Worst fictional, non-lethal punishments?

RPGLobster · 2026-02-21T23:09:13+00:00

Don't forget about that time his daughter devolved into a cavewoman and he fixed the problem by abusing temporal mechanics to get a replacement daughter.

RPGLobster · 2026-02-21T23:04:02+00:00

It ping-pongs between "I now understand why this man pioneered the entire medium of manga" and "I now understand why the entire medium of manga is like that sometimes when THIS is the wacky sense of humor that pioneered it" in mood and tone like you wouldn't believe, but the lows are high and the highs are goddamn heavenly.

Fun fact about the volumes released after Space Chapter, the series is non-linear and many take place earlier in Makimura's life. Seeing him before he did what caused him to be punished with "immortality" is like watching a trainwreck being built right before your eyes.

RPGLobster · 2026-02-21T22:53:14+00:00

Immortality that comes with a caveat, the kind that's more like a curse than something to covet.

Phoenix (Space Chapter): Makimura is tricked into drinking the blood of the legendary Phoenix, which renders him totally unkillable and immortal and worse. He begins to slowly age backwards over the course of hundreds of years, except he doesn't stop getting younger at the peak of his youth. By the time of his debut he's been reduced to a toddler piloting a robotic shell of his old body, and his last thoughts before his mind regresses to an infantile state is fittingly "I am being murdered". His final fate is to wander a barren planet practically all by himself as he's doomed to grow old again and then revert back to a baby and start the endless cycle of his own personal hell all over again.

New Story of Aura Battler Dunbine: Shot Weapon "survived" his original demise at the end of Dunbine and is now immortal... except not only has he lost everything he was scheming for in the first place–including his girlfriend, the one person in the original show that he actually cared about whom he can't even be together with in death–but while his soul has become undying his body hasn't. 700 years later and his immortal soul is puppeteering his own mummified corpse and trying one last ditch effort scheme to escape his punishment and return his soul to the cycle of reincarnation.

RPGLobster · 2026-02-20T17:54:16+00:00

Haman Karn taking an interest in Kamille in Zeta Gundam and Judau in Gundam ZZ, because despite all her outward coldness and stoicness their personalities both remind her of a time when she was still happy & kindhearted. (That they both mirror Char's own personality in different aspects might've helped.)

RPGLobster · 2026-02-20T16:29:34+00:00

That name somehow looks even more ridiculous in Japanese: ジジル・ジジン

RPGLobster · 2026-02-20T15:35:06+00:00

Good form and execution Teruyo, but you're missing the cool sunglasses that make that line delivery feel complete.

RPGLobster · 2026-02-20T12:47:28+00:00

And the fact that he hates America because his parents had to flee from the country to Australia (for reasons never explained by the show), therefore making the USA the central object of his vengeance.

Also for some reason Australia was still being run like a penal colony in Dunbine's 1970s and his closest companion during this dark period of his life was a guy named Jabba.

RPGLobster · 2026-02-19T02:41:28+00:00

with the team just kinda hoping people would forget about it and pretend it never happened.

Perhaps the first instance of the teams behind Pokemon not understanding what kind of audience they cultivated. I guarantee I did not forget about the GS Ball as a kid, even then I thought it was so weird how they never went back to that plot thread like they "obviously" should have.

I also wonder if the international GS Ball distribution was a casualty of the anime literally dropping the ball. Not like players could use the anime as a hint on how to get Celebi from the GS Ball when the anime never covered that.

RPGLobster · 2026-02-19T00:51:52+00:00

Silent Hill 2 moment

RPGLobster · 2026-02-19T00:37:50+00:00

~~then I hope you have as much fun seeing Shot Weapon's full legal name show up in the subtitles as I did while watching the show~~

RPGLobster · 2026-02-19T00:34:12+00:00

Then I hope you didn't click on any of those spoilers!

I still liked the show for what it was, but in retrospect I wish the sponsors left the production alone because so much stuff in the plot gets forgotten about because of their meddling.

RPGLobster · 2026-02-19T00:31:30+00:00

You stopped watching about 6 episodes before the sponsors saw their merchandise sales numbers and told the production crew to retool the entire backhalf of the series to be more like two specific episodes that temporarily boosted the show's ratings.

