Naruto’s extended cast really did fall away after the anime’s War Arc. They produced enormous amounts of filler and then just kinda wrote off / killed off anyone who wasn’t Naruto while focusing entirely on the Naruto/Sasuke rivalry. Then even that fell away so they could do some increasingly “My Power Is Bigger Than Your Power” dick waving bullshit into the closing arc.
Boruto was even worse, picking up straight off where the power-overscaled original story ended.
I wouldn’t even call it a problem of fascism, per say, since the bad guys were as over-the-top as anyone. It just didn’t do anything interesting with the premise, once everyone was God-Tier power level and just blasting away at each other with abandon.
Laser beams are cheap to animate. Some of the funniest bits in Naruto were the wacky jitsus. The dog guy who pees everywhere to negate illusion effects. The diviner who sees your chakras. Insect guy. Shadow guy. Mind-zap girl. Everyone has their own niche, and the teams evolve to exploit their niches. But then they all fall away and its just the Kicky-Punchy Show.
I saw a video essay on “The MAPPA Effect” where they talked the same way. How combat got more banal as their timelines and budgets contracted.
To their credit, FMA had a very light touch when it came to fight scenes. Lots of the show was drama and intrigue, keeping the show engaging without busting your budget on some elaborate battle scenes. The better anime tend to cling to this style of story telling, both because it makes the stories better and because it means you don’t need to CGI the crap out of your show.
brains
Naruto’s extended cast really did fall away after the anime’s War Arc. They produced enormous amounts of filler and then just kinda wrote off / killed off anyone who wasn’t Naruto while focusing entirely on the Naruto/Sasuke rivalry. Then even that fell away so they could do some increasingly “My Power Is Bigger Than Your Power” dick waving bullshit into the closing arc.
Boruto was even worse, picking up straight off where the power-overscaled original story ended.
I wouldn’t even call it a problem of fascism, per say, since the bad guys were as over-the-top as anyone. It just didn’t do anything interesting with the premise, once everyone was God-Tier power level and just blasting away at each other with abandon.
Good god I despise the anime combat being “just hit it with a bigger laser beam until someone says uncle.”
In Full Metal Alchemist, since it was science based, there was some thought to the combat and I really liked that. Power creep and its consequences.
Laser beams are cheap to animate. Some of the funniest bits in Naruto were the wacky jitsus. The dog guy who pees everywhere to negate illusion effects. The diviner who sees your chakras. Insect guy. Shadow guy. Mind-zap girl. Everyone has their own niche, and the teams evolve to exploit their niches. But then they all fall away and its just the Kicky-Punchy Show.
I saw a video essay on “The MAPPA Effect” where they talked the same way. How combat got more banal as their timelines and budgets contracted.
To their credit, FMA had a very light touch when it came to fight scenes. Lots of the show was drama and intrigue, keeping the show engaging without busting your budget on some elaborate battle scenes. The better anime tend to cling to this style of story telling, both because it makes the stories better and because it means you don’t need to CGI the crap out of your show.