The Holy Trinity's influence in the Manga market.....

A recent article has struck a chord and I wanted to share and see what you guys think.

The article (mature site) - “What Will Befall Manga If One Piece, Naruto & Bleach End?”

I can't speak for One Piece, but Naruto and Bleach (as I've been saying for years now) are both easily considered as phenomenon within the otaku communities around the world. What would the manga/anime universe be without them? I can't imagine it at all. Stretch's argument about the quality of titles these days is the first thing that came to mind. Without the checks and balances the Holy Trinity represent, would lesser titles hit home to more viewers? That is to say would they become more fed up with the quality of titles nowadays if the Trinity where to disappear? What would they fall back on?

I can vouch for myself seeing as how no matter how crappy the season is/gets or how boring the anime episodes get of my favorite titles - I can usually/always depend on Naruto and Bleach to even things out. As Forbin pointed out a while back, the article mentions that Naruto isn't too far off from a definite conclusion. Is it even possible to write another story as deep/powerful/long-lasting to replace it?

What if indeed....

Thoughts....

There will ALWAYS be something to replace the 'trinity' (IMHO I don't consider one piece a top contender in the USA)

There are many good Manga's out there such as Fairy Tail that is ready to pick up the slack.

Fairy Tail? I can't stand Lucy... anyways I've been into the Trinity and I'm mostly up to date with all three of them, but I'm actually quite worried about Naruto, seeing as the main goal of the anime is almost complete. Bleach seems to be immortal, as long as it remains interesting. One Piece really depends on how the manga unfolds, but I can guarantee another few years with it. Now moving onto the main question, what would happen if they fell? Well personally, I think that a very large deal of anime's fanbase would be pulled out bellow us, which would cause all anime and manga producers to become a nervous wreck, seeing as how the industry is already struggling so much from the worldwide recession. At the very least a few large companies would go down. Anime is only one of three eternal cycles, manga, anime, and video games. If this would happen, I believe that the video game industry would be the most affected, seeing how much they are already struggling (R.I.P. Atlas), and how the video game industry relies on anime so deeply.(People have to love a show to buy the corresponding video game)

Now here is the second question: Can it be replaced? If they do fall, there would most likely be an arms race within the industry, with fans being the weapons. The companies would go into a deathmatch to replace the trinity, seeing how fans will be seeking something to replace it. If this were to happen, there's a large chance the fans would just be overwhelmed, but if done correctly, I believe that something could replace them if they try hard enough, although there is no current anime airing with the potential to replace. The only animes I know of that is still airing strong are Shoujo Chara and Hitman Reborn! and they are only directed to a certain audience. So unless a anime that has at least a little potential to fulfill the trinity's role, we can expect a pretty hard fall.

V.v.V

Edited on 09/12/2010 01:46 PM.

That's actually a pretty good response you have there Shippu7. I agree 1000 percent. There is nothing that has a chance of matching the quality of the Holy Trinity right about now. It would be a sight worth seeing for the anime/manga world to try to function without them. "You don't know what you have until it's gone".

Atlus going under was a heavy blow to my heart (personal fan of their games). Magna Carta FTW...

I disagree Xeno.

Something will 'fill' the gap. That's Econ 101. If there is a hole, something will fill it. And it will be as good as the others and everyone will 'forget' about old Naruto except for 40 year old geezers who remember it fondly while surfing the internet looking at old sites where the 20 year old manga can still be found :)

Dragonball was the king before Naruto was even conceived of.
YuYu Hakusho was there before Naruto.
Even Get Backers was there before Naruto.
Love Hina was there too.
And Inuyasha was there before Naruto.
And don't forget Trigun. Oh and I just added Saint Seiya which was an old Favorite of mine from the 80's

What do the above have in common? They were top dogs for a long time AND WERE REPLACED when they ended. Something will come AFTER Naruto.

And the 'holy trinity' you mentioned is ONLY for SHOUNEN. Older folk don't read it, it's specifically aimed at the young crowd. Sazae-san is the LONGEST RUNNING ANIME/manga there is. It's aimed at the older folk. And it's BORING AS HECK. DETECTIVE CONAN is another. And it's watched/read primarily by grade schoolers. So it's not the Holy T of all Manga, just of the Shounen ones.

