All right kids grab your pitchforks and sit in your seats.
What I am going to discuss is a trigger word called ‘Opinion’, and even worse,
it is ‘Opposing Opinion’. But since this is my discussion piece, I would like you
to be patient and let me make my case.
Right off the bat, I like Haikyu and I love My Hero
Academia. I love Haikyu’s success in luring a non-sportsperson like me to seek
more of it. My Hero Academia has always been in news, raking in positive
response from the anime community. And these are the reasons which let me take
a closer look at its characters.
Both shows have three seasons each, with interesting
individuals and impressive teams. Both have equally interesting rivalry
dynamic. Every character bounces off the screen beautifully in their respective
shows. They have screen presence, and they leave impact whenever its needed.
But that is all.
All this impressive feat end when we start digging in the
characters a little more deeply. Haikyu’s characters are single dimensional. My
Hero Academia is better, but it has two-dimensional characters at best. Let’s
look at them together first and then discuss where they differentiate.
HAIKYU! & MHA, THE SIMILARITIES
Both shows have teams. Haikyu focuses on Volleyball, so
having a team is a no-brainer. Show focuses on the need of a cohesive team or
failure is inevitable. We see the characters’ journey from a rag-tag group of
Volleyball players to a force to be reckoned with. The journey is rather
impressive, and we are given terminology to analyze the tricks and cheats going
on in a game. I personally know everything the show taught me about Volleyball
because of how the show decided to represent the game to us.
HeroAca doesn’t focus on teams that much. But the importance
of a team is well taught to every student. The first activity we see in the
show is a team event [Ignoring Aizawa’s ‘personal attribute activity’, because
as fun as it was, All Might’s activity was more impressive]. All of this play
comes back again and again, where situations get dire and an impromptu team
makes itself and characters have to fight their way out of it. Be it the
tournament arc’s game 2, or rescuing Bakugo from League of villains.
Then comes the individual development, which is handled
spectacularly by both shows. The most important part is that there HAS to be a
visible change taking place, not like KanEdgy of Tokyo Ghoul.
Hinata’s desire to see the ball rather than charging in
blind [literally] to Kageyama’s ‘Drop receive’. There is little difference
visually [at least it was to me], but they made me believe, and thus, I
believed. My favourite individual change arc was that of Tsukishima in Season 3.
Paired with changes in Yamaguchi’s receive, Kei’s transformation was visible to
my naked eye, so I was even more impressed with the show.
I actually have not many things to say about MHA, as it has
one of the best character developments. Second episode of the first season reveals the end goal of the
manga, where Deku would be the best hero. It doesn’t matter how he reaches
there, we are here for the journey. And doing that is bold. Then there are
background reveal of Todoroki and Kota. Reasons behind Uraraka and Iida's actions,
inspirations held by Kirishima and Spinner. To top it all off, Bakugo’s thought
process and his
reasoning regarding All Might losing his power, but I will come
back to this.
And that ends all the similarities. Lets start punching
holes in the shows shall we?
HAIKYU & MHA, FALLING FLAT
HAIKYU
Let’s take Haikyu first. I already said first that all the
characters are single dimensional. And still, Haikyu is liked by almost
everyone. Hell, the only sports anime I had watched before Haikyu was Yuri on
Ice, and that was a massive failure of appeal. Personally, that was my first
anime which had same-sex relation [not considering hentai], and I really
enjoyed that aspect of the show. BACK TO HAIKYU…
All the characters have one boner in their mind, and that is
Volleyball [Maybe not Tanaka and Nishinoya and Tora]. And that makes sense
right? It’s a sports amine, focusing on the sport.
WRONG! Because of this trait, characters get almost no
depth. Everyone is framed around how they would play the sport, not even
hinting on any other aspect. Coming back to Tsukishima, his family situation
was the one which eventually pushed him towards betterment. That context helped
adding some depth to him.
What I know about everyone after watching three seasons is
that everyone has reasons to play Volleyball, and that is it. You know barely
anything of their lives off the court. We don’t even need to focus on numerous
characters at all. Focusing on the interesting side characters would have been one solution. Put Oikawa in the spotlight. Give Nishinoya and Tanaka sibilings an OVA. I can use a beach episode where Shiratorizawa and Karasuno play
beach Volleyball. As a straight male, I would prefer sweat highlighted on their
abs and biceps.
It caught me with the interesting play and technique, not
interesting characters. Their bare personality and what they can bring to the
table helps us give them a definition and nothing more.
Some may say it is not required, and I agree. Because
mangaka decided not to give characters a personality off court let him be focused
on the game. As much humor is derived from gameplay and player conflict, equal
laughs are provided by the slice of life parts of the show. That proves that a
one off chapter or episode would have been a breather.
