Hello! I wanted to ask for your take on Ryoken in YGO Vrains. I haven't been able to find any detailed reviews on him overall (mostly scattered meta focusing on specific moments/seasons). Even the few "Revolver is the worst chara ever" criticism posts I spotted were too generic/vague or straight up deleted, so I haven't been able to figure out what actual issues people have with him beyond "tried to kill people" - which is something that, like, every YGO antag (& sometimes the protag) has done. I really liked your Vrains posts & your posts about hero & victim arcs & was curious about your thoughts on Ryoken's characterization/narrative purpose, if that's okay. Personally I like Ryoken, but I don't really understand his character & I've been trying to make sense of it (with difficulties as the meta about him is either disconnected or too polarizing what with "he's a technophobic terrorist!!!" or "he's the best cuz gun dragons"). (ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ)♡
A comprehensive character analysis of revolver, not just an analysis of any one specific duel - sure anon let’s do it! Vrains is probably my second favorite Yu-Gi-Oh to analyze because it takes it doubles as a piece of cyberpunk fiction, which is a key element a lot of people miss when discussing Ryoken’s character.
In my opinion, one of the major reasons people don’t give Ryoken a fair shake, or are harsher on him than the other Kaiba-alikes is that he doesn’t change his opinion once he’s defeated in a duel. Daring to disagree with the main character is a cardinal sin for a lot of fans, because most series have protagonist centered morality.
However, the fact Revolver never quite joins the heroes side and sticks to his guns (pun intended) is what makes him so unique a character. More underneath the cut.
Invincible: Proving the Superhero Genre Invincible
Another story I’ve watched recently is Invincible. I know it’s based on comics, which I’ll get around to eventually.
Despite masquerading as a dark deconstruction of the superhero story, the story is actually far more a hopeful coming-of-age story that just happens to don a gory costume. You can tell the writers love superhero comics, and that they aren’t deconstructing it out of disdain but instead out of a desire to see what the main principles are.
In other words, it’s far more akin to Hunter x Hunter’s take on deconstructing shonen or even ASOIAF’s spin on fantasy literature (matching the violence too) than it is a cynical, nihilistic tale with intent to ridicule. Love and friendships win the day. It’s just complex to navigate them in a world where there has been so much hurt.
The tl;dr is that the world’s Number One hero turns out to be working for a planet of alien colonizers who live forever and subjugate other lifeforms because they believe they’re saving them. This gets to the heart of a thematic question often asked in the superhero genre but not often well-explored - what does it mean to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved? Are there valid reasons to not want to be saved? What even counts as not wanting to be saved, and does perspective alter that? Is it not wanting to be saved for humans to cling to their fragile and short lives and free will when they could lose free will and have no more sickness and pain?
The story explores this through many different aspects and characters–from Eve being genetically engineered, to the boys turned into cyborgs, to Mark finding out his entire life has been a lie, to government bureaucracy running the superhero world. And just because the series affirms free will doesn’t mean it’s blind to the pitfalls of this, or that it doesn’t explore the gray areas in which we live–namely, when to listen to others and obey orders, and when not to.
In addition to free will, the series affirms that one of the top gifts of humanity is love. Love is what wakes up the cyborgs when their emotions have been pried from their brains. Love is something intrinsic that can’t be perfectly defined and doesn’t listen to logic, yet also isn’t purely emotional. It’s powerful, and it’s a weakness. It can save, but not always. (For example, Mark’s love for his dad, the cyborg’s love for his boyfriend, etc. But Eve’s parents love for her doesn’t save).
My favorite episode of the story is the final one in season 1, where Mark’s father puts him through an overly literal lesson of the trolley problem and then tries to kill his own son. And then there’s that one line:
Omni-Man: Why did you make me do this? You’re fighting so you can watch everyone around you die! Think, Mark! You’ll outlast every fragile, insignificant being on this planet. You’ll live to see this world crumble to dust and blow away! Everyone and everything you know will be gone! What will have after 500 years?
Mark: I’d still have you.
Really he has 0 reason to still want his father around at this point. And yet that single line contains so much power about what the series is saying.
Mark shouldn’t still love his father, logically speaking. Even emotionally, he’s determined to stop his father by any means necessary. But, he chooses to still love him, no matter what that means. Whether he lives or dies. Because whether he dies then or later, in that moment he loves his father. And it’s so illogical and against what Omni-Man has been trying to literally beat into his son, yet so real, that it pauses destruction.
It doesn’t fix anything. Not by a long shot. Not Mark and his father’s relationship, not the world, not the plan of Omni-Man’s Space!British Empire. Not Mark himself, as Mark will go on to make some pretty intensely Bad mistakes himself. But it means, in that moment, that a life is spared. And that single life is worth sparing (saving).
(This is how you write an abuser-son redemptive love arc!)
