Manipulative Villains are Terrifying (Chainsaw Man, Madoka, inuyasha, Arcane) - How To Write Anime

we recently kicked off our villain analysis series by talking about some of my favorite ways in which villains are introduced in anime so today I thought we'd follow up on that by taking a look into one of my favorite archetypes of villain the ones who always have me feeling excited and anxious through the entire story today we're going to be looking at manipulative villains if you're enjoying this series so far and you want to see more remember that leaving a like is the best way to let me know to keep making them and that subscribing to the channel helps you stay up to date and ensure you never miss an upload now we're going to be talking about a bunch of different Series today and while most of them are fairly popular and you might have seen them already I will put timestamps at the start of each section so you can avoid spoilers for series that you might not have seen manipulation is one of the most common traits to play with in any form of media and while simple on the surface it can be presented in a multitude of ways and stem from any number of emotions what's unique about manipulation is that it can prey on not just one or two but all of the core truths of what it means to be human greed and generosity trust and betrayal fear and courage pride and shame power and weakness love and hate idealism and reality the fact that every person Dead or Alive has these traits opens them up to manipulation in some way but the actual styles of manipulation are just as numerous deceivers indulgers destroyers isolators bargainers traitors the list is endless so today I want to look at nine different characters who specialize in manipulation explain the type of method that they use or what makes it work and hopefully help you all fall in love with this villain style as much as I am may I come in I'd like to talk with you to start off this list I want to look at a character who has become nearly synonymous with the idea of trickery Faustian Bargains and betrayal a character that embodies deceptive manipulation Madoka magica's cube is to be frank a little bit of a bastard the series itself is known as the anime which redefined the magical girl genre and moved it away from things like Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura which while having some darker themes were still thought of at least as lighter shows instead brought us into the modern staple of horror and Thriller that the genre became most recently in Wonder egg priority which let's be real it's just an attempt at copying maruka's formula and the key to that redefining of the genre stems from kubei Madoka is a series which on the surface is very simple from the outset there exists corrupted evil beings called witches that spread darkness and despair wherever they exist and as such kubei the adorable little cat that is certainly not up to anything nefarious offers to make deals with young girls in hopes that they can kill these witches and if a girl decides to dedicate their life to this cause kubei will grant them any one wish as payment and you can wish for anything it doesn't matter how ethereal or abstract the idea cubei will Shift Reality to make it happen and you know what up front this seems like a fair deal you get to help people by slaying witches and you get An Almighty wish which can be used to better your own life for the lives of people around you it's a win-win right well it turns out that kubei for as persistent as he is in trying to convert These Girls by tempting them with their wishes or the idea of helping their friends is leaving out some pretty important details namely the cost of wishes where he comes from and why he's so dead set on making these deals author and philosopher Chris Jammy wrote just because something isn't a lie doesn't mean it isn't deceptive a liar knows that he's a liar there but one who speaks mere portions of Truth in order to deceive is a Craftsman of Destruction and I cannot think of a better way to describe cubei isn't from this world he's an alien species called an incubator this race is entirely devoid of a sense of self it's this weird hive mind that is completely emotionless and purely focused on utilitarianism they don't mind when one of them gets themselves killed they don't mind the sadness or horror that they put on Humanity so long as the greater good is met and what is this greater good a stop to entropy basically the universe has a finite amount of energy in it and if nothing is done it will eventually burn out you might have heard of the heat death of the universe so the incubators aim to stop this by harvesting energy from magical girls the wishes that these girls make take a ton of positive energy and once a magical girl eventually Falls to their grief and the existential dread of their cursed existences they will eventually themselves become witches that are proportionally strong to the wish they made and their potential for good basically the more good a magical girl can do the more bad they will inevitably cause what I love about kubei is that they are essentially the trolley problem you know the old question of if a train is on tracks and about to hit five people would you pull a lever to swap its paths that it only hits one there's a bunch of different perspectives on this with the idea that pulling the lever makes you an active participant and thus a murderer while not doing anything makes you just a bystander but the other big argument is the utilitarian one the one that does the most good for the most people and that is to pull the lever allowing one person to die but saving five and this is Cube the incubators have made the decision that the sacrifice