JRPGs, anime, and hateful main characters

[MetalGenocide]

Warning: Rage and rambling ahead!
Anime writing in general is just horrid.
For a long time now, they've been in the realm of "phrase rape". Yes. Rape(in some cases literally).
It's like, if someone is writing the script/story, there is a list of words that have to be abused. Or phrases, for some fucking reason, have to make mandatory appearances.

Here's some I'm absolutely sick of seeing:
-Student class president (can we have 1 school related....anything.. without this being used?!?!?! Seriously.)
-As expected of... (acquaintance, relative)
-That's..! It's....! He's using.....! (aaaaand they never finish the sentence)
-Nostalgic! (Makes me pull my hair out)
-Absolute....(something that turns out to be not so absolute)
-meaningless words being repeated by certain characters over and over and over.......
-god (do I need to explain this?)
-I see...

There are also graphical "RAAAAAGH" like:
-CHARACTERS WITH GLASSES ENDLESSLY ADJUSTING THEM
-overrape of breast exposure. Yes. Overrape. They passed regular rape and abuse somewhere a few event horizons ago.
-cringe worthy hairstyles. The crazier it is, the most important/powerful the character!.... This seriously needs to die. In every version of hell imagined.
-Copy paste character behavior. Tsundere girls who do nothing useful but ***** all the freaking time.
-Idols
-moe garbage Instead of humanity pursuing the creation of the next Gurren Laggan or Ghost in the shell. We have an ocean of this cutesy-wootsey trash being pumped out at an alarming rate.

I really hate how stagnant it has become. It's like everyone has a gun to their head, that will blow their brains out if they skip one of the above.

 

[Terratina.]

Oh boy...

Spoiler: Rant Time!

You haven't watched .hack//SIGN, have you? The main character, Tsukasa, is a jerk and a half.

Spoiler: Pictured: Tsukasa 90% of the time

Yeah. He's the annoying emo type that is too good to be nice to people.​

The first episode is just there to establish how much of a jerk he is. Hell, I can't even watch the dub without wanting to punch his face.

[small]And there's the fact that the dub is terrible anyway...[/small]

At least the kid gets a huge dose of character development.

Don't even get me started on Idiot Heroes... Just focus on the character you like, in some cases the other characters are more interesting than the main protagonist anyway.

 

[Miyenne]

I have to agree. It's why 90% of the time I start reading a new manga I get a few chapters in and then stop in disgust. Either the main protagonist is a girl who's an absolute dip shit who can't even breath on her own without male support, or the guy is just a jackass clueless idiot who stumbles through all his problems only incidentally fixing everything.

I loved FFXII, as everyone's using that as an example. Balthier; I would have that man's babies. (I'd even fight Fran for him.) I just pretended Vaan didn't exist, because he was pointless and annoying.

And why are all protagonists like 15-18? And the 30 year olds called old men/women and are annoying? Um, I'm 30. If I was going around saving the planet I would not trust anything to a teenager, except maybe to carry my gear. They just don't have the life experience to make such heavy decisions that they always do go around making, and the only reason the games are games is because these kids make all the wrong decisions and then have to fix it, and then they screw up even more.

Which is kinda why I liked Tales of Vesperia. The main character gave the bad guys all a chance or two, and when they kept being bad he just straight killed them. Oh Yuri, my favourite hero. It's so rare to see the hero actually make the right decision, which is usually the difficult decision. And then you watch Yuri struggle with his choice to kill those people; and when the perfect Princess finds out what he's done she sits back and thinks... Well, when it comes down to it, Yuri did the right thing. She didn't like it, but she accepted it without making him feel worse about it. Same thing for Flynn, Yuri's 'best friend' and law abiding knight captain. I really liked that.

 

[Furioso]

Luke Fon Fabre, by the gods, this guy made me want to snap the fucking cartridge in half (played the 3DS version) He is insufferable for the first half of the game, my sister says he gets better and I reached the part in the story where he casually fucks up everything and might start becoming less of a ****, but for the most part, I wanted to stop playing because this bitchbag is the protagonist.

Seriously, anyone who complains about Tidus, Tidus is nothing compared to Luke in terms of annoyance.

