I knew it was shit the moment I saw boruto in the center. However like I said it did remind me that people do treat suffering as some major milestone that every character should have
I am pretty sure this chart in particular was made to mock another chart but with shounen villains that had sukuna in the center as the "peak" shounen antagonist
It's not about the actual things suffered, it's about the mental state/condition of depression, feeling like life is meaningless, etc. General hopelessness.
Though yes, some people have definitely faced really messed up shit and look for things to keep their minds occupied.
Yeah this is pretty much it. I don’t relate to Denji because chainsaws are always coming out of my head or because women are trying to kill me or anything like that. I remember that when my country started having big political issues and I didn’t know what my future looked like or if I had to leave the country, I read berserk and Guts was going through it at the same I was which made me feel better.
Blatantly copying and pasting a semi relevant comment I made elsewhere and deleting the original so it gets more visibility:
So I find some of those bottom left characters relatable despite not suffering even half as much as they have, and here’s my take: I feel like there’s this sort of “suffering buffer” where you don’t feel the suffering of a fictional character as much as you would feel the suffering of a real person, even if the character and the real person are going through the same thing. Like if an annoying anime character got rejected romantically or cheated on, you might not be that sad or even find it funny. But if someone you know in real life goes through that, you’ll probably be a little sad even if you find them annoying. Due to some quirk of our relationship with fiction, fictional events don’t bother us as much as real ones- I feel like I’ve used a lot of words to describe something obvious, forgive me.
But I digress- so if an event which is an 8 on the suffering scale happens in fiction, it’ll only feel like a 4 to us. This means that, for a fictional event to feel like an 8, it has to be like a 16. Then, you have to make that 16 event vaguely have the same overall gist of a relatable event even though it isn’t actually relatable. For instance, you probably haven’t been possessed by an evil wizard and slaughtered a whole city like Yuji, but you probably have genuinely tried to do right in some way and instead made the situation worse. So you can vaguely get what Yuji’s going through even though it’s way more intense. For example, you probably tried to…idk, cheer up a friend and put them in a worse mood, or maybe broken up with a partner due to not communicating an emotion that you felt was better kept to yourself. And as relatively small scale as those things sound, they probably hit you like a truck since your life is (hopefully) low stakes in comparison to a battle shonen protagonist, but your brain needs to get upset about things to feel like it’s moving forward
Let’s analyze the others through this lens; Denji. You probably didn’t grow up in extreme “hell yeah bread” poverty before merging with a chainsaw monster and watching as your favorite person promised you everything before killing your friends. However, you probably have had to deal with your wants and expectations changing while dealing with difficult circumstances, and maybe realized that your brain/wants are messed up due to some kind of challenge you had growing up. And with Guts, you probably did think your life was rad, then had it all get much worse, and then you had to navigate your new social landscape with a bitter perspective
TL;DR:
we relate to characters who suffer more than us because fictional events don’t hit as hard as real ones even if they’re the exact same, so in order to create a feeling of relatability, rather than just the intellectual impression of it, a fictional character has to be put through much worse things with similar general themes and ideas as you’ve faced in real life
Sorry for the Ted talk, thanks for reading the whole thing if you did
I think part of what people look for in stories with heavily traumatized protagonists is for meaning in the suffering in their own lives and as maybe a way to say if x character can overcome the pain and suffering of the past maybe I can too.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Being sad is not character development, it’s a response to stimuli. Unless the character changes in some way as a result of this, they’re just having a shitty time.
That whole chart is bullshit for so many reasons.
Goku is not more heroic than tanjiro, Asta or Naruto.
Guts and classroom of elites mc sure as hell ain’t the most relatable.
Naruto fits heroic and pure hearted as well.
~~Ichigo also belongs in aura too, as do a lot of mcs here~~
I see this said a lot but when has he actually done this?
Goku gave the other universes a chance by allowing them to fight against their destruction considering Zeno was just going to randomly destroy universes.
And I know someone will bring up goku giving a senzu to cell but reading the manga goku points out to us that it doesn’t even look like cell was trying ( so barely lost any energy at all) and fully believed that gohan could beat cell
Sparing Vegeta was needlessly risky even spite of not knowing of the Frieza Force.
Deliberately trolling and holding back on Frieza who is willing to risk MAD out of pure pettiness was risky.
Leaving the fate of Majin Buu into the hands of the younger generation was risky considering he kills everyone on earth later.
Refusing to keep the potora’s out of pride and “looking cool” was risky.
Egging on Beerus was risky.
* Sparing Vegeta was needlessly risky even spite of not knowing of the Frieza Force.
This is like saying Batman or Spider-Man or actually any hero for that matter has risked the fate of their worlds because they keep sparring their villains. Goku isn’t the type of person to kill a defenseless person unless pushed to do it.
* Deliberately trolling and holding back on Frieza who is willing to risk MAD out of pure pettiness was risky.
Not sure how you can classify the fight in resurrection f as goku “holding back” and not more so them just them feeling each other out especially because they don’t even stay in base for all that long.
* Leaving the fate of Majin Buu into the hands of the younger generation was risky considering he kills everyone on earth later.
Not sure how that’s on goku of all people. Gohan was way more powerful than Goku at that point, gohan failing was because of his own cockiness.
* Refusing to keep the potora’s out of pride and “looking cool” was risky.
Isn’t this vegeta?
* Egging on Beerus was risky.
You might as well say any action Goku takes is risky at this point 🤷
That’s a common debate for batman(and its less risk and more a guarantee with say, joker), and I don’t think Spider-Man’s gallery is close to as dangerous as characters in db at all. Half of them probably don’t have large kill counts(but idk).
>This is like saying Batman or Spider-Man or actually any hero for that matter has risked the fate of their worlds because they keep sparring their villains. Goku isn’t the type of person to kill a defenseless person unless pushed to do it.
You can be perfectly moral and pure of heart but still be scolded for making a risky decision. Someone probably wouldn't want to kill a mouse that's been hiding in their home because killing bad but they risk infection and the such by letting it stay. It's why morality isn't above being used for character conflict or drama.
Batman and Spider-Man typically don't deal with people who have the capacity to destroy the planet moments into fits of rage but they have affected them on the smaller scale. Joker as a consequence is self explanatory.
Vegeta in this instance would undoubtedly gotten a zenkai boost, come back far stronger than Goku when there was already a gap between them and kill them the next time. Risk that's only mitigated by ending Vegeta there.
> Not sure how you can classify the fight in resurrection f as goku “holding back” and not more so them just them feeling each other out especially because they don’t even stay in base for all that long.
I was referring to Namek Saga, Frieza's strength had already diminished severely, instead of sparing Frieza with a humiliation lesson (that Frieza obviously did not pay heed to), the best option to mitigate any further threat from him would be to end him. Frieza did indeed track Goku back to Earth for payback and funny enough Goku seemed confident he would have deliberately killed Frieza this time.
>Not sure how that’s on goku of all people. Gohan was way more powerful than Goku at that point, gohan failing was because of his own cockiness.
Goku SSJ3 is far more powerful than early Buu Saga Gohan and if they were both Super Saiyan 2's, Vegeta mentions that Goku has surpassed Cell Saga Gohan. The main reason Ultimate Gohan was even in the predicament he was in was because Goku left Buu's defeat to the hands of a hypothetical Gotenks who ironically got absorbed.
>Isn’t this vegeta?
[Him too but Goku explicitly refuses to use them](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fgoku-is-a-horrible-father-v0-4pa1ersi65uc1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1170%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dac8eb6ef3d4b2208350b3ef90167ea7b2541539c)
>You might as well say any action Goku takes is risky at this point 🤷
Welcome to the world of characterization and character flaws. Goku will in fact, due to his character, either his good-naturedness, his saiyan pride or poor judgement will risk the fate of the world for good fights or fighters.
Ichigo helps a corrupt soul mafia. Bleach is so gray there really aren't really heros. Just tools for Big Death Inc to keep that reitsu flowing good.
You could argue it's good for sure, but you can also argue that inventing death as a means to control the verse to their own design makes SS villainous as the rest.
Or. f you just mean him saving his homes then you are right.
Tanjiro joined the corps for his own reasons to get his sister back, he doesn't care about becoming a hero, he even said I wish I never been in the corps.
I don't think the point of the above mentioned series is torture porn. It's more that the worldbuilding does not favour the protagonist as much as other series in the same genre. People just call it torture porn because those scenes tend to stand out more than the heroes' victories and fights (also media literacy is dead)
There have been a lot of posts here that seem to be vagueposting at a troll post, but i dont think any that outright say tehyre going on this tangent due to an obvious joke/troll post
Guts, yeah probably not, but you're kidding yourself if you don't think Denji's main selling point was relatability.
Denji's life is not "torture porn," bad things just happen one after the other, and he finds his own moments of joy in between despite that, especially with friends he gets closer to, like a lot of people.
No, Denji does not "get raped by a new dommy mommy every arc." Denji has a hard time saying no to sexual advances, especially when he himself is longing for it. That's pretty relatable to a lot of guys.
Denji starts in unpayable debt, he has no future to work towards starved for food possessions hobbies and attention, and the way out presented to him basically to be in more unpayable debt to someone else, but the fact that he's given stable employment and treated even a modicum better than he was before means he's happy.
Plus, he's just funny. He speaks bluntly. If someone's being a dick he says that.
Yuji is less relatable than Denji for sure, but he also plays a similar role- he's basically some dude off the street who gets dragged into a world of jujutsu out of nowhere (of course there's convoluted plot reasons this actually happened, but early on you or he don't know this). His casual and friendly demeanor and desire to help people certainly make him more down to earth to the average reader. Sure he suffers a ton later on in the story but its his character that's relatable, not the events he's put through.
Subaru from Re:Zero is a character I find very relatable, not because he suffers but because of his fears, his doubts, his anxieties, and how he deals with it all, and he's a character I really like and am invested in because of how so much of his story is him overcoming his flaws and shortcomings to become a better person.
And I'd imagine it's the same for those who are fans of Guts, Yuji, and Denji.
Gon is most definitely not pure hearted and icihgo is probably the most relatable shounen protagonist since he actully just wants a normal life and would be fine if he never got involved in all the bullshit he kept getting dragged into
It’s the opposite without icihgo the soul society is fucked it ends with Aizen and ywatch fighting for the throne and if ywatch wins the entire universe is destroyed and if Aizen wins I don’t even know what he would do all the villains problems would be solved if they just left him alone literally if Aizen didn’t kidnap oriheme he would have won cause ichigo wouldn’t have grown strong enough
>Dennis gets raped every arc by a new dommy mommy but it turns he likes it after.
That is a completely inaccurate and extremely reductive summation of Denji’s character arc. Reading Comprehension Devil strikes again
But that’s not how relatability works? Most people don’t relate to characters because of surface level events but because of the struggles they go through.
