Favorite Short Story? (that we've done, so far)

[M-92 Mantis]

I didn't put in short stories that haven't been translated because I doubt anyone can vote a story as their favorite if they haven't even seen it yet (I'll add more once we do them). Anyways, which short story is your favorite so far? Also, if you guys want, which stories did you not like a whole bunch? Or what did you like about other short stories you didn't vote for? Any discussion about the short stories is fine, I just didn't wanna make a separate "Least Favorite" poll in case someone else wanted to.

Mine would have to be Lonely Ron and Bear Hunter: Fubuki. I'll go into more detail about these two later, and why I love them, but Lonely Ron didn't win me over for its story, it won me over for Ron and Bull. Bear Hunter won me over for the pretty nice artwork and the TRUE telling of a Matagi Inu and his training. I like Juuzaburou and I liked the fact his training wasn't just him being an abusive drunk and somehow justifying it by making his dogs somehow stronger because of it. I can safely say no amount of beating like that would ever have been used to make a dog learn how to survive in the wild and catch bears.

How about you guys?

[Kit]

Lonely Ron, for sure. There's no manhood speeches. No hypocritical kindness speeches. Just a heartwarming tale of a loveable coward who doesn't know anything about the world meeting and bonding with his slightly grumpy friend who's got a jaded outlook because he was abandoned to fend for himself. As already stated, the plot was shaky at best, and not even needed, but the characters made up for it, for once.

[Chemuhk]

I'm going to have to go with Lonely Ron on this one too. The thing that I loved was just how lighthearted it was compared to some of Yosh's longer works, fight scenes aside. Each character was very grounded with clear traits and some nice quirks for each, and the dialog between them (Ron and Bull especially) was nicely loveable and comical. For the sake of keeping things spoiler free, I'll only mention that the ending wasn't half bad and tied it all up with a good ol' moral of the story.
Hearing that the plot was a bit shaky is interesting; I actually didn't mind it too much. No, it wasn't a particularly strong element of the piece, but that's what I thought made it particularly good. It gave just enough context to build short introductions to the characters and reasons for them to interact, but beyond that kept the focus contained and the reader unhindered by whatever side-plots and perspective changes might have broken up the story. I also agree with Kitsune, a distinct lack of rants on compassion and ethics was a nice breath of fresh air.

[M-92 Mantis]

D'oh, I should've mentioned people can also discuss what they liked or didn't like about others, whether voted or not. In case anyone was worried that would be off-topic. I'm slowly working up to my own comments about the stories since I kinda have to re-read some of the older ones

[Kit]

Well by "shaky" I just meant it felt like it was there for the sake of having something besides character bonding, and unnecessary. It wasn't bad, just felt like the whole thing with Vamos wasn't needed to advance the characters. That's just my opinion on it, though. I agree the ending left us feeling very satisfied, which is great, since usually Yoshi's endings feel to me like he just got tired and wanted to move on, or simply ran out of ideas so he left it off with no difference from his usual break between arcs except the "END" text pasted on there.

As for discussing the others, I must say Winds of Zion and Moon-Kid would be up there if they'd been executed a little differently.

Kid's character really spoke to me when he found out his mother had been killed (possibly worse) and he admitted the reason for his compassion was because he was holding out hope he'd meet her again, and wanted to remain the innocent child she remembered, rather than degrading into a cold-blooded killer for the sake of his revenge. If this had been explored right, the story would have been amazing. As it was, he had nothing holding him back from killing the outlaw, but then... it had to end there, so everything was just hunky-dory and he didn't grow any more as a character or even hint that he would. So much potential, lost...

Winds of Zion had a potentially touching story about a kid dealing with both bullying and his mother being gone in the hospital, and learning to live in spite of it after seeing some stray dogs that also have a hard life, but persevere. It also had some really great scenes such as the older brother (I'm forgetting all the names, I'm sorry...) yelling at their father for keeping their mother's cancer a secret - a rare display of realistic emotion in Yoshi's works - and having to resolve to be there for his little brother in whatever way he can. The flashback dialogue to Zion's naming was also moving to me, since they named him after an ideal of being surrounded by blessings when they were surrounded by grief and feeling helpless.

