"Cool OP Male MC"

[awesomedude20]

Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate that type of main character inherently, it can be fun. My issue comes with the swarms of people that LIVE by that type of MC and will not watch anything but.

Story time.

So there I was, in the KissAnime discord, when a random fellow comes along and asks for an anime with a super badass MC. Naturally, I whip out Symphogear, as it is pretty damn up there on the badass scale, and I sent him this video to get him hyped up. Do watch the full thing to know what I'm talking about.

So what does this man say to me?

"Bro i dont like it...man i want overpower male mc"

And I will not lie, as per the usual when this happens, it pissed me right the fuck off. Only one thing ever gets me mad, and that's narrow-minded people.

So my question is this. WHY is the demand for "cool OP male MC" so high. Specifically the male bit. If the character is a badass it shouldn't matter at all right? If the entire anime itself is badass as fuck, it should matter even less, right? What drives SO MANY PEOPLE to absolutely just blindside female MCs just because they aren't male. From personal experience, I've seen a lot more great anime with female MCs than anime with male MCs, just because it seems that, aside from the shoujo genre, studios put a lot more care and effort into making them good, unique characters, and this especially holds true for action anime. Look at Kill la Kill. Can't find another Ryuko as a MC anywhere.

Personally I just find it beyond dumb that people think that way so vehemently, and I can't see a good reason to justify the thought process. Self inserting is not a very good reason, btw.

Gehh.

[Beocat]

2 hours ago, awesomedude20 said:

Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate that type of main character inherently, it can be fun. My issue comes with the swarms of people that LIVE by that type of MC and will not watch anything but.

Story time.

So there I was, in the KissAnime discord, when a random fellow comes along and asks for an anime with a super badass MC. Naturally, I whip out Symphogear, as it is pretty damn up there on the badass scale, and I sent him this video to get him hyped up. Do watch the full thing to know what I'm talking about.

So what does this man say to me?

"Bro i dont like it...man i want overpower male mc"

And I will not lie, as per the usual when this happens, it pissed me right the fuck off. Only one thing ever gets me mad, and that's narrow-minded people.

So my question is this. WHY is the demand for "cool OP male MC" so high. Specifically the male bit. If the character is a badass it shouldn't matter at all right? If the entire anime itself is badass as fuck, it should matter even less, right? What drives SO MANY PEOPLE to absolutely just blindside female MCs just because they aren't male. From personal experience, I've seen a lot more great anime with female MCs than anime with male MCs, just because it seems that, aside from the shoujo genre, studios put a lot more care and effort into making them good, unique characters, and this especially holds true for action anime. Look at Kill la Kill. Can't find another Ryuko as a MC anywhere.

Personally I just find it beyond dumb that people think that way so vehemently, and I can't see a good reason to justify the thought process. Self inserting is not a very good reason, btw.

Gehh.

You and me both, man.  Yeah, I think that part of it is due to the mainstream never-ending shows that feature these types of characters.  For the the most part, if that is all you are exposed to, then it is all you know (and people don't like change...they like dollars....large numbered dollars....lol).  When I look back at the anime I used to love during the early part of my anime exposure, they were most all anime with that type of set up (though I really enjoyed anime with female leads.  I am female myself however so I am sure that automatically biases me in that direction).  Hmmm...  Trigun (I'd call Vash bad-ass.  No matter the situation, he generally is never in any actual danger because he just has so much bad-ass-ery), DBZ (I did enjoy it for a while until the monologuing just took any enjoyment out of it), I'm sure there were others but if I never got around to collecting the, I wouldn't remember them so well.  I think that it takes a certain level of personal curiosity and, as you mentioned, open-mindedness, to really step out of that box.  The story has to become more important than your current comfort level. 

 

That being said, if you consider most of the shows people have enjoyed in the past 10-15 years on the television...you would immediately understand why they have such low standards for enjoyment and aren't really looking for a good story.  Most shows people watch are episodic...are meant to be enjoyed by people who are either high or wasted, or truthfully, people of low intelligence (and while you can be book smart, or smart enough to balance your checkbook, that doesn't mean you can understand political, sociological, philosophical, and so forth concepts that tend to be integrated into many good anime that tends to tease and challenge the mind while building the story).  Note, this pretty much describes the people who are like this that I have met in person.  That might not be a true representation of the entire section of the population.  Please do not get all butt-hurt that I said that.  I have also come to learn that people who claim to be extremely openminded (most of my generation for example) are actually the most close-minded and intolerant people that exist.  You can't change their mind.  Well...you can...but like a cat, you have to get them to think it was their idea first.  Good luck with that.  These people you refer to will say they are openminded...I'd bet money on it.

