DaWaRou Posts: YuYu Hakusho

Hey, so you guys remember last week when I made that big stink about shonen idiot heroes? Well...I forgot to mention my absolute favorite shonen idiot of all time! Funny how that happens, ain't it? Anyways, this time I'll be going over him AND his series which happens to hold the spot as my FAVORITE anime of all time. Also, the creator of it is married to the creator of Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon, so that makes it really cool! Ladies and Gents, I'm John Cortez and this is my TENTH post for...The Broken Infinite.

SO, the series we'll be going over today is MY favorite and pretty much the favorite of almost EVERYONE who grew up watching Toonami on Cartoon Network...you know back when it didn't suck ass. Let's not waste any time then in getting to the one and only YuYu Hakusho!!!!!!!!

Sorry if the picture is shitty, I need to replace my computer screen. ANYWAYS, originally written and drawn as a manga by Yoshihiro Togashi in December of 1990 and finishing in 1994 with an anime adaption running for 112 episodes from the years 1992 to 1995 this is the series that most of us in America grew up with during Toonami's run on Cartoon Network during it's golden years...oh how I miss those golden years. This is also, to my knowledge, the series that put Togashi-sensei on the map though what the hell do I know. Also...and it pains me to say this, Togashi-sensei was the instructor of Masashi Kishimoto...the hack who ripped off Ninku to write Naruto.

The plot is this: Yusuke Urameshi (pronounced YUrameshi in FUNimation's English dub to perhaps keep the YuYu part of the title in the series) is a delinquent and a thug who skips school (and smokes in the manga). He's got a foul temper and is a tough fighter and most people are scared to death of him or hate his guts. Then, despite everything he is and has going against his type, Yusuke makes the ultimate sacrifice when he dies trying to save a little boy from an oncoming car. Greeted by a friendly and bubbly Shinigami or Grim Reaper named Botan (who in the dub has a kind of British accent despite the series taking place in Japan) who tells him that not only was his sacrifice "a complete and utter waste" as the child would've survived even without Yusuke's interference, the Spirit World where Humans go when they die has no place for him and that his death was completely unpredictable and unforeseen. Better still, since they've no place for him, the big man in charge has decided to give Yusuke a second chance at life. To make a long story short, Yusuke comes back to life as the Spirit Detective but is more like their hit man. Yusuke's sent on missions to stop Yokai (translated as Demons or Apparitions in the English translations) from having their way in the Human world. On most cases, Yusuke's joined by Kazuma Kuwabara, his best friend and rival who's very sensetive to the spiritual and supernatural, Kurama, (MY FAVORITE CHARACTER) a fox spirit who's fused with a Human body and is largely the brains of the team and Hiei, a cynical Yokai with a thing for swords and fire who was one of Yusuke's earliest foes.

Now...ZOMG! THIS IS ONE OF THE GREATEST ANIME SERIES EVER CREATED! DEAR LORD! IT'S SHONEN! YES IT'S SO SHONEN BUT IT'S FUCKING AMAZING SHONEN! HONESTLY THIS SHOW IS ONE OF THE BEST OF OLD SCHOOL ANIME! DEAR GOD! I CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO DESCRIBE IT! IT'S LIKE SEVEN SHADES OF AWESOME! NO IT'S LIKE 7 TRILLION SHADES OF AWESOMESAUCE BADASSERY!

*Ahem* Now, when it comes to how the show and the manga look, both are pretty decent looking, though I like the anime's visuals better because of the color and the fluidity of the animation...like when Kurama first pulled out his signature rose whip from his hair, you could practically see each strand of it as he flipped it. As far as the music goes....*faints from the orgasmic music pieces* Okay, most of it isn't all that great but it is really good. The opening and first ending rock with the ending kind of giving me disco vibes for some reason. The second ending is my favorite but not as much as THIS VERSION OF THE THIRD ENDING DONE BY MY FAVORITE JAPANESE BOY BAND LEAD!

But above all are all the character image songs attached to the series. Once again I find myself flabbergasted at the sheer amount of good vocals. Are all Japanese people just blessed with amazing singing voices? Not to be left out too though is the dub of this series. The English Dub for YuYu Hakusho is the absolute best I've ever heard and this is coming from someone with a preference for the original Japanese audio of most anime. In the case of this particular series, I find the original language to be rather...flat. It's not like it's baaad. No, it isn't bad by any stretch of the word, it's just...very direct. The series tells you everything you need to know upfront and from what I've seen of the subtitles it isn't very subtle either. It's a lot of stating the obvious to be honest and the characters also come of as a little stupid and immature. This in direct contrast to the English dub by FUNimation Entertainment which plays a little loose with the translations and breathes some fresh air into these beloved characters. That's not to say that it's perfect because, hell no series (except MAYBE Puella Magi Madoka Magica) is but YuYu Hakusho just has more going for it than against it.

Now the flaws of YuYu Hakusho are...relatively few in number but important, to me anyways. First of all, one gets the feeling that at least as far as the manga goes, Togashi wasn't quite sure what kind of series he wanted to write. It starts off with ghost Yusuke and Botan helping random spirits or people get over whatever emotional problems they have until Yusuke comes back and then it's all like "Time to become a shonen action manga!" with the introduction of everyone's favorite demon pair Hiei and Kurama. Another factor is the Detective Items Yusuke gets at the start and this was actually left intact in the anime. As Yusuke is still new to using Spirit Energy or Reiki as it's called in the manga, he was supposed to be using special items that'd give him a bit of a boost and allow him to adjust to using these new powers. This is very quickly scrapped and even when the items make their grand reentry to the series in the third season, it's still kind of...meh. Next is the Chapter Black arc. While this is the best season of the series in terms of substance over flash, it comes literally out of nowhere with no real build up to it, but then again I think the only season to have much buildup anyways was the last season. It's all like "oh Yusuke's been kidnapped, oh there are new Psychics, oh the former SPOILER is trying to SPOILER and destroy the Human world!" and while it is good, it's still a bit...sudden. I'll also say that the ending of the manga was a bit of a let down since Togashi was rushed and couldn't end it the way he wanted to, and this is one of the few times where the anime is better than it's manga counterpart.

Oh my god, there are so many positive aspects of this series I'm not even sure if I'm capable of listing them all. First of all, I love love love the animation of this series. It's from the 90's which automatically makes it look nice to me but I just love looking at it. Next come the characters. Now I'll be the first of many fans of this show to say that it's not the unique and original masterpiece that the world thinks it to be. In reality it's...not. YuYu Hakusho is one of the most nostalgic great long running shonen series and even Japan recognized this as it was the only shonen series at the time to even be in the same league as that shitstorm known as DragonBallZ. A lot of overlap can be seen with the characters with Yusuke being Goku, Kuwabara as Krillin, Hiei as Vegeta and...maybe Kurama as Future Trunks...only, you know, the characters from YuYu Hakusho are WAY cooler. By FAR the best thing to come from 90's was, in my personal opinion, badass Bishonen characters. Characters like....THIS!

