Antagonists

Few Among the Many

Truthfully speaking, I imagine many of us do not remember much about the antagonists of Isekai stories.

For whatever reason, the villains or forces in direct opposition to our protagonists/heroes always seem to fall a little short outside of their narrative justification or existence in the story. For good to exist, so must evil and thus we have antagonists in Isekai stories. Perhaps this is part of why Isekai at Peace stands out to me in so many good ways, as its conflicts are more to do with the people living in that world more rather than “There are bad guys that want to do evil things”.

With that said, there is nothing I like more than a petty villain and boy oh boy does Potimas from So I’m a Spider, So What? delight in that regard.

For those of you who have not read or watched Spider, I shall be going into some spoilers regarding the story, so please be wary.

Potimas is the chieftain of the Elves and, as fantasy for countless years have told us to believe, they are usually portrayed as noble, virtuous beings with an affinity for the natural world and they live long, near immortal lives. The elves in Spider do fit those criteria to an extent, but it’s their chief Potimas who makes them unique and entertaining antagonists.

Potimas is a rather smart, if bratty and impatient, man who only takes actions that benefit himself, not his people or the world. If he had to, he’d burn the entire world to the ground just so that he could survive. Why, you might ask? Because the elven race are almost entirely his cloned mind slaves that live and serve at his pleasure, whether they know it or not.

He isn’t evil just because there needs to be a villain for a story like Spider to exist; he is evil because he is a selfish, vile, petty man who cares only for himself and his ambitions. He is well written and fleshed out across the book series and his conflicts with our MC, and her friends, are at the heart of the story.

Going back to my earlier point about ‘For good to exist so must evil’, I’d like to talk about one of my personal favourite light novel series - Fake Saint of the Year (henceforth known as Fake Saint). I shall go into some spoilers, though nothing that is beyond the first 2 of the 4 novels, some of which is established as early as volume 1.

In this story, there are Witches that spawn every so many years that kill and destroy everything in their path, until they are stopped by that generation’s Saint. However, the Saint always disappears or dies shortly after the battle. I’m sure that some of you might have already guessed the twist here (that was in the original game inside the books that our MC is reborn as the titular Fake Saint in), but yes - the Witches are the Saints, reborn with dark, vile powers after defeating the previous witch.

A tragic cycle which the kings and queens of the world know will eventually wipe out all human life, as the territory lost with each new Witch is near irreparable, meaning it would only be a matter of time until the world is destroyed. Our protagonist, the Fake Saint, is considered to be the strongest saint ever, blasting away hordes of monsters, healing fatal wounds en masse and cleansing the corrupted and burnt lands, which the monarchs fear will lead to the creation of the worst witch in history.

As the title alludes to, however, our protagonist is a Fake Saint; she is not the real one, but a pretender, the game’s original villainess, who has just put in lots of hard work and effort to become powerful and was mistaken as the Saint. The monarchs don’t know that, nor do our Fake Saint’s knights, so they come up with a plan to trap the saint.

They beseech her to not fight and kill the Witch, but instead spend her days in a castle somewhere, living in comfort, and giving a true golden age of peace, uninterrupted by the return of the witch. Our MC refuses, but the monarchs and even all but one of her knights seem to turn on her; knowing how much our MC values Leila, a close friend and knight of hers, so they hold her hostage. Our MC knows she could force them into submission and maybe save Leila (summarising our MC’s thoughts a little, but this is the general gist) but complies nonetheless.

The twist is that Leila agreed to the plan to save our MC and played the role of the hostage, even though our MC trusted her and told her she wouldn’t die and become the Witch.

So, we have antagonists who mean well and who don’t know the full story like our MC or we, the reader, do, so their actions are justifiable and that makes for quite a compelling narrative to follow. Seeing how they all feel guilt about their actions and remorse, yet how they harden their hearts to follow what they think is right, to save the saint that they love, is great from a narrative standpoint. As for the witches themselves, they are tragic victims of a 1000 year long cycle, including this generation’s witch who you will genuinely feel great pity for once you learn more about her.

