| “ | I go by many names. I am the Lord of Purity who tolerates no deviation. I am Canaletto, removed from his rightful throne. I am the Timeless One, waiting to bring the old world to its end. | „ |
| ~ Canaletto introducing himself to Rick in a vision. |
| “ | Canaletto: You still have no grasp of it, do you? Despite my pure guidance... Despite my just punishments. Imperfection and impurity still infects this galaxy. My crusade was left incomplete... and now I will complete it. Satis: You were a danger before... but now... Canaletto: Enough! Your time is over. Confining me as you did had one positive effect, it allowed me to think and think again... This galaxy can never be saved! The work of the creators was flawed! The only solution is to destroy the old, and start... A NEW ONE!!! FOR THIS I WILL TAKE MY RIGHTFUL PLACE AS THE AVATAR AGAIN!!! |
„ |
| ~ Canaletto explaining his goal. |
Canaletto is the main antagonist of the 2006 French/Japanese anime series, Oban Star Racers.
He is also known as "The Timeless One" and "The Lord of Purity." A dark, sinister being that first appears mostly shrouded in mystery as a shadow with flaming red eyes and a raven-like head.
He was voiced by Colin Murdock.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- After he became the Avatar, he went on a crusade to destroy countless planets for not living up to his idea of perfection and purity, and implicitly wiped out many races in the process. In a flashback we see him destroying one such planet as well as its sun, with the people of the planet looking up at him in fear as he prepares to destroy them. If Sul's account when speaking to him in the present is anything to go by, he had done this enough times that he's regarded with fear and loathing even centuries after his imprisonment.
- When his term as Avatar came to an end, he refuses to step down from his throne, forcing his successor Satis to fight him and remove him from power by force, leading to Canaletto's imprisonment underneath Oban.
- Seeing Eva Wei as a worthy pawn for his plan to escape and reclaim his power, he has the racing ship of her mother, Maya, sabotaged during her last race. This causes her to crash in the last lap of the race, killing her in front of her child and her husband Don.
- This leads to Don becoming depressed and unable to care for Eva due to how much she reminded her of his wife, causing him to abandon her in the care of the abusive Miss Stern in a boarding school where she was miserable and lonely. This would also have effect of Don devolving into a hot-tempered and unpleasant jerk who treats his employees coldly after he becomes a racing manager again, which would also put a strain on his relationship with Eva when they reunite, with Eva being understandably upset at him for leaving her when she needed him. All of this was done so Canaletto could groom her into competing in the Oban Race to win the "ultimate prize" to bring back her mother, only for her to refuse it following her victory once she realized the real prize was to replace Satis as the Avatar, which caused Satis's power to weaken and allow Canaletto to escape his imprisonment.
- When he reveals this to Eva in the final battle to break her, he shows no remorse for destroying her family, saying that Maya had to die to bring out the best in Eva.
- Has the Mad Scrub rig Rick's racing ship with a bomb in the first race on Alwas, causing him to crash and injuring him to the point of hospitalization, so that Eva (who had infiltrated the Earth Team under the alias of "Molly" to rebuild her relationship with her father) could replace him as the Earth Teams racer. Although Rick survives, the trauma of his injuries made it that he was incapable of ever racing again and ending his career as a racer altogether, something that emotionally devastated him. Canaletto is completely apathetic to Ricks suffering and dismisses him as a pawn he had no use for.
- He psychologically tortures the Mad Scrub despite the latter's devotion and loyalty to him. It's also implied that he caused the lightning strike that sets his house on fire and kills him after Rick interrogated him for sabotaging his ship in the first race.
- He erases Ricks memories of him during their encounter in a vision. While he didn't kill Rick, this was likely out of pragmatism to keep Satis from suspecting his involvement in the race.
- When Sul proved too much of a dangerous enemy for Eva to beat in the Oban Cycle of the race, he teleported him out of the race and to a deserted temple. Appearing as an astral projection, he offers Sul an alliance, recognizing his powers made him a valuable asset. When Sul refuses, Canaletto banishes him to another dimension, with Sul's screams implying that the process was painful for him.
- After he escapes, he uses his powers to destroy the temple and reduces Oban to a mostly lifeless wasteland.
- Confronting Satis, he tortures him lightning as payback for imprisoning him before attempting to take back the powers of the Avatar, announcing his intention to completely destroy the universe, deeming its existence a mistake of the Creators and that he intends to make a "pure and perfect" universe of his own design. When Satis destroy the pyramid to keep him from taking the power, he blasts him out of the temple, killing him. He then sets out to find the second pyramid in the old temple to get the Avatar's powers.
- He brings the statues of the old temple to life and uses them to attack the heroes, causing O to perform a heroic sacrifice to destroy the statues.
- He attacks and injures Jordan and Aika when they try to fight him.
- After revealing his role as Maya's killer to Eva, he uses her grief-stricken state to hypnotize her and force her to activate the pyramid so he could take the Avatar's power.
- He kills the Creators when they tried to stop him from becoming Avatar again.
- He reaches for the pyramid to take back the Avatar's power, laughing sadistically in anticipation of beginning his destruction of the "impure" universe to create one of "eternal stillness". Thankfully Jordan jumps into the pyramid at the last second to absorb the power and become the new Avatar, allowing him to erase Canaletto from existence and kill him.
- This results in Jordan and Eva being separated from each other forever and preventing them from ever being together despite their feelings for each other. Plus, Jordan will likely outlive all of his friends and loved ones and will spend the next thousand years in complete isolation and loneliness while bearing the responsibility for the entire galaxy.
- He claims to be trying to make the galaxy a perfect place and free of pain, but his method of destroying planets that don't fit his idea of perfection and his attempts to destroy the galaxy completely, despite the Avatar having the power to resolve most problems in less destructive ways, shows he does not want to perfect it for anyone other than himself. Satis calls him out for using the powers of the Avatar for his own gain, with Canaletto merely stating that he does what he pleases, which combined with how he's determined to keep the Avatar's powers for himself even after his term is over shows that he's driven by his hunger for power and his own ego than any desire to help anyone. Plus, his idea of a perfect galaxy is one of eternal stillness, meaning that the universe he created in place of the old would've been a dystopia free of independent thought, making his claims of purity even more shallow.
- His supposed respect and care for Eva aren't genuine, as he only sees her as a pawn for his plan to become Avatar again. He shows no regret for the pain he's inflicted on her, callously insisting that his murder of her mother and the subsequent abandonment by her father as a result of said murder was done to bring out the best in her. It's likely he would've killed her along with the rest of the galaxy once he became Avatar again.
- He's easily the darkest and most heinous character in the entire series, having the worst goal of any villain in the series with his attempted omnicide (even more so than General Kross, a genocidal warlord who wanted to wipe out humanity upon becoming Avatar but had no stated desire to do worse than that afterward) as well as the most personal impact on Eva with his murder of her mother and his manipulation of her throughout her life. Unlike the Earth Teams other enemies, he has no sincerely honorable qualities or sympathetic motivations. And he has no comedic moments at all, being treated completely seriously in every scene he's in.
Trivia[]
- He, Mandarin, and Professor Kindly are currently the only Jetix villains to be Pure Evil.
External Links[]
- Canaletto on the Villains Wiki
- Canaletto on the Ōban Star-Racers Wiki