High-Flying Fight Scenes

Friend of the blog JD Cowan feels that the kind of high-energy fight scenes seen in anime like Naruto are not very good:

Most of what you guys consider good fights are actually not good at all. They're over-choreographed, weightless, and completely jarring with the inner physics of the world. It's all flash.

If anything, this is the worst thing Naruto gave to anime. https://t.co/VxaZncopNb

— JD Cowan (@wastelandJD) August 4, 2020

To which I answer: High-flying fight scenes are entertaining to watch and a treat for the eyes.

As a spectacle, a choreographed fight scene is a joy, especially when there is a lot of back-and-forth, attack and counterattack. When done well, you’re on the edge of your seat, waiting for a split-second mistake that will cost someone the battle.

That being said, fight scenes are only as impactful as the story surrounding them. More important than the fight scene is why the fight is occurring. In this way, a highly choreographed fight scene can work well, especially if you’re deeply invested in a character’s fate.

Such high-flying sequences have been criticized as lacking weight, since they put too much emphasis on fancy, over-complex movements. However, we must not make the opposite mistake and put “realism” above all else. Chasing after realism made everything dull and gray in the first place, and too much focus on being realistic rather than entertaining will ruin the fight scene just as it did video game aesthetics.

So I don’t see the high-flying fight scene as too much of a problem. Like brightly colored superhero costumes, they’re nice to look at; what matters much more is story.