Was Kusaka REALLY that bad?

[Scissors]

We were discussing the similarities between Kusaka and Micchy in the latest Gaim thread, and I thought it could be interesting to have a debate about this character without hijacking the Gaim thread.

Okay, if we put the novels aside and look at the TV-show Kusaka, was he a jerk? Yes.
Did he do some nasty things? Yes he did.
But having re-watched Faiz recently, I started to see Kusaka in a new light. The show really wanted to hammer you in the head with the fact that he was an asshole, but we often forget the reasons WHY he acted like an asshole.

Ok, so let us look at his first few episodes. He is shown to behave normally around his former classmates, and overall there is nothing about him that screams "asshole!"
But have you ever noticed how Takumi treats him during their first meeting? He starts acting like a complete douche, who wants to show off (and does so badly)
At that point, Kusaka does not hate him. He just think he is strange.
Then later on, on the race track, Kusaka again talks to him, and this is interesting. Because the first time I watched Faiz, I was thinking "Ugh! He just wants to brag about how good he is"
But the fact is, he does not brag about anything.
He just says that he likes to test himself. He is not going on about how perfect he is, or how he can win over everyone.
And for absolutely no reason, Takumi starts acting like a jerk to him, and Kusaka (politely) tells Takumi that he shouldn't talk like that to others, but Takumi openly admits that this is how he talks to people.

Next time he sees Takumi, he is about to go into a fist fight with one of the other students (the other Kusaka), because the guy pushed Mari.
Kusaka comes in and stops them, saying that fighting won't solve anything, and that acting like a jerk is bad sportsmanship.
Takumi then immediately picks a new fight, saying he wants to compete with him in sports.
If I was Kusaka at that point, my tolerance would have been used up.

Then they do a fencing match, which Kusaka wins fair and square, and what does Takumi do? He starts throwing his fists at him.
How would YOU react if a guy started attacking you for winning over him in a match?

Then there is his hatred for the Orphnochs.
Can you REALLY blame him for that with all the **** he has been through? And while it is true that he attacks Yuka, he has no idea at that point that she is friendly.
Some might say that he wouldn't care, but as we see later on in the show, he IS able to tolerate Kaido, even though he does not like him.
I don't remember Takumi trying to explain to him that Yuka was not bad.
I do however remember him attacking Kusaka, while he was trying to defeat an Orphnoch, who he THOUGHT was bad.

Okay. There is no excuse for Kusaka being a dick to Kiba (even before he knew what he was)
I honestly have no idea what was up with that scene, because Kusaka was seen acting normally around other people, so why the sudden hate for a wounded man who asks for water?
I kept feeling that this was a bad attempt on Inoue's behalf to make us hate Kusaka more. But in the plot itself, it makes no sense.

So in my conclusion, I would say that while Kusaka was not an angel, he never really got the chance to be friendly.
Takumi was an asshole to him from Day 1, and would have continued to be an asshole even if Kusaka had tried to be friendly. If you met a guy who acted like Takumi 24/7, wouldn’t you be pissed off too?

 

[Black Fang]

The problem with Kusaka is how over-the-top he was written in his "grayness". It would've been one thing to feud with Takumi and others over things, but to make him some manipulative, obsessive mental case to boot? All it did was make him "the guy everyone loves to hate." They could have made him a sort of Magneto for the heroes (just as SMART BRAIN was the actual Magneto and Co. of Faiz) while Takumi and Kiba were the Xaviers.

I don't remember Takumi trying to explain to him that Yuka was not bad.
I do however remember him attacking Kusaka, while he was trying to defeat an Orphnoch, who he THOUGHT was bad.

But did Kusaka really need to launch a bunch of missiles at Takumi from his bike because of an argument? (Though perhaps that was a Bandai decision to shill Side Basshar at the least appropriate time.)

Micchi at this point is "Kusaka done right". He's going down a dark road but you can still somewhat empathize with him. Less and less as we go, but still.

 

[Ivanhobe]

You do make some valid points about how Kusaka is initially portrayed as an 'ok', or dare i say, 'good' guy, but that´s the thing, what makes Kusaka so easy to hate is how he acts as a good guy towards everyone as long as it is convenient to him, but once he shows his true colors you realize that his facade is nothing but a tool he uses to manipulate people.

Just look at his relationship with Mary and Takumi; he is jealous of the fact that Takumi is basically Mary´s best friend, and so he plots to break and destroy Takumi, going so far as to try and turn Kiba and Takumi against each other. This is particularly grating because, even though Takumi is pretty much the only one who knows Kusaka´s true colors, he does nothing about it and even tries to maintain and OK relationship with him (he did mourned his death) even when the guy literally tried to turn all of his friends against him.

Even if you try to break down his character, there really isn´t anything on his background that explains this behaviour; he is not a man driven to the edge by his life circumstances, he is a psycho (shall i remind you that he wanted for mary to be his mom, even as a kid?) who is not above sacrificing his so called 'friends' just to achieve his goals.

