if there's one thing that inspires viewers It's a Great Hero a symbol of Hope perseverance and strength that we can latch onto through the story and as they overcome the odds and show us that we can face our own struggles but these Heroes on their own mean nothing if there's no villain no monster lurking in the darkness and no insurmountable obstacle for them to overcome then there's nothing special to a hero a hero cannot exist in a vacuum they can't exist without some kind of evil to defeat but a villain a villain can come from
anywhere there doesn't need to be a force of good that you can oppose instead anyone can choose to be a villain at any moment anyone has the propensity to harm others and all it takes is making the choice to do so so starting today I'm kicking off a series where we talk about what makes a great villain looking at different aspects of character design and elements of their story to see just what makes them special because a Great Hero might be iconic but it's a great villain that makes a story worth telling and today specifically
we're going to focus on villain introductions it is the worst case of villainy I've ever seen Linda they are watching and enjoying the new axle beats video without leaving a like or subscribing who would do such a thing so there's a few different styles of villain introductions that we're going to be taking a look at today each one gives a different vibe and is used for a different effect when it comes to these characters heroes or protagonists tend to have pretty uniform and one size fits-all introductions and even personalities at this point typically they're just
some lower or middle class person they get bonus points for each missing parent they have and they tend to just be out of place in the world they live in in some way or another Shonen protagonists especially are made to be as generic as possible so any viewer can self-insert into them it's why 99 of them are boys Shonen Jump is heavily targeted towards young boys in Japan and their shows reflect that they want their audience to be able to see themselves in their story and that's the easiest through line for them to create and
while the idea of relatable characters is great it's also inherently limited when a character needs to be relatable it's hard to break them out of those parameters for for example if you connect with the persevering Underdog Trope that's behind Asta in Black Clover then you'll probably love his character but when they push that boundary and suddenly he has a devil within him that's helping him out you might strain your immersion with that character just a little bit in keeping characters realistic in a fantasy setting Aaron miles explains for every Fantastical trait or ability a character
has the author has to work harder to make sure the reader still believes in them if they push it too far the reader will simply switch off from the character or even the entire story there's a very delicate balance to writing this sort of relatable character but then there's villains and most of the time these aren't supposed to be characters that the audience sees themselves in yes there are sympathetic villains where that is the goal but that'll be a topic for another day the General Baseline for a villain is meant to be a character who
challenges and opposes the beliefs of a hero and by association the viewer often placing the villain in more active roles while the hero has to react towards them and because they play these active roles their introductions are absolutely Paramount this is someone who's going to shape the story that's being told or at least the arc or this part of the narrative so the introduction needs to have weight we need to know that this character is significant there often needs to be a sense of pressure and presence and in some way there needs to be an
immediate understanding of how this character opposes the hero and their beliefs there's a million things that go into making a strong villain introduction and I want to take a look at some of the best of the best and one of the worst of the worst within anime to break that down and the first series that I actually want to take a look at is Naruto because let me tell you this show knows how to make a [ __ ] entrance most of the time because they also know how to Fumble the ball at the last
moment but we'll get there when I think of great villain introductions the first thing that pops into my head is Madara Uchiha and it's the scene that actually inspired this entire video let me set the stage for you within Naruto you always have the story of these two legendary figures looming over the series hashirama senju and Madara Uchiha the founders of the Hidden Leaf Village the greatest ninja in history and the iconic figures represented on these statues at the Valley of the end people in this series look at these guys like how Americans look at
George Washington or how British people look at King Arthur or how Australians look at the master of Oz and yes I get all of my information on Australia exclusively from Yu-Gi-Oh GX but the point being these two have always been a big deal eventually this series reaches its big climb Max Arc with the great ninja war and we have the masked man claiming to be Madara Uchiha who has somehow survived all of this time allying himself with Kabuto and together they're resurrecting all of the greatest ninja in history and controlling them to wage war against
