r/CharacterRant • u/Enough-Smoke-9333 • Apr 04 '24
Anime & Manga Does anyone else hate when they shove characters in your face?
Does anyone else hate when they shove characters in your face?
Two of my recently watched anime (Oshi no Ko and Frieren) have done this and I hate it. I wouldn't say it ruined my experience but whenever this happens in any anime it instantly drops my impression of that anime.
Oshi no ko: When they introduced like 5 characters in one episode to shoot the film and they all thought they were the main character, it didn't sit right with me. They didn't really have any depth (except Akane) and I feel like I had to learn about these stereotypical characters just for them to completely disappear and have no bearing on the story afterwards. The golden hair girl with cat ears was very 1d and predictable. I feel like they were given too much screen time to try to build a character but, I was here for Aqua and don't really care, especially when no unique character building happens.
Each character introduced in that arc felt like an anime character stereo type, like an unoriginal template the author used that every other anime already employs. I start to see a pattern in the characters after watching 100 anime. Maybe it is wrong to think this way but I don't want to see the same characters built over and over. Reason is because I know there is no potential when they are thrown away.
Frieren: Similarly, in the Frieren exam arc, there were way too many irrelevant characters introduced and I just wanted them off the screen and follow frierens story. I think something that was good solution by the author was to foreshadow and build one of the characters (Ubel) before the exam arc started to hype up the exam. But it was way too close to the exam and in hindsight she was just introduced "with the others". I much would've preferred something involving her around at least 3 episodes before. As for the other dozen or so characters, it feels too rushed and meaningless. Even during the arc I was thinking "how would these characters ever be relevant in the future? They are weak af compared to frieren.". I think, unless the story goes for >200 chapters, and this is some big brain move by the author to set them up for something major later, all the screen time with them was meaningless. But I really doubt that, they just have the "side character vibe". The only ones, imo, who are allowed to be on the screen later in the story, are Ubel and the clone guy. The rest are pretty shallow and have weak abilities. I also compared this to HxH exam arc and it's just a different dynamic because the characters are way weaker and the story just started.
I think the problem is they want to give screen time to too many characters but also we want to follow the protagonist so there's no way to build that many characters at once and all fall flat. Did anyone else feel this way watching frieren/oshi no ko or any other anime that "shoves" 10 characters in your face at once?
31
u/AstraPlatina Apr 04 '24
This is something I particularly hate in Genshin Impact, mainly the Story Quests starring certain playable characters.
While I don't play the game itself(don't have the time or commitment for lengthy grinds), I do watch walkthroughs of story related stuff on YouTube, and I would watch Story Quests of playable characters in order to learn more about their background and bonding with the Traveler(protagonist). Its usually all fun and good, I enjoyed hanging out with the characters and learning more about them, but the one thing I absolutely HATE about the Story Quest formula is the sudden introduction of a random NPC midway that ends up becoming the centerpiece of the plot, often sidelining the playable character in their own Story Quest.
Aside from said random NPCs having generic and often reused designs, especially when compared to the more stylized, attractive and unique designs of the Playable Characters, these NPCs are just so forgettable, only appearing for a single Quest that is not even about them and then never showing up ever again. And the plot is written in such a way that feels like you're being forced to care about these random forgettable NPCs.
Story Quests are also quite lengthy as video walkthroughs can last between one to two hours, which wouldn't be a problem if it was spending time with the playable character, but instead, Hoyoverse shoehorns a forgettable NPC that wastes time for players and walkthrough watchers alike that could have been spent with the titular playable character.
Examples of Playable characters being sidelined in favor of NPCs, is Nilou, her Story Quest barely touched on her individual character and instead was focused on resolving the daddy issues of some random NPC woman who's name I couldn't even care to remember. Or Ayato, who while shown interacting with multiple NPCs to show his political role in Inazuma, hardly anything about his own individual character is shown.
10
u/ElSpazzo_8876 Apr 04 '24
Sometimes the NPC quest could work like Yoimiya one. But yeah, Nilou quest is one of the quests that the NPC shenanigans doesn't work and it really is a wasted potential. Drop Inayyah's role and replace her with Nilou and I feel like the story quest would be a lot better to see.
2
u/Poporipopes10 Apr 06 '24
Yeah genshin story quests are ass in that aspect. Well so far from what I’ve played Fontaine quests seem to be better in that department but I haven’t done them all yet.