Ladies and gents, THIS is Kurama and he is BADFUCKINGASS!! He's pretty as hell, he looks like a woman and he's got a thing for roses...roses that HE TRANSFORMS INTO WHIPS TO KILL PEOPLE WITH! He's got an even better looking form but this will do. An interesting thing about this series and many series that followed in it's wake is that it doesn't really go for the manly badass design for it's characters, presumably so that the females have some nice eyecandy. This series uses a more...bishonen design for it's characters, well except for Kuwabara, the weakest and most masculine looking of the main characters. Getting back on track, the characters for YuYu Hakusho are all super memorable from the wise ass Yusuke, the lovably clueless Kuwabara, the cryptic and antisocial Hiei and of course the beautiful and charming Kurama but that's not all. While this series is a shonen classic and known for it's awesome fights, one of the things I actually like the most about this series is it's female characters. Shonen series with badass female characters are few and far between with the standouts in my book being Bleach, One Piece, Negima, Omamori Himari, Flame of Recca and Ranma 1/2. That's 6 out of thousands and three of these series are technically harem series as well.. Now YuYu Hakusho's female characters might not all be badass, in fact...I think only 2 of them are the old Psychic Genkai and Demon "King" Mukuro but I personally loved Hiei's sister Yukina, Kuwabara's sister Shizuru, Koenma's employee Botan and Yusuke's girlfriend Keiko who I really would've liked to have gotten something resembling a character arc but what we got was good enough. While no one here is original, I do have to give the show credit for breathing life into the character archetypes that are utilized. And then the thing that everyone won't shut up, besides the Dark Tournament is the famous Chapter Black saga. In this season, our heroes find themselves facing not Yokai and Demons but Humans, though they're anything but regular and ordinary. These humans are endowed with special powers and are fighting not for us but against all of Humanity. The heroes and we as the audience get swept up in a world of moral greys when before it was all blacks and whites. The fights are SUPERB! Always creative and involving each fight in this series is an intense ride and you don't want to miss a single one.

If you get down to this part of the review and you think that it's a bit...well, bland, that's because it's hard for me to really get into what makes this series great as well as the fact that most of us have already seen it. In the end, YuYu Hakusho is just something that needs to be fully experienced. I feel like I did this post the way Yusuke does things, "half-assed" so I'll leave it all like this. Until next week, DaWaRou~!

DaWaRou Posts: The Shonen Idiot Protagonist

Good day everyone! HAPPY 2013~! Yes, we are in a new year, cool isn't it? Pretty much the same as the start of last year except no Apocalypse bullshit to worry about! And so, what better way to ring in the new year than to talk about something I've talked about in my own blog?! Yes! Today I'm going to repost something word for word from my old blog but it should still be a good and very very very long read. Ladies and Gents, I'm John Cortez and this is my ninth post for The Broken Infinite!

Welcome to my Introduction to Shonen series! Here I'll be covering the usual staples of a Shonen manga/anime and giving, what I hope can be, an opinionated and in depth analysis on these topics. I figure that with so many common things that appear in these series, it's best to start with what's probably the most common and that is the Idiot Hero.

Ahh yes, the Idiot Hero. What Shonen series don't have you as the shining star? (Death Note, Soul Eater, Yu-Gi-Oh, Detective Conan, FullMetal Alchemist, To Aru Majutsu no Index, Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning, Bloody Monday, Negima, Bleach, Fairy Tail, Nurarihyon no Mago, Ruroni Kenshin)
Well, anyways, the vast majority of Shonen series usually star an idiot as the central protagonist. He (and it's usually a he) will be of school age and failing miserably, getting low grades and being hounded by his teachers and mocked by his peers. Some series have a justification for having such a person as the main character for example little Son Goku of DragonBall over here! Son Goku was a Sayian baby sent to Earth and at one point hit his head on a rock. Raised by his "Grandfather" Gohan in the mountains and being taught only language and martial arts, Goku is not the brightest bulb in the box although he does seem to get progressively smarter as the series goes on. Goku's main deal though was that he lacked interaction with other people for most of his early life. Once Bulma showed up and took him away from his little mountain home, Goku started learning more about the world. In addition to this, once he began training with Master Roshi, he received some education from the old pervert in between his training. Goku's stupidity also played into his main character flaw in the early series of being very gullible and susceptible to manipulation. Despite this, Goku remained pure of heart and ever the optimist who always believed that things would turn out right in the end and it also made him very enjoyable to watch. Goku lacked the social skills and street smarts of Bulma and Krillin but remained the one who'd always risk his life to save any and everyone he possibly could, even a rat. As stupid as he was though, Goku wasn't foolish enough to not fully recognize a threat when he saw one, at least as the series went on. By the time DragonBallZ rolled around, Goku was able to recognize every single enemy that appeared and dealt with them without actually killing them himself. This is in stark contrast to his behavior in the original series where Goku was quite willing to kill those who murdered his friends or tried to harm innocent people.


The question is why? Why have a character like this? What's the point? What does it accomplish? What does the reader get out of rooting for some dumbass who can't even count past 12? How does it benefit the story and what kind of development, if any, can come from having a character like this? Well, let's look at a few more idiot heroes and see of those questions are answered.
I guess it'd be best to just kind of answer these questions one by one or all at the same time for each example I give on this page. Hmm, well I'll figure it out but once again back to those questions. Namely the first one, why have a character like this? Over the years, I've seen MANY Idiot Heroes but I'm pretty sure that America was exposed to one rather decent one during the 90's!You thought it was going to be Ash from Pokemon...didn't you? Well I'll get to Ash at a later point. The first example we're going to look at for this example is Taichi Yagami/Tai Kamiya from Digimon Adventure. Staring a group of kids that got sent to an alternate world and paired with strange creatures called Digimon, Taichi was the most distinctive among the entire group it it won't take you long to figure out why. One of the things I should've mentioned earlier about the Idiot Shonen Hero or the I.S.H as I'll refer to them is that this character is usually more Western or American looking in contrast to the usually more Asian or Japanese looking Rival. There are exceptions to every "rule" and Tai here is one of them. At the start of the series Tai was a standard Shonen Lead character. Strong willed, impulsive, brash and always the first to voice his opinion on what to do next. Tai was also ALWAYS first when it came to having his Digimon digivolve whenever a new form was available. His reason for being an idiot? Well, Tai wasn't really an idiot, not exactly. Tai was more naive, no, more...explosively emotional, if that. Tai was a fighter. He was the dynamic and action oriented leader that the group would later look to when in need of someone to make a decision. In the series Tai is often contrasted and foiled by Yamato Ishida/Matt who was the level headed over-thinker. This level head is something that Tai would later start to develop as he'd become a true leader, the glue that held his group of friends together. Generally, Tai would be the one to say and do what many of us watching the show would've done if in the same situation. Explore the island, fight the monsters, climb the mountain, beat the bad guys...whatever the decision was that needed to be made, lots of us were behind Tai when he made his. So maybe this is why we have the I.S.H. We're meant to be able to relate to them and picture ourselves in their situations. But isn't this somewhat the point of ALL main characters, idiots or not? Aren't we meant to relate to them in some way from the start? Well let's look at another example and see what we get out of it!

