Building a Bastard: Destroyman

santa destroy california is home to many things from the pound dollar to the warriors baseball team before they became the red tigers and also at a movie studio called bear hog studio but most importantly it is host to the united assassins association's own ranking fights and because of this the town has also become home to many dangerous and ruthless assassins all gunning for that number one spot and of these killers is the masked mercenary mailman multiplying using mechanical might and masquerading as a megastar destroy man santa destroys very own superhero hey there he is how's it going i'm having a stroke are you going to shake my hand or what i'm having a stroke wow you're not even moving your arm i'm having a stroke are you okay i'm having a stroke your face looks weird too i'm having a stroke are you having a seizure or something i'm having a stroke when someone is having a stroke they may not be able to say it with words but their body language will tell you loud and clear i'm having a stroke destroy man or john harnett is a reoccurring boss throughout the whole of the no more heroes series and is a one-sided rival to travis touchdown he has gone on to make an appearance in every numbered entry of the series so far and is already being planned for future entries if they get made and because of his persistence and charisma he has cemented himself as part of the no more heroes identity just as much as beam katanas and coconuts and while his approach to assassin work is undeniably successful it is a bit underhanded though it gets its results and has at least earned him some interest from the uaa even after his death though before we get too into that let's understand the meaning behind his name and design now before he was called destroy man he was john harnett a large man with a lackluster male delivery job and a lot of pent-up aggression his name and physical appearance seems to be in reference to the mma fighter josh barnett who suda claims was also partly the inspiration for travis's own design now jon and travis are actually very similar people in a way not only are they the same age and based on the same dude they also use their time and money to live out elaborate fantasies that let them work out their violence and aggression travis cuts off heads and aims for the top while jon dons a mask and administers justice through his superhero identity known as destroyman now the name destroy man is pretty to the point with the destroy part taken from santa destroy his hometown and location of bear hawk studios and the man portion obviously being in reference to the common trope of ending superhero names with man like superman spider-man batman not that one though interestingly enough his last name harnett is also close to the irish surname of harnett which is a bear and ties back to the movie studio bear hug which was given its name based on the pro wrestling submission move the bear hug which was popularized by an actual [ __ ] bear from the 50s to the 70s his name was terrible ted and it has nothing to do with destroy man but i felt like this was too important not to mention now this movie studio was used by destroyman to film his privately funded movies which went on to become cult films and were popular enough to spawn off merchandise like the destroy man t-shirt that travis can find in the dumpster around santa destroyed now given the state of the film set and the later revealed practices of the u-a these destroy man movies are likely all snuff films of destroy man's ranking fights where he lets his true face come out though destroy man isn't born with any special powers like the superheroes he parodies instead he utilizes technology to give himself the upper hand as everything that makes him powerful comes from his sfx converter a special battery charged mechanical bodysuit that comes in a multitude of parts starting with his gloves headpiece spine piece and belt that all grant the wearer's superhuman strength and the ability to fire lasers as well as manipulate electricity now the main point of focus for the costume is his large crotch hugging belt which cool detail the center light glows every time he speaks because it is voice activated now the belt has a design that appears to be in reference to two different things firstly the x shape of the belt seems to be mimicking the classic xbox shape which feels intentional as no more heroes was originally pitched to be an xbaka exclusive title before sudo learned about the wii's motion controls but also the belt is in a clear reference to the classical bulky kamen rider belts of the early 70s with suda making it no secret that he loves kamen rider this is this is that rock quarry in ibaragi that they use to film those tokusatsu shows isn't it awesome i can't believe i'm here this is where they film kamen rider zeal you know and the name of the gadget even has sfx which is the abbreviation for special effects and kamen rider's genre is known as tokusatsu which can essentially mean live-action special effects along with this a majority of his big attacks are references to other media like destroy pounds seemingly in reference to the superhero landing pose the destroyed cannon is the street fighter hadoken the destroy beam is superman's heat vision destroy spark is the star wars force lightning mixed with a joy buzzer and he even has austin power fembot nipples though his finishing move the devastating destroy buster is a powerful pelvic projectile painfully punishing perps by piercing them like paper and its positioning is likely in reference to the schwarz ring from spaceballs which is fitting giving that he is a parallel to travis and suda claims that the short strings were the main inspiration for travis's own beam katana though even with