Why are so many people on Sup Forums obsessed with the idea of having a weak action/adventure protagonist...

Why are so many people on Sup Forums obsessed with the idea of having a weak action/adventure protagonist? Why do so many people on Sup Forums pretend that heroes who lose all the time are rare? Why do so many people on Sup Forums spread the lie that anime is overflowing with overpowered leads?

If you want to see a hero lose, watch any series with battles in it. They're not hard to find. The problem is you complain whenever the lead accomplishes anything. If an isekai character spends five episodes getting his ass kicked and finally does something right on the sixth episode, you bitch and moan what unrealistic wish fulfillment it is. But the bigger problem is, why the hell do you want that? Why do you want to see a hero who's weak and can't do anything? It's one thing if you're watching a realistic drama. But in an action/adventure series, the hero is supposed to beat the villain. That's literally what it's about. You're basically going to an Italian restaurant and whining that there are too many tomato-based dishes.

Mostly because OP from the start MC is common as fuck. We want more characters with a weak start, then gradually become OP as fuck.

I know right, mary sues are the greatest thing ever! I love mary sues! I love self-inserting! Fuck people saying that it's bad!

>Mostly because OP from the start MC is common as fuck
No they aren't

>We want more characters with a weak start, then gradually become OP as fuck.
You have too many already

>Weak protagonists
>Posts a guy who has one of the most broken as fuck abilities out there

If Subaru wasn't a fucking idiot and mastered the emotional abuse that comes with it, he'd be pretty much unstoppable.

Beta testers?!

seriously though, all the clone Kiritos end up getting OP as fuck because they play lots of videogames.

Thinking about it, why the fuck is Kirito the only beta tester that became a high ranked player in the end?

If the hero wins, the story did what it was supposed to do. If the hero loses, the story didn't do its job. There's nothing more frustrating in this world than an adventure story where the hero is unnecessary and ultimately didn't accomplish anything. That's fine for some genres, but not adventure stories.

capable heroes > overpowered heroes >> shit >> weak heroes

Because a hero who fails and fails again only to finally earn victory through all the blood, sweat and tears is a good catharsis compared to people who win ore gifted automatically. For some there is no joy to see those who are already powerful. But there is joy being seen in which the weak become powerful. That aspect is in itself human and what is human makes others of the same kin more in tune to it. Which is why both redemption and rags to riches tales are so attractive.

How would Re:Zero be if that was the case?

Would Subaru have been able to save Rem?

He'd become the next Regulus Tappei said. Its Subaru's weakness that are both his strength and what keeps him on his moral compass.

cause the show doesn't make any goddamn sense and it's a poorly created and realized world. Ironically the Abridged Series by Something witty actually addresses this, other people are just as good as him, he just fucks around with lower level players and gets lucky loot drops occasionally.

We're talking about escapism here. Seeing a loser get his ass kicked isn't escaping anything.

I want more MCs using knowledge of actual game glitches, like using morph ball to almost squeeze under a falling locked door then abusing collision detection to pop out the other side. Or shooting through a corner at a beast while said corner blocks the retaliatory fire. That sort of stuff. Not "outside the game rules" shit.

Fucking this.
Its more enjoyable to see someone who has seen and swam through a lotta shit and making it out of the other end and knowing them being strong comes through experience and willpower compared to some blessing or gary stu-ness.

>An entire episode of MC monologuing while he builds up his de facto speed by jumping backwards into a corner

overcoming the glitched room on floor 75 by all of them jumping up and down at the locked gate. that would have been a very MMO thing to do.

No, but seeing a loser go on a journey that we will never get the chance to and become someone legendary is absolutely escapism. You're missing the forest for the trees, dumbass.

Seeing the hero get humiliated to satisfy the whims of fat otaku who are threatened by competence is not enjoyable. It's the opposite of enjoyable, actually.

>hating on the idea of someone needing to work for something

what are you, liberal?

Subaru did come close to that in a sense. Like the legendary SF3 fight where Ken parries Chun-Li's entire super combo at almost 0 health, then kicks her as after. Only in this case, the guy trying to be Ken doesn't have the physical reflexes to match his mental ability to actually parry that well, so he ends up taking more hits than he thought he should.