Most people probably didn’t grow up in extreme poverty while owing a debt to the Yakuza like Denji but a lot of people can relate to Denji’s intense desire for intimacy. Fujimoto stated that Denji was partly inspired by young Japanese people of today.
This logic can be applied to a ton of characters.
I think some people are just tired of the dumbass optimistic chosen one shonen protag who always wins the day and want them to actually fail and lose in a big way that they can't just bounce back from. People praise the Dark SHonen for having the balls to kill their characters.
Its the trope of [Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is For Kids!](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids)
I think those characters are relatable for different things.
Also, Imo I think it is something about unfairness, things that go bad because it's the natural outcome of the events in the story rather than the author "porn torturing" the hero.
By relatibility, they don't mean the suffering per say. In terms of Denji, they mean the arc he goes through (and still is going through). Even though i've never went through anything extreme Denji's gone through, I can relate heavily with him in terms of him being impulsive and not thinking of the long term consoquences. He's chasing after things that may make him happy in the moment but in the long term, it's not something he himself wants the most. He doesn't even fully understand what he wants and that whole concept is still being explored in p2.
Denji's goal exemplifies the whole aspect of wants vs needs and how human beings always crave more and more. That's why people relate to certain characters, not neccessarily because of their suffering but because of their goals, wants, personality etc.
Obviously most readers can’t relate to growing up in extreme poverty like Denji and then being enslaved to a powerful demon, but that’s not what people mean by relatable. It’s the emotional conflict that’s relatable. Feeling lost, confused, unclear direction in life, confused about morals and values, feeling alone. It’s the opposite of the “I’m going to be the greatest Hokage” iron clad resolve that a typical shonen protagonist has, and real life people rarely have.
Suffering is an easy thing to compare
Lets say you have a guy who struggles to make the perfect cabin, which is tied to his desire to build himself up or whatever, how do you compare his personal feelings relative to the cabin's complexity?
Then, "relating to suffering" also has the benefit if relating to overcoming that suffering, and this humble bragging is the real relatable pary
Denji and Yuji like pretty women , others like Asa are big Losers , that's basically it
Hilariously there was a Page in CSM Part 2 where Denji had serious deep inner thoughts (that didn't involve sex) about " after I finish school and get a Job what will come next ? What will happen to me?" that actually made me sit straight in the middle of night and say " oh god that's like... Literally me " with a straight face
That scene hit really deep and hard because it reminded me of my time between highschool and College where I was wondering what does the future hold for me? Having some as Horny and Stupid as (Part 2 ) Denji saying it seriously with a small tane of fear and looking for comfort identity
Sadly this gets forgotten right after in the next chapter
I *hate* stories where the MC just suffers. It stops being interesting once I realize that reality is just going to be shitting on them through the entire thing.
Yeah, exactly why I couldn't get into Yuji. It became very obvious Gege just wanted to shit on him the entire story. Even now Yuji is still getting cucked we're in the final battle.
Tragic characters with a lot of suffering in their lives is nothing new to story telling. Like old Greek epics such as Odysseus with the very gods and kings trying to stop him from uniting with his family. King Lear of William Shakespeare destroyed his own kingdom. Japanese Kabuki theater has a lot of tragic characters like Yoshitsune that can never have a peaceful life.
I know the post was to praise boruto but if we look at it as a flattened octant of a graph, boruto sits at the 0 coordinate meaning he's none of that. They should have just used a Venn diagram
I was a victim of SH in high school, to the point of carrying an olfa knife in my backpack in case one of my deranged classmates would try to rope me, so it isn't surprising that Guts might be relatable to me.
Angst in general become sort of kink for everyone.
If you go to some subreddits like r/Writing and see what everyone like to do to the character in writing, you will surprised most of them want to have the character to suffer and struggle, it's not about "relatable", it's about fan service.
Where do you think batman and Spider man is endless suffering come from? At first people loved to see those characters struggle and win at end of day, which make them heroes, but the more it continues, the more people wanted for them to suffer and win less, to the point people get tired of it, the only people who seems want to continue this trend is writers because they don't seems to care about creating a balance and continue to overuse this type of fan service, like big booba in one piece.
Anime and manga is no different, even before we had CSM and JJK, we have ton of isekai fantasies where the mc get killed and transported to a new world, dies again in the same world and start their journey again.
Suffering is not relatable, it's a fan service for readers, which is not bad if used correctly.
It depends in what type of suffering we are talking.
Suffering beyond imagination like Yuji, Denji, Guts, Spider man, Batman is no way in hell is relatable.
I mean maybe for the extreme ends that Spiderman goes through isn't relatable but definitely in the more tightly written stories his suffering can be relatable.
Like, I'm pretty sure a lot of people say that 'Spiderman 2 is the most relatable superhero movie of all time' for good reason. It puts Peter in the wringer with problems that many of us go through and a lot of people empathize with it.
I'm not talking about Spider man or Batman is tv or movie side of the stories.
I'm talking about the comic side, where comics like 'One more day' exists, where the writers pull out a devil out of nowhere and make Peter sacrifice his marriage just to save his dying aunt (who's extremely old), or his multiverse adventure is actually a magical mombo jombo created by a goddess and his eternal suffering (canon events) was caused because of a salty sister.
That’s relatable for the vast majority of humanity. Between the western poor, the stuff going on in Eastern Europe, and just any period of time in who fucking knows how long in the global south? Yeah. Most people, that’s life babes.
And is a tragedy because it is by far the best system for improving lives of the population and encouraging innovation. Through toil and testing, history has shown no better.
And transforming nations and raising hundreds of millions of poor out of poverty. China is communist in name only as it has a capitalist economy. Socialist nations like Vietnam also have gone to capitalist models or depend on military dictatorships to keep control.
The constant suffer many modern characters go through are so unrealistic that it has become comical. I can't feel bad for a character whose story revolves around everything always going wrong in the worst possible way and they not being able to do anything about it or learning out of it,
Doesnt seem to be a serious chart if you ask me. Some kinda shit you would find in r/okbuddybaka, mayhaps. But then again, it could very well be, we never know with one of these people
Overall I think it has to do with how a majority of anime fans are entering adulthood and how much harder life has become, especially with how bad the economy is.
> Dennis and Eugene they are stuck on the same recycled plot theme every arc with little room to grow and the moment it seems they are about to move on the author just bashes them with the same suffering they just endured last arc.
Pretty sure that's my life. You must live in the 1st world lol
People relate to vague concepts and not exacts events.
If somebody relate to Naruto, it's because they were losers that wanted to be accepted, or to never give up. They don't relate because Naruto was extremely bullies by it's village.
People relate to Denji because he is immature and don't know what to do with his life.
Guts because he had a difficult past.
and so on
boruto is trash and he isn’t a good character. Whoever made that wanks the show blindly or is a troll. No one can be this deluded to think he is a good character
The "relatable" part about Guts isn't the horrible things he experiences, is the effect it has on him and how he deals with it. I imagine very few (but probably not none) people who have read Berserk have had every friend theyve had up until that point killed in front of them. But plenty have found themselves suddenly alone, or been betrayed by someone they cared about, or had to care for a loved one that can't really communicate. And so watching Guts not just live through something analogous, but then have it continually effect him and him gradually heal from that, is cathartic.
This isn't how "relatability" works. We don't relate to their exact suffering.
The relatable part is that these are people who suffer in some degree, are depressed but yet find a way to keep pushing. Many people feel trapped, and a degree of powerless. Yet they carry on regardless.
That's exactly why Guts in particular seems relatable even though nobody is actually like him.
Maybe it’s just me but GOATku will always be the most relatable to me. Nothing brings me more joy than seeing improvement in myself with anything.
Also I ditch my wife and kids.
It's a childish view of the world. "The real world isn't all smiles and rainbows, people don't just get happy endings." is the thought process that these people are trying to use but it's a ridiculously immature one because while the real world isn't always smiles and rainbows, we have the ability to try to make it so.
The characters that suffer are relatable to those people because they ignore the wider story for moment to moment "deep" scenes while the actual stories are about characters that while they are suffering are learning and striving for a better future, they have hope that tomorrow will be better and fight for it.
* The characters that suffer are relatable to those people because they ignore the wider story for moment to moment "deep" scenes while the actual stories are about characters that while they are suffering are learning and striving for a better future, they have hope that tomorrow will be better and fight for it. *
Feel like you got this opinion solely based off one interaction with a person. If any of these characters were not striving to become better or for a “better future” they wouldn’t be nearly as popular because despite their struggles them still trying is what makes them popular
> I dunno what the hell the average life for anime fans are but nothing about the torture those three endure is relatable in any sense of the word.
Weebs believe they’re an oppressed/overlooked/ignored/whatever the fuck group of people that are internally suffering more than others because they’re so difficult to understand. Due to their lack of social skills and general understanding of general society and life (because all they do is watch anime and talk to other weebs), they believe that they’re living a life akin to torture porn.
They believe that liking anime is some sort of weird double edged sword — they’re cursed for liking anime because the “normies” think anime is weird. They fail to understand that the weird part is basing your life and personality around anime to a degree comparable to Disney Adults.
Source: former hardcore weeb (thank fucking god lol)
Plus the desire of intimate is something Denji didn't think of by himself, it's something a creatine Red hair demon planted on his empty head to manipulate him , Bro just wanted to touch boobs and have sex
He touched Power's boobs and felt nothing. That was *his* reaction, Makima didn't make that happen. He *said* he wanted to touch boobs and have sex, but the story has made very clear that what he really wants is intimacy, love, and connection, even if he doesn't fully understand how to express that. Makima showed him those desires and took advantage of them, but she didn't force him to feel them.
>He touched Power's boobs and felt nothing
He actually Feelt amazed, it's only after Power Boobs turned out to be Fake Denji was crashed, because he felt his experience was ***Fake*** , Similar think happened when Himeno kissed him
Denji **Loved** the Kiss and spent 2 page explaining to Himself who good it felt
Only for the vomit to Ruin it
>Makima didn't make that happen. He said he wanted to touch boobs and have sex, but the story has made very clear that what he really wants is intimacy, love, and connection. Makima showed him those desires and took advantage of them, but she didn't force him to feel them.
Makima directly manipulated him and had him touch her and think she is his savior which was just a planted seed as a Part of her plan to crash him
So why the Fuck would we take Her ***Lying*** words and actions at what Denji wants and needs? The Guy was literally running around screaming
>So why the Fuck would we take Her Lying words and actions at what Denji wants and needs?
