Do you think that manga series suffer from their indefinite length?
Usually, when a book or scenario for movie/game/original anime is written, the length of the story can be more or less precisely estimated. The boundaries of story are known, so entire composition, pacing, subplots, characters can be planned pretty much form the beginning.
Manga however have no well defined boundaries. When you start reading manga, you don't know if there's supposed to be a conclusion in 20, 40, 100 or 200 chapters. And since neither writer nor publisher is interested in ending profitable series, typical manga continues until it gets axed or the story cannot possibly be dragged anymore.
As a result we get a lot of interesting ideas that are lost in endlessly stalled plot. Romances turn into harems or bullshit dramas with dozens of rivals, battle shounens suffer form power creep, character and relationship developments are constantly halted, reverted or avoided, overabundance of side plots and filler arcs leads to bland, cliched and repetitive content, story amasses plot holes, asspulls and retcons, characters become passive and are forced to act like retards.
Of course other media have similar problem - unnecessary, money-grabbing, low-quality sequels. However even if such sequel is a complete garbage, the first good story is still intact and can act as a whole, with a proper conclusion. Manga series at the best offers only a bunch of chapters at the beginning when it was still good, but the story as a whole still sucks.
Stop reading WSJ shit.
How is this even a question? Almost no story benefits from the "Let's have a solid start and just fucking wing it until we're forced to wrap it up" method of writing.
There's a reason why 90% of nip endings are absolute shit.
The problem is that once a writer gets into a good manga magazine he rather stretch it that biting the bullet thinking his next idea will be good enough to get in.
Also I think a lot of writers have an idea of a start and an end but once they stretch up the plot they introduce new elements they dont know how to tie up. Like suddenly the government seems to have ties to whatever they uncover. Then try to make that plotline end without a huge asspull
>>142788378
Ending shit is hard in general. Coming up with an interesting hook and status quo tends to be pretty easy, but actually developing that into a satisfying conclusion is difficult.
>>142788770
For me it's an opposite - I find it easy to come up with nice mid- and endgame, but the very beginnings require more thought.
Won't win editor's approval with an ending idea though, so no surprise that mangaka don't put enough thought into it and go for bottom-up story building instead of top-down.
>>142790152
do you mean writing the beginning, or coming up with where it starts?
>>142790341
Both to some degree.
Usually an idea that pops into my mind requires some preparation in terms of character and story development, not to mention introductions. It's rarely something like "A boy falls in love with a girl and what the fuck am I going to write next".
In case of written story it can be easily solved by breaking the chronological order, but it's not possible with things like RPG campaigns.
>>142790841
Take keit ai. The start is simple. You start wit the guy being in school and there you introduce his love interest. Then on the way home he gets the strange number in whatever way (gets a new phone and finds the number preprogrammed, catches the IR beam when she shares the number with someone else, drops his phone in water and it somehow makes the phone shortcircuit into a new number). Then he calls and the situation plays out. The ending is simple too. He falls in love with the alternate universe her. Then it is a sad ending where they cannot meet and in the end drift apart or the link starts breaking up. Or you can go for a nice end where due some story thing (like a tech club) they can cross universes. Or you can get a bittersweet ending where they do end up with their other lover but still secretly long for the alternative universe companion.
The problem is how you tie those two parts together. The confession on the phone at the start basically puts them already in lovers mode. With for example tora dora they had to grow together. Also it has to flow naturally. You see most stories basically rush to kissu but then have many episodes/chapters of blueballing where shit just isnt moving forward.
>>142788076
but powercreep in shonen is the coolest thing
it's pretty cool to see a guy go from busting rocks to busting galaxies and universes
I guess /a/ just can't into fighting and warriors and shit
>>142790841
A second less hypothetical example would be haruhi. The start and end are easily filled in. Kyon meets haruhi, kyon goes along with her madman talk, kyon meets the group that tell him about haruhi, and kyon ends up being the mental manager of haruhi. Naturally there is romance involved which neatly ties in into the whole mental stability thing as well as a point of tension that he cant tell her the truth.
The end is then not hard to guess. First of all they become romantically involved. Second some point shit is going down and he has to tell her the truth to save everything. Then lastly he and haruhi live happily together and she no longer feels like she isnt fullfilled.
If we look at the story currently the first book went as expected. It ended with a kiss. But due its success he obviously padded it later on. The first few small stories filled in holes as well as giving some backstory. But in other parts he introduces some stuff without really going anywhere. Meanwhile haruhi either gets benched for mikuru stories (that very ineffectively try to play some love triangle where none of the people actually seem to be pressured) or seemingly lead into just side stories. Now the writer slows down. Obviously he is stuck trying to tie the start and end together. Also he seems to be done with the story but knows that he cannot just dump every plot line he built up to just start the major crisis to write the end.
>>142788076
>Usually, when a book or scenario for movie/game/original anime is written, the length of the story can be more or less precisely estimated. The boundaries of story are known, so entire composition, pacing, subplots, characters can be planned pretty much form the beginning.
>a book
Have you never read a series of books before?
>>142788617
>The problem is that once a writer gets into a good manga magazine he rather stretch it that biting the bullet thinking his next idea will be good enough to get in.
That's the problem. No artistic integrity. It's all created as a product. Money is more important to the Japs than making great stories.
>>142791656
And for some reason a galaxy busting cant finish what he set out to do. Or tell the girl he liked for 600 chapters he wants to go out with her
>>142791376
Fuck off. I hate you fucking faggots who are always spamming this shit. No one wants to see it anymore. Don't ever post about Keit-ai again. Shitty memes like these are the cancer killing /a/. And you faggots always get away with it too. Why the fuck mods don't crack down on it more, I'll never know. Anytime someone even mentions it it gets hundreds of replies and /v/ermin crossboarders. You should consider suicide if you engage in that kind of behavior
>>142791750
If you say so, Spiderman #69,420
>>142791750
>Money is more important to the Japs than making great stories.
There are enough western people that rather string a story along that finishing it. Just look at comics like spiderman or batman. Those hero stories are usually about a guy with powers and a few character flaws fighting a bad guy. First they need to learn their powers. Then they fight the bad guy. Then they find they are getting pushed back. Then they overcome their issues and with their new awareness manage to defeat the bad guy.
Then it hits off and they need to invent more villains. This goes well but a hero is done developing at some point and the fight is more of a report than a human story about someone learning what it means to be a person.
>>142791830
look to whom I replied fagboy. He mentioned it first and to make it easier to illustrate my point I took that handle and used it.
That's one of the reasons I like Dorohedoro.
It feels like the author planned from the start about how long it was supposed to go for. It's probably gonna be ending this year.
>>142788076
Not that much more than other media. You clearly don't read that much manga if you think they all drag on endlessly, and you clearly don't read that many books if you think a single story is never dragged out over many volumes.
Wait, are you the same retarded faggot who made basically this same thread but specifically about Berserk a week or two ago?
>>142788318
Most manga publications do this.
>>142792750
Not really. They do the "no set length" thing, sure, because that's how serialization generally works, but the never-ending repetitive shit with blatant padding is much less common outside of specific magazines.
>>142788076
>As a result we get a lot of interesting ideas that are lost in endlessly stalled plot. Romances turn into harems or bullshit dramas with dozens of rivals, battle shounens suffer form power creep, character and relationship developments are constantly halted, reverted or avoided, overabundance of side plots and filler arcs leads to bland, cliched and repetitive content, story amasses plot holes, asspulls and retcons, characters become passive and are forced to act like retards.
It sounds like you're reading a whole lot of mediocre shounen manga.
