![\"Nadesico\"](\"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Nadesico.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThis show came out in 1996, and now you feel old.<\/em><\/p>\n Of course, there are also heroic hired guns who work as independent contractors instead of shooting people on a steady 9 to 5 basis.\u00a0 There are the professional assassins from shows like Noir<\/i> and Darker Than Black<\/i>, the ship crews of Black Lagoon<\/i> and Bodacious Space Pirates<\/i> (I really just wanted an excuse to include that title), and the armed odd-job teams of Outlaw Star<\/i> and Burst Angel<\/i>.\u00a0 You could even count iconic bounty hunter franchises like Cowboy Bebop<\/i> and Gunsmith Cats<\/i> as part of this group.\u00a0 It seems that when it comes to owning a small business, anime characters tend to focus on firepower over profitability.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t to say that there aren\u2019t any protagonists who collect a government paycheck.\u00a0 Plenty of anime series feature soldiers (Attack on Titan<\/i>), police officers (You\u2019re Under Arrest<\/i>), or government agents (Gunslinger Girl<\/i>) in prominent roles.\u00a0 What fascinates me it that, at least in terms of completely unscientific anecdotal evidence, the balance seems to favor the independent contractors.<\/p>\n More like Attack on my Argument, am I right?<\/em><\/p>\n So what\u2019s the deal here?\u00a0 Why do so many of our favorite anime antiheroes sell their deadly talents to the highest bidder instead of signing up for a legitimate military?\u00a0 Well, part of the answer lies in one of Japanese fiction\u2019s favorite character archetypes: the wandering samurai.\u00a0 The iconic image of a guy traveling the countryside, stabbing baddies with a sword at the behest of beleaguered villagers, obviously makes for a compelling hero.\u00a0 Replace that katana with a handgun, sniper rifle, or giant robot, and you\u2019ve got your modern\/future mercenary.\u00a0 Golgo 13<\/i> might as well be called \u201cSamurai In A Suit.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, freelance killers aren\u2019t common in anime just because all directors secretly want to make samurai shows.\u00a0 Keeping a hero out of a real military force frees them of all the baggage that would come with working for an established nation.\u00a0 When a squad of American, Japanese, British, or German soldiers appear on screen, the audience will have a natural reaction to those characters based on their mental image of that nation.\u00a0 A mercenary cast comes with its own viewer assumptions, but we\u2019re more willing to reserve judgment when we don\u2019t know where the heroes come from.<\/p>\n Hired guns can also be useful for making social and political statements.\u00a0 When the professional assassin is more heroic than the police officers trying to catch her, it makes a strong (if clich\u00e9d) statement.\u00a0 People fighting for money can have very different motivations, setting the stage for deep philosophical arguments.\u00a0 As we watch the characters in Black Lagoon<\/em> blow things up in spectacular fashion, we can also ponder the morality of killing to survive.\u00a0 Having good people do bad (or at least violent) things is a tried and true way of adding some moral ambiguity to an anime series.<\/p>\n Does anyone else want to buy a torpedo boat because of this series, or is that just me?<\/em><\/p>\n One final factor in the usage of mercenary heroes is that frontline soldiers tend to do the same thing over and over.\u00a0 The average infantry grunt is posted to a base, goes on patrols, and occasionally gets shot at.\u00a0 A hired gun is more likely to take on a variety of missions in different parts of the world, which makes it easier for a show\u2019s writers to move characters around as dictated by the plot.<\/p>\n The prevalence of freelance soldiers and guns for hire in anime isn\u2019t a particularly good or bad thing, but is an interesting consequence of the demands of writing fictional material.\u00a0 I suspect that the ratio of mercenaries to government troops in real life is nowhere near what it is in our favorite medium, and if anyone feels like running the numbers on that, go right ahead.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I was making a futile attempt at organizing my anime DVD collection the other day when I noticed something interesting: a huge number of heroes in anime are mercenaries, assassins, or other miscellaneous guns for hire.\u00a0 Perhaps more intriguing is that by comparison, very few good guys seem to work for a real national military.\u00a0 [Read 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