all those advancements destroyman's deadliest tool is his deception as he puts up the persona of this heroic and honorable warrior insisting on sportsmanship before and after his match but this is all a facade as anyone who falls for his tricks will end up getting killed and there are a lot of cool details leading up to destroy man's true nature that all hint to his more unhinged side as well firstly of course you have his hero name of destroyman as it's an inherently unheroic name focusing not on how he got super but what he does with his power but then you have this visual and audio element of the cutscene before he transforms which is a detail that i was made more aware of thanks to henry perez's own deadly individualism series where the camera shakes and the sound of this pounding creature desperate to escape can be heard which both shows how uncomfortable jon is outside of his costume but also that he harbors a darker part of himself inside well actually it is me oh that makes sense never mind then you've got a job to do but first i need some time to get ready and finally his insistence that travis should turn around and lower his guard makes him immediately suspect as it's this kind of behavior that was pointed out by the last ranking fight shinobu as strange or suspicious for a killer i just need you to look the other way for a second a second yes just a split second i don't think it's too much to ask a real gentleman i just turned my back but you didn't strike you are [ __ ] with me all together every little detail suggests to you that this man is deceitful or dangerous despite his outwardly respectful demeanor he is in a way a monster pretending to be human and this is reflected in his extreme murder battle stage firstly in it being a movie set as acting is his strongest tool and it's the one he falls back on more than anything else how there you what [Music] and because of this you can never really tell which part of destroyman's personality is the genuine one even in the later games and then you have the minions that litter this stage at first they just seem like dudes wearing paper bags on their heads and wielding a variety of weapons when in reality they're all strange monsters with blue green and red skin who are all dressing and wearing the identity of humans they are things pretending to be human and their designs kinda remind me slightly of the heaven smiles from killer seven though it's clear that they're meant to reflect destroy man in this design decision and it's very possible that their costumes are also a joke on how low budget tokusatsu stuff can be at times which speaking of kamen rider after destroyman meets his end at the hands of travis he returns in the second game in a clear kamen rider reference this form being the new destroy man which is almost a direct reference to kamen rider 1 and 2 even with him becoming half cyborg in the process but also he is referred to internally as destroy man 1-2 though him coming back from the dead is also to play into the eternal rule of comic books that no one stays dead in comics except uncle ben though one of the most noticeable details about his return is how he appears to have a split personality now as the two bisected parts seem to have a mind of their own with each coinciding a color associated with it the more polite and honorable part of destroy man lives in the red body while the aggressive killer harbors the blue body this is a pretty clear reference to the japanese character archetypes of the red and blue onis but ultimately their split personality is just as much of a facade as they were together as each share each other's pain and go along with the same trick it's very possible that there is no split personality at all but the same consciousness inhabiting two different bodies also interestingly enough the color coding of the new destroyment completely countered the perceived understandings of the red and blue oni archetypes showing how it was simply just an act of the collective destroy man put up in order to get a sneak attack at the start of a fight and while a lot of his fighting style remains the same he now spreads his moves out among two bodies the blue destroy man attacks from long distance with his destroy cannons and lasers while the red destroy man does melee attacks and focuses on using destroy spark but they can both utilize a new shield like move similar to the at fields of evangelion though because of their separated forms he has created a new super move called the dual destroy buster where both destroy men fire their beams into each other and create a powerful black hole like projectile that builds up in size like the spirit bomb before honing in on their target also built into his robotic legs are jet propellers which allow him to leap great distances and fly around without the assistance of a prop like he originally needed also interestingly enough the warehouse you fight him in seems to imply that even in his bisected form he still maintains his delivery job as it is filled with boxes ready to be delivered and he also threatens shinobu by saying that he'll make sure that travis receives her head in the mail which actually brings me back to a point about the original game one of the cool details about destroyment and possibly the reason that he isn't geared up when travis arrives at the studio is because he is the one who delivers travis the letter that sends him to the right location as sylvia mentions needing to send him snail mail though back to no more heroes 2 the stage before his fight was actually entirely added to extend the gameplay segments of nomore heroes 2. as according to the original script shinobo was actually just supposed to jump from cut scene to cutscene while cleaning up the past that was haunting travis also