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Anime's Fiercest Frenemies

Gemnist wrote:

But the way [Suzaku] kept on switching back and forth between these personas for the sake of the plot during R2 made me lose faith in him as a character. And the Akito the Exiled OVAs make this worse by revealing his true intentions - to become the Knight of One, sure, but not to take over Japan, but to annihilate humanity in Euphemia's name (even Schneizel would be disgusted).

For the record, this is not an accurate description at all. Which makes that part of your interpretation essentially incorrect. We see just one new character in the Akito the Exiled OVAs who briefly pretends to psychoanalyze Suzaku, because he (Shin) sees some of himself in our infamous Japanese knight, but that doesn't mean he is right. The similarities between Shin and Suzaku are limited to murdering family members.

In fact, Shin is ultimately quite wrong. Suzaku was often self-destructive and definitely had the ability to commit murder, which he tried to escape from through his preachy and superficial idealism. That was all used as a cover to hide from the guilt he felt due to killing his own father, but he never literally wished to destroy the world or murder most of humanity. That was exclusively what Shin wanted, not Suzaku. It wouldn't be fair to confuse the two like that. I think you may have to rewatch that whole sequence again.

At the same time, I will point out that Suzaku is meant to be a living contradiction. The events of the end of Code Geass S1 had started to break him, but the process wasn't complete yet. It's not only "for the sake of plot" that he has trouble getting rid of his idealism and openly embracing the dark part of his personality. It's not easy to go from one extreme to the other. He still needed to fully snap. Which is why I think your claim that Suzaku "got worse" is technically true but almost besides the point. In the end, his resolution was surprisingly constructive though: Suzaku stopped running away from the past, accepted a new form of punishment and abandoned his self-destructive idealism. However, that wasn't based on "Euphie-Vengeance" at all. In fact, you could argue Suzaku adopted some of Lelouch's ideas in the process (and, vice versa, Lelouch gave some credit to the whole "changing Britannia from the inside" concept as part of his final plan, though in a very different sense than what Suzaku meant).

Well, 500 words of description can only do so much. While they are the closest of friends right before becoming the worst of enemies, the actual journey there is a series of contentious growth spurts, and the reasons for their growing friendship are mostly wrapped up in their own ego problems. Their first meeting is a potentially fatal duel for Griffith's right to "own" Guts as a pawn, and there are points in their relationship where Guts genuinely hates and feels confused by Griffith's decisions, while Griffith never really gives Guts the satisfaction of calling him a friend (because that would make them equals). Before Griffith sells his soul for demonic power, right when it seems like he's about to take the throne, Guts up and leaves the mercenary band against his commander's wishes, because he'd rather go out and live his own life than continue serving under someone so obviously superior to him. Griffith doesn't see it that way, because he's started to feel like Guts is even stronger than him on the inside as well as the outside. If Griffith was a true friend to Guts, this wouldn't bother him, but because he put so much stock in his ability to control the guy, he completely freaks out when Guts decides to leave him, seeing it as a failing in what should be his perfect rise to kingdom.

So yeah, they have lots of love-hate issues even before the whole hellish blood-eclipse-feast thing happens.

In essence, Shin was analyzing the whole situation, and for the most part, he was correct.

JesuOtaku wrote:

Well, 500 words of description can only do so much. While they are the closest of friends right before becoming the worst of enemies, the actual journey there is a series of contentious growth spurts, and the reasons for their growing friendship are mostly wrapped up in their own ego problems. Their first meeting is a potentially fatal duel for Griffith's right to "own" Guts as a pawn, and there are points in their relationship where Guts genuinely hates and feels confused by Griffith's decisions, while Griffith never really gives Guts the satisfaction of calling him a friend (because that would make them equals). Before Griffith sells his soul for demonic power, right when it seems like he's about to take the throne, Guts up and leaves the mercenary band against his commander's wishes, because he'd rather go out and live his own life than continue serving under someone so obviously superior to him. Griffith doesn't see it that way, because he's started to feel like Guts is even stronger than him on the inside as well as the outside. If Griffith was a true friend to Guts, this wouldn't bother him, but because he put so much stock in his ability to control the guy, he completely freaks out when Guts decides to leave him, seeing it as a failing in what should be his perfect rise to kingdom. So yeah, they have lots of love-hate issues even before the whole hellish blood-eclipse-feast thing happens.

Alright, after reading through all that, I can accept Guts and Griffiths as being frenemies, before becoming straight-up enemies. You can have some envy towards a friend, but if it goes too far, you enter frenemy territory, and if it goes too far beyond that, then you're not really friends at all, but rather just putting on a front while you look for a chance to stick in the shiv.

Well, 500 words of description can only do so much. While they are the closest of friends right before becoming the worst of enemies, the actual journey there is a series of contentious growth spurts, and the reasons for their growing friendship are mostly wrapped up in their own ego problems. Their first meeting is a potentially fatal duel for Griffith's right to "own" Guts as a pawn, and there are points in their relationship where Guts genuinely hates and feels confused by Griffith's decisions, while Griffith never really gives Guts the satisfaction of calling him a friend (because that would make them equals). Before Griffith sells his soul for demonic power, right when it seems like he's about to take the throne, Guts up and leaves the mercenary band against his commander's wishes, because he'd rather go out and live his own life than continue serving under someone so obviously superior to him. Griffith doesn't see it that way, because he's started to feel like Guts is even stronger than him on the inside as well as the outside. If Griffith was a true friend to Guts, this wouldn't bother him, but because he put so much stock in his ability to control the guy, he completely freaks out when Guts decides to leave him, seeing it as a failing in what should be his perfect rise to kingdom.

I'm not entirely sure if it's because he wants to find and achieve a dream of his own so he can meet Griffith again as equal, or if it's merely because he doesn't believe he has a stake in Griffith's dream and wants to leave the Hawks to let only those who believe in that dream be a part of it.

I think Kaiba and Yugi may have not been mentioned because, at least to me, they don't seem like friends.