Why do people pretend the philosophy Shonen covers is pretentious?
A lot of the philosophies that are used are actually used by world leaders today.
For example, Pains philosophy is pretty much the exact same as the President of a Rwanda, who had to deal with his counties two ethnic groups killing each other (1/10 of the population died in the conflict). He believes that pain will only breed vengeance, just like Pain.
Because it is pretentious. It tries to be “deep”, but always boils down to “people should just get along” with nuance.
Because it's a goofy dumb cartoon and people are too jaded and cynical to take that kind of topics seriously coming from it.
Also a lot of the topics shounen touches are clearly being used to give the appearance of depth or purpose behind a character's actions while the author shows very poor grasp of the topics.
Basically a lot of it is poorly done in a way that is a joke, and the parts that are actually well made can't be taken seriously either as a result.
>it's pretentious unless the message is providing an answer to something mankind hasn't found in thousands of years
Guess it's better to not have a message at all isnce there isn't a single film or tvshow that has ever done anything beyond answering questions in a way they had already been answered before.
>looking for philosophical insight on cartoons aimed at preteens
>looking for philosophical insight in audio visual media
Nothing the audio visual medium has ever addressed hadn't already been discussed to death by academia beforehand. Using that logic audio visual media shouldn't have themes are messages in the first place since they don't contribute anything anyway.
>looking for themes and messages in audiovisual media
Imagine being stuck on a pre-modern aesthetic mindset.
It's not that the philosophy is pretentious, it's people saying the inclusion is pretentious since it comes off as the series trying to seem deeper than it actually is by inserting stuff like politics and religion and without it being the main point. Because the main point in Naruto is Naruto and Sasuke's relationships with everybody.
And magic ninja battles.
Having underlying philosophy is not pretentious. It adds much needed depth to a story that would be nothing but fighting between magic ninja wizards.
The way it’s implemented is what’s pretentious. It’s shallowly painted on top of the story instead of being backed in. There’s a huge difference between a story that’s written for the message vs a story where it’s added later.
t. 13 year old who took his first philosophy class today
No clue what show you've watched/manga you've read, but Naruto is as a series has literally been about exploring the human condition since its very first episode/chapter. Nothing is poorly shoe-horned into the narrative in an attempt to make it deeper than it is. Shippuden then went even further and started to focus more on politicis, since the topicality of discrimination, gender roles, terrorism, caste systems etc. had already been addressed for 200 or so chapters. Sometimes I wonder what sort of show/manga you people followed. Naruto was ambiguous from start to finish.
The worst part is that this sort of criticism tends to be uttered by the same people who delude thesmevels into believing that Ikuhara contributed something to the debate surrounding gender identity. Naruto really seems to be too deep for the average anime watching retard.
Listen you shit. Here is a good hint.
PHILOSOPHY IS FOR WANKERS
>phoneposting
>shonenfag
>retarded
lamo @ ur lyf3
Why is the word pretentious so overused?
Because they offer this philosophy in manga for literal children. What this means is that they are not actually going to delve into the possibilities of the philosophy or how it can be conveyed because, again, this is for children. What is actually going to happen is that this so called "philosophy" is gonna be overwritten with "you might be right, but my kizuna with my nakama is stronger" or "I'm the main character and good is better than bad" and that's as far as it will ever go
Fucking Fate/Zero does Pain's "philosophy" dilemna with Kiritsugu better
You know how everybody hates when anime does the whole "Schrodinger's Cat" thing because that's the go-to method for writers to pretend "look at how smart I am"?
It's like that
>Why do people pretend the philosophy Shonen covers is pretentious?
Because their treatment of the topic is almost always shallow. Try reading some modern academic philosophy and compare it to the philosophizing in your average shounen manga.
>try reading scientific papers and compare it to an entertainment medium that gets most of its story-telling dynamic from comic strips
Ah yes, the appraoch of a scholar.
>philosophy is science
Yikes. Unless you're part of the Vienna Circle or Bertrand Russell you've got some brain problems. Nonetheless, you have not addressed the answer most give:
>Because their treatment of the topic is almost always shallow.
So pains philosophy revolves around the worldview of 60 IQ nigs? Surely the most based of all anime antagonists.
Also shines goes way beyond narutard. Hell I would consider akame ga kill or even log horizon to be shonen although perhaps they walk the line with seinen.
Nigger if you think Pain's philosophy comes from chimpanzees.. amazing
There's nothing to address because it's inherent to entertainment media. If you expect live action film, animation or genre fiction literature to change your outlook on a given topic of philosophy then you're likely a philistine. Using your misguided approach you shouldn't even touch entertainment media. At least be honest enough to admit that this isn't something exclusive to animation.
Akame was from a shonen magazine.
>Shines*
>Shonen*
>Mobile posting retard who can’t be bothered to sit down at a computer due to two white children running amok and begging for screen time while their dad argues about philosophy in Chinese cartoons.
