Forgiveness in anime

Forgiveness is not only about giving someone a second chance; it’s also the way to fix the damage he caused. Shonen stories are simplistic by nature, so they often find a way to reset everything very easily. Naruto’s message works within the context of the story because Obito resurrected everyone as soon as he was forgiven, and then died so he won’t be around to face the consequences.

Vegeta killed dozens of billions of people in Dragonball, but the blame was thrown at the even bigger villain above him. Let’s completely disregard the fact bloodthirsty Saiyans enjoy fighting other races even when they are not being manipulated. And of course there were always the Dragonballs to resurrect the dead. The consequences for Vegeta’s actions were swept under the rug and forgotten soon afterwards, because now it’s all about aristeia and if he ever manages to surpass Goku in power.

Of course and forgiveness is not easy in reality where everything can’t be fixed with magic. Superficial stories have a dozen ways to make the characters in-series forget very easily, or get amnesia, or come back to life and pretend nothing happened. One of the worst cases I know of is in One Piece, where Usopp and Luffy have a seriously dramatic dispute that results in him leaving the team. By the end of that arc, he comes back and everyone acts as if it was some minor misunderstanding, instead of an extremely serious and heart breaking moment that was leaving plenty of room for character development. Gones be bygones, let’s keep splitting the team in every island we go to as always. It’s been almost 800 episodes with zero character development and the audience doesn’t mind it because it’s equally as forgiving.

Forgiving to the point of absurdity. Lulu in Code Geass kills billions of people, brainwashes countless more, all for his selfish desires and everybody treats him like he’s a hero who died for the greater good. Only he didn’t die, he faked his death and he will be back soon, so why the hell is everybody calling a guy who killed half the planet a hero? Are they all going to forgive him and carry on like nothing happened? It’s easy to accept the logic of a show just because it makes it sound like you should forgive and forget the terrible things that just happened a few seconds ago. That doesn’t make them any better, or you any smarter.

By the way, forgiveness is not the root of the problem, since the exact opposite can be equally lame. Akame ga Kill was initially hyped up as mature because the heroes were not forgiving the villains ala Naruto, and were killing them on the spot. The lack of forgiveness did not make the show any better. It was equally shallow and stupid as in the other cases I mentioned. It comes down to how it’s presented.