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spottoMore uninteresting rants! Yes, I did tag this with everything.
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Throughout the years I've always wondered why don't I like that dude everyone else likes? How come this character/person is incredibly popular but I don't seem to feel anything for them? I always attributed it to the shallow feeling of wanting to be different, wanting not to follow the trends so I'll like that second-in-command dude instead! Yet I've realized that that's not true. I have an actual legitimate reason for liking characters I like and it has nothing to do with their popularity or whatever. I mean there are plenty of characters I like who are very popular, so how to explain them?
The pattern goes all the way back to the beginning. The first thing I truly could call an "interest" as I started my adolescent days. I always thought the reason I got into Beyblade was pretty shallow as well. I mean the first season's animation and design of characters was absolutely horrible, so I always felt that I didn't like it because of the cover so I was being all shallow and one-dimensional and such. The fact that I started watching because of the improved animation and design of the second season, and because "Max is soooo cute" felt like a really...you know, "not-honorable" reason? People are always "You should like someone not for how they look, but how they are!"
Then again if you think about it, the whole plot and story and whatever of Beyblade is pretty...not interesting in the first place unless you're a nine-year-old boy. It's goddamn spinning tops. Sure I even bought some of those tops, but not to actually play them, more like collector's items to support the creator of something I absolutely love. It's why people buy manga if they also read it on the internet as well, or buy figurines or posters or whatever. You love something so much, you are willing to spend hard-earned money because you love the show or game or item or whatever so very much. I thought Sims 2 was good enough that instead of spending effort torrenting the games, I went and bought them all. I enjoyed them that much, and the first game I did download was like a demo for me.
Anyway the very first episode I watched and enjoyed (the first episode I actually watched in sheer boredom was some first season episode on the random monster bladers or whatever. I found that ridiculously cheesy, a vampire, werewolf, mummy, frankenstein? I dunno what they were, but I was not impressed) was that episode in season two. The one where Max is beyblading some guy from the enemy who are attempting to steal their holy beasts, and the entire building collapses with one of the Saint Shields inside as well, Mariam.
There we go, that is the reason I like everything I've ever loved to this day.
Confused? Let us fast-forward a bit. As many of my BIFF brethrens would remember I was in love with Rei from that series, as well as a few others. My reasoning? I guess he was hot. However I eventually lost interest in him and returned to the first character I called my favourite in the anime, Max. Rei went through a sudden personality change between the second season and the third, and his characterization in the third season was probably what caused him to drop off my favourite list. Why?
During this time everyone's favourite was by far Kai. Guys...or boys liked him because he was cool. Females liked him because he's that bad boy and for some reason teenage girls like characters who would probably abuse them if they were real. I just have no clue why. Perhaps abuse is a bit of an exaggeration, but characters like Kai would probably IGNORE a girl rather than be all lovey-dovey like all those fanfiction with OCs seem to dream of. Seriously a relationship like that doesn't sound realistic at all. It's the only reason that I can possibly think of why so many girls like Twilight despite none of the characters having personalities except maybe like one person because there is a "COOL BAD BOY WHO EVEN IF HE HAS NO PERSONALITY HE'S STILL UTTERLY COOL BECAUSE VAMPIRE AND SPARKLES AND EEEE!"
There's plenty of characters like Kai. The third season, what I regard as the worst season of Beyblade (and the ratings agree, the only demographic that watched this season the most in Japan were teenage girls. You know, the audience the show isn't aimed at?) tried to take Kai and apply it to an entire season. They changed Rei's personality from that pretty nice-yin yang dude to a SUPER ANGRY COOL DBZ CHARACTER OMG. Kai suddenly forgets ALL of his character development from the last two seasons just so he can be cold some MORE to the rest of the characters and all the new characters introduced weren't very deep at all. Lots of fangirls liked Brooklyn...but if you think about it...WHAT THE HELL IS HIS PERSONALITY!? Where did he COME from? Why is he super-awesome at everything despite never needing to practice!? It's like they threw in a gary-stu so he could be defeated to make Kai EVEN COOLER and then he suddenly goes crazy with power for NO REASON...or like, he has emotional mental problems and losing makes him DESTROY THE WORLD!!!
