Jujutsu Kaisen

[neflight86]

Just watched the movie, and it did make the rest of the world somewhat more engaging by giving the characters more screen time and development. For some reason, I thought it involved the grown up version of that martial artist's kid (being enrolled at Jujutsu high), and was waiting for that the entire time, but that's not a big deal; just backstory on what could have been another protagonist.

STOP TREATING VILLAINS WITH SYMPATHY.

Why? Villains having more than one dimension - being the hero of their own story - is leagues more interesting than being insane, plain evil, or mustache twirling caricatures. You wouldn't say the same about the Spiders in HxH, would you? Opposing philosophies, circumstances and broad misunderstandings make deeper, richer conflicts in stories. Is the problem that you are afraid someone will mistake the bad guys for the good guys or something?

[MFauli]

Just watched the movie, and it did make the rest of the world somewhat more engaging by giving the characters more screen time and development. For some reason, I thought it involved the grown up version of that martial artist's kid (being enrolled at Jujutsu high), and was waiting for that the entire time, but that's not a big deal; just backstory on what could have been another protagonist.



Why? Villains having more than one dimension - being the hero of their own story - is leagues more interesting than being insane, plain evil, or mustache twirling caricatures. You wouldn't say the same about the Spiders in HxH, would you? Opposing philosophies, circumstances and broad misunderstandings make deeper, richer conflicts in stories. Is the problem that you are afraid someone will mistake the bad guys for the good guys or something?

The spiders in HXH are, even when they have a short, light-hearted scene, always depicted as psychotic, brutal, gruesome killers. I cannot remember any prolonged scene where they're shown just having fun.

And it's got nothing to do with "one dimension"; if you show me someone brutally murdering dozens of people in one scene, then a happy beach scene with lots of laughing at a later time, I'm not gonna jive with that. Especially when the villains keep getting away without any loss on their side.

I need to mention a Detective Conan-spoiler from manga volume 100, so beware spoiler if you aren't up-to-date with DC:
So FBI-agent Camel barely survived and swam to some small island. All the "men in black" are hunting him down. Near the end, they're standing in sight of Akai's sniper rifle, he could have easily shot several of them. Why didn't he? The lame excuse is "had he shot any of them, the rest might have started to shoot back and yadyayada". Pure and utter bs. An entire arc where several FBI-agents were murdered by the "men in black", and not a single of the bad guys got shot? That's pure bs.

And that's exatly the same "treating villains with sympathy" bs I was talking about. These murderous assholes deserve punishment, but the author is so deadset on showing us that they're "friendly" that he forgets about it. Same with Jujutsu Kaisen: We see that silver-haired dude gruesomely shrink and enlarge innocent people, leaving them to a terrible death, only for him to walk away scoff-free, laughing with his "friends" in their beach hideout. Fuck that.

[neflight86]

The spiders in HXH are, even when they have a short, light-hearted scene, always depicted as psychotic, brutal, gruesome killers. I cannot remember any prolonged scene where they're shown just having fun

If you read the manga, or the anime ever gets another season, you'll find they get an entire arc devoted to filling them in (backstory) and giving them sympathetic traits, even having fun with each other. I also don't think they are depicted as brutal, psychotic killers exclusively, even during what was animated.

...And that's exatly the same "treating villains with sympathy" bs I was talking about. These murderous assholes deserve punishment, but the author is so deadset on showing us that they're "friendly" that he forgets about it. Same with Jujutsu Kaisen: We see that silver-haired dude gruesomely shrink and enlarge innocent people, leaving them to a terrible death, only for him to walk away scoff-free, laughing with his "friends" in their beach hideout. Fuck that.

Is what you desire more swift punishment? Modern media in the last 10 or so years has taken to delaying evil comeuppance for entire seasons of material to tease the audience along and make it more satisfying (see GoT; the villains had their way for 4 whole seasons before their karma came home to roost, or started to). This is shounen anime, they (the bad guys) will either lose or lose and become allies by the end of it, no doubt in my mind. If their loss and punishment isn't up to your particular requirements for cruelty, well... I don't know if there's any helping that.

To be clear, I'm not in love with JJK as a whole, but I think villains are one thing it does very well.

[MFauli]

If you read the manga, or the anime ever gets another season, you'll find they get an entire arc devoted to filling them in (backstory) and giving them sympathetic traits, even having fun with each other. I also don't think they are depicted as brutal, psychotic killers exclusively, even during what was animated.



Is what you desire more swift punishment? Modern media in the last 10 or so years has taken to delaying evil comeuppance for entire seasons of material to tease the audience along and make it more satisfying (see GoT; the villains had their way for 4 whole seasons before their karma came home to roost, or started to). This is shounen anime, they (the bad guys) will either lose or lose and become allies by the end of it, no doubt in my mind. If their loss and punishment isn't up to your particular requirements for cruelty, well... I don't know if there's any helping that.

To be clear, I'm not in love with JJK as a whole, but I think villains are one thing it does very well.

I've read the HXH manga (not the latest chapter, I think). The Spiders are never depicted as truly "good" or friendly, they always keep their dangerous aura from when they were first introduced.

And while, yes, some villains should receive punishment quicker, my point is that they're depicted as friendly, as people that you want to hang out with when they're not murdering. Not doing this wouldn't make them one-dimensional. The Akatsuki from Naruto are actually a great example - as long as you ignore filler-content and Kishimoto's love for Sasuke. They're always clearly painted as villains, but definitely aren't one-dimensional or "mustache swirling".