What's going on guys today we're going to be talking about Naruto and Honkai Impact 3rd once again and as you guys can tell by the title it's about Sasuke Uchiha and Raiden Mei.
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Out of all Naruto and Honkai Impact 3rd comparisons I've seen, Sasuke and Mei is the one that stands out to me the most. When playing Honkai Impact 3rd for the first time I realized that Mei is literally a female video game version of Sasuke. Not only did Mei give Hiei an absolute run for his money on being a much better MU for Sasuke having better connections and potential doesn't matter if Sasuke was inspired off of Hiei it's completely irrelevant Mei is more of a match for Sasuke than Hiei ever will be which is why I'm so glad I did this in my Mario, Sonic, Mega Man Death Battle. Anyways that aside Sasuke and Mei are similar in almost every way. Both of them are deuteragonists with incredible sword skills with lightning as their primary weapon who started off as young happy and optimistic kids from powerful families and are close with family members until an incident caused them to awaken dark powers thanks to the actions of selfish villains making their family members out to be the bad guys when in reality they are not this also led them to become survivors of massacres weather it'd be the Uchiha Clan Massacure of the Third Eruption and would be ostracized by society until they met and form a bond with an energetic protagonist surviving as hosts to monsters/deities Naruto and Kiana and have a relationship with a third person Sakura and Bronya, and become part of a trio squad lead by lad back mentors but would ultimately turn to the dark side after falling inferior to the protagonists which lead them being insecure to the point when the villains show up to offer them a chance to achieve their goals they accepted it without hesitation which ultimately leads to a fight between them and the people who they had a special bond with and ultimately defeating then and left to join the villains as well as the terrorist villain organizations with other partners weather it'd be Suigetsu, Jugo, and Karin for Sasuke or Raven for Mei, and eventually they leave said villain organizations and reunite with the protagonist, gain new godlike powers after a chance encounter with godlike beings, fight the villain and save the world, reconcile their relationship with said protagonists and years later into adulthood they train a new protagonists and ultimately fight aliens invading earth, like the Otsutsuki clan and the Sky People. There's so much similarities between Sasuke and Mei I barely scratched the surface that being said they are both opposites in their goals and their relationships with the protagonists like Sasuke wanting to kill Naruto to several all bonds to achieve his goals while Mei betrayed Kiana in an effort to save her nonetheless it shows how strong their bonds are with them and in today's discussion we're going to be looking at what makes Sasuke and Mei great characters so without further ado let's get started.
Tragic backstories and motivations
Firstly the thing that makes Sasuke and Mei great is they have compelling and tragic backstories as well as their motivation. When looking at most stories, character backstories are usually there to give us some insight on who the characters are before the present day, how the came to be, and what is the source of the motivation. Starting off with Sasuke, he was the second born child to the head of the Uchiha clan and for the most part he was a kind happy child he has a loving family despite how harsh his father Fugaku is he still loves him and most of all he has a special relationship with his older brother Itachi. Itachi may not be the best brother as he's always away on missions and doing other stuff but that doesn't matter because in Sasuke's eyes, Itachi was a hero a perfect older brother. Unfortunately fate forced him on a path he never expected on the night he returned home Sasuke saw all of the Uchiha clan members and worst of all he saw his mother and father dead and standing over their bodies was the same person he looked up to: Itachi. Sasuke was so young at the time he couldn't understand why Itachi did what he did and when Itachi gave Sasuke an answer he revealed that the older brother Sasuke knew was not only a lie but he seemingly never existed in the first place before leaving Sasuke shocked alone. In the aftermath of the Uchiha massacre, Sasuke was changed forever now he has a goal: Kill his older brother Itachi and avenge their parents and their clan. As you guys can see here the little boy that was always happy was now gone forever and in his place stood an Avenger. Eventually as we all know Sasuke did succeed in defeating Itachi and avenging the Uchiha clan all is well Sasuke got his revenge he got the proper closure he needed and can finally rest