It was a character that recently appeared in Final Fantasy XIV. Well. Technically they appeared in patch 5.3, which was in... August, but this patch, 5.4 is where we actually get to see them.

Just unburying my effortpost before I really go to sleep...

Edited by SkyCat32 on Dec 19th 2020 at 1:11:19 PM

Ok. I'll post my thing then... using said format.

Lanpert

Sure to Lanpert and go ahead on the FF villain.

Trevor Lanpert

to Trevor Lanpert.

Yee-hah, my first Anime proposal! I hope this anime isn't mentioned before in the past though, looking through the "K" section of the Anime CM List I didn't see him there, so...

The Work in Question

Kurozuka is a 12-Episode Anime adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name, made by Madhouse (the same guys behind Black Lagoon) in 2008.

The plot revolves around Minamoto no Yoshitsune, a.k.a Kurou, an assassin, Professional Killer and ronin from 12th Century Japan, who after rescuing a woman named Kuromitsu, eventually fell in love with her. But Kuromitsu turns out to be a vampire, and when Kuro is mortally wounded by his enemies, Kuromitsu gave her blood to Kuro, granting him immortality.

Recovering from his mortal injuries, Kurou fell into a Deep Sleep… that lasts for entire centuries. When he awakes, humanity is in the aftermath of an apocalypse, Japan is a wasteland under a dictatorship ruled by an entity called the Red Emperor and the Emperor’s right-hand man, a power-hungry villain named Hasegawa.

Early in episode 3, the resurrected Kuro awakes in the distant future; earth is a Crapsack World, and a powerful militia group called the Red Imperial Army is going on a killing spree, executing civilians left and right, for being associated as allies of a La Résistance group. The awakened Kuro managed to kill off a legion of Imperial Army mooks, but passes out in the process, waking up in a resistance compound after being rescued by an ally named Kuon, who is working with a resistance leader, an elderly woman named Saniwa.

For some reasons unknown yet, Kuro is constantly pursued by mooks working under the Red Imperial Army; everywhere he goes, the army attacks, slaughtering civilians and resistance members en-masse, and even after Kuro had killed off his attackers, another legion of enemies will come after him, leaving behind dozens and dozens of resistance members and civilians alike dead. For reasons that soon becomes clear...

So, Who is this Hasegawa?

Hasegawa is an Evilutionary Biologist and the high-ranking leader of the Red Imperial Army who, after finding out news about Kuro’s immortality from being given the blood of a vampire, seeks to capture Kuro alive to use samples of Kuro's blood to create his own army of immortals. Hasegawa is The Heavy in charge of organizing raids and carrying out large-scale massacres, throughout each episode.

Debuting in episode 5, in his first scene, Hasegawa is introduced ordering numerous "test subjects" (maybe a hundred or so, onscreen), resistance members and prisoners from slums captured by his army, attempting to covert his captives into mindless demonic soldiers. After each subject is deemed "incompatible" with his experimentations, Hasegawa then had each and every one of them disposed in a grinder, one at a time, where he will step on a lever causing his subjects to slide down a chute and gets grounded to a bloody pulp. At least 12 prisoners are pulped alive onscreen (remaining hundred or so are a Sound-Only Death), and the series implies that Hasegawa has been doing this on a regular basis, all in the name of "perfecting" his experimentations.

When Kuro finds out the reason behind him being pursued (after his ally, Saniwa, gets brutally tortured and killed by one of Hasegawa's followers) Kuro and what's left of the La Résistance made their way to the Red Imperial Army's fortress. An assault from Red Imperial Army helicopters reduce the good guys to Kuro himself infiltrating the fortress; but upon entering Kuro is greeted by a hologram projection of Hasegawa who announced he's been waiting for Kuro for a thousand years, before unleashing a hypersonic soundwave that knocks Kuro unconscious.

Kuro wakes up later, strapped to a chair in Hasegawa's lab. The part where Hasegawa said he's waiting for a thousand years? That is NOT hyperbole: using his experimentations, Hanegawa would substitute his body with a new one every hundred years or so. But realizing Kuro's immortal DNA could improve his experiments to a much higher level, Hasegawa then takes a sample of Kuro's blood and reveals he already abducted Kuro's new Love Interest, Rai, intending to use her for his latest experiments.