What?
Gee, no wonder it ended after the third seasons. Sure it looked "cooler" but there was no reason GIVEN to make it cooler. At least in the first season, the explanation of Rei getting injured from beyblading was because of the opponent's beast being able to manipulate air into razor blades, but Kai just gets HURT FOR NO REASON in season three versus Brooklyn, as if they're trying to throw in DBZ-action without any explanation just to make it cooler. A show is not AWESOME because they have these elements, they're AWESOME because the elements are not only cool, but written in well and have an actual explanation!
That's why season three had horrible ratings. It had bad writing. Who cares if you update the look of your characters or add super-cool action scenes? If you can't BLOODY WRITE THE STORY, it sucks. Even though the first season looked like crap, they had a simple linear-outline of a story and within the outline put in many subplots. A very simple way of telling a story, but it worked and it is because of this season lots of ten-year-old boys went out and bought expensive fancy tops, not because they were being DBZ.
Anyway, returning to the whole point of this rant, why I like everything else I've ever loved today. Rei was changed and so I fell back to my other favourite, Max. Now why did I like Max? He was very cute, very nice and compassionate, but was always regarded as the weakest link of the team (until Daichi came) and lost his bit-beast like nine thousand times, but it's always wonderful to see a character always overlooked trying to climb back into the spotlight, prove everyone wrong. How is Takao interesting if he wins the championship three times in a row? If you know he won before he's obviously going to do it again being the main character. How is Kai interesting if all he does is be cold and then after learning lessons and improving his character, reverts back to that cold character again? How is Rei interesting if you remove all his interesting nice-guy personality points and turn him into an angry colder-kind of character as if emulating Kai? Max was really the only one left.
Then there's not only him, but Mariam. Certainly that episode would not have been complete without her. This was probably the first pairing I truly liked, the subtext was there, the character was there, but it was also different for me. Different from everything else I've seen so far at that age (thirteen). I was young and thought that a relationship was a STRONG MAN and his SUBMISSIVE WIFE. But here we have a really cool, awesome, strong, and independent character in Mariam (unlike any other female character in the series EVER) with a character not seen a strong but trying to be strong, overlooked and adorable in Max. It was different but it still worked. I liked it.
Despite following trends later on like jumping into Yaoi or whatever, this pairing never fell off into my "dislike" list. It always lingered there. Even though I preferred KaiRei and then ReiMax, I was never ever against this adorable pairing: MaxMariam.
It would only be the beginning.
All the male characters I've liked from then on...they weren't the cool bad boys of the series. There was no Draco, no Sasuke, no whatever the female demographic's favourite character was at the time. They were the overlooked, lesser-seen as cool, adorable ones. Obviously there is more than simply one reason to explain why I like something, but a large part of it is this. I think in real life that's what I'd probably prefer as well.
In LF2 all the characters have absolutely no personalities but somehow there's still stories about the game, and Henry as I've always seen is portrayed as the stereotypical "Straight Arrow". You know, the boring serious archer dude? Yeah, I never liked that characterization. I don't see him as super-cool and mysterious, I see him as that dork who fails at everything, and I think some chinese fans agree with that characterization too if any of the fan movies or gifs or fanart I've seen is an indication. (You should see them, they're hilarious.)
B-Daman had the adorable Li, who I often don't really cite nowadays because I regard that fandom as really..well embarrassing I guess. I don't regret it but I had like really silly immature RPs with a friend of mine over it and it's just the thing I least mention or remember, but his character too works in this situation. Often overlooked for his older brother, he strives to be better (and cuter) and then...turns evil suddenly. I dunno. Lol.
Then there's Hetalia. You know arguably I should've gone for England, the massive world fan-favourite since he isn't really portrayed as the "bad boy" but like...a dork however the Japanese fans have him as that "PERFECT HUNK" when paired with the suddenly incredibly submissive Japan, and then on the other side they just pair him with the idiot America which makes England...still cool, at least as a father figure/older brother figure.