Agreed, but I think that was the intent, that you would hate him as much as the entire rest of your party and then learn to like him again as he changes his ways. Was that a good thing for them to try? Probably not, because you still have a pretty large bit where you aren't having fun with the character, but I still love that game, and I recommend you keep playing to see what happens.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

So are a lot of the protagonists in pretty much everything. This is not exclusive to JRPGs or Anime as there are plenty of people in western media that act exactly like this. If you're going to apply the standards by which those characters end up being put in useless thick-headed emo category that is.

Now as for Vaan being the main as long as you're happy with a wiki source that I got in less than 1 min by Googling "was vaan supposed to be the main character of ff 12".

Basch was initially meant to be the main character of the story, but the focus was eventually shifted to Vaan and Penelo when the two characters were created later in development.[6] The development team explained that their previous game, Vagrant Story, which featured a "strong man in his prime" as the protagonist had been unsuccessful and unpopular; the change regarding Final Fantasy XII from a "big and tough" protagonist to a more effeminate one was thus decided after targeting demographics were considered.[6] The game's art director Hideo Minaba has said that Vaan is not comparable to any previous protagonist of the series, which he explained as partially a result of the game using a different character designer than previous ones.[2] The geography of Ivalice, particularly Dalmasca, had an influence in the character's initial designs. When asked about the characters' revealing clothing, Yoshida commented that "Dalmasca is supposed to have a hot climate", and that the idea of the characters revealing skin was his.[5]

As for his personality it makes sense in a way given that is only role model left died when he was 15 and had no one tell him how to cop the fuck on and what the world was like.

 

[Fox12]

As for conflict resulting from characters being unable to express themselves properly, this is common in western media as well, and results from poor writing. Most of the drama from the walking dead could be addressed in five minutes if the characters could simply express themselves in a rational way.

Well, yeah, but why shouldn't a writer use those flaws in a character to create conflict? Isn't that kind of the point of a flawed character? Oh I agree that there are hackneyed and predictable ways of doing it, but going so far as to say conflict arising from character flaws is always resultant of poor writing seems like something of a flawed statement in itself.

Let me specify. Flawed characters are good characters, so I agree with everything you just said. My issue is when a character behaves in a non realistic way, or behaves in a way that is not consistent with that characters personality up to that point, in order to create needless drama. If a trivial matter could be handled, but the writers drag the issue on for dramas sake, then that's bad writing. The walking dead season 2 finale was the perfect example. The main character had just killed his best friend out of self defense, because his friend was jealous and wanted to steal his wife/family. At the end, the main character tells this to everyone, shocking them, at which point he goes into full dictator mode and tells them not not challenge his authority. I assume this was done to turn everyone against him in order to create drama for the next season, but the scene was inconsistent with that characters personality. You can argue that the season was building to this, because the character was growing more stressed, but the problem is that the action was counter-productive. If he had explained the situation in a calm way, that the man wanted him dead, then the other survivors would have understood. I don't know what happened after this point, as I'd finally had enough of the show, but the illogical behavior of the characters highlights the point I was trying to make.

 

[Little Woodsman]

And why are all protagonists like 15-18? And the 30 year olds called old men/women and are annoying? Um, I'm 30. If I was going around saving the planet I would not trust anything to a teenager, except maybe to carry my gear. They just don't have the life experience to make such heavy decisions that they always do go around making, and the only reason the games are games is because these kids make all the wrong decisions and then have to fix it, and then they screw up even more.

Hmm, you might give

Utawarerumono
Irresponsible Captain Tylor
Ruroni Kenshin
Any Lupin movie
City Hunter
and Mermaid Forest

a try for protagonists/positive supporting characters in a more believable age range.
I *get* why younger protagonists are so often used, but like you I could really stand to see some more
who are reasonably mature in both years and emotional development.
These recommendations-like most that come from me-could be considered very "old school".

 

[JagermanXcell]

Then there's also the main protagonist who refuses to kill anyone that annoys the hell out of me. In some cases the character will have no problem slicing their way through henchmen who are just doing their job but when they reach the main villain who is actually responsible for the actions of the henchmen and they grow some messed up conscience and decide that killing the villain is wrong. I know that it is more interesting to leave the villains alive so they can return later etc but I'd rather have some deus ex machina brought out to save the villain than have them be saved by the main protagonists idiotic and nonsensical morals.

