Fun With Poo

Yes, dear reader, you did read that title correctly and fair warning, this post will likely be crude. If you think that this may offend you, then please don't read, as it could get a little gross. However, this whole thing is a bit of fun (with a serious point hidden away somewhere) and well, forgive me, but this was composed at 2am when it all seemed like such a brilliant idea.

It all stemmed from a conversation I had several months ago discussing shounen manga, specifically the big three (One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach). Then at one point I came up with an analogy to highlight how the three mangaka often appear to work... through poo. I suggested that if each of the trio were told to incorporate a turd into their work it could go as follows:

One Piece (Eiichiro Oda) - I could imagine the introduction of a character that had eaten the Poo Poo Devil Fruit, which gave the user the ability to turn his entire body to poo, and shoot small (but deadly) fecal projectiles from it's hands. Upon more thought I could also imagine a running gag of this guy slipping over when in turd-form since... well... it can be slippy. Naruto (Masashi Kishimoto) - I'd say that in a story that's generally more serious, this would likely be a little light relief, and would be a "gag jutsu", much like Naruto's Sexy Harem or the Thousand Years of Pain. The Poo-poo no Jutsu, a powerful technique that causes the unfortunate victim to develop sudden, volitile diarrhea. Bleach (Tite Kubo) - My thoughts on what Kubo would do with a turd, was quite simple. I suggested that he would simply dress the poo in sunglasses and make it look cool.

It may seem like a throwaway idea, but in essence it displays how I see the way that the three mangakas work. Oda's One Piece has much more of a humour content than the other two, thus I can imagine that if presented with a ridiculous inclusion like this, he could use it as a starting block for something bigger, maybe a mini arc or something. Oda can take the ridiculous and make it sublimely ridiculous. Kishimoto also has that sense of fun at times, but Naruto is a much more serious story. That said, he does manage to infuse moments of levity some of which that are crude and in your face, so the inclusion of something so gross could be done without affecting the gravity of the main plotline. Finally, when it comes to Kubo, while he does have some moments of decent storytelling, it always comes across to me that he's more concerned with the style of Bleach rather than its actual content. It seems, moreso than the other two series, that it wants to look cool. It has the cool character designs, the stylised fights, and while it contains some humour, it's not on the same, almost puerile level, of the other two. So while claiming that he'd simply have a turd in sunglasses may seem like a cop-out answer (and in truth I couldn't see him ACTUALLY doing that if presented with this challenge), it symbolises more the approach I believe he'd take. Somehow, he'd find a way to make a steaming lump of faeces look cool, which when you think about it, is quite an impressive talent.