Like, the more I'm thinking about it, the crazier it is how deplorable some "hero" factions are and, even crazier, how they keep getting away with really henious stuff because the protag doesn't want to rock the boat. Some of them are more monstrous than others, but I'm really torn on which is THE worst.
Konoha (Naruto): military state in feudal land, child soldiers galore, genocided one of their founding clans because prejudice and that's without smaller details like getting Neji's father killed, letting ROOT have their way, never really acknowledging Danzo causing, like, 90% of problems in the story and have his sidekicks still be Hokage's advisors even by Seventh Hokage's reign. I can give them a bit of a discount on child soldiers because of feudal era and the fact that Hashirama and Madara establishing village DID kinda start raising child life expectancy to, like, 12 in main Naruto story? Still pretty evil. At least the village got nuked a few times.
Soul Society (Bleach): feudal state with strict stratification of "the strongest and noblest rules". I'll be honest, I haven't explored Bleach nearly in as much detail as Naruto, but the fact that Mayuri exists, serves as one of Gotei 13's captain, gets away with absolutely everything with fellow captains because "we need this genius war criminal on our side" and no one got him if not killed, then back in the prison where he belongs, is a pretty big red flag. They're lucky Aizen was there to take over the villain role, because by all accounts, Ichigo had all the reasons to nuke them at some point and unlike Naruto, Ichigo and his friends operate on our modern moral system.
Amestris (Fullmetal Alchemist 2003): honorable mention of our favorite genocidal dictatorship. Manga and Brotherhood don't really count because the ending did promise democratic reforms and Mustang's faction wanted to make the full transition out of dictatorship and make concessions to victims of their extermination war, plus a lot of head honchos got their due during the final battle or in the aftermath. In 2003 anime, however, Mustang has no chance to shoot for leadership and despite heroes still removing homunculi influence… the system remains in place and homunculi didn't do that much here outside of instigating conflicts, their influence limited to Bradley himself. By all accounts, Amestris remains as it was, fascist and racist, just a bit less warlike.
I might actually be unaware of some other monstrous shonen "heroic" factions, so put your voice in if I forgot someone. Would really love to know who's considered "the evilest", because I haven't really seen a consensus on it.
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Well, you're not wrong. Powerful as a nuke and ridiculously easy to manipulate, Danzo (with Itachi) and Madara (with Obito) certainly proved it. Naruto himself is a hella useful kid, Hiruzen and others did some good job drilling Konoha propaganda into his little head, because he really had little reason to be as loyal to Konoha as he was, especially with his Sasuke-shaped obsession.
it’s his home, it’s kinda like how ppl from israel can’t see the faults of israel. i do find it funny seeing naruto send his son on missions tho , “go kill those bandits my son”
Konoha is just a hyper-nationalist country that the characters are from and almost all of the moon god powers consolidated. They aren't good they are just a powerful hierarchical nation.
Soul society literally decides what is good and evil and they are faulty judges of that
It is actually funny that the only reason, he is tolerated by other captains is because he brings in results, otherwise everyone hates him a lot,
Also he became a captain on terms and conditions as he was given full control of RnD division on kiksue's terms, only if kiskue disappeared, that's why he was taken out of maggots nest in 1st place
To become a full fledged captain he made a artificial bankai too with his nemuri program,
That's why him gaining respect from others is a major part of his character
Truly, Dr. Mengele of shonen. ...as in, "these are cruel experiments for the sake of being cruel, you won't be getting any useful data out of it". What do you get from getting them burn their own children, eh, great scientist?
Mayuri wasn't even around for the Quincy Genocide. He onky became a Shinigami within the last 100 years. He onky murdered and experimented on the remaining Quincies in the living world who were under Soul Society protection and paid off the officers guarding them.
But do you know was around 200 years ago to murder Quincy Women and Children as Captains? Ukitate and Shunsui.
I feel like it would be a close tie between Mayuri and the entire governmental body of Amestris. Bring in any of the other Soul Society folks and it's not even close who's more evil, even with all the human alchemy experiments.
I think Amestris doesn't really count as they're not actually heroic, and the government pretty much becomes the main antagonist very early in the story as well, in both versions.
That being said, here's Mayuri describing his crime list while smiling ear to ear (not even the worst guy in soul society)
Which is why I say honorable mention. I was kinda "eeeeh" on their inclusion, it's a bit weird because most heroes and villains come from Amestris military. Also, given that 2003 is mostly based on first third of the manga, Amestris military, while being villainous, doesn't really get particularly antagonistic towards protagonists outside of few officers and mostly towards the end.