Sadly, for every great antagonist out there in the genre, there are countless clones of generic villains (in the loosest definition of the word) who like to be evil, sadistic, cruel and not for any real reason other than: it’s fun, it’s interesting or for some obviously evil purpose and or being/person.

Not that this can’t lead to the creation of compelling or memorable characters for the right reasons, like many classic Disney villains. Yzma from The Emperor’s New Groove, Jafar from Aladdin, Scar from The Lion King or Ursula from The Little Mermaid. Admittedly, all of their motivations are somewhat similar - they wish to rule, but the reasons are a little different. Not sympathetic or relatable per say, but understandable.

Yzma was treated like dirt by Kuzco in The Emperor’s New Groove and, as his advisor, liked to use and abuse her power for her own ends so when he fires her, she plans to kill him.

("I'll turn him into a flea...And then I'll put that flea in a box, and then I'll put that box inside of another box, and then I'll mail that box to myself. And when it arrives, [laughs] I'LL SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER!" - still laugh every time I hear this)

Scar was 2nd in line to the throne, was somewhat put to one side by the kingdom and grew bitter, so he wanted what he, in his now warped mind, decided was rightfully his, even if it meant fratricide.

I could go on, but you get the point.

The motivations for the antagonists do not have to be amazing for them to be compelling or engaging, but they need more than just the “We’re evil and cruel! Hahahahahahaha!” type that seems to be just oh so common in Isekai stories.

The best example of this archetype I can think of can be found in Isekai Cheat Magician.

The 2 antagonists I remember from this story (before I stopped reading it) basically lack any real personality or depth to them beyond just being sadistic and evil because.

What are their motivations beneath the surface? Unknown, if they exist at all.

Why are they like this? See answer from above.

Why should we care? To put it bluntly, we shouldn’t.

There needs to be more to an antagonist or antagonistic force than just “They’re evil.”

The Rising of the Shield Hero is chock full of terribly written antagonists. Now, I’m not counting Glass and her friends as antagonists even though they start the story in opposition to Naofumi and his friends, but I’m talking more about the main antagonists.

The King, Myne, the other heroes and Kyo, though I won’t be going further (in this section) beyond what the anime has covered.

The King is an idiot in many ways, but one cannot blame a father for believing his daughter when she says she’s been assaulted.

Myne’s motivation for stabbing a knife into Naofumi’s back is very much unknown, especially early on. One could infer it might be because of the country’s religion not valuing the Shield Hero or that she’s just a cruel brat who gets whatever she wants, and enjoys playing with people and their emotions.

If you named a negative personality trait, she would have it (don’t believe me, check her Shield Hero wiki page).

So then, what is the real reason for her to be that way?

Is it something deeper than-?

No. She’s just a bitch.

Even the other female members of her family don’t truly know why she’s that way. They think it’s probably from her dad spoiling her and not disciplining her enough, but that seems to be it.

After she’s revealed, and labelled, as a Bitch by Naofumi, Myne just keeps digging herself deeper towards the gates of Tartarus, and she’s somehow still alive AND continuing to drag more people down with her.

Kyo is just evil; that’s it. He’s a mad scientist mage who doesn’t hold any love or care for anything, spouts the most generic dialogue you will ever hear uttered by a villain and then dies; that’s his contribution.

…I really want to go into Shield Hero more, but I’ll save that for later.

Reborn as a Character That Didn’t Exist is a Korean Manhwa series that I quite like despite its antagonists being the most generically evil BUT there’s a reason they are. This story is a story that takes place…in a story, written originally by our MC.

Confused? Let me explain.

Thalia, our MC, was a web novel writer who died one day and was reborn as the older sister of that novel’s protagonist, a character that never existed. Thalia knows that despair awaits her family as that’s how she wrote the story (to be as tragic as possible). In this world, there are 3 families that protect the world from a great evil danger with their special powers - these families are called The Guardians. As long as these Guardians are alive, the world shall not succumb to evil…so, why would anyone attack and try to kill them?