all of the great Nations and their Shinobi Alliance It's pretty dope the war itself is kind of a push and pull thing the heroes are definitely on the back foot though but then Naruto finally arrives he has this new form he instantly sways the flow of battle and we are winning but not for long in the midst of one of the battles one more Ninja is resurrected the real Madara Uchiha suddenly we don't know who the man in the mask is and now on top of him we have the actual Modera to deal with as
well writer James Scott Bell explained that one could argue the skill of the fiction writer boils down to the ability to exploit intensity and moderate's introduction is intensity Kabuto asked to see what Modera is capable of and he immediately dives into this massive group of ninjas and decimates them at this point Naruto while hand-to-hand combat is definitely still present we're more likely to see Jutsu being used especially if the odds are against you you're gonna pull out some big flashy move to help even those odds but then we have matara who goes in for one
of the most intense and well choreographed battles in the entire series the way he moves the way he reacts instantly the way that none of these hundreds of soldiers can even lay a finger on him while all he needs to do is look at them to take them out if there are three words I had to use to describe how Modera fights in this battle it would be effortless Unstoppable and terrifying and all of that is before Madura pulls a meteor from the sky like a literal God that all of these hundreds of ninja put
their entire being into stopping only being able to stop it moments before it crash into the Earth and then do you know what this monster of a man says well done now what will you do about the second one it's this chilling moment of hopelessness before the second meteor crashes into the first and you're just left in awe I'm not gonna get into the whole follow-up battle but all of the kage show up and team up to fight Madura and he just bodies them having his clones do all of the work while he chills in
the back and then asking I'll let you guys choose should these clones also use susano to me this is one of the single best introductions for a villain in anime you have this legendary figure that we've heard about through the entire series being brought in while adding mystery to the masked man and then demonstrating himself to somehow be even more Untouchable and legendary than he had been made out to be this entire time now obviously there is a villain to follow moderate though and she is actually one who's even stronger than he is kaguya and
to pick is kind of like picking on Sakura it's been overdone to the moon and back she is easily one of the most hated characters in anime and there's kinda good reason for it murderer is at his peak in the series he is in his ten Tales form he is dominating the fight regardless of everything being thrown at him shout out to might guy though and in the middle of this battle that we've been on the edge of our seats for suddenly zetsu shows up betrays Modera and resurrex kagia who emerges from him I know
a lot of people hate everything to do with her but I do love the story of kagia being the originator of chakra on Earth it's very fun super interesting and it adds a lot of history to the world but my issue with all of that is it's the first time we're hearing about it kagia in general is like the last 10 percent of the show if that what made Modera so great was that he was always kind of in the picture we had been hearing his name for hundreds of chapters and seen his face as
early as Naruto and Sasuke's fight at the Valley of the end he had build up and that's what made him feel so legendary so when he showed up and backed that Legend up it was phenomenal but kagya feels like she came out of nowhere and if you're gonna say um actually Kimi Mars clan in that one chapter reference shut up no one cares there was never any attention being drawn to her in the entire story and as a result her showing up and removing matara feels cheap empty and kind of like an [ __ ]
all this to say if you want a legendary villain they need a legendary build up there's about 50 other villains in this category of just super overpowered introductions that are meant to be massive shows of dominance as well so a few in a quick lightning round Hunter Hunter has both hisoka for the hunter exam and merom later in the series both just immediately showing how much stronger they are than everyone around them I'll albeit isoka is more in a deranged psychotic kind of way while meruim shows off his strength in this paradoxical calm rage somehow
one piece has kaido falling from a sky island in an attempt to take his own life only for him to immediately get up unfazed from the impact and climb out of the crater that he left behind a monster so strong that he can't even die when he wants to sukasa in Dr Stone is revived in the middle of a pack of lions attacking and using his bare hands and the Pebbles from the stones that he is encased in he manages to overpower and defeat them marking him as the deadliest force in the new primitive world
as death in akame ga Kill conquers an army and treats their soldiers like a dog on a leash she is crazy controlling domineering and Powerful she doesn't see anyone else as her equal and she is cold very fitting for her abilities there's plenty of these and there's just so many ways to make the memorable and impactful you just need to make sure that you're doing something both unique and true to the character there is one variation of this though that has always stood out to me just as much as Modera did though and that's bleach's