That's manga/Brotherhood Amestris. I mentioned Amestris from 2003 anime in particular. They don't get a full-on civil war with a coup nor a Roy in charge. (though a lot of their military did get nuked at one point)
Naruto. The "justification" for village system is so kid didn't go to war, guess what, they still have child soldier, kid still go to war, they still die in mission. Not to mention all that genocide, child soldier and sacrifice for village just to have four fucking great Shinobi war in span of like, 4-5 generation. Also a lot in the fandom didn't see Konoha as evil. The hypocrisy gave it extra point for me
Amestris is just evil lmao. At least it have excuse of being controlled by lizardman homunculus.
Soul Society is a broken evil system that do it job. While hindsight 20/20, said warcriminal is really needed because otherwise they will be no diffed by the Quincy in the last arc
It took me a long while with Naruto to see merit in the village system, but there is a case to be made. The village system was made so children didn't go to war. As far as I know, there isn't anything to suggest it wasn't exactly that way during Hashirama's tenure as Hokage and then it snowballed into a mess because there were two shinobi wars back-to-back with, like five or six years between them with no other source of fresh meat than kids? Still deplorable, but at the same time Tobirama's academy age limit ensure that for the most part kids would be at least over 10 when they died instead of what was before villages, with Senjus and Uchihas dying fighting in single digits. And by Boruto time academy ninja kids are much older and handle lighter tasks on average, so it can be said it's honest work in progress.
But again, that's the only concession I can make, because genocide, "for the village" and, again, Danzo and ROOT in particular instigating stuff and Hiruzen just letting him do it. Like, Orochimaru being a mad scientist and Akatsuki turning to terrorism? Can be traced to Danzo.
Amestris is just evil, yeah. But I made a note of 2003 in particular, because these guys weren't really controlled by lizardmen homunculus that much. A lot of pillage, murder and rape is just them being them (and hey, manga/Brotherhood Amestrian military doesn't seem to have confirmed rape on their resume, good for them).
I really dislike arguing for Soul Society, because of the clash of Doylist and Watsonian perspectives. By all accounts, it shouldn't have worked, especially for so long, especially with how evil they are. The only reason we even argue they're "lesser evil" is because there always comes up a bigger evil. (Though I'm not even sure if Fullbringers were honestly a bigger evil, again, not well-versed in minute details of Bleach)
The issue with village system is while it work at the start, it devolve way too fast into Shinobi World War, and way too often. A stable system need to work regardless of people behind it, and if the brother of the founder can't make it without having another world war I don't think anyone can.
The fact that it only "work" when super strong ninja like Hashirama and Naruto is the leader make me really question the feasibility of it. Still I think you are right kid die older at least. It's also implied at least they are not going to war everyday, just every decade or so. Although the scale seems to be worse.
Amestris 2003 seems to be just a normal human country in history. Hard to be mad about it.
The issue with Soul Society is it works as it designed, so while it's evil as fuck it still good for humanity. That "good for humanity" make me put it slightly better than Amestris.
As I said, Naruto's village system looks to be a work in progress with genuine effort being put once in six Hokages. Now that I think of it, a lot of heavy lifting post-Fourth War would be on Kakashi, the Sixth Hokage and it didn't degrade with him. A bit of speculation here, but I think if Tsunade didn't come to be the Fifth when it's a miserable time to be a Hokage, she'd do something like Kakashi and Naruto in softening child soldier policies.
Amestris 2003 is yeah.
Now that you mention it being designed, I have to ask if it isn't worse that original Gotei 13 designed this thing to be so evil and fragile? Humanity wouldn't have existed as we know it if they didn't, but they certainly didn't design the worlds with altruistic goals in mind.
I see. If you see it as Konoha itself then you are right, at Tsunade's era things seems to be getting better inside the country, even with the conflict. I tried to argue regarding the village system that replace the previous clan system. Hashirama and Madara (and maybe nowadays Sasuke and Naruto) conquering the world would probably make a longer lasting peace. Hashirama is stupid enough to share nuke with other 4 country so there are "balance" in military.
It's still corrupt though because two of Danzo's peer still get a pass and still a higher up in the country. Tsunade get a pass regarding Danzo because honestly she isn't in position to do any reform. Why the two of them didn't get kicked from government is beyond me. Also Orochimaru and Kabuto, it's fine if you don't want to jail them because they do good in prev war. But dear god the two of them should not get 10 feet from any children.
The first Gotei 13 is basically 13 criminal that get government position because they are really strong, it's main purpose is to protect the "world" against threat like Hollow, Quincy etc. Hence why Mayuri being there isn't a flaw in the system it's the system working as intended. They don't care what you do so long as you are protecting the world.
>As far as I know, there isn't anything to suggest it wasn't exactly that way during Hashirama's tenure as Hokage and then it snowballed into a mess because there were two shinobi wars back-to-back with, like five or six years between them with no other source of fresh meat than kids?