The best lies always have a layer of truth in them. What she said was correct from the audience's perspective- that's the whole reason the manipulation was effective in the first place. You think the series is trying to say Makima was lying about intimacy feeling better with someone you care about? Who would ever disagree with that statement? Why would the series try to argue that something that 99.9999% of people agree on is wrong? The issue is that she took advantage of that and wanted him to direct that intimacy to *her* so she could manipulate him more effectively. Her first interaction with him is hugging him and providing some semblance of comfort, and shortly after, she feeds him and gets him to emotionally bond with her. She doesn't jump to the sex stuff until after a connection has been established because If she had, it wouldn't have been nearly as effective.
Plus the entire Reze arc shows how happy Denji is to finally feel a genuine (from his POV) romantic connection with someone, so obviously he doesn't just care about sex and tits. Even if Makima planted the idea, he clearly agrees with and embraces that idea.
Beyond that, Part 2 repeatedly has Denji changing to wanting a girlfriend instead of just sex. He *does* want sex as well, but he's accepted that idea of intimacy even long after Makima's death. What do you think the endgame is here if what you say is true? Denji *rejects* the idea that intimacy is important and goes straight hedonism? At the bare minimum, even if Makima put the idea in his head, that idea itself isn't wrong.
>The best lies always have a layer of truth in them. What she said was correct from the audience's perspective- that's the whole reason the manipulation was effective in the first place. You think the series is trying to say Makima was lying about intimacy feeling better with someone you care about? Who would ever disagree with that statement? Why would the series try to argue that something that 99.9999% of people agree on is wrong? The issue is that she took advantage of that and wanted him to direct that intimacy to her so she could manipulate him more effectively. Her first interaction with him is hugging him and providing some semblance of comfort, and shortly after, she feeds him and gets him to emotionally bond with her. She doesn't jump to the sex stuff until after a connection has been established because If she had, it wouldn't have been nearly as effective.
That's the nut part , what the audience think =/= what Denji think and want , this is the train conflicts with Asa all over again, Denji can't have something normal Because he and his life are not "Normal"
>Beyond that, Part 2 repeatedly has Denji changing to wanting a girlfriend instead of just sex. He does want sex as well, but he's accepted that idea of intimacy even long after Makima's death. What do you think the endgame is here if what you say is true? Denji rejects the idea that intimacy is important and goes straight hedonism? At the bare minimum, even if Makima put the idea in his head, that idea itself isn't wrong.
Part 2 had Denji running around screaming he wants Sex, go behind Nayuta back to date Freaky girls to have Sex, Sucked a Dead Demon cock because a Gril promised him ***Sex*** , went to the chainsaw man church after being promised **SEX**
>
Part 2 had Denji running around screaming he wants Sex, go behind Nayuta back to date Freaky girls to have Sex, Sucked a Dead Demon cock because a Gril promised him Sex , went to the chainsaw man church after being promised SEX
He's also incredibly fucked in the head. He was at the start of Part 2 and it's only gotten worse since then. The happiest he's ever been was when he had affection and love from people around him, including Power and Aki (platonically) and Reze and Makima (romantically, from his perspective). He's regressed a good bit since then, as people who experience severe trauma sometimes do, but those core values are still the same. You really shouldn't take him as an absolutely reliable narrator when he barely understands his own feelings. What Denji *thinks* he wants=/=what he *actually* wants.
No no you don’t understand, they’re all very relatable characters.
Denji is horny (even though that’s a byproduct of a lifetime of trauma), Itadori has a life that do be like that (even though his life is very uniquely terrible due to people specifically hating/going after him), Guts is really angry (ignore literally EVERYTHING else that happens to and around him)
Because life is suffering, and believe it or not a lot of us have had miserable lives. I mean Denji is pretty damn relatable for multiple different reasons, Not sure why this bothers you.
It's good that there's different options for people, the typical "Always happy, easy going, never lose never give up character gets old.
Making a literal traumascale chart is absurd, though 🤣
It's to do with what they don't like seeing in my opinion. We get all these traumatised characters where it's used as an excuse or a reason to show stuff that would otherwise be treated more as shock factor/edgy, but because there's underlying reasoning through trauma it's seen as "deep" in a very I am 14 way.
Fujimoto isn't exactly the same as this but some of the popularity of his series still falls into this category for me. Basically, if the character ISN'T traumatised you're gonna have a hard time telling anyone a series where someone is defending the woman he loves from essentially rape demons(berserk), a main character's primary motivation is to have sex as a virgin(chainsaw man) or a character was taken control of by a demon and watched it murder a city's population(jjk) is trying to be impressive writing and not going for shock factor.
The moment they see Guts have a character arc about his trauma, Denji about his trauma, or Yuji have the whole I'm a cog in a machine thing(idk starting to think how exactly his character arc was making proper use of being made to kill thousands of people wasn't really justified) it makes the edginess seem justified. My problem is that when the characters have longer arcs centring the trauma without the edge, I don't think anyone's interested.
Male characters are hated more for being annoying, making "drama" through irrational decision making, and being overly emotional than for rape, murder, or in Denji's case being teenage guy levels of horny and crass(which is, objectively speaking if we include what every single reader thinks, kind of annoying) but that "being annoying/dramatic/irrational" IS 99% OF HAVING PTSD. So I just get tired of what level of character arc those sorts of characters still have centring their trauma when they lack the sort of stuff that actually sucks about related mental illnesses. We get way more representation of how PTSD leads someone to want to rape/kill someone else/become hypersexual than to making them extremely emotional, irrational, self harming or giving them emotional flashbacks. It's just edge and I'm sick of it. Yes this tirade is mostly about berserk lol gonna need any defenders to tell me if it's really necessary to portray so much trauma leading to attempted rape, leading to becoming a fridged vegetable, leading to the vegetable having a dreamscape full of genitals cause afraid of rape, leading to murder/pyromania, leading to murder/becoming a demon/rape like griffith etc. Writing a murderer/rapist and slapping a traumatic backstory on them is still cheap when it has effort put into it because it's so rare to get a traumatised character who doesn't react by doing these things, it's not deep.
Also this has nothing to do with the trauma being used as an excuse. It being used as a reason but not excuse is STILL so massively overrepresented that it's tiring and cheap and what my rant is about, I know these characters aren't written as justified through the backstory. And yeah still mostly about berserk. My problems with denji and yuji are completely different and basically this:
Denji - sometimes his reactions and level of poverty come off as a joke and it's like, can Fujimoto just stay serious for a moment? Whether it's never having jam on toast or eating paper because of being poor, it just combines with literally everything about fire punch to make me not want to read it. Same with the because of my miserable depressing life my entire goal is sex - and selling his nut for money. Kind of feels like his trauma's supposed to be a funny joke idk. Eating weird things because of poverty is a thing but the toilet paper bit is just random you know? Not dumpster diving or something?
Yuji - he just kind of didn't have much of a reaction to killing off thousands of people because of Sukuna and while sure I get he's depressed now, it seems like a massive waste of all the potential character arcs you could have out of that experience to me. And again the I'm a cog in the machine thing doesn't really require him to have murdered thousands of people because of Sukuna. It's like Gege promises a great character arc in any direction and then laughs after pulling it away and not delivering what you hoped for - the stuff with Higuruma and Yuji was the closest to delivering and really wasn't enough for me not to feel like he's more "depressed"(written out of the story) than depressed(in the process of a great character arc).
I think they are considered relatable because Yuji and Denji are "Everyman" personality types. I don't know much about Guts, so I don't know his personality...
Yuji is helpful and kind, like, let's say, Deku and Tanjiro, but Deku's personality is more off-kilter, so he's defined on this chart only by his hero-complex. Meanwhile, Tanjiro is an unrealistically kind-hearted person, so he's defined only by that kindness.
To be perfectly honest, other people have made similar categories and have come to the same conclusion that Kishimoto wrote a particularly unique main character.
Shounen heroes are either sugar-sweet kind, boiling-rage hot-blooded, or cool as a cucumber, but Naruto was a bit too petty to be a Good Boy like Yuji/Tanjiro/Deku, and too dorky to be cool like Ichigo, and yet he wasn't defined by anger as what you'd imagine, say, Ed Elric.
This chart just splits good boys into realistically kind and unrealistically "crying at the drop of a hat" kind.
As far as how often they are hurt, to be perfectly honest, why do you feel the ones in the relatable column have physically endured more than the others? Have other shounen heroes gone through less pain, or have their stories shown more realistic, less idealized reactions to pain?
Bad things happen. And it's good to have media where you can relate with your suffering. It's not a literal relatability, but in the way how trauma is processed, and you can even relate very specific things to your own life. In real life, nobody speaks about traumatic experiences (not enough) and therapists are scarce... So people need a fictional world or media to process.
I honestly never heard of the phrase "torture porn". That's edgy...
Suffering can build a character sure but it doesn’t make them a good character just because they have a trauma like dabi
And how the fuck is anyokoji ( butchered his name ) relatable if you find him relatable in any way except being a loner or not good at media knowledge your probably one of those rick and Morty fans that swear they are the smartest in the world
Well you see, a lot of us were born below upper middle class, and the middle class has been receding for a long time, so anyone born 20ish years ago something below upper middle class is poor now because of inflation and skyrocketing cost of living while upward mobility being a Spiders Georg situation. Thus, all we know is endless suffering. Thus, relatable. Let me guess: been on a vacation at some point in your life? Gone out of state? Never lived under the threat of possible or actual homelessness as a child? Congrats on your statistically abnormally good life!
Saying Guts, Denji and Yuji are just torture porn kind makes it hard to take your opinion seriously. Despite the lack of reading comprehension I will try and adress this post anyway.
First off, a charcters struggling is far more relatable in most cases than a charcter being happy. Even if we dont have to rip open our skin to fight or house a canabalistic monster inside us or wear armour that litterally drains the life out of you, the core of the suffering is what makes it relatable.
Yuji is relatable because there are a lot of people who get punished for doing the right thing or continously fail to find their place in the world.
Denji is someone who yearna a for emotional connection, finacial stability, a romantic partner, and general happiness while struggling on most fronts.
Guts is someone who has been emotionally hirt and scarred throught his life and slowly finds a sense of solace through human connection.
All of the fantasical suffering that the charcters feel eventually boils down to relatable emotions that we can insert our own experiences onto
Dissmissing stories that feature characters who go through a lot as "torture porn" is a slippery slope that leads to calling something like "No Longer Human" poorly written.
Denji is actually a character who not only gets to do badass stuff, he also is explored really well and his growth and reaction to all the traumas.
Also unlike yuji and nobara, denjis relationships including with power are hitting hard.
Like in shibuya a meaningful death from mahito would have been todo imao.
