#ygoandersen

First off, the Batman thing, IIRC, just refers to the fact that Barnaby’s parents were killed when he was young and it drove him to become a superhero. That’s really where the similarities end and I think that’s where the show intended the similarities to end. While I fully admit I’m not up on my Batman lore, I can’t think of any other bits of Barnaby’s background that match up with Batman’s, so I don’t think they’re really going any further in that direction. Now, they could! But I think it’s unlikely.

I’ll probably get a little more in depth on my thoughts about Mattia in the later episode recaps, but in general, I feel like they went out of their way to make Mattia seem untrustworthy in his first appearance in such a way that it was meant to throw us off. The way he comes across to me by the end of the series is that he’s astoundingly (holy shit so astoundingly) naive and like he was being manipulated by his boss. And my gosh, Barnaby needs a friend who is not Kotetsu, and Mattia has the added bonus of being someone who knew him before he was a superhero and before his entire life went to shit.

That being said, the creepy stalker vibes are absolutely there, so I can understand why other people still don’t trust him. I’m still unsure, myself, and it wouldn’t be the first time that someone who wasn’t really a major player in the first half of the season turned out to be a villain in the second half. I personally don’t think they’re going to go the route of giving Barnaby someone untrustworthy from his past yet again---the show doesn’t really retread ground like that---but it’s not out of the question. 

So yeah, overall, I’m personally leaning toward “not a bad guy.”