JRPGs, anime, and hateful main characters

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Kaim from Lost Oddysey has a pretty good head on his shoulders, even if he comes off as overly brooding.

He annoyed me near the start; he just came off as that other kinda stereotypical Japanese protagonist, where they act like moody dicks to everyone for no adequately explained reason. The bit where you come across Seth on the street and she's like "oh, hey, we met on the train! We both didn't die!" and he's just walking past, pretending she isn't there really annoyed me. It was just rude.

It doesn't take long for him to stop being a dick, though. By the time you're in Numara, he just seems like kind of a quiet guy with a lot on his mind rather than a complete tosser.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

After re-watching Soul Eater recently.....Black Star. I just cant stand him, but I hate overly egotistical morons anyway.

Shinji Ikari from Evangelion also gets a mention here. You get to pilot a giant robot/monster and theres a cute ginger girl who wants to bounce on you.......STOP MOPING AROUND!

Dammit, ninja'd on Shinji!! Though I don't find Asuka cute or attractive in the slightest bit. If anything, her character makes me feel uncomfortable. What she needs is a good ***** slapping and 6 months in intense therapy. And what Shinji needs is to grow some balls and not just go along with stuff for once in his life.

I don't play JRPGs much (mostly because I'm a PC gamer and JRPGs dominantly come out on consoles) and don't watch anime much, but I can still see your point. Even if you tried to explain the cliché of "mopey 12-year old protagonist" by saying "Well that's what appeals to the masses in Japan", you still have to think, is that the only type of protagonist that appeals to the masses?

Also, this thread gives me yet another excuse to rant on...

Spoiler: wait for it...

THIS ************!!!

Not only is he a completely unlikable and unrelatable character by his actions and personality, he's unrelatable and unlikable just by default! A massively popular sports superstar living in a futuristic techno-civilization a 1000 years in the past whose main problem is getting transported said 1000 years in the future where he has to defeat his dead dad who is actually a flying Godzilla whale. Yeah, I can totally relate to that.

Fuck this guy.

 

[Something Amyss]

Kaim from Lost Oddysey has a pretty good head on his shoulders, even if he comes off as overly brooding.

The brooding also kind of works for him, so you're less inclined (not "not inclined") to hate him.

 

[Angelowl]

I'm playing Xenosaga: Der wille zur macht right now, and I must say they have some great characters. There's no one that comes off as stupid, even if there's one whiny guy, but he's not a main character in that way. COS-MOS is already becoming one of my favourite characters in a JRPG, might end up as one of my favourite characters in any media if she continues the way she has been. Persona 4 has good characters too, though the main character is a blank slate, but I played him so I got the best grades in school.

And now I feel just spiteful and frustrated. Got the Xenosaga II, easily one of my favourite JRPGS to date. Agree completely in regards to KOS-MOS, suprisingly well written. Would have loved to get Xenosaga 1 and 3 as well, but for some unexplicit reason only the second game was ever released in europe and due to the region locks on DVDs I can't import them from the US. *RAGE*

On topic: made me think of Disgaea, that series always got good complex characters and well written stories. If they weren't more grindy than even I can bear...

If that is accurate regarding FF XII (and I wouldn't be surprised), then it would make it even more frustrating. It just baffles me, square-enix got some really talented writers on their staff evidently. For example, everytime that I play FF X I think that Auron and Lulu are awesome and then I hear that blonde spoiled brat. I'm supposed to focus on that guy? Seriously, that is your primary character? What were they thinking?!

I live in Sweden. I haven't imported it. I'm using the PCSX2 emulator.

And now I just feel dumb. I blame my collectory stance towards games and that I have difficulties comprehending that a modern computer can actually emulate a PS2. It still feels like a new console to me.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

I really fucking hated The Last Remnant, or its story part in each case. The story and the characters in it were absolutely pathetic.