The problem was that all this good stuff just kind of collapsed on itself at the end when it degraded into a questionable moral of simply "man up, because that's how these emotional things work in the end." There was no real trigger for them moving on after all the buildup for one, leaving me wondering what, exactly, Yoshi was trying to get across with it.

Well there's my rant. The other stories I found rather 'meh'. Bear Hunter Fubuki I would have liked better if it didn't make SSY's canon totally wonky. And Hanako I found downright disgusting because it portrayed horrible care of a dog like it was totally normal. Nothing else stood out to me in any real way.

[乃ĿŌŌƉȲ₭ȲŌŪƧĦĪṜŌ]

My favorites were Lonely Ron and Moon Kid.

Moon Kid was my second favorite so I'll just give a quick reason as to why I liked it. I thought the setting was unique - for one of Yoshi's stories -and found the plot of a kid and his dog kicking ass in the wild west just really cool. It was also very dramatic and kind of crazy just for the sake of being crazy.

Now, onto Lonely Ron...I absolutely ADORE this story. The relationship between Ron and Bull is precious. A kind, cowardly, oaf with his loud, headstrong buddy. It still had its battles, but they weren't done in the same way. A lighter take on battles I suppose. I think what really attracts me though is the friendship between the main characters. You can just feel the closeness. I know there's a part two, but I won't spoil it for anybody...it's a shame Yoshi never did more with it, though I doubt that he could.

Now onto the ones I didn't like. Silver Emperors and Hanako. I just felt detached fromSilver Emperors. Maybe it was, because I hadn't seen much of Yamato yet, but even now there's nothing special about it to me. Two white dogs who I don't know save the day...yay...? Hanako...the story wasn't bad...it's just Yoshi...she was obviously sick and he didn't do anything until it was too late. I can understand maybe waiting a day, but what he did was unacceptable. He also - unrelated - said he wouldn't walk his labs, because he didn't think they needed to be walked. For someone who writes about dogs, you'd think he'd know better.

[M-92 Mantis]

Ah, now I have time to join in the ranting!

Lonely Ron was by far my favorite because of everyone else's points: Ron and Bull have charisma together and on their own that is RARELY seen in Yoshi's stuff. They're not the carboard cutouts of a stoic leader, a hotheaded hypocrite, a comic relief with only fart and ball jokes, a brooding emo loser, and neither lack personality. It's sad that it's so hard to find in most other stories by Yoshi, but it's good as well to have a new style. Ron's reasons for being a coward and dealing with it by not doing a 180 and becoming some ruthless killing machine or Bull giving some stupid 'manly death' speech makes it more realistic. I could believe Ron as a character, and I didn't get tired of learning about him. He learned how to stick up for himself WITHOUT becoming a completely new character, and Yoshi seemed to put effort into having characters SHOW what they were made of instead of background characters just TELLING us how great someone is, which is why I hardly ever get too attached to main heroes.

A lot of the short stories I can give or take simply because they're too short to get too involved with. Mel's Journey was kinda goofy in some weird 80s cartoon way of dogs being like a superhero group, but I didn't hate or love it. Winds of Zion had a nice idea and I didn't mind the family since the parents or relatives weren't EVIL AND HORRIBLE, for once, but the end 'moral' was basically saying people who deal with pain by crying are wimps and need to get over it, which isn't exactly true, although I agree on defending yourself against bullies, and at least the father and brother were going to stop the bullies if the little brother, Kenta, couldn't do it on his own, instead of letting him get pulverized and just tell him to be a man. Moon-Kid I liked the idea, it was just too damn short, and Moon was whining the entire story about how wimpy Kid is... when I liked Kid way more. I did love the Engrish SFX and pretty hilarious Western names.

Silver Emperors bored me, and I know enough about Yamato and Hayate and their owners to understand it. Artwork was pretty, but that's about it. Bear Hunter Fubuki I loved because even though the story COMPLETELY MESSES UP SSY CANON... I liked how, at least for me, it was a way better tale before GNG copied it, because I liked Juuzaburou and the village and Fubuki.