>The spillovers of battle echo behind him, distant.
>Buildings collapse one after another throughout the blazing Capital, shrieks and wails echoing through. Children calling for parents, parents calling for children, men calling for women, women calling for men in the screeching pandemonium.
>Yes. This is the hell that Subaru created. Created this, destroyed Reinhardt's false image, and achieved his goal.

Is that why Rocky is such a shit movie?

Half the fucking time the hero is still a loser in the finale or else gets depowered specifically just to lose in the finale. Go watch Chaika or Nadia.

>>Mostly because OP from the start MC is common as fuck
>No they aren't

Gonna correct that user. MCs like that were common as hell until mid 90s

>not believing that some people are inherently superior
What are you, a communist?

>Is that why Rocky is such a shit movie?
Rocky I is a serious drama, which is why the rags to riches works. Rocky II-VI are all fantasy shlock, and they're all terrible.

what the fuck is interesting about a Hero's Journey if the hero doesn't suffer immensely?

Which one wins over? Natural talent? Or Veteran skill?

>Why are so many people on Sup Forums obsessed with the idea of having a weak action/adventure protagonist?
because it's different

>Why do so many people on Sup Forums pretend that heroes who lose all the time are rare?
because it is

>Why do so many people on Sup Forums spread the lie that anime is overflowing with overpowered leads?
because it is

>This could have been the MC through the entire series

Fuck Rem for stopping him

There's other ways to create tension than having the protagonist be a loser. I mean, Odysseus was overpowered, but The Odyssey is still a fun read, because of all the situations they get themselves into.

The bigger issue is that you people go to far with "MUH REALISM". I go into battle shounen threads and see people bitching about the protagonist winning fights after coming off of three years of training.

> BAWWWWWW WHY WAS THE HERO ABLE TO BEAT A VETERAN ENEMY AFTER JUST THREE YEARS OF TRAINING BAWWWWW
>HE SHOULD HAVE HAD TO TRAIN FOR TEN YEARS AT LEAST BAWWWWW
This isn't real life. It doesn't have to make perfect sense.

Talent, but only if I have it. Fuck others having a chance.

I believe you mean Achilles, and part of the reason why Achilleas is fun to read was that while Achilles was invulnerable and a great fighter not everyone else around him was. and despite the fact that he was invulnerable the prophecy about his death still came true; that he would die young. Achilleas suffered greatly because of his wrath, and he couldn't save his loved ones when push game to shove.

Ulysses wasn't particularly OP as a warrior, he just had more brains. Circe was stronger magically, Polyphemus was a fucking giant with a glaring weakness. Scylla and Charybdis were a giant monster and a literal force of nature. Hell, even the sirens. He was just decently informed and prepped beforehand. And when he wasn't, he observed while he was forced to sacrifice men.

Well good luck going against veterans with just raw talent

Meh I don't really have a problem with it, the exception being Kaneki in tgre, since everyone in every single chapter is sucking his dick.

Competence is not the issue here. There is a difference between earned competence and given competence, if you think fat otaku enjoy getting of their ass and earning competence compared to automatically getting competence you might need to re-think your logic.

Rem's hero > Ayamatsu

The story doesn't even have to be about a loser. No one decreed that we have to make every anime about a NEET otaku who is magically gifted powers.

There's such a thing as inherently smart people being gifted powers, you know.

Given the option between beta fuccboi and gary stu, I would choose gary stu any day of the week. Watching some OP faggot stomp at least has a higher chance of being entertaining than cookie cutter "development" of some weak crybaby struggling to not be useless. Somewhere in between is obviously the best, but Sup Forums is incapable of understanding things that aren't in extremes. For example, Kira was dog shit, but he was still better than Shinn. But at the end of the day both are garbage.

Its due to the gap of impossibility which makes people drawn towards it. Nobody needed to make a homeless slave turn into one of the most revolutionary scientists but we got Joseph von Fraunhofer anyways.

Or you can instead earn shit instead of being gifted shit, which is the point of my argument. To compensate what you lack, to work what you can and succeeding through competence and the resources you worked for rather than being given. Naturally gifted MCs exist and are fun like pic related or L but he still has to work with what he had even if initially he was given something bullshitty like a book that could kill anyone without his knowledge. In which he still fucked up in the end anyways.

>If an isekai character spends five episodes getting his ass kicked and finally does something right on the sixth episode, you bitch and moan what unrealistic wish fulfillment it is.
I won't say that if their victory is logical, they actually used brain and learnt fron their failure instead of asspull, power up came from nowhere.