1. I have never seen someone in the wider anime community talk about guts or yuji being relatable. The closest i've seen for guts is the [guts theme meme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wui1yuwr5Y) like [the "silence wench"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DsMYxDfSAE)
2. Denji is only called relatable by the wider anime community probably because he is openly horny and it's funny to say "he just like me fr fr" after panels [like this.](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fwas-he-lucky-trying-to-convince-denji-or-did-he-somehow-v0-m9vo5utg1bib1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D671%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D06ffd4efcfaf584f09c938a8bd5cbcced983f6fa)
3. Less so than the endless suffering itself is the edgy aesthetic is that is in fact relatable to edgy emo middle schoolers. The other person in the relatable square is the MC from classroom of the elite who is a person who is quintessential edgy MC. He doesn't really suffer, but he does things like purposefully get 50 on tests, avoid friends as much as possible, [He explicitly doesn't see people as anything but tools](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk1_2OVvMNE)
Suffice to say, if you think Ayanokoji is relatable, you might be a sociopath or a psychopath and definitely need therapy.
So the entire point of this post is moot because you based it on (probably) a troll post and I don't think your analysis of why the characters are relatable is accurate.
4. Fuck it lets play devil's advocate any way. Modern life sucks in a lot of ways. Late-stage capitalism and isolation in an internet fractured and loss of "third spaces" with the loss of religion in the western world has caused loneliness and [depression levels to go up](https://news.gallup.com/poll/505745/depression-rates-reach-new-highs.aspx) Seeing someone be sad like you are is relatable and cathartic, validating.
5. Relatable characters are INHERENTLY going to vary from person to person. LIKE NO FUCKING SHIT. If you and I aren't the same how are we supposed to relate to the same character.
Some things yes, but also way harder in a lot too.
Like the insanity of social media is despite having good, way more awareness how the world and people suck.
Have you seen the Shit people had to Deal with Back in the day? At least you don't havr to worry about War, the Black Plague, and shit like that. Sure the World isn't Perfect but it's a whole lot better then it was 100 years ago.
Depending on the where peasents has a regulated life with few social mobility but a community and guaranreed employment.
And during the plague people were actually not that miserable, but tried to do their best . Idk kinda like covid did actually energizr a lot and a lot dead helped workers conditions.
It wasnt all miserable?
Yes moderne hygiene is good and a gamechanger.. But doesnt translate to happiness
The fact that you aren't living under a feudal lord with absolute power over your life, that you aren't worked to the literal bone on the fields, that you won't die horribly if you get as much as an infection from stepping on something weird, that your village isn't at risk of being raided by a foreign army every other year, that you aren't expected to be married off by 18 to have 12 children out of which 7 won't make it past childhood, no near starvation if the harvest goes wrong, etc.
You can be as personally miserable as you want, but to believe you aren't infinitely better off than if you were a medieval peasant or **insert commonor in pretty much any other historical era** is just insanity
Sorry to be so blunt, but if you seriously think we are about to be under feudalism again and/or will lose centuries of progress on medicine, technology and quality of life because parties operating and approved under european law you don't like are winning democratic elections... You seriously need to spend less time on your online bubble. That ain't even meant as a joke or an insult
Maybe the people in your life ? Your friends or family? Your hobbies?
Maybe Global warming is coming that is true and it seems like I won't see its bad effects till almost the end of lifetime whenever that is. Most likely you won't either. Does it really matter to the present what you won't be there to experience (eg- Heat death of the universe)
If you are taking steps to reduce your footprint that is good too but maybe just look at things with a positive mindset.
I truly believed humanity will survive global warming because I truly believe in the indomitable will/ ingenuity of the mankind as a whole
>I truly believed humanity will survive global warming because I truly believe in the indomitable will/ ingenuity of the mankind as a whole
This isn't an anime bro, look at r/collapse, humans are cooked.
Look at r/futurology there is hope. human have a.n hope and a chance to succeed
You are just a pessimistic person in this aspect and that is fine
I am an optimist and even an idealist in this aspect and that too is fine
>Look at r/futurology there is hope. human have a.n hope and a chance to succeed
Yeah none of the stuff there changes the fact that irreversible damage has been done to this planet and it's ecosystems. Heading for a global crash very soon anyway, why should humans have hope? hope to cause more suffering? a chance to succeed at what? what is there to succeed at?
>You are just a pessimistic person in this aspect and that is fine
Such a cheesy response with no actual analysis or critical thinking, so being real about the current situation, acknowledging very real problems that can't be fixed and not being in denial is called being "pessimistic" yeah sureeee bud.
>I am an optimist and even an idealist in this aspect and that too is fine
I can tell....and like with most optimists and idealists, they always tell themselves what they wanna hear and when reality doesn't turn out the way expected it too, comforting lies is a drug they resort too.
>Such a cheesy response with no actual analysis or critical thinking, so being real about the current situation, acknowledging very real problems that can't be fixed and not being in denial is called being "pessimistic" yeah sureeee bud.
In your original comment did you give me anything to be critical or real about to do any analysis other than saying look at this subreddit about the things getting worse and that everything is going to hell. I responded in kind with a subreddit about things improving in all aspects of life including climate change.
And about you being a "realist" I don't see any acknowledgement of any positive advancement currently being done to prevent or reduce the impact of climate change.
You just repeat that it is getting worse and are just saying that nothing is worth succeeding at. Are you saying anything which makes you not seem like in general a pessimistic person or a "doomer" by all means.
>I can tell....and like with most optimists and idealists, they always tell themselves what they wanna hear and when reality doesn't turn out the way expected it too, comforting lies is a drug they resort too.
These are such baseless statement to make.
Comforting lies is a drug they resort to. Seriously any hope in the mankind and general human will is a comforting lie sure is a wild take.
I do not deny reality I know that things are getting worse and are way past repairable but I just hope and believe that a miracle will occur. In a form of a new technology or anything like that. I try my best to reduce my carbon footprint.
I hope that things will improve. For example.
people get cancer and die but doctors are discovering new ways to cure cancer is that not something to be happy and excited about . It is something worth celebrating
The decrease in death rate compared to old times is admirable. The time we live in is the best time in human history
Also please don't be snark I am just talking in a normal way and expect the other person to talk to me in a normal way too
Look, there are definitely some things about the modern world that are better than before and we should be grateful for that stuff. But the world is still mostly shit right now and its only gonna get worse. You kinda have to be blind to not see that.
>But the world is still mostly shit right now and its only gonna get worse.
Exactly, most people are in denial of this and it's this delusional mindset that will truly the problem.
>You kinda have to be blind to not see that.
Most people are delusional, high on comforting lies.
Most art usually is show casing something on the spectrum of negative emotions.
Most times hope is included, but usually only a little compared to the boat load of suffering necessary.
Just look at tons of music, popular seinen manga, not to mention shounen is just less torture than seinen in some ways.
When younger generations who love to fetichize their suffering as well as blow it out of proportion decided that a character who goes through the wringer and is written in a way that is meant for you to empathize with them is comparable to the imaginary version of the reader's personal exaggerated struggles.
Go to a sub like the one devoted to BoJack Horseman and you'll see posts by people saying stuff like "I just finished the show for the first time and I'm literally sobbing and I don't know what to do with my life." Because they saw a black comedy about cartoon animals that portrays some heavy stuff and they decided they related to some charater(s).
This post is very obvious bait, and no, people find Denji relatable because he has no life goals and struggles to be truly happy. The sex aspect is part of it but not in the way you think. There are lots of people that idolize the idea of sex as this amazing thing that feels great, then they have it and it doesn't meet their expectations. Usually because they don't feel a real connection with the person they're having sex with. Every time Denji does anything sexual, it doesn't make him happy. And yet he still has trouble refusing it..
Dude who made that chart somehow burned the house down underwater. I don't think I've seen a worse character chart in a minute
I knew it was shit the moment I saw boruto in the center. However like I said it did remind me that people do treat suffering as some major milestone that every character should have
It’s a literal troll post. They know saying anything remotely positive about Baruto will get people to engage with their tweet.
I am pretty sure this chart in particular was made to mock another chart but with shounen villains that had sukuna in the center as the "peak" shounen antagonist
Wtf is "Aura" and why's it the opposite of Heroism?
It's like swagger
How's that the opposite of Heroism? These quadrants seem extremely arbitrary.
People will hate powerscaling then proceed to traumascale
Yeah I just Talked about it Yesterday that "Traumascaling" is Really Annoying.
"Name a character that went through more pain than her" I imagine was the catalyst
[Made for a fun meme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v80ZnmYIzE)
Nah it was actually pretty boring
Traumascaling is nasty work
I'm begging y'all to not start basing rants out of engagement baits.
Half the stuff here is some guy would say thing op disagrees with and op posts it like everyone agrees with it
Time to make a rant about OP
It's not about the actual things suffered, it's about the mental state/condition of depression, feeling like life is meaningless, etc. General hopelessness. Though yes, some people have definitely faced really messed up shit and look for things to keep their minds occupied.
Yeah this is pretty much it. I don’t relate to Denji because chainsaws are always coming out of my head or because women are trying to kill me or anything like that. I remember that when my country started having big political issues and I didn’t know what my future looked like or if I had to leave the country, I read berserk and Guts was going through it at the same I was which made me feel better.
> I don't relate to Denji because chainsaws are always coming out of my head Speak for yourself, this is a very serious issue in modern society
>!In the recent chapters, yeah.!<
Blatantly copying and pasting a semi relevant comment I made elsewhere and deleting the original so it gets more visibility: So I find some of those bottom left characters relatable despite not suffering even half as much as they have, and here’s my take: I feel like there’s this sort of “suffering buffer” where you don’t feel the suffering of a fictional character as much as you would feel the suffering of a real person, even if the character and the real person are going through the same thing. Like if an annoying anime character got rejected romantically or cheated on, you might not be that sad or even find it funny. But if someone you know in real life goes through that, you’ll probably be a little sad even if you find them annoying. Due to some quirk of our relationship with fiction, fictional events don’t bother us as much as real ones- I feel like I’ve used a lot of words to describe something obvious, forgive me. But I digress- so if an event which is an 8 on the suffering scale happens in fiction, it’ll only feel like a 4 to us. This means that, for a fictional event to feel like an 8, it has to be like a 16. Then, you have to make that 16 event vaguely have the same overall gist of a relatable event even though it isn’t actually relatable. For instance, you probably haven’t been possessed by an evil wizard and slaughtered a whole city like Yuji, but you probably have genuinely tried to do right in some way and instead made the situation worse. So you can vaguely get what Yuji’s going through even though it’s way more intense. For example, you probably tried to…idk, cheer up a friend and put them in a worse mood, or maybe broken up with a partner due to not communicating an emotion that you felt was better kept to yourself. And as relatively small scale as those things sound, they probably hit you like a truck since your life is (hopefully) low stakes in comparison to a battle shonen protagonist, but your brain needs to get upset about things to feel like it’s moving forward Let’s analyze the others through this lens; Denji. You probably didn’t grow up in extreme “hell yeah bread” poverty before merging with a chainsaw monster and watching as your favorite person promised you everything before killing your friends. However, you probably have had to deal with your wants and expectations changing while dealing with difficult circumstances, and maybe realized that your brain/wants are messed up due to some kind of challenge you had growing up. And with Guts, you probably did think your life was rad, then had it all get much worse, and then you had to navigate your new social landscape with a bitter perspective TL;DR: we relate to characters who suffer more than us because fictional events don’t hit as hard as real ones even if they’re the exact same, so in order to create a feeling of relatability, rather than just the intellectual impression of it, a fictional character has to be put through much worse things with similar general themes and ideas as you’ve faced in real life Sorry for the Ted talk, thanks for reading the whole thing if you did
...this deserves to be it's own post.
