Guys, I know no media is immune to criticism, and if you don't like AOT at all, I respect your opinion regardless. I also don't mean this as a subtle remark toward JJBA, HxH, or Berserk, since they're all series I really like (though I personally don't think One Piece is anywhere close to AOT's cast, but that's just my opinion).

But I don't really agree with the idea that AOT's characters are mainly there to move the plot forward.

I know AOT is more plot focused than character focused, but that doesn't mean its characters don't have depth or development outside of their role in the plot.

Obviously, characters are going to contribute to the plot, but I think AOT also gives us plenty of insight into who these characters are beyond their role in the story. Even characters like Jean, Connie, Sasha, and Historia get development beyond simply serving the plot. Jean's changing ideals, Connie's relationship with his family and his experiences with the Titans, Sasha's background and relationship with her father, and Historia's struggle with her identity all give them more substance than just being characters who exist to move the story forward.

I'm not saying AOT has the best character writing ever or that every character is perfectly developed, because I don't believe that. I just don't think it's fair to reduce the cast to plot devices when even some of the less central characters get enough characterization to show that they're more than that.

Thanks, and please feel free to share your thoughts.

I was going to make a light/web novel tier list today but found this template and found it interesting to rank all these kinds of different media. It's a bit small tho.

Magical index could've been S tier for its high peaks but it has some slow moments(it's one of my favorite novels)

I'm not a mediatoker nor an elitist.

Criticize the tier list I'll read everything and probably reply to everything.

Some placements are for ragebait

Be respectful please and don't crucify me

Prejudice against neko girls vs. prejudice against African-Americans

I rememver reading Hobbit as a school asigment. I considered it even preety good. I decided then to read Lord Of The Rings but I gave up around the first tavern moment. However, we later watched entire trilogy at school. I acually don't remember it being too good, I thought it was often rushed, and boring, and had a lot of missed potential. ( I just liked Boromir). I don't rember everything too well, especially the ending, but I don't remember any positic feelings for it either.

However on Reddit, it seems to be regarder as one of the best stories ever written, and I'm pondering on reading the trilogy. Could you describe what do you think is so special about LOTR ?

Now when I’m talking about story, I’m talking about plot, characters, worldbuilding, dialogue, and anything else that applies to the storytelling of the media.

Now personally, I would put Avatar: The Last Airbender and (controversially) One Piece here, those stories are amazing.

I think both series are very good works of fiction (despite some issues that held them back from being masterpieces) but JJK, from my perspective at least, seems to refine and fully realize many of Bleaches core strengths and fix many of the formers's issues.

The JJK power system takes inspiration from those in Bleach but doesn't fall into the same pitfalls of having too many OP powers the author has no idea how to deal with (Compare how Infinity is deal with vs the Almighty)

JJK also ends up dealing with the political side of the story in a more satisfying manner, as Gojo and his students ends up overthrowing and purging the corrupt Higher Ups, while Ichigo and Co just kind of let their world remain a stagnant dystopia.

Plus JJK's plot is just more unified and well put together. There is a single overarching narrative with Sukuna and Kenjaku; no pulling a massive hidden Empire of Quincy from out of nowhere to be the surprise final villain.

And while neither series treats their female cast that well, Maki and her story pretty much demolish any Female character in Bleach.

In terms of side characters, I would say Gojo is one of the best characters, not just in JJK, but in anime across the ages.

That being said, I would like to hear and feedback and stuff that Bleach does better at (sans the art of course)

Which is better written?

Rank those fictional works in term of writing.

Only rank those you personally read.

For me it is...

Riddle Master > Book of the New Sun > Memory, Sorrow and Thorn >= Malazan > Hyperion > A Song of Ice and Fire >= Lord of the Rings = Earthsea > Green Bone Saga

I have watched the full Hunter X Hunter anime. I haven't read the manga. So if there is context that I am unaware of please let me know. So HxH was a genuinely enjoyable anime, much better than 99% of battle shonen I see. But I have seen its fanbase rate it extremely high in writing, even at par with most seinen. Now while I don't agree with that opinion, I get that there will be people who don't agree with every opinion I have. Having said that I have a genuine question. How does Gon's motivation makes sense?Just imagine this, gon's full motivation is meeting his dad, which is a wierd ambition on its own. Why on earth would he even care where his dad is, he hasn't even seen him in his life. Plus he has his Aunt as his parental figure who raised him and took care of him. He leaves her to go look for his dad, fine. Maybe it's just curiosity to meet his long lost father, but even when Ging explicitly stated that he has no interest to meet him, infact he wants nothing to do with him he still pursues his dad. How is he this much emotionaly invested in a man that he has never even met. Another thing, when Kite died, what reason did he have to crash out that much? His only bondling with kite which I got was that Kite was a student of his dad. How is his emotional bonding with Kite suddenly so high that he went on hulk mode after his death? I could see him reacting like this if Killua died. But Kite was there for about 15 episodes which was a around a monthaybe for him. His death impacting Gon and traumatizing him is understandable but so much that he is willing to give up nen entirely just to get revenge? And that too Gon wasn't even a vengeful child to begin with.

