Alright
@SakazOuki I’m going to explain why I don’t believe Shouheikun is the Shanks/Mary Sue/Self-Insert of Kingdom:
1. Shouheikun was a straight up antagonist for the first 500ish chapters of the manga. He was almost a straight up villain and one of the chief officers of the villainous faction in Qin. Shanks and Gojo are the good guys, the mangaka wants you to like him. Hara really doesn’t try to make us like Shouheikun until 400 chapters into Kingdom lol.
2. Shouheikun fails pretty often. The Coalition War was straight up his own failure and he admitted this. All because he got outplayed by the Godboku and Shunshinkun. Shanks and Gojo-esque characters rarely fail, and if they fail it’s because the writer wants to give them an emotional death or some BS like that.
3. Hara never draws Shouheikun dripping with women/being constantly oogled by admirers. Riboku verbally made Shouheikun his bitch in the prelude to Western Zhao. The manga usually gives self-inserts/Mary Sues the last words. Shanks is literally dripping with women and worshippers, and he ended the fucking Marineford war lol.
4. Outside of the battle of Kanyou, Hara never wanks Shouheikun’s strength. Even including the battle of Kanyou, Hara has never had Shouheikun as the strongest character in Kingdom at any point. Shouheikun is a politician past his martial prime and this is how he’s referenced in combat. Shanks is wanked into oblivion constantly by Oda, Oda refuses to draw Shanks in a remotely poor light.
5. History spoilers but…what happens to Shouheikun is not Mary Sue shit lol. Shanks will probably have an ending similar to Ouki in that he does some incredibly emotional death where Oda wanks him the entire time. Not even remotely close to what happens to Shouheikun lol.
So yeah, don’t call Shouheikun a Shanks or a Gojo, it takes a special kind of twat to write Shanks into a manga.
@Owl Ki @TheKnightOfTheSea @MarineHQ