Now, this is probably scraping at the bottom of the barrel in terms of great shonen protagonist but, this is one that I really like. Shonen heroes are usually average kids thrown into strange or fantastic situations and part of the joy of watching them is to see how they react and adapt to their new life. Some take it better than others though as Tsunayoshi "Tsuna" Sawada from Katekyo Hitman Reborn is among the most unsuited protagonists to his story that I've ever seen. Now unlike Tai who could really only be called an idiot in part due to the overwhelming maturity of those surrounding him, Tsuna is a scholastic nightmare as far as most people are concerned. He has the worst grades, can't do anything athletic to save his life and is overall a pathetic loser that only bothers going to school because of the girl he has a crush on and she barely even knows he exists before the plot kicks in. Tsuna's life changes forever when a baby in a suit appears and claims to be his new Home Tutor and the greatest hitman to boot. Reborn, as the baby is known, takes an active an over the top approach to turning Tsuna into that which he is destined to be, the 10th generation heir to the most powerful Mafia family in the world. This includes physically beating him up on a daily basis and putting him through hell as well as shooting him with magical bullets that resurrect him with his dying will. Tsuna is likely an idiot because the writer said so. He's more similar to a Harem Hero if anything. Well, scratch that, he's actually very much like Shinji Ikari from Evangelion. He's a coward with little to no backbone and utterly fails to stand up for himself. He's indecisive and almost useless and not at all worthy of being a Mafia boss. Similar to Tai though, Tsuna has shades of being the normal one among his friends. Tsuna is always the one who wants to avoid fighting or confronting the enemy but always the first to put his life on the line for his friends and he brings a very humane element to his Family. Also similar to Tai, Tsuna is a character that I'm sure people can relate to. A useless wimp with no real talents when it comes to anything that suddenly finds out he's destined to do something he'd never even dream of. It's his compassion that makes him an endearing character but for Tsuna it speaks volumes for him as a person. He's got no business trying to lead anyone but is so often looked to when shit goes down that he eventually becomes somewhat comfortable with his position enough to inspire his friends to fight battles of epic proportions. So maybe this is why. Regardless of what we start off as we're fully capable of being greater than what we appear to be. We're capable of rising up from the depths of our own uselessness and mediocrity and become something or someone worthy of leading a group of trusted friends to what could most definitely be certain death. We are meant to empathize and at the same time criticize Tsuna because as great of a leader as he becomes, its' out of necessity and not a natural thing he just has from the start of the series. His idiocy and desire to distance himself from the life that's already been chosen for him is a contributing factor to his being an idiot because he doesn't want to be involved with that world. He wants to be normal which is something that many heroes like him also wish for but can usually never get. And now that I've mentioned them...it's time to talk about the next kind of Idiot Hero.

The Harem Idiot Hero...GOD I HATE SOME OF THESE PROTAGONISTS! Never the less, I need to talk about them as I need to cover all kinds of Idiots in this post. This idiot is Keitaro Urashima from possibly one of the best Harem manga ever written by Ken Akamatsu, Love Hina. Staring a high school graduate that's been trying desperately to get into Tokyo University to fulfill some promise to a girl he can barely remember, Keitaro ventures to his grandmother's inn and learns two things. The first is that its' no longer an Inn it's an all girls dorm and the second is that he's the new manager. All guys reading this and thinking of how awesome it'd be, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! The life of a Harem Hero is among the lowest positions for ANY protagonist and Keitaro has it the worst. Why is Keitaro an idiot? Well he keeps failing to get into the school of his choice Tokyo University. But to but this into context for you, Tokyo University is the highest ranking University in all of Asia, the most prestigious in Japan and 21st in the entire world. He's basically trying to get into one of the GREATEST schools in the entire world and fails about 3 times in his attempt to do so before finally getting accepted. Why else is he an idiot? Because he's the main character in a Harem series and they are bound by the constraints of their role as resident punching bag. Keitaro suffers from a nearly endless bout of bad luck as being the only man in an all girls dorm, no one is smart enough to lock the doors or make sure that there's no way anyone can see you naked or walk in while you're changing. It's not so much that he's an idiot, because Keitaro is fairly smart. It's just that he ends up in stupid situations because everyone else in his life seems to conspire to make his life horrible. The point of a Harem Hero is roughly the same as the main character of a Visual Novel or a Twilight novel. Men are meant to plug themselves in and pick their favorite girl and then hope they can get with them in the end. It's entirely obvious who Keitaro will end up with in the end if you've never read the series and decide to try it, but it's rewarding to see how hard each character has to work in order to get the happy ending that they want. Unfortunately polygamy isn't legal in Japan to my knowledge so only one girl gets the gold and the others keep pining after him even on his wedding day but are otherwise respectful enough to not get in the way of his happiness. Character development is a MAJOR factor of this series and while the characters keep their basic personalities intact, they're allowed and somewhat forced to mature due to the main focus of the series being love...and comedy. So Keitaro is an idiot because, of course, no girl wants a man that's perfectly premade for them. They want someone who's being pursued by several other females and despite all of his short comings, grows into a man worthy of their affections. It also helps to have a man that's slightly immortal and later learns archaeology and martial arts.

So by this point we've covered three very different but very similar characters and what questions have we answered? Well let's ask those questions again. Why do we have characters like this? Probably to give us someone to relate to. Few people want a story in which there are no relatable characters and we especially want to empathize and sympathize and relate to the lead character. We see the world through their eyes and most of the time the world is fairly unkind to them simply because the plot says so. The three examples listed above are all examples of characters that developed significantly past their basic I.S.H. status. They became capable of holding their own and carrying a good portion of the story on their own backs. Now, let's look at some more. These next ones will be a bit more...I don't know. They're typical but they're not at the same time and my opinions on them are a bit more...well...here we go.

Ahh, the very epitome of a MANLY hero! When people speak of Team Dai-Gurren's fearless badass leader...they're talking about Kamina from Gurren Lagann. This little number came out of a studio called Gainax. Sound familar? No? Well what about Evangelion, FLCL and Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt? Yeah, Gainax did those and this. In perfect honesty, Kamina is NOT the protagonist or even the main character of TTGL despite the fact that he's the driving force behind nearly EVERY single action and he's mentioned in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE OF THIS 27 EPISODE SERIES! Yeah, he also gets a statue and a city and seriously the most awesome pair of sunglasses and the most attractive male of this series so he must be important, right? WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK HE IS?!  Well, Kamina is at first glace the typical Idiot Shonen Character. He's LOUD! He's PASSIONATE! He's an IDIOT of the highest caliber with the drive and determination to lead and inspire others to do their absolute best. He fits the bill much better than our actual protagonist Simon who starts off as someone very similar to Shinji Ikari. Kamina will face a giant Mecha with a sword, peep on girls in the bath, and try to win fights with pure will power. He's most definitely an act first, think later type of person...but he's not. Underneath all that masculine badassery and overwhelming passionate idiocy, Kamina is a far more complex character. True, Kamina is an idealist and a determined manly badass, but the idiocy is more or less a facade to mask his more or less truly grounded in reality mindset. Kamina is a strategist and despite it not seeming so, he's QUITE sharp. He merely acts this way so that the others around him, mainly Simon, won't be too afraid to do anything when the shit hits the fan. His actions are usually dumb but at times he's capable of brilliance that makes you say, "Hmm, that actually sounds pretty smart." And so we've already answered the question of why Kamina is an Idiot. It's out of necessity because his team needs someone with his foolish arrogance and unrestrained pride, willpower and determination to lead them out of the darkness and into the light of a new world and a new life. And I think that's all I'll say about Kamina before I get into spoiler territory.

