[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

I was referring to the first punch in Episode 21, before George's behavior visibly changed. Even with Masumi's devil warping his personality, George was capable of at least a small amount of empathy, otherwise he wouldn't have given Hiromi the opportunity. Another example is Episode 18, where he expressed concern for Ikki, who was losing himself to his ego after failing to save people from being Giftarian lunch. George actually gave him some important wisdom to help him get better.

He didn't gently tap his chest at ep. 21 though? And George did taunt him for not hitting, which'd probably mean hitting him would just accomplish no good and Hiromi may've known this midway. There are those who provoke someone into hitting them for various reasons. Oh and actually they did plan for Hiromi to beat up George at ep. 21, but it's canceled. For ep. 18, it's Ikki though, not Hiromi. I do think that George at that time seems to respect Ikki more than most others, he almost never looked down on him from the start. People can treat each individuals differently (and it seems to be inherent in anyone). Him treating Ikki well can't be used to explain (potential) affection against entirely different person. This may can explain that he's not pure malicious at that time though, but still pretty terrible overall.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

I guess being trapped in that cocoon was better than him being dead like we thought, but being assaulted without provocation immediately after his release was a little excessive, considering how they put him in a new prison anyway. It was just a petty (and humorous) insult though and he didn't even resist arrest. Hardly on the same level of depravity as the more serious offences he's committed, like breaking his promise to Aguilera.

Yeah, assaulting a defenseless person isn't a correct behavior, though the implication that not assaulting means letting them go needs to go too (some seems to support assaults due to finishing off the job). This was like Tennoji being killed as human in Blade. The insults would be unrelated to the assault though, not all offenses are done at a response of earlier offense. And humor can be found at enjoying someone being terrible to others, schadenfreude is a thing.

Him not resisting arrest though, he's a normal human for now (outside of vague Vail claims), it also can be that he can't resist multiple (trained) person confronting him at once. I've talked before about how he's now reduced into only talking shit due to how he's now a normal human, he pulled all what he did before via powers like Deadman, Giff Stamp, or Demons (actually, typically villains cause huge damage via powers, their person skills like manipulating can help, but it's still powers that mainly do the job). I don't know if you brought up the breaking promise part due to it being done inherently from his personality (otherwise, it's kinda like personal negative bias to ignore bigger crimes), but overall he's just being harmless here due to having nothing (for the promise he had the Deadman at his favor).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

I'd say Banno is an example of genuinely malicious, since he only pretended to care about his kids so he could manipulate them as means for his goal of world domination. Same goes for Asakura using Mika as bait.

And regarding those, yeah the tsundere excuse can be applied to those (not talking about you, and thankfully it's not happened, but just talking hypotheticals, i̶n̶ ̶c̶a̶s̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶r̶a̶c̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶y̶p̶e̶ ̶s̶i̶m̶i̶l̶a̶r̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶c̶o̶o̶l̶ ̶e̶n̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶w̶a̶r̶r̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶a̶p̶o̶l̶o̶g̶i̶s̶t̶s̶), for example, "Banno still raised his kids and they turned out good".