Eisen Soul Society Arc in Bleach has Ichigo and Friends entering the soul Society to save Rukia and in doing so they grow through some pretty insane battles for example Ichigo fights Kenpachi Zaraki to a draw in one of the most intense fights in the series and following this we're like yo Ichigo is pretty damn strong that Kenpachi guy was a monster and our boy held his own and that's before his intensive three-day training with best girl yorubichi where he learns to unlock his massively powerful ban Kai which is basically sword super saiyan and once he's
ready to get back into things there's two crazy developments first sosuke Eisen one of the big spooky Captain dudes has been murdered and everyone is super on edge about it because they don't know who did it and second rukia's execution will be the next day it's chaotic wild fights are every everywhere but for our reference what's most important is that Ichigo battles biakuya who is rukia's older brother and effectively this series is sashomaru or Kakashi or Yami more or less byakya is this Show's go-to example for what a very strong person should be to the
audience Ichigo at first gets bodied until he briefly transforms into his hollow form manages to overcome that before coming to his senses and winning the fight which is a huge deal basically they're saying that our little boy has grown up and he's a monster in his own right but not all is going well Eisen reappears revealing that he wasn't actually killed and was just trying to cause infighting between the captains that they would clear each other out for him and now he's here to stop renji from escaping with Rukia Eisen quickly overpowers renji and just
as he's about to kill him Ichigo arrives at the last moment to save him he is our symbol of Hope here and now that you have the context for this situation we can get into it if Ichigo charges in he just defeated byakya he's high on his own hype his theme music is blaring classic Shonen Victory moment and as he goes in with his Bankai to cut down the captain Eisen raises one finger stops his sword and you just hear the clang of metal ringing as the theme music stops and leaves behind this tense silence
much like matara Eisen is being introduced when the hero is at an all-time high they've proven themselves to be Way Beyond the average Powerhouse in the series and in the most effortless and calm way he immediately demonstrates the difference in his ability to our protagonist the major difference in these two scenes is how they make use of the medium that they're working with let's take a look at how this looks in the manga as always bleach is gorgeous the energy is great it's all sharp there's a good sense of flow but the moment that the
sword stops doesn't really carry a ton of weight at least to me swap that over to the anime [Music] and the addition of the music and general sound design being worked into the scene makes the transition to silence feel like an impact rather than a pause so I'd say that a great villain introduction is also one that makes full use of the medium that they're in if it's an anime crank up the animation extra focus on sound a good voice actor for the character powerful theme music play with the tropes of the genre or if
you're working with a manga you can have an illustration that is way more detailed than any anime can reasonably work with you can play with the idea of physically needing to turn the page to present something shocking or impactful make sure you're doing something to make this moment stand out I also mentioned Music and Sound a lot in there and that's a great way to set the tone for villains in general one of my all-time favorite villains Naraku has this fantastic theme song in InuYasha it is Eerie it is slow and scary and unsettling to
your ears it's the audio version of a chill still running down your spine or you can go with the exact opposite if you want the villain to feel Larger than Life bombastic and Powerful well take a look at this this song reads power it is uplifting cult music it's cold terrifying and dominating it's exactly what the Disco MILF is all about and it's perfect he soak up pain and so many others take full advantage of their theme music in this way and just from the first few notes you know not only exactly where these songs
come from but what the characters are like within their own series another way to make a villain introduction impactful regardless of the medium is to undeniably align them with evil two that I particularly like in this Camp are Dio from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Frieza Dio is very simple with him being very open about wanting to steal the Joe star family fortune and usurp Jonathan as the heir but more than this Deal's introduction is filled with him being mistreated by the adults in his life and then forcing those same abusive behaviors on anyone that he
deems lower than himself iconically leaping out of the buggy and immediately kicking Jonathan's dog something we can all agree not very Cash Money of him the scene also doubles to show us that Dio is calculated manipulative and two-faced trying to get a rise out of Jonathan and scheming while he puts on a good front in front of JoJo's senior and like two-faced is kind of fitting for the guy who gets his powers from a mask they are physically tying the world in with the character's personality it's really well done Frieza as well is immediately built
