The Four Color Media Monitor

I found this topic on Anime News Network's forum first posted 4 years back, where worrisome signs and vital reminders are given why manga's not immune to the kind of reprehensible illogic that ruined superhero comics in the USA. What's stated here is truly stupefying as it's nonsensical:

Recently on Youtube, I had a look at a video that had the most hated characters in anime. No surprise that a guy named Shou Tucker from "Full Metal Alchemist" would appear on that list. I've heard about what that guy did and don't worry, I'm with the rest of the community when I say I hate the guy, too. To me, whatever form of execution they have in their world would be very appropriate for him. He deserves it and a lot more than that. You don't do the things he did and should get off with just life imprisonment. He deserved to be executed and also all the hate he got for it. Any list with the most hated anime characters would be incomplete without this animal on it.

Another character on that list was "My Hero Academia's" Endeavor. What he did to his family, including his son, would cause that sort of hate. Even though he's trying to make up for his past actions, I can see why he would get and might I add, deserve that hatred. But, there's another character on that same show that deserves a lot more hate than he gets. Although most of the characters on "MHA" are likable, there's one of them that isn't and I don't know why people like him so much.

And, for me, that character is Katsuki Bakugo. What is it about him that people like so much? He's loud, obnoxious, a complete jerk, and a bully. In my opinion, he's easily one of the least likable, most hateful characters on that show. In many ways, he's like Char Aznable, the Ted Bundy of anime. Somehow, like Bakugo, he got a fan club even though he does some pretty horrible things. These two are able to get fans in spite of their misdeeds and it's a mystery to me as to why.

If Bakugo ever decided to go to the other side, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. He has all or nearly all of the personality traits of a villain. For goodness sakes, Lex Luthor would tell him to cool it. In Bakugo's eyes, everything's all about him and he treats others like trash, including Midoriya, who for reasons I haven't been able to explain, kept hanging out with him.

I've heard that a lot of people compared him to those like Naruto, Wolverine, or Rambo. I'm sorry, but to me, these comparisons have often fallen flat. Yeah, like Naruto, they're both pretty powerful and you don't want to get on the bad sides of either Wolverine or Rambo. But, that's where the similarities to those three characters end. For all his faults, Naruto cared about other people. He put his life on the line to help out others, including his friends. He eventually earned the love and respect he got.

While both Bakugo and Wolverine have got monster tempers, that's not only thing that defined him. While Wolverine could get mad and God help anyone who got him mad, he did have a compassionate side. He did care about others and the only time he did get mad was when he had reason to. Same thing with Rambo. You wouldn't want to make him mad at you but he had reasons to be angry. And, when Rambo gets mad at you, it's a good idea to find a place to hide.

And, I don't find those characteristics in Bakugo. He doesn't have the caring of either Naruto or Wolverine or some of the justifiable anger of Rambo. He doesn't care about anyone, including Izuku. Basically, he's a callous, nasty, angry, obnoxious creep who's one good point is that he admires All Might. Why does he want to be a hero? Most of the other characters have better reasons. Midoriya wanted to be a hero because he genuinely wanted to help and protect other people. Uraraka wanted to be a hero for the money, but that was because she wanted to give her parents something better than what they had. Iida's proud of his family and wants to prove that he's as great a hero as any of them, including his older brother.

I don't see anything like that in Bakugo. He doesn't really care about anyone, least of all, Midoriya. He even told him to commit suicide simply because he didn't have a Quirk. All in all, he's a nasty creep who has a temper that would make Godzilla run and hide. Unfortunately, his mom's just as temper-prone as he is. The only person in the Bakugo family who earns my sympathy is his father. It's hard not to imagine him wondering what he did that was so bad in a previous life that had cursed him to be around two of the angriest people on the face of the earth, his wife and son. I wouldn't blame him if he didn't contemplate harakiri at some point in his life. If I were in his shoes, those thoughts would immediately pop into my head. But, what do you think? Am I being to hard on him or not?

What I think is that the poster's complaints are entirely misplaced, in classically illogical fashion, and a stunning obscuration of the real guilty parties - the writers/artists. Specifically, mangaka Kohei Horikoshi, who created the story, and the anime adaptation series' main scriptwriter, Yosuke Koruda. How come they're not cited as culprits in the above mind-boggler? Are these fools really so embarrassed, they don't have the courage to say they're furious, or at least disappointed, with the mangakas and anime producers for failing to make Bakugo likable?

And why does Bakugo want to be a hero? Well duh, ask the mangaka that query! It's beyond disgraceful how the writers are throughly exonerated of any wrongdoing from A to Z, and sickening if the viewers and readers want Bakugo to become a villain. And if he did, would they suddenly be celebrating with a huge parade at every act of heinous evil he'd commit going forward? If that happened, it'd sum up another serious issue with these lemmings: too much villain worship. Apart from that, it's not hard to guess they believe that, instead of improving Bakugo's representation, he should get none at all. In which case, it's the same problem that's brought down Apu on the Simpsons.

Here's another example from the thread from more recent months (nobody seemed to reply until 2023):

Well, I'm glad to see this one finally get some comments. Since ayushiest was the first, I'll respond to him or her first. It wasn't Bakugo's contribution to the plot that got to me. He's just an abrasive, nasty character. I never liked that. Although he gets better, it's not by a whole lot. I just wished someone punched him in the face. I simply have a hard time with that creep.

