meganbmoore | Speed Grapher ep...17?

Speed Grapher ep...17?

So, how did Tsuitengu end up a crime boss who smokes money and runs a club dedicated to sexual deviations, whose inner circle gets to molest a teenaged girl who can give some of them superpowers when they molest her?

His origin, naturally, is sooper dooper extra sad and tragic. When he was 13, his parents committed suicide because of debt, resulting in he and his 5-year-old sister being sold into slavery. After being passed around a bit for torture and bondage and probably rape, he was sold to be a soldier who was part of an experiment. On his last mission (it's always the last mission) everyone in his unit but him (always the last survivor) died. To keep him alive, the scientists went Frankenstein on him and grafted parts of his dead comrades' bodies to him, giving him super powers. Soldiers kill the scientists, he kills the soldiers, and then he sets off to destroy the people who ruined his family. Conveniently, Kagura's family.

He is apparently adamantly opposed to the rape and trafficking of young girls. Except Kagura. Where he's responsible for a good bit of it.

Though at least now I know that he's not her father's zombified body wanting to marry her, and that his staring intently at a little girl and asking her age and then sparing her father wasn't because they realized that they had yet to present small children in a sexual way.

But seriously, does this "here is his angsty backstory and it totally makes him more interesting and sympathetic" thing ever work? Because anime and manga are pretty obsessed with it. And somehow, telling me that I should totally sympathize with people who do that and find them more interesting for the so so sad backstory typically kills my interest. Darcia in Wolf's Rain is a possible exception, though there, we knew from the start that it was because he wanted to save the person he loved, and he was actually portrayed less sympathetically towards the end, not more. Maybe Shuri in Basara, but the good and bad both were on the table there from the start, and it was never and excuse or a justification, just an explanation. And, you know, he probably suffers for his actions more than any other manga character out there.

ETA: Hmm...does Scar in FMA count? It was made pretty clear from the start that his actions were wrong, but his need for vengeance was justified, and in the manga, he all but bluntly states that no, his angsty backstory doesn't make him any better.

Incidentally, this series has now had m/f, f/m, f/f and m/m rape. At least three varieties include pedophilia.

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But seriously, does this "here is his angsty backstory and it totally makes him more interesting and sympathetic" thing ever work?

Depends on the viewer and the presentation? Apparently it must, I suspect, if they keep doing it.

US media tends to do it too (Dollhouse is the most recent example that springs to mind) so it's not really cultural, though maybe how common it is is.

It totally works all the time on me, though it does depend on context/presentation. Gaara from Naruto is a character in particular I can remember it working like gangbusters for me (I'd hated the little psycho until that point).

Probably the context/presentation that does kill it for me is when I can tell the writing gives up all pretense at telling the actual "Here is more backstory in general" story and just guns straight for "IT WOULD BE CONVENIENT FOR US FOR YOU TO LURVE THIS CHARACTER NOW, THANKS."

ETA FOR

meganbmoore'S ETA: I thought of anime!Scar too, though I'm a biased judge since I loved him from the start. I think his angsty backstory does make him more sympathetic in why he feels justified as a terrorist/freedom fighter, but I think it also serves to make it tragically clear how far he's fallen astray from his original ideals.

I think Scar works for me exactly like Shuri works for me: the good and bad both are there from the start, and it's WHY they're the way they are, not a justification, and they both know just how bad they are. (And it's rather amazing that Shuri really does work as a romantic hero.) With Scar, I think what saves him for me in both versions (though I don't think the anime ever achieved this level of clarity with the characters) is when he says he knows people (a specific someone) is justified in wanting to kill him and has every right to take his life, but he can't let that happen, because he has a goal. It's the selfawareness that saves him.

A reason, not an excuse?

I think it's used as a shortcut to characterization, much like showing that the bad guy's a pedophile or a Nazi or kicks puppies or whatever.

Yup. I think people often forget that there's a difference between the two, and so anything you don't want to hear is an excuse, but anything that will accomplish what you want is a justified reason, and the line gets muddied. A reason is the WHY of something, and excuse is how that why makes some justified or ok or better.

And boy are both shortcuts to characterization. Like, possibly the most over the top thing in Speed Grapher is the fact that Tsutengu smokes yen notes. I think they're 1000 yen notes, but I'm not sure. Because, you know, otherwise we might miss that he has more money than he could ever spend and no morals and doesn't care about people or society. He gets to have a phallic symbol, a status symbol, and a character type symbol all in one!

IIRC you have not yet even seen the lengths the writers go to in using Suitengu and his sister's tragic backstory to generate sympathy.

eta: I should add that it didn't work for me either.

Oh, I expect it to dominate the plot from this point on. That and how Kagura's victimization and going-to-die-soon-but-no-one-will-tell-her-because-she's-"fragile" state seems to be meant to "fix" Saiga's sexuality and make him "normal." (I...I have so many issues with sexuality and how it's presented on all levels in this show...)

ETA for ETA: Yeah, as soon as we saw young Tsutengu adoring a wee girl, I knew the coments earlier were about my expected total lack of buying it for this. And honestly, it's not that I'm not sympathetic towards what happened to him, it's just that what he does makes me not sympathize with him.