>Why even not live ?
>There's nothing to address because it's inherent to entertainment media.
What's inherent to an entertainment media?
>If you expect live action film, animation or genre fiction literature to change your outlook on a given topic of philosophy then you're likely a philistine.
I never made that claim.
>Using your misguided approach you shouldn't even touch entertainment media.
Never made such claim. I said their treatment is shallow but this isn't always so. Great reading comprehension.
Akame ga Kill ran in a Gangan Joker, which is a shounen magazine
Is Gangan Joker shonen? I actually don’t know. Interestingly I would say that the anime is definitely “shonen” while I would say that the manga walks a very, very fine line. The Aesthetic and battle manga approach of the story made me feel like it was shonen but the actual content, story breadth, depth, and loss along with the political implications -of which I have NEVER seen another manga so adroitly follow the pangs of imperial revolution from start to finish- seemed far above anything a teenage boy could truly follow. I suppose that was it’s purpose.
It’s true ideological purposes were actually not particularly deep and it went from start to finish with sweet battles that would entertain about anyone. I suppose this could have its own thread but honestly I’m still not sure what the target demographic for this series I supposed to be. Is it supposed to inspire 20 somethings to will to power or it supposed to teach young boys to question systemic power?
Naruto literally shows us how the real world works. Pain said that he would make a weapon capable of wiping out a whole nation (the atom bombs). And when that weapon will be used, people will be able to know what true pain is. That pain will bring peace, but soon people will forget that pain (enter Trump's election) and war will start again, hence creating a never ending cycle.
Maybe I'm just a brainlet but I don't get those messages at all. It looks like a simple edgefest to me.
>I have NEVER seen another manga so adroitly follow the pangs of imperial revolution from start to finish- seemed far above anything a teenage boy could truly follow.
You give it far too much credit and seem to forget the existence of YA novels such as Ender's Game, Hunger Games, and others that handle similar topics.
>Is it supposed to inspire 20 somethings to will to power or it supposed to teach young boys to question systemic power?
You're really reaching. To make the claim that Akame ga Kill is supposed to teach X is to make the claim that some media are supposed to teach X and that is only true in the case that the media in question were a didactic story which it clearly isn't.
No I concur. The manga relies a little too much on the shock factor that it becomes tedious after a while.
Well for example the most immediate message is the way that Tatsumi pushes his power, the imperial arm Incursio, which he inherited from an older supposedly homosexual man, far beyond its limits. At first this comes across as a simple “level up” super Saiyan type system where the user is pushing himself again and again. That is until we begin to understand that the way he is pushing himself is actually untenable and eventually he will kill himself by doing so. Some might say this is the one place the anime has something over the manga he dies in the anime, whereas in the manga he is just permanently mutilated .
Anyway the point is that whereas the previous user simply used the weapon for its original purpose Tatsumi, a younger heterosexual man, pushes it well beyond its original intention until it goes to the point it was never designed to be. The evolution is obviously supposed to have some deeper meaning the way Tatsumi pushes the weapon too far, too fast takes up a huge portion of later chapters and is meant to symbolize sacrifice as a will to power. If you don’t know what “will to power” means just look up motifs of nietzsche.
It’s axtually surprisingly complicated and simple which is I suppose what make it shonen, ultimately. It takes ideas meant for young adult men and make it accessible to younger men. The concept of self-sacrifice are huge along with the idea of questioning and rebelling against corruption in systemic power. While classic themes of self sacrifice for the providence of future generations are prominent the thing that is most interesting is the focus on misery and pain that those who rebel against systemic corruption go through.
Will to power is very important in the series. If you have the will power can be had by those intelligent and strong enough to obtain it. The concept of The Superman is explored at great length though it is looked at through a lens of self sacrifice and hope.
And when I say he is permanently mutilated I mean that is he permanently turned into a dragon- a symbol of ultimate power but st the cost of his personal life and freedom. Ultimately in the manga he does “give his life” but in a different, more subtle way than that found in the manga. While he doesn’t outright die he may as well be dead as it is implied he can no longer have any additional children (besides the one he has borne already with Mine) and his life has been permanently sacrificed as a symbol of power of the revolution and the new government. He is effectually dead even though his body technically lives on. this is what I mean when I say that it is less shonen and more seinen as this action is symbolic of the way that the series explains what is necessary for otherwise semi-ordinary people to stand up to and engage systemic, nationalized power.
Ultimately it is the people that created the empire even if it isn’t the current stock of oppressed citizenry that bore the emperor and his “advisor”.
The manga says a lot with what it doesn’t say and it’s really the subtext that bridges the gap from shonen battle manga to seinen deconstruction of Nietzschean Will to Power that cements the series role as something far beyond what it was originally penned to be as agsin a shonen battle mag.
Sorry “than found in the anime” getting ahead of myself and no proofreading.