Ask John: Do Any Anime Have a False Protagonist?

Question:
Are there any anime series that make use of a false protagonist?

Answer:
Spoiler warning!

The narrative technique of “false protagonist” is the action of obscuring the identity of a story’s leading character or misleading the reader/viewer to mistake whom the story is actually about. When used effectively, the technique creates a shocking or revelatory surprise. When used clumsily, it’s simply aggravating. The literary technique of creating a false protagonist should not be confused with a natural narrative progression and graduation from one protagonist to another. For example, Son Goku dying part way through Dragon Ball Z and his elder son Gohan becoming the series’ primary character is not representative of false protagonist. During the first half of the story, Son Goku was the story’s protagonist. The story made no effort to obscure that fact and no attempt to mislead viewers. The transition to Son Gohan becoming the series protagonist for a while is a natural story development, not a surprise revelation of the series’ true focal character. In an instance of false protagonist, the person the story is actually about is not whom or what the audience is led to believe. This manipulative literary technique is not new at all, but most of the anime titles that have used it are fairly recent. I’m sure that I’m not familiar with all of the examples, but I can identify a few.

The technique is used with shocking effectiveness in the first episode of the 2008 Garei Zero television series. The entire first episode leads viewers to believe that Touru, Natsuki, and their compatriots are the stars of the show, only to reveal that the entire cast of the first episode are actually insignificant, disposable characters. The shock of seeing the series’ seeming entire cast wiped out introduces, early on, the series’ theme that no one is safe and nothing is predictable.

The first quarter of the 2008 Blasreiter television series convinces viewers to presume that Gerd Frentzen is the main character of the story. However, in the series’ sixth episode Gerd is killed, revealing that he was never the primary character who the story was actually about.

The 2006 Higurashi no Naku Koro ni anime franchise consciously encourages viewers to believe that teen boy Keiichi Maebara is the character who the story revolves around. However, the story eventually reveals that the true protagonist of the story is actually Rika, and viewers have been seeing the story from her perspective, not from an objective perspective.

To a less egregious degree, the 1998 Blue Submarine No. 6 OVA series suggests that Mayumi Kno will be the series protagonist, only to reveal that she is actually little more than an introduction to the actual story protagonist, Tetsu Hayami. Similarly, the first Gunnm OVA from 1993 first introduces Daisuke Ido and positions him as the catalyst for the story’s action, only to have Gally become the focal character of the story. However, the Gunnm OVA series never tries very hard to obscure the fact that Gally is the story’s main character.

One of the primary twists of the original Kara no Kyoukai novel is the fact that readers are led to believe that protagonist Shiki Ryogi is male, only learning that Shiki is female at the conclusion of the book. The first anime movie makes reference to this circumstance, but the impact is significantly lessened because the anime movie has a prominent visual component that the original novel doesn’t. It’s easier to hide a character’s gender when the audience doesn’t see the character on screen. Gainax’s Aim for the Top 2 likewise keeps a significant fact about its protagonist intentionally hidden from the audience for a lengthy time.

The argument can be made that Gurren Lagann contains a false protagonist, setting up Kamina as the series’ central character only to reveal that Simon is actually the protagonist, but I don’t believe that Gurren Lagann actually fits the description. Examination of Gurren Lagann reveals that the story revolves around Simoun from beginning to end. The fact that Kamina is more bombastic and attention grabbing doesn’t mean that he is the character whom the story is about.