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[DC1]

Not pretty just man sexy.

Get your facts right OP!

 

[Astral Dog]

instead of discussing the same why we dont find some examples of ugly jrpg villains too

 

[SolVanderlyn]

The Lord of the Rings and the Bible. As someone said earlier, Lucifer was said to be beautiful. Sauron, a fallen angel analogue, was also said to be very beautiful before losing his body.

I think it stems from the idea of charisma being frightening. An evil person who is beautiful and oozes charisma is very dangerous. He can easily get into positions of power through sweet talking and blending in with good people. He can trick good people into helping him commit evil. Eru (lotr God analogue) eventually gets fed up with Sauron's use of charisma for evil and destroys his body, reducing him to the towering super evil looking suit of armor we see in the movie flashbacks.

Other examples include popular culture's depictions of Jack the Ripper, as a charismatic man.

Key thing I think is that evil with charisma comes off as more "dangerous" and "intelligent". This is why evil leaders are so often depicted as attractive.

That's my theory anyway.

I like this analysis a lot.

And yeah, Sauron before losing his body was the original Sephiroth.

IIRC, he was able to worm his way into Elven society at one point for the very reasons you described. He appeared in silver armor and was so dazzling that they were entranced by him.

 

[themagicalkitsune]

instead of discussing the same why we dont find some examples of ugly jrpg villains too

I guess Bowser isn't the prettiest turtle in town either.

 

[Fou-Lu]

If we are going for ugly villains in JRPGs. Spoilers for Radiant Historia's villain:

Spoiler

 

[kurahador]

Huh....I just realized how most of pretty JRPG villain has white hair.

 

[Astral Dog]

And thats the true fform of Xehanort himself.

Spoiler

kinda, so far.

 

[Gurnlei]

Most JRPG villains are either pretty or old from my experience.

Some examples here are just old - not really ugly.

 

[SixMachine]

The Lord of the Rings and the Bible. As someone said earlier, Lucifer was said to be beautiful. Sauron, a fallen angel analogue, was also said to be very beautiful before losing his body.

I think it stems from the idea of charisma being frightening. An evil person who is beautiful and oozes charisma is very dangerous. He can easily get into positions of power through sweet talking and blending in with good people. He can trick good people into helping him commit evil. Eru (lotr God analogue) eventually gets fed up with Sauron's use of charisma for evil and destroys his body, reducing him to the towering super evil looking suit of armor we see in the movie flashbacks.

Other examples include popular culture's depictions of Jack the Ripper, as a charismatic man.

Key thing I think is that evil with charisma comes off as more "dangerous" and "intelligent". This is why evil leaders are so often depicted as attractive.

That's my theory anyway.

It's been in popular culture for a while, it's why people can find Patrick Bateman pretty funny from American Psycho, even though he chops up women, eats them, kills hobos for fun, stomp on puppies, and can't get a reservation at Dorsias.

Also sadly there is a "Bonnie and Clyde"effect on some women, where they get attracted to bad boys. For example after Charles Manson and Ted Bundy killed people, they got some groupies for some reason. So being evil and charismatic isn't too out there.

IMO I don't think there is an imbalance of bishie and ugly villains. Ugly villains aren't too hard to find either in JRPGS. I think at this point, there is just so many examples for either side in the genre, you can make a big enough list to show either way.

 

[silva1991]

More like why are female protagonists/party members are always beauty queen?

it's fucking annoying

the less overused waifu materials the better

 

[RM8]

BTW by virtue of always being long haired, I refuse to call them "pretty".

 

[MoonFrog]

Because they exist in two worlds: in the first as villain and in the second as a sort of masturbatory fantasy. I mean, you can have pretty bad guys for other reasons but JRPGs, anime, etc. tend to do it to capitalize on the romanticization of evil. Often times the cult of their character, see Sephiroth, is as important to the vision as their role in the story. Often times it is even more important.

Also as has been said, it transforms an unrelatable villain into a tragedy because people value good looks just that much. Being pretty while doing anything completely changes the meaning of the action.

 

[Ruff]

If we are going for ugly villains in JRPGs. Spoilers for Radiant Historia's villain:

Spoiler

Lol WTF that's Count Olaf?! First thing that came to mind

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

More like why are female protagonists/party members are always beauty queen?

it's fucking annoying

the less overused waifu materials the better

Not always. Freya, Quina, the Cloud girl from Thousand Year Door, Goombella, Bebedora, Delma, and Camellia (Old), aren't.

 

[Toxi]

More like why are female protagonists/party members are always beauty queen?

it's fucking annoying

the less overused waifu materials the better

Another reason why Kreia from KotR2 is an awesome exception to the rule.

 

[NinjamicWZ]

That's right, but I was more curious about the long hair bad guys in manga and whatnot. Was there such a trope in literature in japan dealing with long hair that may look like women's hair?

 

[RocBase]

Well in Frozen that was pretty much a requirement to give a good reason for Anna to fall for him.

In most JRPGs, the villains don't get any extra attention for being pretty. Actually almost nobody does.

Yeah, except the females generally. Which I would sometimes find mildly funny if I thought one of the guys was prettier than them.

 

[velvet_nitemare]

Because good looking people are usually horrible human beings /s

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Lol WTF that's Count Olaf?!

Not all artists in Japan are infatuated with younger females.

 

[Teknoman]

Needs more 90s JRPG antagonists:

Ys 2 Darm:

And just about every antagonist from Dragon Quest that isnt Psaro.

 

[Riposte]

Not all artists in Japan are infatuated with younger females.