HANAKO... I'm not shy in saying I've never liked Yoshihiro, and this story can easy prove why. There is no excuse for treating your pet like this and being so ignorant to not even realize you're why the animal was in such bad shape and probably didn't live a very comfortable life. I just feel sorry for the pets he has now, too. Just looking at this story makes me angry.

Ginga Densetsu Riki is kinda... eh. There were little things in it I did like, like Riki's close connection to his mother AND his father when he was 1-3 years, how his mother DIDN'T die as a lame excuse to make Riki into a man, how Riki ... SORT OF, at least by Ginga standards, didn't become an instant puppy god in his first battles, and since Riki is such a bland character anyway, I had hoped a little story about him would give us more personality. Buuut a lot of it falls in the same Yoshi Formula and Yoshi Tropes, so it never became that interesting to me. I'm very VERY glad, though, it didn't become 60 volumes just to make money.

[Chemuhk]

Well, if we're discussing them all, I guess I'll jump in with my crazy opinions!
For Mel's Journey, I'm not sure exactly what to say. I certainly wasn't bothered by it in the slightest, and I think it's a nice piece of literature on its own, but it didn't really have any depth or impact for me. Out of all of the stories I've read thus far (I've yet to get around to Riki, Moon-Kid, or Silver Emperors), this one felt the most like just a cute little filler for the Ginga universe; the story didn't lead up to really anything too spectacular, and every character introduced to Mel appeared rather bland and a quickly forgettable to me. I suppose that could be considered a device to make Mel stand out a bit more as the main focus, and I think including the simple ideas of very, VERY clear good guys vs. bad guys helped with that, but I think that with some stronger choices in the character sense, and even character development department, the story could've had a bit more profound theme. As is though, as Hougen said, I don't love it but I don't hate it.

Winds of Zion was quite the interesting read for me. It had a couple things I appreciated about it, and a couple things that I felt detracted from the piece; first up, the storyline in general. Reading this, I definitely liked how grounded the story progression was with easy to understand conflicts, character traits, and environments/settings. With only a few locales and a handful of personalities, the story kept it real and made sure you didn't have to flip back and forth wondering "wait, who did what now?" That said, I feel there were a couple moments of more forced emotion, just sadness for sadness' sake. I don't know if the following sentences count as spoilers, I did my best not to say anything straight out, but feel free to skip ahead if you haven't read the story. Anywho, yes, someone struggling with cancer is a very sad and difficult subject, but I was a bit irked by the whole sequence with the mother in the hospital courtyard. By all means, make your story powerful and emotional when it needs to be, but I was a bit turned off by the typical Yoshi scene with pedals raining from above as everybody is screaming "Nooooo" with tears streaming down their faces for like four pages. To be fair, this kind of thing is probably just a stylistic choice, but I guess it just stuck out at me as a bit lame. I also wasn't a fan of the ending; Kitsune and Hougen mentioned it too, but I felt like it was a slightly convoluted morale that didn't really say anything particularly interesting to me. Ending on a high note, I did love the thought that was put into the family dynamic: I could see clear and believable brotherly bonds and father-son ties, which was a nice thing to see from Yoshi!

And Hanako; Oh Hanako, what an interesting little piece of literature you are. Now, I'm going to go ahead and play devil's advocate here and say that I didn't think it was all bad. To make things clear, I'll start of by saying that yes, I absolutely think Takahashi's behavior in response to Hanako's odd behavior was fairly lazy and close to downright idiotic, but I'm not sure he's quite as despicable as I occasionally see him mentioned as. No, I don't particularly like Yoshiro as a person; I think he's a very talented artist with an impressive catalog and I love most of his works, but I couldn't tell you how well we'd get along in person. That said, I feel that the fact he included the story in Gaiden is some sort of indication he cared about the incident; while he never straight up mentions that he was being irresponsible, which he probably should have, he certainly doesn't idolize himself as a good dog owner. I don't think his fault lies in that he didn't care about her pain, I got the impression that he did. I think that most of what he did wrong was in that he didn't take the time to synthesize the information he had and evaluate the situation. As a dog owner, that was his responsibility that he failed and I'd happily give him a smack for it, but I just thought his semi-honesty and care should be observed, despite how moronic he was.
Hooray for rants!