Now he's a story I'd have LOVED to see become it's own spinoff manga. I mentioned earlier that Ruroni Kenshin was one of the few manga I've read that doesn't star the usual I.S.H. but that doesn't mean that there isn't a character like that in the series. I present to you Yahiko Miyojin as one of my interesting examples. At the beginning, Yahiko was just a bratty kid that Kenshin and Kaoru took in and despite my always liking Kenshin, Kaoru, Megumi and Sanosuke I always really liked Yahiko's story lines and subplots. He was the kid character, the one that most readers were probably meant to relate to. As for why he's an idiot? He's a street urchin so it's justified. As the series went on, Yahiko became a far more active character than his teacher Kaoru and was even able to take out some pretty heavy hitters along the way all by himself. At the end of the manga, Yahiko was 15 years old and the kind of character people wanted to read more about, well at least I wanted to read more about him. Sure, his happy ending was already set up. He got Kenshin's reverse blade sword, mastered the Kamiya Kashin Style and even got Tsubame as a girlfriend in addition to being able to catch swords and break them with his knuckles! That's everything you need for a continuation, but I guess that's what fanfiction is for isn't it? You know, I can see why Kenshin was a better protagonist than Yahiko and Sanosuke. Kenshin had a mysterious past and a troubled history. He was a former assassin and a complex character. But as I said in my review of the series, if this were a typical Shonen series, Yahiko or Sanosuke would've been the main characters. But now I feel like I've gotten off topic. Yahiko was interesting because he was the little kid character that wanted to be a man. He wanted to be taken seriously and respected and treated like he was a valued member of the team insetad of that kid that was just allowed to tag along for the ride and fight a few times. He brought that childish outlook to the series that made it a bit more enjoyable and he grew into a strong man when everything was all said and done. And I guess that's why he didn't get his own spinoff manga. Not only did we finish Kenshin's story but in doing so we also finished Yahiko's. We saw the little kid who wanted to learn swordsmanship grow into a capable man and that's really all we needed to know.

First let me start by saying that I LOVE THIS PICTIRE! Second, we've reached...what can probably be described the Dork Age of DBZ with this picture. Yeah, I'd like to know what editor proclaimed from on high, "We should put Gohan in High School!" Well, I think we can also agree that this was probably the worst arc of the entire series. So why am I even bringing it up? Well to start off I was searching the internet for a picture of Gohan going to school for about an hour so that's one reason. And the second reason is that while I'm well aware that Gohan isn't an idiot in the intellectual sense, he still can be described as an idiot in some ways due to his actions at this point in the story. See we all remember that Goku died trying to beat Cell ONLY because Gohan over here didn't kill him when he actually had the chance to do so. Then Gohan killed him and we had a Time Skip! The point of this was that Toriyama felt that Goku's story had finally come to an end and it was time for him to pass the torch to his oldest son, Son Gohan. This arc focused on Gohan going to High School and playing superhero to avoid people pestering him about his powers, you know simple shit that's been done the world over by this point. Now to be perfectly honest...I LOVE THIS ARC! No joke, it's probably my favorite arc of the entire series. Why? Well because we get to watch Gohan act like an idiot. We the audience are laughing at him as opposed to with him due largely to how near needless this arc is. In personal opinion though I still like it, even if it does make me feel embarrassed for Gohan at times. Gohan would've made for a rather decent protagonist had Toriyama decided to keep Goku out of the picture. The kind and gentle nature, the need to help everyone in need and the well of unused power resting within him makes Gohan a character that I'd enjoy watching go to high school and try to struggle with keeping his powers a secret while fighting increasingly powerful opponents as opposed to having Buu come in right from the get go and I kind of think that that's what Toriyama wanted to do but I guess the world hadn't gotten enough of his idiot father and thus the world got the goody goody that failed to kill pretty much any major villain throughout the entirety of the series. Now how does Gohan fit into this discussion on idiot heroes? Well Gohan has the same traits that I think a lot of more intelligent Shonen heroes usually suffer from. Gohan is smart and intelligent but he's also socially awkward and like his dad, not very in touch with how the modern world works. He's an idiot in the sense that he just doesn't really use common sense. Any logical person in his situation would simply let the police or Videl handle the bad guys but Gohan being Gohan can't allow any innocent person to be harmed or any wrong doer to go unpunished. So, he dons a colorful costume and makes a fool out of himself and it doesn't take long for Videl to figure out who he really is especially in the manga where she discovers him the first time he uses his new hero identity. I guess one can also make the case that Gohan is an idiot for letting his father die during the Cell Games. Yeah, that might be a low blow but it's true. Once Gohan finally snapped, EVERYONE knew that he was perfectly capable of killing Cell and ending this shitstorm. What did he do? He drew the battle out and played with his opponent like Vegeta and this is largely due to lacking two things that his father and Vegata both possess. Gohan lacks his fahter's tactical battle skills, if you can call them that and the killer intent of Vegeta. This would've been a WONDERFUL chance to explore the potential problems these flaws could've caused but no. Goku comes back and the rest is history. Such a waste. Honestly, have Videl get kidnapped by someone or something with ACTUAL power, nothing like Buu but something challenging for the young hero and then let's have this guy...wipe out a few major cities, kill some innocents and to cap it all off...mortally wound Gohan's family and loved ones while still threatening his lady love. This sounds like something I'm sure some fanfic writer has come up with and out of the first 10 pages of the DBZ section on fanfiction.net only 10 stories focus on Gohan in high school and none of them seem to utilize that idea. Oh well, I think we'll look at two more atypical examples of this before looking at the three that EVERYONE seems to love for some reason or another.

Now, as I'm sure you're starting to notice, for these examples I'm not using the actual protagonists of the series. This is because of a certain trend I've noticed. When reasonably intelligent, level headed or outright average characters in a shonen series are in fact the main character, they're often paired with an idiot. Why this happens is anyone's guess but I guess I'm supposed to be the one to answer this question, aren't I? Well much like in the case of Kamina, let's see how these next three (yes three, hell I might even do 4) characters help to shape our lead.

 By far probably one of the best examples of being paried with an idiot charcater happens with Yugi Mutou from Yu-Gi-Oh! In his case, the small boy was paried with this guy, Katsuya Jonochi/Joey Wheeler. Joey started off as merely a playful antagonist to Yugi at the start of the series. A more unlikable and bullyish version of Kamina from Gurren Lagann. But Joey never physically caused Yugi harm or put him in danger...intentionally. Joey, for some reason or another, wanted to make Yugi a man and as previously stated, treats him in a similar manner to how Kamina treats Simon. But the thing that turns Joey into arguably the second most important character in the series among the supporting cast is when Yugi defends him and Hiroto Honda/Tristan Taylor from a bully. Joey returns the piece of Yugi's Millennium Puzzle to him and the two boys become best friends. Now Joey is straight up stupid, no doubt about that. He's headstrong, hot blooded and constantly rushes into thigns without thinking them through. He often relies on Yugi's help to win duels against far stronger and mroe experienced opponents and when that's not enouh, Joey relies on straight up dumb luck. Now why do I even bring up this character? Well, even if Joey isn't the main character he's still an idiot shonen character which is what this post is about. Since Yugi is the smart one in his group, Joey is the dumb muscle. But there's more to him than just that. As I'll cover in a later post, the power of Friendship is an important force in the land of Shonen and here it's among the strongest forces in the universe. The bonds of Friendship shared between Yugi and his friends resonate strongest in his friendship with Joey. In Japanese "Friendship" is translated as "Yujou" which and is made up of the first sylables of both Yugi and Joey's names. Their friendship is brought up constantly and is one of the reasons why Yugi is able to grow and develop into his own person. Because Joey was always there supporting Yugi, the boy was able to grow into becoming his own man...despite the fact that he also relied on the spirit of a 5,000 year old Pharaoh. Anyhow, the friendship between these two has been tested in just about every season to my knowledge and each time they're able to overcome this obstacle and become even stronger which culminates during Battle City where Yugi confesses that he loves Joey from the bottom of his heart, not as a LOVER but as an irreplaceable friend that he'd gladly risk his life and die for. Say what you want about this show but you've got to admit that the Idiot made a Man out of our main...sort of. That and FRIENDSHIP!

