With regards to the question of depth—I’m no authority but this doesn’t seem to me at least to be a purely Japanese issue. When I think of western comics, I don’t think of meaningful depth either, or most Western action films, etc.—perhaps it has less to do with the culture, and more to do with exactly what sphere of that culture’s entertainment we are looking at. Most fictional work is shallow, after all.
I'd say that Western comics, particularly superhero comics, are both benefited and undermined by the recurrence of characters and universes- you wouldn't get classics like The Killing Joke or The Dark Knight Returns if decades and decades of using Batman as a character hadn't created such a rich mythos of tropes to explore and subvert, but conversely, you also wouldn't have ridiculously convoluted lore and constant deaths and revivals in a dozen different stories with the same characters if the Western comics industry knew when to bury an idea. Some of the best Japanese works I've come across have also benefited by taking established characters and reimagining them- Naoki Urusawa's Pluto, for instance, takes Tezuka's iconic Atom universe and reimagines it in myriad brilliant ways. But I think 'depth' in this context would refer to more in terms of 'detailing' than pure literary merit, which becomes unviable if it grows too esoteric or complex in media environments geared towards simple, shallow gratification.
So rather than fiction being shallow, it's forced to become shallow by industries that suppress nuance and prioritize surface appeal, but the potential for brilliance and revolutionary art always exists- personally, I'm the kind of reader who would consider going through a thousand generic stories as a justified effort if I come across just one work that makes me 'think'. Case in point, I was kinda iffy on this very manga in the first few chapters because I'm not generally a fan of fanservicey action stories, but sticking with it has given me entertainment and encouraged me to engage in a discussion that has been more productive and educational than anything I would've expected to gain while glancing at a psychotic nun's boobs. Odd as the means might be, wisdom can spring from anywhere, and I've found a great deal of it here in chatting with you, so once again, thanks a ton.
and in defense of FGO—I find that they’ve segregated a lot of the “gacha game content” and “Nasuverse narrative cohesion” by what is/isn’t part of the main story. If you read it as a VN, especially post-singularity 5, it’s quite good, and explores some underexplored aspects of the Nasuverse, like textures, pruning phenomenon, etc., while the “they’re finally here / performing for you / if you know the world, you can join in too” stuff is mostly in bond lines and events. It definitely supports your point about needing some waifu content to push the material, esp. in a gacha game, but I think that separation also allows the main story to work as a narrative largely insulated from this.
True, FGO's story is considerably better than most other gacha games on the market. I think FGO as a work becomes a lot easier to like if it serves as your introduction to the franchise- I personally started off the old fashioned way from the Ufotable anime, found the VN, explored the wider Nasuverse and only then came across FGO, so while the game isn't bad per se, the storytelling seems incredibly barebones and simplistic in comparison to what got me into Fate. VNs are obviously far better media for telling a complex story than a gacha game with its tiny text crawl ever could be, so it's unfair to compare FGO to FSN, but I think my grievances, and those of a ton of Nasuverse fans, stem from the fact that FGO has pretty much eclipsed everything else about the franchise. I mean, we went from Kara no Kyokai in 1998 to Tsukihime in 2000 to Fate/Stay Night in 2004- three brilliant, thought-provoking works in twice as many years, and from thereon out, it was all just endless Fate spinoffs. Money drives content creation, so obviously the most profitable part of the franchise will get the majority of content, and as a result, pretty much every other part of the Nasuverse is in development hell. A remake of an existing VN? Still foggy and ambiguous. A sequel to Mahoyo, which featured incredible improvements in Nasu's writing and characterization? Nope, 8 years in and we haven't even gotten part 2 of a prequel trilogy. More DDD LNs? Girls' Work? Nope, they're basically lost history by this point, while FGO informs you that yet another historical waifu who bears no actual resemblance to history is now getting a sexy swimsuit outfit and an entire event that revolves around it.
For everyone who fell in love with the Nasuverse because of how brilliant it was at creating unique characters and innovative narratives, it just feels kinda hurtful, and it's one of the reasons I lapsed as a Fate fan, because the franchise just wasn't doing it for me anymore. Optimists say that Nasu's only using the gacha game to fund his actual, hidden magnum opuses, but after five years and several billion dollars made with very little in the way of non-Fate content, it just seems like Type Moon has chanced upon a perpetual revenue machine and won't ever let it go. Maybe it's unrealistic, but I still can't help feeling nostalgic for those days of buggy computer VNs, back when Takeuchi could draw more than one face and Nasu had more ideas than he knew what to do with and created this wonderful urban fantasy kitchen sink. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, though. FGO did give us Kagetora, so it's not all bad.
last edited at Nov 23, 2020 3:18PM
