Post
by Jodaku » Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:48 am
It's interesting reading the debate on how much of a chance you should give a series before deciding that if it's worth proceeding with in the long run. I think of the Django Unchained quote from DiCaprio "...you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention".
If something I was curious about checking out is able to hold my attention, then I'm good to go along with it to see where it goes. I'm not looking for greatness, just something to hook me in to hold my attention and keep me interested, even if it's just the basic premise.
In some ways One Piece and Breaking Bad are similar in that they're very, almost severely hyped franchises, touted as one of the all time greats in their respective mediums. The strength of that hype combined with friends recommendations led me to checking out both of those series. With One Piece I didn't last more than 4 volumes of the manga. It just didn't hold my attention long enough to get to the supposedly good parts. I didn't find it bad, I just didn't find it particularly interesting. From what I've gathered here and elsewhere, it seems like it's roughly volume 8 or 9 where One Piece really gets going, but for me that's way too long for something to supposedly hook you. Am I missing out on some great stuff for not persevering longer? Most likely, but I don't actually feel like I'm missing out based on what I read, even if what I read was not the best representation of One Piece, it should have done a better job of keeping my interest before getting to that point.
In comparison, Breaking Bad had me hooked from the first episode. No, I wasn't seeing early signs of the greatness that was being touted (which really didn't start to become evident until season 3 at the earliest) , but it did more than enough to hold my attention, to keep me entertained and to keep going with it. It earns its trust from the audience in the early episodes to stick with it while not necessarily blowing you away , whereas I feel like I have to trust One Piece to get better while being apathetic getting there, which is not something I'm prepared to do.
To bring this back to Dragon Ball, and for a more direct comparison 4 volumes in, while the Pilaf/Hunt for the Dragon Balls would have definitely fall into that apathetic territory, Master Roshi's training/Krillin's introduction/21st Tenkaichi Budokai would have more than saved it for me if I was reading it first time round without knowledge of what's to come.
Last edited by
Jodaku on Mon Jan 20, 2014 2:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
!
Too much time spent hyping up villains who went down too easily.
