Action manga

Edit: Because people misinterpreting, I am adding this disclaimer: I am not saying action and character development are mutually exclusive. I'm saying maximum character development, like the absolute highest levels of character development which you get in soap operas, where the entire story is dialogue, and every character has a rich backstory and motivations and has detailed reactions to every situation.

There's a type of weeb I don't understand who reads action mangas wanting them to be slice of life. (I bet someone is probably going to feel called out and be like "it's not that I want them to be slice of life, it's that I just want "good writing," or some variation).

A fight that's more than a couple chapters is too long. Every arc's power boosts ruin everything for them. The characters never spend enough time bonding and we never get enough of their backstory. Frequent fight scenes in an arc is "bad writing." People with crazy powers who've been through crazy situations are not emotional enough. Any arc or subplot that isn't specifically about developing a character is "bad writing." Any expansion to the magic system is unnecessary. Any plot device or character or anything designed for the purpose of being fun and stimulating or contributing to the action is "stupid." Arms races or arcs about war are "lazy" or "bad" writing.

Why do stories about people with crazy powers in violent situations focus so much on the powers and the violence? It's just bad writing. I want an action manga where there are pretty much no fight scenes, and all of the characters talk all the time and we get to have a deep look at all of their feelings. Everyone has a deep and rich personality and they develop a bunch of relationships and we spend all our time going into that.

I just wanted to point out a thing I noticed that might contribute to the feeling why the flashy grand action scenes recently just aren't doing it anymore and feel empty. I think even when conveying action scenes visually, there should also be dramatic weight to them. Every major action should feel as though they have importance to add to the choreography of a fight. Now this is a relatively minor complaint compared to everything else, call it a nitpick if you will, but I still think it matters.

Here's an example from the manga:

It looks like what's happening here is Garou kicks Saitama somewhere from the thermosphere to Earth, and it destroys... like a large part of land? Like an area as large as a city at least. It's hard to tell because there's not much attention given to it and it's treated as a throwaway scene as the next panel it's already onto the next thing immediately.

Here is Boros firing a laser from his eye cannon: .

It's an attack that's actually smaller in destruction than the kick we just saw from Garou, but it was given 4 pages (not even including Boros announcing and charging the blast). Other characters react to it, and it's given a lot of room to let the art breathe for the readers to take it in, and we see the aftermath.

Now this might be an unfair comparison given that these two attack scenes were given completely different relevance, but that's the thing. Every time Boros did some huge feat of destruction or damage, it felt dramatic and made you go wow. It had emphasis.

Even though Garou looks like he just destroyed a city or a large part of it, it doesn't seem that way.

Being burnt out on the current action is likely also due to the fact that there were dozens and dozens of massive feats by all the other characters that it starts to desensitize the reader, and it all seems to blend all together. It also reduces the suspension of belief because it looks like they're destroying the same country 10x over and over again. . Yet somehow the people on the ground are always fine.

How would this be fixed? Well I dont know tbh because I'm not a miracle worker and a lot of this oversaturation of flashy action sequences started way way before Garou ever arrived to the scene. Proper stakes, like in the Boros arc, usually are done through an escalation of feats over the arc. No other character did what Boros did. I can't bring up the webcomic because this post would get deleted but it had this sequential escalation of danger, action and feats. Maybe think of it as a rollercoaster; instead of the rollercoaster slowly continuing to go up and up and up before reaching its peak, the rollercoaster does many ups and downs making you confused where the actual peak is (like in the manga). Ok maybe that was a bad analogy but you get the point.

Right now it should be the ultimate climax showdown between Garou and Saitama, a climax 8 years in the making, and yet the action feels hollow because 1. Colossal feats are just glossed over, 2. The amazement factor has been oversaturated by previous feats of destruction.

I also think it's because Murata has been rushing this with the relatively frequent release schedule, or he's overworked. Given that this is the climax to an arc spanning several years, I hope he gives it the care and attention it deserves. He should take his time.

Also I know what people are going to say; just wait for the next chapters and wait for the fight to be finished. Yeah you're right, I'm sure that Murata is going to draw Garou and Saitama destroying the earth with crazier feats and do some shit we've never seen before. BUT the point remains: if the story doesn't give attention to really huge feats, why should we.

EDIT: It seems like a lot of people are misunderstanding the point of the post. It's not that the current Saitama vs Garou fight is lacking huge feats. I should have specified that this just generally applies to my feelings towards the action in many recent chapters, not just the latest and trying find a reason for why that is. The point of the post is that when you throw out a huge feat I feel like it should be more important and dramatic and it should be used sparingly - spamming world destroying attacks will just look stale.

As we know, shonen is just a demography, aimed at young boys, and in this demography, it can cover a lot of genres, being the most popular the action battle manga.

The thing is, with the exception of maybe Soul Eater and Claymore, which are already pretty old and barely anyone remembers them, there hasnt been a single action series of this demography with a female MC, where she gets into a journey, has to train, get into very intense and bloody fights against villains, power ups, epic moments and so on.

Yeah, i get it, because of being a shonen it has to be male, so the young kids can see them as role models and identify with them. But there is not enough reasons as to why it cant be done with a female MC aswell.

This argument looks weaker when you look deeper into it, because in this same demography, there are works with female MCs. In the same Weekly Shonen Jump, we have works like Act Age which was a very popular manga in its moment with a female MC, Promised Neverland is another example with a female MC, and recently there is a new series called Acane with a new female lead aswell.

But the thing is, these last works i just named arent action focused, Act Age was a manga about acting, TPN was a mistery manga, and Acane is a manga about rakugo from what i know.

And here is the point, if you can easily put female MCs in these kind of stories, and in the freaking SHONEN jump of all places, then what is stoping them at this point in allowing female characters in being MCs of an action series in the same vein as One Piece, HxH, Naruto, DBZ, Bleach, MHA, Demon Slayer and JJK aswell? Is like they are willing to let women to be the stars of anything but action/fighting stories, which are the big sellers.

At this point is kinda dumb and somewhat hypocritical because in the Shojo side, i can name plenty of stories starring a male MC, and a lot of these being romance. It feels like males can be allowed to be the MC of any story, but females are being gatekeeped in certain stuff, especially in the epic action/fighting department.

So I see a lot of fans saying the opening song doesn't fit Frieren's story, "Frieren is not an action manga", "Frieren is a melancholic and sad manga", even though I agree that the song doesn't match the theme of season 1, I don't reall agree with their opinion about the manga, if they only talk about the beginning of the manga story, then yes Frieren is not that kind of manga, but overall the action/hype part takes up more than half of the manga content now, especially in the last 2 years, these fans suddenly just forgot about it and keep saying this is a sad and melancholic manga, yes the manga still has that part but Frieren manga isn't just about that, this is an adventure story

Before recommending just know I have read all of kengan,fist of the seeker and Baki more times than I could count

Additionally I also have read usogui,batuque,abyss rage,shamo, garouden,record of ragnarok and all rounder meguru

I’m currently reading teppu and holyland

I'd rather have it be isekai but anything's fine.

Just don't give me hot garbage, lol.