Good Things Yoshi Does

[Cato]

Sorry that I've been gone for so long, been busy procrastinating doing things, community service and such to finish high school. I'm planning on making an art thread to finally show all of the ginga doodles and drawings I have piled up.

Either way, I thought that since we always talk to much about the bad things that Yoshi does, I thought that I would make a compilation of all of the good things that he does instead. He's not all that bad, right?

Some things that I like are that he sticks to what he likes. While he may have a fault by never finding anything new, he knows how to make something different.

He makes dog manga. Dog manga. That's something that while an artist would play with it, he actually has the motivation to go and do it. I love comics about dogs, and it's nice to see that someone else does too, and that while the stories aren't up with Fullmetal Alchemist or Naruto, they are still entertaining to read and fun to draw.

The characters can be flat, but I like to imagine giving them a bit more personality. This should be a problem, so I think this is a plus only for me. For example, John might like hunting, but he doesn't like getting hurt. Maybe Bill is a robber because he was a fan of the Doberman Gang. Just headcanons, and Yoshi gives a lot of space for them, so it turns into a fun game. Not saying that cardboard characters is good, however, character is everything, there's another thread for that.

I might add to this later, I just wanted to put in a few positive things about the Ginga series' author.

[GOREHOUND]

I mean, I don't really think what he decides to write and draw is necessarily good. Considering a lot of his art is bad, and his writing is bad, I don't think just because it's about dogs makes it automatically good in any way. There are other manga and even western comic artists who do the "animal POV" thing a lot better than he does.

Yoshi is also kind of a dunce in my opinion, and clearly doesn't know much about the subjects he talks about when it comes to both dogs and samurai culture (Bebop could explain that better than I).

I dunno, maybe I'm just a BITTER BITCH

[M-92 Mantis]

I honestly think there's a lot to enjoy about Yoshi's work, it's just really hard to find for people who have been in a fandom for a long time because his newest work just doesn't add anything new or exciting to the table.

I've discussed this with Kit before, and I honestly think Ginga is "good junk food" manga, meaning I don't read it for the deep story or complex plot or developed characters. I'm ultimately here for the violence and a bunch of dogs just fighting, anime-style. I don't see anything wrong with this because there's plenty of good movies or tv series people watch that are good fun, but not necessarily able to be considered masterpieces. It's just like going to the movies to enjoy the popcorn and booming speakers and having fun with the movie, not sitting there ready to write down all of the improvements it needs. It's just different in discussions here because we're kinda seeing the exact same movie each and every time.

I'd have to say my favorite is at least having a large cast. I honestly care a lot about the GDW cast that Weed groups up with and seeing their little scenes or moments and how they interact with each other... even if any actual 'development' is incredibly flat or shallow. There's still enough there to enjoy the differences. Some people like Jerome, some people like Kyoushirou, some people like Rocket, some people like G.B., some people like all those characters or none of them, but you would be able to at least tell a newbie how they're different. They all also played different roles, which I like because I want a selection like that. There's a huge reason I'm actually not a big fan of most anime/manga, and that's because all the characters look and act the same. With Ginga, it's a (literally) colorful cast with different reasons they're here and different abilities. Does this make any of them deep and inspirational or complex to me? Lol no, but it gives me enough of a reason to actually like different characters for different reasons. That's if I don't bring into the discussion "characters that people literally only like and favorite because of their design" but I won't get into that.

Yoshi also has a very cookie cutter idea of story, but when he isn't focusing on shock value or "harsh laws of the wild / fighting dog / bear hound" he actually makes very likable main characters. For example, Yamato and Zero don't talk at all, and while people think this makes the stories 'boring' because the dogs don't talk, I think Yoshi has found a really good way of letting the dogs still have just as much character and personality and even motives as a talking Ginga dog. Yamato and Zero are both fighting dogs, both have to contend with other dogs who are only out to kill or fight dirty, but neither they or the main characters owners (Ryou and Makoto) ever decide to fight back with torture or excessive violence. The Ginga series is completely topsy-turvy with its morals, there's way too many contradictions for it to really ever make anything fair, but other stories that don't focus so hard on being as shounen show that it's not all black and white: some of Yamato's enemies become friends or some of Zero's friends become enemies. Sometimes there's a good reason something ended up not working out but instead of just calling everyone the enemy and beating them up, the two teams actually try to make peace or find a compromise. Yamato doesn't have to just beat the shit out of someone to make them worship him like Gin and Weed did. Yamato likes other dogs automatically and he and Zero never fight outside of the ring unless they're defending themselves or someone else.

