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New Poll - Time Skips
Yup, another poll from AceBunneh. If you can't tell from the name, a time skip is when the series skips in time, usually in the forward direction, in order to further the story. An example with be like Naruto or Mahou Sensei Negima! at the end.

You can submit poll ideas here (and try to keep them manga/anime-related):
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Previous Poll Results:
Question: If your life was a manga what role would you prefer?
Choices:
Protagonist (main character) - votes: 5369 (38.5%)
Best Friend (of main character) - votes: 1668 (12%)
Supporting Character (recurring appearances) - votes: 1617 (11.6%)
Minor Character (rarely seen and in the background) - votes: 421 (3%)
Antagonist (villain or main character's foil) - votes: 1861 (13.4%)
Love Interest (for the main character) - votes: 1855 (13.3%)
Narrator (when not a character in the story) - votes: 1149 (8.2%)
There were 13940 total votes.
The poll ended: May 25th 2012

Having protagonist win was expected. But it's curious to see antagonist in 2nd place. Do you people like to be the bad guy or something?
Posted by lambchopsil on 
May 25th 11:52pm
Comments ( 14 )  
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Comments (limited to first 100 replies)

» MatrixM on May 26th, 2012, 12:15am

The Claymore time skip was done really well i thought. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

But with some other series it seems to degrade in quality after a timeskip, like Naruto (which I no longer read) and One Piece. One Piece is getting back on track, though. I just found the reunion was done in a very cliche manner. Bleach's time skip is the reason i went back to it, hoping it would be able to revert to the quality of a few years ago. Eventually I was disappoint.

The problem with some time-skips is how not much has changed in that period when common sense indicates it should, be it characterization or world events (thinking Naruto here). I liked how, in Claymore,
Spoiler (mouse over to view)
most of the main characters were out of the loop along with the reader, it seemed less awkward like this, and the time-skip was used to refocus who the main characters are and introduce new characters
. The former also happened in One Piece.

EDIT: In short, I voted "I don't care" because it's done well, sometimes not.
EDIT 2: Just a note on the length of the time-skips I mentioned
Claymore -
Spoiler (mouse over to view)
7 years

Bleach - Don't remember, I think around
Spoiler (mouse over to view)
7 months

One Piece -
Spoiler (mouse over to view)
2 years

Naruto -
Spoiler (mouse over to view)
3 years (in manga, in anime 2.5)


Not sure what the minimum length we're talking about here is. 6 months? Perhaps it depends ont eh context. I dimly remember there was a time-skip in the DBZ part of Dragonball where they train for a year (?) for the arrival of Vegeta and Nappa, but it's not like there was any changes in the world during that time so I personally wouldn't count that.

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» BlackOrion on May 26th, 2012, 1:36am

As MatrixM said, depending of how it's used a time skip can be both an amazing tool to re-new the history or an amazing way of sending it to the trash can, yet i voted "I tend to like them", why?..

I just like to see a character develop, especially a weak character with a weak mind who wants to be better, so i generally tend to like when we have, for example, a character that goes trough a terrible experience and then use his time and determination to train (and that is when the time skip happens) and become more mature or stronger physically, maybe both, since there is a limit to how much a mangaka can make his character go trough training with out a time skip

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» AceBunneh on May 26th, 2012, 9:19am

Yes, I agree with what has been said because I always believe anything can be done well, it's just a matter of how it's done..

I voted for I tend to dislike them though because well... Out of the say... About ten or so manga I've read with a time skip (major or otherwise, as in a large time skip or a short one) I read about.... Er.. I think two good ones at best? The others either change character's personalities drastically and never explain it (even after the manga was finished, and it wasn't axed), or other things.. Too often there ends up being more plot holes.. And sometimes it changes how the manga is done completely, and even changes the genres a bit (which could be okay) but I feel that it's a bit disloyal to fans (but oh well, it's the writer's project, it's up to them how it goes) and more often than not (in what I've read) it ends up bad..