For the sake of context, let´s go back in time to 1991 and watch Jetman, or more especifically, the character of Black Condor.

It is common knowledge that Black Condor is the template from which Kusaka Masato was born, even the actors look alike, but while Black Condor went from being a selfish Jerk to selfish hero who cared for his friends, Kusaka never really grew as a character; from his first appareance to the moment of his death he remained a selfish jerk with no real redeeming qualities. They did toned down his behaviour eventually, but 'not being a complete jerk' hardly qualifies as character growth, especially when it leads nowhere.

Micchi at this point is "Kusaka done right". He's going down a dark road but you can still somewhat empathize with him. Less and less as we go, but still.

And speaking of character growth, this is where i say Micchi has easily outdone kusaka.

Now let me say this, i do not hate Mitsuzane and i really don´t think he deserves all the hate he gets. To be honest, i would never call him "The New Kusaka" since he really is a completely different type of character.

But back to my point, unlike Kusaka, Micchi has shown a progressive growth as a character; he started as a smart kid who admired Kouta because of his free spirit and noble nature, but most importantly, he admired how people respected Kouta, unlike him whom people were constantly being condescendent towards because they still saw him as a kid. This created a solid background for Micchi to pursue 'authority', and this created a conflict with Kouta because the Orange Rider refuses to aknowledge Micchi as nothing more than a smart kid who is his friend.

This is what lead Micchi to 'become' evil, and even though we can agree that he is in the wrong, there has been a real progression to his persona, so even if we can´t agree with his view we can still understand how he came to be and that makes him sympatethic. I would even dare to say Mitsuzane is not beyond redemption, while a character like Kusaka could only be redeemed through a brainwash or a reboot.

Now to be fair and go back to Kusaka, if there is one reason why people bash Kaixa so much is because more than hating him, people love to hate him, and this is due to how charismatic his actor is; say what you want about Kusaka, whenever he went full psycho, he chewed the scenery harder than any other character on the series, or dare i say, more than any other Inoue-written character ever.

We love to hate Kusaka because of how over the top he is, and i will argue that while Micchi has made quite a good villain, he is not nearly as charismatic. He is certainly more sympathetic, but i doubt he will live on in our hearts the way Kusaka Masato did*.

*Note: Should i remind you that we still celebrate Kaixa day?

 

[Japaneseseriesfan]

Kusaka wasn't that bad. In fact, I actually liked him and found his hatred and reasonings to be justified... for himself.

And as for your last sentence, I can't help but say that my friends and my parents who saw the show pretty much said I had Takumi's personality... So, I don't mind if people get pissed off at me. It's not my obligation to explain anything to people, because I know that sometimes, if I talk, things might actually get worse than it already is. That's why I shut up and go back to minding my own business and blowing the steam off my cup noodles.

 

[Toku Prime]

I always found Faiz to be a show that had very high ambitions, possibly the highest ambitions of all (at least out of the Heisei Riders). It didn't match those ambitions with it's execution, but that's a rant for another time :sweat:

I've mentioned it before (apologies to anyone who's reading this again) but IMO Faiz is a show about prejudice and discrimination. Every single Orphanoch has spent their entire life being ground underfoot and ultimately killed by the humans. There are people on both sides who have become hate-filled and want violence and people on both sides who want to come to an understanding. The bad guys in the show are the ones that embrace their hatred and the good guys are the ones standing up for tolerance and understanding (there's also a hell of a lot of "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" going on).

Within the context of that, Kusaka was the 'far-right racist' character. Yes, something terrible happened to him and an Orphanoch was responsible. But his reaction to that is to decide that every single Orphanoch is irredeemably evil and must be killed on sight, and he sees nothing wrong with what is basically genocide. Even when Takumi proves his belief wrong time and time again, he clings to it because he can't see beyond his prejudices. Just to put the cherry on top, he also has something of a "can't have our women fraternizing with their kind" attitude.

His role within the show is to be that terrible human being that makes the audience understand why the Orphanochs' desire to fight back is not just "they're the monsters so they must be evil because the rules of the genre say so". Without him all the human main characters would be good guys and that would undermine the Orphanoch's grievance.

TLDR he's a necessary character, but IMO the show needs you to hate him in order to fullfill his role in the story.

 

[Lockon]

The thing about comparing Kusaka to Gai is that, while I can get that they're SUPPOSED to be similar, I just really don't see it. Part of what made Gai likable to me was his lack of shame for his attitude. He never pretended to be someone he's not, something that Kusaka continually does. Maybe it's just me and my disgust for liars and hypocrites, but that slimy two-faced SOB is someone I'd beat into a pulp if I ever met him in any scenario anywhere. And the hilarious thing is, there is a character that is much more like Gai then Kusaka, more specifically Kaidou.

