https://twitter.com/takezoxx/status/500676380812533760(I shall apologize beforehand for 2/3 of this entry being one big rant)
Fans are hard to please. They do not want Mary Sue/Gary Stu. Fine. Give them someone who has human emotional struggles, who does mess things up – basically someone who’s not mister perfect, and they complain the someone is useless and a waste of panels space. They disliked someone for being a jerkass. Okay, now the character has toned down the jerkassery, and actually being a trustworthy friend to other characters, but they will dig up the character’s past and comment on how much of a dbag they are. When the someone who is (possibly) the only person in the story able to express their inner thoughts, they say the character talks too much crap. It’s fine to give reasons as to why one dislikes a character, but please make sure the reasons aren’t contradicting themselves.
Side note of embedded tweet: I didn’t know that (fist clenching) is a character tics of Jean. The only time I remember seeing that before was during the Trost arc at that pyre scene.
Polarizing dive
Technically it isn’t, but certainly looks like one. So there are really different camps of reactions to this act from Jean. One side sees Jean as stupid, because of his bad acting, and that he’s put himself in danger by letting Marlo gets the knife. Others see it as Isayama’s attempt of inserting some humour into the story (yes, they agree Jean’s acting was horrible) , and Jean’s the best character to carry it out. Of course there are also some who thought Jean actually lost it and have gone berserk.
I think it depends on your perception of Jean prior to the chapter to determine which side you are on. Certainly some are fed up with Jean’s choking in chapter 58, and they believe he should have no chance of redemption for that, a death sentence (which is complicated by the fact they so want a major character death; oh..they think Jean’s a major character, what a surprise. when it’s about death, Jean gets promoted to major character status on their list? Bull crap. ).
What I see though is that Jean trusted his own instincts before he put up with that act. He wasn’t taking a un-calculated risk. I think people missed the part about Jean saying how Marlo resembles Eren. That’s why it pisses me off when I see people say he was being a total fail when referring to that scene. Though I like when Jean admits to Marlo that he was also an idiot – that’s some growth right there. He’s no longer the cocky guy in the story’s beginning – that itself is debatable to some sort; remember when Marco complimented Jean, and what Jean said.
About the scene being humour from Isayama – it makes sense, as the first half of the chapter’s supposed to be emotionally heavy (not sure if that’s the right adjective of it), but regardless, it certainly lighten up the mood. Actually similar to “Reiner: marry me” scene back in the FT arc. I guess some people are just hasty little ________ and want either all answers being spilt by whatever plot-involved characters, or guts spilt out of “main” character(s).
Other than the main series?
Suddenly had the urge to check if the local library has any new SnK volumes. Yes, they have all twelve volumes so far. What was kind of surprising – they also have the spinoffs. Proofs as to the popularity the series has gotten. Now to wait for the English version of Spoofs (sungeki) to come out, and maybe they will stock it as well.
That’s all for now. Just had to get that out of the system. Slow news days. Few more weeks until chapter 61. Even if those three cloaked MPs aren’t enemies, I know for sure the same people will rant about Jean being a failure once again. Tough year for Jean, talk about this being the year of horse!
(I do like how Isayama’s written Jean’s character in recent chapters. He’s still the character in the current story that is able to provide those special kind of humanistic traits. and has taken on the role of delivering much needed humour – debatable I know, but I am buying it) Oh right, next Saturday will be the English dub’s ep. 16…
Luckiest Unlucky Guy - Jean Kirstein from SnK 
I agree with you fully and It really drives me mad when people go around calling Jean a douchebag and a bad character. They should realize why Isayama and his staff likes Jean so much, that’s where the core is at. I try to stay away from people who dislike Jean, seeing how most of the hate is on 4chan, I usually hang around on reddit where there still is hate on Jean, and far too many Eren x Mikasa shippers.. *Shivers and cringes* Ughh..
Anyways, I hope we’ll see some major action scenes in the upcoming chapter as well as (hopefully) some awesome depth and development among the characters, Jean being one of them.
Well, some of them do seem to have the attitude of “this place IS for trolling and throwing insults”, which really begs the question of what was the original intention of the site – an imageboard. I think what bothers me more is when some feel the need to talk down the character (in this case Jean), to elevate their own favourites.
I’m fine with Jean taking some rest if it means he will be out of danger for some time (out-universe timeframe) – though he’s on a 14 chapters streak of consecutive appearance.
Thanks for sharing that Jean art, it is beautiful! I would have missed this gem if you hadn’t posted the link.