If you want OP characters that win all the time to the point where every episode is almost exactly the same you can watch any capeshit/ western superhero cartoon.

>Poorfag detected.

Problem with this is that Subaru didn't earn shit. Most of the characters in these series dont either. He starts off as misanthropic, whiney loser with no talents and ends up as misanthropic, whiney loser with no talent who has essentially lucked his way into every successful situations.

Literally the only times he EVER put the Groundhog Day mechanic into use to overcome an obstacle was diplomacy-ing the military chick to go with him. The rest was just trial-error-cry-repeat for a few episodes before consecutive, luck-based successes that last longer than the build up to get to that point. That's why you can always tell whenever a given timeline is the 'win' timeline - because it lasts longer than two episodes

>But in an action/adventure series, the hero is supposed to beat the villain

And this is exactly why I find myself skipping more and more pages where the mc of any story is present, and I just go straight to the fight between secondary characters.

Sometimes the author leaves the mc out of the story for a while, because the mc is chasing some hidden power or whatever, and in most cases I notice that the story suddenly becomes infinitely better without the mc, fights are actually interesting since you dont know who will actually live, characters who you believed to be immortal mary sues end up actually dying and even weak characters are forced to their limits and everything is fun, and suddenly the mc comes back to save the day, and I can feel the fun draining completely out of the story, because every single character will turn into a dick sucking doll who only exists to praise the mc and be in awe of his protagonist status.

I dont have the same problem with western stories, some people may hate me for this, but when it comes to writing believable and fun main characters, the west is leagues above the nips.

People as a whole love rooting for the underdog, which is why people love watching someone struggle and suffer, only to finally win, the payoff and satisfaction at that victory is a thousand times greater than just watching another godlike mc effortless wining the same battle.

I don't care if they win all the time or lose until the last minute vital moments, I just want characters that are confedent and will step up to the plate.

I just want something different than the guy that acts so awkward around women that are clearly into him, the guy that cowers the second they get out of their comfort zone.

I dropped Re:Creators the half way through the first episode because nerdy-virgin-coward-highpitched fuckin glasses-kun was at the helm. I'm so burnt out on that fucking copy paste character. Make the MC an angry ass hole like Bakugou, an over confedent bombastic mess like Lelouch, an evil master mind like Tanya, stoic go-getter like ginko. Anything other than the pond scum fucking japanese student/neest that shit up so many of these goddamn shows.

escaping my amazing normie life, i just want to sit down and watch a guy suck for once. is that too much to ask?

pretty pathetic my friend. then again, look where you choose to hang out, i don't really blame you for wanting to self insert.

Actually to correct you on this while knowing you are solely coming off from the anime I'd like to refute by saying that Subaru's character was represented poorly compared to the other source materials. None of what he did was by sheer luck. Even in the later arcs it wasn't sheer luck either. He has both planned and used what little info he had for effective use constantly. With help from the people who he had earned connections with.

Just stop. Just fucking stop. What you're describing doesn't happen. It doesn't. I hate you pieces of shit because you don't see what's really going on. This is what you think is happening:
> An epic battle where characters have to use all their wits and resolve to survive against the onslaught of mighty foes. Only through strategy and pushing themselves to the limit can any victory be achieved. And defeat comes just as often, or sacrifice at the very least.

What is actually happening:
>Secondary Character: YOU'VE FALLEN INTO MY TRAP. TAKE THIS ORIYAAAAAA!!!
>explosion covers villain in smoke
>Villain [completely unscathed]: Ha ha ha ha ha, it's mudada. You are just tada no ningen.
>Secondary Character: M-masaka!
>jobs to villain

You don't want to see a show that doesn't cheat to let the hero win. You want to see a show that cheats to let the villain win. You love villains with plot armor bullshit. You love villains being inexplicably strong beyond all reason and rationality. You masturbate to that shit. If a hero wins a battle, you bitch and moan, but if a villain wins, you start fapping, no matter how fucktarded it is. That's why I hate you faggots.

Yeah, it's really fucking annoying when something "dramatic" happens because the MC is a passive whiney emo.

The only pathetic losers here are the ones who want to project their loserdom onto protagonists.

Strong heroes are the default. They've always been the default. Hating strong heroes is like hating heterosexuality. If you don't like something correct and ingrained into nature, go post over at /y/, faggot.

