u/Head-You5953

Wasn't sure how to phrase this question, and I wasn't sure if it's been asked here before, so apologies if it's something this sub has already covered.

I was thinking about characters who feel like they don't belong in their media, not in a meta sense like someone like Deadpool does, but in a tone and genre sense. The big one that I've been thinking of is from Dorohedoro, spoilers ahead.

Dorohedoro, despite being a very dark, gross, sleazy, and brutal series, is remarkably kind-hearted and upbeat. All of the characters, even the ones initially classified as villains, have genuine friendships and connections that make them incredibly likeable. These characters often hate each other, and don't hesitate to inflict horrific amounts of violence on people who sometimes don't deserve it, but they're all so kind and personable to their friends and families that it's really difficult to hate any of them for it, especially given how horrific and twisted the setting is.

The exception to this is >!Kai, the leader of a gang called the Cross-Eyes. Unlike the rest of his gang, who are just as loveable and fun as everyone else, Kai himself is a straight-up monster with none of the meaningful human connections and fun character quirks that everyone else in the series has. He's a being of pure brutality and cold, clinical hate, and his gang feels less like an organized criminal enterprise and more like a cult dedicated to a man who, by all metrics, doesn't care about them at all. Whenever Kai shows up, the levity of Dorohedoro leaves, and it becomes a full-on horror series in which the viewer watches as Kai utterly brutalizes the rest of the cast.!<

It's really good shit, I'm so happy that the anime got to reach that point.

So, what other characters completely change the tone of their original media?

I'm a little embarrassed that my contributions to this subreddit seem to mostly be askreddit posts, but I really wanted to ask this one.

There are a ton of famous act 1s and strong starts in media - Midgar from FF7, The Golden Age arc from Berserk (I know the Black Swordsman arc came first, I'm including it), the resonance cascade from Half Life, Expedition 33. But there's a lot less famous prologues out there, in my experience. Granted, the concept of a prologue is largely exclusive to books, but even so, I was thinking about how there's really not a ton of super well-known and famous prologues.

I started reading Full Metal Daemon Muramasa, a VERY dark and upsetting VN that has just about every trigger warning in the book stuck to it, but what hooked me was it's incredibly strong prologue.

It's internally divided into four mini-acts, and each act manages to be utterly upsetting in a completely new way as the situation rapidly devolves. Anyone who's read it knows what I'm talking about, but it manages to completely upend itself constantly, and like most prologues, it's completely incomprehensible to the reader until much, much later.

It's an excellent sequence that does an incredible job of hooking the reader through a mix of horrifying brutality and dread, all backed up by some really strong translation work and prose. I think the prologue is so good that I can almost recommend it independently of the rest of the VN, though it's also been amazing so far.

So, what are your favorite prologues?