Welcome, one and all, to day nine of the thirty day anime challenge! Today’s topic is … your favourite anime villain.
Ooh, now this is an interesting one. I have no issue with straight up bad guys. In fact, certain types of shows really need a clean-cut villain to go up against the hero. In general though, I tend to prefer villains that are a little bit more complex. I’m going to talk about two such characters now.
First up is Light Yagami from Death Note. What I loved about Light was the journey that we took with him. Right at the start of the series, Light is acting with good intentions. He wants to end suffering in the world, to create a utopian society where crime is no long an issue (of course, that would have put his Father out of work, but there you go). The problem was, the longer his battle with L went on, the further down the spiral he went. Part of me wonders if the stress of battling the world’s greatest detective was what drove him to behaving the way he did, or whether he was always doomed to head this way. Certainly, his complaints that Mikami was acting against certain types of people too soon would indicate that he always had this in mind, but this was after he’d already passed the point of no return. In the end, he ceased being a misguided guy with good intentions and became nothing more than one of the criminals that he wanted to eliminate. He had to die, there was no other way around it. Watching him fall like that was just such a beautifully constructed tale.
Next up is Durarara!!! stalwart Izaya Orihara. The information broker with a love of the human race is a marvellous creation. In many ways, he is a true mastermind, manipulating people and situations to his heart’s content. But, both his love of humans and his hatred of Shizuo Heiwajima leave him prone to pushing people further than he probably should. Yes, Izaya is enjoying himself, but he’s also running the risk of wrecking the lives of those that he professes to hold in such high regard. Not that it matters to him. I think that he sort of viewed Ikebukuro like a child views wooden blocks: something to build up and then knock down, over and over. With the way he describes things, I actually spent a great deal of time thinking that Izaya was in fact an otherworldly being like Celty rather than a human himself. Even knowing this nto to be the case, I do wonder if he looks at himself as a trickster God of sorts.
Matt Doyle Media 
My favorite villain (at least so far) is Shogo Makishima from Psycho Pass. I always thought he was a very interesting character with a lot of depth to him. Even though he was incredibly evil, you always at some points felt sympathy for him. And that for me is always very interesting.
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He is that! Funnily enough, I finished Psycho Pass about a month after writing this post. It’s a great little series, especially once it gets going. If you haven’t seen it yet, I do recommend Durarara though. It’s bonkers at times, but there’s so much going on that all ties up together in the end.
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I haven’t seen Durara yet, but am currently doing something that is a bit if an experiment for me: am watching five series at the same time, with four completely new ones, that are still airing. Unusually only watch shows after they have been completed. But this time, I just wantbto follow along with some of the posts my fellow bloggers are writing fir the new shows, so that’s why am trying this. Wonder if I can keep it up though lol. Durarara has been added to the list though 😀
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Excellent. I just don’t often have the time to follow too many at time of release these days. I’ll make exceptions here and there, like I did for Attack on Titan, but time is short.
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Izaya was one of the major reasons I kind of disliked Durararararara ^^
… either way, anime antagonists are largely anonymous to me. Let’s see whether I can remember some.
QB in Madoka is a good candidate. Oh wait, he’s just a cute mascot.
The various homunculi in Fullmetal Alchemist were fairly interesting.
But best of all got to be Vamp Shogun in Tentai Senshi Sunred. He’s got good domestic tips.
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That’s taste for you, everyone’s is different. I did like the homunculi actually.
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Well, arguably it’s a villains job to be unlikable, so in that regard he probably did his job. And I’m certainly not debating the quality of the series. But it just seemed to try a bit too hard for me, in various ways. Ah, that Doctor guy was definitely worst guy (that being said, I watched it 7 years ago, so no clue why anymore, ha). Love the first opening, though. ^^
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The first opening was my favourite of them. I was still singing ‘blow up louder’ to myself for ages afterwards 🙂
You’re right that villains are supposed to make you dislike them, so it’s fair a point.
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