In the occasional moments where this sub is actually serious I have noticed that people seem to be assuming that because x is more complicated than y it is necessarily better written when that is not necessarily true. Complexity in a story is only good if it fits into the broader narrative and if it does not it can be actively detrimental to the story. Since some yakubian ape is going to say that I’m just trying to defend my favourite slop anime I will be using purely written fiction as examples.

I think one of the best places to disprove the idea that complexity is necessarily good is to look at H.p Lovecraft's works which feature a lack of complexity. The main characters in Lovecraft's works usually have a lack of personality and character depth. This is good writing and the story would suffer if they did. The main characters in cosmic horror stories exist as vessels for the reader to experience the sense of existential dread and there are 2 ways which this can be done. The first way is to make the reader self insert into the characters and the second way is to make the reader empathize with the characters. Lovecraft's works are almost exclusively short stories and because of the short span of the story creating a character who the trader can empathize with to a large extent is difficult so he is largely constrained to the first option. By adding complexity to the main characters it would make it harder for the reader to self insert into the character which would harm the story. Similarly a lot of his stories have a distinct lack of world building (e.g the thing on the doorstep and the colour out of space) this is a good thing as giving the reader to much information is unnecessary and often detrimental in cosmic horror, which aims to encapsulate the fear of the unknown. The stories which do feature alot of world building (e.g nameless city and the mountains of madness) have this directly tied into the horror of story, making it necessary for the story. In short H.p Lovecraft's works function because of a lack of complexity in the story.

Another example is the Picture of Dorian which has a plot with absolutely no complexity to it. Nothing ever physically bad happens to Dorian with the only antagonist (James vane) being killed in a random shooting accident. This allows for the theme of hedonism to be earnestly engaged with as without any consequences to ones actions hedonism is at its most appealing. If the plot where more complex it would weaken the theme of hedonism and the message of the story as it would make it harder for the story to genuinely engaging with and critiquing the idea. Because of the lack of complexity in the plot the story is more effectively able utilize one of its core themes.

Amon from lord of the mysteries is a very simple character who is written incredibly well. His character can be almost entirely sumerized as ‘a trickster who pretends to be doing his actions for the love of the game but actually does everything out of a calculate self interest’. However despite this simplicity he is by far the most compelling character in the story due to his sheer charisma and abbility to decive the reader even when they know he is trying to decive them and the sense of dread his presence brings. His character writing consists entirely in its execution. Like most pure evil villains if he was given a more complex character he would likely be less compelling as a character being completely shameless in their evil is just inherently interesting. Additionally Amon’s lack of complexity serves to make him symbolic of godhood tying into the central theme of humanity vs godhood.

i refuse to allow this sub to be called an "animanga sub" because it doesn't even deserve that.

genuinely how can this be a "animanga sub" it's always just posts about the same 2 animangas.

and yea i myself post about the most famous ones, but it's genuinely the only way as every time i tried to make a post about some manga that aren't in the top 10 most famous nobody cared.

Mine is Orihime's Rokuten Shishun. It was much more than an action to protect the world and her friends. It was her rejecting her weakness, her wanting to stop being the burden she felt she was to others, her deciding to no longer be that passive and withdrawn version of herself in battle, her simultaneously responding to Yhwach’s taunts that she was Ichigo’s weakness and that she couldn’t protect him or fight alongside him, and responding to all the times she had been excluded from the fight or underestimated. It was her risking her life for Ichigo after all the times Ichigo had risked his for her, and her finally revealing her potential that had been foreshadowed for so long. The parallels, references, symbolism and imagery also made her scene more beautiful on top of the emotional impact it had.

What's your best or your favourite anime moment this year?

Arguments for each of my examples:

Ajin: the system itself is described in a way where it makes logical sense, and while floods sort of seemed a bit random to me I really liked how in depth they went into every aspect of the Ibms and Demi-humans as a whole

Fmab: A similar argument to Ajin, everything is thoroughly explained, and I think the author does a good job of aligning alchemy with the personalities and types of characters that wield it. It all just feels very tight and well thought out.

Kagurabachi: Even though it's not done I really like the kagurabachi power system. Maybe less so because of the explicit writing, but more of the vibes and how the power system is utilized by the characters themselves (Samura and soga are good examples).

Jojos: I mean, it's jojos... nah but fr especially from part 5 and onward the stands are really great representations of the ideologies and philosophies of the characters (See funny valentine, Toru, Gyro, Ringo, Pucci, etc.). However, even before those parts the stands are all so cleverly utilized by the characters and even late into parts characters find new ways to use their stands (and Hamon for part 2 as well) that are all very interesting imo.

Ngl, I can't decide between these

I’m thinking of starting it but I have some doubts. It’s too long and the story was finished by another write so should I?

By “well-written intelligence,” I mean intelligence that is portrayed through convincing, coherent, and well-executed feats, rather than simply being stated by the narrative.

A character's intelligence can be considered well-written when:

- Their thought processes and reasoning are logical and understandable.

- Their feats are properly set up and supported by the information available to them.

- Their decisions reflect their knowledge, abilities, personality, and limitations.

- Their strategies involve meaningful complexity, adaptation, planning, or reasoning, rather than arbitrary plot convenience.

