Anime has seen its fair share of frustrating female characters that everyone hates, but few reach the level of Code Geass’s Nina Einstein. While there are many manipulative, backstabbing, psychotic killer characters, Nina is on a completely different level.
While Death Note’s Misa Amane is often brought up and criticized for being a weakly written character and has her fair share of haters, she at least serves a purpose in the narrative. Nina, on the other hand, is just evil for the sake of evil.
She has no bearing on the key happenings and is only there to showcase the darkness within humans. Let us delve in and see why Nina is one of the most hated and poorly written characters in anime and why Misa is much better than her.
Misa Amane is the weakest female lead in anime
Misa Amane had a great background back when she was just introduced in Death Note, but as the series progresses, the fans see her grow more and more subservient to Light and one-dimensional, like a puppet.
There is a good reason why she is often labeled as one of anime’s weakest female leads: she seems to have no ambition or thoughts of her own. She devolves from her existence as a strong, independent, and determined person who is an up-and-coming model and actress but quickly is manipulated and turned into a puppet by Light Yagami.
Her devotion and affection to him borders on obsession. Even though she has the same abilities as Light (possesses a Death Note) and has the Shinigami Eyes, she never takes things into her eyes and follows the directions of Light to a T.
However, despite her flaws, Misa at least contributes to Death Note’s story. Light is extremely intelligent and has the ability to fool and manipulate others into doing his bidding. Her presence highlights Light’s nature and abilities. While she herself is weak and has no impact, when combined with Light’s ideas, she plays a vital role.
Nina Einstein: A character that shouldn’t exist
Unlike Misa, Nina’s presence in Code Geass adds nothing of value. She seems to be created solely for the purpose of being hated and to contrast the ideas of ‘good and evil’ in the series. From the start, she is portrayed as a socially awkward yet intelligent student, that in itself is subtly charming.
However, instead of developing into a meaningful character or finding a groove for herself, Nina spirals into an uncomfortable character that is not only crazed with hatred and racism but also obsessed and irrational (especially as a scientist).
It feels like the narrative wished to showcase how evil and hateful characters could be. Nina’s spot as a scientist of considerable position was unearned (no experience and not vetted for such things), she was extremely obsessed with Princess Euphemia to a terrifying level.
It is disturbing to see how someone close to you could have such thoughts about you, the way she creates weapons of mass destruction, unleashes them and feels conflicted later is a testament to her irrational and impulsive behavior.
Misa Amane may be one of anime’s weakest female characters, but Nina Einstein is undeniably worse. She is written with little consistency, and it feels like her actions and existence were all meant to be hated.
You can watch Death Note and Code Geass on Netflix.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
