An Argument

For the past few days, I've been up and about watching Japanese anime, and in particular, Bleach, a story about soul warriors who fight evil spirits, demons and whatnot. It's an interesting piece of work at first, but I can't help but but shake the feeling that it's just another series that takes on the path that Naruto embraces.

And just what do I mean when I say that? For those of you who're not really acquainted with Naruto, it revolves around a certain fellow in his early teens who has cursed to safeguard although he does not know, and is in some ways a tool for him to bolster his strength in times of trouble, when the curse would be bolstered into a form of a gift.

The protagonist of the story, a young lad by the name of Uzumaki Naruto has a personality that leads him to see the good in bad, the strong in the weak, even in the most inconvienient of times. Once-enemies and arch-rivals would be turned into comrades by his ability to strengthen everyone by his ever-present will power, never quitting even in the face of death, be they man or some odd-coloured demon.

Fair enough, but it can get a little more than annoying after the first few times. When one character will go into a fight or recollection mode, there will be times when the annoying flashbacks, or the unnecessary gloating that takes place between both parties of good and evil, and is not excluded to the revealing of combat secrets, when what everyone should be doing at the moment is winning the battle.

After all, doesn't time pass by when we flashback in real life? When we look back to our past experiences, as we sit back and contemplate, the seconds on the clock tick by, and they move on faster than how we feel when we breathe, apparently, if you can gauge my meaning. Which is more than a little annoying for the Naruto series. For every fight, there is some semblance of a flashback, and there are millions of these flashbacks, I kid you not. Heck, if they want to go even further, there might even be a flashback of a flashback, where the previous us in that particular flashback would have been thinking of a another flashback.

Confused? I really just skip the points until it takes me to the parts where they really matter, where people actually trade blows, instead of the little thoughts inbetween.

Granted, Bleach (which doesn't live up to the name, unless they're all about cleaning up evil) doesn't go to the same level as Naruto does in terms of annoyances, but it's taking on a similar pattern.

There are of course flashbacks, characters gloating, corny music at the wrong times (Transformers - The Movie, anyone?), secrets that should be kept secret instead of being revealed at also the wrong times (is that a Japanese thing?), and of course, the usual over-confident, always-"I'm okay!", sometimes boisterous characters.

Even the main character looks like Naruto, even though he's considerably less girlish, though they're both just as unnecessarily reckless. Also, they keep their secret weapons from being used until the very last moment, even in a duel against the most powerful of adversaries, either because they want to have their fun in a battle, or because they're waiting for THE MOMENT so they can just look good.

Fucking posers. I'm not sure if Terry Pratchett coined this up, but real warriors really just want to get on with it and just finish the damn thing. Just like how Sherif Ali from Lawrence of Arabia once said, no Arab loves the desert. Only mad Englishmen love the desert.

I guess it's the mad Englishmen in us all, to produce fantasies where characters are of no doubt larger than life. And I'm not talking about powers or magic and all that kind of stuff, but just that after a while, everything turns to a powerplay scenario.

On top of that, most anime characters seem to be larger than life, with too much pride, too much emo, and just about full of decisions that induce plot devices instead of just seizing the moment.

Well, come to think of it, if they did all the right things at the right time, animes would be really short instead of the elongated periods for each one. Well, not really, as every story is made to depict the experiences of characters as they go through sometimes life-threatening situations, or just life, no matter how risky it may seem.

But sometimes, you can't help but wonder if a story can do without all the unnecessary poser/power material, unless you have good reason to be doing so. Or perhaps such a way is justified, as the beginnings are mere comparisons to reality. As one grows in physical and mental size, shouldn't an art be allowed to do the same, whatever the medium?

So how can we gauge if a story is growing as it was meant to grow, or forcefully made to increase readership? Or does the term writer's block (let's not exclude all creators of art in this) fit in, where filler is thrown in if one cannot seem to back up the oncoming needs with proper material?

Which brings me to ask, instead of having countless episodes of semi-watchable/readable stuff, can we not concentrate on having a smaller numbers of quality output? Quality versus quantity, the ongoing argument in the world of the arts.

And to go back to Bleach, or Naruto, are they really better than the much-shorter-running series of Samurai Champloo? As an aspiring writer, I believe not. Is it not better to be remembered for a few good things, than a multitude of half-hearted whathcamacallits?

Not to say that producing a lot of stuff is a bad thing, as some people are talented enough to cope with, but we should never lose sight of the end result.