However, Kuon, a friend and ally of Kuro, barges into the facility and frees Kuro, at the cost of his own life. Kuro managed to chase Hasegawa to his lab, where the grinding machine Hasegawa had personally dumped hundreds of "failed" test subjects into, is located. Hasegawa had already developed a formula with the sample of Kuro's blood, and instead decide to inject the formula into himself: Hasegawa quickly transforms into a literal monster with venomous abilities, blinding Kuro with his venom projectiles.

In the fight that follows, despite being blinded, Kuro managed to impale the monstrous Hasegawa, and then fling Hasegawa into the grinder, turning him into a bloody pulp, an appropriate Karmic Death.

Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?

The series never explains Hasegawa’s backstory, other than depicting him to be a power-hungry, cold-blooded maniac who had no qualms sentencing hundreds of people to death by grinder after deeming them to be "imperfect specimens". No Freudian Excuse are mentioned either. Just your plain old power-hungry dictator who delights in commiting atrocities.

And a Bad Boss to boot. More than once in the show he threatened to dispose his underlings and henchmen in that grinder, or sending them to a Fate Worse than Death.

The Heinousness Standard?

Well, we did discuss an unrelated candidate from another work (one of mine earlier) set in a Post-apocalyptic Bad Future, where we reject him due to being a subordinate of a potentially larger organization; but this isn’t the case in Kurozuka. Hasegawa is the boss and leader of the Red Imperial Army, and throughout the series he’s established as the ones pulling the strings behind majority of the bloodshed and massacre. And oh boy does he ever enjoy his job.

Hasegawa does have his own legion of dangerous, genetically modified minions (implied to be Brainwashed and Crazy or Reforged into a Minion captured civilians or resistance members after Hasegawa performed inhumane experiments on them) that carries out his orders, with Hasegawa's dragon, Arashiyama, an emotionless, stoic henchman deemed "the most successful result", having the most screentime before being killed by Kuro; they are in charge of carrying out Hasegawa's raids and to "collect more prisoners" for Hasegawa's experimentations, but they didn’t get much development and are depicted as Just Following Orders or Punch-Clock Villains at most. In fact, with the exception of Hasegawa and Arashiyama, most of them only have one or two episodes of screen-time before getting killed off. And again, Arashiyama is just an accomplice that takes orders from Hasegawa.

Granted, the ruler of the Post-Apocalyptic future, called the "Red Emperor", is depicted to be The Man Behind the Man. But he spends most of the show as Mr. Exposition and much of his deeds are subject to Offscreen Villainy. He simply gets killed off by Kuro without much fanfare in the final episode, unlike Hasegawa whose gory death is depicted as a Crowning Moment of Awesome.

Should We Keep Hasegawa then?

He seems like a good fit.

Edited by RobertTYL on Dec 20th 2020 at 5:36:59 PM

to Trevor Lanpert and Hasegawa.

A yes to Hasegawa, easily so.

to Hasegawa

Hey guys, I found that one of us asked about creating EP for Admiral Razorbeard, but you said that you discussed him earlier. Can you please give me a link to that discussion?

You said that he's played for laughs but I remember that it's true only for non-canonic party games Rayman M, Rayman Arena and Rayman Rush and alternative universe cartoon RTAS.

Edited by DrScavenge27 on Dec 20th 2020 at 12:41:46 PM

Here it is.

Edited by DrUnknown on Dec 20th 2020 at 12:42:50 PM

Trevor Lanpert and Hasegawa.

Trevor (I'll take your word he's heinous enough; show seems to have a high standard); Hasegawa (first for Tōru Ōkawa?).

Lanpert and Hasegawa

to Oh Young-sook, Trevor Lanpert and Hasegawa.

Yes to Lanpert and Hasegawa.

Yea to Hasegawa.

Part two of my final 2020 effortposts.

What is the work?

"The Dramatist" is the first episode of the second season of Jack Taylor, an Irish Noir Miniseries.

Jack is hired to investigate an apparent suicide at a college. It turns out his employer is more involved than Jack realizes, and has a vendetta against Jack personally.

Who is Professor Gorman and what has he done?