So don't worry about it much. Enjoy the show until the absolute end, when Naruto kills Sasuke or Luffy finally finds out his brother is the Pirate King or Ichigo finally chooses one of his girls and becomes the Spirit World King. You will feel sad that it is over, but then you will find another to 'console' your heart and all will be well.

(I was going to say 'Negima' would replace it but it looks like that's ending in a few volumes as well).

I also noticed that Shippu didn't mention Gintama which is hugely popular in japan but hasn't taken off here yet.

I can see whee your coming from. The list you put up is only missing one theme - longevity. The only titles on there (that I know of) that has the "right" to rank with the holy T is Dragonball/Z, YuYu Hakusho, and Inuyasha. They aired forever. Longevity is the only thing that separates the holy T from everything else. That's why I can't mention Code Geass which easily surpasses the three of them combined IMO.

I know something will come after the holy T. It still would be interesting to see the world go into withdrawal if the holy T were to suddenly end. The initial shock would be priceless....

Longevity is the main reason why I wouldn't ever watch any of these shows (plus fighting shounen not being my genre). The filler to content ratio of those "endless" series can't be as good as for the shorter ones (it's difficult to write a decent arc over more than 10 episodes without having to add filler stuff). But most importantly, character development can be only so much in order to remain credible, and this being distributed over hundreds of episodes makes it incrementally slow to watch. 13 to 26 episodes is the size of good stories, with few exceptions. Thus I prefer a standard sized story with a decent ending over a longer story with no ending and no progress.

The "endless" shows do have their target groups - those who want to be fans of certain characters, and learn every last bit about them. These fans are happy with celebrating their idols, they do not need character development (actually they don't want it as it would change and thus destroy the characters they learned to love) or a substantial story. I'm not completely free of this aspect as I try watching specials, OVAs, side stories, even read the manga at times when I really like an anime (and sometimes even when I like a setting, such as To Heart 2 most of which I rated as "Watch"; I'll certainly watch the forthcoming 2010 OVA and wouldn't be unhappy if it were the last one of this franchise which obviously isn't meant to ever show anything even close to a story or character development). But if I can't do that then I move on to another story with another set of interesting characters.

A major flaw of those long stories often is that the author doesn't stop when the story is basically told. Aa! Megami-sama is a prime example for this; observing how it went downhill over the years was frustrating for me. And oftentimes there might still be content to be told to answer all open questions but doing so would change the character of the story. The Seikai universe, for example, ended anime-wise in the middle of a war. But the core of the story was the relation between the two leads, and this is completed in the final OVA. Trying to tell the story how the war went on would mean to move the focus away from our beloved leads to other characters who live in the same world but weren't part of the story yet; I'm just not interested in how the war goes on if it is just another war. Things would be different if a sequel of the story would focus on Lafiel becoming Empress and thus affecting her relation to Jinto (or Jinto becoming her life-long partner affecting Lafiel's way of politically dealing with other races as interracial conflicts are a core theme of this story), as this would continue the core story of this franchise and again focus on character development and relations. It would also be interesting to focus on Jinto (a human) having to deal with the effects of a partnership with a woman whose life span is three times his own. So the potential for interesting sequels is still there... it's just that the author has to carefully choose the path of the story in order to maintain its greatness and not fall into the stagnation trap.

Gintama will never be as popular in America as it is in Japan, I have watched the series, and I loved it so much, I watched a good deal of it again. The reason being is that the show is based off of Japanese humor and inside jokes lots of people won't understand. Sure it could gain a great deal of popularity, but I don't believe that it could replace Bleach, One Piece (Ace becomes the pirate king? isn't he...nvm I must be missing something from the manga), or Naruto. And another thing, the reason it's called the holy trinity isn't because the shows are amazing, it's because of the massive fan base they have, if it was just a good show, a few people might be disappointed to see it go, but the actual problem comes from the fan base as I mentioned before. And to me there's a huge difference between being long and interesting and being long but with too big of a budget and limited talent, as I found in Wolf's Rain. If the shows sucked, then I wouldn't have watched them thoroughly, I'm aware that that's an opinion, but when it all boils down, the current trinity holds more fans than any anime predecessor I've seen because of people like me who find the shows interesting, although it could just be that anime is more popular than ever. And anyways, Shounen anime has a bigger fan base, especially here in the west, therefore those shows have more fans and are more popular, thus their title. And I agree with the fact that something would replace it, but there would be a sort of "void" time with no big show for a while, until some show gains enough popularity and talent to replace them, a show might have good timing and come in right below their fall, but I find that highly unlikely.

