Favorite/most memorable villain?

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Anonymous1749704 wrote:

???

I have literally no idea what you're rambling about, and the fact that you mention Wanpanman's "ending" gives off a strong scent of "this guy has no fucking clue what he's talking about".

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Anonymous1749704 wrote:

Anime covers about a third of the source material, so basing an opinion on it and not the entire thing is ignorant at best.

You're completely off on Saitama's goal. 76th/77th Punch feature Saitama musing about his situation. Spoiler alert though; I suspect that the second anime season will only cover up to 75th Punch.

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鬼殺し wrote:

Which then raises the question: have we outgrown the idea of a clear-cut villain in modern 'deep dive' drama? It's so much more about the anti-hero now, the flawed protagonist doing unspeakable things for a personal code and motivation that most of us can understand, at least at first. It's usually family, but in the end it often comes down to greed misperceived by the protagonist as self-preservation.

That to me, getting back to the earlier question, is what an anti-hero is. Someone who sees themselves as heroic (even if they say otherwise) but adheres very much to their own code *and* that code has to be ultimately relatable to the audience. It's commonly held that Satan in Paradise Lost is the first true anti-hero in literature, because while Satan is traditionally the villain (the name alone means 'adversary'), the perspective taken with Paradise Lost positions even the world's greatest bad guy as somehow understandable and relatable. He wasn't simply something to be defeated, but to be examined and considered as an entity with justifiable motives.

So does a villain exist purely to be defeated? Maybe. That might well be a simple, clean-cut division between the villain/antagonist and the anti-hero. The villain is positioned opposite the hero. The anti-hero is more...to the side, doing their own thing.

Which actually makes Satan the hero of Paradise Lost, but no one wants to really think of it that way...

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Boem wrote:

Saitama's "goal" is to find somebody that doesn't die from a single hit, thats why he is dissapointed constantly.

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MrCoo1 wrote:

doom_toots_as_he_pleases.png

original

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Boem wrote:

Bluntly put, the "hero" is the easiest depiction of the correct/best moral behavior in an easy to live in society.

While the "anti-hero" is a much more complex variation of those behaviors in a more complex society in flux.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Boem wrote:

Saitama's "goal" is to find somebody that doesn't die from a single hit, thats why he is dissapointed constantly.

That's a secondary goal, not a primary one; it's a means to an end, not an end in itself. Saitama's primary goal is to have fun. He outright says that is why he's a hero, multiple times.

Now I could totally dig a Jordan B. Peterson type of analysis of Saitama, wherein his discontent is explained by his refusal to take on any real responsibility bigger than coupon day at the supermarket. Arguing that Saitama is the villain of 1PM along those lines would be fun. But that's not what the content is saying. It's clear who the creators of 1PM chose as the villain, even if it's not who I would have picked. And what they picked was essentially inverse that of Lobster Daddy.

The villain of 1PM is social hierarchy. 1PM doesn't see responsibility as self-assigned, but as involuntarily given, and the society of that world doesn't recognize Saitama's merit. It puts him in Rank C while putting his protogé in Rank S, by putting undo emphasis on irrelevant factors. 1PM takes aim at social issues like mandatory schooling and emphasis on book smarts, maintenance of appearances, and even demonstration of dedication and obedience in terms of whether our society should place the emphasis on them that it does. The whole point of 1PM is that social hierarchy is determined by something other than merit, such that Superman could be in our very midsts and he'd be living in a bad neighborhood like a typical working-class schmuck.

At first, this villain is personified in Amai Mask and the Superhero Organization, but as things develop it becomes clear the Organization is in the service of people in general. In other words, it's not the government, but millions of ordinary people responsible for the system that treats Saitama like shit. In a way, it's a much more eligant version of Lex Luthor's belief: that mundane humanity and Superman are fundamentally incompatible, and therefore in existential conflict with each other. That's why Saitama doesn't experience joy until he meets extraterrestrials, even in a world full of powered humans. Of course I don't agree with Luthor — I prefer the Peterson perspective — but I'm at least trying not to strawman 1PM's point.

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erdelyii wrote:

Possibly, as people in mass media producing countries have become sexually liberated (and in times where there were more freedoms and less repression) we can be frank that we like a protagonist with bit of dirt around the collar, rather than a squeaky clean hero, and so the writing has adapted to suit.