Simple - ‘For good to exist so must evil’.

This series is the literal embodiment of this.

When Leona, Thalia’s sister, even asks her straight up one point as to why anyone would want to try and kill them, Thalia (internally) answers “Because that’s how I wrote it.”

Quite a clever way of giving in-universe justification, no?

A Rose By Any Other Name

Another prime example of bad antagonist writing and tropes can be found in any number of villainess/transmigration or Suddenly in the World of a Book/Game stories that exist out there, especially in Shoujo stories.

2 words can sum up exactly what is wrong with villains in those stories.

They are.

White.

Lotus.

The White Lotus, or Green Tea Bitch, character archetype is a character who, on the surface, looks cute and pretty and has a great personality, but is actually rotten, cruel and manipulative beneath the surface. More often than not, you see this cliché the most in ‘villainess’ stories (which I will talk about in another section in greater depth).

‘Villainess’ stories are Isekai stories that feature a protagonist, usually female, reborn as the villain or a story or game, usually one they have read or played in their previous life, and their main goal is to prevent their dead end or get away from the main characters of the story, which usually leads to them getting more entangled with the original story than if they’d just stayed in their lane.

Why did I put villainess in quotation marks, you ask?

Well, it’s hard to call them that given how often it turns out the original heroine of the story is secretly a massive bitch or a reincarnated person, like our MC, who is a massive bitch.

For example, in I'm Not A Villainess!! Just Because I Can Control Darkness Doesn't Mean I'm A Bad Person!, this trope is put on full display in all of its cliché glory. Our MC is, of course, the reborn villainess and our antagonist/resident White Lotus is reborn as the heroine. Interestingly, during a key story moment later on, the Spirit that gave said White Lotus her blessing ends up taking it back and notes how the soul of the child she blessed was once pure and then became corrupted by something in its later life (IE - when the reincarnation took place).

In my opinion, for a villainess story to be a villainess story the original heroine cannot be a White Lotus, which is why My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! stood out to me in such a good way (until Katarina chose the wrong person to go out with - like, out of all of the love interests, why him?). Maria, the original heroine, is exactly as described in the game - sweet, kind, loving and passionate to help her friends or those she loves, which is why seeing Katarina inadvertently steal all of the Romance Flags and events Maria has from the game’s Male Leads is so entertaining and endearing.

Beware the Villainess, a personal favourite Korean Manwha of mine, has the same exact type of character - Yuri, the heroine, is wonderful, through and through, even if she’s slightly different than what our MC, the villainess Mellissa, remembers and knows from her past life (I won’t spoil as to why because you should absolutely go and read this series for yourself [Yona = Best girl]).

The antagonists in Beware the Villainess are better fleshed out and realised for we see the differences between the novel and the reader’s perception versus the reality Mellissa finds herself in, such as how Peacock (the master manipulator) is actually an idiot and could only act as smart as the author could write him. The series’ antagonist (which I won’t spoil) is a really interesting one and it makes the series stand out for the better.

Likewise, in Inso’s Law (or the Law of Webnovels), our MC Ham Dan-I is not the villainess or even a minor antagonist; she’s a side character who hangs out with the original web novel’s protagonist as her best friend, and instead finds herself battling the rules, clichés and tropes of web novels throughout. For example, a harmless “You must be careful travelling across roads for a car could hit you” random fortune in our world is a prophetic death sentence in a web novel, and indeed Dan-I nearly dies in such a way.

Rather than the main antagonist of Inso’s Law being 1 person or organisation, it’s an entity almost - the law of web novels themselves. The series uses the clichés and tropes of its genre to make itself stand out and have a greater impact on you, the reader.

Woefully Forgettable

So then, why do so many Isekai antagonists fall so short of the mark?

The simple answer is because they aren’t developed characters or identities - they are just cartoonishly unbelievable individuals that exist to be evil and be defeated in our main character (or characters) journeys through life. They, like so many other things in a terrible Isekai, exist because they ‘have to’.