In certain shows this does work, like Trigun, except the difference with Trigun is that the protagonist Vash is so stupid likable you can look past the fact that his morals can constantly put many lives in danger. Why, because good writing. But when I watch DBZ and see Goku let Frieza live because... ugggmmmh... The guy friking conquers planets and blows them up when he is bored, committed more Holocausts then Hitler and Bin Laden combined, the least you can do is fling the guy into the nearest Sun. But no with all your god-like power you let him live... *sigh*

OT: Yeah the whole eastern unlikable character trope is such a joke, what absolutely boggles my mind is how people over there have grown to simply have that SAME DAMN CHARACTER in everything that comes out, not to mention the fact that we all wish they would die but nooooooo they have that "super secret hidden power" they'll put out of their ass that'll save them when the going gets tough. They won't die in their show and they won't die in writers minds, my God.

I've reached the point to where I prefer blank slate characters. recently watched Persona 4: The Animation based of the game that featured a blank slate character, now he has an official name and pretty much starts off as a blank slate which when I started watching was so strange... and then the later episodes showed up...
Wow they managed to turn Yu Narukami into the most hilarious, monotone, one-liner delivering badass, with episodes literally centered around him that were fun to watch and were deep.

This isn't one of those "deep" parts, but its one of the badass ones.

Spoiler

youtube=UYaGw_HUVHA

And by the end he even had a character you could relate to along with the other cast of stereotype breaking characters that already got their fame from the game.
No THAT, is good writing.

 

[lord canti]

Despite the fact that he falls in category of idiot, I genuinely love luffy as a character I can't quite explain the reason.In fact one piece seems to have this strange charm about it despite the fact it has so many things I usually hate about manga.

 

[Zeldias]

Luke Fon Fabre, by the gods, this guy made me want to snap the fucking cartridge in half (played the 3DS version) He is insufferable for the first half of the game

To be fair, thats what they were going for. Luke is arrogant and selfish and gets called out for it by the other protagonists until in the middle he has to change and trie to be a better person. Luke being an asshole at first is more or less the whole theme of the game.

I get that, but they took it too far.

Spoiler: Tales of the Abyss spoilers.

Saying that saving Ions life was "a waste of time" That was just plain nasty, especially with Ion apologizing to Luke and he just scoffs at it. When Ion knows that what Van wants Luke to do is bad, he pretty much ignore him and proceeds to help the obviously evil dude.

Luke was far more interesting before they turn him into a punk-ass. He was a douche, but all he'd ever known was living in his home being waited on hand and foot. He didn't even understand money! Far worse are his "friends" who all know Van is evil, all know that Luke loves the man like a second father, and don't say shit. Then when shit hits the fan they act like Luke is the jerk! Fucking ridiculous!

I loved Luke at first. I thought he was really interesting as a protagonist and I liked his arrogant douchebaggery clashing with his naivete, like when he doesn't want to kill people and stuff like that. It was really interesting. Then they turn him into your regular ass milquetoast anime hero.

To be on topic, God I hated Luke in Tales of the Abyss post-change. I agree with OP that Rush was an idiot, but I didn't find him offensive. I also HATE Tidus from FFX. Some of my favorite scenes from the game involve Jecht making him cry. Stupid little toolbag.

 

[DrOswald]

I'm currently playing through "the last remnant", and am so far enjoying it. It has an interesting take on the turn based method of gameplay so many JRPGs adopt. There's just one major flaw in it I've seen so far.

The main protagonist is completely hate-able.

He never thinks things through, always seems to misunderstand things that, at least to me, seem incredibly obvious and basic, and all around whines when people don't help him find his sister, even though he has the help of the fucking ruler of a country, who quite clearly has some other things to worry about than one little girl.

This got me thinking though, most main characters I've seen in eastern, and particularly Japanese media, often have this trait. I personally loved FFXII (I know I'm a minority there), but I simply could not like Vaan, and was actually shocked when I found out that originally Basch, a character I really enjoyed, was meant to be the main character, but they made him a supporting character so they could have a more traditional protagonist.

It seems to be the same in anime as well. I will admit I'm not a huge anime fan, but I'm on the council of the gaming society at my university, and our sister society is the anime society, so I end up going to most of their sessions anyway (as well as watching a choice few anime that I will enjoy), and the vast majority of male protagonists seem to be complete dumb-asses who refuse to understand anyone elses point of view, and a large amount of character conflict is caused simply because they won't explain anything.

