Makishima is the best anime villain you’ve ever heard of

When we talk about classic or great villains, the likes of Griffith, Johan, and Frieza will always appear. However, very few people know about the existence of Makishima. He seriously underestimates this masked villain. What is the world he lives in, his ideals, is he right or wrong, and how does he go about his plan? in anime psychological corridor, the world has become more cyberpunk and Japan is controlled by the divination system. However, no one seemed to mind divination being a system that would perfect society. This is where Makishima comes in.

To understand why Makishima is so great, we need to know what he is fighting against. The divination system measures the psychological passage of all its citizens which is their mental state such as stress, happiness, anger, etc. This, in turn, will make themselves rise or remain low. If its value increases, the crime coefficient becomes higher. If they become elevated, they must be rehabilitated or killed. If the citizens remain low, they will be considered the ideal member of the society. If it rises sufficiently, the concerned citizen is seen to be more likely to commit a crime and become undesirable in the society. In some cases, the psychological mass will become too high to be salvaged and either be exterminated or institutionalized forever. However, it is more than just that. Divination will determine by the results of the test what jobs you are allowed to do.

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Although this society is technically functioning, there is a serious lack of freedom. People are more like sheep than ever before because they are completely dependent on the rule of the system. This is where our main characters, Akune and Kogami, come in, because they are part of the police force. They are tasked with hunting down these citizens with high rates of crime and either exterminating or paralyzing them using the Controller. The controller will use divination intelligence and read the psychic passage of the person you are targeting.

Makishima character

One thing Makishima does differently from a lot of other villains is that we see him in private. See what his hobbies are and what he likes to discuss. We know from his conversations that he loves classic literature from the likes of Shakespeare, Philip. K. Dick and Jonathan Swift. This is important for us as an audience to connect with Makishima beyond his interesting philosophies and ideals. These are small talks and interactions, but they provide a lot of insight into his character.

One line says it strikes a chord. He’s having a conversation and says the community is now like the Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. He tells his partner that it is a classic, watches the movie and compares it to the book. His partner says he will get an e-book from him. Makishima immediately answers:

“No, don’t buy the e-book. e-books lack personality.”

He goes on to talk about how real books can best serve the human mind if they are kept stimulating and authentic. This interaction shows how not all things in this futuristic world are to his liking, and how he appreciates the old way of doing things.

Makishima has a certain mentality, you can say that he is a genius of observation and philosophy. He is seeking knowledge and due to this extremely rare mentality, the divination system cannot properly read his psychic scroll no matter what he does. It has been described as asymptomatic. Because of Makishima’s way of thinking, the divination system can’t tell if he’s doing right or wrong. Already he can see the so-called “perfect order” is not what it seems.

Makishima sees this lack of freedom and constantly tests people. The best example of this is Akune. He has her friend holding a blade on her neck. However, Akune’s dominant wouldn’t read Makishima at the level of criminals. Then he said, “According to your controller, I am a perfectly sane citizen.” Makishima even threw an old classic shotgun at her to kill him. This was done as a test of her morals and judgment to see if she could do so without telling the clairvoyant. She struggles to kill Makishima without the divination’s permission, because the only life she’s known is one where you follow the divination’s orders and not your judgment. This scene displays two great messages that Makishima represents: 1) how people cannot do anything without the permission of a fortune-teller 2) how this “ideal” system treats Makishima like the ideal citizen of society despite his obvious brutal tendencies.

It begs a philosophical question: What kind of criteria do you use to divide people into good and evil? And can you make up your mind about what is good and bad when a system as cruel as divination dictates your decisions?

Ironically, the villain in the story represents freedom. Makishima is free of order and can do whatever he wants. He’s not just a mindless killer either. He wants people to understand his goals, and he wants people to see the reality of how he manipulates them on a daily basis. We see throughout the story that the divination system keeps the information private to maintain its perfect image. Even the existence of asymptomatic people like Makishima is unknown.

Makishima helps create helmets that can read the slightest psychic pass in the neighborhood and make it their own reading, which means criminals who own these helmets can commit crimes with impunity while maintaining a low psychic pass score and remaining undetected by Sybil. Makishima highlights it to the public, but it has little impact on how effective it is as it is up to the audience.

The man wears this mask and goes out to the audience and brutally kills a woman. What is the response? nothing. People are watching and not getting involved because they are very afraid that their environmental crime rate will rise. They have AI guards patrolling, but they just watch the masked guy has a great psychic pass. What’s interesting about this clip is how the people who witnessed the murder have a psyche of their own just by being a bystander to the crime. Because of their witnessing this brutality, it made their mental state more vulnerable.

Now that there are more masks available to the public. How do people react? The audience got fed up and started hitting anyone who was wearing a mask or suspected of wearing it. Riots swept Japan, all because Makishima gave the people freedom of choice. Did Makishima manipulate anyone in this? No, did I force someone to do this? No, this was all done by society and all it took was a small batch of Makishima.

Is Makishima right?

Makishima presents interesting questions, proposes to this new world, and vividly depicts the flaws within the system. Makishima leaves us in a moral confrontation with his actions which are the same for him. Once we see the divination for the dark truth behind it, it’s clear that Makishima has been right all along about the system and how society has changed for the worse. Is it wrong for Makishima to try to eliminate this system that lies to her society? It is not easy to answer. That’s what makes Makishima such a great villain. Although he is morally complex, we can understand his view as we can see the corruption of the world.

Makishima contrasts beautifully with the world around him and proves that divination is wrong, once it exists. Talking about the simplest of things whimsically and making his point so eloquently, Makishima deserves more credit for all of his morally challenging questions and being a rare villain for drawing the audience to his side and showing what he might do best.

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