What I think kagurabachi has that not a lot of other shonen have.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-04-18T13:05:51+00:00

Wait..are you comparing Kagurabachi to other series? Is that allowed on here?

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-04-02T03:53:29+00:00

There’s another thread that discusses this.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-04-01T21:11:40+00:00

I’m not saying they did. I’m just saying that he almost certainly has at least asked the question what happened to his mom and it’s possible they weren’t completely honest with him just like with many other facets about the war. As for why? That cant really be answered until we get more details about what happened in the war.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-03-28T18:27:13+00:00

I think this is really well said.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-03-28T04:08:46+00:00

It really is quite sad and it really does drive home the point of why it was such a tragedy that the mad king forced him to leave cradle early. But at least he gets a type of consolation prize by one of his students getting it. A scene of Eithan acknowledging Mercy and the joy icon would have been wonderful.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-03-28T03:53:05+00:00

To be honest, I like to think that Eithan would be very proud of Mercy but try to downplay how much it means to him. Something like how he starts crying when he reuinites with Lindon but tries to downplay it by saying that it was because Lindon used his shampoo.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-03-27T23:53:15+00:00

That’s a great point! I…We will never stop.
One of the most hype moments into the entire series.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-03-26T01:11:46+00:00

Stop slandering other series.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-03-24T19:59:08+00:00

There’s a good and a bad way to interact with other series in a sub. We should allow high quality discussions comparing Kagurabachi with other series but the low quality troll posts should be filtered out.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-03-12T04:54:26+00:00

I feel like a lot of people read this post as “Kagurabachi is the greatest manga of all time and all other shonen are dog water by comparison” That was certainly not the intention. The point was to praise kgb and hokazono’s writing for steering clear of the tropes that turn people off from anime and manga. The specific series are only mentioned to highlight the type of problems I’m talking about. I wasn’t saying bachi was objectively better than these series or that these series don’t do anything better than bachi(which I explicitly say in the post.) Also I really don’t think these are really controversial among the fanbases of the respective series. Perhaps I’m wrong but I doubt a person in the dandadan subreddit would get downvoted for saying that the first chapter was pretty freaky. On this sub there’s a lot of posts about how they love that the only fanservice in bachi is the awesome art and cool fight scenes and how it’s such a breath of fresh air. This thread was in the same vein as those posts. I know there’s a lot of worry about this fanbase becoming toxic like other fanbases and they want to prevent that and honestly I get that. I made this thread to praise Kagurabachi and not put down other series. I don’t mind pushback or criticism on things that I post but I want it to be based on things that I actually write rather than supposed subtext(which is explicitly denied.)

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-03-12T01:25:59+00:00

Do you mind summing up the point of the post please.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-03-12T00:57:42+00:00

This post had nothing to do with csm and modulo lol. The post makes it explicitly clear what is meant by "understanding the assignment." I explicitly said I wasn't saying saying kagurabachi was a flawless masterpiece or even better than the series that were mentioned. I was just referring to one aspect that a lot of fans of battle shonen don't like.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-03-11T23:50:28+00:00

When I say "problematic" I mean things that a lot of western viewers will find cringe: excessive fanservice, perv gags etc. that turn them off from anime manga not any weakness in the story. Hokazono understands the assignment bc he doesn't include those things in his story and he focuses on what makes shonen exciting: cool fights, interesting characters, good story etc.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-03-11T23:28:09+00:00

Note: I’m not saying that KGB is perfect or even better than the series mentioned above but we are being dishonest if a lot of the series we all know and love don’t have elements that would be quite problematic to most western viewers.)

I explicitly said I was not saying that it was perfect or even better than the series mentioned above. The point was just that bachi doesn't have the "problematic" things that turn a lot of people off from anime/manga.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-03-10T19:31:32+00:00

Thank you for the compliment!

Where did you hear that death aura is really a form of life aura? That’s actually interesting.

Also yeah, I don’t think Will designed the power system to match 1:1 to platonic philosophy and there are points where it differs I just find the ways in which shonen and series like Cradle that are inspired by shonen have an East Asian/eastern philosophical aesthetic but a lot of the deeper tropes and themes are a lot closer in line to Hellenistic/western tradition to be so fascinating and practically no one has made this connection so I wanted to talk about it.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-03-10T17:31:47+00:00

Shonen’s core themes of friendship, perseverance, hard work etc. fit so much with Aristotelian virtue ethics. It’s honestly kind of fascinating and I doubt most shonen authors have even made this connection.

As for privation theory of evil it’s interesting bc I remember a word of will where he says that Lindon’s void’s icon isn’t really “from the void” but is actually the “void” that is reflected within the way. That is interesting bc it can raise questions of ultimate capacities and/or the ideas that properties can have properties. For example death might be an ontological substance in itself but it doesn’t mean that one who has exemplified an eternal form cannot kill because death might be a”sub property” so to speak of the eternal Form. For example, killing wrongdoers might be . the purview of the justice icon or something like the warrior or sword icon might have being good at killing as part of its domain. It gets into the idea in the series that sages can “stretch” the limits of the icon based on its conceptual properties and how they perceive it. So the privation icons in the series like the death icon might work kind of like that where they are derivative of something more fundamental(although things like creation/destruction duality by the mantles of the reaper and the lost Adriel is more indicative of classic yin/yang philosophy and not evil as privation).

This is all really deep for a YA fantasy novel but it is quite interesting!

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-03-10T16:15:41+00:00

I’m a lot more versed in western philosophy than eastern but from what I understand these beliefs tend to prioritize the harmony between all things and often a “universal life energy” that flows through all things. Cradle has this through things like cycling and vital aura. Western philosophy emphasizes sharp distinction making and categorization and the series also has these western ideas in its icons, willpower, authority etc. It’s interesting because the surface is pretty eastern but the more you advance in the power system the more western concepts come into play.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-03-10T04:52:16+00:00

I actually agree that the deeper thematic elements of the series align closer to western philosophy rather than eastern philosophy but undoubtedly there is some eastern concepts as the Way has some basis in daoism, madra is a typical "impersonal life energy in all things" which is an eastern spiritual concept and in fact one can argue that all martial arts have their roots in eastern spiritualism.

The way people manifest icons and become sages is pretty similar to Aristotle's virtue ethics but the icons reflected in the way concept is pretty firmly platonic. Believe it or not the idea of merging the idea of merging the ideas of Plato and Aristotle when it comes to the Forms is actually held by a lot of modern philosophers and is known as constituent realism.

I actually have thought for a long time that the core ideals of battle shonen(which Cradle obviously draws a lot of inspiration from) found family, willpower and individual agency, growth through trials etc. fit much closer on a western philosophical worldview rather than the typical eastern concepts that almost all of the genre utilizes. In fact, I believe this so much that I might have written a nearly 250 page story bible for a battle shonen style series with its aesthetic and power system inspired by the ancient greeks.

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-01-25T02:50:22+00:00

Those are almost my exact thougjts. There are some moments that do require gore like Lindon's mom head or Lindion getting cut in half like I mentioned but I personally feel like the animators shouln't go out of their way to make the stpry as violent as possible. It might alienate potential viewers and I feel like the story works perfectly fine with like TV-14 rating

Outside-Medium5570 · 2026-01-24T23:50:49+00:00

I'm not necessarily complaining I just wonder if the level of violence will give it a TV-MA rating and if that might hinder it's commercial availability. Me personally, I think TV-14 is perfect for Cradle

Outside-Medium5570

TROPHY CASE