of a handful of humans is a fair exchange for the continuation of the universe and while this might make sense on a logical level morally it just feels wrong what's interesting about the Charlie problem is that there isn't just the utilitarian view but there's also a moralistic one the purpose behind your decision matters for example let's say I wanted to pull the lever specifically because it allowed me to kill someone and completely ignoring the fact that I would be saving five people despite doing the good act of allowing those people to live I did it for a negative reason meaning the action as a whole is a negative one but kubei is cold emotionless and has no morals it's a character that takes one of the most famous moral dilemmas in history and just says no to it which I think is just such an intro interesting basis for a character every decision they make they make confidently because they are in the right all while being completely ignorant to the moral dilemmas that surround them what makes them an interesting villain is that they're not evil they're taking actions they truly believe to be logical and for the greater good and it's only because we as the audience have a sense of morality that the character is slotted as a villain it's possible that we'd be making the argument that the magical girls are the evil ones for preventing the salvation of the universe each and every one of you despises me so much and now that you've finally tracked me down you can't even lay a finger on me now moving on from the gray of Hubei we can take a look at the black and white that is Naraku La cube is the character who is unable to understand morality and acts towards what they believe is in the best interest of the majority Naraku is a character who actively goes out of his way to spread as much misery as possible in the story of Inuyasha there's something called The shikom Jewel a magical gem that grants wishes and gives unimaginable power and in a quest for this Jewel the thief onigumo would hire Bandits to attack kikio the Priestess who was watching over it however kikio herself was being protected by the half demon Inuyasha and when the bandits arrived they were all but slaughtered a Survivor would find onigumo and blow up the Inn that he was staying in leaving him burnt and unable to move he would eventually be found by kikio and nurse back to health but through this he would begin to fall in love with her however with a useless body onigumo realized he would never be able to actually be with her and decides that he would make a deal with a horde of demons offering to fuse with them and allow them to consume his soul and become Naraku together they would be able to steal the shikon Jewel and win kikio's heart but things didn't go as planned the demons realized oniguma's heart would control them as long as kikio remained in the picture so they decided to take control of his body shapeshift into Inuyasha and mortally wound Kikyo this would turn Kikyo against Inuyasha and ultimately lead to her death as Inuyasha was sealed to the sacred tree for 50 years from here on Naraku would pull strings from the Shadows to manipulate and ruin the lives that he came in contact with specifically in ways which would attack what is most important to them Morocco's family a bunch of perverted monks who all wanted to have children and build families of Their Own were cursed with the Wind Tunnel a hereditary black hole in the palm of their hands that would expand until it swallowed them whole meaning that if they had kids they would essentially be dooming them to die until miraku was killed sango's whole clan of demon Slayers was wiped out by niraku and after she was left with no family he brought her brother back to life with the jewel shards and brainwashed him forcing her to relive her trauma of losing her family over and over again as he tried to kill her even his own incarnations would be manipulated in similar ways kagura the embodiment of the free wind would have her heart placed in his hands making her essentially a slave and Kana the embodiment of the Void would eventually find her own emotions and sense of self only for Naraku to take it away and force her to end her own life what really makes me think Naraku is such an interesting character though is that despite being a flat evil character who exists purely for Evil's sake he still has a lot of depth to him the way he manipulates those around him the way he mirrors Inuyasha and their desires their dreams and being sealed and most importantly through onigumo onigumo is the key for what makes niraku great because as I mentioned immediately after his deal with the demons he is betrayed and sealed away inside that new body for 50 years the character who solely existed to manipulate others was born in an act of manipulation and was himself condemned to the Fate that he inflicted on others he's almost always presented as being a heartless monster but that can't be true the reason niraku is able to manipulate and hurt people in the way that he does isn't because he doesn't understand what love or empathy is it's because he does understand those things the only reason he knows how to turn friends and family against each other to hold people captive to shut people's emotions down is because the man he used to be onigumo himself was never loved was trapped in darkness had his emotions sealed away he manipulated others out of envy and anger that they had what he wanted and this adds a layer of depth Beyond just the whole evil for evil idea while also acting as the motivator for every character in the series tying our protagonists together and constantly moving the plot forward genuinely Naraku is a master class of a character that demonstrates