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Why Most Anime Fail at Free-for-All Fights

PintIsHere

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It's easy to write a one v one. All you need are opposing characters and opposing ideas. But a Free for All is more tricky. Because you need to balance several character's actions and motivations in a way that makes sense. But, how do you even pull that off? In today's video, we'll be breaking down Free for Alls. How series like Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia and Hunter x Hunter, turn chaotic sprawls into controlled sequences.

Thank you for watching!

▬ Contents of this video ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
0:00 - Introduction
1:30 - The Concept
2:47 - The Waiting Room Problem
3:52 - Main Character Gravity Problem
4:51 - The Noise Problem
5:55 - Golden Examples
10:25 - The Sendai Colony: The Gold Standard
15:39 - Closing Thoughts

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20 Comments

@ZakkuTole 3 months ago

"CHAOS CONTROL"

@Luya.B.N.M 3 months ago

I wonder why so many animes bother with free for alls if they're just going to deveolve into 20 1v1s 😭

@RoseCuddles 3 months ago

And then Shadow the Hedgehog entered the chat.

@valiantsword2656 3 months ago

Its really fun to me, that the gold standard of these kinda fights for me happens in Super Mario Bros Z, a flash animation

@RodaOmar-o7c 3 months ago

Chaos Control?

@100BeastMike 3 months ago (edited)

Kagurabachi has a 2v2 that went crazy then turned into a 1v2
Also has a 3way that went hard as well

@asahearts1 3 months ago (edited)

There's a principle in writing that the less detail you put into describing something, the more people can fill in with their imagination. If I describe every moment of every character's life, it is assumed they are standing around T-posing when they aren't being described. If they make an incidental cameo in someone else's part of the story, suddenly they have their own things going on when what's being written about is happening.

Suppose I took a picture of a big boat. It actually looks bigger if I only take a picture of the front of the boat. Even better if the front has tiny people on it. A picture of the whole boat where you can't see the people just looks like a toy.

So if only parts of each fight are shown, with multiple fights making appearances on screen at the same time, people know that there are things they can't keep track of and the whole battle seems bigger. Focus on a 1 v 2 fight, and then suddenly have one of them get hit by an important character's corpse flying in from off screen. Suddenly the fight is a lot bigger.

@comediccomrade5716 3 months ago

The interesting thing with the Sendai free for all is that, despite splitting into 1v1s briefly, during those moments it’s typically because Rika is serving as another fighter, but to keep it still feels like a free for all because she’s essentially just an extension of Yuta-It just feels like he’s fighting off two people rather than having his own little 1v1 (imo)

@LoganMcShane-w1m 3 months ago (edited)

" il use your technique! Chaos control!"

@VegitoBlueoftheCouncil 3 months ago

For the Tournament of Power, it really isn't designed like a free for all. Each team has a goal. Work together to eliminate every other team. And as for a motivation that's instantly obvious, you and your entire universe are erased if you fail. Death is a wonderful motivator. Plus, they also get a wish on the Super Dragon Balls which can grant literally any wish imaginable.

@Huggy-solos-lol-1818 3 months ago

“CHAOS CONTROL!”

@pantsniffler4011 2 months ago

looks at feed

"Chaos..needs..control.."

"Say that again..."

@AfroZamurai 3 months ago

I like part 5s finale because its an ffa, but instead of it being a team vs another team like we saw throughout the part its diabolo vs everyone and we literally see that his success in the battle stems not only from confusion, underhanded tactics, his overpowered stand ability but also the convenience of scr, I really like it.

@WonderofU95 3 months ago

Free for all fights only work with multiple factions. Garou vs Platinum S vs Flashy Flash is a good example of this, Kengan series has some decent free for all fights too

@andresmarrero8666 3 months ago

World Trigger also does free for all quite well as most of their rank missions are free for alls. It also helps that the story of World Trigger focuses more and utilizes better teamwork and tactics than most shonen.

@deaddead2783 3 months ago

The TOP is a team death match not really a ffa.

@KindaSnowy 3 months ago

10:26 I heard you the first time bro, no need to repeat where we are 3 times 😭

@Grizzexploder 3 months ago

This also applies to pro wrestling multi-man matches being harder to structure than regular 1v1 singles matches

@anime_world6684 3 months ago

I think a well done free for all is hxh's royal palace invasion. I loved how the humans gained an immediate advantage when netoro blew everything to shi while he and xeno are just aura farming on the chinera ants and gon and the others get the message quickly and race inside the castle, it was so epic because my excpetions were blown wihout losing sense of whats going on (which by the way hot take, the narrator was not overdone in the royal palace invasion he was the best part of it describing how epic and masterful everything was). Once the sequence was over everyone pretty much split up, some came back to others, others left to fight another combatant, but i never lost track of where everyone was and it was awesome how characters i never thought would fight each other, would become entertaining.

@DarkXream 3 months ago

The idea that a ffa should not have multiple 1v1s inside of it, or that such a situation happening is a weakness, is garbage. This is how free for alls should be and are. It’s a series of 1v1s or 2v2s or 2v1s that have everyone acting in their own self interest. The tournament of power does a good job of this. The stronger characters get jumped, both because they are big obstacles that are better off gone early, and because the characters attacking them have their own reasons for doing so. In the TOP Goku was painted as a villain, so on top of him being strong people believed it was right to stop him from winning the TOP at all. That’s not a weakness, it’s good writing. A truly good FFA has characters battling with reason. The way they battle doesn’t matter as long as it has reasoning behind it. In some FFAs, the weaker characters cannot risk exposing themselves unless it’s 100% worth it… like inside of the chunin exams. In these FFAs, there are short small and controlled battles that are only even started with the intention to be over before someone else can intervene. You’re not exactly wrong on your takes, but you’re not right either because you say FFAs like the TOP, where fighters have their own controlled battles, are worse. That couldn’t be further from the truth.