V.v.V

And even if the Japanese manga/anime market fades to boring repetition, there is always the Korean Manhwa market that seems to hold a lot of promise in offering interesting and original stories....

The Bride of the Water God

Freezing

Boy of the Female Wolf

To name a few....

Ok Shippu I can agree with that. Shounen is KING in the USA. Nothing else comes close. But in Manga? Manga is struggling here so we have to shift the topic from Manga Trinty to Anime Trinity which would remove One Piece from that list. One piece just isn't that popular here. Fairy Tail (It asks Do fairies have tails?) is probably the closest Anime to take over the 'gap'. It's goofy, sad, and tons of fighting but it's missing one thing. It has PROGRESSION. You actually notice that there are little or no fillers. The anime and the manga use elements of the previous arc (or the one before) to make the next arc. That's planning.

JC, The first and 3rd are not Shounen. Now I happen to LIKE #2 Freezing but it's doesn't really have any substance. It'll burn out before Sekirei finishes (And it's a Sekirei clone).

NY TIMES BEST SELLER MANGA LIST (September 9th, 2010)

This Week

1 BLEACH, VOL. 32, by Tite Kubo. (VIZ Media, $9.99.) Ichigo Kurosaki sees dead people and must help usher them safely into the afterlife.

2 ALICE IN THE COUNTRY OF HEARTS, VOL. 4, by Quinrose and Hoshino Soumei. (TOKYOPOP, $10.99.) Alice wanders into a very different part of Wonderland in this interpretation of the classic tale. In this new area of the fantasy land, every man is in love with Alice... and firearms.

3 MAXIMUM RIDE, VOL. 3, by James Patterson and NaRae Lee. (Yen Press, $12.99.) Isn’t being a kid hard enough? For this group, who are also part bird, nothing comes easy. An F.B.I. agent steps in to help, but the evil "erasers" lurk around the corner. 3

4 JUNJO ROMANTICA, VOL. 12, by Shungiki Nakamura. (TOKYOPOP, $14.99.) This series, described as a romantic comedy, is about the relationship between Misaki and Akihiko, a male tutor, who meet when Misaki needs help with college entrance exams. 1

5 NARUTO, VOL. 48, by Masashi Kishimoto. (VIZ Media, $9.99.) The origins and true nature of Pain, Naruto’s arch nemesis, are revealed. 14

6 CHIBI VAMPIRE AIRMAIL, by Yuna Kagesaki. (TOKYOPOP, $10.99.) Chibi is a vampire with a twist: rather than suck blood, this young, female vampire has to expel it. This series fills in some of her back story and includes behind-the-scenes material. 1

7 ROSARIO + VAMPIRE: SEASON II, VOL. 2, by Akihisa Ikeda. (VIZ Media, $9.99.) Tsukune Aono’s new school is filled with vampires and werewolves. And the girl he is interested seems to have eyes for him, but is it his blood she’s after? 5

8 AIR GEAR 15/16/17, VOL. 15, by Oh!Great. (Random House, $21.99.) This series tells the story of Itsuki Minami, the toughest kid at Higashi Junior High School. In this installment, mysteries and confrontations abound. 1

9 BLACK BIRD, VOL. 5, by Kanoko Sakurakoji. (VIZ Media, $9.99.) Misao Harada can see into a magical realm where she is the bride demon of prophecy. How will she survive the pursuit of demons who want the power in her blood? 5

10 BAKUMAN, VOL. 1, by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. (VIZ Media, $9.99.) This manga series is about Moritaka Mashiro, who enjoys drawing and Akito Takagi, a would-be writer, who team up to create a manga series. Will they survive the world of publishing? 5

And we are ignoring the entire SCOTT PILGRIM phenom.....

Ummm... OH... here is Forbin's shounen manhwa titles....

The Breaker

Veritas

1/2 Prince

Even more shounen manhwa titles.... (there is really a lot out there...)