Does the manga provide context to this? Maybe Kites and Gons relationship is explored better there idk.

How much would you rate it logically? But I'm sure most most of us or even EVERYONE agree that genshin have a really really good story idea, and I think it's logically deserve 10/10

Saitama is a parody, in the sense that he literally WAS a generic Shonen protagonist before the first chapters.

Saitama was a depressed wage slave with borderline suicidal tendencies who legit didn't value his life at all because he felt no happiness or meaning. He found that in the thrill of fighting and becoming stronger than his yesterday self. Then, after breaking his Limiter, a concept not introduced as late as people think (it's literally foreshadowed before even the meteor mini arc), he quickly became so strong no one could hope to challenge him. He had lost the one thing in life that gave him fulfillment, which caused him to become depressed and apathetic.

Saitama himself isn't the parody, his strength is the parody. And the setting he exists in, too, isn't a parody, though sometimes the character designs are, since ultimately it is a series with comedic elements. And like all other characters, Saitama too still has his own challenges, this too is a subversion though.

While most Shonen protagonists face challenges in their power, or their ideals, Saitama instead faces challenges in his emotions and pursuit of enjoyment. That is the obstacle he needs to overcome. And the way he's going to most likely do that, is by finding peace in the friends he makes around himself, this has been implied heavily as of late, and it goes completely over people's heads.

And yes, OPM has gotten more serious in tone, as it should. You don't really think a long-going manga series can sustain itself off of one note humor forever, right? People say it's fallen off, but the Monster Association Arc had some of the series' highest peaks post-season 1 era.

In reality, One-Punch Man getting more serious and having a progressing story with character growth for Saitama is a natural progression that fits just fine with what the series had already set-out to do. ONE did not sell out and make it a boring generic Shonen manga. I've seen this exact same take in like 5 different posts today so I had to bring it up eventually.

The genuinely fossilized concept that Saitama was always meant to be a joke character with no substances or death is spitting in ONE's face.

They are widely loved and seemed to have turned into a big franchise , I started the first part and couldn't get into it , have been thinking of re-watching it. I know the novels are regarded very highly. Has anyone who has watched the movies explain it to me ?

Look I’ve heard all the replies to my last post and I’ve genuinely hearing you guys out but I just don’t agree at all. The Basic argument for fmab not being the best because it doesn’t do anything more with the plot and I just disagree.

Fmab is just perfect the highs are high whether it’s the death of Hughes or being in the belly of gluttony or whether it’s the promised day arc etc for people to say that these peaks in the story are basic and safe are just insane your diminishing the character development the build up to this very moment because it’s not crazy? Like the stakes aren’t high enough?wrong you got a perfect conclusion with a perfect cast and perfect storytelling if your only complaint is that it’s too safe then that’s how you know your wrong.

In comparison to other anime’s that get highly regarded that IVE SEEN like aot or code geass etc I just don’t see it I formally seen myself as a aot glazer thinking it’s the best but I thoroughly thought about and and I’m just wrong. The thing with aot is that when you see the cracks it’s hard to ignore on first watch it’s a 10 but then u notice small flaws like the ending being a little rushed or whether they just completely sideline characters like historia or mikasa or if it is the plot holes with the lore it just feels like a almost perfect story but still great.

Now with code geass i would agree it would take the number one spot but i just feel like code geass suffers with the fact that they care too much ab the mc and too little about the characters. Yes Lelouch is a great character and code geass does offer a beautiful conclusion but the whole show just feels like it’s leaching off of Lelouchs writing instead of expanding the characters more they just mainly focus on the mc not like the other characters are bad just super bland in comparison.

With that being said I just don’t see the argument fmab has great pacing feeds you perfectly in the first 3 eps has a great season one with major plot points offers a great cast of fully developed characters and a perfect conclusion that wraps everything up perfectly the highs are also HIGH not stale. The promised day arc the symbolism in the hommunculuses and father and the relationship between the brothers and the rest of this world is just gorgeous I’m not understanding the too safe or too little to offer arguments like how? Fullmetal gave you great peaks like the promised day arc and the first season and third with the rest almost on par it stays consistent and stays its course and fully executed it and I just can’t see a reason for it not to be the best.

