IncestEmblem said:
Out of the 2 characters who seem mostly in the clear:
1. I dislike like Flamie, because I consider her situation too standard of a sob story. While stories are, by definition, artificial, her backstory and the way she relays it calls attention to this fact too strongly, making it difficult to sympathize with her.
2. I hated Adlet in episode 1 because of his disruption of the tournament and his ostentatious flouting of rules. He has since then improved immensely, but the bad first impression he made on me remains with him, to the point that I still dislike him. I find the approach to his backstory an even worse version of what offends me about Flamie's, though admittedly my lingering dislike of him from episode 1 may have colored how I received his backstory (I was rolling my eyes while watching Homura Akemi's backstory and skipped Kiritsugu Emiya's episodes entirely for similar reasons).
Wow, I love Adlet for exactly the reason you said. A lot of MCs Ive seen have notions of honor and pride, which while cool, does make a lot of them very similar. Its refreshing to get a MC whos so different and blatantly cheats in his battles. His method of fighting is very interesting, using all sorts of different weapons, making it refreshing to watch each of his battles. And I love his self confidence. His belief that he is the strongest in the world makes him arrogant to the others, but its nice to not get an indecisive MC or a blockheaded one, and I personally like the self confidence - I wish more MCs had that.
And then theres the fact hes actually intelligent. How many shonen protagonists do you know are actually that smart, but also not a genius? Most shows are at one extreme or another (ex Light, genius type, or Gon, somewhat clever but blockhead-y type), but this guy is just above average intelligence, and he actively uses that, such as when he tracks Flemy down in the town outskirts.
Lastly, I really like his backstory and appearance at the tournament. It wasnt as cliche as other "evil guy murdered my clan" stories, and I like that he proactively sought out a master and trained under him. Most other stories, like Rurouni Kenshin for example, have the MC coincidentally finding the master or vice versa, but Adlet went out of his way to decide his own destiny. I generally appreciate that a lot more in stories, rather than by luck. And his appearance at the tournament was great - he had to prove himself to the goddess of fate at that tournament, so he showed up and truly proved himself. If this was like any other shonen, he wouldve just been a chosen one, and that wouldve been it. Instead, he had to show his strength to be selected.
Edit: As far as the other MCs, I really like the cast in general, but thats because Ive been able to see their progression and growth in the LNs Ive read. I think my next favorites after Adlet are Fremy then Hans probably. I also like a certain villain who shows up quite a bit too. |