Looking at the works that are planted on the grand proposition, you can realize how rare the simplicity of "Steel" is.
Presumably, many people already know that recently another tall building in the Japanese manga industry has collapsed.
Under the spotlight, Attack on Titan came to an end in episode 139 of the comic. However, this ending neither reasonably recovers many of the foreshadowings previously buried, nor can it evoke the emotional resonance of the reader, and even the characters completely collapse at the last moment. Readers wailed that it was bad enough to dwarf the previously criticized Grim Reaper and Naruto, perhaps only the final season of Game of Thrones.
Fans' enthusiasm for many years has turned into a laughing stock, and there has been an endless stream of bad comments about the author Isayama
Just when everyone is once again lamenting why popular anime works are always difficult to escape the end, many people are also happy to bring up another work that has long been called "zero bad evaluation god work" - that is, "Fullmetal Alchemist" (hereinafter referred to as "Steel Smelt").
Everyone uses the drawing horse as a metaphor for the completion of several anime works
All over the world, Steel has received great popularity and praise, and is regarded as a benchmark in the youth manga industry. It is also because it is a benchmark, in the years of the "Attack on Titan" series, "Steel" is often pulled to compare.
It is also serialized in the form of a monthly magazine, the same is the author's first long-form serial work, the same serial has accumulated great popularity in the past decade, the same rollout of a grand overhead world view, the same group portrait drama with a wide variety of characters, and the same storyline of both fighting and wit fighting... There are indeed many comparisons between the two, which also makes "Has Giant surpassed Steel?" "It has become a common topic of controversy at home and abroad.
Audiences everywhere love to compare these two
Therefore, the worst tail of this giant may be the fans of "Steel", and a dialogue between Isayama and Hiroshi Arakawa, the author of "Steel", will be published in July, which is considered to be a public execution.
However, compared with the desire to win or lose, the fans of "Steel" hope to take this opportunity to let more new generation readers who have not yet seen "Steel" contact this work, so they once again recommend this work on various social platforms.
So this article will also try to avoid spoilers for any of the key plots in Steel, even if they are already widely known
So, why is "Steel", which has been completed for more than ten years, recognized as the most perfect youth comic?
1
When asked where the "god" of "Steel" is, the most frequently mentioned adjective is often "solid". It is also this solidity that has influenced the fate of the work from the beginning.
The main works of Steel, including Hiroshi Arakawa's original manga and two anime adaptations, tell the story of the Ellick brothers who have experienced the failure of human refining to recover their lost flesh.
The main works of "Steel" are composed of factions
The manga was published in SE's Monthly Shonen Gangan, which is not a popular magazine compared to jump magazines. After two years of tepid serialization, the company decided to bring it to the screen to appeal to a wider audience. The anime was handed over to the Bone Society, but by this time the story of the manga had just unfolded, far from being enough to make a full-length animation with a complete plot.
Therefore, the 03 version completely broke away from the original in the middle and late stages and developed into a completely new story. For the audience, this is a big taboo, after all, there have been too many works that have been randomly changed and eventually reduced to black history. However, the success of the 03 version of "Steel" made it a popular work, and the sales of the manga soared tenfold after the first season was broadcast.
It is not common in the industry for a set of settings to successfully develop two series of works with very different styles. This is inseparable from the efforts of the production team, and also relies on the solid stage built at the beginning of the original work.
In order to revive their mother, who died of overwork, the Ellik brothers tried to refine the forbidden human body, resulting in the loss of his right hand and left leg by his brother Edward, and the younger brother Alphonse, who was left with only a soul to act with the help of an armor - such a dark and heavy life, in later popular parlance, can be said to be the standard "black deep cripple" beginning, so that the story is full of tension from the beginning. The principle of "equal exchange" throughout gives the work a philosophical reasoning, as long as this theme is firmly grasped, the story has a development context.
The 03 version of the animation focuses on rendering this dark and desperate atmosphere, further constructing a story full of realistic metaphors, and achieving acclaimed and popular results.
But the original is not actually this style.
The Ellick brothers are not the kind of bitter and vengeful characters, on the contrary, they have always been positive and optimistic. The overall tone of the story is not only less depressing, but even if the plot is carried out to a critical juncture, it is interspersed with a spoof of unbearable spit from time to time.
So much so that the characters and readers of the story often forget that the Ellik brothers actually bear a heavy past
Audiences who have watched the 03 version of the anime and the original work will not find a contradiction: even the most depressing and shocking story section of the 03 version is still contributed by the original manga, but the original work itself can always be filled with a lively and sunny atmosphere.
In fact, looking back, "human experiments", "cannibalism", "conspiracy theories of state organs", these curious elements are not many in "Steel", but they have never been used as the selling point of people's attention, but they form part of the story in a down-to-earth manner.
2
Six years after the 03 version of "Steel" was broadcast, the official announcement was made of a new version of the animation "Steel FA" that was faithful to the original work, and it was still handed over to the Bone Society. This time, the anime will end in tandem with the near-end manga of the series, spanning five seasons. To this day, this is still a rare production specification in the industry, let alone a repeated adaptation of the same work.
The second animation successfully showed the style of the original work in front of the audience, and on the mainstream animation rating website, "SteelFA" has still firmly taken the top spot.