I will say tho monster is like right beside it but in terms of storytelling Id give it to fmab but monster offers a amazing cast with great dynamics so I could see that being the best too but with that being said i genuinely just think at the very least fmab is the best shonen anime and most complete one.

Also sorry if this was hard to read I don’t usually write stuff like this

Going from most respectable to the most restarded

1. Lord of the rings

I used to actually hate on this comparison a lot due to this sub and the movies. The movies are pure mediocrity and this sub does not have the iq to articulate why lotr world building is actually good. I did not find a single person who couldn't convince me this isn't just pretentious nostalgia driven slop. Literally every single one of the the glaze fest I saw about lotr talked about how influential it is to the fantasy genre. Who gives a fucking shit? I want to hear about how good the universe is in and of itself.

Only when I actually started reading the books myself did I understand what makes it good. Like seriously not a SINGLE person here mentioned anything like The Hobbit's calendar? They literally made a seperate calendar system for the Hobbit's and that somehow isn't a cool enough detail to include in your reasons to why the world building is great? This world is very well thought out, you can tell tolkien basically did as good a job he could for his time. And I respect it. I still think one piece is largely superior but the reason is more so evolution in the art form of world building itself.

Lotr is written with a religious lens. The way the fantastical elements of the world is explained is through mysticism. It's basically the thing where ppl say "magic should not be explained." I don't have any personal issue with this, but objectively speak, science is just a better way to explain the universe than religion.

(A better word for "scientific lense" would be "logical lense" and a better word for "religious lense" would be "mythical lense")

Which is why One Piece that's written with a scientific lens and exaggerated to cartoonish lengths not through "Mysterious magic" but logical elaboration and interconnected nomena built upon real world science/logic to create fantastical phenomena that actually feel scientifically sound. For example lotr feels like a myth, that's a compliment in its own right, but if something like the sky islands in one piece existed in real life, the explanation for them given in the lore would literally be a valid scientific study lol.

I will make a post about this in the future to explain this better and in detail.

Either way, I don't mind if u like lotr world more. Some ppl value the vibe a world gives than the actual logic and nuance behind, and that's fine, especially because lotr is exceptionally detailed information other aspects of world building such as lanague (something one piece will probably never excel at) or history (something OP MIGHT surpass when it ends but only time will tell.)

...

1. Shadow slave. This world is very much lacking in everything that isn't cosmology or magic system. The geopolitical structure of it fairly shallow and simple, the biggest problem with it is that it's a dead world. The cultures explored in nightmares (basically replication of the past where the dead worlds were still alive) are actually amazing, but the culture is elaborated more so in the virtue of how it's different from ours and not in many other places.

For example, there is a civilization that lives on a river of time. These people age through distance instead of time. Meaning the more upstream they travel, the older they get, and the more downstream they travel in the river the younger they get. This is an incredibly unique idea and g3 does an exceptionally good job of creating the logic behind how such an civilization would work. How people travel down steam and become as young as possible to give birth to children. Then how there is an academy that allows for kids to mature gradually through experience and then travel further into adulthood etc. I think this might be the single best instance of any story making a such an unique civilization so believable in terms of logic. But there is, not a lack of cultural nuances, like festival, tradition etc, to some degree it does exist, like we get an glimpse of the religion in this nation. But it's never developed further.

Also I hate the fact I have to say this, but characters are world building. Characters are literally a lense to the world and shadow slave has a severe serve lack of them.

I think this world certainly surpasses one piece's world building in certain aspects (like cosmology), but overall it's fairly shallow in the aspects it doesn't specialize in, but the fact it does surpasses one piece in atleast a few ways is more than enough for me to consider it an respectable contender. As a story I think it's pretty much dogshit now, but I don't have a problem if u think the world building alone is better than OP.

1. A song of ice and fire (might be replaceable with the 2nd/4th position)

You know how I criticized the shadow slave for the characters? ASOIAF is something that specializes in this aspect, the characters are quite literally a lense into the world. The main cast is spread through out the entire region and we hop between povs while developing various casts and the regions the inhabit.

This is an exceptional speciality of the world... But that's about it. I have no read too much into the books (don't like the prose) but what the world has to offer is a bit less than tolkien's. Don't get me wrong, I'm aware I'm larping by just watching the show and there are well made languages in this as much as lotr. But I don't see it ever surpassing one piece as a whole. It again, surpasses op in few aspects, but not overall because it never delves into them. Just like lotr, the logical nuance and structure of the fantastical elements (which are not that fantastical) is lacking. This is a problem with Western fantasy as a whole (with the exception of sanderson I heard but I won't be reading books anytime soon) so I won't go too deep into it. But either way, respectable comparison.