>Strong heroes are the default. They've always been the default.
no one is complaining about "strong protagonists". it's "god protagonists" that are the problem. defaults tropes are old and busted, literal snoozefests.

>The only pathetic losers here are the ones who want to project their loserdom onto protagonists.
no one is projecting anything. some people have different tastes and preferences than you, believe it or not, and a lot of writing can benefit by trying out new and different ideas.

>Hating strong heroes is like hating heterosexuality.
no it's not. I don't know why you think or even believe this as it literally has nothing to do with the subject. maybe you're the one who's projecting.

>t. retard

anyone looking forward to shieldbro anime?

>Sup Forums hates Chads
>but love Chad anime MCs

Explain.

The only time I can recall Subaru lucking out was from Reinhardt coming to save them in arc 1. Everything else was due to Subaru's planning and info gathering.

A strong MC works if he has a worthy challenge (Problem Children) or if there are narrative reasons (Harlock, for example). Without those two elements the story is not interesting.
It's also a matter of how the "weak" lead wins.

No one here is obsessed with that.

talent is never enough. it only gives you an advantage if you work as hard as everyone else.

>t. talented failure

I want more anime with smug OP MCs

read the fucking thread

Not that user, but the thread is retarded dogshit, just like your post. The thread does nothing to refute his claim.

Well, i bit edgy, but i must say I would have liked if he had become like this.

I like competent characters who win not because they have a higher power level, but for strategy, cunning, or when they use intelligently their powers.

One of the reasons why I started to read Naruto (yeah, this suck, I know ), many years ago, is how Naruto managed to free Kakashi from the water prison. That sequence represents for me everything right in a protagonist. Determination does not increase your power level or make you immortal, i fucking hate that bullshit, it just something that give you courage to act, but then, in order to win, you have to act smart.

I appreciate when a protagonist manages to defeat a stronger enemy and victory does not seem to be given through by power level, but thanks to a competent strategy that makes sense.

I think the same thing. No matter how strong a protagonist is, the challenge must be interesting. Also, I'm of the opinion that our tastes are also influenced by how much we like a protagonist. If we like a character, then we like to see him triumph, no matter how much this is expected. Or when a villain does something terrible, we expect a payback from the protagonist, because we want to see that villain punished.

The hero's journey says , If the reader is convinced that the challenge that the protagonist has to face is big and difficult, the prize will be bigger. The problem of many OP protagonists is that they seem to be much more powerful than the challenge they have to face.
If they have all the advantages, immortality, skills and super weapons, enemies do not seem threatening. Sometimes it's like seeing a bully, not a hero.

Subaru still does it but to a degree where he doesn't sacrifice everything and everyone. Rem's Hero Subaru still used Gaaf's grandmother as hostage to pin him in combat still.

Boku no hero fags are saying this bs all the time. MUH DECONSTRUCTION.

Simple, because Sup Forums have too many weak-willed anons they can relate with the bitch MCs.

I think you're mistaking an emotionally weak protagonist with a physically weak protagonist. People on Sup Forums love Araragi, but he constantly gets his ass handed to him. His strength is his confidence, perseverance, and loyalty. What we don't like is people like Shinji who have tons of power, but just fucking cry about nothing for 12 episodes.

>We want more characters with a weak start, then gradually become OP as fuck.

Too many anime with that one. Shit, almost every shounen anime have an MC like that it's getting boring.

Not ones through training, those are rare as fuck. You don't see some batman style MCs in shounen often. They usually are gifted with something random that increases their power rather than curses it or have horrifying setbacks.

>Not ones through training
Gon, Recca, Yusuke, Kenichi, Ippo, Sakuragi, Tsuna, Kazuki Muto, Tatsumi, Haruhiro..etc

I can fill the list on and on but I don't want to waste my time. There's many out there. You just have to look.

The problem with the "cunning protagonist who wins by his wits" meme is that it's hard to write a protagonist that's smarter than you. Or rather, it's hard to write a smart protagonist, period.

In those rare moments where you come across a brilliantly written intelligent MC, they are a joy to read. But, the vast majority of the time, this is not the case. And let me tell you, a poorly written "smart MC" is a hundred times more obnoxious than your typical idiot shonen protagonist who saves the day beating/befriending enemies into submission.

