance after losing interest for years I was simply blown away by just how [expletive] intense and fast-paced it was. It literally felt like the fighters were [expletive] throwing attacks that are over one ton in force and genuinely moving faster than the speed of sound. On top of that even after I lost interest in anime in my teen years, I always still remember how DBZ and YYH had such fight scenes so exciting I couldn't find them elsewhere, not even in Hollywood with the exception of legendary classics such as The Matrix and Rob Roy. I cannot tell you how watching Saint Seiya which singlehandedly revived my anime interest surprised me at just how anime fights were far more vicious and exhilarating than I remembered and when I finally read DBZ and rewatched YYH for the first time in years, the battle choreography just blew me so much I could not speak a word and I began to regret ever losing interest in anime/manga. Its precisely the words I described in the above paragraph that can sum up why the battles are one of the reason anime fans love anime so much. With that said, I am quite curious why anime/manga-especially Shonen series-developed such a unique style of fight choreography? I mean I read a lot of American comics and I will be the first one o ell not only are the battles drawn so differently. Most American comic books lack the feeling that the superheroes are hitting each other at the speed of light with their thousands of blows and hits that are supposedly ten tons of force don't have the ouch factor I often feel from manga and anime despite bloodied faces , etc. In fact I'd say that excepting comic series heavily influenced by anime/manga such as Scott Pilgrim and some of the gory gritty series aimed at older audiences such as Spawn and Punisher, few American comics have fight scenes that made me feel so tense as anime/manga typically does. Even among series with legitimately good battle scenes I have yet to see an American comic book with battles on the level of DBZ, HNK, YYH, and Rurouni Kenshin. And most Otakus who are also comic geeks I chatted with so far on other sites agree with my statement. So I am wondering why only anime and manga had developed such a choreography style? Further more outside of Hollywood big budgets EG Lethal Weapon and Chronicles of Riddick and video game, why mass media as a whole fail to capture the same "moving faster than light" feel and excitement of anime/manga? In particular how come Western comic books which not only have superheroes who can stop rains with a hand and dodge bullets, failed to capture this FTL feel and have fight choreography so intensely gripping that manga, especially Shonen series, have as a staple? I find this so jarring because of how manga writers frequently admit Western comic books from childhood influenced their storytelling style and some such as Nobuhiro Watsuki of Rurouni Kenshin fame are even self-admitted diehard comic geeks who collect Spawn action figures and such. I mean I even read an article stating anime/manga Shonen conventions are based on superhero scenes. So why is Shonen style battles so alien to American comic books before manga came to the point that recently many American writers are even copying the choreography of DBZ and other Shonen classics as seen by O'Malley, author of Scott Pilgrim? Bonus question what are the influences that led to Shonenesque style fights? I mean despite comics supposedly influencing manga so much, its quite difficult to see in say Blade similar one-man army scenes of taking out a hundred in what seems like a single blow in the same manner that Kenshiro takes out an entire army of bikers in what looks like one kick. I have seen old Kung fu cinema and Japanese martial arts flicks such as Sister Street Fighter have fighting while in the air over thirty fight high in the same manner as Ranma. So I wonder, is Kung Fu cinema and some of SOnny Chiba's early stuff a big influence? In particular where did the exchange millions of beams from your hands with your enemy come from? I can understand the one-man army and fighting in air coming from Kung Fu flicks but I have yet o find any older media portray beam fights that DBZ has. |
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CoreSignal
 Posts: 727 Location: California, USA |
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While I'm not a huge shonen fan, I definitely agree that the crazy fight scenes in shonen are unique to anime/manga and not found in American comics and I'm also very interested in how they developed. Some observations: I think format and story structure all play in a big role in shaping how shonen battles have developed. In terms of format, both the publication style of shonen manga and the similarities in format have a big influence. Since the majority of shonen titles are published weekly and run for many years, shonen mangaka have to time expand the story for however much time they want. One of the advantages of manga is that the artist can spend an entire chapter or dozen of pages on a single moment, battle, or fight.
Contrast this to the format of American comics. A typical superhero comic is published monthly and has a short run. As a result, many American comics have this mindset of getting to the point of the story quickly and long or elaborate fight scenes are seen as excessive or taking time away from the story. You may have heard of this already, but there’s a storytelling technique in comics/manga called Decompression where the artist will spread out or extend individual scenes and moments to let the story breathe. From what I’ve read, decompressed storytelling is very common in manga, whereas in American comics it is not. Again, it probably has to do with the shorter publishing run. I also find most fight scenes in American comics to be lacking and often flat. Typically, they throw a couple of punches or kicks, use their powers a couple times, and then it’s over. I really can’t think of many American or Superhero comics that have the elaborate fight scenes shonen manga has. It’s probably partly that American comic book fans find long, elaborate fight scenes pointless, because as mentioned earlier, they’re used to the story in a comic “getting to the point”. I remember reading posts on a comics forum about people trying manga and complaining about the pacing being too slow and the story taking too long. The other reason is because many shonen titles by nature have similar themes and story structures. People might disagree but for the most part, many shonen titles have similar story elements like training, friendship, sacrifice, a tournament arc, etc. Consequently, shonen mangaka can differentiate themselves by having creative settings or really unique fight scenes. To be clear, I don’t think having similar story elements is necessarily bad. Shonen Jump readers want a certain type of story (which explains the reader polls) and shonen mangaka are expected to tell that kind of story. Back to my earlier point, I recently started reading World Trigger and while the story isn’t anything mind blowing so far, I’ve been really impressed with the battle scenes. All the fights in World Trigger involve a lot of strategy and planning and they’re exciting to follow. Fight scenes like that are something definitely unique to manga and part of the reason why I read manga as well. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15462 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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In my opinion it is all about motion, a focus on battles within manga and getting across a sense of motion in one single picture. The medium loves exaggeration, and it is no clearer than that done for the younger audiences. Anime of shounen manga have largely adapted the style of the manga that is so much about putting across a sense of motion with a single image, that it has turned into what we see of characters moving at super speeds as they clash.
Really animation is about breathing life into something, and in general it seems to have become a thing where one reads the subtext between images to pick up that life, to have them move. Anime, and its root, manga, have done the opposite where the image itself shows them moving, and it has influenced how anime tropes themselves with the exaggeration. Correct answers are difficult, but on the topic I think I will mention Kill la Kill, as I think that it is a perfect example of taking the exaggerated style of shounen like anime fights, and really pushing them further. The name of the game is exaggeration. All in the name of selling one particular mood characters can have their models change, they can turn into streaks, have energy blasts appear, even appear multiple times in the same image. It is all unrealistic, but it is an understanding of what shounen like anime and manga know, animation itself is not real, and rather than trying to contend with something like the uncanny valley, it can use its exaggeration. I believe the big difference is that the west largely sees all the exaggeration as cheap, as if there is a problem in purposely avoiding realism to instead focus on style, you kind of hear it all the time that an art teacher is disappointed that a student decides to draw in the anime style. Going back a bit to the creators of Kill la Kill, Studio Trigger, they did a short form anime called Inferno Cop, which breaks form with expectations and goes for a sort of comic book look, it is kind of mocked with purposeful extreme limited animation and creating an odd duality between mundane and extreme, like random explosions. |
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