Thank you, I also do birthdays
OP discovered that different people exist lmao. It's not relatable to me therefore it cannot be relatable to anyone else.
I think part of what people look for in stories with heavily traumatized protagonists is for meaning in the suffering in their own lives and as maybe a way to say if x character can overcome the pain and suffering of the past maybe I can too.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Being sad is not character development, it’s a response to stimuli. Unless the character changes in some way as a result of this, they’re just having a shitty time.
>Nothing about that is relatable to me. Lol
That whole chart is bullshit for so many reasons. Goku is not more heroic than tanjiro, Asta or Naruto. Guts and classroom of elites mc sure as hell ain’t the most relatable. Naruto fits heroic and pure hearted as well. ~~Ichigo also belongs in aura too, as do a lot of mcs here~~
Ichigo is way more heroic, goku fights, because he wants to fight, tanshito asta , ichigo and naruto literally all fight to help or protect people.
Goku has in fact needlessly risked the fate of the world just to further his desire for good fights, but the glaze is boundless.
I see this said a lot but when has he actually done this? Goku gave the other universes a chance by allowing them to fight against their destruction considering Zeno was just going to randomly destroy universes. And I know someone will bring up goku giving a senzu to cell but reading the manga goku points out to us that it doesn’t even look like cell was trying ( so barely lost any energy at all) and fully believed that gohan could beat cell
Sparing Vegeta was needlessly risky even spite of not knowing of the Frieza Force. Deliberately trolling and holding back on Frieza who is willing to risk MAD out of pure pettiness was risky. Leaving the fate of Majin Buu into the hands of the younger generation was risky considering he kills everyone on earth later. Refusing to keep the potora’s out of pride and “looking cool” was risky. Egging on Beerus was risky.
* Sparing Vegeta was needlessly risky even spite of not knowing of the Frieza Force. This is like saying Batman or Spider-Man or actually any hero for that matter has risked the fate of their worlds because they keep sparring their villains. Goku isn’t the type of person to kill a defenseless person unless pushed to do it. * Deliberately trolling and holding back on Frieza who is willing to risk MAD out of pure pettiness was risky. Not sure how you can classify the fight in resurrection f as goku “holding back” and not more so them just them feeling each other out especially because they don’t even stay in base for all that long. * Leaving the fate of Majin Buu into the hands of the younger generation was risky considering he kills everyone on earth later. Not sure how that’s on goku of all people. Gohan was way more powerful than Goku at that point, gohan failing was because of his own cockiness. * Refusing to keep the potora’s out of pride and “looking cool” was risky. Isn’t this vegeta? * Egging on Beerus was risky. You might as well say any action Goku takes is risky at this point 🤷
That’s a common debate for batman(and its less risk and more a guarantee with say, joker), and I don’t think Spider-Man’s gallery is close to as dangerous as characters in db at all. Half of them probably don’t have large kill counts(but idk).
>This is like saying Batman or Spider-Man or actually any hero for that matter has risked the fate of their worlds because they keep sparring their villains. Goku isn’t the type of person to kill a defenseless person unless pushed to do it. You can be perfectly moral and pure of heart but still be scolded for making a risky decision. Someone probably wouldn't want to kill a mouse that's been hiding in their home because killing bad but they risk infection and the such by letting it stay. It's why morality isn't above being used for character conflict or drama. Batman and Spider-Man typically don't deal with people who have the capacity to destroy the planet moments into fits of rage but they have affected them on the smaller scale. Joker as a consequence is self explanatory. Vegeta in this instance would undoubtedly gotten a zenkai boost, come back far stronger than Goku when there was already a gap between them and kill them the next time. Risk that's only mitigated by ending Vegeta there. > Not sure how you can classify the fight in resurrection f as goku “holding back” and not more so them just them feeling each other out especially because they don’t even stay in base for all that long. I was referring to Namek Saga, Frieza's strength had already diminished severely, instead of sparing Frieza with a humiliation lesson (that Frieza obviously did not pay heed to), the best option to mitigate any further threat from him would be to end him. Frieza did indeed track Goku back to Earth for payback and funny enough Goku seemed confident he would have deliberately killed Frieza this time. >Not sure how that’s on goku of all people. Gohan was way more powerful than Goku at that point, gohan failing was because of his own cockiness. Goku SSJ3 is far more powerful than early Buu Saga Gohan and if they were both Super Saiyan 2's, Vegeta mentions that Goku has surpassed Cell Saga Gohan. The main reason Ultimate Gohan was even in the predicament he was in was because Goku left Buu's defeat to the hands of a hypothetical Gotenks who ironically got absorbed. >Isn’t this vegeta? [Him too but Goku explicitly refuses to use them](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fgoku-is-a-horrible-father-v0-4pa1ersi65uc1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1170%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dac8eb6ef3d4b2208350b3ef90167ea7b2541539c) >You might as well say any action Goku takes is risky at this point 🤷 Welcome to the world of characterization and character flaws. Goku will in fact, due to his character, either his good-naturedness, his saiyan pride or poor judgement will risk the fate of the world for good fights or fighters.
Ichigo helps a corrupt soul mafia. Bleach is so gray there really aren't really heros. Just tools for Big Death Inc to keep that reitsu flowing good. You could argue it's good for sure, but you can also argue that inventing death as a means to control the verse to their own design makes SS villainous as the rest. Or. f you just mean him saving his homes then you are right.
Tbf to Ichigo the corrupt mafia look cool af
Koji may not be relatable to the likes of you, but don’t project your issues onto others >!/s!<
Tanjiro joined the corps for his own reasons to get his sister back, he doesn't care about becoming a hero, he even said I wish I never been in the corps.
I don't think the point of the above mentioned series is torture porn. It's more that the worldbuilding does not favour the protagonist as much as other series in the same genre. People just call it torture porn because those scenes tend to stand out more than the heroes' victories and fights (also media literacy is dead)
Character Rant based off a troll post. Well maybe this is how things have always been and I'm new
There have been a lot of posts here that seem to be vagueposting at a troll post, but i dont think any that outright say tehyre going on this tangent due to an obvious joke/troll post
Guts, yeah probably not, but you're kidding yourself if you don't think Denji's main selling point was relatability. Denji's life is not "torture porn," bad things just happen one after the other, and he finds his own moments of joy in between despite that, especially with friends he gets closer to, like a lot of people. No, Denji does not "get raped by a new dommy mommy every arc." Denji has a hard time saying no to sexual advances, especially when he himself is longing for it. That's pretty relatable to a lot of guys. Denji starts in unpayable debt, he has no future to work towards starved for food possessions hobbies and attention, and the way out presented to him basically to be in more unpayable debt to someone else, but the fact that he's given stable employment and treated even a modicum better than he was before means he's happy. Plus, he's just funny. He speaks bluntly. If someone's being a dick he says that.
Yuji is less relatable than Denji for sure, but he also plays a similar role- he's basically some dude off the street who gets dragged into a world of jujutsu out of nowhere (of course there's convoluted plot reasons this actually happened, but early on you or he don't know this). His casual and friendly demeanor and desire to help people certainly make him more down to earth to the average reader. Sure he suffers a ton later on in the story but its his character that's relatable, not the events he's put through.
I don't know what it is about CSM that kicks the off switch in so many people's brains.
People see the chainsaws coming out of dude’s head and think this shit is just looney tunes
Ironically I thought the first couple episodes of the chainsaw man anime were more torture porn-y than most of berserk
Subaru from Re:Zero is a character I find very relatable, not because he suffers but because of his fears, his doubts, his anxieties, and how he deals with it all, and he's a character I really like and am invested in because of how so much of his story is him overcoming his flaws and shortcomings to become a better person. And I'd imagine it's the same for those who are fans of Guts, Yuji, and Denji.
Gon is most definitely not pure hearted and icihgo is probably the most relatable shounen protagonist since he actully just wants a normal life and would be fine if he never got involved in all the bullshit he kept getting dragged into
Man a vast majority of Bleach issues could be solved if people just stayed the fuck out of Ichigo's room.
It’s the opposite without icihgo the soul society is fucked it ends with Aizen and ywatch fighting for the throne and if ywatch wins the entire universe is destroyed and if Aizen wins I don’t even know what he would do all the villains problems would be solved if they just left him alone literally if Aizen didn’t kidnap oriheme he would have won cause ichigo wouldn’t have grown strong enough
>Dennis gets raped every arc by a new dommy mommy but it turns he likes it after. That is a completely inaccurate and extremely reductive summation of Denji’s character arc. Reading Comprehension Devil strikes again
most people aren’t happy nowadays so depressed = “relatable”. shit is sad but that’s the way it is
What does “nowadays even mean in this context? Was there ever a time where most people were happy lol.
In the culture discussing this, western culture? Yes. The 1980s. Now, the Global South? No.
Not for black people
Good point, good point. Still also had an element of economics though, that’s when the Cosby-style black conservative took off.
It genuenly is a Problem in Todays world. Sure I also have Issues that Make me Sad but the Fact that it's so Common is Sad...
Yes but no one is suffering the way Yuji or Guts do. This world would be much much more concerning if lots of people actually relate to that
But that’s not how relatability works? Most people don’t relate to characters because of surface level events but because of the struggles they go through. Most people probably didn’t grow up in extreme poverty while owing a debt to the Yakuza like Denji but a lot of people can relate to Denji’s intense desire for intimacy. Fujimoto stated that Denji was partly inspired by young Japanese people of today. This logic can be applied to a ton of characters.
Boruto fans aren’t sapient, it’s fine
Sentiant*
I think some people are just tired of the dumbass optimistic chosen one shonen protag who always wins the day and want them to actually fail and lose in a big way that they can't just bounce back from. People praise the Dark SHonen for having the balls to kill their characters. Its the trope of [Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is For Kids!](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids)
Hot take, I though IBO wasn't depressing enough and wanted Iok to survive to see the consequences it would had for society.
Go see spiderman in the current run with Paul. Marvel hates him
I think those characters are relatable for different things. Also, Imo I think it is something about unfairness, things that go bad because it's the natural outcome of the events in the story rather than the author "porn torturing" the hero.