To write the "smart MC", the writer has to constantly come up with situations in which he can demonstrate his cunning. This isn't easy, and when the writer runs out of ideas in his bag of tricks, there's only two ways out.
1. The scenarios the MC finds himself in become increasingly outlandish and implausible (see: every long-running shitty mystery series ever)
2. Everyone else in the story is a drooling retard so MC can seem smart simply by acting on common sense

Possibly the most annoying thing in the world is seeing characters suck MC's dick for being "smart" when all he did was point out the obvious.

>You don't see some batman style MCs in shounen often
Batman is a fucking Mary Sue, he's the worst example you would cite for a "weak protagonist".

It's not that hard to write a "smart" character as long as you're willing to put in the effort.

>Sherlock Holmea
>Lelouch vi Brittania
>Grand Admiral Thrawn
>Light Yagami
>The goddamn Batman

All you need to do is think of the end result of a brilliant deduction, work your way backwards to the postulates, and ignore plot holes while having the Watson character express amazement.

That kind of thinking is how you end up with a dumpster fire like Sherlock.

If you have to put in more effort, that means it's hard.

You're making it more complicated than it is. It is true that it's not easy to write smart characters, but it is also true that you do not have to write a genius, sometimes simple common sense is enough.

How many Japanese writers have taken the trouble to study the narrative mechanisms of the Thriller or the police story? How many writers are really studying how a hunter acts, his techniques, his strategies? How many Shonen protagonists show to know about human anatomy by properly knocking a body?
Why is Isekai so fashionable in Japan today? Because it's easy to write. Any ignorant student can write an Isekai and use magic or other unconventional things to cover his ignorance.

But there is no need to write a "genius", just a character who has real skills and exploits them when they are needed. And if they were not enough, there is nothing wrong with a protagonist who can not solve a riddle or a situation. Characters that solve everything even at the price of logic, the problems you describe, it's because every writer, at some point, falls a bit into his own "power fantasy" and end up exaggerating their stories.

>Lelouch vi Brittania

Are you talking about the one whose his only war strategy is blowing something under his enemies feet?

>oh, look, the whole enemy army is on a bridge
>oh, look, the whole enemy army is above a volcano.
>oh, look, the whole enemy army is near a hill, let's get a landslide.

ecc ecc

>Yusuke
He's got the demon blood though so he didn't work hard for shit. Thanks Togashi you hack.

Half of those are done with legit asspulls and having some god gift rather than work. As in no gift, just resources and work.

He's rich and competent, big fucking woop. Compared to the supes he is hardly a mary sue.

>subaru
>weak

his power to come back to life and rewind time retard

kys

If you think it's not soo different from the protagonist of All You Need Is Kill. This thing that Subaru goes into a crisis at every death seems more like a self-imposed handicap to not become too powerful right away.

Well that and its basically a ticking timebomb. The more he uses RbD the more fucked up he gets or the closer Satella gets. Which creates an incentive to not use it. Even then the repercussions of resetting relationships he has built upon through chance is ruined.

TFW NO RE ZERO EPISODE TODAY

Mary Sues and self-insertion are memes. Any character that isn't a tragically flawed incompetent fuckup is a Mary Sue, and any character who looks ordinary is a self-insert.

>But in an action/adventure series, the hero is supposed to beat the villain. That's literally what it's about.
Seeing so much bullshit and cliches in anime actually motivated me to write my own story, the main character is pretty much invincible from the first page (plot twist hes only at 1% power but 1% of infinity is still infinity (story would end immediately if he was too strong because I don't like writing incompetent characters)), the love interest "falls" for the MC after she is mindbroken and gets sexed by the MC in a drunken stupor and a lot of common anime cliches are bumped up a notch just by simply not being aimed towards kids e.g MC tries to use his power in a silly way - attempting to cure a hangover - and instead shits himself.

Maybe you'll all be shitposting about my anime one day when KyoAni sends me a letter telling me they want to adapt it.

>I want a perfect character, one without any flaws just like Onii-sama.
Watch SAO instead.

No, it's just that today everyone thought to be writers. Mary Sue is an original character inserted in a show/story made by others.
Today, the term is a general insult to a character we do not like.

It's just a gimmick to pretend that it's motivated criticism.

The truth is that we do not like chosen ones, today. We live a highly competitive society and see stories about people who get the favor of Gods or have luck without any effort or merit, it makes us angry, even though that kind of power fantasy is thing of every writer who, within itself, dreams of being "special".