I think anime fans misunderstand why some overpowered MCs work… and others don’t
I’ve been thinking about this for a while.
Especially after watching a mix of older and newer anime.
We talk a lot about “overpowered MCs”.
Some people hate them.
Some people love them.
And some anime somehow make them work really well.
While others feel empty after just a few episodes.
At first, I thought the problem was simple.
“OP characters are boring.”
But the more anime I watched, the less I believed that.
Because some of the most popular anime ever…
Have extremely overpowered main characters.
And people still love them.
So what’s actually going on?
I don’t think power is the real issue.
I think context is.
When an MC is overpowered and the story treats that power seriously…
It can be interesting.
When the world reacts realistically to that power…
It feels earned.
But when the story bends just to praise the MC…
That’s when it falls apart.
Take two OP characters.
Both are strong.
Both win easily.
But one feels compelling.
The other feels hollow.
Why?
Because one still struggles.
Not physically.
But emotionally.
Morally.
Existentially.
They question themselves.
They face consequences.
They lose things that strength can’t protect.
The other?
Everyone praises them.
Every conflict resolves itself.
No cost.
No weight.
No tension.
At that point, it stops being a story.
It becomes wish fulfillment.
And wish fulfillment isn’t automatically bad.
But it has limits.
What really hooks me is when an anime asks:
“What does this power do to a person?”
Does it isolate them?
Does it make relationships harder?
Does it remove meaning from effort?
Does it turn responsibility into a burden?
Some anime explore that.
Some don’t.
And that’s the difference for me.
It’s also why forced-hero stories hit harder.
When power isn’t a reward…
But an obligation.
When being strong doesn’t mean being free.
That’s when OP characters become tragic instead of boring.
I think we argue too much about power levels.
And not enough about writing.
An OP MC can work.
A weak MC can be boring.
It all depends on intention.
Execution.
And consequences.
So I’m curious:
Do you think “overpowered MC” is actually the problem?
Or is it just bad writing around them?
What’s an OP character you think was done right?
And one that completely lost you?
Especially after watching a mix of older and newer anime.
We talk a lot about “overpowered MCs”.
Some people hate them.
Some people love them.
And some anime somehow make them work really well.
While others feel empty after just a few episodes.
At first, I thought the problem was simple.
“OP characters are boring.”
But the more anime I watched, the less I believed that.
Because some of the most popular anime ever…
Have extremely overpowered main characters.
And people still love them.
So what’s actually going on?
I don’t think power is the real issue.
I think context is.
When an MC is overpowered and the story treats that power seriously…
It can be interesting.
When the world reacts realistically to that power…
It feels earned.
But when the story bends just to praise the MC…
That’s when it falls apart.
Take two OP characters.
Both are strong.
Both win easily.
But one feels compelling.
The other feels hollow.
Why?
Because one still struggles.
Not physically.
But emotionally.
Morally.
Existentially.
They question themselves.
They face consequences.
They lose things that strength can’t protect.
The other?
Everyone praises them.
Every conflict resolves itself.
No cost.
No weight.
No tension.
At that point, it stops being a story.
It becomes wish fulfillment.
And wish fulfillment isn’t automatically bad.
But it has limits.
What really hooks me is when an anime asks:
“What does this power do to a person?”
Does it isolate them?
Does it make relationships harder?
Does it remove meaning from effort?
Does it turn responsibility into a burden?
Some anime explore that.
Some don’t.
And that’s the difference for me.
It’s also why forced-hero stories hit harder.
When power isn’t a reward…
But an obligation.
When being strong doesn’t mean being free.
That’s when OP characters become tragic instead of boring.
I think we argue too much about power levels.
And not enough about writing.
An OP MC can work.
A weak MC can be boring.
It all depends on intention.
Execution.
And consequences.
So I’m curious:
Do you think “overpowered MC” is actually the problem?
Or is it just bad writing around them?
What’s an OP character you think was done right?
And one that completely lost you?
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This trend won't last.
But not because of them being OP MCs, but rather because these light novels are just not very good, so their MCs aren't either.
Literally any battle shonen has an OP MC and while they are rarely the most popular character, they are often fairly popular and nobody bats an eye.