But you see I went for Hong Kong, but WHY? You ask? (Besides being Asian) When I did he had no personality, but that was what fandom was for. My favourite characterization of him is the rebellious teenage loser who fails at all social situations. (I laugh if his favourite bands are Linkin Park or My Chemical Romance, it's just adorkable and hilarious) I liked Korea too but he's not cool, he too is a dork who watches sappy Korean dramas and plays Starcraft all day, while bothering all his bros. I found him very endearing. :D
The entire main cast for Digimon Tamers are all goddamn nerds. THEY ALL PLAY CHILDREN'S CARD GAMES, and the card games aren't even ATTEMPTED to be portrayed as "super-cool" like the Yu-Gi-Oh universe is. There are even girls giggling at how stupid the boys are for playing children's card games, and the one girl who is a main character is probably the most OBSESSED with the game, getting her own real digimon BECAUSE of the cards. I liked Jenrya the most for many many reasons, but again the whole "we're not cool emotionless characters" does help. Also he's nice and also (at least partly) Chinese, so I can relate to him more. The only character who showed up being portrayed as super awesome is Ryo who has no personality and is stupid and I just have no clue why people like him. >_>
I actually thought giving that role to a Digimon itself was very different for a change, so rather than a little stick-kid (the anatomy in this series is a wonder to look at) trying to be cool, you can be super creative with the design of a Digimon and so Beezlebumon is born. He is awesome.
And that's only male characters? Female, we have Mariam as the prototype here. All my favourite female characters are the strong independent type. Not the weak female or the damsel in distress or whatever is the favourite of today. The obvious character here is Kazumi. I actually have a theory involving this why I stopped liking Yue (my initial favourite in Negima) is completely because of this reason.
You see Yue I started to like by watching the first Anime. The ending of said Anime I completely erase from my mind because not only was it absolutely stupid, but Yue herself seemed very out-of-character and bitchy especially compared to how the manga went. After this anime, I watched the second anime (but it only had nine episodes out at the time) so I instead read the manga in the meantime. In the manga, I still had Yue as my favourite even after 120 chapters however she was slowly falling out of favour, why?
Her crush on Negi. Now I know a girl does not suddenly become dependent just because they fall in love, but the cool character I knew just went all blushy and panicky and head-over-heels that by the time 126 arrived despite how dramatic and awesome the entire mini-arc went I just fell out of favour for her. So rather than simply just Yue, we now have Yue in love with Negi so most of the time she appears in a panel, it's because of Negi, or blushing for him, or watching him, and I found her Ariadne Knights mini-arc in the Magic World rather refreshing for her character because NO Negi and yet she still tries to remember who this Negi is. By that time it was too late, her character went from cool to being so much about Negi I just...I didn't like it I guess.
I suppose this is the true reason also why I'm not into that many het pairings. Too many of them feel stereotypical, have the STRONG man and submissive girl. All these shoujo-animes where a girl is like "OMG A GUY!" It's always the girl imagining some tough and manly hunk or whatever. For example we have Sailor Moon, and all the girls at one point are like "OMG A GUY!" and the guy is never some cute dork (UNLESS THE CHARACTER HERSELF IS A DORK, AKA AMI AND URAWA) (What? Dork and dork? That's just cheap!) but like, some cool and mysterious tall and dark guy. (Such as Mamoru who is boring and stupid.) This is also why I'm on the "UsagixSeiya" wagon of fans because SEIYA acts like an ADORKABLE guy and not some boring protective emotionless man like Mamoru. So he happens to be an alien who turns into a female as well, who cares. THE CHARACTER AND RELATIONSHIP IS THERE!
This is also why I dislike the silly stories where a guy and girl date, and one of them pretends to be something she's not (like putting on a fat suit) to test the guy. And if the guy actually likes the girl for who she is, HE IS REWARDED WITH THE HOT ONE INSTEAD. That's just double-standards! If you tolerate someone's cover and like them for who they are, you get the hot version! What kind of message is that trying to throw out!? As long as you're nice you will get a hot chick? I mean that just means all the fiction out there will always portray a guy always getting an attractive female while attempting very poorly to throw in a moral (but hey, in the end you still got the hot chick!). This is why all these cartoons with a fat slob and an attractive female is ridiculously unrealistic, but I suppose it does add to the humour factor.