an author who can completely understand not only their characters but the themes of their story that they create while blending all of these factors together flawlessly with niraku though there's never even the slightest question of if he is evil or not he's openly manipulative and hateful which is in total contrast to Light Yagami once you actually start looking around it makes you wonder if you'd be doing Society a favor by getting rid of all these people light receives the death note and believes it is his duty to purify the World by removing all evil under the Alias of Kira obviously overlooking the fact that he himself slowly becomes more evil and egomaniacal as the story develops what has always made light such a compelling character in the story though is that while he puts forth this very Twisted view of what Justice is it's not a massive stretch to understand where he's coming from and as we watch him spiral out of control it is presented as someone genuinely doing what they think is best but slowly losing composure and the primary cause of which of course is L the question of what light would become if L was never brought in the picture is a pretty interesting one because as L begins to narrow his search and closes in on exposing light light begins to panic and does something that he's never done before L sends FBI members to follow up on a few of his lead leads and feeling cornered light for the first time kills an innocent person for his own self-preservation that being Ray Pember and this is the moment where light changes rather than being someone who is searching to bring Justice to the world he is instead trying to ensure his own Survival and to triumph over L this is almost immediately tested when pember's fiancee Naomi misora decides that she wants to find Justice for his death by joining Elle's task force and helping Define Kira however on the way to join she bumps into light and is fooled into showing him her ID under the pretense that he would be able to convince the task force to let her in then writes her name in the death note and doubles down on this shift towards Darkness not only that but as light sees her marching off to die he begins taunting her and laughing at her which to me has always represented the moment that light had crossed a line he could never turn back on he was no longer even pretending to be a hero he was only continuing to win the game against L but light doesn't realize this yet he still believes that he is Justified in clearing out the people who are trying to stop him from saving the world and how could any of these people stand against the would-be hero of the new world he was trying to create this leans into the idea of doing something for the greater good again but light isn't like kubei light understands emotion he understands the costs and consequences of his actions towards others and that makes it infinitely worse there's a specific point in the story that I wanted to take a look at though and that's when light uses the loopholes and the death notes rules to erase his memory game L's favor and ultimately more or less clear his own name as others continue to act as Kira in his stead until he regains his own memory again using this combination of factors to finally overtake L and the hero has one right the Roman historian Salas suggested a good man would rather be defeated than to defeat Injustice by evil means and light has most definitely not succeeded without evil means so what's special about this well it reflects how light is perceived by the audience themselves the build up and presentation of light story in Death Note is set up in a way that a lot of people don't even realize that light is the villain of the story after all we're seeing the world through his eyes he's trying to make the world better he is only doing bad things because he is cornered a lot of people can recognize that L is not a villain but struggle to understand that light is one light is a character on this list not because his manipulation is effective within his own universe but because it's so effective that he can convince the viewers of this story that he's innocent as well we see the world through light's eyes we hear him swap between the light voice and the Kira voice we understand the events through his thoughts the entire purpose of this point of view that we receive is to skew our perspective and to cause us to root for a care character who does not deserve praise and this isn't something we just see in Death Note it's becoming more and more popular as the years pass especially with the prominence of shows like Breaking Bad The Sopranos and Dexter each focusing on a character who are just generally pretty bad people and in each case we're given a shred of sympathy for them and then we're presented the world through their experiences which makes us believe in and support them despite their actions in any other Story the drug dealers the mafia dons the serial killers and the kid with the magic book that kills thousands of people at a time are not going to be the ones you cheer for but in these worlds where they are our Looking Glass our entire perspective is shifted as a result and while we're discussing sympathy given towards villains let's take a look at a villain who has a very powerful argument for their stance something which can be Amplified even further when that position is is against an even greater evil that they oppose and that is the case in Psychopaths what you call a safe Society I call a prism panopticon a facility that allows you to observe every prisoner at once Sybil is the worst form as it lets hundreds control the lives of Millions Psychopaths poses the question of if you could stop a crime before it happens would you it's