Heroes are tricky. Ask anyone who’s been around the block a few times and you’ll hear the same thing: Anime heroes are all alike! If you’ve seen one harem lead, you’ve seen them all, and if you’ve watched three shounen series you’ve met your lifetime quota. It takes an exceptional anime series to bust open the clichés and prevent our poor overworked hero characters from blurring together into one bland, gloppy soup. But just what is the story purpose of a hero? If heroes are mostly the same, are there ways in which they can actually differ? And what are the usual archetypes that anime heroes embody?
(Many thanks to Impz, DanDan, Lupus and the rest of the very friendly crew here for their kind invitation to contribute. I’m interested in anime story telling and mythic structure, I like historicals and action series, and I expect you’ll learn more about me as time goes on. Douzo yoroshiku! ^_^ — Reslez)
A hero is not a sandwich.
So, what is a hero, anyway? Since we need a definition we can apply to anime storytelling, a dictionary won’t help. Briefly, the hero is the protagonist of a series. The hero is generally the character who undergoes the most change. In a plot-driven series, the hero is the character who most propels the plot forward. Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey says the hero is usually the most active character in a story. These two elements, internal change and external action, will usually point a big red arrow at the hero of a series.
Heroes come in various flavors which Vogler helpfully lists in his (deservedly famous) book. I’ll follow his list here.
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1: First things first, the willing/unwilling hero.
Wake up and do some heroing!
A hero always falls into one of two categories: willing or unwilling. If the hero is full of excitement to be on his* journey, chomps at the bit to get at the bad guys, or runs around shouting things like “I want to be a hero!”, he’s Willing. If he has to be dragged out of bed in the morning to actually do anything heroic, is motivated purely out of terror or revenge, or is continually assailed by doubt and remorse, he’s Unwilling. A lot of heroes start out Unwilling and gradually develop motivation as the series progresses.
Willing: Edward Elric, Uzumaki Naruto, HxH’s Gon Freaks
Unwilling: Himura Kenshin, Gantz’s Kuruno Kei, ZnT’s Saito
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2: Identify your anti-heroes.
Not a villain.
Anti-heroes are a slippery concept, and they seem to inspire oceans of confusion in the anime blogiverse. An anti-hero is not a villain, no matter how sympathetic the villain is, and an anti-hero is not the opposite of a hero. Rather, an anti-hero is a specific kind of hero. Per Vogler, an anti-hero could be “an outlaw or a villain from the point of view of society, but with whom the audience is basically in sympathy.” Anti-heroes come in two varieties.
The Wounded Anti-hero: This anti-hero behaves in most respects like a hero but has a cynical or wounded psyche and/or acts like an antisocial jerk. He might be an outlaw or a criminal, but he ends up doing the right thing anyway. See Spike Spiegel, Cloud Strife, Bleach’s Kurosaki Ichigo.
The Tragic Anti-hero: This anti-hero is a mythic/tragic figure who may have several admirable qualities but is eventually destroyed by his own inner demons. This anti-hero performs all sorts of heinous acts, but somehow we still sort of sympathize. Your typical supergenius sociopath hero fits this type, and we have several examples this season. See Death Note’s Yagami Light and possibly Code Geass’s Lelouch Lamperouge. Whai-Whai had an interesting blog about this last week.
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3: The group-oriented hero.
Who’d want to leave this magical world?
The group-oriented hero is essentially an Alice in Wonderland figure. Like Alice, this hero starts off the series in one particular world, group, or culture, and travels to a new one. At the end of the series, the hero returns to his original world, possibly changed for the better. Sometimes the hero makes a different choice — he decides he likes his new group better and ditches the old one. Unlike Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, this second type of group-oriented hero thinks Oz is way better than black&white Kansas and doesn’t want to return home. Interestingly, the hero who decides to stay in Oz is more common in Eastern than Western literature.
Goes home: FMA: The Conqueror of Shamballa’s Edward Elric, possibly FMP’s Chidori Kaname and Shingetsutan Tsukihime’s Tohno Shiki.
Prefers Oz: Twelve Kingdom’s Nakajima Yoko, Fruits Basket’s Honda Tohru, ZnT’s Saito
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4: The loner hero.
Do not aggravate a loner hero by expressing gratitude or other weak emotions.
The loner hero is almost a mirror image of the group-oriented hero. The loner starts out all by himself, in a “natural state of solitude”. As the series progresses, he’s integrated back into a group (where he’s often uncomfortable and out of place), and when the series ends the hero rides off into the sunset alone. Just as with the group-oriented hero, the loner hero has a choice at the end: to stick with the new group or to abandon it.
Likes it alone: Blood: The Last Vampire’s Saya, possibly Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto’s Youjirou Akizuki and Trigun’s Vash the Stampede
Decides to play well with others: Himura Kenshin, R.O.D the TV’s Sumiregawa Nenene, FFVII: Advent Children’s Cloud Strife
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5: The catalyst hero.
Everybody changes but me!
Usually the hero is the character in a series who undergoes the most change. The exception to this useful rule of thumb is the catalyst or trickster hero. This type of hero drives the story forward by bringing about transformation in others without ever really changing his own personality. The catalyst hero often acts heroic, but he’s fully-formed from the start.