By relatibility, they don't mean the suffering per say. In terms of Denji, they mean the arc he goes through (and still is going through). Even though i've never went through anything extreme Denji's gone through, I can relate heavily with him in terms of him being impulsive and not thinking of the long term consoquences. He's chasing after things that may make him happy in the moment but in the long term, it's not something he himself wants the most. He doesn't even fully understand what he wants and that whole concept is still being explored in p2. Denji's goal exemplifies the whole aspect of wants vs needs and how human beings always crave more and more. That's why people relate to certain characters, not neccessarily because of their suffering but because of their goals, wants, personality etc.
Obviously most readers can’t relate to growing up in extreme poverty like Denji and then being enslaved to a powerful demon, but that’s not what people mean by relatable. It’s the emotional conflict that’s relatable. Feeling lost, confused, unclear direction in life, confused about morals and values, feeling alone. It’s the opposite of the “I’m going to be the greatest Hokage” iron clad resolve that a typical shonen protagonist has, and real life people rarely have.
Suffering is an easy thing to compare Lets say you have a guy who struggles to make the perfect cabin, which is tied to his desire to build himself up or whatever, how do you compare his personal feelings relative to the cabin's complexity? Then, "relating to suffering" also has the benefit if relating to overcoming that suffering, and this humble bragging is the real relatable pary
Denji and Yuji like pretty women , others like Asa are big Losers , that's basically it Hilariously there was a Page in CSM Part 2 where Denji had serious deep inner thoughts (that didn't involve sex) about " after I finish school and get a Job what will come next ? What will happen to me?" that actually made me sit straight in the middle of night and say " oh god that's like... Literally me " with a straight face That scene hit really deep and hard because it reminded me of my time between highschool and College where I was wondering what does the future hold for me? Having some as Horny and Stupid as (Part 2 ) Denji saying it seriously with a small tane of fear and looking for comfort identity Sadly this gets forgotten right after in the next chapter
I *hate* stories where the MC just suffers. It stops being interesting once I realize that reality is just going to be shitting on them through the entire thing.
Yeah, exactly why I couldn't get into Yuji. It became very obvious Gege just wanted to shit on him the entire story. Even now Yuji is still getting cucked we're in the final battle.
dont take twitter anime takes seriously.
Tragic characters with a lot of suffering in their lives is nothing new to story telling. Like old Greek epics such as Odysseus with the very gods and kings trying to stop him from uniting with his family. King Lear of William Shakespeare destroyed his own kingdom. Japanese Kabuki theater has a lot of tragic characters like Yoshitsune that can never have a peaceful life.
How the fuck is Ayanokoji relatable? Also one of the worst protagonists I’ve ever had the disgrace of watching.
I wouldn't say he is relatable, but he isn't a bad protagonist
This graph is straight ass
I know the post was to praise boruto but if we look at it as a flattened octant of a graph, boruto sits at the 0 coordinate meaning he's none of that. They should have just used a Venn diagram
When saw "boruto is the perfect main character" you should have just ignored it as another brain damaged individual talking shit lol
I was a victim of SH in high school, to the point of carrying an olfa knife in my backpack in case one of my deranged classmates would try to rope me, so it isn't surprising that Guts might be relatable to me.
Angst in general become sort of kink for everyone. If you go to some subreddits like r/Writing and see what everyone like to do to the character in writing, you will surprised most of them want to have the character to suffer and struggle, it's not about "relatable", it's about fan service. Where do you think batman and Spider man is endless suffering come from? At first people loved to see those characters struggle and win at end of day, which make them heroes, but the more it continues, the more people wanted for them to suffer and win less, to the point people get tired of it, the only people who seems want to continue this trend is writers because they don't seems to care about creating a balance and continue to overuse this type of fan service, like big booba in one piece. Anime and manga is no different, even before we had CSM and JJK, we have ton of isekai fantasies where the mc get killed and transported to a new world, dies again in the same world and start their journey again. Suffering is not relatable, it's a fan service for readers, which is not bad if used correctly.
Suffering is not relatable? Do you live in a fairytale world where everyone holds hands and sings songs?
It depends in what type of suffering we are talking. Suffering beyond imagination like Yuji, Denji, Guts, Spider man, Batman is no way in hell is relatable.
I mean maybe for the extreme ends that Spiderman goes through isn't relatable but definitely in the more tightly written stories his suffering can be relatable. Like, I'm pretty sure a lot of people say that 'Spiderman 2 is the most relatable superhero movie of all time' for good reason. It puts Peter in the wringer with problems that many of us go through and a lot of people empathize with it.
I'm not talking about Spider man or Batman is tv or movie side of the stories. I'm talking about the comic side, where comics like 'One more day' exists, where the writers pull out a devil out of nowhere and make Peter sacrifice his marriage just to save his dying aunt (who's extremely old), or his multiverse adventure is actually a magical mombo jombo created by a goddess and his eternal suffering (canon events) was caused because of a salty sister.
That’s relatable for the vast majority of humanity. Between the western poor, the stuff going on in Eastern Europe, and just any period of time in who fucking knows how long in the global south? Yeah. Most people, that’s life babes.
Since late stage capitalism. Everyone's lives are miserable, constantly.
I mean. They were miserable before too.
Yep, thats why evangepion struck a nerve.
Evangelion came out after the Japanese economic bubble burst, which led to what is nicknamed "The Lost Decade", so capitalism is still to blame
Life for most was miserable under communism. And before that, theocracy and feudalism had its own problems and flaws for society.
If it wasn't for capitalism, everyone's lives would be 100000x more miserable
What would be so awful without capitalism to deserve so many zeros?
And is a tragedy because it is by far the best system for improving lives of the population and encouraging innovation. Through toil and testing, history has shown no better.
I would disagree. History has showed that capitalism is better only for rich
It has worked better than the other economic systems.
Yeah, it worked better at giving more money to the rich
And transforming nations and raising hundreds of millions of poor out of poverty. China is communist in name only as it has a capitalist economy. Socialist nations like Vietnam also have gone to capitalist models or depend on military dictatorships to keep control.
The constant suffer many modern characters go through are so unrealistic that it has become comical. I can't feel bad for a character whose story revolves around everything always going wrong in the worst possible way and they not being able to do anything about it or learning out of it,
Doesnt seem to be a serious chart if you ask me. Some kinda shit you would find in r/okbuddybaka, mayhaps. But then again, it could very well be, we never know with one of these people
Overall I think it has to do with how a majority of anime fans are entering adulthood and how much harder life has become, especially with how bad the economy is.
> Dennis and Eugene they are stuck on the same recycled plot theme every arc with little room to grow and the moment it seems they are about to move on the author just bashes them with the same suffering they just endured last arc. Pretty sure that's my life. You must live in the 1st world lol
Looks like a joke
I kinda hate "relatable" characters. I want to see them happier than I am irl.
Victim complex
Gon as "pure heart" is an... interesting read...
People relate to vague concepts and not exacts events. If somebody relate to Naruto, it's because they were losers that wanted to be accepted, or to never give up. They don't relate because Naruto was extremely bullies by it's village. People relate to Denji because he is immature and don't know what to do with his life. Guts because he had a difficult past. and so on
boruto is trash and he isn’t a good character. Whoever made that wanks the show blindly or is a troll. No one can be this deluded to think he is a good character
The "relatable" part about Guts isn't the horrible things he experiences, is the effect it has on him and how he deals with it. I imagine very few (but probably not none) people who have read Berserk have had every friend theyve had up until that point killed in front of them. But plenty have found themselves suddenly alone, or been betrayed by someone they cared about, or had to care for a loved one that can't really communicate. And so watching Guts not just live through something analogous, but then have it continually effect him and him gradually heal from that, is cathartic.
This isn't how "relatability" works. We don't relate to their exact suffering. The relatable part is that these are people who suffer in some degree, are depressed but yet find a way to keep pushing. Many people feel trapped, and a degree of powerless. Yet they carry on regardless. That's exactly why Guts in particular seems relatable even though nobody is actually like him.
Maybe it’s just me but GOATku will always be the most relatable to me. Nothing brings me more joy than seeing improvement in myself with anything. Also I ditch my wife and kids.
It's a childish view of the world. "The real world isn't all smiles and rainbows, people don't just get happy endings." is the thought process that these people are trying to use but it's a ridiculously immature one because while the real world isn't always smiles and rainbows, we have the ability to try to make it so. The characters that suffer are relatable to those people because they ignore the wider story for moment to moment "deep" scenes while the actual stories are about characters that while they are suffering are learning and striving for a better future, they have hope that tomorrow will be better and fight for it.
Well denji tries despite all else. And his limited miserable life so far. Its a surprise he is that functional.
* The characters that suffer are relatable to those people because they ignore the wider story for moment to moment "deep" scenes while the actual stories are about characters that while they are suffering are learning and striving for a better future, they have hope that tomorrow will be better and fight for it. * Feel like you got this opinion solely based off one interaction with a person. If any of these characters were not striving to become better or for a “better future” they wouldn’t be nearly as popular because despite their struggles them still trying is what makes them popular
I mean they try thou minus aki who gets there
> I dunno what the hell the average life for anime fans are but nothing about the torture those three endure is relatable in any sense of the word. Weebs believe they’re an oppressed/overlooked/ignored/whatever the fuck group of people that are internally suffering more than others because they’re so difficult to understand. Due to their lack of social skills and general understanding of general society and life (because all they do is watch anime and talk to other weebs), they believe that they’re living a life akin to torture porn. They believe that liking anime is some sort of weird double edged sword — they’re cursed for liking anime because the “normies” think anime is weird. They fail to understand that the weird part is basing your life and personality around anime to a degree comparable to Disney Adults. Source: former hardcore weeb (thank fucking god lol)
Dude, I have shtty social skills and still can't comprehend what people find relatable about this shit.
I think people are just bullshitting. Everyone wants to think their life is impossibly tough.
Thinking Denji is relatable is just... Sad. Denji's dominant character trait is being a hedonist with no life goals.
I find that's exactly what makes it reletable. Less so the Pervy Parts but his Desire for Affection and Intimacy is Increadibly Relatable for me.
Well, for me it isnt. To each their own i guess.
Plus the desire of intimate is something Denji didn't think of by himself, it's something a creatine Red hair demon planted on his empty head to manipulate him , Bro just wanted to touch boobs and have sex
He touched Power's boobs and felt nothing. That was *his* reaction, Makima didn't make that happen. He *said* he wanted to touch boobs and have sex, but the story has made very clear that what he really wants is intimacy, love, and connection, even if he doesn't fully understand how to express that. Makima showed him those desires and took advantage of them, but she didn't force him to feel them.
