User blog:Jayden Jean-Baptiste/Favorite and Least Favorite Complete Monster (and why)

Unlike my past blog posts, this one was just made for fun.

I'm sure everyone as their favorite and least favorite villain. This time, I'm writing about my favorite Complete Monster, and subsequently my least favorite, and going into detail about it. Note: I'm going to have much more to say about my least favorite Monster (call me a complainer).

My Favorite CM:

Koba. I'll admit, he barely made it to the top. My other picks were The Other Mother and Judge Claude Frollo, but Koba just barely managed to top them. One thing I liked about him was that I found him truly scary. Not the usually sort of frightening, but actually that at times, I really thought he might win at the end. I came into the movie not knowing at all what to expect, and with all the talk that Caesar might die, there was that feeling of dread that Koba might've succeeded in killing him. Throughout the final battle, I kept worrying that Koba would come out on top, and when Caesar briefly tried to save him, it crossed my mind that Koba would kill him once he was out of harm's way. Thus, it was a true breath of fresh air when he was finally defeated. The second reason I liked him was that a found him refreshing. Had Dreyfus been the villain, I would've found the film predictable and boring. That they made the hero and the villain part of the same group was interesting in of itself, showing that there was a conflict coming not just between two sides, but within both sides themselves. It did make sense that, if an animal acquired human-like intelligence, they'd also grow a concept of evil as well, and to be honest, they're a lot like us anyways. I found his killing of Ash kind of shocking as well. I thought he would just beat him, but when he threw him off the balcony, that, I think, cemented him as a Monster.

Now for my Least Favorite Complete Monster...

Prime Minister Honest from Akame ga Kill. I've only watched the anime, so I'm mainly judging him there, but I'm certain the manga character is no different. I simply don't appreciate this character. It's not even that I have to like him. You can be a good villain even if I don't like this character. But I just don't think he works as the Big Bad. First of all, there is practically nothing to distinguish him from the lesser nobles like Lady Aria. For an anime that has such a large cast of supposedly complex antagonists (by that, I mean the Jaegers), why is the main villain given almost no personality at all? Were the creators too focused on Esdeath to give the Big Bad of the show some actual screentime. All this villain does is eat, and eat, act like a jerk, and eat some more. Aside from the Jaegers, nearly every villain is bland and just "evil for the sake of being evil", and Honest is no exception. Aside from having the highest position, he is no different from those nobles who just spend their time torturing peasants for some reason.

Secondly, I don't like that he has no motives. Some people complain about villains who "just want money", but at least those are actual motivations. What's Honest motives? Is it power? No, he has that. Is it greed? No, most of his (and the other nobles) actions have nothing to do with that. Is it to cow the citizens and scare them into bending to his will? No, his actions are more likely to cause people to turn against him rather than intimidate them. Esdeath and the Jaegers do most of the intimidation. His infobox states he wants to disgrace the Empire, but why? What does he have to gain from that? I'm aware that corrupt societies exist and still do, but I'm certain that the corruption is way more complicated than "I'm evil, because I'm evil." Also, at the end of the anime, when the dumb Emperor is destroying the Empire and killing practically everyone, he reasons that he'll just have the citizens rebuild everything for him. Yeah, with the state of destruction the Emperor was causing, I'm pretty sure most of his citizens would be dead or too injured to do anything, rendering that moot. Thus, he has nobody to rule over, and with nobody to rule over, he has practically no power. I know he doesn't care about the citizens, but anyone with common sense would realize that he'd have screwed up for everyone, including himself.

This one is more of a nitpick, but I also dislike that none of the heroes have any real interaction with him. I usually feel that the hero should have some prior interaction with the villain before the climax. Tatsumi interacts with Esdeath, but she's not the Big Bad. Sure, she's the most foremost antagonist, but Honest is the source of the corruption. He's the reason the setting is why it is. I'd expect there'd be some insight as to what his motives are, and have them clash with the hero. Tatsumi accuses him of manipulating the Emperor, and he denies it, but, once again, why is he manipulating him? He has no benefit from any of this. If anything, it just makes things worse for him. For an anime that prizes itself on showing the backstories and insights of heroes and villains alike, why is the Big Bad one of the few characters that is given no prior background knowledge for why he is the way he is?

I know why. Because the creators aren't interested in him. Why does Esdeath have so much more focus? Because they're more interested in her than the Big Bad. And when the creators aren't interested in the villain, the audience isn't going to be interested in the villain. And the story will suffer for that.

So, glad I let that out. What's your favorite and least favorite CM?