Forum - View topicDoes the antagonist ever win in anime?
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unknownlost
 Posts: 9 Location: Southern New Jersey |
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I tend to lurk here and read a lot of posts, but something has been bothering me as I rewatch Code Geass in prep for R2. As I watch it I think it parallels in the way Death Note plays out in that: spoiler alert for both Death Note and Code geass spoiler[I wanted Light to prevail but as the series progressed they had Light began doing more and more despicable things to achieve his goal thus I knew before the end that Light would not be victorious in the end. It feels like the same thing in Code Geass... and of course having the antagonist laugh insanely in both Death Note and Code Geass doesnt help]
Maybe I haven't watched enough anime to find an example of the bad guy/villian prevailing in the end. As im nearing a 1000 dvds and roughly 700gigs of anime on my hard drives. I cant think of a single example. I guess hollywood movie examples would be: spoiler[Seven, Usual suspects, No country for old men] What am I looking for? An end that wows me that I dont see a mile away. Not the cookie cutter, good guy pulls a deus ex machina in the end to prevail. Basically my question is; has there ever been an anime series where the villain prevails and the good guy loses in the end? |
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zhir
 Posts: 353 Location: Nampa, ID, USA |
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Well in Area 88 spoiler[The army that everyone is fighting wins, and it is implied that every character in the show dies (well, all the main ones)]. Oh, and there is Bebop where spoiler[Spike dies, so no one really wins.]
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Clodus
 Posts: 497 Location: Kansas |
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I realized when typing this post that your question could be contradicting itself in that if I name an anime that "the villain prevails and the good guy loses in the end?" and "An end that wows me that I don't see a mile away." you would already know that the antagonist wins so therefore would already see it a mile away however I will humor you.
On the top of my mind, Berserk. Ending spoiler[While there was no clearcut Antagonist. At the end of Berserk, the main character Guts gets betrayed by his best friend Griffith] |
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big_red_2
 Posts: 1 |
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Light's not an "Antagonist", he's a Protagonist. Sure, he is an "Antihero", and he's a bad guy, but that doesn't make him an "Antagonist".
Here are some definitions: Protagonist - The main character in a drama or other literary work. Antagonist - The principal character in opposition to the protagonist or hero of a narrative or drama. |
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unknownlost
Posts: 9 Location: Southern New Jersey |
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I thought of Berserk also when I looked at my dvd shelves, but Im up to date on the magna and I know thats no where near the end; just that the anime ends at volume 13 of the magna and I just picked up volume 22.
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Facade19
 Posts: 91 |
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I think it depends on what you mean with antagonist.
Is it a persona, an idea, or a current? There are some shows where an idea (which we identify with evil) can be interpreted with winning. Or where an event (which we humans signify as positive/negative) is the antagonist we pinpoint. |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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True, but if you want to put into technicallity the fact that the anime version of the series did end, then spoiler[the good guy would be considered to be the loser.] Characters' paths parted ways so then it became diverse, and throughout the series everybody was pretty much on the same side. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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22 eh? The scanlations go much further, though I'm nowhere near reading them yet. Seems like Miura has no intention of ending it anytime in our lives. |
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joel_s95387
Posts: 1804 Location: California... The Village Hidden In The Porn |
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One title pops to mind right away and that is GANTZ. Although the anime is different than the manga but the anime for sure has the ending you are looking for.
In the ending of Gantz, spoiler[EVERYBODY but Gantz dies. All the good guys, even one leaves a little brother that will probably die on his own.] I dunno if Texhnolyze counts but I think I remember spoiler[the pro did kill the anti, but in the end the anti's plan to change the world did take effect.] I haven't seen the series in a really long time so don't wuote me on this. What about Wolf's Rain? I haven't seen it myself but have heard spoiler[that everyone dies. And in the end the world is reset.] I guess it also depends on what you call "win". Is it killing the protaginist, fullfilling his mission, or just screwing up the pro's mission. |
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Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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I think the example that comes to mind first is Chrono Crusade, in which spoiler[Rosette and Chrono die in the end, and the anime basically ends in the future as we see Aion, the antagonist, alive and well walking away from an attempted assassination of the Pope].
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abunai
Old Regular
 Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Light Yagami is, indeed, the protagonist of Death Note, and to a certain extent, L is his principal antagonist. However, I don't believe it is correct to call Light an "anti-hero". To be an anti-hero, a character must be aligned with the forces of good, but simply lacking in heroic qualities. An example from popular fiction is the hard-drinking and womanizing detective (alcoholism and semi-abusive sexism are not heroic traits), who is nevertheless devoted to seeing that justice gets done. He has flaws that compromise his status as a hero, but there is no doubt that he is on the side of righteousness, overall. Light, on the other hand, is the villain of the story. He is a bad person. He has very few redeeming qualities, if any. Any claims that he might make of being on the side of justice fall by the wayside, as it becomes clear that his driving force is megalomania, not righteousness. Though he is clearly the protagonist, he is not on the "side of the angels". One of the most interesting qualities of Death Note is precisely this -- that it takes the traditional protagonist-as-hero / antagonist-as-villain pattern, and reverses it. We are essentially told the story looking over the villain's shoulder, instead of the hero's. The problem with Death Note is that many people seem incapable of understanding that this reversal has taken place. They identify with Light, and heroicize him. Perhaps it is the fact that many readers (evidently) are teens, and teens have always had a tendency to fantasize about extreme forms of empowerment. The death note is simply another extreme fantasy in this class. "If I found a Death Note, I'd clean up the world, starting with all the people who annoy me." Typical teen fantasy -- which, sadly, does not always stay in the domain of fantasy. So.... Light Yagami, protagonist? Yes. Anti-hero? No. BTW, there is no need to capitalize words for emphasis. "Protagonist" isn't a proper noun, neither is "anti-hero" or "antagonist". - abunai |
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Vuwazy
Posts: 208 |
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Especially how he spoiler[pretended to be sad for his dad]? |
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Oronae
Posts: 165 |
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Depending on your definition of what it means to win Ideon: Be Invoked may qualify.
The series ends with spoiler[the Buff Clan finally succeeding in destroying the Ideon and killing Cosmo but they do so at a great price. The Ideon, as a result of running on a source of infinite energy, explodes and takes out a good portion of the Milky Way galaxy with it including all of humanity and the Buff Clan themselves. So though they win, they don't REALLY win.] Another example would be End of Evangelion where spoiler[Shinji and Asuka are defeated by the Eva series allowing SEELE to suceed in their goal of returning all of humanity to a pre-embryonic state.] |
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abunai
Old Regular
Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Actually, one of the truly significant points in the Death Note story, where it becomes clear that Light's claims of having a righteous motive (ridding the world of crime) are pure hypocrisy, is when spoiler[he refuses the deal for shinigami eyes, letting Misa-Misa, instead, pay the price of half her remaining life]. Even if one were to allow for rhetorical excess when he cackles to himself that he will be the spoiler["god of the new world"], this failure to pay the necessary price to accomplish his stated aims reveals that those aims are purely hypocritical. spoiler[He is not willing to pay half his life, because his real motive is megalomaniacal: he wants to rule the world.] - abunai |
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Labbes
 Posts: 890 |
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I disagree here, because that spoiler[SEELE succeeds is neither directly nor indirectly stated,] the film stays far too vague here. |
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