Why don't we ever get any protagonists like Light?

Patiss0n said:
Attack on Titan?.

Burnt_Ramen said:
There definitely are more protagonists like Light, you just have to look harder. Here's a few more morally ambiguous to outright evil protagonists:
• Rock - Black Lagoon
• Ichise - Texhnolyze
• Guts - Berserk
• Shinji - Evangelion

_cybersadist_ said:
Sorry but don't compare Eren Jaeger to Light and Lelouch. Eren might be a well written character for many ppl which is understandable but he ain't a goated MC as the other two,they have a tier of their own.

kushakashi said:
ah . . . assuming this is not bait
you gotta give a bit more info cuz as it is, anything i say will be counter with "that wasn't what i was talking about"

a couple of possible answers:
if you mean the "anti-hero" role then there are tons! code geass, AOT , HXH, claymore, berserk, fate, psyren , tower of god, martial peak and things like it, TBATE, tomodachi game (currently airing btw) and many more. and just to piss you off, fucking sasuke from naruto counts as an anti-hero

if you mean too smart for their own good: almost all romcoms have a "smart" character and you can eventually find the one you're looking for if you dig for long enough. oh and code geass too

if you mean a high school student then . . . i don't even have to give an example you've already thought of one if not one hundred. oh and code geass too

and if you mean a main character that is not a self insert (aka has a personality) then 80's ovas would like to be acquainted with you. oh and code geass too

all in all, light might be one of the best fictional characters of all time, but he isn't unique. oh and did i mention lelouch and light are practically the same character?

also, yuno who? im hoping you didn't mean yuno gasai cuz if thats the case . . . thats a bruh moment if i've ever seen one

Spoonmaster12 said:
maybe Eren, Yuno, Ainz but they aren't nearly as evil as Light.

Atargatis said:
Sorry fans, but there's no one as determined as Light. Eren? Pff, yeah right. The fucker chickened out at the end. Lelouch was overrated af. He pulled moves outta his ass like the badass thing in the world or something. You call that "awesome", I call that "Deus-Ex Machina shit".

I don't we'll ever get someone like Light, a POV character who's antagonistic/anarchist to the core.

smxclhy said:


Except Light is an anti-villain, not an anti-hero, those two are fundamentally different.

smxclhy said:


Villain is not the same thing as anti-villain, you should learn the difference before talking about the definitions. And it does not matter how you see him, your subjective view does not carry weight against the objective truth.

Kasutoro-Kun said:



He's a good guy to me 🤷🏻‍♂️

Spoonmaster12 said:


Yeah and I think Muzan is a good guy.

smxclhy said:


Anti-hero is a character type , not a trope. and as I explained Light is anti-villain, not anti-hero.

Kasutoro-Kun said:



Muzan does it for fun light Yagami actually is making the world a better place. With all these insane shootings right now and knowing the government ain't gunna do anything about it we could use someone like Light Yagami.

Spoonmaster12 said:


Light also does it for fun, he literally says to Ryuk that he's doing this because he's bored. He also said he'd start killing lazy people soon. When Light killed Naomi, he sadistically mocked her just because he enjoyed it. Ohba, the writer of death note literally said in an interview Light is very evil

Kasutoro-Kun said:



Nah bruh light made world peace and killed everyone who got in his way he's the good guy 😊

Spoonmaster12 said:


Nah bruh, Muzan is a good guy. He looks like Michael Jackson, he's too stylish to be evil

Kasutoro-Kun said:


That's very hard to argue but you gunna really tell me light Yagami ain't cute? Smart nice hair and really good at tennis?

Spoonmaster12 said:


Yeah, Light is cute. Tbh I also support Light but I support him as a cool villain, not as a hero. I wanted Light to win even though he's bad

Kasutoro-Kun said:


Tbh yeah I just loved the way everything was written though. The reason why I loved death note is the reason why shikamaru was my favorite Naruto character and his fights were the only ones I looked forward to. Because it was a chess match and it was so intriguing to see how they both maneuvered they're way out of impossible situations using nothing but brains. I would also imagine you have to be extremely smart to write something like that too. I could never write a war of wits between two extremely smart characters because my brain ain't on that level to even think like that. That's skillful writing.

Spoonmaster12 said:


I love battle of wits and mind game anime, I wish more were made but we don't get enough.

smxclhy said:


You don't know jack shit what you are talking about, maybe you should read what you linked before spouting nonsense. Here is the definition of anti-villain from the page you linked "An Anti-Villain is the opposite of an Anti-Hero — a character with heroic goals, personality traits, and/or virtues who is ultimately the villain. Their desired ends are mostly good, but their means of getting there range from evil to undesirable."

This definition fits Light perfectly.

Furthermore, in the last page you linked it says this "While unambiguously Pure Evil in the Death Note manga, the scene where the anime version flashes back to his childhood before he got the Death Note and started sobbing has led some to interpret it as that version of Light feeling remorse. " which further proves my point while the manga version of Light might be "pure evil" his anime counterpart is anti-villain that feels remorse at times .

Lamyanba1999 said:


I’m glad you mentioned tbate but Arthur Lewin’s personality is not ruthless enough to be considered villainous protagonist or even anti-hero

_cybersadist_ said:
Sorry but don't compare Eren Jaeger to Light and Lelouch. Eren might be a well written character for many ppl which is understandable but he ain't a goated MC as the other two,they have a tier of their own.

_spoon_ said:
All the people here saying Lelouch clearly did not read the title properly. He said villain protagonists, Lelouch is an anti-hero.

ecliptyk said:
We do, AoT, Moriarty the Patriot, Thorfinn etc. Though the reason we don't see MORE of them is because Japan would rather churn out a schlocky romcom for a quick buck than to bother writing something with actual effort.

Mugglus said:

Thorfinn isn't similar to Light, especially not later in the manga.

Mugglus said:

There's plenty of morally gray protagonist in anime, he was specifically talking about main character villains.

ecliptyk said:
? Such a dumb thing to split hairs on dude lol. Thorfinn is a villain for the most part, he does some horrible shit in Vibland Saga season 1. Though considering there is there so moral standard in the show you can't "technically" call him a villain. He very much is morally grey, just like Light.

Mugglus said:

And his character goes in the complete opposite direction.

ScionOfCyan said:
I consider Light an antagonist but I don't think the claim that he is evil is straightforward at all.

There are a lot of people who are sympathetic to his eugenic views, including a lot of powerful people in high places. The fact that Light's moral stance is actually very difficult to defeat in a debate is part of what makes his character so compelling.