I hate bland characters. I mean seriously, what's the point of having the ability to conjure any world out of your imagination if you're going have characters so run-of-the-mill that they're basically interchangeable with a thousand other anime characters? If you're going to write some characters, make them interesting. Real but bizarre people that are either intriguing in their originality or have relatable wishes or problems buried underneath their layers. These are the characters that stick out. The characters that people pay attention to. Characters that are just fun to watch. At least, that's how I might think if not for some certain characters I've met while watching anime. And I'm glad that I was wrong. These five characters coming up are the kind that show just how special a normal person can be, and the ones that remind us about that bit of extraordinary in all of us.
Hello people of "The Wired", my name is Quan, and I hope you're doing fantastic on this day of August 23rd, 2014. Today we'll be counting done a group of blokes that appear normal at first, but reveal over the course of their respective anime just how awesome, complex, or manipulative they really are. Now, I am only including main protagonists for this countdown, though some of my choices for this list may be a little questionable with that rule in mind. Just know that all the characters on this list I personally believe to be the main character of the anime, even if some other characters in the show might be focused on more. Let's get started then.
See what I meant? Yes, I know many people would consider The Major to be the main character of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex(or Gits: SAC), or even Batou if you were to argue, but I always found that I considered Togusa to real focus of the series in a way. But putting that aside, Togusa is a member of Section 9: the elite counter-terrorism intelligence which Gits: SAC and its characters revolve around. And yeah, he's pretty normal; not being specialized in any particular skill unlike the other members of Section 9, and also being the only member of the unit which hasn't had the cybernetic advancements that the futuristic world of Gits: SAC is capable of. He's really very passive in most scenes, but as the series went on, I found him pretty much the most strongest member of the team. Despite not being capable of things the rest of the team is, he manages to keep pace with them through his bravery, strength, and relaxed but focused attitude that allows him to be maybe the most dependable person on the team.
The reason that he's at the bottom though in because he doesn't really have much development wise, and even I though I haven't seen Gits: SAC's follow up series, I'm pretty sure that's not going to change. However, as he is, Togusa is perfectly fine as a character, and I'm looking forward to watch him through another season of Stand Alone Complex. Whenever I get around to that. Maybe this year.
4. Kraft Lawrence - Spice and Wolf
Yeah, Lawrence is awesome. Not that you'd guess it from the first few episodes of the calm, relaxed economic trip that Spice and Wolf was. Lawrence would seem to you just an average merchant guy that just happened to stumble upon the wolf goddess Holo and agree to take her to the place of her birth. But he turned out to be so much more than that. True, he doesn't act much different than the average person would if put into the situations he gets himself into during the anime, but I always got the feeling that Lawrence was a lot more awesome than he lets on. He'll act like a calm guy for about three episodes, but once something big starts threatening him or his wolf-god traveling companion, he turns into some kind of economical bad-ass, using his incredible resourcefulness to get out of the jam. He also can be pretty suave, manipulative, or even cold-hearted when he wants to be, but what really sells his character for me is that despite all this, he's still undoubtedly a normal person. He is capable of being outsmarted or bested, and he is, multiple times throughout the anime, which makes it all the more respectable that he's usually able to turn the situation around despite being just as weak as everyone else. And hey, remember he's usually the only thing that stops Holo from killing anyone who annoys her. So yeah.
3. Mikiya Kokutou - Kara no Kyoukai
1. Kyon - The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
I have one sentence to describe Mikiya: nicest guy ever. This isn't exactly a good thing, seeing that Mikiya is basically the closest thing you can get to a god on earth, which isn't really good character writing, but I don't mean that in the way that he has some kind of overpowered ability(unlike a certain other character in Kara no Kyoukai). Mikiya is the most supportive, caring and charismatic person I've even seen in anime, so much so that he manages to, in the course of the seven dark, supernatural, movies that Kara no Kyoukai is made up of, cheat death in almost every movie, make almost every girl in the entire anime fall for him, and talk a murderous psycho-path out of killing him just using the power of his words. He's my favorite character on this list and in Kara no Kyoukai, even counting Skiki Ryogi, who I know a lot of people prefer. I guess it's just in the way how he seems to be kind of useless for the entire set of movies, but by the end of them you realize just how much he's made an impact of the people around, especially Shiki. And that just kind of makes him cool in his own way.
2. Mikado Ryūgamine - Durarara!
This is character that pretty much epitomizes everything I'm trying to point out in this list. The flawless example of a normal highschooler, in a crazy show where initially every other character is more interesting than him. When I first started Durarara! I didn't care for him in the slightest; I just wanted more Celty Sturluson, or more Shizuo Heiwajima, why should I care about this bland teenager? "Well," said Durarara, "what if we told you he was secretly the central of every single intertwining plot thread in the show, and the second half where we reveal the true nature of his character and ignore all the assumable cooler characters is congruent on a deeper level with the present themes of the show?"
"Go on." said I.
It's actually kind of brilliant how they change this average character and turn him into so much more than that, while still keeping him a normal person. He is almost the example of how people are always more complex than they seem, and Durarara! does a great of portraying this theme, which is my opinion, is the foundation the entire show is built on. Yes, it came at the expense of side-lining almost all the other characters of the show, but whatever, I'm fine with that seeing that we're are getting a second season of Durarara! soon, whenever that may be.
OK, I might be a little bias here, since Kyon is one of my favorite characters in anime regardless. It might also be because Kyon is basically me if I didn't have the confidence of Asuka from Evangelion and the mindset of Hachiman from SNAFU. Putting that aside though, Kyon is what happens when you put a sarcastic highschooler in an anime as eccentric as The Mel. of Haruhi Suzumiya, and put him on autopilot. Armed with the voice of Crispin Freeman, he narrates all the bizarre adventures in the anime with such wit and sarcasm that it makes him impossible not to like. Usually this is enough to make this list, but anybody who has seen The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya movie can tell you just how much he develops and becomes even more relatable in that 163 minutes. If you haven't seen the movie, I won't spoil anything for you, but...it's just fantastic.
With that, I draw this countdown to an end. Hope you enjoyed. I really need to get a better outro at some point.
Goodbye for now guys.
Like the countdown? Click here for my Top Five Wishlist Anime.
I mentioned SNAFU didn't I? Click here for my review of that anime.
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