As for you Blood-,I'm glad I'm not the only one who hates Bakugo. It's just a shame that he made you quit watching "MHA." There are far better characters on the show that are basically better than him. I hope you return to the show. It's very good. I hope you give it another chance. It's very enjoyable. I've been watching it. As I've said before, he's one of the least likable characters on the show, but you shouldn't have let him spoil the show for you. There are better characters on the show. I hope one day you'll give "MHA" another chance. I promise, you won't be disappointed.

I'd seen seen other lemmings talk that way about Gambit from the X-Men years back on other internet message boards, and today, I'm disgusted how even I was brainless enough to do stuff like that, as I'd noted in the past. I'm glad today that I broke free of such a destructive mentality, and that's but one more reason why I'm taking issue with the so-called manga readers as much as the so-called comics readers who haven't changed. They say other cast members are "better" than Bakugo? Well that's because the writers had the audacity to give them better characterization! Here's another message involving a manga titled Claymore, from the mid-2000s:

I’m barely starting MHA and Baku is already making me consider dropping it. Such a poor 2D character. One note that’s it.

And Raki from Claymore. Again almost took me entirely out of the series. But part of that may have been amplified by the hideous English dub voice actor. Even with subs I hated his inclusion.

Here we go again. No disappointment at the mangaka, Norihiro Yogi, for any poor characterization on his part, or the anime's writer, Yasuko Kobayashi, for failing to improve on that, I see. But say, what's this word at the end here? "Inclusion"? What are the odds this person believes LGBT practitioners, by sharp contrast, should be included everywhere in real life, no matter their attitudes and personalities, even at the expense of women's dignity? It's a fascinating question indeed. Why do real life ideologues get a pass, but not a fictional character, unless maybe said character was an LGBT adherent? In which case, it'd be clear these illogical misgivings stem from preying on easy targets out of PC mentality, by people suffering from "liberal guilt". The double-standards are stunning. Somebody else said:

yeah, that's how almost everyone starts. just keep going. he's a completely different person by the end of season 6

Well if that's so, then the much needed repair job may have taken place. And leave it to a mangaka - and anime producers - to comprehend the logical reasons for what's wrong, and do what USA comics writers won't: make improvements that a sane person offers appreciation for in a fictional character's personality. Another poster said:

Bakugo is a dick in general, but he's not "willing accessory to mass murder" evil. You can be an abrasive asshole and still ultimately be a good person where it counts.

Bakugo really went from an absolute dumpster fire to one of my favorite characters. He starts out as your cliche middle school bully, but then from basically Day One of high school he starts getting put in his place; Kaminari straight up calls his personality garbage, to his face, all the way back in season one and none of his classmates are ever impressed by his jackass behavior. In the past six seasons, we've watched him go from the piece of shit he was to a decent person willing to genuinely apologize and go beyond (plus ultra) the call of duty. One of Horikoshi's greatest strengths with writing is the characters who show real emotional growth, and the only way to do that realistically is as a slow burn that doesn't become obvious until it's already well on the way.

Hell, the boy gets kidnapped in season 3 because the villains saw how trash is attitude is and expected him to be on their side. If that's not some consequences for his shitty behavior, I don't know what is. He's sitting there chained up, surrounded by people who could and would kill him without a second thought if they decided he wasn't worth their time. Other series would have fed into his inferiority complex with Deku and had him join to get stronger, or at least pretend he was interested so he could double-cross them later. What does our Angry Rowdy Boy do? He doesn't even consider that, he's pissed off they'd ever expect him to be on their side. This kid, who has no idea help is on the way and probably expects he'll die before it gets there, squares up his nuts of steel and tells the gang of violent murderers to go fudge themselves off a cliff. Absolute king shit.

So there you have it, Bakugo underwent a shift from awful personality to a more respectable one, yet the topic starter still seemed hesitant to admit it's great, and still sounded like he'd prefer he face a terrible fate. There was also mention of a character called Mineti, who's written as a pervert, but that too is the scriptwriters' fault for characterizing him as such. And then, look at corporate owned USA comics by contrast, where nobody was willing to let Danny Chase in the New Teen Titans receive improvement, and he was eventually sent to the afterlife for far less. It's a similar case with Hal Jordan, Jean Loring, Scarlet Witch and Spoiler, lest we forget. Why, come to think of it, even Jack of Hearts, whose picture can be seen to the side here, a character first created by Bill Mantlo and Keith Giffen in 1976, shouldn't have to be damned because of the absurd looking suit he wears, recalling there may have been people who actually thought that in past decades, culminating in Avengers: Disassembled, where Brian Bendis brought him back to serve as a human explosive who'd ostensibly cost the life of 2nd Ant-Man Scott Lang. That too was atrocious and uncalled for. If anybody thought the Jack of Hearts costume was ludicrous, then gee, how come nobody thought to modify it? The number of birdbrains who couldn't be bothered to take even that challenge is head-shaking.

And so, we have here an example how manga's not immune to the kind of embarrassments American comics have long fallen victim to, nor is anime. But what's really chilling is when criminals in fiction get far more respect than the heroes do, no matter how the latter's characterized, and illustrated. It's just shameful. Somebody needs to make clear here that this damning of fictional characters substituting for constructive criticism of the real life writers is simply unacceptable, and needs to change for the better. Because if we don't wise up, then manga will eventually collapse under the same Orwellian mindsets that have brought down USA comics.

Labels: Europe and Asia, golden calf of death, golden calf of villainy, history, manga and anime