Super Eyepatch Wolf (anime youtuber)

Baki is also very very... bizarre.

So a bizarre artstyle befits a bizarre series.

The grotesque nature of all the characters in design highlight and accentuate the near comedic absurdity that the fights and plots can delve into.

Keisuke Itagaki clearly knows his shit. The way he lays out panels, frames things and draws action and movement is superb.

It's the whole "Knowing the rules before you break them" mantra and the famous "It took me four years to paint like Raphael and a lifetime to paint like a child" quote from Picasso type situation.

(Plus, as SEW said, Itagaki also clearly loves martial arts and the masculine form. So he hyperfocuses on it to an absurd level)

Edited by PippingFool on Sep 16th 2018 at 1:56:07 AM

On a different note, I recently watched his "Do Spoilers Ruin Stories?" video, and it made me think of my own experiences. One in particular, with Umineko no Naku Koro ni.

I remember that the first time I finished that (long and extremely densely packed) story, I was confused about a lot of the reveals, but the more I reread it and thought about each detail, the more they started to make sense and the more I felt their full emotional weight.

So SEW's video made me think that there are two sides: on one hand, rereading the story with all the reveals in mind made it all the more enjoyable… but on the other hand, if I had known those reveals by reading casual spoilers or a plot summary on Wikipedia, without experiencing the full context of the story properly first, I would have found those reveals very underwhelming and even kinda nonsensical. So I still think there's more value in going into a story blind first.

Or as the character Bernkastel says, "enjoy the taste of the story first, then rip out its guts."

See, you say that the designs are intentionally exaggerated to reflect the over the topness of the plot, that the the writer "knows his shit" as it were, comparing him to Picasso even. As do a number of other people who read and advocate his work, as if the whole thing is one big bit of artistic irony and you're in on the joke.

Thing is, I don't think there is a joke. I don't think the exaggerating is for the sake of "highlighting the absurdity" or what ever. I think the man's art style isn't an intentional choice so much as it's his own brain slowly dying from years of concussions he sustained from years of sports and military injury.

To give a different example; Steve Dillon (RIP) was a very talented artist, but he had a tendency to draw the same face on all of his characters. It became a inside joke among his readers, and he even made jokes about it himself, which many people loved. But right before he died, it was revealed that he had been suffering from alzheimers for decades, and that his "Frank Face" style of drawing was actually because his drain had withered away to a point where he couldn't distinguish faces apart anymore (on paper and in real life).

Considering that many of the things said about Baki's author are said by his fans as opposed to the creator himself, I take a lot of it with a grain of salt, especially considering what we do know about him.

EDIT: Also, it occurs to me that if we do want to continue this discussion about BAKI, we should probably take it over to the Anime board. This is the Super Eyepatch Wolf thread, and we probably shouldn't derail the thread anymore than it already is.

Edited by Eldritcho on Sep 15th 2018 at 8:57:27 AM

Kinda OT, but: any source on Dillon suffering fron Alzheimer's? Google gives me nothing.

Someone should make a Baki thread then.

That's a big [Citation Needed] right there.

Edited by PippingFool on Sep 17th 2018 at 12:30:27 AM

Nevermind.

Edited by kyun on Sep 17th 2018 at 9:59:42 AM

So your theory is that Itagaki has some kind of brain damage that interferes with his ability to draw muscles but not his ability to draw literally everything else?

New video about The Undertaker.

…and I genuinely can't believe he managed to make me almost care for Wrestling for half-an-hour.

The fans' reactions to the retirement of such a long-running character might ressemble what happens when One Piece ends.

Ah, he finally retired. That's truly one of the greats, as least he was when I stopped watching the WWE 8 years ago. Still wish they did before he lost as Wrestlemania. You can't make something incredible like that again.

I honestly don't care about wrestling at all and doubt I ever will, but it's interesting seeing John talk about it nonetheless.

WWE's so out of the box for him, but I suppose it makes sense. It's basically a shonen that never ends.

Its always somewhat interested me but I have no clue where to begin

No kidding…

The Golden Lovers story is literally a shonen manga plotline…

It's too outright gay to be Shonen.

Professional wrestling garners absolutely the highest cable ratings now. It's not wonder they have such an influence on Hollywood.

My suggestion for getting into wrestling is to find a particular wrestler who appeals to you and just focus on their narrative at first. You'll progressively see who they're interacting with and might gain interest in those others to delve into them.