up as this purely evil character you hear little bits about him from the Saiyans who invaded Earth but all we really know is that this dude is strong enough to scare Vegeta and Vegeta is pretty scary in his own right when we first actually see Frieza we're on Namek searching for the dragon balls and Frieza himself is also looking for them so that he can wish for immortality however the wave Frieza is collecting them is by wiping out entire Villages of namekians and stealing theirs we see his men straight up bullying and taunting the namekians
and when Elders refused to give up the Dragon Balls Frieza will threaten the children in the village again not a very Cash Money move if namekians stand up against him they are immediately beaten down or killed and the elders have no choice but to eventually agree with Frieza saying they'll give him the dragon balls if he agrees to spare the children however as soon as Frieza gets the Dragon Ball he demands to be told to the locations of the rest he wants them to sell out their own kind and without hesitation he starts killing the
children and other villagers regardless of their agreement he is essentially committing genocide clearing out Village after Village as he collects the Dragon Balls lying and cheating to get what he wants and then slaughtering everyone anyways it is evil and there's just no other way to look at it and this kind of introduction Works particularly well with two types of characters first characters who are going to be set up to get a Redemption sticking to Dragon Ball we see this with Vegeta brutally wiping out the bug Planet at least in the anime but we also see
him demanding Napa to kill the Z Fighters and then just killing Napa himself when he fails to defeat Goku literally slaughtering one of the last Saiyans because he's not useful to him anymore all of this to start him at the lowest low and then build him up into a pretty decent person is easy to see and in writing these are often referred to as positive character arcs and second we have the exact opposite characters who don't change flat characters author K.M Weiland describes positive character arcs about being focused on overcoming the lie that the characters
believe while flat characters focus on the truth that a character believes in a series like one piece for example we could see a flat character for someone like Luffy he believes in Freedom for all and opposes anyone who would limit that freedom in others that isn't to say that flat character might not have moments of growth in some ways or another but often the core of their character remains true and while Luffy has a positive flat Arc Frieza has a negative one Frieza believes that because he's powerful anyone who is weaker than him is irrelevant
and can be treated however he would like he's a dictator a tyrant and within his Empire there is an absolute truth so we want to highlight the idea of Pure Evil immediately and because of this we're shown the slaughter of the namekians and the futility of opposing Frieza many people often talk about the weakness of characters who are evil for Evil's sake but I think they're missing the point of how these characters can function and equally so I think many writers for these characters don't understand when and where to place them or how to use
them so we're going to be covering this idea in a future video as well but it's definitely a character design that is easier to screw up if you do it wrong your characters will be boring and that's why so many villains in the modern era tend to be written sympathetically making them relatable tends to be a cheat code to making them easier to write moving on from characters who believe themselves to be Kings we're going to talk about characters who think themselves gods enol in one piece is a person who believes that he is all-powerful
and all-knowing and for anal specifically we're going to talk both about the first time we see him using his powers and the first time we just see him quick context in one piece there's a place called Sky Pia it's a floating island in the clouds and there are people with wings there that live under whoever they're currently calling God that of course being anal when we get there and like fair enough but as an audience we're pretty skeptical right off the bats that is until his rules get tested in Sky Pia there's one big law
you do not enter God's domain upper yard however early on we see someone who is breaking that law this guy is terrified running and begging for his life as he's trying to find a way off the island but before he he can escape a massive beam of light comes from the sky and basically vaporizes him which like asks the Greeks lightning smiting those who defy you is a pretty classic God thing and the first time he actually makes an appearance we see him easily taking down all of the remaining priests condescending to them and restating
that he is God they are weak and if they follow him they will travel together to a dream world these scenes are really great for a lot of reasons they establish him as this aloof confident and nonchalant guy while also demonstrating that he is cruel and unforgiving to those who defy him he's a contradiction he is above others and if you go along with him you can reach Salvation And if you're working with a god-like megalomaniac character these are things you want to show off overconfidence a reward for loyalty con descendants and a lackadaisical attitude