Mark and his parents are well done as characters, complex and flawed. I did wish the show had shown more of the ugly side of Debbie’s grief (which they apparently do in the comics). I really would like women to be less sanitized, even if that means they act in despicable ways.
That said, the best female character is undoubtedly Eve. The special that chronicles her origin was brilliantly written–one of the best hours of TV I’ve watched. It’s poignant and , despite being horror scifi cyberpunk in some ways, also realistic in how it portrays humanity. I appreciated that her adoptive parents were extremely complex for background characters. They desperately wanted a child, but not necessarily her. Her mom loves her, but still wishes she was someone else, and her father is just a bad dad. Of course, this is underscored by the fact that she’s not their biological daughter, but I don’t know that it would have been different if she was.
Plus, Eve and Mark are a great couple, though they take a bit too long to get together.
On that note, I also liked Amber as a character, but I thought the writing kind of didn’t know what to do with Mark and Amber at times. Clearly they wanted this relationship to demonstrate the struggles of Mark trying to balance being a superhero with a normal high school life, but the writers were actually a bit too harsh on Mark at times. (I know, right?) I thought the main conflict between them in season 1 (about his identity) was unfairly framed as only Mark’s fault when it wasn’t, and it wasn’t resolved in a satisfactory way.
Ultimately, though, the story is about humanity and all its ways of attempting to create superhumans. Science. Religion. Aliens. Living forever. Strength. Cyborgs. But what it affirms is that there is so much that is beautiful about humanity, and what transcends humanity are the traits we all can have–love and free will.
TOGACHAKO VS. FUFFY: How To Save Your Evil Girlfriend
So, once again My Hero Academia has failed to deliver on its promise of saving / redeeming one of the main villains of its story, and victims of its ficitonal society. This time I’m going to make the added argument that not only does failing to save Toga make the story worse, it also makes Uraraka’s character almost completely hollow. While you can dismiss Deku’s lack of character development as him being a shonen protagonist, both Uraraka and Shoto had arcs and Ochako’s is effectively ruined by her failure to save Toga.
In order to make my point I am going to compare it to a villain redemption arc in another piece of media that does it right, Faith’s character, and her strained relationship with Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A series which is overall anti-state punishment and pro-redemption and delivers on practically all the themes MHA promised us.
Uraraka’s character has a lot of potential early in the story, her poor background, her non-altruist ambitions to be a hero, and even the repression of her feelings could have been perfect flaws to be explored in her character narrative. But she is removed from the main story early on and reduced to “a girl that likes Izuku” and “Heroes need saving too”. She does not feel like a full-fledged character, but someone who runs after Izuku.
Also, her placement in the way to “confront Himiko” feels forced, unlike Dabi and Shoto, Tomura and Izuku. Heck, even Shoji and Spinner. They all had more believable motives to be foils of each other. Meanwhile, the only thing that links Uraraka to Himiko is that “they like the same boy”.
I sometimes see more parallels between Himiko and Izuku. They both suffered in a society that tried to force them into a box. They both have a fascination that others find creepy. And during the license exam, Izuku showed that he is willing to save everyone, even those who attack him. (Idk why, but I think that aspect of him was dropped in the latter half of the series for some reason.)
Still, I find that BNHA had a lot of potential for the elements it tried to convey to the public. Himiko is a flawed character and a product of society’s prejudice. She could have been utilized and shown the wrongs of the system.
The main problem I have with the final arcs is that we are told a lot of things, but we are shown nothing. Uraraka facing Himiko feels off because the series lacks show events that make that confrontation to be meaningful.
Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 265 quickly surpassed Gojo’s death chapter as my favorite chapter in the entire manga. It’s a high point in both Yuji’s character development and the Sukuna fight, a notion most of the fandom agrees with. That being said, it’s once again time for me to take a stance contrary to most of the fandom opinion. I was going to make this post two weeks ago but I’m glad I waited, because this week’s chapter helps me illustrate my point in the contrasting way Yuji treats Sukuna and Megumi.
As you can probably tell by the title, my hot take of the week is that what Yuji is showing Sukuna isn’t true empathy. It’s not atn attempt to understand Sukuna’s worldview, but rather condescending pity from a place looking down on Sukuna, which is why it infuriates him so much. This is illustrated in Yuji’s atual actions this chapter, which is to go at great length to show memories from his past to make Sukuna understand HIM and not the other way around.
Whereas, what Yuji shows Megumi is compassion, because he’s not telling Megumi what to feel or imposing his own views on him but rather accepting the fact that Megumi might be suffering too much to keep living on.
WOAH i really liked this analysis!!! 0_0 It gave me so much to think about ad re-evaluate! Love it to pieces!!!!!! (IM SO SORRY i wanted this to be much shorter but got excited i guess.. a good part of this reply is a re-work of things already said in the post but hopefully i can contribute a bit to the discussion w my own thoughts/analysis T-T)
About halfway through your post on Yuji and Sukuna I was thinking "Hm, this person would really love Shirou Emiya". When you brought him up immediately after I genuinely pumped my fist into the air in celebration cause I'm so glad someone else gets it!