But that's just what I've been cursed with reading.. u.u'' I'm sure there's plenty of good ones. :3

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» Dionaea on May 26th, 2012, 9:52am

I know what you mean, bad timeskips can ruin the enjoyment of a manga, I voted for "I tend to like them" assuming the timeskip is well executed, because then I think they're definitely a good way to avoid dragging on or show the character's futures.

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» Avian3 on May 26th, 2012, 9:33am

I like them at the end, when they show the characters futures after everything is over. As for the other time skips, what the guys above me said biggrin

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» Hexogen on May 26th, 2012, 12:01pm

Yeah, Timeskips that show the loving couple 20 years into the future are nice. Timeskips in the middle of a plot can be ok if the plot over this time period would not be progressing. What I do dislike are timeskips that change the whole setting of an anime, or bring big changes in character match-ups. For example, what I enjoyed about Usagi Drop was the cute relation between the "parent" and the cute small infant. I stopped enjoying the series when the timeskip warped her into puberty.

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» MatrixM on May 26th, 2012, 6:19pm

I would say what the two above have referred to are 'epilogues', not 'time skips'. With regards to Usagi Drop, I haven't actually seen/read it myself >.> but my understanding is that it was, primarily, a parenting manga and eventually you would run out of material if you stuck with her as a primary/elementary school student.

I remember with Veritas' time skip during the final arc...thingy (the series didn't really have arcs), it was primarily a training one but there were some siginificant changes in allegiances that weren't explicitly addressed as the main character didn't give a shit about the politics bigrazz
Anyways, it's true that the majority of time-skips, by my definition of time-skip, I've seen/read have not turned out for the better.

P.S. I would also say that time-skips within or immediately after the first chapter, like Arago, Veritas and so many others don't really count either. They're more like proceeding from a prologue and are used extremely often. Chihayafuru's was kind of like a prologue too but...I guess it's not clearly defined. *shrugs*

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» AndyProk on May 27th, 2012, 2:39am

In general, nearly all mangas I read have at least a romantic aspect to them. Most timeskips that appear in those cover times of separation. In manga that don't skip those times, most of the time one or several annoying rivals turn up, like in I"s, and in many of those they are quite successful for a time to please ecchi-minded readers. So yeah, compared to that, timeskips are far better.

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» 0oKat~0 on May 27th, 2012, 5:56am

I'll go with "I tend to dislike them."

The thing about time skips is, the ones that occur right before the manga ends is fine, as it serves to give us readers a peek into the 'future' and lets our imagination run wild and do most of the work.

The ones that occur right in the middle of the story however, tends to go in only two ways, great or horrible. It's because those time skips keeps us in suspense and causes our imagination to run wild for a couple of chapters, before it becomes the mangaka's job to fill-in-the-blanks and ensure that the subsequent chapters live up to our built-up expectations. This is where most of them go wrong, especially if the mangaka is not tactful with how he/she reveals the subsequent arcs. One Piece was one of those mangas which became rather boring after all the hoo-ha about the time skip settled down. But the latest chapter suddenly picked up it's pace and rekindled my interest. No idea how Oda-sensei does it, but not many mangakas have that particular skill, IMO.

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» Nirhtuc on May 27th, 2012, 7:42am

If done well, I guess they could pave the way into an ingenius plot-device in story-telling, however, if handled badly, it could create a very confusing storyline and frustrate the hell out of readers! I guess for these reasons, I have mixed feelings about them- no option for that on the poll, unfortunately! bigrazz

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» tactics on May 27th, 2012, 2:53pm

I don't really care whether they occur or not.

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» mattai on May 27th, 2012, 8:41pm

I put "don't care". Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't; really no different from other plot devices.

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» Miale on May 28th, 2012, 9:09pm

I immediately think of Hana to akuma and..urgh!!! How much I hate it!! Nearly 100 years of time skipping and adorable Hana-chan turned into a grave!! T.T

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» sarah-eats-cupcakes on May 28th, 2012, 9:10pm

i like them

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