To give another example, let’s have a brief look at Black Summoner. Kelvin, our MC, is an amnesiac that likes to fight strong enemies, so he hunts monsters, bandits and even pretends to be a villain just to fight the summoned heroes - at first, this makes Black Summoner a rather fun and amusing story about a battle junkie who just wants to find the next best thing to have a scuffle with.

Sadly, however, antagonists are introduced and they are not good characters.

There’s the generic evil empire who wants to take over the world and that is run by cruel, sadistic monsters in human clothing, and a cult that actively is seeking out Kelvin’s party to kill them. Their motivations range but, in general, they are all too weak to justify their actions, behaviours and, to a lesser extent, their existence in the story. The series just needed someone for our protagonists to battle.

I touched upon it early, but Isekai Cheat Magician is another great example of bland, forgettable antagonists - they are evil, do evil things, say generic evil things and we, as readers or watchers, feel absolutely nothing whenever they’re on screen.

I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivalled in The Real World, Too (henceforth known as Cheat Skill Real World) has by far some of the worst antagonists I’ve ever seen in any story, let alone just Isekai. We have generic abusive siblings, fellow students and teachers, biker gangs, evil empires, the Demon Lord, the guy who likes to fight and so kills a lot of good, strong people, terrorists on an airplane, aliens from another fucking world and more!

Sounds fun on paper, but falls flat in execution.

This makes it hard to care about anything that actually takes part in the story as the main antagonists all fall into the category of “We are evil and do bad things!”. In fact, the main enemy ‘entity’ in the early arcs is just called The Viles who have been corrupted or influenced by the entity to be evil.

Now, there is a way of making this narrative idea of some unknown evil entity being the main antagonist work and we see that displayed quite well in A Wild Last Boss Appeared (henceforth known as Wild Last Boss). In Wild Last Boss, the synopsis is as thus:

There was an Overlord who ruled the world called Ruphas Mafahl, a one-winged woman who was strong, fast and beautiful, an untouchable entity that seemed undefeatable. However, she was killed by a group of heroes and the world was saved - or was it? Our MC then finds himself possessing her body, 200 years after her defeat, and the story is not all that it seems.

Now, I shall be going into spoilers but only briefly.

It turns out the heroes who killed Ruphas don’t actually know what compelled them to do it. In fact, all of them regretted their actions afterwards and have spent hundreds of years with lingering guilt and dejection.

I imagine some of you might have connected the dots, but I shall state the obvious nonetheless - yes, something compelled them to act for a time, but then it stopped influencing them and relieved them of its control.

Why? When? For what purpose?

All of these questions are at the forefront of your mind, and the protagonist’s, as the story continues and it’s quite well explored and explained, and I’d highly recommend giving it a read.

In The Eminence in Shadow, the Diabolus Cult serve as the primary antagonists throughout the story and they are pretty damn generically evil on paper.

They manipulate countries in the shadows, push the vulnerable to villany, cause the rise and fall of nations as they see fit, seek their own personal gains above all else, and kill people without hesitation, even using brainwashed abducted individuals as their primary infantry. They also have manipulated the world’s history to reflect a false narrative and prop up a faith based upon lies.

However, what works about the Cult versus a lot of their competition is that the series fully embraces and runs with this. It acknowledges that they are the comically evil antagonists and that they act in that way; even their very name screams “We are evil” but it works. They are weaker than they appear, but their sheer arrogance and disregard for human life makes them feel like an actual threat, maybe not to Shadow and his Garden, but to the world itself.

They have access to advanced technology, have seemingly infinite resources and allies and are always up to something truly despicable, but you not only just buy that they’re motivated to act this way, but that they even manage to elicit anger and other emotions towards them, especially in the more recent light novels.

The Antagonistic Protagonist

You can, of course, find Isekai and reincarnation/transmigration stories where our MC is meant to serve as the villain of that narrative or they aspire to be.

