Voting Round 3 Kingdom vs. Nanatsu no Taizai

[Ice]

NNT obviously:3

 

[Shobu_Yoruichi]

My vote goes to the one who can make the best bid to me, your know where xD

 

[Spirit]

Yotanwa Escanors just as good as Escanor does.

 

[The President]

But do mature themes have to be explored in depth to be good? I don't think so. How far do they have to delve anyway? In Magi for example the topic of slavey and racism was explored and I found it pretty good. There were plenty of mature themes as well. Subtle or not, as you get older you come to understand certain things better. If we compare FMA, where the topic of religion has been important and compare it to the Conviction arc in Berserk for example , what makes you say that Berserk did a better job?

The more explored they are the better, unless the author is bad at exploring them. More detail is rarely ever worse. I think Magi is an excellently written manga that had quite a lot of potential. However its biggest weakness was that while the author clearly wanted to explore those dark and complex themes, she couldn't because it was constrained by also targeting kids (i.e. being a shonen). Magi would have greatly benefited from moving over to seinan. Some writing choices were also very shaky for Magi such as the lunatic that Sinbad turned into and stretching a a flashback that could have been done in 5 chapters to 30 (which is one of the rare cases where there is TOO much detail). Politics are also not done nearly as well as Kingdom.

Hell, Magi is pretty much a shonen Kingdom. Thats probably why its a great deal worse for me.

Berserk goes indepth on the topic, explores it from a bunch of different angles that most other series wouldn't explore it from (the benefit of having freedom). FMA gives the topic a light nudge, its touched upon very subtly, which is by no means a bad thing but it pales in comparison to a series that does go the extra mile to approach the topic from a variety of different perspectives and has a big arc dedicated to it at that.

By going against the grain I guess you mean that they are darker than most shonen? I don't find SnK that dark, deaths are more graphic but the plot is pretty good. It's even more obvious now that Isayama had everything planned in advance. However I find Death Note darker but the plot isn't that good. And maybe it's because I hated Light but I found him a bit too lucky at times. Let's take a shonen like Akame ga Kill(which I supposed you would consider as one going against the grain), would you say that it's as good as the three manga you mentioned? Reading your posts, I don't think you would. A manga with darker or more mature themes isn't necessarily better than the others. In the end it's how they are written which matters the most.

I dont think its a guarantee to be better then the others at all, there are still seinan out there that are incredibly flawed. However having more freedom in what you can write is a big boon to whatever manga that has that freedom.

I agree that there are all kind of fights in JoJo and it supports what I said about the writing. If Araki had not left WSJ, SBR and JoJolion could have still been as enjoyable. He is simply a good mangaka. Yes I can say that I like NNT's battles more than Bleach's. There were plenty of good battles in Bleach too, but when it comes to paneling and battle sequences Kubo doesn't compare to Nakaba. JoJo's battles have more strategies and are more complex. Battles in NNt are more like in Dragon Ball but Nakaba excels at them. In Bleach, past the HM arc(Bleach should have ended after this arc) you see more and more abilities which would remind you or JoJo or HxH but they are not as good. From what I have read in Kongou Banchou I think Nakaba could write these kind of battles fairly well, better than Kubo at least

But thats something that can never be proven. All the facts we have at our disposable is that the second he left WSJ his content became a fair bit better then it was when he was in WSJ (his content in WSJ was still HxH level stuff, dont get me wrong). This could be for a number of reasons, all tied too WSJ.

I whole heartedly disagree on NNT being superior then Bleach in battle sequencing. Both of them have a very similar fighting structure. One chapter the opponent has an overwhelming advantage, the next chapter the hero gains the clear upper hand. The next chapter the opponent reveals his trump card and gains the upper hand back. The next chapter the hero reveals his trump card and wins the battle.

There are almost never any outside interferences from other characters that help either party. The location almost never plays to any of the characters advantages or weaknesses and neither does the premise that the fight taking place is founded upon (i.e. one character is weaker from fighting someone else before, or is holding back for whatever reason etc....). There is also rarely ever any straight up equal clashes, there is always one who is dominant. If anything Bleach wins out in fights due to the versatility of abilities factor, which NNT for the most part has very little of (or at least uses very little). And Bleach characters use their heads a lot more then NNT characters do since there is still a degree of strategy involved.

I find it hard to believe that a Kingdom reader would not be curious about the real story if he is a fan of the manga, Atom even used that for his campaign but let's agree to disagree here.

But how can you demerit a manga for a fans curiosity? If anything those are bonus points for the manga to stir up that curiosity in the first place.

I am curious, how do you think it'll end?

With the defeat of the head of the goddesses by the hands of Mel and Elizabeth.

Maybe we don't see it the same way. My view of the Monster of the week formula is simple: They beat an opponent, then another appears, again and again. Araki has been doing it for year, but the way he does and how they are tied together is what makes the difference. It's more flagrant in SC, maybe because that's where it began but it's not like SC was that simple. There are plenty of memorable SoL moments even in this part. The world building was also decent with the recurrent trivia about customs and countries, more than in DiU, VA and SO at least. I agree a bit with the romance but it depends on the characters to me. However I don't see the problem with the world building. Nakaba is doing a good job so far, there are plenty of mysteries the characters and through the omakes you can see that he thought about it a lot.

I'm just drawing on the official definition of it. Its just like an anime with 12 episodes in which every episode is about something completely different and doesn't tie into any previous or future episodes in any way (including character development). I see why you might think Jojo has a Monster-Of-The-Week formula but its honestly simply because its incredibly fast paced. It shares damn near none of the qualities of a series that one could call Monster-Of-The-Week.

He introduces new places but never goes outside of his comfort zone. I can't help but feel like the entirety of the NNTverse is just one big open plain lol.

So, you are telling me that until Escanor's appearance you didn't care about any of the characters? Anyway, I like that you admitted that you like him this much because of the hype factor and design. It's different from battles but it's still the same thing I said .

Pretty much. I dont even recall ever really enjoying NNT so its beyond me why I continued reading it, perhaps because it was one of my first manga (I started reading it when it first came out) I just wanted to add more manga to my list of read. I did like Ban at one point, but his cringy pedophilic relationship with Kings sister kinda ruined his character for me. Plus his constant jobbing.

 

[Jammin]

Voting for Kingdom here but it's not an easy choice by any means.

I haven't read Kingdom and have read Nanatsu no Taizai but wasn't a huge fan. I liked it. Didn't love it. But as I read through the arguments made for each I came across one with overwhelming persuasive power...

How can I vote for something that has got Elizabeth in the story

Kingdom it is...

She is pretty terrible..

Kingdom +1

 

[kkck]

Gotta vote for nanatsu no taizai. For the plot.

Spoiler: Plot

And also for the actual plot. It's been fun seeing how the story develops and how there have been more than a few legitimate surprises in there.