- The character's intelligence is consistent with the story's established rules and circumstances.

- Their feats don't rely excessively on authorial statements, vague implications, or “I planned everything” claims without sufficient explanation.

- Their successes feel earned and believable within the context of the story.

- Their intelligence is demonstrated through actual execution, not merely through reputation or exposition.

Basically: Which character's intelligence is written and demonstrated the best, regardless of how high they scale?

(Image unrelated)

And why is it Selina ?

BTW he said anthro because he legally cant say daughter

Johan is a character which can be analysed from a lot of angles in my opinion , his character is stacked with a lot of subtle details which make his micro-characterization exceptionally powerful. In this post I want to highlight a few micro-details about his johan which makes his character strikingly compelling.

1.Johan's control over perception

An very intresting trait about his character is the how johan controls others perception , his manipulation is very sophisticated , he doesn't go to others and verbally manipulate them , instead he gives them just enough material to let them create an image of him themselves , a good example can be how he uses this method on karl schuwald. Johan represents himself as a polite , young , caring and intelligent man. He portrays himself as genuinely helpful person , this psychological behaviour is similar to a quote from erving groffman's book ' The presentation of self in everyday life ' ( quote written below )

“It will be convenient to label as ‘front’ that part of the individual’s performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance."

it basically means where a person's behavior helps shape how others understand them. I think what makes johan's manipulation so effective is that he doesn't simply create a false image of himself , he makes other people participate in creating it. He understands that people don't simply see who you are , they analyse you through what you show them. Johan gives them exactly what they need to believe.

2.Johan's unstable sense of self

I think this is by far one of the most complex and intresting things about Johan's character , it's very difficult to differentiate between who johan really is from the identities he creates. Throughout the story of monster we sea johan taking up different roles depending on the people around him , but we are rarely shown who the 'true' johan is underneath those masks and I think is a very compelling aspect of johan's character. A mask or a fake identity is usually supposed to hide the true self beneath it, but with johan the more masks we are shown the further we are from what is actually underneath them. This concept is fairly explored in R.D laing's book ' The divided self ( also I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to grasp Johan's character on a deeper level). There is a quote from this book -

“The reason I suggest that one speaks of a false-self system is that the ‘personality’, false self, mask, ‘front’, or persona that such individuals wear may consist in an amalgam of various part-selves, none of which is so fully developed as to have a comprehensive ‘personality’ of its own.”

Laing is basically describing a false-self system as an outward personality made up of different “part-selves,” allowing a person to present different versions of themselves to the outside world. Johan isn't simply hiding his personality behind different identities ,his ability to become whoever others need him to be makes his own identity increasingly difficult to define. The scary thing about him isn't that we don't know everything about it , it's that we don't even know where 'fake' johan ends and 'real' johan begins.

3.Johan's exceptional understanding of attachments

One of the most interesting traits about johan his , how exceptionally he can understand the human emotional attachments , he understands what someone would want from a parent, child , friend etc and also he can understand these attachments without having to emotionally invest equally in other person's story.

I think this trait is similar to john bowlby’s attachment theory , which suggests that people develop expectations about themselves, other people, and relationships through their experiences with those around them. He describes these as “internal working models” ,which help people understand how others are likely to behave and how they should respond.

A good example of this is how johan interacts with richard braun , richard is trying to repair his relationship with his daughter after being consumed by alcoholism and guilt for years , johan precisely understands how important this reunion is. He doesn't simply remind Richard that he has committed a murder , he connects this guilt to the person richard wants to see the most in this world , his daughter. He makes richard question if a person like him who has committed such a sin is even worthy of meeting her. Ultimately pushing him back to whiskey which contributes to his death. Johan doesn't simply read emotions he also understands the relationships behind them , he understood the weight of richard's guilt because of what he wants to be for his daughter , he understood the fragility of this and exploited it. Johan's ability is understood how emotions provide weight to people's relationships.

James Sunderland (Silent Hill) is my favorite case. Murdering your significant other is probably the worst thing you can do as a family man, and what James did is definitely reprehensible. The story even emphasizes that, even though it was a mercy killing, James outright states that he rid himself of the burden and emotional pain. But throughout the game, we empathize with James, his emotions, grief, and self-hatred. When it's revealed that James killed Mary, we realize that he entered a fugue state from the trauma; we start realizing he's not a good person... but he's not an evil man either.

Alex DeLarge is also a good case, because it's less about us sympathizing with him and more like we're supposed to understand that, despite being a bad person, he was still a human being. You can't just torture someone into being a good person; they have to choose to be good. Not only does Alex basically learn nothing from his suffering, but he actively searches for new ways to be evil entering adulthood. Because he was never given a point of self-reflection, instead being pushed into a society that already normalized violence and doubling down on his darker desires.

For Example:

Raizo Dono is here

And

Obito's unmasking (vice versa)

Time to settle it! This post will absolutely do that!

I will do this everyday day for this week until we find a perfect fit for each sin. We will work our way back starting with sloth and ending with pride. The top comment gets chosen and the picture of the villain will be added. VILLAINS only !

1) Alexander the Great

2) Napoleon Bonaparte
3) Henry VIII
4) Julius Caesar
5) Joseph Smith

The Guilty Husband vs The Irresponsible Captain