Overlord, I’ll Become a Villainess That Will Go Down in History, Villains Are Destined to Die, Kill the Villainess, Isn't Being a Wicked Woman Much Better?, Youjo Senki, Roxana, Demon Noble Girl ~Story of a Careless Demon~, Forced to Sell Myself to the Female Lead After Killing the Male Lead, Modern Villainess: It’s Not Easy Building a Corporate Empire Before the Crash.

There are so many but out of the ones I’ve listed above, I am not a huge fan of all of them, specifically of the first 5 I listed above though that is mainly because they don’t keep to their original premise of being about antagonistic protagonists more than the quality of their writing.

Case and point - Overlord.

Overlord sort of holds a dear place in my heart as I read the first 9 volumes within a single fortnight when I discovered the series and, initially, I fell in love with the story. To this day, I still attest to the fact that the 9th volume is amazing. However, no matter whom Ainz and his minions were up against, the author always found ways of making it okay for the reader/viewer to root for Ainz and Nazarick, no matter who they were up against or how much suffering they inflicted.

In the Men of the Kingdom Arc, Ainz and his people attack the capital of a kingdom, kill and kidnap tens of thousands of people, many of whom are turned into disposable items for the people of Nazarick to use which is horrible no doubt but Ainz doesn’t care. Later, in Invaders of the Large Tomb arc, the Workers who come to explore Nazarick are a mixed group of selfish liars and criminals, from minor and major crimes, and they are, in effect, trespassing where they don’t belong. But our main focal POV in this volume is from a group of likeable Workers who are just trying to earn a living. The main character of this group, a young human mage, is literally working to support her 2 sisters.

But don’t worry about that - they snuck into Ainz’s home (which he intentionally lured them into) and then lied to him to try and save their lives. So, don’t worry; you can still root for Ainz who then orders their slow, painful deaths for lying to him.

In volume 9, Ainz invades and conquers half a kingdom just to keep spreading his guild name, killing hundreds of thousands of innocents; however, the author makes sure to highlight how the kingdom were given a chance to surrender and that they sent people to attack the village that Ainz saved in Volume 1. When Ainz later completes his invasion and conquest of said kingdom, slaughtering even more innocents, the narrative semi-justifies it and your ability to root for Ainz after supplies that he’s sending to the Holy Kingdom are being attacked.

This is the fundamental problem I have with Overlord.

We, the audience, should not be rooting for Ainz.

He is the evil overlord, without care or conscience for anything beyond his own selfish goals.

But he’s played up to be a light-hearted, somewhat carefree guy who is just roleplaying a role after being roped into it. When his forces are kidnapping thousands of civilians for their experiments and to be turned into raw materials, the series, particularly in the anime, cares more about selling the play between Ainz (as Momon) and Demiurge (as Jaldabaoth). It even plays it a little for laughs, right around the time Ainz has ordered the kidnapped victims to be put down painlessly.

Is the deaths of tens of thousands really okay even if it's without pain?

This is a common problem with antagonist MC Isekai stories.

They make them the people you root for or make the ‘protagonists’ more evil.

Or, alternatively, they do what The Marquis’ Eldest Son’s Lascivious Story did.

Make me want to wipe my mind - by which I mean this series tries to be 2 opposite ends of the genre at once.

Here’s the thing.

This story WANTS a more antagonistic protagonist BUT it also WANTS to be the story of a selfish, hedonistic nobleman’s conquest of countries and women.

Allow me to explain - the story follows Wilk, heir of a powerful noble family of magicians as he forges his legend, all in the name of having as much pleasure as possible, mainly sexual in nature. Case and point, his biggest regret in his old life was dying a virgin, so, after he gets the a-ok from his dad at the ripe old age of, and I’m not joking, 12, he buys a slave and r*pes her.

After threatening her into submission.

He then goes into battle, earns the title of the Blue Demon (in reference to his hair colour) and then forces another girl to submit or else he’ll kill people who were rebelling and disrespecting him and his homeland. THEN, later on, he stops off on a village on the way home and the villagers prepare the most beautiful girls to appease him; he picks one, a young girl with a husband-to-be, adjusts her hair and then r*pes her.