MHA
MHA’s characters are better, but not too far off. At best,
all of them are two-dimensional characters. There are two aspects on the mental
spectrum of most of the characters. If you are not a hero, you are a villain.
This is the message I got from watching 50+ episodes. I know there is a
‘VIGILANTE’ manga, but I am not focused on it. At best, I am playing the ‘Anime
Only’ card with these shows.
However, I have read MHA manga until the hero
‘HAWKS’ enters. I do not remember the chapter number, but this 2D characters
thing does not change in manga either.
There is only one character which walk the line of grey
between this black and white society, and that is Stain. He is the character
who believes in hero ideals but plays them by inverting them. That is as grey
one gets. It opens the door for his possible comeback and a well-deserved focus
on his background.
Coming back to the major characters, you want to know their
backgrounds because it would be fun, and not out of curiosity. You would not
know about Todoroki if show didn’t conveniently set up his dialogue at the
beginning of season 2. That was necessary, but there was no hint of anything in
season one. You may call it the entry of a fark horse, I call it conveniently
but forcefully shoeing it in. that little challenge to Deku came out of
nowehere and forced the viewer to pay attention. What I would have liked more
would have been no dialogue and a straight leap into the hurdle race. He was
badass from the get-go which guaranteed eyes would be stuck to him. Why was the
dialogue in the beginning in the show if Todoroki was going to confront Deku
after the second game anyway?
Sorry, I didn’t mean to go off and discuss the whole scene,
but all the problem is with the characters. Maybe it is shonen, so everything must
be spelled out for the audience. I don’t understand. If this is one of the
staples of shonen, then take it from me. The anime watchers are smart. If
Todoroki glared at Deku in that room, that would have been enough. But no, one
must pick a side of good or evil, and the middleman can suck his thumb.
The essay didn’t cover everything, but it has enough point
to hammer my point. But you know what breaks my heart? There are equally high
caliber shows which are like them and have no such problem. I am going to
combine the team aspect from Haikyu, and superhero trait from MHA, and talk a
little about the show which does it better in both aspects.
ONE PUNCH MAN
OPM is a smart show. Not a perfect show, but a smart show.
It has the desire to throw their character in interesting situations, like MHA,
but it doesn’t have a standard. There are no villains. There are only threats.
Just like Psycho Pass, anyone can become a source of danger. Again, like MHA,
but MHA loves to label its characters as ‘Villains’. Then there are teams, which
are not coherent, but are effective. The team of S-class heroes battling
against the alien near the end of the show, and Genos being worthless.
Saitama is one of the shallowest character but it works
because of the setup. His outlook is the source of comedy, and it much needed.
But he HAS personality. He is not the righteous one, but he always wants to do
the right thing. The one who HAS a backstory is Genos, which we would like to
know, as I do with more of MHA characters and with much more depth.
KING and GAROU are the definition of grey. Just like Stain,
King is a grey of extremes. He is a highly ranked and respected hero, but he is
a cheat and liar. He prefers saving game progress rather than save lives. Garou
on the other hand, is a bad guy, who gets into a fight with Metal Bat. Metal
Bat successfully holds him at bay, and then Garou gets his ass beaten by
Watchdog Man. He keeps up his douchebaggery but befriends a boy in the process.
This connection goes a long way for Garou, and I rather not speak about it for
Anime Only readers.
THE PROBLEM WITH STANDARD CHARACTERS
A lot of anime work if they have a standard of a character
to behold. You find this in crappy isekai shows like ‘In another world with
smartphone’ and ‘How not to summon a demon lord’, both of which I have nothing
nice to say about. Then there are characters like Subaru from Re:Zero, who I am
completely interested in and would love to know more about.
I guess the problem comes down to the black and white
characters. Do not pick a standard and run with it if the premise sucks too.
This is the problem with harem anime like Highschool DXD (Which I love btw!)
and Nisekoi (an ultimate waste of my time).
I also have nothing good to say about imouto anime, because
they are nothing more than clichefest for me. I lost interest in Eromanga
Sensei, I dropped OniAi after second episode, and I was able to bear Yosuga no
sora because there were more interesting characters, WHICH DID HAVE
INTERESTING
PERSONALITIES.
In the end I can say, you may flame my opinion and feed it
to the dogs, but you can not neglect what I have said. The best 3D character
anime I have ever watched is BACCANO, and that is a very high wall to climb. I
am filled with curiosity when Ladd is on screen. I am filled with dread when
Veno is gracing us with his presence. I want to know more about Czeslaw and Lua
and Luck. Finally I want to know how Miria and Isaac spent 70 years and failed
to notice that they have not gotten old!
That is some good writing, and I hope more anime can pop up
in coming time.
Follow me on Twitter @rishabh_SSW and let me know that I
have shit opinion.
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