I'm adoring these threads of yours. They give me an excuse to rant.
I completely agree with John and Jerome. John, as you already stated, was just a hotheaded instigator with nothing else going for him. His motives were just all-around fuzzy, since he really had no reason to leave Hidetoshi. One could argue that he just follows the strong, but in all honesty, Hidetoshi's advanced weaponry would have
destroyed Akakabuto, had John been around to find the bear for him. It seems Yoshi realized the plot-hole he himself had created and thus made John have his sudden and honestly confusing change of heart the instant Riki beat him. Even in his death scene, it always seemed more to me like he was more eager to get revenge on Hougen for humiliating him than he was to save Hiro and Reika, since he could have gone about that another way. If freakin' Hook and Sasuke can outsmart Hougen's troops, John could have at least made a decent attempt.
Ugh... Jerome, Jerome, Jerome... I don't know why he's popular. He betrayed his supposed only friend (P4) in a horrible, cold way. And then when he makes new friends, he is constantly making Weed handle things he would obviously have no idea how to handle - being a sheltered puppy that Jerome lead the way into forcing leadership upon - and then turning around and betraying
him in a horrible, cold way. But we are still supposed to see him as an amazing, honorable guy? I don't think so. Can't remember if this was in the manga, it's been so long, but even the whole "leaving the bullet in for my sins" thing was nonsense. If you wanted to make up for something by helping your friends' just quest, why cripple yourself and make yourself useless so people have to constantly babysit you? Wouldn't it... make more sense to be at full strength, so you can help to your full potential? I was actually a little relieved the anime killed him for it. It sounds horrible, but it's true.
Yukimura... I think he's only popular for aesthetics and because people want a Gin kid who's not Weed, but the guy
trains all the puppies in his pack by having them torture and kill baby monkeys while they plead for their lives, for God's sake! Then when his little brother rightfully objects, he tries to outright kill him for it.
Joe. Again, I think he's popular for the same reasons, but...
He abuses his son, acts like he's a burden to his hunting career by sending him out in the wilds (where his mother and sibling were killed by the Hybrid cuz Hitomi was afraid of people, and he just... left her out there) to catch his own food and generally live by himself. When Weed was happy to see him and wanted to interact with his nephew, Joe pretty much just tried to kill him for annoying him about their dad, and smacked his kid around some more for talking to Weed. 'Nuff said.
Gin! Gin is my number one hated character, for the reasons I will not copy/paste from a thread on another site, because I don't feel like typing it out again, heh...
I... really hate him.
Overpowered thing aside, he's just a disrespectful little brat in my opinion.
- He left Daisuke for a bunch of random strangers, after making a pact to become partners. Kind of a jerk move and a horrible way to treat your supposed best friend who raised you (well, y'know... without the abuse.)
- He was ordering people around who WAY outranked him at that point. (Sniper, Smith, and even Ben.) Just a pretentious way to behave in my opinion - especially when you just met these people. If they were real samurai/militia/whatever, I'm pretty sure that if you were as reckless and disobedient as Gin you'd have your head cut off, be detained, or punished severely by your higher ranking officer.
- He butted in on Akame's fight for some stupid test of self worth. Akame's clan had been fighting the Koga's for hundreds of years. It was personal, and he had no right and no excuse other than "I'm the hero of this manga." The point of a main character ISN'T to jump into everyone's business and finish the job and save everyone else. If so, there'd no NO point in developing the rest of the cast
- The second he heard Ben might be blind forever, he started usurping him at every turn. He didn't wait for Ben to pass the leadership down - he took it for himself when Ben was in no condition to do anything about it. (Especially evident in him disobeying a direct order and taking Ben's soldiers to Shikoku - which, by the way, risked all their lives just getting over there and back. Not just his - everyone's.) Sooo, Sniper working behind Riki's back is bad, but Gin doing the same thing is okay?
- He's shown a complete lack of ability to make leadership decisions when it counts, such as when the Kai bros were captured. If Bill and Musashi hadn't intervened, he would have been screwed because he had no clue what he was doing, even though he stole that leadership role.
- He generally treats his soldiers as lesser beings, in my opinion. Look how many he lets die. I didn't see him shouting orders to not throw their lives away like Ben does, he just lets them throw themselves around like idiots, without leadership. Battles he conducts are generally chaotic, while Ben's and even Riki's (I don't like him, either...) have some semblance of army order.
- "I want to take this entire army under my control." ... I just want to smack him in his pretentious little face.
Overall he's just not someone I can look up to, or even like. I actually liked him a lot better in GDW (manga only), where he seemed a bit more compassionate for his soldiers and like an all around better leader. Though he did ditch his wife and kids for a year for something his generals could have easily taken care of. Still, Weed all the way. At least he has compassion for the most common foot soldier, and some humility.
Overpowered thing aside, he's just a disrespectful little brat in my opinion.