towards everything around him adult doesn't care enough about others Because he believes himself Unstoppable he doesn't care about dissidents as he can Smite them down at the wave of a hand he is a great example of a character who feels omnipresent as he can Target anyone from any distance he feels omnipotent because people just can't injure him he's a logia user and finally he feels omniscient as he's able to read the minds of those he's interacting with it is perfect for establishing his role in this Arc and while edel is fantastic and has one of
my favorite lines in the entire anime God only knows and he's not telling we do have to move away from him to another one-piece villain with Blackbeard who is meant to be a foil to the main character foils are characters who are meant to help the traits of another character shine brighter this is done in a few ways but often it's done through contrast as it's the most straightforward and simple method in Susan spawns Dr Watson I presume the importance of killer Sidekicks she explains foils as this a lone protagonist never receives as great a
reaction as one with a well-developed Supporting Cast foils serve to reinforce and highlight the hero's good and bad characteristics and also give the protagonist a chance to shine outside the primary narrative other characters that are standouts in this category are Naraku for Inuyasha and griffith for guts and I'll be talking about them more in a later video as well but Blackbeard's introduction has always stood out to me as unique for one reason it is this perfect mixture of genuine and goofy as hell so how do you introduce the major antagonist of your series well obviously
with pie Luffy and Blackbeard are sitting at a bar and they each call for the bartender with Luffy disgusted by this pie and Blackbeard absolutely loving it they then take a drink Luffy loves it Blackbeard is the one disgusted and it's a very simple and direct very goofy way to say to the audience hey these two are offices and obviously as the story continues we see more parallels that separate these characters for example physically Luffy is small and thin Blackbeard is tall and fat in terms of how they act Luffy moves on Instinct Blackbeard is
a schemer how they see others Luffy wants a crew of 10 members seeing himself as part of that crew while Blackbeard has 10 Titanic captains who are under him their devil fruits Luffy's fruit makes him immune to a ton of of attacks while blackbeards makes him more vulnerable to them and so on and so on and so on but when Luffy eventually comes out of the bar he crosses paths with Blackbeard again and we see a similarity between them this time the only connecting link and the sole idea behind the series holding tight to a
dream while Luffy and Blackbeard might differ on every other point each aims to do the impossible each aims to become the pirate king and each respects the idea of having a dream and striving for it but despite that Luffy doesn't say a word or agree to anything that Blackbeard says in the scene even if it's something that he would normally agree with the normally Carefree Luffy becomes deadly serious Blackbeard has brought out a side of this character that we aren't used to at all these are very small scenes there really isn't much depth or content
to look at but in the few moments that Blackbeard is on screen we learn that he is effectively the anti Luffy and he is the first character in the series that Luffy refuses to acknowledge with a response even among murderers usurpers and people who directly disrespect him on the surface all he's done is eat pie drink booze and talk about dreams yet something about him is special and affected Luffy I love this especially in contrast to NL who is the next villain we actually meet because it shows you you don't need these big flashy moments
if you understand your characters and if you understand your story you can make these small moments just as impactful if they're done well now shifting gears a little bit let's talk about a bit of a different character yoshikage Kira this is the main antagonist from JoJo's part 4 and whereas Dio was introduced as a purely evil character KIRO was meant not just to be evil but to be bone chilling unsettling our main cast is just hanging out talking about how they're looking for the murderer in Mario and koichi wander onto the street without looking and
it's almost hit by Kira's car a moment that immediately puts viewers on edge despite him being saved by josuke and from here we shift perspectives and we aren't following the main cast we're instead following the driver of this car the man starts talking about the history in Mario how his family were some of the Samurai but now all they have left is the home he lives in and the boring office job that he's trapped in he is a man from a prolific family with nothing left someone who should have been great but isn't then he
looks over to the hand of the person next to him a person we haven't seen at all every shot of the car obscures this person and it's a bit strange right off the bat he starts asking her questions about the watch that he bought her and though we never hear her respond he always reacts as though she does he continues talking at her until they get home where he opens the door for her and asks her why she's being shy and not getting out of the car he takes her hand helps her out of the