I dread inevitable angsty backstories now simply because it's done so damn often for villains and I want to shout, "Having a bad childhood only explains why you're such an asshole, it doesn't automatically excuse all your actions!" It can be done well but I'm getting rather sick of it and the poor handling it often gets.

I think it was all the Clamp I read last year. I didn't have a lot of patience for it before, but ALMOST EVERY SINGLE ONE had that be the case with the major villain. And in RG Veda's case, I thought it actually made him WORSE.

I like it when the nice sweet well-adjusted people get angsty backstories, as it doubles my desire to tacklehug them.

When likable characters have them, it merely increases my desire to give them hugs, and perhaps tons of therapy.

One of the many reasons I love Flame of Recca; no sooner has villain Kurei dropped his angsty backstory on our hero does he respond by pointing out that angsty past or not, he's still an ass. And then punching him in the face.

Yeah, I remember that when reading Flame of Recca a while ago. It worked because it revealed his motivations without attempting to revise his past actions to make them more acceptable or his personality to make him more of a woobie. I really need to read past the tournament arc, though.

Yeah, it worked because it wasn't an attempt to excuse his actions in any way. Kurei is still a monster and intended to be viewed as a monster; he's just now somewhat sympathetic, as well. That hols true throughout the course of the series and is one of the reasons why I find his character fascinating. He is at once sympathetic and a monster while diminishing neither.

I think it works sometimes, when it's a way of explaining why the villains are the way they are rather than an attempt to make them not look like such massive jerks, and/or when it legitimately does shed new light on their previous jerkitudes. That difference always comes through pretty clearly.

However, it's very, very rare that this can correct the character being uninteresting in the first place. There has to be some hook of interest or unless the angsty past is supremely well-done, I simply won't care.

I'd say that usually, it's gratuitous and a shortcut for characterization and plot.

Generally, yeah. But there are instances of it working. Just. Not many compared with the number of times it's been used.

So, uh, hi! I sometimes stalk you for your book reviews, and I am very sorry if that is creepy, but I will not apologize too much because most recently it led me to Kamikaze Girls which was awesome. ANYWAYS I would just like to say, does Fakir in Princess Tutu count for angsty backstory making a portrayed-as-villainous character more sympathetic? Because if so I think it is clear that the appropriate formula for redeeming villains through angsty backstory requires duck hugs to make it effective.

Hiiiiii!

You know, I never really saw Fakir as villainous. I mean, I know a lot of people didn't like him at first, but I always just thought he was really cranky and irritable and too possessive of Mytho. Like Rue, but meaner about it.

Hi! :D

Hmm . . . well, it is hard to remember back through my love of him now to how I felt about him at first, but I do remember that every time I have forced people to watch Princess Tutu with me (which is possibly a lot of times. Uh) the first thing they ask around episode two or three is "Fakir is SO the raven, right?" and then I sit there and giggle. And he is pretty shoujo-villainous! What with the abuse and the locking people in the library and all. Although it does help that even at his most jerktastic he's still kind of incompetent about it.

He is totally paralleled to Rue, though. - who actually could also be seen as a villain, and also has an angsty past that makes her sympathetic!

Yeah, in FMA Scar doesn't even bother explaining the circumstances and says that anything he could say would just be an excuse. I loved that, as a staple of shounen is the "berserker/alter-ego mode," wherein the hero gets to do terrible, inhuman things without having to bear any culpability for doing so, and Scar murdered Winry's parents in an approximation of a berserker rage.

[quote]But seriously, does this "here is his angsty backstory and it totally makes him more interesting and sympathetic" thing ever work?[/quote]

Heh. It seems like all the asshole shoujo alpha male leads are forgivable because their assholish qualities stem from a Terrible Past. As for shounen, I see this formula a lot:

-1) Hero fights villain
-2) Villain in moment of defeat flashes back to Tragic Past/Hero asks villain to justify himself(as in Naruto, bizarrely)/Villain gets more unhinged during the fight and winds up expositing as to Tragic Past or circumstances that led to current villainy
-3) Villain dies (sympathetically)/Villain, having expunged past trauma in the crucible of a Fight to the Near Death, sees error of ways and is redeemed (and often becomes the boon companion of Hero)

....I see this so often, my GOD.

Naruto jumps to mind, given the ridiculous woobiefication via Angsty Backstory put in to redeem Gaara and Sasuke, but as you pointed out, it's pretty common in anime and manga. Of course, in mainstream primetime US TV drama, it seems to be common these days to give /all/ the characters Tragic Pasts. One recent drama that started up, The Mentalist, has among its small roster of principals the following traumas:

-1) wife and child murdered
-2) mother killed in car accident, father becoming an alcoholic as a result
-3) child abuse (hinted)
-4) sexual assault (hinted)
-5) messed-up personality due to experiences in the military (hinted)

...and it's not even out of the first season yet. Seriously.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I love the fallout over the deaths of her parents in the manga. That, and because it really is about her, whereas in the anime, she isn't the focus and is almost incidental, and her acceptance is almost a requirement for Mustang's story.

I didn't mind Gaara (except for the bit where I was filled with rage when they said Gaara had no one, and we knew that Temari and whats-his-name reached out to and were rejected by rejected him a lot) but Sasuke and others I've heard...yeah. No thanks.

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Speed Grapher ep...17?

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