And well I suppose I need more than more female character ti sustain this outlook, and I suppose the only other place to really look is PPGZ. Why do I like Kaoru? Why do I like Kaoru, do I dare say it, MORE than the original Buttercup? (I mean if I was forced to compare, but I really wouldn't want to either way as both series are very different in both style and genre) You could argue that PPGZ is just another silly shoujo and it has the "OMG A GUY!" problem Sailor Moon seems to have, but it actually subverts that surprisingly.
Sure Momoko is all like OMG A GUY but she's played so over the top it's more like she's parodying the characters. In episode 12 you have the Miyako episode, where Momoko asks her who this mysterious boy she likes is like, and she says "Is he COOL and mysterious!? Smart and athletic!? A HERO TYPE!?" Miyako's reply? "He's a bit of a coward and a crybaby I guess."
Of course the subvert is kind of subverted ITSELF when it flashbacks and shows Takaaki coming to steal-your-soul chibi Miyako's rescue, but he does kind of cry and then plays with the little girls around him! Awww, I saw him as a very compassionate older-brother type at this point. Then he becomes a super-awesome looking wolf-lion thing and this entire saga can only be completed in two episodes D: It doesn't COMPLETELY subvert the type, but the boy in question is a lot different than your usual shoujo-random-boy-crush. (How would I know though? I only watched like two shoujos, LOL)
But then you probably wonder why one of my favourite episodes ever (that I actually can rewatch several times without getting tired of it) is the KAORU love episode. You know, the independent-strong character I like...falling in love!? WOULDN'T THAT TURN INTO YUE AGAIN? The issue is surprisingly done quite well. There were lots of fans (including me) doubting that this next upcoming episode would work because Kaoru and love is really OOC, but it WORKED. She "falls-in-love" with a guy after seeing how muscular he is, but the conflict thrown in involves her father in a contra-wrestling match where the loser must remove their mask. The fact that the conflict has so many different things hanging from it (she also wants to see his dad's face, who never removes his mask due to his job, and has completely forgotten what he looked like at this point, the guy she likes is a huge fan of his OPPONENT) and then it goes into this whole manly-pride origin story OF said mask and good god words cannot describe how well-done this episode was alone. The fact is in the end it is SHE who dumps HIM because she realizes her mistake (her reason for "falling in love" was quite shallow, LOL) but he was also very shallow as well, actually improves Kaoru's character and makes her MORE independent and strong and awesome.
So yeah, I could go on with someone like Yuuna who actually might be the biggest oddity if what I think is true comes in place. Yuuna isn't particularly portrayed as strong nor independent (but again, not weak or dependent either) she's simply an idiot. The only idiot I actually like in this giant group of characters I have mentioned. I don't KNOW why I like her, honestly. Is it because of Aoi-dono and her love of Yuuna's voice? I think why I like her is her potential to be what I've mentioned actually. I mean I never gave any notice to her until later and it's probably because of her own plot point and origin in the storyline itself.
If she becomes as strong as what she is hinted to be, I'll be satisfied. Unfortunately at this point of the story it doesn't really look like that will happen because all she's done in the plot so far is pactio with Negi for a gun she can barely shoot. Sure she found out about her origin but nothing particularly changed at all. I hope in the future something will, but if not then this is just a character that never reached her foreshadowed potential, which would make Spotto very sad. Fighto, Yuuna! (I doubt this might happen because atm it REALLY has become a Negi story with the girls just side-characters now, I really can't see arcs focusing on other people anymore. It's just so goddamn Negi-centric....)
Speaking of Negima though, I am quite sad if anyone particularly people not familiar with Negima writes Kazumi off as some "stereotypical reporter who will do ANYTHING morally or not for a story". Sure she's pretty eager for a story, but Kazumi is actually quite compassionate and the two BIGGEST stories that would skyrocket her career she hasn't bothered to report on. (BECAUSE of her morals.) I mean people are free to dislike or like whatever characters they please, but I really don't like it if they just assume things because a certain character is of a certain something and this doesn't just apply to fandom it also applies to real life obviously. Hell, this applies to everything. To Starcraft Brood War purists who write off SC2, to old school Pokemon purists to the newer generations (my own reason for not liking the newer games is just the new Pokemon really, they do not interest me P: ), to PPG purists to PPGZ, to people who grew up in a certain area. Just because they grew up in the south doesn't mean they're stupid hillbillies for example.