Once again we return to Ruroni Kenshin for a supporting Idiot. Now here we have a rather...unusual case...in a way. Often when paired with the idiot supporting character, our lead will be of reasonable intelligence but lacking in masculity or a backbone. Thus the idiot will often be the most masculine member of the cast and the best friend to our main and will try to man him up. Not so much in the case of Sanosuke Sagara. Kenshin's already a 28 year old man by the time he works his way into the plot and despite the protests of some that Bishonen characters aren't manly for some reason just because they're pretty looking, Kenshin is the established man with a backstory and everything. He's the one with the vow to never kill and goes out of his way to save people. Suck it up, Kenshin's more of man than Sano. Back on topic here, Sano serves to knock some much needed sense into our favorite former Hitokiri. Sano also served a similar role to Yahiko, being a character others could have an easier time relating to and he was also like an older brother to Yahiko. He was also the resident second badass and more or less second in command...if you could call him that. As the male character closest in age to Kenshin (for the first part of the story), the two were able to easily have conversations and bounce off each other so why is Sano an idiot? Well because of that personality of his. Sano was...I'd dare say at the lower end of intellectually average but he knew his way around the battle field. He was a support character and like Yahiko and Kaoru, he quickly realized that he was...not quite up to snuff and needed to get stronger during the Kyoto Arc. Like all the characters, Sanosuke got a significant amount of development. He started off as a simple fighter for hire and eventually became something of a wanderer himself at the end of the manga.

Just about the only really contributing side male character in a Harem series is Kotaro Inugami from Negima. Similar to the two above, he started off as something of an antagonist to the lead (are we seeing a pattern yet?) before switching sides and becoming Negi's friend. Now of all the characters in this series why would I bring up this one? Because Kotaro has a much more obvious effect on Negi than any of the girls do. Kotaro was introduced in volume 5 during the Kyoto Arc (wow that's two series with a Kyoto arc now) as an antagonistic obstacle in Negi's way. Kotaro is a Hanyo or Half Yokai/Half Demon specifically an Inugami or a Dog Spirit and he makes it very clear that he has a hatred for Negi during their first fight because Negi is not only a male Western Wizard, but he also depends on a girl to protect him and do all the physical fighting for him. In his second battle with our main character, Kotaro is beaten by Negi who despite doing most of the fighting for himself still has to rely on the help of one of his partner's with the ability to read thoughts. After the Kyoto arc is finished, Kotaro returns in volume 8 as a main reoccurring character and a friendly rival to Negi. Now like Joey and Sano, Kotaro is an idiot in the intellectual sense but he shines brightest on the battlefield. He might not understand things like philosophy but Kotaro has street smarts and battle experience and is an invaluable ally to Negi. Now, this might not be the best time to bring this up but when I say "in depth analysis" I mean I get what I get out of it. I'm no expert on this stuff so like I say, grain of salt. Back on topic, why does Kotaro matter? Well let's look at what Kotaro is. He's a Dog Demon. On the one hand, he sees himself as a lone wolf but it's obvious that he's more like a wounded street puppy. Kotaro has been shunned away from his family due to what he is (this is implied within the series). This makes Kotaro value the relationships he's able to make with Negi and some of the other girls. In turn Negi, who up till this point has really only had female friends, values Kotaro as a playmate and a true example of what a male to male relationship is like. Kotaro inspires Negi to think a little outside the box and act like an idiot while Negi inspires Kotaro to become stronger and eventually become a Magister Magi himself. Kotaro is a rare character in Harem series because the males that do appear often fuck shit up as best they can which isn't funny. They often give stupid advice to the lead male who takes it against his better judgement. Kotaro has no interest in romance. He often tells Negi to stop getting caught up in so many different relationships with girls and in a way kind of thinks them inferior to men on the battlefield in his first appearance. Kotaro is chivalrous though as he refuses to physically fight girls under any circumstances and is always there to help the girls if needed.

So, we've looked at three typical examples, three atypical examples and three supporting examples. The Idiot Shonen Hero comes in many flavors and the best part is that most times he doesn't even have to be the main character. But now we've reached the three that just seem to roll right off the tongue. These are the last three examples before we wrap this up with my favorite Idiot Shonen Hero.

So for this one we'll start with the new and go back in terms of series. Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach, is what happens when you take InuYasha and try to make him into a combination of Yusuke Urameshi and Kazuma Kuwabara and fail to do it the right way, if there is a right way to do so. He is practically those three characters all rolled into one scowling package. Unlike most Shonen heroes, Ichigo isn't really an idiot in an intellectual sense since he ranks 23rd in his class in order to not get shit for his grades and natural orange hair. He's troubled and he's got a sad sob story that involves the death of his mother and he's weird in that he can see ghosts and people pick fights with him because of his hair. He's got friends, a loving family, good looks and an unusual talent so what's his goal? Well, he doesn't have one. Ichigo is one of the "normal" Shonen main characters that gets dragged into the story and has no set goal in mind nor any aspirations to do much of anything with his life. Ichigo suffers from what I like to call "Plot Power Disease" meaning he gains new powers for no logical reason other than "Oh yeah, the plot requires you to get stronger!". Now many other Shonen series are afflicted with this disease but its' not always a bad thing when the threat will be resolved in a timely manner. NOT WHEN THE VILLAIN MAPS OUT THE ENTIRE PLOT AND IS AROUND FOR THE GRAND MAJORITY OF THE SERIES! Sorry about that, I've got issues with this series. In many ways Bleach was off to a fairly decent start and the way it was structured wasn't horrible, but very enjoyable! Even with the shitstorm of characters that kept flying out of Kubo's ass and the walking abomination that is Aizen who makes Haruhi Suzumiya look like a stage magician in comparison to the power he wields. IF Aizen was killed...in like...2 more arcs after the Soul Society arc, I wouldn't have minded him so much but no. And once again I've gotten off topic but not really. Anyways, Ichigo isn't a horrible protagonist, not really. He's just not a very compelling one when you get down to brass tacks. He fights for his friends and to save the world but...really what else? What does he get out of it? Why does he exist? Well, don't ask me! I could care less! In a lot of ways I don't have too many problems with Ichigo's character or many of the other supporting characters either. My MAIN problem starts with Aizen and then the plot itself. It's like it's on this grand journey to nowhere but wants you to think that it's actually going somewhere.