knowing that the man who caused him so much trauma was finally gone forever. Unfortunately life once again put Sasuke down an even dark path even more unexpectedly than normal. When Obito revealed the full story behind Itachi slaughtering the Uchiha clan how it was the elders in particular Danzo Shimura who ordered the death of the Uchiha clan whom they blamed for the Nine Tails attack on Konoha all because one Uchiha caused the attack that Uchiha being Obito himself, how the Uchiha had suffered many mistreatment and were feared by the village after Madara Uchiha left the village and fought the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju so much so that the Uchiha plot a rebellion to overthrow Konoha, and how Itachi suffered being a double agent and how Danzo was able to convince Itachi to slaughter his clan while threatening Sasuke's life. Now Sasuke sees that the evil older brother that was Itachi was in reality truly was the hero Sasuke knew him to be and knowing that Itachi suffered so much until his death we see how this caused Sasuke to be pushed to the breaking point. Know his new goal is to avenge Itachi by killing Danzo and destroy all of Konoha, now we see how all the closure that Sasuke worked so hard to get was instantly shattered and in it's place are the flames of an even darker hatred. Now as you guys can see in the process he's willing to kill innocent lives who did nothing wrong to achieve his goal but in all honesty Sasuke doesn't care and putting myself in Sasuke's shoes I can see why he wouldn't care because there are many Uchiha especially children who are completely innocent who did nothing wrong there are Uchiha like Sasuke's mother, Mikoto and Itachi's girlfriend, Izumi who had no involvement in Madara's deflection and betrayal, Obito's attack on the village, and the Uchiha coup yet despite that their getting punished for something a few Uchiha did because in the eyes of Danzo and the other villagers if one Uchiha acts up all of them deserve to pay regardless if their innocent or not. Yes there are people in Konoha who are innocent and who did nothing wrong and had no involvement in the Uchiha's mistreatment, to the Uchiha massacre, and Itachi's death but he doesn't care because there are many innocent Uchiha too yet nobody showed them mercy so why should Sasuke show mercy to the innocent Konoha ninja? If you think about it Sasuke is essentially pulling a Uno Reverse card and a Karma's a bitch type situation because Sasuke is going to make sure that the entire village suffers the same way the Uchiha did innocent or not and while yes you can say that he has every opportunity to spare them but I can apply the same argument to the other villagers like them setting a better example than Danzo and doing so could prevent the rebellion but because they didn't there was no need for him to spare them if the villagers couldn't even spare the innocent Uchiha that's the cycle of hatred at play. Kishimoto did a very good job making Sasuke's goals have this Uno reverse card situation showing how it's Karma for what Konoha did to the Uchiha and thankfully he did managed to defeat Danzo. But it wasn't until after reuniting with a revived Itachi that Sasuke wanted to understand why Itachi would go so far as to protect the village despite said village being the one to cause him so much suffering and after hearing the ways of shinobi it was at this point that Sasuke finally understood and now has a new goal: To cause revolution. He still wants to destroy Konoha but he's not it out of vengeance he wants to destroy but then he wants to rebuild to create a world where he completely destroys the shinobi system and be the one and only darkness the world faces to ensure another Itachi never happens again and once again putting myself in Sasuke's shoes I can understand in fact I actually don't really mind this idea that much because this was the same shinobi system that caused the Uchiha clan to suffering it was this shinobi system that proved that Madara was right and as such caused him to act which lead to the current events, it was this shinobi system that put Sasuke on the path of hatred and took Itachi's life and he knew that if this same system continues to thrive in the future what happened to the Uchiha clan could indeed happen again that's why he needs to kill all the Five Kage, the Tailed Beasts, and destroy every shred of the shinobi system and I don't blame him because apart from Tsunade and Gaara I would not feel bad for the Five Kage when they died it was their corruption that lead to the current events of the world, it's the same political governments that have these agendas and in the words of Captain America in Civil War agendas change and most of the time when do change it leads to utter disasters. If someone had the same goals of killing world leaders as well as the entire system I would not feel bad for