Comparing your generic Revenge/Isekai/Fantasy anime with Steven Seagal movies

Recently I realized how eerily similar most generic Revenge/Isekai/Fantasy animes are to Steven Seagal's movies:

* The MC is an overpowered juggernaut
* Most other characters spend a stupid amount of time praising their abilities
* The exception are characters who thing the MC's a pathetic weakling, and they're proven to be useless idiots
* The MC obliterates his opponents with no effort
* There's a massive harem of women who want to fuck him the moment they see him, for no other reason than "he's the overpowered MC"
* The script sounds like it was written by a child
* There's no real story to speak of
* A lot of the plot is poorly explained nonsense
* Terrible special effects/animation
* You end up feeling completely disappointed, like you just wasted several hours of your life, after watching it
* In the case of many revenge animes, the supposedly heroic MC is actually the villain if you think about it

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Commentaires

N7CombatWombat2026-01-21 21:15

The difference is that OP MC anime are aimed to be audience inserts, Steven Seagal movies are ego/vanity projects aimed at Steven Seagal.

dsal18292026-01-21 21:21

That's a distinction without a difference. A lot of these animes, especially those focused on revenge, are ego/vanity projects and the "audience insert" aspect is so that the audience can identify with the writer's vanity project. If Steven Seagal wasn't such a fat, lazy bastard, he'd look just like your generic Kirito copycat, but the intention is there.

N7CombatWombat2026-01-21 21:29

Part of intention is target audience and you might get similar output, but how to affect change on the process is different. One says "I want to make money" (in a lot of cases), the other says "I am gods gift to the world". Two separate and different "problems" and "fixes" there imo.

porpoiseoflife2026-01-21 21:35

Nah. Even when he was a skinny bastard, it was still the same way. Go back to some of his older films like Hard To Kill, On Deadly Ground, and Above The Law, and you'll find something worse than the generic isekai titles. The man has put out exactly three well-recieved movies in the last 38 years: Under Siege, Machete, and Executive Decision. And he was in a production role only for Under Siege, with the other two being directed and produced by other people.

A better correlation would be someone like Michael Bay: he puts out schlock movies, everyone knows they are schlock movies, but he manages to pull profit out of each and every single one of them.

RockoDyne2026-01-21 21:20

Congratulations. You now understand what power fantasy is.

dsal18292026-01-21 21:24

I understood it, the thing I just realized is the similarity with Steven Seagal, probably because I usually don't watch Steven Seagal movies. But most of the things people criticize of Steven Seagal are the same as what's criticized of lazy power fantasy animes.

automata_theory2026-01-22 01:43

Good stories can also have power fantasy in them. No need to condescend.

ArthurLeywinn2026-01-21 21:22

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dsal18292026-01-21 21:27

>Do you know a isekai anime where a 73 year old man plays the best special forces member in the United States by just sitting in his chair and executing all of his enemies?

The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat, minus the whole "sitting in a chair" thing, but that's because Seagal is a fat, lazy bastard who can't be bothered to act like a proper action movie star. Anime writers aren't limited by their lack of acting talent.

ArthurLeywinn2026-01-21 21:45

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dsal18292026-01-21 21:57

And some of these shitty animes are grounds for some funny roast videos. See? There are parallels everywhere.

Dindyme2026-01-21 22:12

Isnt that the exact same powerfantasy, but one has a "for 10 year olds" flavor and the other has the "for boomers" flavor? The details may be different, but the point/soul/idea is the same

CryptidTypical2026-01-21 23:26

Based

Admiral_Nitpicker2026-01-22 00:14

also got the Arnold & Wesley Snipes in there.