the same moral dilemma in Minority Report and in Captain America Civil War and in Psychopaths Society has agreed that it is better to solve the problem ahead of time thus accepting the Civil system as the answer civil is basically a network with the ability to scan people's mental state and assess the odds of them committing a crime then if people are deemed dangerous they are immediately detained and locked up the thing is there isn't really any oversight for this and makishima the villain we're talking about here recognizes that civil is a dystopian tool that can be taken advantage of for example if you were to kill a person in front of someone in a brutal way suddenly their mental state would be shaken and they would be taken away as well or let's say the people in control of the Civil system just didn't like someone what would stop them from giving that person a negative scan and then having them removed from the picture now I could talk about how makushima manipulates others but it's pretty similar to how light does so instead I'm going to continue talking about the importance of perspective on manipulative characters as makashima actually completely contrasts light in this regard Nakashima himself is immune to Sybil scans and thus he has free reign to do whatever he wants and what is the most disruptive thing that someone in his position could do spread that ability to others he invents helmets that fool Sybil scans and allow those wearing them to act freely police are unable to fire on people having positive scans so they remain unimpeded regardless of what they do one man even uses these to savagely beat down a woman in the middle of a crowd as dozens of onlookers watch blankly because Sybil isn't reacting and if Sybil isn't reacting then there surely can't be a problem and the thing is makushima is addressed addressing a real problem that this Society faces a complete over-reliance and submission towards this civil system if those at the top of society manipulated this process which we do see later any political opponents dissenters or random people they don't like would be locked away forever and on a more micro level people will just ignore what is in front of them if that's what Sybil tells them to do it is a real problem that needs to be addressed but when all of society is content to just follow makashima feels the need to act drastically to get his point across just recently in our own world we've had people throw soup all over Van Gogh's sunflower painting this was to bring attention to the fact that we as a society value something like a painting more than the planet that we live on a pretty drastic action taken to send a message to the populace that is content and unchanging makashima isn't targeting a painting though he aims at dismantling the system entirely he's clearly a villain because of the actions he has taken and the way that he takes advantage of those he comes across but at the same time he's right he's very much the swap in perspective from one that we received when looking at the world through light or Walter White's eyes the only reason we really recognize makashima as a villain immediately is because of our frame of reference because if we saw the world through his eyes and he was this anti-hero trying to fix the broken system like light was then I can almost guarantee more people would be sympathetic to his cause back to manipulation though I want to talk about one piece for a little bit there are a ton of characters we could take a look at here such as crocodile Blackbeard and even the gorosei or the world government in general however something special about one piece is its ability to take a personality trait and manifest that into the world so when we're looking at a manipulator and someone who pulls strings I think it's only fitting that we talk about doflamingo Pirates are evil the Navy is just but history tells us so the one who wins will rewrite the definition of right and wrong they'll decide the future and how the past is written will Justice prevail why there's no other way a common Trope for almost all the characters we've looked at so far is that they are background figures they're subtle they hide they lie they cheat and they do what they need to in order to create some ideal situation that they're working towards in the end and then there is doflamingo a character so tied to the idea of being a puppet master that his ability within the world of one piece is quite literally to manipulate strings our first time seeing Dopey were met by this towering figure wearing this bright pink flamingo coat and colorful clothing to match he isn't someone trying to hide his presence at all and if anything he wants to be seen the first thing he actually does in the series though is enter Marine headquarters as a warlord basically a hired pirate who gets protection from the Marines for working for them so he walks in purges himself on the railing and starts forcing the naval officers to start strangling each other even having the them pull swords and get ready to kill one another right off the bat he is manipulating those around him and putting them in life or death situations it is a very blunt and direct way to tell us exactly what this character is he tells sengoku the leader of the Marines that he only agreed to show up because his business is running smoothly and that he's been bored and that's all we really get for now a man who is capable of manipulating others and someone who is running some corrupt business all while being very open about his misdoings we later find out that Dopey has been attacking transport ships and stealing money that Nations have been sending to the world government meaning that while he has immunity from the