Why all the powerful mentors die easily in anime?

[Almonds]

Be it the brother, father, the grandfather, teacher, or whatever - a lot of shounen anime (and other genres) have the protagonist lose their mentor. And usually the mentor is an extremely feared, respected figure - probably almost all of them are the top ranking powerful beings in their anime.

Why do they have to kill off all the powerful mentors anyways? Most of them are extremely likable - and wouldn't the story have continued better? IMO, the protagonist would've developed better with the mentor ALIVE - someone needs to teach the kiddy kid anyways.

 

[mecharcher]

haha I often find it almost better for them to die rather then switch sides and go against their student to make them a better fighert person ect.

 

[LuckyMyu]

This isn't just in anime/manga. It's a pretty common trope in coming-of-age epics in general.

Look at Star Wars with Obi-Wan and Yoda, or the Harry Potter books with Dumbledore.

 

[Kakuna Matata]

They are sacrificial lambs whose main purpose is to get their students motivated to kick bad guy ass.

 

[Tsuness]

If the mentor didn't die, then the idea of using the mentor's death as a means to surpass them wouldn't be usable. And if this didn't happen, then the main character would never be strong enough to beat the bad guy, or the mentor would do it for him, defeating the entire purpose of the main character. Long story short, mentors have to die.

 

[Joshawott]

Because once the person who taught the protagonist everything is gone, it means that they will more often than not, no longer have anyone to rely on other than themselves, meaning that they have to do things on their own and with their own judgement.