The Unbeatable Character

How to write the archetype of 'The Strongest'

There’s a popular saying: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But what if power doesn’t corrupt? What if it reveals? When someone has the power to do whatever they want, you find out exactly what it is that they truly want to do. So what does that say about them as a person?

There are many manga and anime that feature the concept of ‘The Strongest’. These are the characters that set the benchmark for strength — the ones that are so far above everyone else they might as well be invincible. Their actions drive the plot, sometimes even more so than the protagonist. Done well, they can be incredibly interesting characters that raise stakes and deliver the themes of the story. Done poorly, and they can rob the plot of tension and destroy the reader’s suspension of disbelief.

In this post, I’m looking at three similar yet vastly different ways in which the ‘Strongest’ archetype is written.

Note: this post contains spoilers for Sakamoto Days by Yuto Suzuki, My Hero Academia by Kohei Horikoshi and Jujutsu Kaisen by Gege Akutami.

The Unstoppable Force

Takamura (Sakamoto Days)

I was late to the Sakamoto Days bandwagon, but better late than never, I guess. In a story about superhuman assassins, Takamura is easily the most powerful. So powerful, in fact, that the villains only attacked the Japanese Assasin’s Association because they thought he died of old age.

There are many examples of powerful old men in anime. For most of them, we get some flashback or backstory explaining how they got so powerful. Takamura doesn’t have that, and I think this was a genius decision. We know basically nothing about Takamura. We have no backstory, no motivation, no training montage. We don’t even know his first name. He’s more like a horror movie villain than anything else — he arrives, kills people, and then leaves. Nothing anyone throws at him can harm him, or even slow him down. He’s less a character than a force of nature — Something that can’t be fought by humans. Something that just appears one day, mows down everything in its path, and leaves.

Takamura’s only loyalty is to the Japanese Assassin’s Association. This makes him a complete wildcard. He can either be with our against our heroes. Either way, whenever he shows up someone dies. Normally a lot of someones.

I do think Suzuki fumbled in writing his death. I get that Takamura was too powerful and had to be removed from the story, but the way it happened just felt incredibly contrived. Maybe Suzuki could have established a weakness in advance, or had multiple top tiers sacrifice their lives to take him down. Plot armor is just as egregious when villains have it, and there are too many stories that don’t get that.

The Symbol of Peace

All Might (My Hero Academia)

In the world of My Hero Academia, All Might is the most powerful hero. So powerful, in fact, that he single-handedly ushers in a new, peaceful age of superhuman society. His power has a lot more limitations than that of the other characters I’m talking about here, but individual strength isn’t what makes him so powerful.

All Might is the Superman of his story, the ultimate superhero. He is the symbol of peace and hope. His very existence acts as a deterrent to crime. Potential villains keep the law because they know that if they don’t All Might will stop them. Others relax when he’s around because they know that he can’t lose, that he will save them no matter what.

What makes All Might so interesting is his struggle to live up to the ideal that he himself has created. He has built up this image of himself as the perfect superhero, unstoppable and invincible. But he is in reality neither of these things, and struggles with an old injury and a prophecy about his death while desperately searching for a successor. His feeling of responsibility is so strong that he keeps fighting, even after he loses his powers.

A major theme of My Hero Academia is society’s overdependence on external figures — heroes — to do the right thing, to save people. The peaceful hero society was so dependent on figures like All Might that after he retired, the crime rate immediately shot up.

All Might is a tragic figure — one who had to shoulder the burden of upholding hero society. We should not need heroes to do the right thing for us. The story ends with everyone — civilians and heroes — giving their all, trying to fix the flaws in hero society together.

The Human Weapon

Satoru Gojo (Jujutsu Kaisen)

Satoru Gojo is perhaps the most famous example of this trope. His entire character revolves around him being ‘The Strongest’ and how his strength affected his life.

From birth, Gojo was marked as a prodigy born only once in a century. He was separated from his family, and raised alone to train his abilities. Gojo’s power made him incredibly arrogant, but also incredibly lonely. How do you form bonds with others when you were born in a domain that nobody else can reach? how do you relate to those who feel pain, fear and helplessness every day, when you are incapable of feeling those things?

Geto was his only real friend, the only one he saw him as an equal. The Gojo surpassed him too, and then had to kill him. He had other friends too, but no one who really understood him. To them, he was a weapon — the ultimate sorcerer, the first line of defense against the monsters that they fought.

There’s a popular saying — those who fight monsters become monsters themselves. Jujutsu sorcerers see horrifying traumatic things every day, but cannot let it affect them lest they lose focus and die. Gojo’s power makes him the most important sorcerer, the one who has seen the most. He may be invincible, but the people he cares about aren’t.

All other sorcerers have someone they can rely on, someone whom they could entrust their final wishes to. Who can Gojo rely on? What support system does he have. Most people would demand that he take on their burden by himself, that he spend his entire existence killing curses. And while a part of him relishes the challenge, another part acknowledges its impossibility.

This is why Gojo became a teacher — to raise a new generation where everyone is as powerful as him, so that he won’t have to be alone. That’s why he asks Yuji to forget about him in the final chapter. He’s not talking about himself as a person, he’s talking about Satoru Gojo as an idea. The idea of one sorcerer as the strongest, far above everyone else. He knows the loneliness of that kind of existence. In the future, he wants everyone to be strong enough to support each other and take on threats together.

Conclusion

Some of the best examples of the archetype of ‘The Strongest’ do a deep exploration of the unique consequences and burdens that come with being the strongest. It can lead these characters to project a certain image. It can cause them to be isolated from those around them. Alternately, you can leave their past and motivations unknown, making them a terrifying force. This archetype has some of the coolest characters in anime. Written wrong, these characters can feel like Mary Sues who destroy tension and need to be written out of the plot. Written well, and they can say a lot about the consequences of absolute strength.