For me, I've always been a huge wrestling fan. I once was big into puroresu, took a break from it, and gotten back into it in the past few years. Kenny Omega was one of those who truly got me back into it when I heard about his first match with Okada. Omega as Bullet Club leader led to me caring more about Bullet Club as a whole and following that saga. It also led to me caring more about the groups they feuded with, which lead to me caring more about, say, Okada, and expanding to care about people like Minoru Suzuki, and so forth.

I do agree that wrestling is very much a neverending shounen. For instance, the aftermentioned Okada started as the equivalent of Gary Oak. Or, well, think of the stock shounen rival character. He's the rich, arrogant, attractive young guy who is ultra talented at a sport and driven by his desire to be the best and gain glory. He was initially intended as NJPW's Big Bad.

In contrast, this wrestler Tetsuya Naito was the equivalent of a shounen protagonist. During his Stardust Genius phase, he was brought in as this hot-blooded, upbeat guy who just loved wrestling, was good at it and set up to be the successor to the character who was their Superman-esque figure.

Now, where things get interesting is how the characters evolved. Naito was rejected in the role for the usual Replacement Scrappy reasons, which impacted his evolution. He grew bitter and left for a while. He returned far more slothful, his previous hotbloodedness seemingly gone and now he shifted into more of a Brilliant, but Lazy jerkass who didn't want to do anything for the fans after his rejection. Furthermore, he became resentful to everything he once sought purely and his motives became to destroy and disrespect them. Ironically, this made him more popular with people as more of an outcast. He's never lost this edge to him, but he's always had a softer side to those aligned with him and it led more into him still being the underdog outcast when up against Okada for their big showdown 2 years ago. The rivalry between Okada and Naito never ended, just they went through all sorts of character development between each clash.

Okada, by contrast, softened in ways while maintaining his persona. He was forced to eat humble pie with various failures, which made him better over time. Though his prideful nature never vanished, he became more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and obtained people's respect. He built on it more with things like Nationalist pride (his desire isn't to go anywhere else, but to make their area bigger and prove their greatness) and he'll do things for sympathetic reasons. With his glory-seeking, he also became more focused on proving that certain mountains could be climbed and topped, with that influencing his agenda. He can revert to his jerkass ways at times, especially when around Naito, who brings out his worse. Still, he has his positive qualities too, like recognizing Kenny Omega as a Worthy Opponent despite being the head of the competing top faction and respecting him as an opponent (and vice versa. Their entire storyline, in contrast to Naito and Okada's as arch-rivals, were more friendly rivals).

Edited by Prime_of_Perfection on Mar 20th 2019 at 1:09:41 PM

So I thought there are no good anime youtubers because nobody really bothers to do research on industry and culture(without also being jerks otherwise), but I read in this thread that this guy actually does do research well?

i like eyepatch wolf, but research has historically been one of his weaker points. He's been getting better at it recently, though.

New video on Red Candle's Devotion.

The concept and atmosphere remind me a lot of P.T., it's quite fascinating.

Now there seems to be some confusion as to the reason the game's takedown, as well as confusion as to which "China" he's talking about in the post-war period.

Edited by Lyendith on Apr 13th 2019 at 11:12:06 AM

I remember hearing about the game; admittedly, it was through a news story about how some people in China got butthurt over something in the game referencing the trend of comparing Xi Jinping to Winnie the Pooh.

I didn't check out the game then, but I might look into it now. As a Taiwanese-American, I want to see what kind of game the people from my parents' home country created.

How "Non Battle" Battle Manga are defined.

The Gentle prodding of Mothers Basement made me lol, not gonna lie.

Well, the comments are taking it 100% seriously if that was a joke. Also, I still find it annoying when youtubers do potshots at each other (especially if it isn't obvious to everyone its a joke)

I had vaguely heard about The Drops of God, but never read it… I thought it was a quiet educational manga, but it's apparently Shokugeki no Wine.

This talk about Bakuman painfully reminds me of a manga I recently followed that was also about duelling aspiring mangaka with a very dynamic artstyle… Except that one tanked and got cancelled. The last two chapters are pretty much a meta-reflexion on the series' own cancellation. That really hurt.

…Is it true that SEW and MB hate each other or was he just joking around? >.>

Edited by Lyendith on May 4th 2019 at 6:58:00 PM

It feels like it’s just popular to hate on MB at the moment. Man though that video makes me want to check out Kaguya-Sama