 

[Murphy]

I always found Faiz to be a show that had very high ambitions, possibly the highest ambitions of all (at least out of the Heisei Riders). It didn't match those ambitions with it's execution, but that's a rant for another time :sweat:

I've mentioned it before (apologies to anyone who's reading this again) but IMO Faiz is a show about prejudice and discrimination. Every single Orphanoch has spent their entire life being ground underfoot and ultimately killed by the humans. There are people on both sides who have become hate-filled and want violence and people on both sides who want to come to an understanding. The bad guys in the show are the ones that embrace their hatred and the good guys are the ones standing up for tolerance and understanding (there's also a hell of a lot of "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" going on).

Within the context of that, Kusaka was the 'far-right racist' character. Yes, something terrible happened to him and an Orphanoch was responsible. But his reaction to that is to decide that every single Orphanoch is irredeemably evil and must be killed on sight, and he sees nothing wrong with what is basically genocide. Even when Takumi proves his belief wrong time and time again, he clings to it because he can't see beyond his prejudices. Just to put the cherry on top, he also has something of a "can't have our women fraternizing with their kind" attitude.

You know, that had never occurred to me before, but it makes perfect sense. Kusaka is like the perfect representation of a far-right racist, right down to massive sexual insecurities.

Also, to the topic at large: Yeeeaaah, Kusaka really is that bad. He takes advantage of Takumi's antisocial nature to basically engineer situations that are meant to make him look bad, he's completely unreasonable in his hatred of Orphenochs, he's consistently and knowingly deceptive and, not unlike Micchy, he has stalkery tendencies towards a female character, although unlike Micchy there's a tinge of the Oedipal to his obsession.

 

[Yoona]

Also, to the topic at large: Yeeeaaah, Kusaka really is that bad. He takes advantage of Takumi's antisocial nature to basically engineer situations that are meant to make him look bad, he's completely unreasonable in his hatred of Orphenochs, he's consistently and knowingly deceptive and, not unlike Micchy, he has stalkery tendencies towards a female character, although unlike Micchy there's a tinge of the Oedipal to his obsession.

There's no tinge about it, he flat out tells Mari he wants her because she reminds him of his mother. I believe he even says "You could be my mother" to her.

I think you could argue there is a hint of something Oedipal in Micchy's behaviour: we see neither of his parents and Takatora, while he tries his best, is mostly absent and not a particularly strong parental figure. Micchy instead idolised Kouta and Mai, two slightly older teens who are a more constant presence in his life. We now see him turning on Kouta and trying to kill him so that he can take Kouta's place in Mai's affections (or at least, that's how Micchy perceives it). Read like that it's a rather standard Oedipal narrative. But to be honest that's just me speculating for fun's sake, I don't think that's what the show is actually trying to suggest.

 

[lazycoconut]

I like Kusaka. Mainly because he's not someone we're supposed to see as heroic - Kusaka, an antagonist, being a dick is less aggravating to me than Takumi, who should be the hero, being a dick. By the end of the show I was positively rooting for Kusaka to kill the rest of the cast because I found them all so loathsome, particularly Kiba. Kiba is just a piece of ****, if any of the Faiz cast is to be held up as the worst character in the franchise it should be him.

 

[Toku Prime]

You know, that had never occurred to me before, but it makes perfect sense. Kusaka is like the perfect representation of a far-right racist, right down to massive sexual insecurities.

I've never read anything from an official source to confirm it, and I'm always cautious about reading too much into things or identifying themes (such as the one I suggested here) that have so much cultural and historical baggage, because there may be so much that's getting lost in translation or was never intended to be implied. But I can't help but watch Kusaka and see comparisons with a racist or a homophobe. :redface2:

Also, to the topic at large: Yeeeaaah, Kusaka really is that bad. He takes advantage of Takumi's antisocial nature to basically engineer situations that are meant to make him look bad

That was one of those elements that Inoue had also used in Agito (with Hojo's rivalry with the G3 unit) and in both cases I think he waaay overdid it, to the point where I just got sick of it. In this case Kusaka's constant attempts to drive a wedge between Takumi and his friends just made those characters look stupid for constantly being fooled, and Takumi himself went beyond being an underdog and started to look just a bit pathetic. It's one of the reasons that for me he's not just a villain (which you can still enjoy watching - I found Ouja really entertaining) but someone I grew to hate....

There's no tinge about it, he flat out tells Mari he wants her because she reminds him of his mother. I believe he even says "You could be my mother" to her.

...and this would be the other. It's also why I disliked Kou (Kibaranger) from Dairanger. It's just one of those things that for me instantly throws a character into "you creep me out, get off my screen" territory.

Gotta say, I don't know what I'll think if it turns out that Kusaka is portrayed as good guy in Heisei vs. Showa. For me, he's firmly in the villains camp.