I could be hypocritical with that statement, since I'm quite positive I've assumed before, but even so I think the statement applies to myself as well, and to everyone else in the world, but there we have the origin, the beginning of what started it all. If a show has something like that in it, I don't care if it's spinning tops or girly-transforming sentai shows....I will like it.
Spotto was here.
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Throughout the years I've always wondered why don't I like that dude everyone else likes? How come this character/person is incredibly popular but I don't seem to feel anything for them? I always attributed it to the shallow feeling of wanting to be different, wanting not to follow the trends so I'll like that second-in-command dude instead! Yet I've realized that that's not true. I have an actual legitimate reason for liking characters I like and it has nothing to do with their popularity or whatever. I mean there are plenty of characters I like who are very popular, so how to explain them?
The pattern goes all the way back to the beginning. The first thing I truly could call an "interest" as I started my adolescent days. I always thought the reason I got into Beyblade was pretty shallow as well. I mean the first season's animation and design of characters was absolutely horrible, so I always felt that I didn't like it because of the cover so I was being all shallow and one-dimensional and such. The fact that I started watching because of the improved animation and design of the second season, and because "Max is soooo cute" felt like a really...you know, "not-honorable" reason? People are always "You should like someone not for how they look, but how they are!"
Then again if you think about it, the whole plot and story and whatever of Beyblade is pretty...not interesting in the first place unless you're a nine-year-old boy. It's goddamn spinning tops. Sure I even bought some of those tops, but not to actually play them, more like collector's items to support the creator of something I absolutely love. It's why people buy manga if they also read it on the internet as well, or buy figurines or posters or whatever. You love something so much, you are willing to spend hard-earned money because you love the show or game or item or whatever so very much. I thought Sims 2 was good enough that instead of spending effort torrenting the games, I went and bought them all. I enjoyed them that much, and the first game I did download was like a demo for me.
Anyway the very first episode I watched and enjoyed (the first episode I actually watched in sheer boredom was some first season episode on the random monster bladers or whatever. I found that ridiculously cheesy, a vampire, werewolf, mummy, frankenstein? I dunno what they were, but I was not impressed) was that episode in season two. The one where Max is beyblading some guy from the enemy who are attempting to steal their holy beasts, and the entire building collapses with one of the Saint Shields inside as well, Mariam.
There we go, that is the reason I like everything I've ever loved to this day.
Confused? Let us fast-forward a bit. As many of my BIFF brethrens would remember I was in love with Rei from that series, as well as a few others. My reasoning? I guess he was hot. However I eventually lost interest in him and returned to the first character I called my favourite in the anime, Max. Rei went through a sudden personality change between the second season and the third, and his characterization in the third season was probably what caused him to drop off my favourite list. Why?
During this time everyone's favourite was by far Kai. Guys...or boys liked him because he was cool. Females liked him because he's that bad boy and for some reason teenage girls like characters who would probably abuse them if they were real. I just have no clue why. Perhaps abuse is a bit of an exaggeration, but characters like Kai would probably IGNORE a girl rather than be all lovey-dovey like all those fanfiction with OCs seem to dream of. Seriously a relationship like that doesn't sound realistic at all. It's the only reason that I can possibly think of why so many girls like Twilight despite none of the characters having personalities except maybe like one person because there is a "COOL BAD BOY WHO EVEN IF HE HAS NO PERSONALITY HE'S STILL UTTERLY COOL BECAUSE VAMPIRE AND SPARKLES AND EEEE!"