I got into FSN and Tsukihime very recently because of JJK and god, so much of Jujutsu society feels reminiscent of FSN's talks about mages and lineage, I think about it a lot. Both mages/counter guardians and Jujutsu sorcerers aren't really considered human, just tools for a larger system that serves the rest of humanity. It's a lot of really interesting takes on generational trauma and bodily autonomy and anti-conservatism, and though I can't articulate it super well I'm very fond of it.
Going back to Yuji and Shirou... I love those two so so much. Me when I internalize the ideal of saving people to the point I forget to include myself in "people". As for their character foils, I'm halfway convinced Sukuna was inspired by Archer as well as Gilgamesh. "I am you" but in the most literal way possible, in Archer's case. Love when characters are similar but somehow so different. (As well as the obligatory VA joke. Gotta love Suwabe.) Sukuna's visual aesthetics could not be any closer to Gil if Gege tried, but I think he and Archer share that kind of somber aura about them, if that makes sense.
(Sorry for the yap session, btw. I would say I am normal about Yuji and Sukuna but I would be lying. Love my two special boys and their horribly dysfunctional family.)
Honestly, Sukuna reminds me a lot more of Arhcer than he does of Gildamesh at this point so you might have a point friend! Also, I’m glad you enjoyed my meta it’s nice to see another FSN / JJK fan. Thank you for the ask!
as the resident staple Bad Victim Enjoyer:tm:, have any notable thoughts on Wicked? your thoughts are very enjoyable and crunchy, also hope you're doing well
NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED: A Character Analysis of Elphaba as a Bad Victim
Wicked is billed as the untold story of the Wicked Witch of the West. The original novel is a reimagining of the world of Oz which runs on child logic in L Frank Baum’s books, into a dark, political fantasy where the world of Oz is controlled by the Wizard a dictator who is at the head of a massive propaganda machine that focuses on scapegoating capital-A-Animals, a group of talking Animals, as to being for blame for all of society’s ills. Elphaba is born into this world and shaped by the political climate, and her condition of being born with green skin and sympathies with the plight of the Animal lead to her being labeled as the enemy of all society. The “Wicked Witch” is a title given to Elphaba to make her a political scapegoat, the same way that “Good Witch” is given to Glinda when he joins the wizard’s propaganda machine.
There are three versions of the story, the book, the musical, and the as-of-now incomplete movie version. However, we are going to be focusing on the musical version because I like to pretend the book does not exist. The Musical is divided into two acts, act one focusing on Elphaba’s school life leading up to meeting the wizard and deciding to turn against him the act which got her labelled as the Wicked Witch, and act two takes place after a timeskip where several tragic events in Elphaba’s life which serve as the explanation for why she acted towards Dorothy the way she did in the Wizard of Oz.
The ostensible point of both the book and the musical is to humanize a character who was otherwise a one-dimmensional villain in a children’s fairy tale. There’s no deep reason for why the Wicked Witch of the West wants the silver shoes in L Frank Baum’s novel besides the fact that they would have granted her immense power. In the MGM movie the Witch is given an expanded role in the book to make her a main antagonist, and her motives become a little more layered - she appears before the munchkins to avenge her sister’s death and then is upset when the shoes she came to claim from her sister appear on Dorothy’s feet instead. Margaret Hamilton’s witch also claims to want the shoes because of the magic contained within, and despite a legendary performance the character doesn’t have much more depth in spite of all of the additional scenes.
So, the musical asks the question what could possibly motivate someone to torment a twelve year old girl over a pair of shoes. In doing so not only does it add depth to a world of black and white good and evil that runs on child logic, it also shows the way the concepts of “goodness” and “badness” are made up terms that can be used to manipulate the public and our perception of things.
Ozian: Glinda, why does wickedness happen? Glinda: That’s a good question; one that many people find confusifying. Are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them? After all, she had a childhood,; She had a father, who just happed to be the governor of munchlinkland.
Which finally dovetails to my point, that Elphaba and the way she is victim blamed and scapegoated for all the tragic things that happen to her life, makes her what I define as a “Bad Victim.”
This is a random question, but do you have any book recommendations that remind you of the league of villains?
The League of Villains is a pretty unique dynamic I can’t think of anything quite like them, the closest is probably any iteration of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in X-Men. It’s not a book, but if you don’t want to read the comics you could watch X-Men: Evolution, the Pietro from that story made me love the character. Then, there’s also the Minus from Medaka Box, but that’s a manga not a novel.
I’m writing an original story with a set of villains inspired by the league and I’m planning on treating them way better than they were ever treated in My Hero Academia basically making them the deuteragonists of the story so you can check that out when it comes out though.