But if you were to do an anylsis of...let's say...princesses and you only analysed light novel isekai princesses, then you would also come away thinking "Wow, princesses suck", whereas it's more like...no...you just analysed a bunch of bad books with bad characters.
And before anyone says anything: I also like trashy isekai light novels. I can also say a lot of them are bad.
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Explain OPM then.
> But when the story bends just to praise the MC…
> That’s when it falls apart.
Explain solo leveling or SAO then.
Here's the thing with OP MCs, for them to work the creators just have to abandon all pretense and just go for "cool" with good art (not even good animation, it just needs to be ok but that is definitely a huge+ for popularity). Aura farming, "hype" fights, simplistic story and usually a simplistic MC is all that is needed.
If you don't have that then the story is boring and easily dropped, which is why all these dime a dozen power fantasy stories fail, they simply don't have the budget to succeeded. Give them the budget tho and the general consensus of many of them will suddenly go from 5s and 6s to "peak".
Don't people shit on both of those things constantly for that exact reason?
Personally, I don't care whether something sells, if it's shit it's shit and I think "it does not work" is more of an opinion, so if **I** think it does not work then it does not work even if it sold a million BRs!
And I think that's the case with most OP mcs, including most of these big hitters.
I don't care about everyone glazing the MC, about "aura farming", "Rule of cool" and shows being carried by fight animations. I need a good story and interesting characters, and most of these shows have shit stories and characters whose main personality trait is "Strong".
See the thing here is that sales/popularity etc are objective metrics. It means that A LOT of people like it, enough that it becomes this successful which means that the creators are doing something right and something is working.
> I don't care about everyone glazing the MC, about "aura farming", "Rule of cool" and shows being carried by fight animations. I need a good story and interesting characters, and most of these shows have shit stories and characters whose main personality trait is "Strong".
I think ultimately this comes down to preferences, but a large part of the anime population simply doesn't care about this stuff if the show is cool enough. Using solo leveling for a minute, most of the popular manwha are absolute garbage power fantasies (and many tend to be harems as well) and people lap them up.
Having OP protags tend to be one of the biggest handicaps to having a good story. Think about it.. how many good stories you know have OP protags (not protags that become OP over a long period of time, I mean protags that become OP relatively quickly). The author would have to be an master to navigate that without consistently needing warp their story to justify something. A big example where an author failed at doing that was Demon Slayer, specifically in the entertainment district art and it's where I wrote off the entire story lol. In this case it wasn't even the protag that was OP but a failure to write around a much more powerful character.
If we assume that good sales menas "it works" then there's no need for any discussion at all, we just look at sales and "Yup, that works" "Yup, that didn't work" and the discussion ends there!
It doesn't really make for compelling discourse.
That's why I think it's more interesting to address that in the sense of "Is this quality?" "Did it work FOR ME", and so on!
Do you think "Twilight works"?
Because it was highly popular...
For some reason I think a lot of people glazing Solo Leveling would say that Twilight didn't work, it was shit/cringe.
Hell, I'd argue the reason these are so hated is because they're so popular. The fact that they're poorly written plays a large part sure. But their popularity is what brings to attention to them.
Like seriously, I know people on here love to complain about the latest of “generic isekai”, but they get made for a reason and it isn’t because everyone hates them.
Weirdly I also like the extremely aware op mc. They know they're the strongest and have no issues showing it. Someone like Anos from misfit if demon king academy.
The ones in the middle, who just kind of fart around, knowing they're strong, but trying to be humble about it, or not use their power until the very last minute, are the ones I find less compelling.
One thing that makes her different is that she still struggles, she's facing powerful enemies (one might say the most powerful enemy in the world), it's not happy fun time from start to finish.
Also her "OP Levels" are a bit more reasonable than most. Yes she's strong, but she's not like nuking entire armies by snapping her fingers.
But a lot of OP Isekai mcs ARE strong like that, and so the entire anime is like:
Demon Lord level 1000 is threatening the world!
But fear not, because I brought in Bob and his level 0 accidentally turned into level 10000000000000 and so there's zero real stake and btw his level is also the # of girls he'll meet in the first episode who will all fall for him, in awe of his extraordinary power.