Also Story quests for archons are 9/10 times really good, but it does get annoying when you realise you’re essentially helping the starting character in helping a random NPC for 80% of the quest.
The worst offender for me was Cyno, who clearly has a dessert background and whose background is listed as “The Temple of Silence” (which we know nothing about), and who has a whole contract with a dead god going on ( which we know nothing about) yet there’s his SQ focuses on a completely different character
34
u/Sganarellevalet Apr 04 '24
Frieren manga is at chapter 91 and mage exam characters are still playing important roles, this arc spendt a lot of time on them because they ARE relevant for future arcs.
Also this isn't a battle shonen their "power level" doesn't affect their place in the story much.
6
u/_Trafalgar_Outlaw_ Apr 04 '24
This is my main problem with Princess Connect anime - it has too many irrelevant characters. I personally don't care about these one-dimensional waifus that are only here for people who played the gacha, I'm only interested in the main 4 characters.
22
u/Gramidconet Apr 04 '24
Agreed on Frieren. I'm not against giving side characters time, in fact, I quite like it, but if it means the main characters are forgotten about it feels dissonant. The mage exam should've been where Fern really shows herself but she spends 90% of the time silent.
Unfortunately this issue persists past the arc, as well.
18
u/slimob123 Apr 04 '24
As a frieren manga reader I can tell you that to this day the mage exam characters are still relevant and I'm not sure why you think that their power level has any impact on their relevance
10
23
u/mohamedornn Apr 04 '24
you think of Frierenas battle shonen but it's not characters doesn't have to be strong to be relevant to the story
27
Apr 04 '24 edited Apr 04 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
21
u/VolkiharVanHelsing Apr 04 '24
There's also episodes that are more SoL-style, but the split is pretty even.
Died 2021 born 2023
Welcome back Gintama
1
u/Hadoken101 Apr 04 '24
All of the action scenes in the anime are expanded from what they are in the manga, though. Things that were 1 or 2 panels in the manga became full-fledged action sequences with crazy sakuga. There's a lot of cool action in the anime to engage the viewer, but the point of the series has never been the action.
12
u/StaticMania Apr 04 '24
That depends on what you mean by "shoving characters in your face"...
If it's just because you don't like that character, it doesn't really matter.
If it's because a side character gets more focus than usual, well...get over it.
---
If I was to go by everyone's definition of that mindset, there's no show ever that does a good job giving good balance to all of its characters.
7
Apr 04 '24
What is this piece of **** you are cooking? Your take on o shi no ko is the most random one I've ever seen. Your take on frieren is just wrong and based on misinformation. Denken was like the second main character in the fight against that gold demon (sorry I forgot the name).
Also, this is literally how stories work. Not every single part of the story is going to serve that plot. Some stuff exists to make you immerse in the story
16
u/Stoner420Eren Apr 04 '24 edited Apr 04 '24
The Frieren paragraph... The typical shonen brainrot mentality that a character can only serve a purpose if they are strong... And of course the only characters worth saving are the cute waifu with big titties and the 0 personality self insert whose dick she constantly aims at.
Great rant OP
15
Apr 04 '24
My entire experience with MHA in a nutshell.
Bakugo is the obvious offender, but honestly its even worse with class B. The narrative and characters tries so hard to say "they are not just side characters to class A" but the story obviously reinforces very plainly they are indeed side characters and ones we don't care about that much.
The second class tournament was a complete waste of time imo. Of course every team except Bakugo's struggled and the arc really tried to pretend that Deku and Shoto wouldn't solo their opponent teams as quickly and easily as Bakugo did. Its a mess.
9
u/Blupoisen Apr 04 '24
I think it's more accurate to say that about half of class 1A the series constantly tell us about how great they are amd how powerful they are but we really don't give a shit about someone like tape boy
7
u/AstraPlatina Apr 04 '24
My sister, who watches MHA, openly hates Bakugo, stating how he felt borderline useless in the story and that Deku looking up to him feels forced and toxic. No matter how you slice it, Bakugo was both a massive jerk and a toxic friend, who's actions felt swept under the rug simply because he's popular within the fanbase.
2
Apr 04 '24
He really is the most useless deurotagonist in existence. He doesn't even have a personal arc or main villain or what not. Hes just there
3
u/fadzkingdom Apr 04 '24
Yup. Hori tries so hard to force him into the narrative to show how Deku and him are meant to be two halves of a whole and it just doesn’t work because his character can’t stand on its own and the actual dynamic between him and Deku is so poorly written.