government for being a warlord he is also actively robbing them we later learned that he knows about the secret of the world Nobles and as a result they are unable to act against him he constantly holds all the cards in every situation he finds himself in and because of that he feels comfortable being over the top and flashy and rubbing it in people's faces that he has fooled them and controls them because no matter what happens he knows no one can touch him it's a different side to this manipulative character that we've seen it's this level of confidence that isn't typical for the archetype and while light needed to lie muraku needed to hide and kubei believed they were acting towards the greater good none of that is here Dopey doesn't feel the need to lie or hide and he is openly only in it for himself and the destruction of other people's lives finally we come to the kingdom of dressrosa and he approaches the king in his bedroom and offers to sell the kingdom to him for 10 billion berries now let me just be clear because he isn't offering to buy the kingdom he's offering to sell it to its own King on top of that he knows that this much money is more than the country has and he gives the condition that the King has one day to make that money and give it to him or he's just gonna wipe the nation out also giving the stipulation that he can't tell the citizens what's going on or ask other nations for help and that this is a test of his ability as a king we see these soldiers of dressrosa offering to battle dophi but the king insists that violence is never the answer because they are humans and not wild animals instead opting to send the soldiers out to collect funds from his people he knows this will shake their faith but he ensures that this will keep the country's Soul intact he even goes so far as to send his people a message begging on his hands and knees for their money and asking for their understanding when he says that he can't explain why he needs it however because he's been such a good and righteous King the people have faith in him and end up giving him everything that they have this king is basically a hero to their people and in their eyes he can do no wrong but once the king gets all of their money there's suddenly news he is riding into the nearby town and slaughtering everyone he comes across we shift perspectives and just as the Marines had been in his first appearance we see dophi quite literally pulling the strings of the king and forcing him to commit atrocities upon the people who had just shown their love for him dophi then attaches strings to all the soldiers who had collected the money and forces them to attack the people as well the country is in Ruins it's burning to the ground covered in the corpses of its people who had just been tricked and robbed by their King and who are now being cut down in the streets but then a hero arises dolphy and the rest of his crew appear and take out the entire Royal Army and stop the king's Rampage and in one night he has shifted the hearts of this entire loyal nation of dressrosa Into Darkness as their King betrayed them only to present himself as a Salvation and take control of the kingdom dolphy is cold ruthless and willing to ruin the lives of everyone that he comes in contact with to secure a better place for himself but he knows that it's better to lead from a position of adoration than fear so he makes this elaborate plan to tear down the system that had been in place and prop himself up as a hero his ultimate goal is to destroy the world as it stands so anything and everything is justifiable in that Pursuit and there is no part of him that feels bad about what he's been doing here what I love about doflamingo is how perfectly his character embodies this idea of manipulation and pulling strings through every action he takes and while manipulation tends to imply this level of elusivity there's just nothing subtle about Dopey or his actions as a result we have a character who twists a Trope while still being a manifestation of everything that that Trope typically tries to represent they can all burn everyone betrays us Jinx vendor her they will never understand it's only us you're my daughter I'll never forsake you now I wanted to broaden the scope of this series a little bit and I'm actually going to be talking about three examples that are not from anime firstly I want to mention Arcane and specifically the character of silco silco offers a pretty unique perspective on manipulation not only because of how he changes the character of powder but also in how he skews his own perspective of the world through her silco is a man who was raised in these slums of piltover he was not talented strong or smart but he was dedicated he worked for everything that he had and he believes in this mentality of sacrificing everything to attain your goals if you have to die to grow then that's just part of the process his goal specifically was to have the slums separate from the upper part of piltover which had abused and exploited them and to create the independent nation of Zan a lofty goal worth lofty sacrifices before the events of Arcane silco and the man that he considered to be a brother Vander acted as pseudo leaders for the underground they worked together towards the independent nation of Zahn but at some point their views on how to do things shifted silco believing in Cutthroat business and the production of new technology and drugs to expand his Empire while Vander lost his Spirit instead focusing on the safe path of compliance which allowed him to protect as many people as possible but this divide would eventually put them at each other's throats and Vander would be forced to stop silco plunging him into the corrupted