Well, I’m back again for another entry in this thought-provoking prompt series, and boy is this a challenging subject. Villainy in storytelling can be extremely subjective; when a villain’s motivations are known and their character reads as sympathetic, their status as an iconic, cackling villain doesn’t always pan-out. Yet if the character is a mustache-twirling baddie who does terrible things for no good reason whatsoever (beyond acting as something for the “good-guys” to battle against), that usually feels unsatisfying. It’s the rare character that fits the stereotypical “villain” mold and yet is still nuanced enough to be worth talking about. It’s a conundrum, to be honest.
The more I’ve thought about the “best” (worst?) anime villain, the more my mind has been tempted to go abstract. I don’t think I could narrow the concept down to one character anyway, and considering the types of series I tend to gravitate towards (slice-of-life stories, or character dramas), my selection pool isn’t that great to begin with. So I thought I’d use this as an opportunity to talk about something I’ve been meaning to for a while – toxic masculinity.
Because this can be a touchy subject, I want to start off by saying that using the term “toxic masculinity” isn’t meant to imply that being a masculine person is inherently toxic. When I think of positive masculine traits (“masculine” meaning existing on a continuum of traits rather than traits limited to expression by male-presenting individuals), I think of things like physical strength (without dominance), protectiveness (without paternalism), confidence (without arrogance), bravery (without crass bravado), and a willingness to demonstrate and express ranges of emotion without lashing-out at others – traits I’d commonly associate with the best father-figures, male teachers, and friends in my life. I was lucky enough to grow up watching Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, Reading Rainbow, and The Joy of Painting, which provided me with some great TV role models and who helped offset the many examples of bumbling male sit-com characters that have always seemed to be en vogue in American entertainment. Part of what attracted me to my husband was the fact that he embodies a lot of the traits that come to mind when I recall these role models.
Looking to the realm of anime, the type of male characters that I’m drawn to also tend to exemplify this sort of ideal. Characters like Takashi Natsume, Prince Zen, or Sora Kashiwagi aren’t your typical domineering male hero-types – they’re kind, caring, and capable of heroism in their own way without belittling others. Of course, anime being a reflection of humanity like any other art form means that it has the potential to reflect the bad as well as the good, both overtly through the use of purposeful antagonists, as well as inadvertently by glorifying the type of macho behavior that ends up causing pain and strife.
For example, Akio Ohtori from Revolutionary Girl Utena is a pretty obvious scumbag who manipulates others and sexually-coerces people (including his own sister and her underage friends) by using his position of power in unseemly ways. It’s obvious to us as an audience that he’s terrible, but I think his true insidiousness is that his toxicity as a sexual manipulator is looked up to as a positive example by multiple other characters – definitely Touga, and to some extent Saionji as well. Akio’s influence helps spread his awful behavior to others like a disease because wielding power, being promiscuous, and being a “boss” over a bunch of hangers-on is still seen in some circles as being a good example of masculine behavior. But Akio is meant to be an antagonist, and while his lackeys might look to him as a role-model I’d venture that the majority audience interpretation of him (at least from all the reading I’ve done over the past 18-some years since I first watched the series) is that he’s a fascinating character and also a bad person.
On the other hand, there are an abundance of anime stories that indulge in characters’ destructive power fantasies – seeking revenge for some perceived wrongs through violence or manipulation, gaining dominance (sexual or otherwise) over women – and while in some of these cases I think there’s an effort to frame the protagonist’s attitude and actions as negative, there are still others in which there’s a tendency to glorify them as admirable, or at least justified as some kind of revenge for earlier wrongs. I’m reticent to give many specific examples, because it’s the type of subject matter that seems to call out the trolls en masse, but I’ll just say there have been quite a few isekai series within the past few years that seem to have been created expressly as vehicles for male characters to reinvent themselves as sexually dominant (or literally slave-owning) masters of their own destiny in ways that reveal their negativity when examined even nominally.
I think this gets to the essence of what I see as “villainous” here – wrongheaded, toxic ideas such as men being “owed” sexual attention from women (and vice-versa, though I rarely see the opposite portrayed), or that “might makes right” and power somehow equals justification of one’s actions. While I think there are always arguments to be made about how media and “real-life” influence one-another, and how consuming media that portrays regressive behavior might influence someone’s actual mindset (to be honest I don’t think it influences it so much as helps confirm whatever opinions someone might already have), I see these sorts of things as reflections of our worse tendencies as people. While it can sometimes be cathartic to watch characters do things that we would never actually be able to do, I think enjoying that type of material without questioning its deeper implications or recognizing that some of the character behavior that at one time may have been glorified by our culture is actually harmful is a poor approach. And it’s frustrating when a story’s protagonist, the person for whom we the audience are supposed to be cheering, embodies the very essence of these traits, especially when their expression in real life has harmed people.
This is all, of course, a very difficult subject to talk about, because it tends to deal in absolutes. In so much fiction, a villain is a villain throughout the story, and when that villain expresses traits that are common in real-life, there’s an implication that people who are like that can never improve themselves. I think that’s probably why I enjoy character redemption arcs so thoroughly. I really loved the series Snow White With the Red Hair, and not just because I think Prince Zen is a great example of a male character. I also appreciate the fact that Prince Raj, one of the early antagonists, has the opportunity to wrestle with his own bad behavior and learns to reign in his toxic traits (with the help of his friendship with the show’s heroine, naturally). He starts off seeing Shirayuki as his subject and his property, and flaunts his position and his wealth to intimidate her into becoming his concubine. But later in the series, when the two are forced to interact and Raj comes face-to-face with the reality of his entitled, gross behavior, he learns to see Shirayuki not as a piece of property, but as a human being with talent and kindness, and also eventually a friend.
I suppose the lesson from all this is that villainy is most striking when it feels real – reality in this case referring to the social strife that’s defined much of our recent history. It’s one thing to hold a city hostage with some ill-defined doomsday device; it’s yet another to coerce, manipulate, and harm other people in ways that are all-too-familiar to many audience members.
I’m sure those of you reading probably have some more straightforward answers to this prompt. Let me know who your favorite baddie is in the comments!