the many cops, soldiers, lawyers, attorneys, prosecutors, judges, or world leaders that end up dying or getting killed if anything I would either laugh or just not acknowledge them as human beings aside from the few that actually proved that they are not corrupted and have proven to be true heroes and great humans, because it was those same systems that lead to the world being on the brink of chaos and as such they needed to be disposed of which is what Sasuke is trying to do here. We may not agree with Sasuke's actions but we understand where he's coming from that's why when Sasuke is eventually redeemed it adds a lot of meaning behind it. Next up we have Mei. Mei was originally born into the power Raiden family and was an heiress because her father Ryoma is the CEO of the Massive Electric Corp. She lived a normal life for the most but sure her mother passed away due to natural causes but aside from that though, Mei's doing reasonably fine, she is greeted by her butlers, she goes to a school that allows students who come from wealthy, powerful, and rich families she is popular amongst the students and teachers known for her personality, her intelligence, her natural beauty, and her cooking skills and even earned the nickname Queen of Thunder and despite always being away Ryoma was truly a caring father to Mei. Unfortunately life took an unexpected turn on Mei's life, Ryoma was arrested for fraud of the company and it seemed like Ryoma was guilty. In reality Cocolia framed him to get him arrested so she can take over the ME Corp and gain access to the Gem of Conquest that was in Mei's body that was placed there by her father to protect her from the very same illness that killed her mother. Nevertheless the incident forever stained the Raiden family name so much so that Mei was completely ostracized by the students and teachers at her school which resulted in Mei getting bullied completely. As we can see here Mei's life turned completely left and as a result she realized that the only reason why people liked her was because of her family privileges and now that those have been destroyed she has nothing and was forced to live a life of loneliness, then later on the Herrscher persona that's inside Mei started giving her deep voices and feeding her negative thoughts and promised her vengeance against those who harmed. Consumed by loneliness, sadness, and anger, Mei awakened as a Herrscher and as a result she killed all her classmates and teachers as payback and started the Third Honkai Eruption. So when looking into Mei's mind despite all the privileged she has deep down all she wanted was for someone to see her for who she truly is and it wasn't until Kiana Kaslana who goes to the same school as her shows up to stop her and then when Mei turns back to normal she attempts to commit suicide guilt ridden by what she has done but Kiana saves her and became the very first person to ever truly be Mei's friend. She eventually became a Valkyrie and was having a happy time, unfortunately tragedy struck again when she's forced to watch her friends sacrifice themselves for her Bronya, Theresa, Himeko, Fu Hua, and most of all Kiana. When Kiana went missing for months, disarmed a bomb to save a city, and did not care if she had 2 months left to live, Mei was completely insecure as the one person who saved her years ago was on the blink of being gone forever, Mei for months was struggling all she could even think about is weather or not she's stronger to save Kiana it was too much for her heart to handle so when Kevin used this opportunity to manipulate Mei into joining World Serpent, she did not care she accepted if it meant Kiana is saved and if it meant betraying her friends. But as time goes on however she began to slowly but surely regret her actions as to Mei, Kiana was her one and only pillar of support. Mei's actions of wanting to save Kiana while noble at the same time it makes her look selfish as she was essentially restraining Kiana not realizing the fact that she has no control over Kiana no matter how hard she tries but I think the biggest moment for her is with the Elysia and Flamechasers they showed her how to be independent they showed her how to not rely solely on one pillar of support they taught her how to grow and surrender herself with others and most importantly they taught her how to let go and that's why when she reunited with Kiana she learned to let go of her basic obsession over Kiana and to respect her decisions form now on. When looking at Sasuke and Mei both of them truly did start out happily but unfortunately their worlds turned completely upside down and hand goals that led them to betraying their friends but eventually in the end they learned from their mistakes and from now on as they walk on the path of redemption they used the lessons they have learned and passed down the torch of heroism to the next generation.