I agree with Jeanathan: please do yourself a favor and don’t visit 4chan. The Jean hate there is at an all time high and it isn’t really representative of western SNK fandom as a whole or even Japanese fandom (though the anons there like to delude themselves into thinking that they are).
If it helps: Da Vinci Magazine held a poll for the most popular SNK character, and while I haven’t seen the final result, 4 days before voting closed (the 8th August), Jean was 6th out of 15 characters total.
I dunno, maybe I’m the deluded one here, but it seems like Jean’s doing still pretty well with the fanbase. (And is there really so much Jean hate on reddit? I go there and I rarely see it. And on tumblr there’s very little unless people feel that he gets in the way of their ship.)
Good rant, and I agree, though since everyone is anon on 4chan, it’s hard to say if they’re really contradicting themselves or if those are different opinions from different people.
As for Jean in the manga, I personally love his development, even if some think he’s being a wimp or irredeemable in every way (which is the party you can’t please anyway, no matter what you do).
And good observation that Jean gets bumped to main whenever people try to argue why he should die. I personally think that his death right now would do literally nothing for the story except make the group sad for a while but then they’d have to move on quickly because they aren’t in the kind of situation where they can afford long mourning.
The way things have currently being going with Jean, I’d say that he has still a lot of growth to do, which means that he’ll probably stay around for quiet a while. Plus, the little scene with him and Armin in the recent chapter shows that the plotline they share isn’t done yet, so we can probably look forward towards them sharing the spotlight together somewhere down the line once again.
Hate on Reddit isn’t as much as it is on 4chan, but you can clearly not state your opinion freely on reddit without having a bunch of people downvoting you (I experience this all the time).
In any case I agree with everything you said.
I see what you mean, though it might have more to do with your opinions rather than being a Jean fan.
I mean, look at this:
and this:
Felt like haven’t done twitter image searches recently, and then that popped up in the results – I think it sums up quite well the current Jean.
I think those stems from a minority of readers being unsatisfied with what was in 58 and 59. But I agree with what you said, those who think Jean is beyond redeemable really shouldn’t be bothered with at all. Whatever development Isayama will give to Jean, they will whine about it. Sometime I think Isayama should just throw the concept of “main characters” away. At least that will shut up those who says “he shouldn’t get that much focus, because he’s not the main character”
Funny how they say Jean fans are vocal, when I think the haters are the real vocal ones.
They do justify his death as killing a character who’s no longer useful to the plot. I agree that Jean-Armin relationship will be further built upon. I kind of wish we will get like a two year time skip – we did had a one year time skip I think.
Good post about the trials Jean faces when it comes to hard to please readers. I don’t even bother going to 4chan; reddit is more lenient when it comes to Jean, but you’ll get some crap there if you post anything that isn’t about Mikasa or Levi. Heck, I’ve seen Armin and Eren fans get torn apart on that subreddit.
I love his current development and his crisis with maintaining his humanity versus trying to survive. The fans who tear into for being a “wimp” clearly have no idea the fear of staring down the barrel of a gun or the emotional roller coaster of shooting others. Guess he’s just too human for some of the readers.
I don’t bother going on 4chan either, I just get dragged in there cause they keep on going to the subreddit. If you start to talk about ships on Reddit you’ll get torn apart by Eren x Mikasa shippers. It drives me insane that opinions aren’t respected.
Reddit crowd is more tolerant. If you do not dis their ships/favs they usually will leave you alone, at worst they will just down vote.
> The fans who tear into for being a “wimp”
Really have no idea how their mind works. Those are the ones who feel being strong = no tears, no fear, body up the struggles/issues perhaps?
People are stupid. That’s the moral. This happened to me very often in this fandom and I get frustrated about people don’t get certain things (most of them anime watchers to be fair). People don’t like complex characters because extra ‘thinking’ is needed. This is not a easy manga to read you have to reflect so that you can infer, predict, discuss, etc. Is hard when things aren’t flawless but so is life(and jk). You can think of Jean ” he’s fucking annoying” but, can you think he’s lame? I don’t think so. I don’t know if kids are watching too much free!(sorry guys and yes, I did watch it) but that’s not how human beings are.
I’m not about debate what other people don’t like about Jean, but I’m about If you’re gonna read something, do it thoroughly( Get the whole idea, asshole) . After that you can still say Jean is dbag, but you’ll say an “intersting” dbag.
ps. m(_ _)m sorry 50%(or so) of snk fandom for calling you stupid but you are .