water of the slums and trying to drown him however silco survived he was reborn and baptized in this caustic water and he would separate from Vander entirely beginning to build his own path until he was ready to strike back and that brings us to arcane's First Act where he finally manages to act on this revenge and where one of vander's adopted daughter's powder accidentally leads to his death herself silco would find powder in tears as he was searching for her sister Vai and although he approaches her in a very threatening way she tackles him to the ground and holds him he asked powder where VI is as he looks up to see the man that he considered a brother dead in front of him powder explains that Vai is no longer her sister and in this slow very delicate moment silco this murderous psychopath stops and just hugs her telling her that it's going to be okay and that together they will show the world now silco in that moment doesn't particularly care that there's a kid crying I mean the stuff we've seen him do throughout the show is brutal and a kid in tears just isn't something that's going to melt his heart but at the same time he doesn't really just recognize her as some random girl instead he sees himself in her someone who has lost everything someone untalented someone who puts in more work than everyone else and still ends up failing someone whose only family The Sibling that they leaned on their whole life had suddenly abandoned them it's his own reflection looking back at him as stranded and rejected child who is looking for just anyone to support them and just as silco wanted someone to reach down and save him from Rock Bottom he reaches out and adopts powder and here silco is lying to himself it's not really about saving powder it's about protecting someone that he sees himself in and it's a lie he'll repeat to himself over and over again all while presenting things as putting powder first it's pretty easy to jump to the idea of telling lies when you think about manipulative characters and that's because there's power in lies but more importantly there's power in the repetition of Lies it's actually similar to a propaganda method that was famously used by the Nazi party under Hitler something often referred to as the big lie the whole idea behind this being that if a lie is repeated enough it eventually becomes reality the first time you hear something or tell yourself something terrible you can reject it but by the 100th time the thousandth time or the millionth time the idea just kind of drills itself into you and in the same way silco is just lying to himself about protecting powder when it's really an opportunity to save himself and to take something from Vander it's why she changes her name from powder to jinx he isn't embracing vander's daughter here he is instead creating his own daughter through this lens of deception seeing jinx as his own daughter silco truly begins to change though he shifts his entire world view changes his priorities and even how he understands the things that he believed to be core truths later even saying is there anything so one day as a daughter and that's exactly what the character of jinx is meant to do here she is someone who manages to unravel everything that makes silco who he is and remake him into something entirely different a father it is an entire character Arc that stems from a single moment where silko's mind makes him believe that this young girl is a reflection of himself yes there is so much more to the story yes there's the whole aspect of him changing and manipulating powder into Jinx and skewing who she is and there's absolutely the element of developing someone impressionable into an entirely different person but I think that this aspect specifically is a really unique look on this archetype of characters the idea of not just fooling or changing those around you but to fool yourself into seeing the world differently and making a decision that is entirely out of character I think most times manipulation is seen as a very powerful outward force in writing however the lie that a character tells the themselves can be just as interesting and Powerful within a series as well it is so easy to focus on the manipulation that characters Force onto others but we almost never talk about the lies that they tell themselves which affect who they develop into and while you might think that this is something that can only be done in a negative light you can also look at characters like gone in Hunter Hunter who tells himself that his dad walked out on him not because he's a deadbeat dad but because being a hunter is so amazing now moving from someone who is entirely about growth we're going to talk about a character that has no growth at all and he's one of my favorite characters that Western media has produced in years that being Bill Cipher is we'll work out the details later bill is a being billions of years old who originated on the second dimension wanting to break free of this flat world of flat thinkers he destroyed his own Dimension and found his way into the nightmare realm a world Between Worlds however as this place was composed entirely of chaos it was destined to collapse and so Bill began looking for a new home eventually being summoned to Gravity Falls by Stanford Pines bill being from The Nightmare realm now is not actually able to tangibly manifest in our world and instead is only able to create contracts with others like this bill would offer to Grant the answers to all of life's great Mysteries to Stanford who was a scientist and opened his eyes to several interconnecting dimensions and enticing him with the promise of opening up those Dimensions after creating a portal for Bill though Stanford's partner would