Today’s deck is The Lost Arcana.
Wasn’t that the Cardcaptor Sakura movie? Deck’s nice tho.
Explaining today’s reading would get a bit too personal so I… won’t.
For those wondering, whenever I say “personal” it usually means “I’d need to talk about others in a way I’m not comfortable doing”, in case you wanted to know how someone that’s the very definition of TMI could get “too personal”.
I am existing between days right now.
Woke up in Saturday-turning-Sunday while feeling like it was Monday.
There’s nothing much today on the daily life side of things, but there’s one detail I wanted to talk about.
I’ve been revisiting Baki lately, and that has given me two oddly related itches: Revisiting Jojo and doing my yearly reread of Slam Dunk.
It all made me think about how I tired I am of shonen but not on an intrinsic level but more… the Shonen Jump flavor of it.
I’ve given Chainsaw Man, Jujutsu Kaisen, Macademia, and Tokyo Revengers the ol’ College Try in the past (because fuck me if I won’t at least TRY) and I remember immediately sensing the… Jump Stench, for lack of a better word. They gave me the same “I’ve been here, I do not want to be here” vibe that Nisekoi gave me immediately but with regards to romcoms.
And the thing is that it’s not even a HATE for the genre or even the works mentioned above, just a fatigue that’s very specific to me. It’s like how I fell off the Discworld books because I recognize their quality but fuck me their One style of joke with wordplay started feeling repetitive.
Baki thus feels refreshing because it’s not drawing from that pool. Itagaki feels like he draws more from combat sports shenanigans he sees than All The Combat Manga from before. So when Baki does a gotcha it’s not “oh you thought this would be like in Dragon Ball” but “oh you throught this would be like when Muhammad Ali fought against Antonio Inoki”.
And here’s the most insane statement I’ll make on this blog: Yoshihiro Togashi of Hunter x Hunter fame is the polar opposite of Keisuke Itagaki.
No, this isn’t some joke about schedule and publishing. You all bitches lost the privilege of making those jokes when Miura died and I’m still angry about those reactions. What I mean is that if Itagaki doesn’t really care about Shonen Narrative Conventions, Itagaki is the biggest nerd about them to ever exist.
Yuyu Hakusho was already filled with these elements, like putting a deliberate limit on how many times Yusuke could use his special attack at the start, making the best tournament arc to ever exist, and such. But Hunter x Hunter really goes all out on that front, be it with the exams having the “if you win once you pass” element, Nen being the biggest synthesis of every Shonen Magic System Ever and how it needs to coexist with already-established systems…
…and that’s why I cannot stand Hunter x Hunter. Again, not hate by any means, it’s just still carrying the same conventions I’m tired of.
There’s no bigger point to this whole tirade though, it was a slow day.