Why?

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

One of the things I absolutely despise in anime, manga, TV shows, movies, and media as a whole is when something is unexplained, especially motives. Take, for example, a manga I recently found called "Othello".
To summarize it, a kid finds out that his hometown is being targeted by creatures called "Ds", which want to replace people. He gets involved in an organization fighting the Ds called "Othello", and is chosen by an anti-D weapon called the "Troilus". However, my only question is this: Why do the Ds want to become human?
Bleach is one of my favorite manga and anime because it actually tries to explain stuff, or it did in the beginning. Within the first few chapters, I found out exactly what a Hollow was and why they attack people. Slowly, as the series progressed, they built up on the concept, revealing more and more about Hollows, but they answered pretty much all of the big questions rather quickly.
Othello has not yet answered this large question. However, the scanlation for the first 3 chapters was just released. Maybe we will find out shortly why the Ds attack people, and what happens if they do succeed in taking over someone's life.
Of course, I could just be overanalyzing the whole thing!
Feel free to discuss why important information is withheld or why a character's motives are left vague.

[Blake]

Leaving the motives hanging is a good thing.

You said you like Bleach, correct?

Let's look at Gin.

While an obvious traitor, did you know WHY he was a traitor? Why he turned away from the Soul Society, and why he would turn on Aizen?

No, you did not.

Imagine this:

You are reading the first chapter of a manga, and the villain proclaims "I am going to enslave the whole world with chicken wings!" (IDK I was being random)

The whole thing is kind of ruined thanks to knowing exactly what he's up to.

That is why motives are left vague. Speculation and/or suspense.

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

But it just seems stupid, especially when you explain all sorts of other things.
For example, in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, we find out the backstories of every single Dark Signer save for one: Demak/Devack (however you want to call him). I mean, if they had cut down on some of that meaningless Spirit World crud, then we could have discovered why the bald-headed monkey-loving freak became a Dark Signer! It seemed shoddy for them to have explained the motivations of the villains, except for one!
Come to think of it, they have already done this before with that Griermo guy at the beginning of the Orichalcos Arc! He randomly comes in and steals the God Cards from a random God Card-napper, then starts to duel Yugi. Once he was done showcasing the pretty green circle of doom, he was tossed aside and forgotten, like he had never existed in the organization to begin with!

[Blake]

Actually, I can debunk your entire Devack argument. They cut his backstory for being too much. Word of God says he was from a Devil God worshipping Cult. There are many other such things cut, such as Crow initially being the last Dark Signer (Survived the Black Mist and such), holding Rasca, and also Plan A for Crow: Being a Team Rocket-esque thief.

Greimro was GenericAnimePlotDevice.char

He had no real purpose beyond that.

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

O_O'
I...didn't know that...
Where did you get that info on the cut material?

[Blake]

I've heard it a few times. Supposedly, it was all on the Wikia. Not sure where all, though.

The ones about Crow as a Thief and Devack in a Cult, however, have been confirmed time and again, supposedly. Phantom Roxas had heard those.

As for DS Crow, not sure.

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

It still doesn't make sense why Kubo doesn't go back and explain things like the reason Gin went turncoat, or Takahashi doesn't add Demak's backstory. It would make good promotional material.
Or am I really just overanalyzing these situations, and I'm the only one who has a problem with the lack of explanations?

[burnpsy]

A lot of the time when things are left unexplained, it's due to an error in organization, or editors telling the writer to pick up the pace.

One manga I read has one character be overly mysterious for 150+ chapters longer than the writer intended, only because he had to cut a chapter focusing on her out due to an arc taking too long.

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

O_O'
Do people who are paid to check continuity not exist in Japan?!?

[Legend Zero]

[quote name='Zetsubou Black' timestamp='1298273684' post='5022762']
I've heard it a few times. Supposedly, it was all on the Wikia. Not sure where all, though.

The ones about Crow as a Thief and Devack in a Cult, however, have been confirmed time and again, supposedly. Phantom Roxas had heard those.

As for DS Crow, not sure.
[/quote]
The Devack one is more or less the accepted. Crow DS was changed either because of another season being announced or the huge fanbase of Crow.

[Dr. Cakey]

There are mysteries, and there are plot-holes. A mystery is...okay, that's self-explanatory, but the power of the mystery is the tension that builds when it's revealed. Of course, the amount tension built means there must be an equally powerful revelation. For example, "Aizen wasn't killed and he's also evil and can block swords with one finger" worked really well. That could have been left completely unanswered for 1000 episodes/chapters/whatever and it would still have been good.

Plot-holes are...also self-explanatory. For example, the biggest question in Darker than Black is "wtf are Heaven's Gate and Hell's Gate?". And the answer is...shhhhh. When anime and manga get bloated, like Naruto and Bleach, it can seem like the writer has forgotten about point X, when in fact they haven't. And sometimes there are mysteries that look like they're never going to be explained, but do end up being explained. Again this is a symptom of serialized works. This happens when a mystery isn't pursued by the characters. Again, Aizen's death was very clearly an important part of the puzzle, and the question, "who killed Aizen?" was a big focus for several characters. So it's apparent that an answer will appear.

If you want my prediction, explanation of the Ds will probably depend on the length of the run, and they may remain generic EVUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULZ unless Othello becomes large enough in which case that will be answered and a half-dozen other plot points will crop up and wither away.