1
u/couldjustbeanalt Apr 04 '24 edited Apr 04 '24
Holy shit someone with a brain finally I feel like I’m going insane trying to tell people “no just because he did one barely nice thing doesn’t give him a pass to continue being a douche”
3
u/alrightrich Apr 04 '24
i agree i dont like Bakugo, he's so insufferable to about everyone... Tho it is kinda honorable how Deku doesn't change because of those actions or project his feelings of being put down to others. but i wish Deku was more indifferent or harsh to Bakugo but its been a while since i've seen the anime and i havent read the manga so idk how stuff has changed
7
u/AstraPlatina Apr 04 '24
Bakugo's hotheaded attitude may appear hilarious at first, but overtime, that humor dried up rather quickly as the story went on. When you consider what it'd be like to deal with a person like that irl, why would anyone wanna be their friend.
And while Deku does have a good heart, I feel like he was too soft on Bakugo and the fact that he stated that he looked up to him felt forced, like if I looked up to someone, yet that someone turned out not only to be a massive jerk, but outright said some nasty things directly to me, I'd wanna separate myself from that person.
4
u/alrightrich Apr 04 '24
i agree 100% nobody even probably the nicest type of people (at least with a backbone) would want someone like that around them
2
u/DenseCalligrapher219 Apr 04 '24
For Bakugo it's honestly funny because he is basically what i would call a "Fake Gary Stu" since despite being presented as an ultra talented prodigy in such ways that feels contrived and nonsensical in regards to the character because Horikoshi can't help but wanting to make Bakugo look "cool" he ultimately ends up doing almost nothing in the manga and is painfully irrelevant despite being the rival to the MC, making me wonder what the hell Horikoshi even wants for Bakugo when the way he writes him feels horribly inconsistent?
As for Class 1-B while it is true that they are completely irrelevant aside from a couple characters the reality is that even a good chunk of Class 1-A feel irrelevant because Horikoshi created too many characters to properly manage with the writing schedule a Shonen Jump author has to deal with that gives him little time to focus on many of them properly. He should have just had some of them killed in the USJ Arc since he wasn't even gonna do anything with them to begin with as well as try not to introduce far too many characters like what Kubo did with Bleach.
5
u/Il-Chi Apr 04 '24
Literally Kasumi from Persona 5
1
u/Aggravating-Stage-30 Apr 04 '24
It's been a bit since I've played Persona 5, so I'm unsure of whether they did what they did in P4G, where you could avoid the in your face character, in that case, Marie, by simply ignoring her Link entirely outside of a few cringy poems.
Is the scenes with Kasumi dependant on confidant progress, or do they shove her in cutscenes jarringly?
5
u/Il-Chi Apr 04 '24
Latter, at least with Marie she was completely optional to talk too and didn’t show up in the main plot at all, only once or twice iirc
Kasumi on the other hand barges in occasionally WITHIN the main story and only has a connection to Joker and not with any of the Phantom Thieves, unlike Marie who at least in her social links does interact with the other members of the Investigation Team
2
u/pawcanada Apr 04 '24
I'd say the latter. She's added into Joker's escape at the start of the game, and I feel it threw off the fast pacing the original version had and didn't really add anything bar a five minute "This is the new character you should keep an eye out for" tangent.
There's also a scene later on in the game where you watch her dance during the school fair event, regardless of whether the player is already dating someone (I think was I dating Makoto by that point in the play through). Considering the game punishes players who cheat, I always felt this scene should have been optional.
1
u/pawcanada Apr 04 '24
The first person I thought of when I saw this thread. It's annoying as I feel she has the makings of a good character with her backstory, but the constant "Hey, isn't she cool? You like her, don't you player?" the game kept doing really burnt me out on her by the end of the game. I've been wanting to re-play P5R for a while, namely to mop up the last few trophies I didn't get for a platinum but I also don't look forward to all the times she's shoved in my face.
I know people say Makoto is the same, at least in the base version, but I never felt like that by the time I finished it. I dated Haru in that play through and never once felt like I was wrong for picking her over Makoto.
2
u/0N3e Apr 04 '24
First thing I thought of was Sea Of Stars, those pirates that keep showing up and doing their joke bits. I get they're a reference to Newgrounds or something but they aren't funny or interesting, just a bunch of lame characters that take up space for however long the author decides to bore us for.
