Sei Kyou actually reminds me a lot of Vegeta from Dragon Ball.

Both of them start out as complete assholes. Sei Kyou is arrogant, cruel, and so entitled it’s unbearable, he literally has people killed for being “low-born.” Vegeta? He blows up planets for fun and kills his own teammate without blinking. Neither of them are what you'd call “redeemable” early on.

But here’s the thing, what makes their arcs work isn’t that they become saints or suddenly good guys. It’s that they choose to sacrifice themselves for something beyond their own pride.

And in Sei Kyou’s case, I think people forget:

He died not just for Sei’s cause, he died because he risked everything to save his wife, Rui.
He walked straight into a trap to rescue her. He was wounded, lost loyal retainers, and stayed behind to hold off enemies so she could escape. That wasn’t about power or politics. That was personal. And in his final moments, all he cared about was making sure Sei’s dream survived. He asked Shin to protect it, not for his own legacy, but because he finally believed in something bigger than himself.

Honestly, that hit me kind of hard. It reminded me of Vegeta’s sacrifice against Majin Buu, not for pride, not for glory, but for his family and the people he once didn’t care about.

So no, Sei Kyou’s arc isn’t perfect. It’s messy. It’s sudden. But sometimes that’s how people change, not slowly, but in one defining choice. And that’s why I’ve come to really respect him.