I dunno, I just find it weird that these always seem to be the traits Japanese protagonists have. What do you thin escapist? Do you agree with me, disagree? What's your take on it all?

I agree to some extent. This is not always the case, but it is true far to often.

I think the trend can be traced back to an anime called Neon Genesis Evangelion, along with a lot of other really bad trends in anime and Japanese gaming.

Neon Genesis Evangelion was a single season anime released in 1995. In order to understand the state of Japanese video game and anime you need to understand that this show was insanely popular and influential. Within the anime community (and by spillover the video game community) it was similar to Star Wars in level of influence and popularity.

The problem is that Evangelion, while enjoyable in its own right, was really shit in a lot of ways. It started or popularized most of the trends people hate in JRPGs, including but not limited to:

- Whiny teenage male protagonists that are practically hand crafted to be objects of scorn
- Over complicated and pointlessly convoluted stories that don't make any sense
- Pseudo religious symbolism (Lets put crosses everywhere and make references to angels and the fall of Lucifer! that will make our story seem deep!)
- The introduction of random plot threads with no intention of ever resolving them
- An ending that resolves nothing, doesn't make sense, or just plain has nothing to do with the work
- Underage fan service

So every time you have a whiny male protagonist that you want to strangle, know that the problem can almost certainly be traced to Evangelion.

 

[chinangel]

i loved Luke...but my most hated protagonist?

Tidus. and I don't know if you'd count Steiner from FF9 in there or not...but I hated Steiner. His romance with Beatrix was so friggin forced it was painful.

 

[Roxas1359]

This got me thinking though, most main characters I've seen in eastern, and particularly Japanese media, often have this trait. I personally loved FFXII (I know I'm a minority there), but I simply could not like Vaan, and was actually shocked when I found out that originally Basch, a character I really enjoyed, was meant to be the main character, but they made him a supporting character so they could have a more traditional protagonist.

I'd actually heard Ashe had been intended to be the main character, but I can't find any information regarding main character changes on the wiki. At the very least, Vaan went through several redesigns to make him more appealing to their demographic (put that in air-quotes if you like). Hell, if FFXII had been released in 2011 instead of 2006, Ashe probably would have been the main character...for exactly the same reasons.

Most FFXII fans (myself included) consider Ashe to be the main character, and Basch the lead secondary. It was a good game, but when two of your main six can vanish entirely, and the story won't change one iota, you may have a problem.

I agree with you, the story revolved more around Ashe and Basch, and a bit with Balthier towards the later half of the game when going to Arcadia. The reason apparently they didn't make them the main characters was because the team thought that Basch was too old to be the main character, which is stupid if you ask me. Still love XII though and I'm gonna go and play the International version now. ^.^

OT: For me I feel that Sora has kinda gone a bit too silly when it comes to the KH series, and while I don't mind it too much I wouldn't mind if he acted sorta like how he was in the first Kingdom Hearts game a bit more.

 

[Black Reaper]

Yukiteru from Future Diary.
The kid wouldn't stop crying or whinning. Granted he is 14 years old so all the nonsense going around might be overwhelming, but I couldn't feel that at all from the character. I keep trying to tell myself, "He's just a kid, of course he is going to feel this way" but I can't. Perhaps the fear and anxiety was overdone so I got annoyed at it.
Thats not to say his personality didn't improve, it just (in my opinion) didn't happen fast enough.

Would it be wrong to assume you didn't like him?, i mean, there are a lot of misunderstandings in this forum
So far, i'm not liking the series very much,most of the characters have undiagnosed brain tumors

Spoiler: stupidity

Yuki:
I am gonna tell this group of people i just met that i can see the future!, it's not like that could make them suddenly want to brutally murder me since i am participating in a Battle Royale right!?

Kurusu(detective guy):

Spoiler

i am going to go into this hospital that currently houses a terrorist,a psychopathic yandere *****,and a guy that has killed numerous people with darts,it's not like i have underlings i could send in my place, and i am going to take my cellphone, my one weakness! with me, i see no way this could ever go wrong

Yuno:

Spoiler

there is a diary owner in Yuki's house!, i must go kill the shit out of him inmediatly, it's not like there are other people in the house who could get accidentally hurt or call the police after they see me stabbing the shit out of him!,subtlety is for pussies!