Catalyst heroes: Uzumaki Naruto, Edward Elric, Fruits Basket’s Honda Tohru, and almost every harem hero because it’s typically the harem bunnies who change rather than the hero himself.
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Last: Conclusion and challenge!
Keep heroin’!
Anime heroes come in a multitude of shapes and spiky-haired sizes, and even interchangeable shounen action stars have their quirks. I challenge you to identify the more “questionable” examples in my lists above, and to nominate your own. ^_^
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* Note on language
I used the masculine pronoun (he/him/his) for convenience, but a hero can be a man or a woman. In case you did not know that.
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Further reading
Vogel, Christopher (1992). The writer’s journey: Mythic structure for storytelling & screenwriters. Michael Wiese Productions: Studio City, CA.
10 Comments
Wow. Great article. Impzie actually recruited someone who can write! Awesome! Shame the last guy he recruited sucks
Edward (I always think Ed-o-wa-do in my head… hard to wrap my mind around Edward) does change undergo some changes throughout the series.
Also, Kenshin is hardly a loner hero. He has tons of friends fight along-side him throught-out the series.
lol, interesting article… ^___^
there are actually a few ways one can classify a hero, be it in an anime, drama, etc…
lol, lupie, at least he isn’t like the guy impzy hired but never wrote a single article
anyways, i do believe kenshin is a loner hero, until the end. if you followed through the manga, you would have found out that he never told anyone at all about his past till enishi himself showed up. and of course, everyone knows enishi IS more sadistic of a villian than shishio was.
my stereotype would go something like this, in order of timeline
1. hero starts off weak, and loser-like
2. hero encounters life-changing event
3. hero loses for a while and turns emo..
4. hero breaks out of curse and comes and saves the day
5. the end XDDD
Lupus – As negativzero commented, Kenshin starts out very much a loner, gains friends as the story progresses, and then decides to stick with them rather than wander off again. This is pretty much the core of a loner hero. I think Kenshin is more polite than most loner heroes, though! LOL, I think that’s part of what makes him interesting.
negativzero – You have a good point about the timeline of most hero stories. That’s the hero’s journey that George Lucas cribbed from John Campbell’s work when he wrote Star Wars, and which Vogler spelled out for screenwriters in his own books. I’ll probably post about the hero’s journey in the future, cause it’s pretty interesting. P.S. There’s no way you could know this but I’m a girl
I’ll add myself to the “About the members” page with some more info about myself…
Thanks for your kind comments, I find story structure and character archetypes very interesting and use them in my own writing. You can definitely see how universal these themes are when they show up everywhere from Star Wars to random anime series.
Welcome to THAT blog Reslez!
That’s a great post there, it was well thought out and written nicely as well. You even included further reading!
I wonder if Dark Schneider from Bastard!! is counted as a hero or anti-hero…hmmm
W00t now this is a pretty interesting read. You mentioned Gantz, which adds points. Gantz has most of the hero types you mentioned above, which is why its one of the best male-oriented series. With Katou, the social catalytic unwilling hero, Nishi the anti-hero and Izumi’s willing lone wolf in addition to the horny Kei.
Hey there, welcome aboard and glad to have you, haha.
This article reminds me of one of the older tj han comments on shounen manga and why Hunter x Hunter is the best of its genre *hrr hrr* Thumbs up! The only thing I’d ‘criticize’ is the choice of your examples (and screenshots), but that’s personal because I simply don’t care for most of these characters and they’re not exactly a feast for the eyes *g*
PS. Dark Schneider is an anti-hero of course O.o If Raito is, then he must be one too!
alkanphel – I haven’t watched Bastard!! but according to Wikipedia, Dark Schneider “can be incredibly evil, heartless and lecherous”. Definitely sounds like anti-hero material to me. Keep in mind the anti-hero designation is normally used for the protagonist/hero only. If Dark Schneider is not the main character (because Rushe is), he may be an antagonist or a shadow ally. Those are specialized terms for various character archtypes I hope to write about soon.
tj han – Gantz definitely has a lot going for it in terms of characters. You could argue that (Kuruno) Kei fits the anti-hero mould since his worldview is so cynical and unheroic. It may just be the psychological realism Gantz seems to aim for. According to Gantz, normal people are cowards and anti-heroes. Maybe that’s what makes heroes special.
Sasa, thanks for the feedback. My examples are limited to the series I’ve seen, unfortunately, which limits me to a mostly shounen/action universe so far. I’ll work on better screenshots in the future. Maybe you could recommend some series for me to watch to help me out
Well he’s definitely not a ‘wounded’ or ‘tragic’ anti-hero, that’s for sure.
Despite what Wikipedia says, DS is the main protagonist of Bastard!! Ruche only appears in the early volumes because of his link to DS and there are certain underlying plotlines related to him, but his appearance time is sorely lacking and he hasn’t appeared for a long long time.
Now that I think of it, DS is very similar to Alucard from Hellsing, except more ‘bastard’. Maybe you can call them the ‘bastard’ heroes haha
wahahahaha, one article and u already captured the hearts of tj and sasa. Good job, reslez and welcome on board!!!
*and my incessant messages on YIM*
T_T
*lalalala~
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