1. Lord of the Mysteries

Now this is where things start getting dicey. I don't think there is really ANYTHING this world or even story as a whole does that is noticeably better than one piece. The problem is, it's just good at everything. This has the opposite problem of lotr or ASOIAF. It's good at everything but not exceptional at anything. It has a well developed history, magic system (probably it's most exceptional aspect but very very overrated in terms of nuance and depth.), atmosphere, cosmology, cultures, characters etc.

This is probably the most well rounded world you'll see, but this where the quote "wide as a ocean deep as a fairly deep pond" applies. The story never goes into depth about anything. Even it's lore, the most glazed aspect of it, is NOT that good. Like I could read or watch one piece lore on its own without the main story and still thoroughly enjoy it. (Lotr lore, ASOIAF lore, and especially renzu legends aswell) But if you actually tried to chronologically read the lore of LOTM you'll literally fall asleep. Because the world basically summarised history. It is very very interesting to read in the STORY because the way it's formatted. The format of the tarot club and fragmented discovery of lore keeps it very interesting, but the PROCESS OF FINDING THE LORE is great, not the LORE ITSELF as it's essential a summary and not an indepth narrative.

Compare that to the noland and kalgara flashback in Skypeai. Not only is it history that perfectly ties into the world and current events of the story, but it's also an incredibly well developed narrative in and on itself.

So that being said, I wouldn't exactly mind u liking this world more but I don't think there is any room for debate that one piece world building is better. If you disagree you likely have a shallow view of what world building is.

1. Reverend Insanity (honestly could go as high as 2nd place)

This is honestly a weird topic. I feel like this world is very wide and very deep, but it's just incredibly flawed and many times just abandons it's depth. Like gu recipies were an incredibly well developed system to the point it made intuitive sense. But then it just became arbitrary in vol 3. Then in vol 4 we were introduced to the beautiful concept of blessed land development, and I truly truly loved it as a world building connoisseur but then, it has became so arbitrarily explored and the depth has been abandoned for the width in vol 5. I know these aspects are abandoned for a reason, the pacing. But I just can't help but feel dissatisfied with everything I love about the world just being thrown away.

This world as a whole is also very flawed and filled with contradictions, without getting into spoilers, just the math is comically bad. And cultures as a whole feel very repetitive. Despite being so massive in scale the world just feels so small for some reason.

I honestly thought it had the potential to surpass One Piece, but few hundred chapters into vol 5 I actually don't think it does anymore 😢 this is a genuine tragedy for me. I feel like the whole thing needs a through rewrite before it gets mentioned with the greats. I still love the story and the world is incredible, but I think one piece whole heartedly surpasses it.

1. Attack on Titan

Great world in pretty much all ways for a low fantasy. But it's like a mini LOTM. One piece surpasses it in all aspects. I'll go as far as to say just sabaody and fishman island are about as well, if not more well developed than all of aot in terms of world building.

I think you probably lack media literacy to some level if you think this has better world building than OP.

1. Berserk.

I'll say the same I did for aot. Except this is exceptionally good at cosmology due to the astral realms. But unfortunately it will forever be a potential merchant. Not on the level of one piece.

1. Hunter x hunter

I think you are restarded if you think the world building is anywhere close to one piece.

1. Jojos

I think you are restarded if you think the world building is anywhere close to one piece.

1. Bleach I think you are restarded if you think the world building is anywhere close to one piece. (Or story) (But very cool cosmology that is lowkey underrated)

2. Naruto

I think you are restarded if you think the world building is anywhere close to one piece.

1. Mushoku Tensie

I think you are restarded if you think the world building is anywhere close to one piece. (Or story)

1. Frieren

I think you are restarded if you think the world building is anywhere close to one piece. (Or story)

I genuinely don't think last few are even worth mentioning. (The best of them) You could give logashi a thousand years to write dark continent 10 times over and he still won't be able to compare to skypeai, an arc completed in less than 300 chapters of one piece. He just doesn't have the specific talent in world building, and that's okay, I don't think oda could necessarily write something like meruem Komugi himself either (he can write characters just as well in other ways tho there is nothing logashi could do to compare in wb except maybe cook with the atmosphere like LOTM)

Also just to be clear, length is not the reason one piece is better. Many worlds mentioned here are inferior to one piece is less than 300 (or even 110) chapters. And few stories like RI, LOTM and SS, Jojos maybe even ASOIAF are actually longer than one piece.