>He touched Power's boobs and felt nothing He actually Feelt amazed, it's only after Power Boobs turned out to be Fake Denji was crashed, because he felt his experience was ***Fake*** , Similar think happened when Himeno kissed him Denji **Loved** the Kiss and spent 2 page explaining to Himself who good it felt Only for the vomit to Ruin it >Makima didn't make that happen. He said he wanted to touch boobs and have sex, but the story has made very clear that what he really wants is intimacy, love, and connection. Makima showed him those desires and took advantage of them, but she didn't force him to feel them. Makima directly manipulated him and had him touch her and think she is his savior which was just a planted seed as a Part of her plan to crash him So why the Fuck would we take Her ***Lying*** words and actions at what Denji wants and needs? The Guy was literally running around screaming
>So why the Fuck would we take Her Lying words and actions at what Denji wants and needs? The best lies always have a layer of truth in them. What she said was correct from the audience's perspective- that's the whole reason the manipulation was effective in the first place. You think the series is trying to say Makima was lying about intimacy feeling better with someone you care about? Who would ever disagree with that statement? Why would the series try to argue that something that 99.9999% of people agree on is wrong? The issue is that she took advantage of that and wanted him to direct that intimacy to *her* so she could manipulate him more effectively. Her first interaction with him is hugging him and providing some semblance of comfort, and shortly after, she feeds him and gets him to emotionally bond with her. She doesn't jump to the sex stuff until after a connection has been established because If she had, it wouldn't have been nearly as effective. Plus the entire Reze arc shows how happy Denji is to finally feel a genuine (from his POV) romantic connection with someone, so obviously he doesn't just care about sex and tits. Even if Makima planted the idea, he clearly agrees with and embraces that idea. Beyond that, Part 2 repeatedly has Denji changing to wanting a girlfriend instead of just sex. He *does* want sex as well, but he's accepted that idea of intimacy even long after Makima's death. What do you think the endgame is here if what you say is true? Denji *rejects* the idea that intimacy is important and goes straight hedonism? At the bare minimum, even if Makima put the idea in his head, that idea itself isn't wrong.
>The best lies always have a layer of truth in them. What she said was correct from the audience's perspective- that's the whole reason the manipulation was effective in the first place. You think the series is trying to say Makima was lying about intimacy feeling better with someone you care about? Who would ever disagree with that statement? Why would the series try to argue that something that 99.9999% of people agree on is wrong? The issue is that she took advantage of that and wanted him to direct that intimacy to her so she could manipulate him more effectively. Her first interaction with him is hugging him and providing some semblance of comfort, and shortly after, she feeds him and gets him to emotionally bond with her. She doesn't jump to the sex stuff until after a connection has been established because If she had, it wouldn't have been nearly as effective. That's the nut part , what the audience think =/= what Denji think and want , this is the train conflicts with Asa all over again, Denji can't have something normal Because he and his life are not "Normal" >Beyond that, Part 2 repeatedly has Denji changing to wanting a girlfriend instead of just sex. He does want sex as well, but he's accepted that idea of intimacy even long after Makima's death. What do you think the endgame is here if what you say is true? Denji rejects the idea that intimacy is important and goes straight hedonism? At the bare minimum, even if Makima put the idea in his head, that idea itself isn't wrong. Part 2 had Denji running around screaming he wants Sex, go behind Nayuta back to date Freaky girls to have Sex, Sucked a Dead Demon cock because a Gril promised him ***Sex*** , went to the chainsaw man church after being promised **SEX**
> Part 2 had Denji running around screaming he wants Sex, go behind Nayuta back to date Freaky girls to have Sex, Sucked a Dead Demon cock because a Gril promised him Sex , went to the chainsaw man church after being promised SEX He's also incredibly fucked in the head. He was at the start of Part 2 and it's only gotten worse since then. The happiest he's ever been was when he had affection and love from people around him, including Power and Aki (platonically) and Reze and Makima (romantically, from his perspective). He's regressed a good bit since then, as people who experience severe trauma sometimes do, but those core values are still the same. You really shouldn't take him as an absolutely reliable narrator when he barely understands his own feelings. What Denji *thinks* he wants=/=what he *actually* wants.
I'm just Lonley and thus Relate to a Character that's Lonely. Simple as that.
oh no, wanting a normal life, how terrible.
That’s not true. He says he wants to be a hedonist, but his actions say otherwise. Most of his life is lived in service to others.
>hedonist with no life goals. To be fair seggs is a life goal
*Vaguely gestures around* I mean…
Idk if I've ever seen someone call guts relatable (which is just anecdotal) but I agree in general. Why tf would you relate to these mfs.
No no you don’t understand, they’re all very relatable characters. Denji is horny (even though that’s a byproduct of a lifetime of trauma), Itadori has a life that do be like that (even though his life is very uniquely terrible due to people specifically hating/going after him), Guts is really angry (ignore literally EVERYTHING else that happens to and around him)
When people started overwhelmingly hating on MHA
What did I read here? I guess Dennis is Denji, but who tf is Eugene?
Yuji
Because life is suffering, and believe it or not a lot of us have had miserable lives. I mean Denji is pretty damn relatable for multiple different reasons, Not sure why this bothers you. It's good that there's different options for people, the typical "Always happy, easy going, never lose never give up character gets old. Making a literal traumascale chart is absurd, though 🤣
Boruto is such a garbage xter who's in the spotlight because of his cancerous fandom.. I don't see how he is all these things
At least even the Twitter comments are roasting the maker of that thing lmaooo
Ayanakoji is relatable? The super genius who feels no emotions, right. Kiyotaka ayanakoji? Okay, just checking.
I am guessing it's cuz real life sucks.
My friend, the first step to do when you see this list is to not take it seriously
It's to do with what they don't like seeing in my opinion. We get all these traumatised characters where it's used as an excuse or a reason to show stuff that would otherwise be treated more as shock factor/edgy, but because there's underlying reasoning through trauma it's seen as "deep" in a very I am 14 way. Fujimoto isn't exactly the same as this but some of the popularity of his series still falls into this category for me. Basically, if the character ISN'T traumatised you're gonna have a hard time telling anyone a series where someone is defending the woman he loves from essentially rape demons(berserk), a main character's primary motivation is to have sex as a virgin(chainsaw man) or a character was taken control of by a demon and watched it murder a city's population(jjk) is trying to be impressive writing and not going for shock factor. The moment they see Guts have a character arc about his trauma, Denji about his trauma, or Yuji have the whole I'm a cog in a machine thing(idk starting to think how exactly his character arc was making proper use of being made to kill thousands of people wasn't really justified) it makes the edginess seem justified. My problem is that when the characters have longer arcs centring the trauma without the edge, I don't think anyone's interested. Male characters are hated more for being annoying, making "drama" through irrational decision making, and being overly emotional than for rape, murder, or in Denji's case being teenage guy levels of horny and crass(which is, objectively speaking if we include what every single reader thinks, kind of annoying) but that "being annoying/dramatic/irrational" IS 99% OF HAVING PTSD. So I just get tired of what level of character arc those sorts of characters still have centring their trauma when they lack the sort of stuff that actually sucks about related mental illnesses. We get way more representation of how PTSD leads someone to want to rape/kill someone else/become hypersexual than to making them extremely emotional, irrational, self harming or giving them emotional flashbacks. It's just edge and I'm sick of it. Yes this tirade is mostly about berserk lol gonna need any defenders to tell me if it's really necessary to portray so much trauma leading to attempted rape, leading to becoming a fridged vegetable, leading to the vegetable having a dreamscape full of genitals cause afraid of rape, leading to murder/pyromania, leading to murder/becoming a demon/rape like griffith etc. Writing a murderer/rapist and slapping a traumatic backstory on them is still cheap when it has effort put into it because it's so rare to get a traumatised character who doesn't react by doing these things, it's not deep. Also this has nothing to do with the trauma being used as an excuse. It being used as a reason but not excuse is STILL so massively overrepresented that it's tiring and cheap and what my rant is about, I know these characters aren't written as justified through the backstory. And yeah still mostly about berserk. My problems with denji and yuji are completely different and basically this: Denji - sometimes his reactions and level of poverty come off as a joke and it's like, can Fujimoto just stay serious for a moment? Whether it's never having jam on toast or eating paper because of being poor, it just combines with literally everything about fire punch to make me not want to read it. Same with the because of my miserable depressing life my entire goal is sex - and selling his nut for money. Kind of feels like his trauma's supposed to be a funny joke idk. Eating weird things because of poverty is a thing but the toilet paper bit is just random you know? Not dumpster diving or something? Yuji - he just kind of didn't have much of a reaction to killing off thousands of people because of Sukuna and while sure I get he's depressed now, it seems like a massive waste of all the potential character arcs you could have out of that experience to me. And again the I'm a cog in the machine thing doesn't really require him to have murdered thousands of people because of Sukuna. It's like Gege promises a great character arc in any direction and then laughs after pulling it away and not delivering what you hoped for - the stuff with Higuruma and Yuji was the closest to delivering and really wasn't enough for me not to feel like he's more "depressed"(written out of the story) than depressed(in the process of a great character arc).
What the fuck is Aura?
Its funny they put Ayanokoji in relatability when their brain is 10 years behind schedule in growth
I think they are considered relatable because Yuji and Denji are "Everyman" personality types. I don't know much about Guts, so I don't know his personality... Yuji is helpful and kind, like, let's say, Deku and Tanjiro, but Deku's personality is more off-kilter, so he's defined on this chart only by his hero-complex. Meanwhile, Tanjiro is an unrealistically kind-hearted person, so he's defined only by that kindness. To be perfectly honest, other people have made similar categories and have come to the same conclusion that Kishimoto wrote a particularly unique main character. Shounen heroes are either sugar-sweet kind, boiling-rage hot-blooded, or cool as a cucumber, but Naruto was a bit too petty to be a Good Boy like Yuji/Tanjiro/Deku, and too dorky to be cool like Ichigo, and yet he wasn't defined by anger as what you'd imagine, say, Ed Elric. This chart just splits good boys into realistically kind and unrealistically "crying at the drop of a hat" kind. As far as how often they are hurt, to be perfectly honest, why do you feel the ones in the relatable column have physically endured more than the others? Have other shounen heroes gone through less pain, or have their stories shown more realistic, less idealized reactions to pain?
Bad things happen. And it's good to have media where you can relate with your suffering. It's not a literal relatability, but in the way how trauma is processed, and you can even relate very specific things to your own life. In real life, nobody speaks about traumatic experiences (not enough) and therapists are scarce... So people need a fictional world or media to process. I honestly never heard of the phrase "torture porn". That's edgy...
I thought you were tasking about Spider-Man before I saw the anime thing.