And now we get into uselessness territory. Naruto is the shit series ripped off of...I mean inspired by a series called Ninku and for some reason, it's become like the Twilight of the anime world. You have the people that like it but can see all of it's flaws and just don't watch it (like ME), and then you have the people that ARE FUCKING OBSESSED WITH IT AND TREAT IT LIKE IT'S FUCKING SHAKESPEARE OR LITERARY GOLD WHEN IT'S NOT! IT'S NOT DAMNIT! Okay, I...I need to calm down. It's just that this series ANGERS ME! Not because of how bad it is but because of it's many many many many many many many MANY MANY MANY FLAWS THAT PEOPLE CONTINUE TO IGNORE FOR SOME REASON! IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS PEOPLE! IT'S STUPIDITY WHEN APPLYING IT TO THIS! Once again...I need to calm down. Okay, now where do I begin? Naruto is among the biggest idiots in his universe. He's loud, annoying, idiotic and of course he's got problems (don't we all?). Naruto's got a demon fox taking up residence inside his body and EVERYONE  in the village hates him for it :) :) So Naruto wants to become the most badass ninja in his village because then people will HAVE to look up to him and respect him or else die (or something like that). So in his quest to become a great ninja, Naruto CONSTANTLY skips school and plays pranks! TOP GRADE NINJA, RIGHT FUCKING HERE FOLKS! I've got SO many problems with this series, it's not even funny :(! First, the story is OLD AS SHIT! We've SEEN this story MANY times before, and we'll no doubt see it MANY times in the future. Despite this, I liked the series when it first hit America. I liked the idea of Naruto becoming Hokage not for the GOOD of his village but because he was tired of being treated like shit and wanted some damn respect! I STILL like that plot! It deals with a character having to find his place in a society that neither wants nor cares for his personal well being. Sure, Naruto's existence has saved the village but they all think he's just the fox in human form. Naruto's goal and plan to become the Hokage is a rather smart move and rational decision on his part as it would force the villagers to respect him REGARDLESS of the nameless monster fox living within him. I'm not going to really get into my reasons for not liking the series, or at least I hope I don't because I want to focus more on the character rather than the shit series as a whole. Now part of my dislike for the series stems from the fact that Naruto still wants to become the Hokage but now is primary motivation is gone. The villagers already respect him and he's among the most powerful of his class so what does he really have to gain by becoming the Hokage? What's his reason for aiming that high? Naruto's still stupid after the time skip, he wouldn't make a great leader in a time of crisis or war! Now if the village still hated him even after he saved their asses from Pein that would be different. He'd still have perfectly reasonable reason for wanting to become Hokage but why does he still want to now? Does the Hokage make him a babe magnet? Will he become smarter? What's his reason? If any of you can or wish to answer this question, PLEASE DO IN THE COMMENT SECTION! Now, I've talked about this idiot as much as I really want to without shitting all over it. Despite my MANY reasons for not liking it, I still do like it in a way.

Now we move onto my FAVORITE of these three series, One Piece and it's idiot lead Monkey D. Luffy! Shit, even his name has "stupid" written all over it. Luffy is...an idiot in every sense of the word. He's...he's just an idiot but I still like him. Despite being stupid, Luffy still manages to be likable and the kind of person you'd be inclined to follow on an adventure across the seas. Like Naruto, Luffy also has a (Truly truly truly) outrageous goal in mind. He wants to be the Pirate King. He gathers his crew (most of which is smarter than he is) and sets sail for the Grand Line. As stated previously, I find Luffy to be extremely likable despite him being an idiot. Maybe it's his childish determination, or that goofy smile he always has on his face or just the fact that YOU KNOW Luffy will get shit done that makes me respect him as a lead character. Why Luffy is an idiot is something that the world may never know and I don't really care, to be honest. I know that I bitch and whine about there being too many idiot Shonen leads but that doesn't mean that I hate all of them. Luffy here is my absolute favorite, to be honest. Who's you're favorite Idiot Shonen Character and Why and then who's the character you hate the most and why?

In conclusion, idiocy is the thing that humanity is stuck with. We can become smarter but we all make stupid decisions at some point or another and we learn from those mistakes, do we not? Maybe this blog was a stupid mistake of mine. But back to Shonen, let us now return to those questions that I asked before we got into the examples. Why have a character like this? What's the point? Well, I believe the point is to give the character a believable flaw. Their idiocy is their undoing sometimes but most times these characters are able to come away despite their stupid decisions. What do we get out of it? Well, humor for one. To be honest, I've never really seen idiocy played in a serious or tragic light where it REALLY has a devastating effect on the main character and as much as I'd like to see that, I doubt people would sympathize very well. Everyone has access to information with which to develop and improve their intellect so it's a flaw that's played for comedy and at times dramatic irony. SOME situations do exist where the character goes through a tragic ordeal because of a stupid decision they made but it's never really too big of a thing. We the audience are able to connect with the character. As for possible development, LOTS cam come from having an idiot for a main character. Their idiocy may be a result of immaturity and as the series gets more serious, the hero must cast off that childish immaturity and idiocy and become an adult. I hope that this has been an informative and insightful post and I hope that in reading this you were able to learn something you didn't already know. Join me next time for...I don't even know! DaWaRou~!

DaWaRou Posts: My Favorite manga Negima Magister Negi Magi

Greetings everyone! This is my FIFTH post and I'm excited! The semester is almost over, I've got a research paper I should be writing at the time of this post and I'm currently working on the fourth chapter of my novel! Now I've decided to name my posts so that they can be easily identified from everyone else's and...just because I can. The word DaWaRou doesn't mean anything in particular but if I had to associate my made up Japanese sounding word with anything at all...it'd be relaxation. Now, I'm an English major and my goals are to become an English teacher and a writer. So for this post, I thought it'd be fitting to talk about a manga that's about an English teacher.

Back when I was in high school, I'd visit my Dad every other weekend. He'd pick me up and we'd drive up the streetish to the apartment complex he lived in and I'd basically stay on his computer for a good chunk of my visits when we weren't watching TV or doing father/son bonding. One series in particular that I discovered was something that would go on to become my near absolute favorite manga. This is that series.

 This is Negima! Magister Negi Magi and it's from the same brilliant mind that brought us A.I. Love You and Love Hina. Now A.I. Love You to put simply is...kind of an Ahh My Goddess ripoff that uses Artificial Intelligence instead of Goddesses. Love Hina was the thing that REALLY put Akamatsu-sensei on the map though. Telling the story of a loser who's trying to get into Tokyo University to find a girl he wants to marry, Love Hina is one of the best known Harem series in the entire world. Now after that series ended, Akamatsu-sensei wanted to do a Shonen action manga something akin to DragonBall, Naruto, YuYu Hakusho and the like but his editors, still wanting to cash in the the success of Love Hina told him to make another Harem series. What's a man to do? Well, Akamatsu-sensei made Negima which has been described as Love Hina+Harry Potter+DragonBall. Now, when I first discovered this, I saw the anime of it on Youtube and it was my...freshman year in High School...or was it my Sophomore year? One of the two, anyways, I loved the anime so I decided to start collecting the manga. I believe that the very first volumes I got were volumes 1, 9 and 12 and I fell completely in love with the series. There were even some guys at school that I started hanging out with who were also into Negima and so I did the logical thing and tried to get some of my friends into it as well. I wasn't entirely successful but hey, I tried! So now that it's over and there's no adequate adaption of the series for me to review, I'll write up an extra long blog post on it! ENJOY!