[M-92 Mantis]

Apr 24, 2014 21:58:54 GMT -7 Chemuhk said:

Well, if we're discussing them all, I guess I'll jump in with my crazy opinions!
Anywho, yes, someone struggling with cancer is a very sad and difficult subject, but I was a bit irked by the whole sequence with the mother in the hospital courtyard. By all means, make your story powerful and emotional when it needs to be, but I was a bit turned off by the typical Yoshi scene with pedals raining from above as everybody is screaming "Nooooo" with tears streaming down their faces for like four pages. To be fair, this kind of thing is probably just a stylistic choice, but I guess it just stuck out at me as a bit lame. I

I'm liking this so hard, right now.

Sad does not = screaming and traumatic, sudden, over-the-top events or reactions. Not everything has to be blaring like a trumpet or screaming or covered in blood, etc.

[18Gingasoldier]

Favorite short story? Hmmmm, Lonely Ron and Winds of Zion. But if I had to choose one, I'd pick Lonely Ron, mainly for the reasons you guys have been steal in' from me

But yeah, it's true that I like Ron's and Bull's chemistry, and has a nice message, without adding the overemotional-overrated man speech, which doesn't appear anywhere else, and there are no useless-characters, and I liked the plot line too, and there are no comic-relief characters that are there just for the sake. Too bad Yoshi only did two adventures with them, so FanFiction is our friend

Winds of Zion started good, but then, the message was confusing, what is it? Man up? Nothing else? Does it even have something to do with the story? Man up?? Well, I liked Zion. He was a nice puppy but for whatever reason he left his human friend and went somewhere else, and this is my favorite short story, and there is more rant than a liking. I also found the part where people cry and shout: NOO WHY U LEAVE with petals coming off the trees very lame, but kinda understandable. I think that those moments only fit into a light dark/very dark comic/novel/movie. Like Toy Story 3

[Klomonx]

I think Yoshi is far better at short stories than his long drawn out ones. I'm somewhere between Moon Kid and Lonely Ron. Of all the stories I remember reading back when GB did them actively, Lonely Ron was the one that really stuck out to me. Moon Kid is probably a close second, however.
Mel's Journey wasn't too bad; If nothing else I like seeing the other dog breeds involved that normally Yoshi doesn't even mention exist.
GDR Is probably my least favourite, I don't like how he make Riki's story...just like Gin's. I would have liked it a lot more had Riki never seen his father die; ie, one day he is saved by Shiro and then, suddenly, Shiro is gone.

[M-92 Mantis]

May 21, 2014 17:08:48 GMT -7 Klomonx said:

I would have liked it a lot more had Riki never seen his father die; ie, one day he is saved by Shiro and then, suddenly, Shiro is gone.

I have to agree with that... I didn't realize how cut-and-paste poor Riki's story is (well, I did... but not by THAT much), but yeah.. his motivation for killing Akakabuto is just the same as Gin's. I know that technically counted in GNG since it was mentioned first there, and at least in the anime made it a point that Akakabuto had made more enemies with the Ginga bloodline that way, but seriously... Riki doesn't get to have his own drive in his own friggin story. He would've figured out Shiro's death sooner or later, but at least he could've had a different way of doing so, and not just being a remake of Gin's. Riki wasn't mentioned to have even fucking BEEN there to see Shiro die in GNG (I don't think), so yeah, Yoshi using the opportunity to copy his own work again makes it not interesting in the least.

[Klomonx]

May 21, 2014 17:38:45 GMT -7 M-92 Mantis said:

May 21, 2014 17:08:48 GMT -7 Klomonx said:

I would have liked it a lot more had Riki never seen his father die; ie, one day he is saved by Shiro and then, suddenly, Shiro is gone.