accidentally enter it and see Bill's true intentions something so horrifying it drove him to Insanity as a result the portal would be closed but Stanford himself would would fall into it and be trapped for 30 years however bill would eventually be re-summoned into the World by Gideon and would remain a constant Factor throughout the series always offering a deal with the devil to anyone in moments of weakness in order to bring himself closer to his goals honestly bill is just a very simple example of a classic manipulative villain he has a goal in mind and offers to help others with Faustian Bargains in order to ultimately move things in the direction he wants them to but the most manipulative thing he does throughout the entire series is not the kind of devil in the details deals that he makes with people but is instead in the creation of Mabel's bubble bill doesn't lie to her he doesn't cheat or steal anything from her he instead places her in a bubble where everything that she wants becomes reality it's manipulating someone through Indulgence and it's something that we see explored in the last two series that we're going to be talking about as well in different lights you have two options either you die by my hand as a depraved devil or you let me keep you let me keep you let me keep you let me keep you as a human being for the record might my backpacks get delicious food chainsaw man follows the story of denji a dude with less than nothing his father takes his own life and left him with insurmountable debt to the alcaza and to pay off this debt he would have to sell body parts and do odd jobs on call he lives in an old shed with his chainsaw dog pochita and they'd barely make enough money to survive often eating a slice of bread for dinner and this kind of Lifestyle leaves denji with these unattainable and wild dreams like having jam on his bread or being held by a woman but his life would change when the Yakuza sold their lives to the zombie devil for power and begin attacking him with denji dead pochita makes a contract with him promising to revive denji under the condition that he would get to watch him bring his dreams to life he fuses together with denji becoming his new heart and together they become chainsaw man slaughtering all of the Yakuza members and the zombie devil until he is the last one standing in the bloody mess that he created now enter makima who walks up to him hugs him and offers an ultimatum denji can either be killed for being a devil or choose to live as her pet human and if he's okay with that then she'll even feed him these fabled dishes like toast with butter and jam salad coffee and dessert but as author Tucker Max explains the devil doesn't come dressed in a red cape and pointy horns he comes as everything you've ever wished for it's that famous cautionary saying that if things seem too good to be true they probably are and speaking of which this is the only ongoing series that we're talking about today so if you haven't seen chainsaw man maybe skip to the last character right off the bat though we do see makima treating him better than anyone he's met through his entire life but at the same time she obviously sees him as less than her quite literally looking at him and speaking to him like he's a dog the secret to makima's manipulation is that she gives denji everything he wants in exchange for his obedience it's the long-form version of what Bill Cipher had offer she'll give him anything from breakfast to boobs if he wants it she can supply it and that's where the flaw in humanity comes in we almost always fall into the destination fallacy this idea that if you could just have something then you'd be happy but when you eventually reach that goal or attain that thing some time passes you become content and then bored and eventually you need more to denji jam on bread is a fantastic almost dreamlike experience but he becomes accustomed to that he gets used to having friends and people treating him kindly that becomes his new normal and suddenly he's going to desire more and of course makima is the key to all of that makima's plan for denji or more specifically for chainsaw man is to break his contract with pochita and force him to make a contract with her once she has control over him but just how do you break that contract pochita wanted to see denji living his dreams and he he was doing just that and this is where makima's plan comes into play you can't give hopelessness and despondency to someone who has nothing because they're already living in those things it's like trying to flood the ocean what you can do though is to prop those people up to make them love their lives to become accustomed to happiness and then take everything away from them you can destroy and ruin the people who became denji's new family you can steal away his purpose in life and you can make it so that denji has nothing left except the obedience that was trained into him being at Rock Bottom is terrible but once you're there you can fall into this trap of accepting that for your life but some people claw their way out of the abyss and look back in fear always motivated to stay away from the nightmare that they were living in because there is nothing more frightening to those who have left Rock Bottom than the idea of returning to it and this is exactly how makima takes control over denji by giving him hope tying that hope to herself and then stealing back everything else that he had been given and lastly I want to spin off the idea of indulgent manipulation for makima to another character who uses a very similar method but demonstrates it for a different purpose and again here we're looking away from anime makima's manipulation for denji stems from this idea of greed