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Interview: Seiji Kishi

One thing that's changed a lot is the characters that the customers want. What's changed is basically the main character. Before, it used to be kind of customary for the main character to really think and get into conflicts with himself about what he was doing and what not. But that characteristic, where the main character faces conflicts and difficulties… that's become very unpopular. What seems to be a recent trend lately with characters, and I can't really pinpoint why, is relatively flat characters—characters that are unmoving, unwavering, relatively plain. As makers, we really see the times moving past us when we see those kinds of characters.

Harems on the other hand tend to have flat protagonist. Now though I'm starting to see people are less interested in these characters, however I can`t say for every series. It`s still an abundant theme.

I Agree many main characters are flat and uninteresting. That`s about almost every harem also I see it in "Angel Beats" and suddenly in "Charlotte" even though the first episode he had depth.

ChrissyC wrote:

Harems on the other hand tend to have flat protagonist. Now though I'm starting to see people are less interested in these characters, however I can`t say for every series. It`s still an abundant theme.

Yeah, in many cases it's true, but there are also some exceptions.

For example, Issei Hyoudou from High School DxD, who is a lovable, hilarious pervert and a badass fighter. He has a good dynamic with both females and male characters.

Or Ryouta Murakami from Gokukoku no Brynhildr, who is risking his life for girls with "magical" powers, but he's much more competent than them because his brilliant intelligence keep all of them alive. (The weird part is that most male characters in this series are more badass than most of the female characters, despite those males don't have any power).

ChrissyC wrote:

I Agree many main characters are flat and uninteresting. That`s about almost every harem also I see it in "Angel Beats" and suddenly in "Charlotte" even though the first episode he had depth.

Interesting take. I actually feel that the main character had less depth and self-reflection in the first episode of Charlotte than subsequently. Being a jerk or arrogant does not seem to me to be the kind of depth that Director Kishi is referring to; characters can be iconoclastic or fail to conform without pondering their motivations or changing throughout the story.

"other notable works like Danganronpa and Persona 4" NOTABLE AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA what a joke

I think he means that nowadays the hero-type characters are very popular. Those that are cool, always do the right things and don't have many personality flaws. When they have conflicting feelings, those usually resolve very fast, and are usually related to problems from the outside.

Let's take Shinji from Eva for example. He is, in many ways, a pretty realistic character. Not exactly likeable for much of the time, but he acts like many real people would act in his situation. Many modern anime fans complain about the "whining", they don't want characters that are, in some ways, uncool. That's why those emotionless characters like Levi from Attack on Titan so popular; they are ALWAYS cool, and even if they are not, it's just for a very brief moment.

I guess that's because anime grows to be escapism entertainment more and more. It's probably more important for many anime fans to see characters they just find "cool" or "awesome", not characters in which they find themselves.

The way I see it, conflicted (and angsty) characters such as Shinji are just instruments that writers use as a cop out to writing a good plot or that animators use when they don't feel like animating and instead push for a "deep" conflicted monologue. Also like with real people, you can disagree with a fictional character's perception of things and that might reduce the likability of the character.