Pushing "Attack on Titan", which is why "Giant" fans have been eyeing this throne
Compared with the 03 version that takes the gloomy route, the FA that fits the original is closer to the king of family fun in terms of overall atmosphere, but in terms of story arrangement, it is far from the traditional juvenile manga, and it is a rare group portrait drama.
In the usual juvenile comics, the adventure mode of the protagonist group is often "encountering strong enemies, dispersing to deal with their respective enemies, and then gathering to the next layer", during which new people will join, and there may also be old people leaving the team, and the cycle will continue, until the final big BOSS is defeated, forming a story line shaped like a bead, and the protagonist is always in the center.
"Steel" abandons this "passing" routine, and the whole article only paves the way for the final big war, setting up a spinning cone story. The Ellik brothers, as the protagonists of the story, are not always in the spotlight, and sometimes they become marginal figures.
If you change to other juvenile comics to write a branch line like this to write that the protagonist drops the line, most of them will have been scolded to the point of blood. But "Steel" is laid out under a compact plot, and the fate of each character is equally gripping, and their importance to the story is equal, just standing in different positions on the stage.
Supporting characters can always be the key to driving the plot at some point
According to the author Hiroshi Arakawa, "'Steel' is a story that is developed by the personality of the characters and naturally drives the development of the plot. "Every character in 'Steel', regardless of the camp and no matter how much the scene, is portrayed in a full and three-dimensional way. Their fates crisscross the story, and even the smallest characters have their own highlight moments in the story and play a unique role.
Even if you are a clown-type villain at the beginning, you still have a chance to make a splash in the end
Therefore, from the perspective of analysis, the story structure of "Steel" is not mysterious, but it is just the kung fu of constantly innovating other works to create novel characters, which is used to enrich the ordinary and vivid characters. This is easy to say, but it means that the author not only has to be confident about the overall direction of the story, but also needs to have full respect for his characters. Arakawa's purpose in creating the characters was that "they are all characters I drew, so I hope to take responsibility for them to the end." If they survive, let them have a goal for the future, and if they die, let their death have meaning. ”
The ultimate victory came from the efforts of all of us
3
Hiroshi Arakawa, who drew Steel, is rarely featured as a "genius manga artist", even though Steel is her first feature-length manga series. She also never attended an art-related college and worked as a farmer in her hometown in Hokkaido for several years before her debut at the age of 25.
Hiroshi Arakawa herself is as simple and understated as her style. She never appeared in public, and even on television, she was required to code her face, so much so that in the years when "Steel" first became popular, many people did not know that she was a woman.
Hiroshi Arakawa proved that shonen manga is not the preserve of male manga artists
Despite creating fantasy-themed manga, Hiroshi Arakawa actively draws nourishment from the reality around him.
The inspiration for the birth of the Ellic brothers came from the disabled people that Arakawa met when he was working part-time in a welfare home; the principle of "equal exchange" was born out of the family training of the farming family to "eat without working"; the action design of the drama was based on the karate practice practiced as a student; and the humorous and funny manga style was deeply influenced by the favorite manga work of his youth, "Fuxing Boy".
Perhaps it is these that make Hiroshi Arakawa's works always full of down-to-earth life.
After the clean and clean conclusion of "Steel", Hiroshi Arakawa began serializing his new work "The Silver Key".
This is a realistic theme of agricultural high school life, which can be said to be very different from "Steel", but it is still very popular, and it was quickly adapted into a two-season animation, and even drove the number of applicants for agricultural high schools in reality.
The Silver Spoon is a work that can change people's perceptions of agriculture and even food
However, when this work was serialized in the middle and late periods, Arakawa Hiroshi's family was plagued by illness, and the serialization of "The Silver Key" was deeply affected, and it was a regrettable thing that it was hastily concluded after several suspensions.
This also makes people realize how difficult it is for a work to be successfully serialized.
4
"Steel" is a popular work, almost no reading threshold, no obscure metaphors and blanks, every detail of the story is filled flat, and there is naturally no earth-shattering reversal under the layers. This is one of the reasons for its popularity, but it is often underestimated.
"Steel" is a work that is as balanced as a formation in all aspects, with almost no shortcomings, so it is called the "hexagonal warrior" in the comic book industry.
If the completion of a serial comic is likened to a mathematical problem, then "Steel" does not solve any profound historical problems, but only uses the theorem formulas commonly found in middle and high school textbooks. However, the whole problem solving process is interlocked, the steps are concise and clear, and finally a beautiful solution is drawn with a logical and beautiful solution, neatly drawing a satisfactory end.
For those who expect to see cartoonists crack the "Goldbach conjecture" with ingenious strategies that are difficult for mortals to understand, such a "steel" is obviously not a "god work". However, seeing more works that are planted on the grand proposition has also made more and more people realize the preciousness of the simple sense of "Steel".
Rumiko Takahashi, who is also a manga artist, knows how rare such a calm stroke is
What's more, "Steel" does not lack "war", "nation", "authority", "revenge", "life and death concept", "the essence of man" and other thought-provoking heavy topics, but the author has always taken these lightly, rather than pursuing so-called solutions, more from the perspective of the role to give personal insights, leaving the reader with space for their own thinking.
Plain is true, and this may be the secret of Steel's ability to surpass ordinary youth comics.
"A good cartoonist is someone who can find the perfect balance between 'obeying the reader's expectations' and 'betraying that expectation.'" --Hiroshi Arakawa