Why’d he pick her?

…

God, forgive me for what I’m about to write here.

Because.

She looked like his sister.

And he got, and I quote, ‘too excited’.

Especially after making her hair look like his little sister’s.

Oh, and he also forces another girl to submit to him and r*pes her in front of her brother AFTER extorting all of their remaining money from them.

Let me ask you this - is this the story of an antagonistic protagonist who I’m meant to want to see fail like say Light in Death Note (arguably) or am I meant to be rooting for him?

The series itself seems like it wants me to, given how it constantly tries to frame him in a positive light, a positive influence to bring about a better kingdom with a brighter future.

For the record, there is nothing wrong with a hedonistic protagonist or one that seeks a harem, or to have sex or whatnot, that’s fine, but it’s the way in which such a thing is communicated that is key.

Wilk is scum to his core, but the series doesn’t want you to think that way.

At times, it wants you to find a bit of light-hearted humour or whatnot during some of the scenes I mentioned above.

If this was a story about a terrible human being being a terrible human being, then that’d be one thing - it’s another thing when you actively try to promote him as a good guy overall that improves the kingdom, creates jobs and whatnot. He does everything that any other ‘good guy’ Isekai protagonist does, introducing concepts and technology from Japan, improving agriculture and all that, but he’s also a sexual predator and deserves the death penalty.

(When people say Rudeus is a terrible Isekai protagonist, I just laugh and point at this dickhead)

Moving on to happier topics - the shoujo side of things.

“The Original Scenario’s Heroine”

I’ll Become a Villainess That Will Go Down in History is less the story of a villainess and more of someone with more than 3 brain cells pointing out how shallow the original heroine of the Otome-game is and how little impact her ideals really have. The protagonist of this story, Alicia, wants to be a great villainess and succeeds (to an extent), but the story instead always frames her as being in the right.

It’s hard to be the evil villainess when you come across as the one in the right to us, the audience.

Villains Are Destined to Die, Kill the Villainess, Isn't Being a Wicked Woman Much Better? all have a similar problem in this sense as honestly the MC, the titular villainess, is just completely in the right.

In Villains Are Destined to Die, the MC, Penelope Eckhart, is abused and neglected by her family, suffers due to the heroine’s actions (which I shan’t spoil here) and spends a lot of her time defeating other villains and their schemes - not that she doesn’t have moments of being an absolute bad-ass villainess who I really like watching. Penelope is a delight to follow, don’t get me wrong, but it’s hard to consider her an antagonist in a lot of ways. When she goes full on bad-ass bitch, I love it, but honestly the people’s she up against are way worse than her in what they say and do; they antagonise her constantly, so one could argue it’s giving them what they deserve.

Kill the Villainess’s villainess is honestly justified in her every action; she wants to go home, back to Korea, and the only way to do that is to bring the original scenario to completion, or so she thinks. The original Male Leads in this story are some of the worst people I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading dialogue off (in a well written way) and I sincerely cheered whenever they suffered because fuck those guys.

Terrible bastard pieces of shi-!

But like I said - I don’t count this as an antagonistic villainess story because the MC is always in the right and is always someone we should root for, and is thus framed as such.

Isn't Being a Wicked Woman Much Better? Yes, yes it is, and you are mostly, Debora, but how can you be considered a villainess when the original heroine is too? In the end, you’re ultimately the protagonist who is a bit of a badass bitch, but villainess you are not - not fully at least.

I also mentioned a personal favourite novel series of mine, Demon Noble Girl ~Story of a Careless Demon~, above and this actually has quite a creative way of escaping the traps/pitfalls I mentioned above.

You see, the MC of this series, Yuzu, is selfish, cruel, evil and sadistic, while also being capable of being cute, friendly, polite and air headed at times - she does both a lot of really evil things and a lot of really good ones, though the latter is initially forced upon her more than anything. The people around her think of Yuzu as an Angel, even though she’s a powerful Devil reborn into a human body, and that forces her to act in ways that maintain her cover while also achieving her own ends.