Yuno 2:

Spoiler

i am going to kidnap Yuki!, it's not like i could just talk to him and tell him "Yuki we must hide!" or something

Altough, to be fair, Yuno is a psychopathic *****, and she may not have thought this trough

The eyepatch chick:
A diary owner?,awesome!, i am going to blow up his fucking school, and i am going to appear in public and announce that i am going to blow up his fucking school!, it's not like that could draw the attention of other diary owners or something
Kill him stealthily you say?
Fuck that, subtlety is for pussies

That is why i stick with seinen,it is generelly more intelligent and stuff

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Yukiteru from Future Diary.
The kid wouldn't stop crying or whinning. Granted he is 14 years old so all the nonsense going around might be overwhelming, but I couldn't feel that at all from the character. I keep trying to tell myself, "He's just a kid, of course he is going to feel this way" but I can't. Perhaps the fear and anxiety was overdone so I got annoyed at it.
Thats not to say his personality didn't improve, it just (in my opinion) didn't happen fast enough.

Would it be wrong to assume you didn't like him?, i mean, there are a lot of misunderstandings in this forum
So far, i'm not liking the series very much,most of the characters have undiagnosed brain tumors

Spoiler: stupidity

Yuki:
I am gonna tell this group of people i just met that i can see the future!, it's not like that could make them suddenly want to brutally murder me since i am participating in a Battle Royale right!?

Kurusu(detective guy):

Spoiler

i am going to go into this hospital that currently houses a terrorist,a psychopathic yandere *****,and a guy that has killed numerous people with darts,it's not like i have underlings i could send in my place, and i am going to take my cellphone, my one weakness! with me, i see no way this could ever go wrong

Yuno:

Spoiler

there is a diary owner in Yuki's house!, i must go kill the shit out of him inmediatly, it's not like there are other people in the house who could get accidentally hurt or call the police after they see me stabbing the shit out of him!,subtlety is for pussies!

Yuno 2:

Spoiler

i am going to kidnap Yuki!, it's not like i could just talk to him and tell him "Yuki we must hide!" or something

Altough, to be fair, Yuno is a psychopathic *****, and she may not have thought this trough

The eyepatch chick:
A diary owner?,awesome!, i am going to blow up his fucking school, and i am going to appear in public and announce that i am going to blow up his fucking school!, it's not like that could draw the attention of other diary owners or something
Kill him stealthily you say?
Fuck that, subtlety is for pussies

That is why i stick with seinen,it is generelly more intelligent and stuff

I personally liked Mirai Nikki a lot. Mostly because I really found the concept of it pretty intriguing. Normally I would hate any sort of time-travel shit, but getting messages from your future self in your diary is well thought of.

Of course Yuki was a pathetic little kid, but that's also exactly the role he's meant to play. Furthermore, his character does go through some interesting changes as he tries to find the answer to all the shit that goes on around him, only to fail again. Considering the demographic I'd say he's quite a "round" character overall.

Series for a "Shonen" public in the west wouldn't ever dare to tackle these kinds of themes imo. Well maybe in the past, but I haven't seen any recent series that would.

 

[verdant monkai]

The only real main characters in anime I have problems with are the violent girls, the ones who regularly punch the men who have displeased them as hard and as viciously as they can. I dont find it funny or feel that their victims deserved it, it just makes me dislike the violent *****. Sakura from Naruto is a prime example of the violent ***** trope.

Although those on the receiving end of the beating recover very quickly, its really just not an endearing trait.

 

[Denamic]

I can deal with dumbass characters when they've got character development through the anime/game. For example, Yoko from Juuni Kokuki/Twelve Kingdoms is a whiny little weakling, but gradually turns into kind of a badass. I love that shit. I can also deal with certain kinds of dumbasses, too, if they're done right. Like Luffy from One Piece. He's such an idiot, but by the gods is he awesome.

My all-time favourite character is probably Rance in Sengoku Rance. It's a porn game with fantastic strategic gameplay. Anyway, Rance is an egotistical, arrogant, rapist, dumbass, evil ************ that has a slave that he mistreats. The only reason he fights in the first place is to get laid. And yet he's somehow completely lovable. Maybe it's because of his twisted sincerity or something, I dunno. I hesitate to call him a hero, or even an anti-hero. He's probably more evil than the villains he defeats.

Spoiler: Yup. Typical Rance.