Yeah, you tell him, wait what?

Some interesting images of younger females come up if you google the character designer's name.

 

[bagandscalpel]

And just about every antagonist from Dragon Quest that isnt Psaro.

Eh, would NEVER have guessed Psaro looked like that when I played the game on the NES, even with all the instruction manual art. His final battle form had way more detail.

And if you're counting Psaro, you may as well count Corvis and Orgodemir.

 

[silva1991]

Not always. Freya, Quina, the Cloud girl from Thousand Year Door, Goombella, Bebedora, Delma, and Camellia (Old), aren't.

The first half of your list aren't even humans

and by googling the second half I'm not even sure if they are humans either(especially Bebedora) lol

I was referring to actual female humans in my post.

 

[Aizo]

A lot?

Gaston makes up for all of it.

 

[skypunch]

They're not all pretty.

 

[Teknoman]

Eh, would NEVER have guessed Psaro looked like that when I played the game on the NES, even with all the instruction manual art. His final battle form had way more detail.

And if you're counting Psaro, you may as well count Corvis and Orgodemir.

Yeah I guess thats about those two.

 

[Fandangox]

They're not all pretty.

To be fair, no one was in that game.

 

[random25]

Lavos and Luxaar sure are pretty.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

To be fair, no one was in that game.

Alvis and Kallian definitely were.

Sharla for the female side definitely was, too.

I digress, though. None of the villains in Xenoblade were particularly good looking, as far as I remember.

 

[ethomaz]

Because they are not "real" villains.

Kefka is not pretty.

 

[A Link to the Past]

https://www.vice.com/read/the-number-of-gay-animated-villains-will-surprise-you-456

http://fandomsandfeminism.tumblr.co...-you-talk-more-about-the-male-disney-villains

 

[Morrigan Stark]

I thought the first pic was Sephiroth... then I scrolled down and went "wut".

I think it's good that not all villains are ugly. Evil ain't about your physical looks.

 

[exfatal]

Example of pretty villain.

Riemsianne from Shinign Force Exa

Mithos from Tales of Symphonia

Spoiler

sexy ass beast

 

[Toxi]

I digress, though. None of the villains in Xenoblade were particularly good looking, as far as I remember.

???

HUGE-ASS XENOBLADE SPOILERS

Spoiler

 

[skypunch]

I really like Xenoblade's character art style.

 

[Darkly Tranquil]

I recall reading a forum thread not long ago (can't remember if it was here or somewhere else) where people where discussing why western games tend not to do very well in Japan, and someone commented that they had read a discussion in a Japanese forum and the comments there were to the effect that Japanese gamers regarded the characters in western games to be too ugly. Presumably this is because there are very different cultural preferences in terms of aesthetics between western and Japanese character representations; where we in the west have the generic beardy white guy, the Japanese have the long haired androgynous pretty boy. One might conclude from this that the Japanese prefer attractiveness in their characters whereas in the west we favour badass looking characters.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Yeah, you tell him, wait what?

Some interesting images of younger females come up if you google the character designer's name.

Read the interview. That character in the spoiler was his favorite and done very early and quickly. Those two and others was a long slog for him.

 

[Piers]

People expect good looks.

 

[Spiritwalker]

It's a cultural thing.

 

[Astral Dog]

Alvis and Kallian definitely were.



Sharla for the female side definitely was, too.


I digress, though. None of the villains in Xenoblade were particularly good looking, as far as I remember.

Supposedly Zanza would be, as he is based on

And Lorithia.
And Alvis ,maybe.

 

[PtM]

cause feminine guys are weird and evil apparently lol ;O

Yeah, could be Japanese homophobia.

 

[PSqueak]

So the contrast is huge when they turn into horror final forms.

 

[Famassu]

At leas for FF and KH that's part of Nomura's signature. He has made a bunch of games and influenced the whole genre.

Amano's designs are far more pretty than Nomura's have ever been. And I don't mean his style, but the actual designs

 

[Light_End]

Everyone is pretty in JRPGs...

^

It's less about JRPG villains being pretty, and more about them just not being ugly. Like western villains at the time always were.

Instead of being older and scruffy and clearly sinister looking, JRPG villains just look like the heroes, just with their vanity and megalomania meters dialed to 12

 

[PSqueak]

A lot?

You could argue that Hans, Gaston and Clayton are pretty handsome, the evil queens from Snow White and Enchanted are pretty, they just have hard features,

Spoiler

Callahan

was not ugly and wears a mask anyway, most of the animal ones are just intimidating and even recently

Spoiler

Bellwether

is as cute as it gets even if

Spoiler

You could argue everything is ugly in contrast when your main character is Judy Hopps.

And the rest are all literally monsters, i guess you only can count Jaffar, Cruella, Yzma, Doom, the guy from mulan and Hook for ugly villians.

 

[entremet]

They're not all pretty.

Who and from what game is this?

 

[Kain]

I never thought about Emperor = Bowie, I just went

Who and from what game is this?

Mumkhar (did I spell it correctly?) from Xenoblade.

 

[Dinjooh]

He's a real looker alright.

 

[Hoya Destroyer]

I wish Japanese games had more tougher looking male characters. Conversely, I wish Western devs would give their female characters more sex appeal in their games, like the Japanese do.

 

[Nakho]

I think it's good that not all villains are ugly. Evil ain't about your physical looks.

:lol

I loved Fou-lu in BoF IV,

Spoiler

kept wishing for him to go Vegeta-like and join Ryu to combat a bigger threat, but, alas, it never happened