interestingly enough the new destroyment only count as one single assassin reinforcing the idea that he didn't split his consciousness but instead is the same person inhabiting two bodies at once as no more heroes 2 shows that you can kill multiple assassins at once and shoot up the ranks also the fight here works to help represent shinobu's own growth as an assassin as in her defeating destroyman the assassin that was ranked higher than her originally it shows without a doubt that she is stronger than she was in the previous games and with his death here destroy man would go dormant for roughly 9 years as while travis was going down a path of self-discovery destroyment begins his path of self-recovery as somehow he was able to repair himself following the defeat at the hand of shinobu likely thanks to the assistance of the u-a given their ability to call him up whenever they need his services and because his previous new destroyman form proved that he could inhabit multiple bodies at once he began to focus on a new effort the mass-produced destroyman initiative which might be in reference to the doom bots of marvel comics which are robotic duplicates of doctor doom which allow him to be in many places at any given time also a cool detail about the mass-produced destroyment is their rotating heads the pattern in which they swivel on is based on the cut pattern that shinobu left destroy band's head in at the end of their fight it's also possible that the idea of the mass-produced destroyment could be in reference to dragon ball and the return of cooler as metal cooler is a hive mind self-replicating lesion hell-bent on revenge and global conquest also the robotic forms of metal cooler are sometimes referred to as the mass-produced cooler or mass-produced metal cooler and according to notorious destroyman had a very similar plan to cooler also references to dragon ball aren't entirely unfounded and no more heroes in general come on man don't underestimate my prowess in battle i'm right up there with [Music] if we're talking about anime references we should discuss the actual main body that destroy man has taken up his true face form true face is a destroy man cyborg which appears to be the main leader unit for his entire mass-produced army his appearance is similar to the mass-produced model but with a much more demonic looking design even featuring a second face on his abdomen this whole design seems to be a reference to the gunmen of gurren lagen which makes sense given the anime and space theme of this entire game and if i had to guess the specific gunman i'd say it was viriles as at one point it had a very similar warhawk to true face his own now trueface's own cybernetic body allows for destroy man to mix up his moveset combining some of his earlier abilities together like destroy spark and pound to create a shock wave on the ground and then you also have him being able to fly with ease now and deliver a destroyed punch all without the assistance of the wires he once needed truface is also able to fire two destroy cannons from each hand or even convert a cannon into a large spark shockwave he hasn't stopped with his cowardly trick still offering and insisting on a handshake before battles and the mass-produced units will even flee from fights and fake knee injuries only to attack you when you get closer like there's some god hand enemies or something but besides this one immediately noticeable aspect about truface is his new viewpoints as he reports himself to be a superhero directly and claiming that he will destroy evil assassins like travis though this is just another example of his childish illusions of grandeur now played out on a grander scale and it also seems to hearken back to destroy man's original developmental name justice now this idea of a manufactured superhero who is trying to fund their future through other nations military seems to be partly inspired by the comic book series the boys by garth ennis and derek robertson the comic series is a satirization of the idea of superheroes and destroy man seems to take most amount of inspiration from the iconic antagonist of the boys homelander even originally matching him visually and sharing the same first name and suda apparently enjoyed the boys enough that he would reach out to derek robertson to make art for no more heroes 3 specifically including the cover of the game though the role that destroy man plays narratively in no more heroes 3 seems to be a way to demonstrate travis's own growth as a person as while destroyman has only doubled down on his embracing of fantasy travis has evolved past the need to indulge in his in a way travis grew up while destroy man grew stale this dude is such an immature little [ __ ] even more than you but one part of his character that only grows better with time is his boss themes and he's got a different one for each game starting first with his original no more heroes boss theme stop hanging djs which was given its name in reference to the lyrics to the smith's song panic now the boss theme was created by matsufumi takata a very talented composer who sudo worked with in the past on games like killer 7 and would later go on to make iconic soundtracks for games such as dengan rampa now the goal he sought to fulfill with this boss theme was to tell the story of the fight through its sound and i can sort of hear it as the sort of mechanical nature of the music plays and destroy man's own reliance on technology to be a successful assassin with the slow introduction of other instruments coming in to help finish out the song which seems to be in reference to the production work that goes into creating movies especially ones that feature heroes in them with heavy special effects and his ability literally has the term special effect