I know each and everyone of you has a list of anime characters that you love. You admire them for their deeds, their personality, or their strength. Let me tell you, at least one of the characters on that list is probably a badly written character. A lot of times, main characters can be propped up by things that happen around them, meaning the anime was good, but they as a character can be as bland as white rice.
Main Characters That Are Actually Bad Characters
Goku From Dragon Ball Z
I’m going to come out the gate going right for the jugular. Many love Dragon Ball, myself among them. However, putting all those epic fights and beloved childhood memories aside, when you look at Goku as a singular entity – he kind of sucks.
The only thing that grows about him in Dragon Ball Z is his physical strength (and his hair in SSJ3). His one notable character flaw is that he is kind of a terrible father and husband, but that is never given any focus, you just kind of notice it. That aside, Goku as a kid in Dragon Ball is no different from Goku as an adult in Dragon Ball Super. There is no character growth, despite many events that could be considered a trauma which could cause character growth.
Asta From Black Clover and Naruto from Naruto
Why lump these two characters together? Because they have the exact same problem. They both have the same trope of being weak and growing stronger in order to be Hokage or Magic Emperor. Both also have a habit of yelling their goal to reach this lofty title as if that would be more likely to make it happen. Anyway, like any generic hero, they also feature a strong sense of right and wrong which makes for a very heroic hero, but damn if it ain’t boring.
So if these main characters were such bad characters why do people like the shows so much? Flashy and cool powers. It’s the best sleight of hand trick in anime.
Shinji From Neon Gnenesis Evangelion
While probably not a protagonist that “we all love,” Shinji still belongs here. Whether it was by design or happenstance, Shinji is just god awful. Everyone around him has quirks to make them unique and memorable characters, but Shinji even with his intriguing history, is wasted space. Perhaps that is by design, and if so, then bang up job.
Emiya Shirou From Fate/Stay
You know what needs to happen when you write a show in which the main character needs to be flexible enough to fit into multiple different routes? The character becomes flat. Flat characters are flexible, but ultimately boring. His whole thing is being the champion of justice, and that is flexible enough to fit in him into light, dark, and middling paths, but it doesn’t make him interesting. Like many characters here, flashy action does not make for a good character. It is just a good distraction.
Natsu From Fairy Tail
Natsu has the problem that every shounen protagonist has fundamentally. He is loud, he is loyal to his friends, and he is so powerful that you know no villain is going to win. Despite his personal plot moving forward at some point, nothing else about him (aside from his power) moves forward at all. He remains very much the same person at the beginning as he is at the end, which can be said about most shounen protagonists. Thankfully, Fairy Tail has some pretty interesting other characters.
Tohru Honda From Fruits Basket
We’ve covered a lot of shounen protagonists, but believe me, shoujo protagonists have the same problem in a different way. Whereas shounen anime cover their boring protagonists with sizzle, shojo protagonists cover up their flat character with cuteness. Tohru Honda is a prime example of this. She is really quite literally just a character meant to foster character growth in others. Cheerful and kind, Tohru’s cheerfulness and kindness helps literally every other person in the show have some kind of come to God moment about themselves. She even neutralizes the main antagonist through this. However, she herself doesn’t change at all. Her only character development is literally falling in love, which is usually the only growth most shoujo protagonists have.
Kirito From Sword Art Online
Stupid Kirito and his stupid edgy black clothes and his stupid “I’m so shy despite being an absolute pussy magnet” personality. Sword Art Online is a show of colorful characters – literally colorful – and here is this kid as the main character all in black and so stupidly strong that no one else even poses a challenge. He heroically defends others and things end up pretty well for him until the next stuff goes down. He is one of those undeserving main characters throughout the whole series and more so because nothing about him changes. Even his struggles can’t really be called struggles.
Got anymore boring anime protagonists that aren’t great characters? Let fans know in the comments section below.
how about yugi?
What about Deku and his zero character growth and unrealistic personality? ( I feel like a lot of people are really gonna hate me for this comment- but its my opinion…. also i didn’t care much for grammar in this sentence.)
I think Deku’s character is not unrealistic at all we all are just used to watching idiot, loud and strong protagonist and he is quite timid, calm and reasonable. His character is growing he used to be afraid of people now he can face them and although there are 4 seasons the time line of the story is not even one year and how much do you expect him to grow?
zero development? compare Midoriya from the first season and with the new chapters that are coming out in the manga, and you will see that you are very wrong. It’s not just because he remains with his ideals that he has no evolution
So you think Naruto doesn’t have character growth? Is he same at the start to end? How do you define character growth?
right like what
fr bro its like they didn’t bother watching it.
Bruh you dead wrong about emiya..pls stop the cap..he’s one of the most interesting character out there .
Lol y’all pressed
Fuck my pussy
I am so horny right now.
But Shirou has legitimate actual character growth and characterization involving deeprooted PTSD. If you played the game you’d understand thoroughly how his character works and it’s about survivor’s guilt, not being cool or being a hero of justice.
You basically said nothing about any of these characters
I don’t even like Dragon Ball or Naruto or even most of the shows on here but even I know that most of these characters don’t belong here. Naruto having no character growth and not just because he’s yelling and all of that? Dude literally was bullied most of his childhood, his mentor died and he had to be the one that avenges him… How is that not good character growth?