Anime Scumbags – Why do They Even Exist?

You are probably familiar with such character tropes where some throwaway characters in anime act like the most arrogant, selfish, ignorant, egotistic, narcissistic scumbags, as if the whole world revolves around them. Even after seeing this type of character for… ever, I guess, I still don’t understand why this caricature exists. Their sole purpose so far seems to be for the MC to smash their face into a pulp and overcome the utter unfairness in society. They have no point in the story, plot, or anything significant. They just exist to piss all the viewers off. Now, we’ll be looking into some examples of such garbage that walked out of the trashcans.

The History

The world has gone through many tough times in history, and it almost feels like a miracle that society managed to take form. Nowadays, the world might be heading in a chaotic direction again with different propagandas taking place and everyone thinking they are better than others. Some people act tough, surround themselves with weaklings, and push around others to survive. It’s like that one proverb, “Adversity reveals character.” But what happens when that goes out of bounds and there are no moral boundaries? The anime portrays this perfectly, capturing this unhinged category of behavior.

World Built around Anime Scumbags

There are some one-off characters or groups of characters that show up in some anime that you wish you could punch in the face. But it’s a whole other story when an entire world is built around them. Anime such as One Piece, Akame ga Kill, Higurashi, The Rising of the Shield Hero, Kaiji: The Ultimate Survivor, Elfen Lied, Helck, and many more I can’t remember off the top of my head. It’s most commonly found in Isekai or Fantasy anime where the authority, guards, adventurers, or some rich nobles portray this trope. There is no voice of reason or justice in such worlds. No one can even speak out; people just idly stand by and watch without remorse as if that’s the way of the world. In some cases, they are not the main villain of the plot, but they do everything in their miserable lives to get in the way of the protagonists.

One of the most recent examples that sparked me to address this issue would be The Rookie Middle-Aged Adventurer Was Trained to Death by the Most Powerful Party to Become Invincible and Failure Frame: I Became the Strongest and Annihilated Everything With Low-Level Spells, which are airing this season. If the long titles aren’t enough to trigger you, then the contents of the anime definitely will. In the first one, things play out as usual: the MC walks in, everyone looks down on him, then he surprises everyone, including breaking some rich brat’s ego. Then the brat comes back to take revenge, and the MC is just oblivious. It’s no surprise such anime has nothing else to offer, so they drag one thing long enough to fill an episode, which is when these assholes get their asses whooped. In the end, we don’t even get the satisfaction; they just wasted the entire episode with the scumbags leaving without any punishment.

The next one, however, is the ultimate scumbag, trash-filled, douchebag of an anime where the MC is singled out and picked on by EVERYONE! There’s not a single soul present who would stand up for him. I’m surprised he hasn’t even ended his own life yet. The premise is that the MC has been abused by his family after his dad’s passing. He has nightmares about it while going on a school trip in a bus where another person is being harassed by a bully. I thought the MC had toughened up due to his harsh past, but he’s really a cowardly wimp who can’t even stand up for himself. Soon after, the whole bus gets transported into a different world by a goddess who summoned the whole group to fight for her. Everyone is given magic abilities, superpowers, and whatnot, but the MC gets the bottom of the barrel, supposedly the weakest, most useless ability, and he’s not even worth anyone’s attention. Then the goddess proceeds to dispose of him because the weakest one always drags down the whole group. No one even says anything about it; they rather want to speed up the disposal so they can move on. No one even questions anything. One person the MC helped earlier tries to do something but is knocked out by the goddess. Another dude the MC helped before from the bullies goes down just to poke fun at him after getting drunk with power. Later, the MC vows to return and make everyone pay for what they deserve.

I have seen many things, but this? This is at the peak of a trash-filled world. The whole premise of the story is to make these scumbags suffer.

Redemption?

There are stories that make amends for what took place so far. Maybe the civilians didn’t know any better or were manipulated. Shows like One Piece, Mashle, Viral Hit, Villainess Level 99, and some others begin to heal after the MCs spread their influence. The protagonists of those shows follow different ways that fit their world, and the crowd sees the truth. Maybe things don’t have to be so savage; you don’t have to do what everyone’s doing and bully one particular individual. Some scumbags begin to act like decent human beings, even a Celestial Dragon.

But there are some characters that are completely irredeemable and the absolute worst. They’ve gone beyond forgiveness, remorse, and way over their heads. They don’t even stop and think for a moment that what they are doing is pure evil. Rather, they regard their actions as noble deeds that they have the birthright to perform. For example, Myne from Shield Hero, Akito from Fruits Basket, Muniel from Sand Land, Haruta Shigemo and Naoya Zenin from Jujutsu Kaisen, every low-level hero in One Punch Man, and others my brain decided to delete just because of how annoying they are. They are the most ignorant beings in fiction and only deserve to be straightened with the iron fist of fear. And the anime that makes that a reality is My Instant Death Ability is So Overpowered, No One in This Other World Stands a Chance Against Me!

The longest title for an anime so far has served justice effectively. It has 90% of its cast as the annoying, ignorant, drunk-in-power scumbags you’d see in other anime. They are all granted overpowered abilities that can bring about disasters. It’s pretty much like Failure Frame, but the MC is a different beast. This MC might be the best MC in the fantasy genre. He doesn’t even care what monologue these scums have to say before inevitably getting owned. He just doesn’t delay the inevitable. If an annoying dumbass crosses his way, he kills them in the blink of an eye. It’s so satisfying to see such bliss unfolding on screen when typically you’ll see them gloating around, gassing themselves up, talking all sh*t, causing all sorts of damage, then getting punished for what they have done. But here? Nah. We know it ain’t worth seeing all that; they just make them go poof as soon as they start being annoying. It’s poetic and cathartic.

Conclusion

Justice will surely prevail, and it’s not someone’s subjective, made-up justice. Scumbags will get what they deserve. Maybe you’ve seen such people in real life: school bullies, office superiors or bosses, some jackass in your alley, etc. Just know that you don’t have to stoop to their level and don’t take all the torture in. Act smart, and when the time comes, things will fall into place.

Let us know if there are any more of these types of characters that need to be hanged and stoned in public. Join our Discord server & Telegram chat for the memes and check out our YouTube channel for extra content. Take care y’all 👋.