car are like a true gentleman I might add and says that they're going to enjoy their weekend together as the camera pans out and we see this loose hand dangling from his the hand starts dripping blood onto his car seat and he calls her rude putting a rag into this loose appendage and forcing it to clean the mess that it's made then praising it putting a purse in its hand and walking inside together the scene is [ __ ] weird it's uncomfortable it makes your skin crawl the delusional way that Kira looks at the world
the way his mind bends reality and sees the loose hand as a whole person but not the person it was when he killed them on top of that he just never even mentions almost hitting a child with his car it never crosses his mind it's so uneasy and it's a phenomenal way to introduce a character that you're trying to present as deranged a slow simple scene with a normal everyday action being distorted and made to become horrific all while acting like nothing is out of the ordinary and that is the strongest part of it and
the last thing I want to talk about in this video is a bit of a spin on this characters who come off as saviors despite being the villains this is also going to be its own video as these are all characters that I'm dying to talk about especially from the upcoming chainsaw man but I gotta put a pin on that so instead let's talk about one from made in Abyss the series focuses on a massive Chasm that is filled with monsters and ancient relics the deeper you go the more wonderful and terrifying the things that
you see become but also the more dangerous it becomes to leave enter bone drude one of the greatest to ever descend into the abyss bondrud is first introduced in nanachi's backstory in the finale for the first season he arrives at this Frozen destitute Village filled with orphans and poverty and as we look at these poor children we suddenly see him standing there Palms open in a Christ like pose looking for disciples children who can help him Forge A New Path into the abyss to them he is the hero of the Abyss a white whistle in
search of Brave children who want to escape their fate of living in squalor and dive into the unknown and magical new world with him also this is the only real spoiler I think that you should avoid if you haven't seen one of these Series so if you haven't seen made into this this is your chance to click out anyways dozens of children follow him into the abyss we get this cute wholesome story about how nanachi met midi and suddenly There's Hope in these kids who had none and as they reach their destination children begin being
taken away one after another to be examined bonju saying that he wants to check that they're healthy enough to continue but as midi is taken nanachi goes to search for her and we learn the truth bondrud has taken an orphan children from afar off land because no one would miss them none of them would oppose a hero of the abyss and even if they they did they would be too small to fight back here he is using them as test subjects plunging them into the depths and then forcing them back to his lair so that
he can study the curse of the abyss and the loss of humanity that is caused basically turning these children into living Bush this is one of the most scarring and memorable moments in recent anime to me this savior arriving and offering a new hope to all these kids only to perform one of the most terrifying heartless and deranged acts of evil imaginable all while he spoke and carried himself in happy tones and optimism like Kira this is a moment meant to be shocking and unsettling but what's more while Kira carries the scene of derangement and
disassociation from reality Andrew never does he has calculated manipulative and fully aware of what he's doing Stephen King uses a similar style of introduction explaining his own method as trying to create sympathy for his characters and then turning the monster loose the additional buildup of bone Drew being a source of Hope who actively takes that hope away allows this to carry an impact that is just on an entirely different level and in his introduction alone he solidified himself as one of my favorite characters because that's how powerful this scene was these are easily some of
the best introductions in all of anime each of them carries something unique and special that at least I think gives a perspective on what it takes to create an introduction that is Meaningful impactful and memorable but what are some of your favorite examples in anime and manga and in the future would you like to see me extend this series to include non-anime manga related characters as well let me know in the comments down below if you did enjoy this video though and you would like to see more like it in the future please consider leaving
a like to let me know and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any future content like I said I'll be talking more about villains in the future but while you wait for those consider checking out my video on how to use death in anime or if you're looking for something a little bit different you can always take a look at the real life story which is more insane than any anime you've ever seen with my video on the inspiration behind the great Pretender even if you haven't seen the great Pretender I think it's
one that you'll really enjoy there's no real spoilers in it so it's safe to watch with all that being said though thank you all so much for taking the time out of your day to watch this and until next time I hope you all stay excellent
