Sakurafan1

I have learned my lessons from shipping. I probably will ship again depending on the pairing (and even then only for my own fun and enjoyment). But never will I ship for Serious Business. I simply can't go through that again.

Why did Yahagi leave in the first place? Did he and Kishimoto or the "higher ups" have creative differences during the manga? Or was Yahagi presented with a more lucrative opportunity?

I don't know how old some of the people here on this forum are, but when I was first introduced to anime/manga it had more of a underground/cult following. Some of the anime I used to watch when I was a kid were Beast King GoLion (aka...Voltron), Space Battleship Yamato (aka...Star Blazers), and Mazinger Z (aka...Tranzor Z). Back in the '80s, where I grew up if you were a anime/manga fan you were thought of somewhat as a nerd or a total freak and people made fun of you and treated you like a social outcast. Some still do treat you this way, but being more mainstream I think that its getting more accepted. You had to go into hiding if you wanted to enjoy your hobby peacefully back then. 

If you wanted to get your anime/manga fix, you just couldn't buy anime/manga from your neighborhood store like you can now. You had to either fly to Japan (which was extremely expensive then, more than it is now when you include inflation), another way to get it was hope your friends in Japan could mail you a copy or two of their already read manga or anime that they don't watch anymore, or you had to go to the closest urban area like San Francisco, Los Angeles, or New York and frequent the Chinatowns in the city to get your fix. News from Japan with the newest anime/manga titles didn't spread as fast as it does now with the advent of the Internet and smartphones. Back then we had to lug around Beta and VHS tapes instead of watching it on high quality television sets these days with HD DVD/Blu-Ray.  

What I am trying to say is technology is both a good and bad thing and brought Japan closer for everyone.

_{Hi there. I'm new around here. I hope that I'll enjoy Heaven and Earth.}