I think these 'manly morals' just change when Yoshi wants to try gaining more readers, but that doesn't mean that it never hits right, for me. I actually LIKE human characters in Yamato and Gamu and Zero's stories (I think it's completely unfair not to like them just because 'it's not a dog') when they're helping out the main characters and have their own reasons for being there. I like seeing Ryou and Makoto hang out with their friends and their dogs just doing cute things. That doesn't mean I need each character to have a deep and meaningful backstory, I just like for a character to be LIKABLE, the amount of scars they have or how 'cool' their design is shouldn't matter, and Yoshi is never biased about that. He will make 'boring looking' dogs or humans have more story and screen-time than the edgier 'badass' characters. He has his own favorites and he doesn't need to rely on shock value to make subtle little characteristics actually work. That's not to say he DOESN'T add shock value or try to make the narrator force you to just suddenly be okay with a character, but it doesn't happen enough to bother me.

I also have to say I really like the pacing of (most) of the stories we've seen so far. I don't think any of them start out at a good pace, like for their very first volume, but afterwards I'm not bored or forgetting details. I'm able to follow along and be swept along for a really good battle or plot twist or seeing all the milestones a character has reached without too much filler or a lack of breathing space. Not every single chapter is going to just be an action scene, and not every chapter is just going to be nothing but filler and dialogue. SOME of the latest stories do this without mercy, which is why so many people get tired of it, but in Yoshi's prime, I've always loved how the chapters are spaced and how we get quiet moments and dynamic ones. He does a good job of keeping me entertained and involved.

[Cato]

Kaiju - Absolutely. Sometimes making it about animals, and having them as main characters can be a little dicey for readers who don't like that kind of thing, which means that you are only going for a certain demographic. Some do it good, and some do it bad. There are plenty of animal stories that aren't very good, and some that are pretty decent. Ginga falls inbetween, I'd say.

Bebop - I was thinking that those who are new and haven't seen anything like it would enjoy it because it's different and because of it's bizarre and strange way of doing things. So much, in fact, a new reader could be distracted at first be the new feeling of it all, but when you really get into it, it doesn't seem at all what you thought that it was. Ginga, as you said, is something best left for a rainy day. Fun to watch, but don't look in too far, as you'd be assuming things that don't exist.

As for Yamato and Fang, he seemed to be writing those with a different feeling and different expectations. Like his mind wasn't on Ginga, so it wasn't on it's 'manly-man' mindset. Instead, he decided to go into a different universe and think differently while writing about it. While it isn't too far off, it's something that shows that he could write out nice characters if they weren't wrapped up in the story that he wrote them into a corner with. The Last Wars is just trying to end the long pretzel that he made it just so he can move on to something he actually enjoys doing.

As for earlier vs now, I think that pacing has to do with the fact that he was young and only going on what he wanted to do. He was just starting out, and he was drawing dogs for the fun of it, and decided to publish them just to see what people would think. He was doing it with his own interests and imagination in mind, instead of editors, mass readers, critics and a lot of people who want to see the best. With Ginga, while he did good with GNG, he became wrapped up in his expectations and seemed to get lost with his "fame" and got a little overboard with it. Now that the fighting-dog fad is over (as far is it could be called this, I heard Yamato and GNG were received well, but not so much GDW), there's all kinds of things that didn't seem to have much thought put into them as Yamato or Fang did.

Kind of reminds me of me when I was about twelve, absolutely sure that my stories would be great, and then I'd add and add until I ended up with this confusing mass of random characters, useless romances and little to nothing done in the entirety of the story.

I got better, however, and somebody might try to do what Yoshi did in their own way, like in Shirobe.

[The Kirbeard™]

The thing I like about Yoshi's work is that it's something completely different than anything I've ever seen. I'm actually not a fan of anime or manga at all, the only thing I can think of in that area is the FMA:B anime that my cousin pretty much peer pressured me into watching. While his art isn't necessarily topnotch, you can't deny that it jumps out and makes you curious. When you're walking through a bookstore and among all the generic characters that all look alike on the covers and then BOOM! DOGS! It's definitely gonna stick out like a sore thumb. Its it's own thing.

I also like how his plots make sense. Sure some things are completely illogical like Gin using the wind to fly or some dumb shit like that, but the overall story line is easy to understand. Take, for example, Wolf's Rain. The artwork in that is beautiful, the characters are likable, it stands out, but the plot... OH GOD, THE PLOT!!! I couldn't handle it. The story made absolutely no sense. Wolves disguised as humans try to save a flower so they can go to heaven? How does any of that fall into place? I gave up halfway through because I just couldn't follow what the hell was going on. Yoshi's work is easy to follow, and things actually make sense for the most part. Yoshi has an idea in mind and he sticks to that idea. He doesn't try to make some weird and complicated thing happen for the sake of being artsy, he just has a story to tell, and he tells it how it is, which I like. I'm not saying I don;t enjoy things with a deep and meaningful story that you really have to think about to appreciate, but sometimes I just want to watch/read something that's just there for the sake of giving you something to do, and that's exactly what Yoshi does.

I also agree with what Bebop said about it being "junk food" content. At the end of the day, it's not a masterpiece, but it does exactly what it set out to do: entertain people. It's just simple entertainment that we don't really know why we're reading/watching it, but we can't deny that we're having fun while doing so.