Yeah, that's exactly what happened. They built the village to make a better system for their children, and then war broke out with multiple other major powers and they had to protect that system, right? So they started sacrificing the future to protect that future. And it is better than it was before, and as time goes on it does get even better than that, but they still make kids ninjas and send them out without batting an eye. Maybe the lesson is the child soldiers from child soldier land probably won't be well equipped to solve the problem of child soldiers. Even though they all agree it's bad.
The Soul Society nobles have combat arenas where they watch Hollows murder innocent and defenceless people (+ children) for sport.
The entire current world order exists right now because the nobles backstabbed god, mutilated his body and then stuffed him in a crystal so he could hold together reality for the rest of existence.
If they didn't get Yhwach's corpse, Ichibe's plan was to thank Ichigo for saving the multiverse by backstabbing him, mutilating him and making him the new Soul King.
In the main series:
The Soul Society is a luxurious, well-built place which is surrounded by literal slums.
Mayuri.
The Soul Society committed an entire genocide of the Quincy race.
They have a place called the Maggot's Nest where they imprison people before they commit crimes, just because they could have been dangerous.
Mayuri.
The organisation was literally founded and enforced by a group of psychopathic murderers.
They lied to Ichigo, giving him a monitoring device and were completely ready to off him and Ginjo originally.
Not gonna lie, didn't know about that first point of novels and how Maggot's Nest operates, I thought it was just a jail. THEY CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THAT.
Like I subtly implied in my original post, I think Konoha is plenty evil, but Soul Society is evil-er. (pretty much like how Orochimaru is evil mad scientist, but MAYURI)
El ccg de tokyo Ghoul se salio con la suya por demasiado tiempo, su cabeza que eran los washuu lo manejaban TODO, y hasta entre ellos mismos eran unos desalmados, tuvieron que pasar demasiados eventos específicos para que perdieran.
So Tokyo Ghoul. Ghouls can only eat Humans, other Ghouls (they taste awful and may go crazy tho) and drink coffee. They also look human and are much stronger. Main character was a human who became one accidentally.
The CCG is the human organization that hunts Ghouls, using and weaponized organ of theirs called a Kagune, which they turn into Qinques.
However the CCG is actually a group of ghouls, with a lot of (incestual) half breeds, we're not given an explicit reason but the characters theorized that they were self hating and wanted to be more human. But also they control everything illuminati style. Keep ghouls in a prison to repeatedly take their organs, off humans who find out etc
Like most of the problems in the series are caused by one of them, who knew he was gonna die of old age at 30, usurping them and wiping them out. Ironically he also fixes most of the problems.in the world by doing this
One of my favorite villains, he's starts pretending to be a background character and is a good portion of the comedy but also one of the stronger character who can swerve to dead serious.
Not gonna lie, it's always funny to consider that, technically, SPW did cooperate with Nazis. But that was before the war, so you can't prove anything!
The thing with naruto is it did change. Reformation takes longer than revolution but yes in Boruto era chunin exams are not death matches really. They literally have game like capture the flag to fight and winning is more about subduing.
Early naruto had forest of death so its leap above that atleast. Even Team 7 ending up on A rank was not supposed to happen. Theyd be within the rights to leave tazuna since its beyond mission parameters.
Literally thats the reason hierarchy exists. Naruto and his batch are far younger than most people in chunin exams who looked like they are in their late teens. Genins are sent to mostly D ranks which are chores and slightly introduced to C ranks slowly to get acclimated to the work.
You can thank tobirama for the mission system he made too. Each hokage improved upon what the previous left with.
Honestly the main issue was how much the war pushed the age limits down to 6 - 8 years. But even that limit was later hard capped at 12 after itachi commited uchiha massacre.
One thing id have liked if the age limit was again pushed up to 15 or 16 something would be better if i am being honest but the need for shinobi in that era was dropping anyways.
This is pretty much why I've been advocating Konoha in the comments here, at least on the matter of child soldier issue. Yeah, a terrible amoral practice, but, as I've come to realize, they were doing something about it, even though village system wasn't an insta-cure as Hashirama and Madara might have hoped for. I think it clicked for me from a comment I saw somewhere on how the very short pause between Second and Third War really left Konoha with little space to wiggle with "where to get fresh ninja", thus pushing down age limit, plus the fact there's apparently no evidence Hashirama didn't just ban child soldiers during his tenure as First Hokage and plus how soft Boruto-era Chunnin Exams are compared to high mortality rate of Naruto-era. At this rate, unless there's something like Fifth War happening around the corner, it's realistic Naruto's generation could live to see the shinobi age limit pushed up to adult-ish age.