ID -- Chunwha is plunged into a world beyond his own... There he will struggle to find his own purpose among the many inhabitants of the new world including elves, dwarves, and even mages! Was it fate that had brought him there? Will he ever return to his own world?

The Legend of Maian -- A powerful sorceress, Feicia Rand Philistin, once tried to conquer the nation of Shurian. In her wake of terror and destruction, a man stood up and rebelled against her oppression and domination. The people called him Maian the Brave (Yongja Maian) and it was he that sealed the evil sorceress. A thousand years later, Fenix Maian in the biggest mistake of his life releases the sealed sorceress that his ancestors have tried so hard to keep imprisoned.Now he has to keep the sorceress from taking over the world once again...

MONK -- Even the oracle that locates the Dalai Llama s reincarnation could not foresee that the troublemaker Dang will undertake the mission to find him. However, Dang s power is yet hidden; his true power is not seen until it is triggered by sexual impulses and turns him into a monster! Unaware of this, Dang enters Mouhyuk High, following the oracle s advice. But his class is a special class filled with a bunch of weirdoes the students call Trash and his biggest enemy, Coke Bottle woman! Can he complete his mission?

The Ruler of the Land -- An intricate story revolving around Han Bi Kwang, as he follows a hero's journey. Just throw in a historic setting, ancient weapons, and a riveting plotline, and you have one of the most highly-acclaimed manwha, a definite must-read. Bi-Kwang and Hwa-Rin try in vain to shake off Sang Pil "Gold Cobra" Jin and his men, but, ultimately, they are forced to defend themselves. Unfortunately, Bi-Kwang and Hwa-Rin lose, and the Sword of the Flowers is taken from them. Bi-Kwang and Hwa-Rin regroup, pursuing Sang Pil Jin in an effort to retrieve the sword, but then Sang Pil and his men learn that Bi-Kwang and Hwa-Rin aren't the only ones after them. Sang Pil's superior, Master Yoo, has learned that Sang Pil planned to keep the sword for himself, and has approached Shi-Yun, leader of the Black Serpents, for help. The lives of Bi-Kwang, Hwa-Rin, Sang Pil Jin, and his men are all in danger, as Master Yoo and the Black Serpents join forces and search for the sword together. P.S - This manhwa was made into a MMORPG.

Lots of reading with these long behind posts....

Anyway, I wholeheartedly disagree. I fail to understand how longevity (being able to last with high quality for years upon years with battle after battle topped with story, character attachment, and production value) would defeat/negate character development. A few fillers here and there are a small price to pay to create some of the most admirable stories out there today. The more I get to see/know about a character, the more I become emotionally attached (making the show that much better and increasing the quality). Watching a person go from a weakling scrub in the beginning, to a one person army down the line (for example) is the best way to spend time with a character. Removing the "time restriction" gives writers/animators an infinite range of possibilities to allow the viewers to enter the minds of the characters. Ep 175 of Naruto Shippuuden is the perfect example of that (I haven't cried that hard in years because I've watched him grow from the beginning to finally get to the point he's at). I can understand if the idea of titles becoming diluted with fillers is a concern (it is for most viewers), but the reward is too great not go this route IMO.

For me, the longer the show, the more I come to grips with my characters and understand them. The decisions they make, the reasons they fight, the "voice" in their heads, and the people they fall in love with - these are all increased with more episodes, which in turn, make the title more desirable. This is (majority wise) why I favor 26 episode series to 12/13 ep ones. They simply last longer and gives us more time to grow and understand the characters.

In essence, longevity = development with:

1) longer more intense battles
2) deeper romances
3) more laugh out loud comedy
4) deeper understandings of character reasons
5) greater depression in tragedies


so on and so forth.....

Edited on 09/13/2010 04:18 AM.

The death of the Holy Trinity's not gonna matter much to me. But it wouldn't surprise me if other titles rose up to take its place like Soul Eater and Fairy Tail. I still have a backhaul of older and obscure titles I have yet to see, so I'll be pillaging through titles for a while.