or at least for the human desire for more but the other mother in Coraline uses Indulgence as a method of feeding Coraline's need for escapism you could stay here forever if you want to if it's your decision darling we only want what's best for you Coraline follows the story of Coraline as her family moves to a new home and the name of the game here is neglect her mother seems to be disinterested distracted and generally frustrated with Coraline's existence and her father seems to be a shell of a person working non-stop slumped over his desk and exhausted not exactly in any position to give the kind of attention or affection that Coraline wants and needs and let's be real when you watch this as a kid you're like damn these are some neglectful ass parents they suck but I think that as a lot of us have grown up and looked back on Coraline you kind of just realize that sometimes life is just a lot sometimes you are too busy you are too tired or too stressed and overwhelmed with life to give people the time that they need I'm not a parent but the constant Around the Clock nature of raising children is something that I'm sure wears you down over time I'm not saying it's not rewarding and I'm not saying it's a bad thing but I know it can be exhausting there are times that even though you love your kids they're just going to straight up annoy you but that's just part of being a human person interacting with others is work and that's just the reality of life sometimes but Coraline isn't happy with reality and eventually finds her way into another world a world much brighter and warmer than her own a world with a gorgeous garden and magic and wonder and most importantly a world with other parents who give her everything she could possibly want a world around the other mother in contrast to her own mother the other mother seems to love the idea of spending time with Coraline like makima she's here to offer everything and anything that would make you happy but there is just one strange thing about this world and that's that everyone here has buttons where their eyes should be and that's the cost of living here in exchange for this paradise the other mother asked Coraline if she can take her eyes and this is a pretty core thing when it comes to manipulators at some point they're going to ask you to do something that you're uncomfortable with or they're going to ask you to give them something this could be out of guilt out of the desire to protect or help them out of fear of what they might do or a million other causes but regardless whatever the benefit they're giving you it will always come at a cost always and that kind of brings us to The Core theme of Coraline this idea of escapism and reality of course Coraline can have everything that she wants in this dream world but that's just it this place is a dream the buttons replacing her eyes in this sense represent turning a blind eye and looking away from reality actively choosing to close your eyes to the obvious lie that's in front of you in order to be made comfortable Coraline eventually explores this world and comes to the border of it realizing that it is small and crumbling and it's just like that with escapism rejecting reality and buying into a dream can close you off and stop you from experiencing what life is because reality isn't always the best but at least it is real all of the other examples that we talked about had a pretty clear line as to where the value of manipulative characters lie and certainly the other mother has similar value in that sense but what I love about Coraline is how directly it presents the cost of being manipulated the cost of sensing that something is wrong and then still buying into whatever lie is being sold you might get what you want but things will crumble around you you'll be forced to do something you're against and eventually you will figuratively be eaten and discarded as the manipulator grows stronger I think manipulation is just such an interesting tool to play with when creating villains it can be done in so many unique ways but what's so great about this archetype of characters is the way it can be beautifully used in every single story or in combination with so many other tropes to be effective at the core of every story or of every hero's journey is desire Madoka desires to help people Inuyasha desires to be accepted silco and Jinx desire for family Dipper desires to learn the secrets of Gravity Falls and denji desires to live a normal life and the thing about life is that everyone wants something and eventually they're going to want more it's one of the most basic human instincts and these characters this archetype as a whole exists to prey on them it's why monsters under the bed is such a universal concept everyone can understand a fear of the dark it's something that we all understand at the core of who we are and manipulation is the same thing and because of that it consistently makes for some of the most compelling story structures that we can create and that is why I love manipulative villains I want to take a moment to thank you all so much for watching this video and until next time I hope you all stay excellent foreign

Channel: AxelBeats!

Views: 490,565

Keywords: AxelBeats, Manipulative Villains, How To Write Manipulation, Character design, character writing, How to write anime, The best villains, Chainsaw Man, Makima, Denji, Madoka Magica, Madoka, Kyubey, Death Note, Light, Gravity Falls, Bill Cypher, Naraku, Inuyasha, One piece, doflamingo, coraline, other mother, beldam, silco, arcane, jinx, psycho pass, makishima, kogami, how to write villains, great villains, manga

Id: FBzU9DEDOFQ

Length: 46min 53sec (2813 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 03 2022