But I think it's really very wrong to generalise these things to "anime & JRPG". Do many anime & JRPG's have terrible casts? YES.
But so do many western animations, films, series and games.

If you watch series like "Now and Then; Here and There", "Shinsekai Yori", "Shingeki no Kyojin" (just to name a few I recently saw) and pretty much anything by studio Ghibli, you learn to appreciate. With the wealth of the anime / RPG output from Japan, there's bound to be a lot of shit to sift through before you get to the peals.

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

Hehe, at least in the anime, he does get better. I also wanted to punch a hole in my screen cus of that guy though.

 

[b.w.irenicus]

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.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

This kind of selfishly naive and righteous Ash Ketchum style of character also annoys me a lot, and the protagonist in The Last Remnant is one of the most exaggerated of these stereotypes I've seen. Also his name is Rush Sykes. Rush. Sykes. *Vomits*

Apart from the protagonist The Last Remnant is an utterly amazing game though, it got pretty average reviews (6/10s) but I really liked it, its one of my favourite turn based RPGs.

I don't think this stereotype of a main protagonist is too exclusive to anime and JRPGs though, I remember finding Jack from Lost very irritating because he fits this stereotype somewhat. He comes across as a lot more intelligent than say Ash Ketchum or Rush Sykes but the way he selfishly and stubbornly forces his own personal morals and ideals on everyone go on my nerves.

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.

 

[Sehnsucht Engel]

I'm playing Xenosaga: Der wille zur macht right now, and I must say they have some great characters. There's no one that comes off as stupid, even if there's one whiny guy, but he's not a main character in that way. COS-MOS is already becoming one of my favourite characters in a JRPG, might end up as one of my favourite characters in any media if she continues the way she has been. Persona 4 has good characters too, though the main character is a blank slate, but I played him so I got the best grades in school.

And now I feel just spiteful and frustrated. Got the Xenosaga II, easily one of my favourite JRPGS to date. Agree completely in regards to KOS-MOS, suprisingly well written. Would have loved to get Xenosaga 1 and 3 as well, but for some unexplicit reason only the second game was ever released in europe and due to the region locks on DVDs I can't import them from the US. *RAGE*

On topic: made me think of Disgaea, that series always got good complex characters and well written stories. If they weren't more grindy than even I can bear...

If that is accurate regarding FF XII (and I wouldn't be surprised), then it would make it even more frustrating. It just baffles me, square-enix got some really talented writers on their staff evidently. For example, everytime that I play FF X I think that Auron and Lulu are awesome and then I hear that blonde spoiled brat. I'm supposed to focus on that guy? Seriously, that is your primary character? What were they thinking?!

I live in Sweden. I haven't imported it. I'm using the PCSX2 emulator.

And now I just feel dumb. I blame my collectory stance towards games and that I have difficulties comprehending that a modern computer can actually emulate a PS2. It still feels like a new console to me.

Don't worry about it, I didn't think it would work as well as it did at the start either. XD Also, I think you probably can bypass region locks with a PCSX2 emulator. I had more than one region to choose from when I installed my version. I think it works with real PS2 discs too, even if I use ROMs.

 

[b.w.irenicus]

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.

Well, he is on really, really high horse, but that just gives the fall more meaning (in my opinion). In contrast to, say, Tidus of FFX: SE was obviously trying to make him a heroic and sympathetic character, they just fucked it up really bad.

But I get why it could be annoying for some people to get to Luke's turning point.

 

[zefiris]

If they acted reasonably, then there'd not be much of a game there.

A well written game works when the protagonist is smart.
Only a fool thinks that a plot can only work when the character is an idiot.

Also, it's not based on culture - that'd be a pretty stupid suggestion. It just has to do with bad writing. Western games are as terrible often enough - just look at the gargantuan incompetence displayed by Hawke in DA2. "Hi, I am supposed to check out this group of mages, who want what I want, so I will wake up to them and then fight them to death. Twice".

