Any cartoons with no clear cut heros and villains?

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Aef

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Are there any cartoons that involves fighting between two sides, in which there is no clear cut hero and villain to each side? Both sides are very gray.

Each side has their own good and bad faults, and each side has a valid point to their cause.

If any cartoons have, I guess it would be Anime, they do tend to humanise the villains more, actully I was originally going to post in the Anime board, but thought I post it here, since I am asking about all cartoons, though a Anime is more likely to use such a concept than the western cartoons.

I guess sporting cartoons like Wacky Races are like that.

Or at least a cartoon in which the main hero(s) don't take a side and the goal is to bring peace and end the fighting.
 
The best example of the "shade of gray" morality is probabaly best represented in several Ghibii films, Princess Mononoke, especially. I remember how impressed I was upon first airings how human Eboshi was, how she wasn't a very well written villian, but not a villain at all.
 
Well yeah, the sporting cartoons did always have one villain like contesdent, but of the other condesdents they all couldn't win. So there was no clear cut hero, even though they had a clear cut villain. You could root for anyone to win that race (though I did always root for the villain to win on those types of shows)

An example of shades of gray morality in fiction is Romeo and Juliet. The two families that feuded, it was not edident on who was right. Same thing with West Side Story, but those aren't cartoons.
 
Though Orb does become a bunch of goodie-goodies towards the end of Gundam SEED, Earth and Zaft are both pretty ambiguous, both with some respectable people but a lot of atrocities to be held responsible for.

Lilo and Stitch was pretty impressive in the lack of any real villain.
 
Another Gundam series, Zeta Gundam, features main charachters which are bassically a terrorist organisation, fighting against a corrupt government.

Avatar has been pretty good at showing both sides of the war.
 
At first Tom and Jerry was made out with Tom to be the villain, but later on they made it more of a battle between the two, where Jerry could be just as much of an antagonist.
 
In the movie, yeah. Gantu wasn't really *evil*, he was just doing his job, even though he was going about it the wrong way.

But in the series, there was a clear cut villain in Hamsterviel, while Gantu and 624 were kind of blurred as to which side they'd be on when it came to it.
 
Dr. Jacques von H?msterviel
Gantu
Number 627
Leroy



Bruce was like a villain when he smelled Dory's nose bleed. And let's not forget the mean fishermen who take poor fish from their homes.

Something I noticed

I'm a bit confused. I thought this was a thread for cartoons that didn't have clear cut heroes or villains yet people are naming villains that had a soft side or back story.
 
Yeah I agree. The point I am looking for, are shows or movies in which the morality of each side is not that much clear on who is right and who is wrong. The audience could justifiably root for either side. Sure they are villains that aren't all bad and actully have a soft side, but the side they are on, are wrong.

For example, a war between two countries or planets, in which both sides close to the same time want to conquer the other one.

Someone brought up Avatar before, let me tell why it doesn't have that, the Fire Nation wants to conquer the world, sure there are some citizens that aren't really evil and we actully care about, but their country is still wants to conquer the world, while the other nations just wants to foil their attempted take over. If the other nations also had world domination ambition, than it would truely not have clear right or wrong side.

I have this idea for a Anime series. It would be about two countries that are at war, they both want to conquer the other side, so their morality is basicly equal. Both waring countries believe in a great god or spirit, and that one day he will put magical tatoo to the choosen one who will end the war in his countries favor.

The spirit gives the mark to two characters one from each side of the war. They and their country believe it is their destiny to lead their country to victory. The main heros are both equally the lead hero in the series, and they are on opposing sides. Once in a while they would bump into each other, but mostly it is two storylines of the two main characters, and their struggle in the war. Once in a while there will be episodes in which only one of the two characters appear. But most of the episodes balence the two parryl storylines.

Finally about 75% through the series, they discover the truth of how the god made them both the choosen one, and the spirit tells them, it is destiny to lead the world into peace. Than they team up to try to end the war peacefully for each country.
 
A couple of good examples have been brought up, specifically Romeo X Juliet, Avatar, and Princess Mononoke, though the last one is a film, not a series. Avatar is particularly interesting in that, initially the Fire Nation is portrayed as the "evil" side but through a few inividual characters (Iroh, Zuko, Ty Lee), we've come to realize that only a few inividuals are really on the evil side.

One new toon that nobody has brought up yet is Chaotic. While the creatures of Perim battle each other, there has been nothing to indicate any good or evil intentions on their part, except when pitted one on one. In fact a few of the human characters (Klay and Kristella, in particular) have sometimes proven to be far more twisted than most of the creatures.
 
True outside of the Fire Lord himself, his daughter, a few high ranking officers, and maybe some others like the Rough Rhinos, the Fire Nation people are just like the people from the other nations. But still there is a good and bad rooting interest in the war, the audience is suppose to root against the Fire Nation.
 
Indeed. Viewers might say Maxxor is the "good guy", but he's really just as territorial as Chaor and not really a "good guy" in the traditional sense, since all four tribes are looking out for themselves at the end of the day. Plus, all four main characters are allied with their respective tribes, but still remain friends. There's really no "bad tribe" or "good tribe", just different factions in a tribal war.
 
I don't know if this is reverlent to the topic at hand, but Avatar had a couple of episodes in which they flip the script and the roles of hero and villain amoung the nations was switched. In episode 7 of both season 1 and season 2 (actully chapter 7 of Book 1 Water and Book 2 Earth), the Fire Nation character(s) were the hero(s) of the episode while the Earth Kingdom soulders were the villains.

Though one can make a case in Book 1 Chapter 7, the Earth Kingdom soulders were justified in capturing Iroh, and doing what they plan on doing to him, but the purpose of that storyline was to protray Zuko and Iroh in a possitive light. You have to be a die hard Fire Nation hater to be rooting for them, also consider we saw their good human side in episode 3 and I doubt Aang would approve of their actions. One can not be make that same arguement of those so called Earth Kingdom soulders in Book 2 Chapter 7, they were just jerks, and they are soulders in name only.
 
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