My issue with shounen anime crazes like the Trinity is that the quality of the titles tend to deteriorate over time thanks to running for hundreds of episodes at a time. While longer length does allow for more elements to story and characters to be revealed and looked into which can work well in some instances of titles surpassing the standard 13/ 26 episode count (Monster, Cross Game, Eureka Seven, first Full Metal Alchemist series), it does need to determine a proper pace at which to allow its events to unfold and of course, there needs to be a point in which the show ends. Problem is, anime adaptations of titles like the Shounen Trinity are made by animation studios to milk as much profit from them as they can while the source material is ongoing. Filler episodes can kill that quality because they leave the main title's plot at a point where it can't advance and any events that occur in it do not influence that plot. In a few instances, it even led to the major downfall of a series as the anime adaptation of Rurouni Kenshin got canceled before the completion of the manga's later arc due to low ratings because it plunged into fillers.

Also as Devil Doll mentioned, there's only so much credibility and tolerance one can get from plot and character developments if titles like the Shounen Trinity drag on for so long which not everybody will be willing to commit to. Inuyasha fans grew fits from the lack of relationship developments the show had as it dragged on and the show later turning into "upgrade of the week" developments. Dragon Ball Z started getting ridiculous enough when it went beyond the Frieza saga and is notorious for having enough inconsistencies in plot. As I speak, folks are even tiring of the greater focus on the Uchihas (especially with how pathetic Sasuke's character has become) in Naruto and Aizen being practically untouchable in Bleach. You can't expect everybody to be able to put up with this stuff for so long.

The Dragon Ball Z and Kenshin series both degraded (or descended) into boring repetition, which lost the respect and admiration of the fans.

But then again, how many times has the Dragon Ball Franchise been dragged out of the waste bin for one more season? Look at how many times that dern Gundam series has been resurrected for yet one more round?

I get the impression that many of these long running series are being produced primarily out of laziness. Tis safer to support a long running title, than try to muster the creative juices to release a new and interesting title.

I actually find it more interesting that the Koreans and the Americans are getting into the manga, manhwa and graphics novel band wagon. Think about it.... Just how different is Frank Miller's 300 graphics novel from the Bleach or Naruto manga titles? And they have both have spawned massively successful movies & anime series....

I have to agree with Xeon and Jan-Chan, they both summarized it rather nicely. And I hope Fairy Tale doesn't replace any one of them, god I hate Lucy... Anyways! I think the the original answers have been solved for the most part. But fillers, we all agree that they can ruin an anime if over-abused, but as Gintama explained the scenarios (forgot which episode and I'm not going to scavenge for hours finding it), when an anime catches up to the manga, there are a few things that can happen, each with lots of risks. The most obvious to everyone here are fillers, while the most common approach for the producers is to use a booster, which I'll summarize as a super filler, or a arc filler, as seen in the Bount Arc in Bleach (I believe it was the Bount Arc, correct me if I'm wrong). If done correctly, this could succeed and buy enough time for the manga to get a good head start w/o raging fans, but the risks can be fatal. The problems are as follow:

1.) The anime can have so many changes, such as strange character development or to many new characters. The new characters can't be used when the arc is set to follow the manga again, so they have to disappear somehow, and if the characters develop to a different character, then the anime can never return.
2.) As Jan-Chan spoke about with Rurouni Kenshin, if the show has no development at all, because the producers are scared of option number 1, then the anime becomes far too boring, and gets canceled.
3.) The anime takes off on it's own path, and some bad shenanigans happen that contradicts what happens in the actual manga.

Ultimately, these 3 examples cause an anime to fall on it's own face, and can cause hatred in the series. The thing that causes hatred to me is when fillers pop in at the most exciting parts of an anime, like 2 hours before Ace's execution in One Piece, or how One Piece set up a hell of a lot of fillers with all of the crew members that got separated (yeah I know the author asked for it, but it is really going to annoy the hell out of me when we get half a year for the crew to return to Luffy.).

V.v.V

I didn't say longevity negates character development in general.

But if an audience loves a character, and this character drastically changes his/her character several times, would they still consider them the same person and love them the same way? Thus the total amount of character development is limited (and no, I don't count acquiring more levels or skills or hit points as "character development"). Now distributing this total amount of character development over a huge number of episodes makes the development either incrementally slow or non-existent for long periods.

That's the reason why people like me who watch a story because of a lot of plausible character development can't be fans of "endless" stories as these story can have either a plausible character development or a lot of character development but not both.