The plot is this: Negi Springfield is a 10 (actually 9 and 3/4) year old Welsh (yes, because the English name their children Negi...) Wizard in training and he's just graduated from his village's local school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When a Mage graduates from his/her school they're given an assignment or job to do in the Human world. They're basically on something of a probationary period where they're working among Humans but can't reveal themselves as Mages or their licences will be revoked and they'll not only fail their training but also be turned into a small animal as punishment for a period of time. Now Negi's assignment is rather large for one so small. He's to be an English teacher...in Japan...at an all girls school. Of course Negi's determined to do his best because he aspires to become a Magister Magi or Master Wizard just like his father Nagi, who's known as the Thousand Master, user and master of 1000 spells. Negi's also trying to find his dear old dad as everyone tells him that Nagi's dead but a few years prior to the start of the story, Nagi gave Negi the staff he uses so something's up. Anyways, Negi packs his wands and potions and heads off to Japan's Mahora Academy an Academy of truly MASSIVE proportions. It's practically a city all on it's own and has more than 30 thousand students attending. Well all's going good for Negi until he runs afoul of our resident Tsundere Asuna and their already testy relationship is further strained by the fact that Negi happens to be the replacement teacher for the one Asuna had been crushing on. Negi soon finds himself the teacher of 31 beautiful girls, each special in her own way and ends up bringing a little magic into their lives. There's a LOT more to the plot than this but it goes into spoiler territory and I don't want to spoil too much of the series, maybe as far as the first 3 volumes and that's it.

Now as far as the series looks, it's Ken Akamatsu at his best. The designs start off...kind of simplistic at the start but become more stylized (I suppose I can call it that) and the characters look a bit more rounded at the start of the third volume. Basically, it starts off alright, and it gets better as the series continues. Now, while I'm not really reviewing the anime, I CAN talk about the music because there is A LOT OF MUSIC connected to Negima. As a series focusing on 31 girls, you can bet your ass that there will be lots of vocal works associated with it. Barely more than a year after the manga came out, a 3 episode OVA was made adapting small bits of the early manga and quite a few character songs were released to go along with it. Then in 2005 an actual anime series was adapted and the girls got another chance to sing, not quite character songs this time but the openings and endings for the series. In 2006 two more OVA's were released along with more music performed by the characters which was followed by another anime adaption which of course gave more songs to the characters. Then in 2007 there was a live action series with MORE character songs and most recently have been the songs used in the OADs and movie. Overall, the music in Negima is wonderful. There really isn't much more I can say about it.

Now we get into the pros and cons of this series. As with InuYasha last week, we'll start with the flaws of Negima and it's got some flaws. First of all it's an Akamatsu manga which means...FANSERVICE! Yeah, if you thought that Love Hina's fanservice was too much, Negima seems to be Akamatsu-sensei's treasure trove of it. It's not quite To-LOVE-る levels of T&A as Akamatsu-sensei seems to respect women enough to not display nipples on his character's breasts...at least I think it's a respect thing, but it's still Ken Akamatsu at his "best". Nearly EVERY chapter of Negima has some degree of fanservice, most of which are directly caused by the protagonist's young age and...lesser degree of magical control. To a certain extent, it's entirely justified that Negi is responsible for this. It's established early on that he favors Wind Magic and since he's young, he realistically shouldn't be able to perfectly control his powers. Also justified is the circumstances that cause Negi to strip these girls naked. The spell Flans Exarmatio shows up very early in the series and is translated as "Wind Flower, Disarm Weapon". It's a basic combat spell used for disarming opponents with a powerful gust of wind that often has the unfortunate side effect of reducing clothes to flower petals. As Negi is only barely 10 years old, he sometimes invokes the spell when he sneezes. Many of the girls in Negi's class have long hair and so we're left with a simple equation. Long haired beautiful girls + under age Wind Mage with a sensitive nose= predictable results. The series later introduces the rather infamous "Stripper Beam" a concentraed blast of energy that, while harmless in terms of damage to organic living beings, is rather destructive when it comes into contact with articles of clothing. Earlier in the series, one of the characters, Asuna, comes under threat of being petrified by an enemy Mage but due to her unique powers the spell only turns her clothes to stone and she's left stark naked. But wait! There are other methods of magical wardrobe malfunctions! We have character's clothing getting burned off, turned to ice, blown off by wind and slashed to ribbons by magical attacks. We also have the walking wardrobe malfunction in the form of a character named Takane D. Goodman and while she's not all that major of a character, she's someone who'll stick in your mind. Now she has the unfortunate problem of being a female in a fanservice heavy series but she also has the wonderfully idiotic idea of crafting her clothing from Shadow Magic! Well that makes changing outfits easy enough but the problem with this is that anytime she gets knocked out, her clothes turn to nothing.

Now, getting off the fanservice, what other flaws does this series contain? Well, first of all there's the characters. Negima suffers from a few symptoms of an anime/manga illness I dub Shonen Syndrome. Shonen Syndrome is basically what happens when a Shonen series has very similar or identical flaws to other Shonen series, specifically Shonen Action Series. One of these is obviously fanservice but another flaw that I've seen crop up in a lot of Shonen series recently is the characters. Now saying that the characters are a flaw is a very broad statement but what people usually think that it means is that the characters that appear within the series aren't interesting, or well developed, or things like that. Very rarely will you hear people complain about the number of characters. Well, NOW you hear people complain about it. Series like Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, Detective Conan, Ranma 1/2, InuYasha, Urusei Yatsura and others have ridiculously long character lists attached to them, many of which we meet over time. Negima introduces us to 37 characters in the first volume alone. This is something that could've really fucked the series over in the long run. People don't really take very kindly to finding out that they're now expected to care about more than, I'd say, at least 5 characters. Now Negima really only focuses on the core class along with Negi and his future friend Kotaro. While the number of characters isn't really something that drags the series down too much, their development kind of does. Now don't get me wrong, Negima does develop most of the characters to a certain extent but when it all comes to an end, it feels rather...flat. The characters do change significantly over the course of the series but by the end of it all, you're left feeling that there should've been a lot more development. This is partly due to time restrictions placed on Akamatsu-sensei and so that's why the series ends rather abruptly and somewhat unfavorably.