in it destroy then following this we have no more hero 2's new destroyman theme called kill you twice over by neuratino it's sometimes referred to as twin electromagic as it's what the file is named in the game itself and while we lose out on the sound and intention of masafume's work here we have a song that intends to capture the feeling of the songs that inspired no more heroes to begin with that being punk rock as the theme gets us excited to partake in the boss fight it is a constant up and down and the name of the song is in reference to something that new destroyment says right before the boss fight begins we're gonna kill [Music] [Music] and then finally we have the theme for no more heroes three feast mitsuri which was created by novolaki kanako and seems to be an attempt to replicate the machine sound of the original with kanako adding his own little touch to it and it seems to reference the fact that destroy man in no more heroes 3 is stuck in the past and he may advance with technology but he himself doesn't really go anywhere so that's why the theme tends to sound like the original boss theme [Music] the name feast mitsuri could also play into a reference to something that travis told him before their original duel to the death as mitsuri is a japanese festival making the name of the song something like festival feast and as travis described destroyman if challenge had a taste you'd be quite delicious and with his now overwhelming numbers he has become a feast worth celebrating though interestingly enough before the original no more heroes released a demo for the game showed off destroyed man's stage now this discovery came from the archives of the cutting room floor page for no more heroes but basically in 2007 there was a tokyo game show demo for no more heroes that you could play the whole of the stage right up into the end of destroy man's boss fight but one key thing was different he had a different boss theme instead it was a theme that would go on to be later titled rocket surgeon and it is the final boss theme of gene in the main game this is actually a great demonstration though of how destroyman has been part of the series for a really long time as not only do you have him in this demo but he also appears to be one of the first bosses that was developed for no more heroes 2 according to other data found on the cutting room floor which also shows an early version of his boss arena that was filled with destructible environmental pieces though it is unclear if you would still fight him here as shinobu as the stage doesn't seem designed around her jumping but her jumping was terrible so maybe that's better also the original script says yes that shinobu was always supposed to fight him and finally before we even knew much about no more heroes 3 we had concept art pop up at an ign live stream with suda showing off concepts for not only destroyman's true face and the mass produced units but also kimmy hal and of course the final destroy man something that some people have probably been waiting for me to get to this was a boss that was not going to appear in no more heroes 3 and suda has gone on to say that if it were to appear it'd be in no more heroes 4 if it was made meaning that destroy man is so intertwined with no more heroes as a game that concept art for him exists for a game that may never actually even reach development though if one person helped turn destroy man into the iconic character that he is now it was the stellar voice work of josh keaton whose performance really helped shine a light on his character's shifting personalities seriously i think i might really die from laughter it hurts someone help oh god oh [ __ ] i thought i was gonna die there you know it's dangerous coming to a place like this alone you ought to be more careful seriously terrible things can happen shake my hand and the fight can't begin come on no tricks ultimately destroy man is one of the most standout bosses from no more heroes his own history and while his fights may not have always been the most fun he works as a perfect narrative tool for everyone's growth in the story of the series as well as a great representation of someone who actively refuses to kill the past one of the core themes of suda's works with him cowardly rejecting death and begging for help in his dying moments to his crass and root approach to killing he has in a way become the anti-travis touchdown and it truly shows that there really are no more heroes in the world of santa destroy also of course i personally love seeing his one-sided rivalry with travis get more and more pathetic from his side as the series continues and his actions are dismissed over and over again destroy man came back huh didn't see that coming he was another prick though i'm glad he's dead again all right [ __ ] you what the [ __ ] are you even trying to do you weird ass bastard so i'm hoping one day we get to see that final destroy man in action and i'm sure that it'll be a moment to remember whether it is one of glory or subversion and if you enjoyed this video and want to see more videos like in the future i have a patreon at patreon.comthebadguy and if you want to improve your handshake game so that you can keep up with one of the best handshakers in the world well i suggest that you go to bichumanetta.com and purchase yourself a copy of shimano boring world where the concept of dirty jokes doesn't exist at buy 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Channel: Meti『Not The Bad Guy』

Views: 77,245

Keywords: No More Heroes, No More Heroes 2, No More Heroes 3, Destroyman, Destroymen, New Destroyman, Neo Destroyman, Destroyman True Face, NMH Destroyman, Travis Touchdown, Destroy Buster

Id: ppjTW6QSiew

Length: 24min 8sec (1448 seconds)

Published: Tue May 24 2022