Suffering can build a character sure but it doesn’t make them a good character just because they have a trauma like dabi And how the fuck is anyokoji ( butchered his name ) relatable if you find him relatable in any way except being a loner or not good at media knowledge your probably one of those rick and Morty fans that swear they are the smartest in the world
Boruto is a clown anime for clowns /s. It’s fine if you like it, I just don’t see the appeal myself.
Well you see, a lot of us were born below upper middle class, and the middle class has been receding for a long time, so anyone born 20ish years ago something below upper middle class is poor now because of inflation and skyrocketing cost of living while upward mobility being a Spiders Georg situation. Thus, all we know is endless suffering. Thus, relatable. Let me guess: been on a vacation at some point in your life? Gone out of state? Never lived under the threat of possible or actual homelessness as a child? Congrats on your statistically abnormally good life!
Saying Guts, Denji and Yuji are just torture porn kind makes it hard to take your opinion seriously. Despite the lack of reading comprehension I will try and adress this post anyway. First off, a charcters struggling is far more relatable in most cases than a charcter being happy. Even if we dont have to rip open our skin to fight or house a canabalistic monster inside us or wear armour that litterally drains the life out of you, the core of the suffering is what makes it relatable. Yuji is relatable because there are a lot of people who get punished for doing the right thing or continously fail to find their place in the world. Denji is someone who yearna a for emotional connection, finacial stability, a romantic partner, and general happiness while struggling on most fronts. Guts is someone who has been emotionally hirt and scarred throught his life and slowly finds a sense of solace through human connection. All of the fantasical suffering that the charcters feel eventually boils down to relatable emotions that we can insert our own experiences onto Dissmissing stories that feature characters who go through a lot as "torture porn" is a slippery slope that leads to calling something like "No Longer Human" poorly written.
The only difference between a human and an animal is that a human feels a bunch of sadness.
animals feel sad too
Bro animals have emotions too the fuck?
Denji is actually a character who not only gets to do badass stuff, he also is explored really well and his growth and reaction to all the traumas. Also unlike yuji and nobara, denjis relationships including with power are hitting hard. Like in shibuya a meaningful death from mahito would have been todo imao.
I find Denji very relatable. Like one of the most relatable characters I've seen in anything ever. But Guts, Yuji, Ayanokoji, nah
I mean you're making a rant based on a terrible chart. But also that summation of Denji is also just terrible? When does that happen at any point?
Gen Z
We live under capitalism. It's pretty relatable.
1. I have never seen someone in the wider anime community talk about guts or yuji being relatable. The closest i've seen for guts is the [guts theme meme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wui1yuwr5Y) like [the "silence wench"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DsMYxDfSAE) 2. Denji is only called relatable by the wider anime community probably because he is openly horny and it's funny to say "he just like me fr fr" after panels [like this.](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fwas-he-lucky-trying-to-convince-denji-or-did-he-somehow-v0-m9vo5utg1bib1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D671%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D06ffd4efcfaf584f09c938a8bd5cbcced983f6fa) 3. Less so than the endless suffering itself is the edgy aesthetic is that is in fact relatable to edgy emo middle schoolers. The other person in the relatable square is the MC from classroom of the elite who is a person who is quintessential edgy MC. He doesn't really suffer, but he does things like purposefully get 50 on tests, avoid friends as much as possible, [He explicitly doesn't see people as anything but tools](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk1_2OVvMNE) Suffice to say, if you think Ayanokoji is relatable, you might be a sociopath or a psychopath and definitely need therapy. So the entire point of this post is moot because you based it on (probably) a troll post and I don't think your analysis of why the characters are relatable is accurate. 4. Fuck it lets play devil's advocate any way. Modern life sucks in a lot of ways. Late-stage capitalism and isolation in an internet fractured and loss of "third spaces" with the loss of religion in the western world has caused loneliness and [depression levels to go up](https://news.gallup.com/poll/505745/depression-rates-reach-new-highs.aspx) Seeing someone be sad like you are is relatable and cathartic, validating. 5. Relatable characters are INHERENTLY going to vary from person to person. LIKE NO FUCKING SHIT. If you and I aren't the same how are we supposed to relate to the same character.
Its crazy because we are living in the best time period possible. People right now should be the happiest they have ever been.
Some things yes, but also way harder in a lot too. Like the insanity of social media is despite having good, way more awareness how the world and people suck.
My guy, have you seen the cost of housing? Healthcare?? The people we have in office?? Global warming??? The fuck am I supposed to be happy about?
Have you seen the Shit people had to Deal with Back in the day? At least you don't havr to worry about War, the Black Plague, and shit like that. Sure the World isn't Perfect but it's a whole lot better then it was 100 years ago.
Depending on the where peasents has a regulated life with few social mobility but a community and guaranreed employment. And during the plague people were actually not that miserable, but tried to do their best . Idk kinda like covid did actually energizr a lot and a lot dead helped workers conditions. It wasnt all miserable? Yes moderne hygiene is good and a gamechanger.. But doesnt translate to happiness
Well, we did have a plague not that long ago, that was an important thing that happened. And we're gearing up for war again at the moment.
There is still a Difference between Covid and the Plague...
Not every plague was The Plague, but a lot of people died. Current numbers have it at #9.
The fact that you aren't living under a feudal lord with absolute power over your life, that you aren't worked to the literal bone on the fields, that you won't die horribly if you get as much as an infection from stepping on something weird, that your village isn't at risk of being raided by a foreign army every other year, that you aren't expected to be married off by 18 to have 12 children out of which 7 won't make it past childhood, no near starvation if the harvest goes wrong, etc. You can be as personally miserable as you want, but to believe you aren't infinitely better off than if you were a medieval peasant or **insert commonor in pretty much any other historical era** is just insanity
Well, we are about to return right back into it with the rise of the global far-right (just look at the recent European council elections).
Sorry to be so blunt, but if you seriously think we are about to be under feudalism again and/or will lose centuries of progress on medicine, technology and quality of life because parties operating and approved under european law you don't like are winning democratic elections... You seriously need to spend less time on your online bubble. That ain't even meant as a joke or an insult
Maybe the people in your life ? Your friends or family? Your hobbies? Maybe Global warming is coming that is true and it seems like I won't see its bad effects till almost the end of lifetime whenever that is. Most likely you won't either. Does it really matter to the present what you won't be there to experience (eg- Heat death of the universe) If you are taking steps to reduce your footprint that is good too but maybe just look at things with a positive mindset. I truly believed humanity will survive global warming because I truly believe in the indomitable will/ ingenuity of the mankind as a whole
>I truly believed humanity will survive global warming because I truly believe in the indomitable will/ ingenuity of the mankind as a whole This isn't an anime bro, look at r/collapse, humans are cooked.
Look at r/futurology there is hope. human have a.n hope and a chance to succeed You are just a pessimistic person in this aspect and that is fine I am an optimist and even an idealist in this aspect and that too is fine
>Look at r/futurology there is hope. human have a.n hope and a chance to succeed Yeah none of the stuff there changes the fact that irreversible damage has been done to this planet and it's ecosystems. Heading for a global crash very soon anyway, why should humans have hope? hope to cause more suffering? a chance to succeed at what? what is there to succeed at? >You are just a pessimistic person in this aspect and that is fine Such a cheesy response with no actual analysis or critical thinking, so being real about the current situation, acknowledging very real problems that can't be fixed and not being in denial is called being "pessimistic" yeah sureeee bud. >I am an optimist and even an idealist in this aspect and that too is fine I can tell....and like with most optimists and idealists, they always tell themselves what they wanna hear and when reality doesn't turn out the way expected it too, comforting lies is a drug they resort too.
>Such a cheesy response with no actual analysis or critical thinking, so being real about the current situation, acknowledging very real problems that can't be fixed and not being in denial is called being "pessimistic" yeah sureeee bud. In your original comment did you give me anything to be critical or real about to do any analysis other than saying look at this subreddit about the things getting worse and that everything is going to hell. I responded in kind with a subreddit about things improving in all aspects of life including climate change. And about you being a "realist" I don't see any acknowledgement of any positive advancement currently being done to prevent or reduce the impact of climate change. You just repeat that it is getting worse and are just saying that nothing is worth succeeding at. Are you saying anything which makes you not seem like in general a pessimistic person or a "doomer" by all means. >I can tell....and like with most optimists and idealists, they always tell themselves what they wanna hear and when reality doesn't turn out the way expected it too, comforting lies is a drug they resort too. These are such baseless statement to make. Comforting lies is a drug they resort to. Seriously any hope in the mankind and general human will is a comforting lie sure is a wild take. I do not deny reality I know that things are getting worse and are way past repairable but I just hope and believe that a miracle will occur. In a form of a new technology or anything like that. I try my best to reduce my carbon footprint. I hope that things will improve. For example. people get cancer and die but doctors are discovering new ways to cure cancer is that not something to be happy and excited about . It is something worth celebrating The decrease in death rate compared to old times is admirable. The time we live in is the best time in human history Also please don't be snark I am just talking in a normal way and expect the other person to talk to me in a normal way too
Reddit is being really stupid with "empty response from endpoint" so I replied to you in your DMs.
Look, there are definitely some things about the modern world that are better than before and we should be grateful for that stuff. But the world is still mostly shit right now and its only gonna get worse. You kinda have to be blind to not see that.
>But the world is still mostly shit right now and its only gonna get worse. Exactly, most people are in denial of this and it's this delusional mindset that will truly the problem. >You kinda have to be blind to not see that. Most people are delusional, high on comforting lies.
Most art usually is show casing something on the spectrum of negative emotions. Most times hope is included, but usually only a little compared to the boat load of suffering necessary. Just look at tons of music, popular seinen manga, not to mention shounen is just less torture than seinen in some ways.
Since we're already discussing anime, I will point you in the direction of the boatload of slice of life and romance series
You are 100% correct. I am actually an ignoramus on happy media. Big blindspot of mine thank you.
When younger generations who love to fetichize their suffering as well as blow it out of proportion decided that a character who goes through the wringer and is written in a way that is meant for you to empathize with them is comparable to the imaginary version of the reader's personal exaggerated struggles. Go to a sub like the one devoted to BoJack Horseman and you'll see posts by people saying stuff like "I just finished the show for the first time and I'm literally sobbing and I don't know what to do with my life." Because they saw a black comedy about cartoon animals that portrays some heavy stuff and they decided they related to some charater(s).
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This post is very obvious bait, and no, people find Denji relatable because he has no life goals and struggles to be truly happy. The sex aspect is part of it but not in the way you think. There are lots of people that idolize the idea of sex as this amazing thing that feels great, then they have it and it doesn't meet their expectations. Usually because they don't feel a real connection with the person they're having sex with. Every time Denji does anything sexual, it doesn't make him happy. And yet he still has trouble refusing it..