 

[Ryan Hughes]

Well, first of all, you likely have not played a Suikoden game, because the main characters act like reasonable, intelligent human beings most of the time in those.

Second, this really only became a problem in the PS1 and PS2 eras for games. Honestly I do not watch much anime, so it is difficult for me to comment on that. For example, Final Fantasy VI has -if one can pin the "main character" status on Terra- a main character that thinks for herself, and while she does make mistakes, is quite likeable. Same with FF IX, with one of the more lively and likeable main characters in the series.

Making your characters subjective to the events that merely happen to them is one way to tell a bad writer from a good one. In FF XII, there was no real reason for Vaan to be in the game at all, when you think about it. In FF XIII, all the characters did was react to what was happening to them by outside forces, and seemed to have no real agency of their own, despie having some fake and sophomoric philosophy to spout every now and again. I could go one about many a Square-Enix RPG. I blame the loss of Sakaguchi, a true artist.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

There is one kind of character I hate, and that's the "No matter what, I'll pull through, with the help of friendship, and I'll make the world better for everyone!" bullshit character that doesn't re-evaluate their world view, ever, and is so insufferably optimistic that even when they do that thing where they've just suffered a terrible loss and the bad guy is defeated in revenge, and the bad guy's sympathetic motive is explained through a cynical and self-sacrificing worldview and the protagonist is confronted with it, they give a speech that reiterates their naive optimism and they crack a sad smile that's meant to make you see what a truly honest and caring person they are, I still fucking hate them. Especially when they have a backstory where they undergo hardship and are ostracised from the rest of society. I'm looking at you, Naruto. You piece of s-

Ichigo Kurosaki fulfills the same narrative role (sticking to his guns, ramping up inner strength and working tirelessly to destroy the bad guys), but is a lot more down-to-business about it and never goes on about happiness or any of that fairytale crap. If the manga is anything to go by at least.

Another thing which annoys me, but doesn't necessarily prevent me from liking the character, but will break immersion a little, is the character that can predict the future or instantly analyse a person because "they're just that smart". Bullshit. No-one can do that. Characters that fall into this category include Lelouch (although he's still a favourite of mine for other reasons) and Kougami's psychologist mentor from Psycho-Pass (who is ridiculous in the instant analysis department). Contrast Sumeragi Lee Noriega, in combination with not being ridiculously sure of herself and occasionally losing, it creates a feeling that she's not omnipotent, but every strategist in the series is at the edge of their abilities rather than coasting along.

EDIT: And since I've just finished watching Psycho-Pass again, good character: Akane Tsunemori. Naive and idealistic at first, but always understandable, and ends up retaining her ideals but has a much different and more serious worldview, and even her one seemingly arbitrarily naive goal is grounded and understandable (not spoiling). This is what I like to see. Actual character development through hardship, as opposed to the relative cop-out of saying "they're just the most forgiving person in the world", which now that I look at it, is basically just an excuse to never make any real challenging ideological point.

 

[Hades]

I don't think main characters have to be likable. Laharl from Disgaea is a horrible brat and despite his character development never grows out of it. I still to find him a very good main character.

I suppose JRPG and anime heroes can be hit and miss but i actually only encountered ''hits'' and actually find their reputation a but overblown. I know those horrible emo or dumbass characters exist i just haven't seen them. The jrp's i pick usually have main characters that are praised a lot or at least don't have a hatedom.


For every emo or unlikable main character in anime's and JRPGs you also have great once like Zidane, Yuri Lowel, Laharl, and Edward Elric.

 

[WindKnight]

After re-watching Soul Eater recently.....Black Star. I just cant stand him, but I hate overly egotistical morons anyway.

Shinji Ikari from Evangelion also gets a mention here. You get to pilot a giant robot/monster and theres a cute ginger girl who wants to bounce on you.......STOP MOPING AROUND!

#
To be fair, Black Star is supposed to be Funny/Annoying, as he's a pretty blatant piss-take of naruto

 

[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.