Professor Eugene Gorman, frustrated by his wife's past infidelity, embarks on a series of murders against women, drugging them and torturing them before killing them.

With his first victim, Gorman drops her from on top of a college building, before posing as a concerned faculty member.

Subsequently, as part of his plan to retaliate against Jack Taylor for sleeping with his wife, Gorman hires him to investigate the death, feigning politeness and joviality throughout their interactions.

Next, Gorman targets another student, drugging her, branding her with a syringe, and killing her through suspension trauma. To throw suspicion off of himself, Gorman frames a professor who was involved with the student illicitly, in the process retaliating for the latter's affair with Gorman's wife.

Eventually, when confronted about certain information about his wife being withheld (namely, that Iselda Brannigan was Gorman's wife, with whom Jack had an unwitting affair), Gorman reveals his resentment towards Jack for his involvement with the former's wife, then taunts Jack about the latter's suspicions against him.

Thereafter, Gorman captures Garda Kate Noonan, drugging and torturing her, luring Kate's superior, as well as Jack, to his hideout, and forcing her to decide who lives. Meanwhile he mentions that he murdered his own wife in retaliation for her blatant disregard for their marriage.

Gorman manipulates a student whose eye Jack had previously injured into garrotting Jack, only for Jack to fight the assailant off and convince him to back down. Meanwhile, Gorman kills the superior by impaling him.

Finally, once Jack arrives at Gorman's hideout, Gorman forces him at gunpoint to perform a scene from Deirdre of the Sorrows by J. M. Synge, before attempting to shoot himself as Jack attempts to prevent Kate's death. However, he is thwarted by Jack's assistant, Cody Farraher, who calls emergency services.

Ultimately, it's curtains for the Dramatist as Kate recuperates and Gorman is arrested.

Heinousness?

Gorman has less resources than Trevor Lanpert (the killer who drowned young girls), but he drugs and tortures 3 women, killing two of them (one by dropping her to death, one by invoking suspension trauma), had previously induced a morphine overdose in his wife, sends a student to kill Jack Taylor, and personally stabs Kate's superior when confronted. This makes for a body count of four, attempted body count of six. Considering he is competing with Lanpert, a vigilante squad, an abusive nun, a pedophile priest, a woman targeting a family, crime gangs, a group of gunmen, and petty criminals, his attempted body count is nothing to sneeze at.

Within the episode itself, Gorman has to compete with a shopkeeper who deals drugs and attempts to sexually assault an undercover cop. It is hard to tell whether the shopkeeper had committed sexual assault before, or how many victims (if any) he had previously. Gorman also has to compete with a different professor who is involved with students, but Gorman blows the latter out of the water.

Mitigating Factors?

Gorman is not portrayed sympathetically, inasmuch as he is portrayed as going way too far in his attempt to get back at his wife's infidelity.

Gorman's motive and vengeful personality are clearly defined, with Gorman being extremely bitter towards the men with whom his wife was unfaithful, as well as expressing misogynistic sentiments.

Verdict?

A possible contender.

Edited by SkyCat32 on Apr 10th 2022 at 10:06:16 AM

Yeah I'll give to Professor Eugene Gorman (though it would help if you could give some idea of what those other antagonists body counts are like).

Edited by MGD107 on Dec 20th 2020 at 4:47:03 AM

Average body count per person is around 2-3.

Pedophile priest only molests two boys and rapes one woman last I watched, so I was unsure if he was heinous enough next to my other candidates. I may yet look into him however. Also, Lanpert has killed 10 for certain, but has more resources, and is said to have hurt an undetermined amount more.

Edited by SkyCat32 on Dec 20th 2020 at 8:46:10 AM

Thank you. In that case I'll definitely give an to the Dramatist.

So Gorman has 4 with 2 more attempted, while the average has 2-3. How many does that first keeper have?

Leaning yes though.

Also, Pedophile Priest? Any reason he doesn't count?

Edited by ACW on Dec 20th 2020 at 7:48:34 AM

Yes to Gorman.

As for Father Royce, the Pedophile Priest, I may make a case for him later.

Edit: Royce seems like he may care for his brother, if attending the latter's funeral before his own demise is any indication, and I see no evidence to the contrary.

Edited by SkyCat32 on Dec 20th 2020 at 9:23:09 AM