so I'm going to think that the clown battle was drawn out because it was supposed to annoy us all. It should have felt like eternity for the characters, it felt like eternity for me the reader,
Hmmm. I see where you're coming from with that, but at the same time, well, that's the argument that was used to justify Endless Eight and is pretty widely recognized to be bunk. A good writer can get across that sense of "oh my god this is going on forever!!" from the characters' point of views without also annoying the reader at the same time.
I don't think bring-the-witches'-help plot was dragging unnecessarily.
Really? The first six pages of chapter 99 were spent repeating the exact same argument that took up the last six pages of chapter 98. That's the very definition of dragging unneccessarily. And I was annoyed at the Kid/Azusa talk last month because it's a conversation that both characters have had before. Azusa had the exact same conversation with Marie and Kid had the exact same conversation with Big Daddy and then again with Asuza in chapter 99. Six pages were devoted to that conversation repeating itself, when instead we could have gotten one of the big events (the witches showing up, Crona doing something, Noah making a move) that Ohkubo had been building toward for months. Heck, the whole "ship crashing + witches suddenly appearing" sequence in this chapter would have made a beautiful ending and a perfect cliffhanger if Ohkubo had just ended chapter 100 with that bit, instead of giving us Kid and Azusa word-vomiting at each other for six pages. Then we could have gotten all of the epic clown battling out of this way in this chapter and be ready to move on to something new next month.
This is just common-sense pacing for any work of serial fiction. Ohkubo's editor should be doing this job for him.
It's generally a very bad sign when, if I'm reading a monthly manga, at any given time I can say "Jesus Christ I know EXACTLY what's going to happen next month." That's what makes even longtime fans throw up their hands and start bitching at Bleach's Hueco Mundo arc or Naruto's poorly-paced battles, and it's happening here in Soul Eater too.
Remember what it was like to NOT KNOW what to expect with each new chapter of Soul Eater? When shit that happened was interesting and cool because we hadn't already seen it forty-two million times before?
Yeah. I miss that feeling.
Sorry for the rant but as a former (one-time) professional editor, it's this sort of terrible pacing that makes me really frustrated! With a few notable exceptions (i.e. chapter 96), the last year of Soul Eater has had chapters broken up the way that twelve-year-olds on fanfic.net break up their chapters, not the way that a professionally-edited commercial manga should be written and paced.
And Mabaa appears right after. Is Ohkubo self-trolling Kid or what? lol
I think that was the joke. After all of Kid's hot wind about how Shibusen needs to BELIEVE IN THE WITCHES, it turns out that the witches were only delayed because of technical difficulties, not because of some test of Shibusen's faith.
no subject
Hmmm. I see where you're coming from with that, but at the same time, well, that's the argument that was used to justify Endless Eight and is pretty widely recognized to be bunk. A good writer can get across that sense of "oh my god this is going on forever!!" from the characters' point of views without also annoying the reader at the same time.
I don't think bring-the-witches'-help plot was dragging unnecessarily.
Really? The first six pages of chapter 99 were spent repeating the exact same argument that took up the last six pages of chapter 98. That's the very definition of dragging unneccessarily. And I was annoyed at the Kid/Azusa talk last month because it's a conversation that both characters have had before. Azusa had the exact same conversation with Marie and Kid had the exact same conversation with Big Daddy and then again with Asuza in chapter 99. Six pages were devoted to that conversation repeating itself, when instead we could have gotten one of the big events (the witches showing up, Crona doing something, Noah making a move) that Ohkubo had been building toward for months. Heck, the whole "ship crashing + witches suddenly appearing" sequence in this chapter would have made a beautiful ending and a perfect cliffhanger if Ohkubo had just ended chapter 100 with that bit, instead of giving us Kid and Azusa word-vomiting at each other for six pages. Then we could have gotten all of the epic clown battling out of this way in this chapter and be ready to move on to something new next month.
This is just common-sense pacing for any work of serial fiction. Ohkubo's editor should be doing this job for him.
It's generally a very bad sign when, if I'm reading a monthly manga, at any given time I can say "Jesus Christ I know EXACTLY what's going to happen next month." That's what makes even longtime fans throw up their hands and start bitching at Bleach's Hueco Mundo arc or Naruto's poorly-paced battles, and it's happening here in Soul Eater too.
Remember what it was like to NOT KNOW what to expect with each new chapter of Soul Eater? When shit that happened was interesting and cool because we hadn't already seen it forty-two million times before?
Yeah. I miss that feeling.
Sorry for the rant but as a former (one-time) professional editor, it's this sort of terrible pacing that makes me really frustrated! With a few notable exceptions (i.e. chapter 96), the last year of Soul Eater has had chapters broken up the way that twelve-year-olds on fanfic.net break up their chapters, not the way that a professionally-edited commercial manga should be written and paced.
And Mabaa appears right after. Is Ohkubo self-trolling Kid or what? lol
I think that was the joke. After all of Kid's hot wind about how Shibusen needs to BELIEVE IN THE WITCHES, it turns out that the witches were only delayed because of technical difficulties, not because of some test of Shibusen's faith.