Ineffectual and Sympathetic Hero Antagonist?

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The Ineffectual and Sympathetic Hero Antagonist is often an Private Inspector who represents the law, who is intent on capturing a criminal. It just so happens that the person he's after isn't evil

He's doing exactly what he should be doing, and even doing it fairly well, but never quite as well as the protagonist is doing his job. As a series goes on, chances are he'll develop a great deal of respect for his quarry, and may be quite prone to teaming up with the protagonist.

The Inspector must be sympathetic and the polar opposite of Inspector Javert from Les Misérables.

He has never gave up his determination to capture villains and keep the people safe from criminals. This, combined with his chronic ineptitude, is what drove his superior to madness.

This sympathy can be played for laughs, and humiliated all the time by the heros. Thus, this character runs a risk of becoming a joke among fans (or even in-series) if he never has any on-screen successes, A common way of preventing this is to have the character be an "idiot becomes more competent when using their superpowers" against lesser crooks, thus racking up an impressive career record of arrests even if it is primarily cleaning up after his main quarry has defeated them. He's likely Lawful Good, Many times, it is also revealed that he is VERY good at his job... but that his elusive quarry is SO good as to make him look foolish. Spotlight episodes might even prove him to be quite formidable. The protagonist himself may even praise him, and usually enjoys getting chased.

He can be VERY popular character in fact it has been used alot in foreign culture.



Inspector Kouichi Zenigata from the japanese Lupin the III. He set the standard for a whole host of wacky detectives following in the example of his relentless pursuit of Lupin. By this point, he's come to admit he wouldn't have any idea what to do with himself if he did catch Lupin. He's also very much in the "good, just not as good as his quarry" , he gets closer to catching Lupin than anyone who tries to replace him, he's a one-man police force against any lesser criminal, and in his younger days he could have quite a good time beating up an entire gang of muggers barehanded. It's openly stated that his stellar arrest record i.e. cleaning up after Lupin is what lets him stay on the Lupin case.

In his younger days?? He takes on a gang of armed soldiers by himself while drinking some tea in a cafe without getting a scratch. Much BIGGER, well trained soldiers. With Judo.

Zenigata has also actually been able to catch Lupin clean a few times. In the original series, he caught him with a VERY cleverly laid trap, and kept behind bars FOR A YEAR. It took Lupin a VERY clever plan to escape that time. The bottom line is Zenigata IS capable of catching Lupin from time to time. Lupin STAYING caught? That's the trick part. He's also let Lupin go more than a few times, too. While Lupin is his archenemy, it's a matter of the two being on reasonably good terms with each other, and he'll stop chasing Lupin if there's a worse villain to be caught, even to the point of ignoring Lupin escaping if the badguy is bad enough (sort of a reward for helping stop him).

This is His Theme Song

To start love the theme songs for both article and show. I would like to see that show.
I thought your attention to detail was good. I can add some others how about the inspector in Le Miserables.
He seems to posses several of those traits. What do you think?

Good article. Personally I like the Pink Panther inspector the best.