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Agni is the titular main protagonist of the post-apocalyptic fantasy manga series Fire Punch, created by Tatsuki Fujimoto. Agni was born with a regeneration blessing that allowed him to remain effectively immortal as he, his village and sister where incinerated by Behemdolg soldier Doma.
He sets out on a quest for revenge to kill him and live for his sister Luna's sake. While initially presented as a reluctant hero, Agni gradually descends into insanity as he becomes infatuated with Judah, having her fill the role of his deceased sister as he goes on to unknowingly and sometimes willingly kills countless innocent people for the sake of protecting her.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
- He abandons Sun to his own defenses, leaving the boy to later be nearly raped by Behemdolg soldiers.
- He annihilates Behemdolg, destroying the property and livelihoods of over ten thousand people and killing hundreds in the cross-fire.
- In an act of spiteful rage, he murders Doma and his young adopted children despite them posing no threat to him anymore, solely out of rage and a misplaced sense of vengeance. This action horrifies even Togata, leaving him speechless.
- Forces Togata to sacrifice his life by performing a suicide attempt from the guilt immediately afterwards.
- Emotionally manipulates an amnesiac Judah with the mind of a child to see herself as his sister Luna, and later sleeps with her when she develops the mental capacity of an adult. This is shown as an action of horrific grooming that reaffirms Agni's self-loathing.
- He refuses to admit his identity to the surviving members of Doma’s family that he lives with under a false identity, putting their lives at risk and ultimately leading to their deaths.
- Afterwards re-ignites in a fit of rage, killing dozens of uninvolved soldiers within the Agniist village that had nothing to do with their deaths and Judah’s subsequent kidnapping.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- He is a morally ambiguous and gray character that commits a wide variety of admirable actions that makes him tread the line between anti-hero and anti-villain.
- He is FAR, FAR, FAR too tragic and sympathetic to be NPE or even PE, even if he had no other mitigating qualities. Indeed, he’s often considered one of the longest suffering and tragic manga and anime protagonists period, beating out other candidates such as Guts and Shinji Ikari. These are some of the reasons he’s tragic:
- As a child, his parents died or abandoned him too young for him to remember, leaving him and his sister Luna to face off against the elements before being adopted into the village he spent his childhood in by an elderly couple.
- Despite the frigid weathers and having to use his own body as a source of nourishment and fuel for the townspeople, Agni was happy until the village was invaded by the Behemdolg military when he was fifteen, who used Doma to torch it to the ground. Doma’s flames would not stop burning until the target was completely spent, always ensuring that the victim would die. Agni and his sister were both made victims of this, but Agni’s healing factor was so strong that it outpaced the flames, making him unable to die and leaving him in constant agony. His sister’s was not, causing her to slowly burn to death in front of his eyes.
- After having been lit ablaze, Agni was in such pain and his muscles and flesh being constantly rended, causing him to limp and fall over constantly in the snow surrounded by the corpses of his loved ones for eight years straight while in horrific physical pain, only then gaining the strength and regeneration capabilities to stand and walk.
- After finding a modicum of a hopeful life and future as the messiah of the Agniist religion, he snapped under the trauma of remembering his sister’s death when confronting Doma, murdering him and most of his children. This left Agni in such a state of shock and remorse that he attempted suicide, forcing Togata, who had served as his older brother figure and only consistent source of companionship after his sister’s death, to sacrifice his own life in order to save him. Afterwards, he found that his village had been destroyed by Sulya’s world tree, killing nearly all of the residents by draining their life force.
- When he managed to live a normal life of domesticity after having his fire removed and assuming a false identity with Doma’s surviving adopted children, he was found out by a splinter group of deranged Agni cultists that intended to lure him, killing the women he was living with and kidnapping Judah, who Agni had deluded himself into believing was his sister in order to cope with her death.
- Overall, his horrific life experience left him a suicidal emotionally-drained wreck of a person that openly attempted to kill himself multiple times, while being unable to do so due to his regeneration factor.
- He feels intense remorse for his worst actions:
- He is remorseful for murdering Doma and his children, even attempting suicide from the shame afterwards.
- He is disgusted at himself for grooming an amnesiac Judah.
- He has several people he loves and cares for:
- His sister, Luna. He deeply loved her and let himself be used as a food and fuel source in her stead. Her death triggered him seeking revenge in the first place, and while he had incestous feelings for her, these were mutual and he never acted on them with her.
- He also loved his adoptive parents, and they were a factor in his quest for revenge.
- Togata, while their relationship began from a mutually pragmatic foundation, he grew to care for him as he did for Agni, showing him great kindness and empathy when he learned that he was a repressing transgender man, immediately accepting and viewing him as a man despite his body, and saying that his suffering from being unable to ever medically transition due to his regeneration blessing was comparable to his. He was heartbroken over his death and felt intense guilt for being responsible for it.
- Despite being incredibly manipulative and disgusting in its format, he did care for Judah independent of viewing her as an emotional substitute for Luna, freeing her from Sulya’s first attempt at a world tree and eventually resolving to save her life when Sun attempted to kill her.
- His final actions consist of saving Judah, allowing Sun to take over his body with his memory removed, and ensuring the world will not freeze over and humanity will continue to survive. Afterwards, he’s shown reuniting with his sister in the afterlife. While not treated as an outright redemption due to the story rejecting the concept of heroes and villains, it’s still an incredibly noble and sympathetic end for his character.
Trivia[]
- He is one of two characters who is both IH and IA of Fire Punch, along with Togata.
External Links[]
- Agni on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki.
- Agni on the Villains Wiki.
- Agni on the Heroes Wiki.
- Agni on the Fire Punch Wiki.