I have to agree with that... I didn't realize how cut-and-paste poor Riki's story is (well, I did... but not by THAT much), but yeah.. his motivation for killing Akakabuto is just the same as Gin's. I know that technically counted in GNG since it was mentioned first there, and at least in the anime made it a point that Akakabuto had made more enemies with the Ginga bloodline that way, but seriously... Riki doesn't get to have his own drive in his own friggin story. He would've figured out Shiro's death sooner or later, but at least he could've had a different way of doing so, and not just being a remake of Gin's. Riki wasn't mentioned to have even fucking BEEN there to see Shiro die in GNG (I don't think), so yeah, Yoshi using the opportunity to copy his own work again makes it not interesting in the least.

In the anime, at least, I think it does say that Riki 'saved Gohei', but doesn't go into how like GDR does. Could Yoshi have possibly kept his canon in check for once!? *gasp*
Even so, it wasn't needed. For fans of Riki, like me, it made me dislike him a little, as he wasn't any different from Gin.

SPOILER: Click to show

Not to mention, what if Riki, knowing Shiro died, but never seeing the body - feels Gin's pain when he remembers Gin is his son. After all, Gin must have felt the same way, and it had to have been a very emotional moment.
But alas, we get none of that.

[M-92 Mantis]

Remembering past details to fit into continuity?! With YOSHI?!



I'm someone who isn't interested in Riki, but was open to a story of him to show a personality and his unique beginning, so for me, I'd agree, the story wasn't needed in any way, shape or form, since Yoshi didn't feel like actually making it much of a 'story' for Riki as much of a 'hey, isn't this so clever that ALL the Ginga bloodline breathe, walk and talk with the exact same stuff when they were little?' But.. then again, it's Yoshi, so he probably did it because he doesn't like thinking of new ideas, not because he wanted to make little references to GNG. Again, I thought it had nice moments, like Riki growing up happy and NORMAL with both of his parents being alive, but it wasn't enough to actually save anything for me, since the whole Heiji thing was nothing new and I didn't get my hopes up on Riki actually having moments of dialogue with either parent to show their relationships.

[Durango]

Ah this one is hard to answer. I still haven't read Moon Kid, I don't know why since I said ages ago that I should, but I still feel confident I wouldn't vote for it anyway. Unless I'd be voting for the Google Translated version, because that just seems like the best story ever. Kid believe it!

Ginga Densetsu Riki would actually be a nice story, but I have huge issues with it being.. well, Riki. If the story had been about another random puppy then fine, but this backstory just doesn't sit well with me for Riki. Sure it gives out this nice message that a weak child like him grew up to be an amazing warrior leader and all that, but still I'm against it and like to pretend it doesn't even exist. The good thing was that there was at least a little bit of Shiro, who actually seemed like a really good father at least when it comes to Ginga universe.

Winds of Zion.. Well, I 100% agree with everything Kit already said. Story had the potential and then just didn't live up to it.

Mel's Journey is one that I don't remember completely, but I think I was ok with it. Not among my favorites because I don't care for Mel from what I've seen of him, but the story had that.. neighborhood watch of dogs? Or whatever they were called, and I really liked that idea.

I like Hakugin no Teiou but I can't give my vote for it because the story just leaves you hanging with no real conclusion, giving out a feeling like you are supposed to go look for the missing pages. I was excited for the story at first because the story sounded interesting, it has those three badasses and a great glimpse of Hayate, but then it just fell so flat that I felt cheated.

And so I gave first vote to Bear Hunter Fubuki, because damn, that is just good and Fubuki deserved more time on the page than what he had in SSY! I was very confused when the story didn't seem to fit into SSY but decided not to care about that, and just imagine that this short had taken place before the backstory shown in SSY, because why not have both.  

And my second vote obviously went to Lonely Ron, which is my favorite out of this bunch for reasons that everyone else has already brought up. No lengthy manhood speeches and the main characters is not a righteous tough guy but a coward with a warm heart. That is very refreshing, and for me specially important since Ron is the first Great Dane in Yoshi stories that I've liked! And don't get me even started on Buru (yeah I'm sorry I wrote it like that but but but) because he is absolutely awesome beyond words. The bond between these two very different characters is fun to follow and I certainly wouldn't mind if there were more shorts of them.