[Book Lover]

As a female myself, I definitely agree. I love male main characters but I also love female main characters and don't like to genderalize (I know that's not a word), characters. I will give an anime a chance regardless of the gender. (Although I do tend to like anime with female characters more, that's just because as you said studios tend to put more care into them, when they are main character or whatever). 

[awesomedude20]

7 hours ago, Beocat said:

You and me both, man.  Yeah, I think that part of it is due to the mainstream never-ending shows that feature these types of characters.  For the the most part, if that is all you are exposed to, then it is all you know (and people don't like change...they like dollars....large numbered dollars....lol).  When I look back at the anime I used to love during the early part of my anime exposure, they were most all anime with that type of set up (though I really enjoyed anime with female leads.  I am female myself however so I am sure that automatically biases me in that direction).  Hmmm...  Trigun (I'd call Vash bad-ass.  No matter the situation, he generally is never in any actual danger because he just has so much bad-ass-ery), DBZ (I did enjoy it for a while until the monologuing just took any enjoyment out of it), I'm sure there were others but if I never got around to collecting the, I wouldn't remember them so well.  I think that it takes a certain level of personal curiosity and, as you mentioned, open-mindedness, to really step out of that box.  The story has to become more important than your current comfort level. 

See, Vash is entirely fine though. Yes he's cool, OP, and male, but he's a great character that's a lot of fun to watch, and is super unique in both his appearances and personality, not to mention backstory and motives. Everything I just described there can apply to anyone to make a good character, but that's just the thing, it can all be applied to females too, so as we agree, it's very dumb when people are so extremely biased against it. It makes me wonder though why it's so prominent in the anime community though. I NEVER see this happen in other sources of media, ever. Well, aside from the occasional weirdo I suppose, but with anime if you try you can find one within the damn hour if you ask in the right areas. Just baffles me that people would prefer to have a badly written generic cool OP male MC over a really well written and enjoyable, ALSO cool and OP female MC. Of course though, like Vash, there are some excellent cool OP male MCs, but people are never picky enough to specify that. If it has edge it wins immediately btw.

8 hours ago, Beocat said:

That being said, if you consider most of the shows people have enjoyed in the past 10-15 years on the television...you would immediately understand why they have such low standards for enjoyment and aren't really looking for a good story.  Most shows people watch are episodic...are meant to be enjoyed by people who are either high or wasted, or truthfully, people of low intelligence (and while you can be book smart, or smart enough to balance your checkbook, that doesn't mean you can understand political, sociological, philosophical, and so forth concepts that tend to be integrated into many good anime that tends to tease and challenge the mind while building the story).  Note, this pretty much describes the people who are like this that I have met in person.  That might not be a true representation of the entire section of the population.  Please do not get all butt-hurt that I said that.  I have also come to learn that people who claim to be extremely openminded (most of my generation for example) are actually the most close-minded and intolerant people that exist.  You can't change their mind.  Well...you can...but like a cat, you have to get them to think it was their idea first.  Good luck with that.  These people you refer to will say they are openminded...I'd bet money on it.

Ah, this. See, I watch anime because of a few things. The shows almost always have a proper story, and the art is rarely hot garbage. With western cartoons, they ARE almost entirely just episodic comedies, with a couple good ones in there that really stand out, like Avatar and whatnot. Like you can obviously get some enjoyment out of these episodic comedy cartoons, but I'd never devote as much time to them as I have to anime because I don't think I'd seriously be able to. I've seen cartoon reviewers, and the things they say are good are just SO MUCH WORSE than the stuff you and I are used to with anime. Past cartoons though, even live action is plagued with copy/pasted stuff. You know how many damn cop shows get made? Way too fukkin many, that's how many. And they're all dark and gritty. With a funny lady that talks to them through a headset while they're on the field for comedic relief. Obviously it doesn't stop there, and there are a lot of great movies and shows that get made, but you really gotta sift through the crap to get to them. With anime, there's still a LOT of crap, but there's a lot less crap when compared to western television. I've kinda hit a difficult point, since I LOVE recommending anime, but as I watch more anime and get more used to them, I'm able to pick up on the philosophical things much more easily, so my sense of what makes certain shows really good just goes RIGHT over some people's heads when I give them some anime. I kinda get to sidestep this by being the Symphogear Nut that I am, and that show is 210% explosions and fun, but when I'm not screaming that at people, it's just that much tougher to look at someone and really know what they'd like.