She makes contracts, exploits people’s weaknesses, takes pleasure in leading people into traps and tormenting them, often devours souls and likes ones seeped in despair and evil traits, and acts in her own best interests, but it’s not like she doesn’t have her soft spots.

She loves her human family, the black cat demon that protected and nurtured her, her minions and servants, her friends, and beyond, but I’d still call Yuzu an antagonistic protagonist despite how much we, the audience, root for her because she doesn’t disregard the traits this type of protagonist is meant to have as much as the others.

In many ways, I could compare her to Potimas - she’s bratty and childish, very petty, and acts mostly in ways that only benefit her.

Ainz, conversely, acts the way he does to find any traces of his friends and to maintain the illusion of the overlord he’s meant to be acting as.

He isn’t that invested in either of his main goals, too - to find his friends and to conquer the world and make it, in his words, ‘a place where everyone of all species can live in peace’.

So, are all stories of antagonistic MCs like this?

Hell.

No.

LET ME TELL YOU ALL ABOUT ONE OF THE GREATEST VILLAINESSES YOU’LL EVER SEE!

Roxana.

From Roxana.

Big shock, I know, take a moment to recover from the shock.

Roxana (also known as The Way to Protect the Female Lead’s Older Brother) takes place inside an R-19 reverse harem novel and features several powerful families, each of which governs a large chunk of a greater empire. The titular Roxana is a member of the Agriche family, a cruel, vicious and vile group of sadistic murderers and criminals who are the villains of the original novel and take delight in torture and murder.

There’s Deon, her older half-brother, who likes to see Roxana cry more than anything in the world, a certain pleasure he discovered after killing her older brother related by blood before her eyes. There’s her father, Lante, who raises his children in bloody competition and rivalry against one another, looking to make them just like him. There’s her aunt Maria who cuts a maid in 2 for speaking out of turn, then talks pleasantly with blood-soaked clothes and who also turns corpses and people into mutant-flesh golems.

And that’s just 3 members of the family.

Roxana is no different.

In fact, Lante remarks how he’s just like her, something that deeply disgusts Roxana.

To survive and eventually have her revenge, Roxana became the perfect Agriche.

Cruel.

Calculating.

Manipulative.

Sadistic.

Beautiful.

Badass.

Taking pleasure in vile acts.

She is an amazingly written character who jumps to life on every page of the manhwa adaptation (if you don’t believe me, just Google the series name and witness this artwork).

How come then that this family of criminals is allowed to reign free and even has staff and soldiers working for them, even if it’s implied the latter 2 are slaves/forced against their will to serve at the estate and the family itself?

Simple - it runs on the logic that it’s set inside a novel, similar to the previously mentioned Inso’s Law.

It runs on the sort of logic that I thought of when I was young, playing games like Age of Mythology or 007: Nightfire, where the main villains have thousands of people working for them with no real reason. I mean, in Age of Mythology, the main villain, Gargarensis, seems like he’s the only one that will be given a reward for freeing the titan Kronos. In Nightfire, Rafael Drake runs a very successful, highly profitable global business and then he wants to start bombing parts of the world to force the UN into making him ruler of the world (in effect).

Being real, why would anyone follow these guys? Other than money which is never stated - but hey, it runs on game logic, right?

That’s what allows the Agriche family to come alive in delightful fashion.

They are villains in every sense of the word and the story fully embraces it, putting all of their cruellest and most despicable traits on full display.

I’ve gotten off course from what this section is originally meant to be about.

Antagonists.

However, the reason I spent so long on talking about antagonistic main characters was to show that it’s very hard to find any memorable main villains in Isekai and its subgenres but, when you do, they usually stick out for 1 of 3 ways.

1 - they are amazingly written.

2 - they are shittly written.

3 - they aren’t actually the villains despite labelling themselves as such.