Negima started off as something of an experiment, a way to combine to Shonen genres that really should go well with each other. The Harem Genre focuses on the interactions and relationships between people, namely when love is involved. The male lead is expected to have some degree of depth and personality and is also expected to have various relationships with the girls surrounding him and the girls are also expected to have various relationships with each other. The Shonen Action Genre focuses on battle and combat, usually telling some sort of underdog story about a wide eyed idealistic youth with a very large and somewhat outlandish goal in mind. Along the way, he meets various others that either help or hinder his cause and while character relationships are important in regards to how the hero feels for his comrades and friends, romance is often introduced for little to no reason other than to show that someone likes the main character. Epic battles are to be expected with lots of fast paced action and heart warming speeches about friendship or some drivel like that. Arguably, the first series to attempt a mixture of these two genres is Ranma 1/2. Ranma as a character was not only the Shonen action lead, he was the Harem hero. Emphasis was placed on his relationships with several rivals like Ryoga Hibiki, Happosai, and Tatewaki Kuno who were all regular rivals of his. In terms of romance, Ranma found himself in the dead center of a very tangled web of people who felt some attraction for his male or female form. In this case we'll focus on the male. As Ranma played with a lot of typical Harem tropes, it's very fitting that Ranma himself have multiple romantic rivals despite the fact that he most times rarely wanted anything to do with the girls that were often fighting for his affections. Both Kuno and Ryoga were the only serious competitors for Ranma's primary love interest and first fiance Akane Tendo, who similar to Ranma, really could've cared less about romance largely due to Kuno's objectifying her into a trophy. While Akane herself had Shampoo, Kodachi and Ukyo to compete with in the race for Ranma's affections, she tried to put on the mask of being largely indifferent and in fact she was for the early volumes. Most of the fights Akane got into were a result of her pride making her accept but later fights would show that she was obviously jealous and wanted to prove herself as a worthy future bride for Ranma. In reality there really wasn't much of an actual race as the series was really a bit more of a deceptive love triangle with Ukyo being the only one who posed a legitimate threat to the relationship.

Negima deals far more closely with standard Shonen and Harem tropes and a lot more so with the latter than the former for the early part of the series. Negi's romantic interests can be seen in the forms of Tsundere Asuna, Class Rep Ayaka, Genki Girl Makie, Shrinking Violet Nodoka, Stoic Intellectual Yue, Robotic Soul Seeker Chachamaru and the Cynic Chisame. That's pretty much the standard Harem cast. Unfortunately while the series does very well in lampshading and parodying certain tropes and even having it's characters develop far beyond their initial character types, they're left with no resolution of any kind. The part at the end of the series where it tells where the characters ended up in the future comes as something of a slap in the face, especially if you've followed the series from the start. Not only that, but there's no romantic resolution and the last 20 chapters show a severe drop in quality. Now, I thought that since the last bit of the series was devoted to reminding us that the series was about to get rid of a character, that it would show how far the cast had come and how Negi and his partners would be able to handle themselves without the Deus ex Machina. I was horribly denied, reduced to a foolish fanboy who cried his eyes out for an hour in the shower and then brought back up and left rather...satisfied but annoyed at the way the series actually ended. But other than this, there really isn't too much else wrong with the series. There are the more logical problems that the reader runs into when reading this. Namely how a 10 year old boy from another country can so easily land a teaching position in Japan. Further problems arise in the romance factor of the series, though I'd actually put the romance as a very good part about the series but don't forget that Negi himself is just barely 10 years old and many of his students who're about 2-5 years older than him do start to develop romantic feelings for him. I'd also go on to say that Negima can be a touch melodramatic at times, but it's usually justified.

And now we get to the good aspects of the series, and keep in mind we're strictly talking about the manga here. First of all, I must tip my hat to Ken Akamatsu for not only blessing the world with an intelligent Shonen protagonist, but an intelligent Shonen HAREM protagonist. Do I even need to mention how exceedingly RARE Shonen protagonists with working brains are? Much less their Harem counterparts. That's also one of the main contrasts between Negima and Love Hina. In contrast to Keitaro who was utterly stupid, clumsy, and then did a total 180 near the end where he becomes the most desirable man alive, Negi starts out as intelligent, charming, mature, naive and endearing from the very start. We don't have to grow to like Negi as a protagonist because we already like him from the start and that's the kind of lead character a series should have. That's often the problem with Harem series and in more typical and well known Shonen action series as well. The creators try to make too much of a Goku with a tragic back story and improbable goal. The original Goku was likable because while he was stupid, crude and uncivilized, he was a lovable, enjoyable and naive child who had just been denied human contact for the majority of his early life. Negi's a step towards more of a Gohan, intelligent, polite, mild mannered, cute and ultimately the kind of protagonist who works well as both a Harem and Action lead. Another good aspect of the series is the other characters and the harem tropes that are used within the series. Negi has a genuine chemistry with the girls in his class so it's very easy to see him settling down with any of them. In fact, I'll say that Negi was probably the best thing to happen to the girls of class 3-A, namely this one.

This is Nodoka Miazaki and she's the very first character to fall in love with Negi. I can't go into major specifics about her character but suffice to say she gets some of the best development in the series as her crush on Negi develops into an actual love for him. She's just..well, you'll have to read the manga for yourself. Another great part of the characters is the natural chemistry they have with each other. Even before Negi comes into the picture, the girls in his class already have very strong bonds with each other and the manga is very good at showing this. The visuals are amazing and in a very surprising twist, the Magic System is one of my favorite parts of this series. Most mangaka don't really do an extensive amount of research when it comes to the more foreign aspects of their manga. Negima is quite the opposite. Akamatsu-sensei has really done his homework when it comes to the world he's constructed and the Magic being used and each volume comes with detailed information regarding the spells. The humor is funny, the drama is emotionally involving and the action is exciting. On a more humorous note, I also love how Negi's default way of solving a problem becomes kissing. It makes sense in context.

But why is it that I love Negima? Well, a lot of reasons. First of all, I love harem series and Negima is technically a harem series. I love how it combines the best aspects of the harem and shonen action series. I love the characters and the struggles they go through, I love the Magic system used, I love the fact that the main character ISN'T an idiot. I love how Negima is a series that takes itself and it's ideas and world seriously while parodying and lampshading them at the same time. I love how Negi, as opposed to being completely in the dark about his students romantic feelings for him, takes some responsibility and the moral high ground of not getting too involved due to his position as their teacher and more importantly tries his hardest not to drag his students into the dangerous world of Magic and Sorcery. I like the fact that Negima has probably the first lesbian relationship I've ever seen in manga and I like the fact that when Negi's students are in danger, they usually don't wait around to be saved if they can help it. I like the fact that Negima can probably be seen as something of a feminist series due to the girls being some of the strongest and most well rounded female characters I've really ever seen in a shonen manga. I like the fact that them being girls is also, to an extent, completely incidental and you could easily change some of them into boys and still probably lose nothing but fanservice. I like the morality and conflict in Negima. In the 4thish major arc of the series the antagonist is trying to do something world changing to prevent some disaster. This world changing thing she's trying to do, really isn't that bad when you think about it and Negi struggles with himself when it comes to wanting to stop her. She's established as a likable character and continues to be for the duration of the series. I even like the drop in quality in the last few chapters. I like EVERYTHING about Negima to the point that it served as the primary basis of inspiration for my novel SpellBound which uses basically the exact same characters, setting, and even magic system but expanded and altered to fit my needs and hopefully Akamatsu-sensei won't end up suing me. For a much better review go here

 http://leetneet.com/anime/item/821-unlimited-reviews-mahou-sensei-negima

And now, we say good bye till next time, DaWaRou~! This is John Cortez, and as of today December 7th, it's been a year since I got this laptop I'm using! Happy aniversery to me and I hope you all decide to check out Negima! Magister Negi Magi!