Y'know, another form of this is simple elitism. You know, those people that say "all new anime is garbage, the only good stuff was made a long time ago" yadda yadda. I won't get into that, but it really is the same narrow-minded concept. They're so deluded by their own opinion that they just assume everything that doesn't match with their thought process will be a dumpster fire.

55 minutes ago, Book Lover said:

As a female myself, I definitely agree. I love male main characters but I also love female main characters and don't like to genderalize (I know that's not a word), characters. I will give an anime a chance regardless of the gender. (Although I do tend to like anime with female characters more, that's just because as you said studios tend to put more care into them, when they are main character or whatever). 

I'm using that word now. I absolutely have no true preference at the core of the issue really, as long as the character is well written I'll find enjoyment in it (probably), but as I said, based on my experiences, simply more often than not, I have more favourite shows that have a female MC because of the care tossed into it. Like if I can tell you to picture a generic copy/pasted male protagonist, you'll probably either picture a very boring looking character with brown or black hair. But if I say to picture a generic copy/pasted female protagonist, it's a hell of a lot harder for one to come to mind. Shoujo is the worst offender since most of those MCs are the small, pretty, shy, unpopular types, but even those almost always LOOK unique.

[the_twig]

Agreed, ignoring the shoujo and josei genres (not to say that they’re all bad, some of them are great), the ratio of good:bad female MCs is way higher than that of good:bad male MCs.

With a male MC, you can get away with so much more, and people will still watch it. The one that really gets us from recent seasons is Smartphone. We see someone recommend it as a good show, or ask for something similar, or in some other way refer to it as a really good show about once a week. We also have a friend who is a complete isekai nut job, and he agrees that it’s trash. So what is it that people enjoy about Smartphone? The only things we can come up with is the OP MC, and the fact that he has no personality. He is a prime target for overlaying.

For any of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of overlaying, you basically pretend that you are the main character, and all of the events of the anime are happening to you. Yes, people actually do this. It’s a lot more common than you’d think.

Overlaying is probably why there are so many generic male MCs. It’s easy to make them because you don’t need to give them a personality. On the other hand, not all overlay MCs are bad. The MC from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Time/Darkness/the Sky is a great overlay MC, because they actually have some personality and genuine connections with other Pokemon.

With female MCs, it’s a lot harder to make them overlays, because there are considerably less females in the target audience. That means that you’ve got to put some actual thought into them and give them a personality to get the audience to connect with them. That’s where you get all of your Ryoukos, your Ahiru/Ducks, and your Phos (who isn’t a female, but also isn’t a male, so it counts in this context).

Anyway, to sum up our general thoughts, screw the overlay MCs, and watch some females people.

13 hours ago, Beocat said:

For the the most part, if that is all you are exposed to, then it is all you know (and people don't like change...they like dollars....large numbered dollars....lol).

Complete agreement. This really irks us actually, because when people start watching anime, about 90% of the time, people just pile on them with shounens like AoT, Tokyo Ghoul, and DanMachi. It cements in their heads that anime is about cool people killing monsters, and that the females (with the possible exception of Mikasa from AoT) are just there for the MC to save. When you do finally break that view down with some good romances, you still have the problem of the female being the passive character, and may have the additional problem of fanservice. If they go down the ecchi loop, that problem gets even worse.

When we introduce a person to anime, we generally give them an action, then a romance, then Kill la Kill. After that we get into the more mentally demanding stuff like dramas. It gives them a good overview  of what anime has to offer, while avoiding the OP male MC thing, because they experienced Ryouko early.

We actually consider Kill la Kill to be the single most important anime for a beginner to watch, just because it avoids the close minded problems further down the line.

[FinDee]

I think it's the same reason people only prefer to play male characters in any given game.  I had a friend as me why I chose a female game character one time and I just shrugged.  Don't see the difference really.  The outcome is generally the same you don't get stat boosts in most games to differ from male to female and Sometimes it's can be a nice change of pace.  But I think it's possible that it's just being able to relate more to the character based on the average stereotype gender rolls.  In the end though.  I don't really like fighting with people.  I'd just throw a then re watch one punch man in his face and go about my day.  But I tend to be a bitter person in every sense.  lol. 

[Beocat]

7 hours ago, awesomedude20 said:

See, Vash is entirely fine though. Yes he's cool, OP, and male, but he's a great character that's a lot of fun to watch, and is super unique in both his appearances and personality, not to mention backstory and motives. Everything I just described there can apply to anyone to make a good character, but that's just the thing, it can all be applied to females too, so as we agree, it's very dumb when people are so extremely biased against it. It makes me wonder though why it's so prominent in the anime community though.