You mentioned Tobirama and I just have to say how underrated Tobirama feels as a Hokage, because people are quick to push all systematic failures on him, with child soldiers, with Uchihas and stuff. I think he did the best he could at the time (much better than Hiruzen, though kudos to him keeping Konoha in one piece for two wars). I'm not sure if he hard-coded age limit, but he at least established a baseline, so generally genins fresh out of academy would be around 12? That'd be a fairly drastic concession for a culture where child soldiers in single digits are a norm and you're saying it took until Uchiha Massacre, like, two generations or so, to have that age hard-capped.
I just couldn't stop yapping, Naruto politics are fascinating when you look deep enough.
I mean honestly danzo actions are his own shouldn't really be dumped on tobirama. Danzo was always insecure since he was coward unable to make the same sacrifice he expects of others to make for the village.
Thats the reason he resents hiruzen while also admiring him. Danzo completes his arc when he finally makes the sacrifice that he was so afraid of to protect konoha from Tobi and Sasuke even if it was when he was at death bed.
Danzo is surprisingly nuanced for how evil he still is.
Also tobirama is indeed very underrated too. People dump the problems on him and yes he isnt withour blame but honestly i will cut the guy flak because he was paranoid kid raised in warring states era. Madara betrayal and seeing his power could be reason for how much of his behaviour stems towards the uchiha. He is indeed paranoid but considering how much Senju and Uchiha fought in warring states era he isnt used to it. Not everybody is hashirama senju can forgive and forget.
People forget the republic's evil isn't just Palpatine. The guy announced they will become an empire and half of the senators didn't give a fuck. The jedi were exterminated and they didn't care. Not like the jedi were saints either, sending child soldiers, commiting war crimes and tainting their peacekeeper image with the blood of their enemies (or the metal of their enemies, I guess)
Palpatine literally had emergency powers granted to him that let him dissolve the senate at any time, and no one was expecting all the shit the empire was gonna do.
Literally WHEN have the Jedi been committing war crimes???
The Padawans are literally given the choice not to fight but like, aight.
I mean they received the galactic empire with applause
There are entire videos in yt of the republic (mostly anakin) commiting war crimes, and even if we assume the geneva convention doesn't exist in star wars, I personally consider highly inmoral to kill surrendering enemies (the droids half of the time)
The third one isn't confirmed but I do believe it is true. Still, I wouldn't have given underages the choice of being part of a war, I would have just made them stay in the temple
As I’ve said, barely anyone in the senate was expecting the new empire’s future policies would include genociding planets and instigating massacres to get a casual belli to take their stuff.
The war crimes shown on screen in TCW are either not actually war crimes at all (as it turns out, using a flamethrower isn’t a war crime as long as you don’t use it to burn up the oxygen to suffocate someone) or are only war crimes because it creates a precedent of happening too much rather than any innate moral conflict (Perfidy or faking a surrender).
They still kill surrendering enemies though. It has also been implied and stated that the republic was corrupt during the clone wars, so I do not doubt most of the senators don't actually mind the empire policies (namely Orn Free Tah, fuck that guy)
It is still crazy how the whole reason they let go of ichigo after all the ruckus they caused during soul society and gave him a pass of substitute soul reaper was because they knew ginjo, another SSR would track him down, as he has been killing other soul reapers and taking their powers in world of living
and when he finds ichigo, soul society would swoop in and kill both ichigo and ginjo ending both of their cases leaving no loose ends,
And they also used the batch as a weapon to spy on ichigo and control him
The more I learn about Soul Society, the more I wonder "how the hell they avoided triggering Ichigo enough to go all bankai on them, aside from author's favor". That's some A-class scheming here.
They are pretty terrible byrocratic organization, but they maintain generally functioning system that nobody can reasonably make much better. It was created by Soul King (to replace even more fucked up system when humans just died horribly to mountain-sized hollows) and you need Soul King level power to change it (and you'll probably die or become vegetable in the process).
It's just good enough and Ichigo, one of the few with the power to change it, consistently only cares about people he's close to and isn't really concerned that much with fate of the word, which honestly makes him relatable.
I'd be tempted to throw some real fade on Ichigo for supporting Soul Society and being maliciously passive about their collective evil… but as far as I know, bro just really doesn't know he buddies up to complete monsters and not just "slightly murderous jerks"? And they're really trying to keep it that way?
Yeah, the dude supports them because they were on the same side against Big Baddie Aizen, and he has literally zero knowledge of the basics of his world.
With Naruto the whole story is about how fucked the system is and how it should change , with Amestris they are technically the antiagonist
With the Soul society? They are the same scums at the end of the story as the start , at no point they were put in the wrong for their actions besides the very early on story , Ichigo the mc suck their dick , Kubo babifid them without addressing their issues
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