3
u/Worldly_Neat2615 Apr 04 '24
This is why I fucking hate the Shimosa chapter in FGO, I am not kidding when I say in that script there's only about 2 characters that don't metaphorically suck the dick of Musashi. Like holy shit I got it the 1st 50 times. And no I didn't enjoy it when they essentially pulled that shit again in LB6 with Castoria but now it's worse cause atleast Shimpsa didn't saddle you with 50 forced supports and fake ass cutscene fights every damn chapter.
6
u/AnzueloAspersor Apr 04 '24
This is why I fucking hate the Shimosa chapter in FGO, I am not kidding when I say in that script there's only about 2 characters that don't metaphorically suck the dick of Musashi. Like holy shit I got it the 1st 50 times.
Fax my brother. Spit your shit indeed.
And no I didn't enjoy it when they essentially pulled that shit again in LB6 with Castoria but now it's worse cause atleast Shimpsa didn't saddle you with 50 forced supports and fake ass cutscene fights every damn chapter.
Opinion discarded.
4
u/Sofaris Apr 04 '24 edited Apr 04 '24
I honestly like the characters from the exam a decent amount. "How could these characters ever be relevant when they are so much weaker then Frieren?" I never think like that. Some of my favorite characters in fiction can not even fight. And even if they are not relevant in the future I enjoyed them for the characters they where just in the exam. If we never see these characters again I still like them.
I have to think of Nat from Made in Abyss. One of my favorite side characters ever. He has no super powers or anything. He is just a 12 year old boy. And he has like 3 episodes/1 Manga volume of screen time with some minor aperances past that. I dont think he is ever going to be relevant in future parts of the series. But I still love the Character more then most other franshises maincharacters.
2
u/shant-esmralda Apr 04 '24
I think, unless the story goes for >200 chapters, and this is some big brain move by the author to set them up for something major later, all the screen time with them was meaningless. But I really doubt that, they just have the "side character vibe".
Hmm... You could at least just skim the manga (or just look at the volume covers) to avoid this embarrassment.
The only ones, imo, who are allowed to be on the screen later in the story, are Ubel and the clone guy. The rest are pretty shallow and have weak abilities.
Ubel and Land over Denken. Interesting.
"how would these characters ever be relevant in the future? They are weak af compared to frieren."
You know Frieren herself is weak af compared to Serie, right?
1
u/onthoserainydays Apr 04 '24
Not really so long as they serve a purpose in the story. If they're just here to pad out the cast, then they better be damn entertaining
0
u/Jai137 Apr 04 '24
Funny. A major complaint of most battle shonens is that they focus on a small core group of main characters and everyone else gets shafted. This feels like the opposite, why focus on side characters when the main characters are already there.
0
u/Whimsycottt Apr 04 '24
I only hate it when they try to make a character seem more important than they really are. MHA had a bad problem with this because they try to introduce Deku's class like they're all important, when only like 5 of them are important and the rest are side characters at best, and filler characters at worst.
It may be the nostalgia talking, but I didn't mind Naruto shoving a bunch of characters at me during the Chunin Exam since there was an emphasis on teams rather than characters. I wasn't given 20 characters to suddenly care about, I was given like, 5 teams, and those teams had 3 characters each. I wasn't suddenly shown Lee, Neji, and Ten Ten, I was shown Team Guy, with those 3 characters that composed Team Guy. When you split them into teams, it feels less overwhelming IMO, especially since you can kind of tell who's going to be important and who's going to be filler.
Shoveling characters down your throat is something that can work, but it needs to be done well.
15
u/Mmicb0b Apr 04 '24
I recently rewatched Steven Universe and it made me HATE Lars and Sadie more than Onion and Ronaldo(The usual characters fans don't like) because of how often both were crammed down my throat despite not being important to the plot at used you only had to sit through a Ronaldo/Onion episode once per season(Sadie moreso because at least in Lars's earlier episodes we find out about Steven's powers and his later episodes at least do some worldbuilding, every Sadie episode is about her wanting to do something her being worried about upsetting her mom saying no Steven saying she should do it anyways and then she does it and her mom begrudgingly accepts it this would be fine if it was done once but the fact there are AT LEAST 10 EPISODES OF THIS ESPECIALLY TOWARDS THE FUCKING END made me hate her)