I'm not so sure.  I have fond memories of Vash but recently I went back and rewatched some episodes and was surprised at just how much random screaming he does (in my memories...it seemed to be less...).  While I enjoyed his story, like many anime from his era, the audio just might be too painful for most people to endure these days.  He might be one of those heroes of days past that doesn't translate well to current times.

7 hours ago, awesomedude20 said:

I've seen cartoon reviewers, and the things they say are good are just SO MUCH WORSE than the stuff you and I are used to with anime. Past cartoons though, even live action is plagued with copy/pasted stuff. You know how many damn cop shows get made? Way too fukkin many, that's how many. And they're all dark and gritty. With a funny lady that talks to them through a headset while they're on the field for comedic relief. I'm able to pick up on the philosophical things much more easily, so my sense of what makes certain shows really good just goes RIGHT over some people's heads when I give them some anime.

Well, if you take the cartoon reviewers with a grain of salt...I'd hope that they are reviewing the cartoon for the intended audience (like Bugs Bunny for elementary school kids for instance).  In defense of the West, there are good Western animation out there.  You just have to look really hard for it.  Chip 'n Dale, Cybersix (one of my personal favorites), Daria (my sister's favorite), Kim Possible, Futurama, The Simpsons, Justice League...  I think that list covers a broad range of audiences too.  That being said...there is a ton of rubbish out there too.  Hmm..  I think you are referring to "Criminal Minds" there lol...  If you want a good "cop" show that doesn't go the usual route, look up Longmire.  My husband and I loved that show.

7 hours ago, awesomedude20 said:

Y'know, another form of this is simple elitism. You know, those people that say "all new anime is garbage, the only good stuff was made a long time ago" yadda yadda. I won't get into that, but it really is the same narrow-minded concept. They're so deluded by their own opinion that they just assume everything that doesn't match with their thought process will be a dumpster fire.

I didn't throw this out there before but SAO has, in my own personal opinion, made the recent "must be OP MALE MC" fanaticism far worse.  I think that many people might have gotten into anime by watching SAO and are now stuck in that view.  I do believe that people can go through "phases" however.  For instance, my best friend has had one to two year long times where she has refused to watch any harems (as they are worthless to her) and only wanted to watch Reverse Harems or OP Female MCs.  Sometimes these phases can come across as elitism.

2 hours ago, the_twig said:

So what is it that people enjoy about Smartphone? The only things we can come up with is the OP MC, and the fact that he has no personality. He is a prime target for overlaying.

For any of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of overlaying, you basically pretend that you are the main character, and all of the events of the anime are happening to you. Yes, people actually do this. It’s a lot more common than you’d think.

Overlaying is probably why there are so many generic male MCs. It’s easy to make them because you don’t need to give them a personality. On the other hand, not all overlay MCs are bad. The MC from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Time/Darkness/the Sky is a great overlay MC, because they actually have some personality and genuine connections with other Pokemon.

With female MCs, it’s a lot harder to make them overlays, because there are considerably less females in the target audience. That means that you’ve got to put some actual thought into them and give them a personality to get the audience to connect with them. That’s where you get all of your Ryoukos, your Ahiru/Ducks, and your Phos (who isn’t a female, but also isn’t a male, so it counts in this context).

Hmm...  I actually see a lot of overlayable female MCs in the Reverse Harem genre (and I don't think it is difficult to do).  Haru from Uta no Prince-sama, for instance, is a prime example.  The MC has no real personality...the point of the anime is to fantasize about various possible pairings...overlaying is quite common here.  Oftentimes, if the anime came from a dating sim game, you are guaranteed to have that type of character.  In turn, you could say that Harems to a degree will be predisposed to this concept...and since Harems are basically in every single genre now...taking the world by a storm of embarrassed slaps and excessive fanservice, the fact that there are so many OP male MC who are great overlay characters is not surprising. 

54 minutes ago, FinDee said:

I think it's the same reason people only prefer to play male characters in any given game.  I had a friend as me why I chose a female game character one time and I just shrugged.  Don't see the difference really.  The outcome is generally the same you don't get stat boosts in most games to differ from male to female and Sometimes it's can be a nice change of pace.  But I think it's possible that it's just being able to relate more to the character based on the average stereotype gender rolls.  In the end though.  I don't really like fighting with people.  I'd just throw a then re watch one punch man in his face and go about my day.  But I tend to be a bitter person in every sense.  lol. 