(Fun fact - Google Docs tried to auto-correct my terrible use of ‘Shittly Written’ into ‘Short’)

Weak and Unfit to Command an Army

Generally speaking, antagonists are not usually the strong points of an Isekai story. They are serviceable most of the time and do everything they need to, but when they do stand out, they STAND OUT.

In that sense, this is the trait the Isekai genre shares the most commonly with Shonen - its antagonists are often more functional than memorable.

Kaiju No.8’s main villain, Kaiju No.9, is recycled so much that I honestly sighed every time he appeared, and he had no lasting impact besides mild frustration by the time I dropped the manga. Mission: Yozakura Family has a similar issue, though that’s mainly the 2nd primary antagonist (who I shan’t spoil for you) as they’re incredibly uninteresting and made me wish for the story to just drop them altogether.

Bleach has the same issue - and yes, I am including Aizen in this.

One Piece, however, is the opposite; so many great, fully fleshed out antagonists, with my personal favourite I think still being Crocodile to this day. I could spend all day praising One Piece, but I shall refrain for now…for now.

Though I think the worst Isekai villain I have seen for a long time in a highly regarded series has to be Clayman from Tensura.

…I did warn you that this series might be the punching bag for the whole essay, and that will definitely prove true in these first 2 sections.

Clayman is introduced as the first real antagonist of Tensura, a Demon Lord with great power, cunning, intelligence and ambition…except, he only has ambition it turns out.

He’s not all that strong.

He’s hardly cunning.

And he’s an absolute idiot.

We’re led to believe for the first few volumes that he’s a threat, because of his station and thorough planning and manipulation, but he isn’t. Not one of his plans ever works out. He manages to ‘mind control’ the most powerful Demon Lord, except he doesn’t and it was always a ruse.

Remember that time he had said Demon Lord destroy a whole city? Doesn’t matter - all the people had already evacuated so no one died.

Or how about when he manipulated a human kingdom into attacking Tempest and got hundreds of Rimuru’s followers killed?

Nope - Rimuru revived the lot.

I ended up coining a new term when I describe this sequence of events to a friend of mine as to what my overall feelings were on this arc - The Chewbacca Effect.

For those of you who have seen The Rise of Skywalker film, I trust you know what I’m talking about.

It’s when a narrative wants to have all of the narrative and emotional impact of a plot-beat, but it doesn’t have the courage to actually stick to it. Rey killed Chewbacca? No she didn’t; there was another ship and he’s fine.

Clayman was controlling Milium?

Nope.

Clayman got thousands killed?

Not even one, except himself and the human invaders.

Tensura didn’t have the same commitment that Tsukimichi did when Makoto lost his followers; they didn’t stay dead, Rimuru revived the lot.

What is the point of having an antagonist if they literally have no impact on the narrative at all?

It’s just pointless, mindless ‘content’ if one could even call it that.

Despite everything I’ve just said, there are ways of making villains and antagonistic pop to life even if, on paper, they seem one note.

Take Re;zero and its Witches and their cult.

They are, without a doubt, evil people who like doing evil things to good people because of selfish, often vain, reasons and many enjoy watching others suffer but in different ways. What makes them interesting is how the nature of being followers of the Witches gives them their strength and their madness.

It’s a trade-off and it’s presented in such a way that it makes it memorable and interesting to watch unfold.

Even when Subaru rewinds time, the villains leave their marks on the narrative, most notably of course on Subaru himself. He remembers everything, every bit of pain and suffering, and he never forgets it; he can’t forget it.

To conclude, the antagonists in Isekai stories can be broadly summed up as memorable for the right or wrong reasons, or so forgettable you won’t be able to recall their names 5 seconds after learning them.

A strong, super-well fleshed out antagonist is not quintessential but they have to do more than just serve a basic functionality; they have to do at least a little bit more than that, or else the story will likely have no narrative stakes whatsoever.

Ultimately, presentation is key.

“Remember, Presentation is the key.”