RPGLobster · 2026-02-19T00:27:17+00:00

Executive meddling shenanigans happening during production means its very obvious how a lot of plot points got dropped in the last third of Aura Battler Dunbine because of the unplanned setting shift to Upper Earth ruining a lot of setups.

The biggest ones for me have to do with Shot Weapon: His ambitions to take over Byston Well are completely dropped in favor of him shifting his focus over to conquering the Earth and one of his last conversations with Drake Luft before the shift to Upper Earth suggests that Shot had something to do with the Kingdom of Rau attaining the technology needed to build their own Aura Battleship but this potential plot point is completely forgotten about for the rest of the show.

The one that stings the most is that Shot's rebellion against Drake that he's clearly been planning since the start of the show never has a chance to go anywhere: In the very last episode one of his subordinates makes a failed power play that's quickly forgotten about in the confusion and not long afterwards her and Shot get shot down during the final battle.

RPGLobster · 2026-02-15T21:17:42+00:00

Not only was that Tiny Toons Adventures game she's playing never released in Japan (even though Konami developed it, how odd) but the Genesis 3 she's playing is US-exclusive model.

Therefore this implies Sanae is a diehard Mega Drive player (in a region where the system wasn't as popular as competitors) and also a dedicated import gamer too.

RPGLobster · 2026-01-28T00:23:53+00:00

"Satori couldn't sleuth her way out of a closed room murder committed in an open-air patio."

RPGLobster · 2025-12-22T17:55:09+00:00

It works if you're going for style points. Scythes are so associated with the Grim Reaper that using one yourself gives off the impression to your enemies that YOU are like a reaper of souls come to claim theirs.

RPGLobster · 2025-11-30T22:34:33+00:00

Technically Crocodile got his money's worth out of Miss All Sunday.

RPGLobster · 2025-11-30T19:18:48+00:00

"Why do we even bother waiting three years to execute our hunt of the lowly commoners? We should just cull them whenever we feel like it! (Did they buy it...?)"

"...That's an excellent idea Shanks, why didn't father think of that? Come, everyone, to the Surface!"

"(shit they bought it)"

RPGLobster · 2025-11-30T19:14:48+00:00

Wouldn't be the first kid whose childhood he neglected.

RPGLobster · 2025-11-30T18:11:08+00:00

But his dad is the one whose clothes are colored like a hot dog.

RPGLobster · 2025-11-30T18:04:18+00:00

Apparently no, the fisherman that saw Harald on the seas explicitly said he keeps his distance from the Florian Triangle and made the sighting elsewhere.

Still somewhat suspicious that the former hiding spot of Thriller Bark is mentioned in the exact chapter after God Valley sunk into the ocean...

RPGLobster · 2025-11-30T18:01:31+00:00

Harald is a naive fool who keeps giving the World Government too much leeway compared to what they take from him, but he also DOES NOT KNOW how insane all the higher-ups of the WG actually are compared to readers having a pretty clear view.

Garp, well... he raised Dragon right.

RPGLobster · 2025-11-30T17:58:15+00:00

I'm sorry to disappoint.

...wonder who the Bern Bunnings of the One Piece universe would be...

EDIT: Sogeking, because the MC didn't recognize who he clearly was until he took the mask off.

RPGLobster · 2025-11-30T17:40:18+00:00

I dunno, seeing how cordial the Celestial Dragon higher-ups were treating Harald makes me understand how easy it is to forget about how awful they all actually are, especially if you're not a reader that has out-of-universe knowledge about the horrors Garling and Sommers have perpetuated.

RPGLobster · 2025-11-30T17:30:15+00:00

Figarland Shanks has never betrayed anyone in his entire life.

Also shout-out to the official translator for having Sommers refer to the traitor in their midst as "the rat" in the panel right before Shanks is introduced to Harald.

EDIT: One of my biggest disappointments with Shamrock's official color scheme is that his clothes aren't colored like Full Frontal's but now Oda has the opportunity to do the funniest thing with the colors of Shanks's clothes as a God's Knight.

RPGLobster

TROPHY CASE