I admit it, I'm a girl, I like playing girls when I can (especially if there is any romance involved - for me, girls are generally more relatable).  Do I play as a guy from time to time?  Yeah, I do.  Sometimes I have no choice...other times I'm just cutting up.  For instance, after Dragon Age 2 (I had made a 20some-ish year old Asian looking woman for my first playthrough, which I did in my usual serious nature...nearly died laughing when my brother turned out looking like Jackie Chan), for my replay I decided to play as a guy for a change.  So here I make this guy...dark, copper skin, white friar tuck hair, wrinkled beyond belief, had some facial hair, warrior type.  Then pursued my singular goal in that game to get him to woo as many companions as possible.  The friendzone rejections from Aveline were epic LOL.  It is very rare that I will play a game in a serious tone as a guy if I had the option to be a girl.  That being said, in the past, there were distinct perks to playing as a male.  So what if your stats were essentially the same?  Sometimes little side-activities/quests and other times major dialogue would be drastically different for a male over a female.  KOTOR coming immediately to mind there.  Different characters even treated you differently based on your chosen gender.  I'm actually somewhat thankful that has disappated somewhat over time.

[the_twig]

39 minutes ago, Beocat said:

Hmm...  I actually see a lot of overlayable female MCs in the Reverse Harem genre (and I don't think it is difficult to do).  Haru from Uta no Prince-sama, for instance, is a prime example.  The MC has no real personality...the point of the anime is to fantasize about various possible pairings...overlaying is quite common here.  Oftentimes, if the anime came from a dating sim game, you are guaranteed to have that type of character.  In turn, you could say that Harems to a degree will be predisposed to this concept...and since Harems are basically in every single genre now...taking the world by a storm of embarrassed slaps and excessive fanservice, the fact that there are so many OP male MC who are great overlay characters is not surprising. 

Yeah, we said that we were ignoring the shoujo and josei genres for this though. There are many overlay female MCs, but they don't tend to step outside of those genres. We're counting reverse harem as shoujo. Still though, from what we know, there are a shed load more regular harems than reverse harems. Doesn't stop Ouran from being the best though.

We disagree about the dating sim statement. It happens a lot, yes, but it is by no means guaranteed. Some really good MCs come from VNs including Okabe from Steins;Gate, Riki from Little Busters!, and one of our personal favourite, Junichi from Amagami SS.

51 minutes ago, Beocat said:

I didn't throw this out there before but SAO has, in my own personal opinion, made the recent "must be OP MALE MC" fanaticism far worse.  I think that many people might have gotten into anime by watching SAO and are now stuck in that view.  I do believe that people can go through "phases" however.  For instance, my best friend has had one to two year long times where she has refused to watch any harems (as they are worthless to her) and only wanted to watch Reverse Harems or OP Female MCs.  Sometimes these phases can come across as elitism.

It's definitely one of the causes, yes. Rather amusingly, the recent GGO Alternative season was actually pretty good and had a somewhat interesting female MC (way better than Kirito). Additionally, the best arc of the main series so far was without a doubt Mother's Rosario, which was the last arc of the second season, and had Asuna as the MC, following around another female player. If by any chance you haven't watched either of those, they are actually worth it.

55 minutes ago, Beocat said:

I admit it, I'm a girl, I like playing girls when I can (especially if there is any romance involved - for me, girls are generally more relatable).  Do I play as a guy from time to time?  Yeah, I do.  Sometimes I have no choice...other times I'm just cutting up.  For instance, after Dragon Age 2 (I had made a 20some-ish year old Asian looking woman for my first playthrough, which I did in my usual serious nature...nearly died laughing when my brother turned out looking like Jackie Chan), for my replay I decided to play as a guy for a change.  So here I make this guy...dark, copper skin, white friar tuck hair, wrinkled beyond belief, had some facial hair, warrior type.  Then pursued my singular goal in that game to get him to woo as many companions as possible.  The friendzone rejections from Aveline were epic LOL.  It is very rare that I will play a game in a serious tone as a guy if I had the option to be a girl.  That being said, in the past, there were distinct perks to playing as a male.  So what if your stats were essentially the same?  Sometimes little side-activities/quests and other times major dialogue would be drastically different for a male over a female.  KOTOR coming immediately to mind there.  Different characters even treated you differently based on your chosen gender.  I'm actually somewhat thankful that has disappated somewhat over time.

We just want to throw our view into the pot for this little side conversation. If you didn't know, we're two people, brother and sister, and when we play games with a male/female character choice, we'll generally switch genders if we're playing separately, or chose whichever character model looks nicer/has more customisation if we're playing together. That normally means playing as a female character.