There's plenty of characters like Kai. The third season, what I regard as the worst season of Beyblade (and the ratings agree, the only demographic that watched this season the most in Japan were teenage girls. You know, the audience the show isn't aimed at?) tried to take Kai and apply it to an entire season. They changed Rei's personality from that pretty nice-yin yang dude to a SUPER ANGRY COOL DBZ CHARACTER OMG. Kai suddenly forgets ALL of his character development from the last two seasons just so he can be cold some MORE to the rest of the characters and all the new characters introduced weren't very deep at all. Lots of fangirls liked Brooklyn...but if you think about it...WHAT THE HELL IS HIS PERSONALITY!? Where did he COME from? Why is he super-awesome at everything despite never needing to practice!? It's like they threw in a gary-stu so he could be defeated to make Kai EVEN COOLER and then he suddenly goes crazy with power for NO REASON...or like, he has emotional mental problems and losing makes him DESTROY THE WORLD!!!
What?
Gee, no wonder it ended after the third seasons. Sure it looked "cooler" but there was no reason GIVEN to make it cooler. At least in the first season, the explanation of Rei getting injured from beyblading was because of the opponent's beast being able to manipulate air into razor blades, but Kai just gets HURT FOR NO REASON in season three versus Brooklyn, as if they're trying to throw in DBZ-action without any explanation just to make it cooler. A show is not AWESOME because they have these elements, they're AWESOME because the elements are not only cool, but written in well and have an actual explanation!
That's why season three had horrible ratings. It had bad writing. Who cares if you update the look of your characters or add super-cool action scenes? If you can't BLOODY WRITE THE STORY, it sucks. Even though the first season looked like crap, they had a simple linear-outline of a story and within the outline put in many subplots. A very simple way of telling a story, but it worked and it is because of this season lots of ten-year-old boys went out and bought expensive fancy tops, not because they were being DBZ.
Anyway, returning to the whole point of this rant, why I like everything else I've ever loved today. Rei was changed and so I fell back to my other favourite, Max. Now why did I like Max? He was very cute, very nice and compassionate, but was always regarded as the weakest link of the team (until Daichi came) and lost his bit-beast like nine thousand times, but it's always wonderful to see a character always overlooked trying to climb back into the spotlight, prove everyone wrong. How is Takao interesting if he wins the championship three times in a row? If you know he won before he's obviously going to do it again being the main character. How is Kai interesting if all he does is be cold and then after learning lessons and improving his character, reverts back to that cold character again? How is Rei interesting if you remove all his interesting nice-guy personality points and turn him into an angry colder-kind of character as if emulating Kai? Max was really the only one left.
Then there's not only him, but Mariam. Certainly that episode would not have been complete without her. This was probably the first pairing I truly liked, the subtext was there, the character was there, but it was also different for me. Different from everything else I've seen so far at that age (thirteen). I was young and thought that a relationship was a STRONG MAN and his SUBMISSIVE WIFE. But here we have a really cool, awesome, strong, and independent character in Mariam (unlike any other female character in the series EVER) with a character not seen a strong but trying to be strong, overlooked and adorable in Max. It was different but it still worked. I liked it.
Despite following trends later on like jumping into Yaoi or whatever, this pairing never fell off into my "dislike" list. It always lingered there. Even though I preferred KaiRei and then ReiMax, I was never ever against this adorable pairing: MaxMariam.
It would only be the beginning.
All the male characters I've liked from then on...they weren't the cool bad boys of the series. There was no Draco, no Sasuke, no whatever the female demographic's favourite character was at the time. They were the overlooked, lesser-seen as cool, adorable ones. Obviously there is more than simply one reason to explain why I like something, but a large part of it is this. I think in real life that's what I'd probably prefer as well.
In LF2 all the characters have absolutely no personalities but somehow there's still stories about the game, and Henry as I've always seen is portrayed as the stereotypical "Straight Arrow". You know, the boring serious archer dude? Yeah, I never liked that characterization. I don't see him as super-cool and mysterious, I see him as that dork who fails at everything, and I think some chinese fans agree with that characterization too if any of the fan movies or gifs or fanart I've seen is an indication. (You should see them, they're hilarious.)
B-Daman had the adorable Li, who I often don't really cite nowadays because I regard that fandom as really..well embarrassing I guess. I don't regret it but I had like really silly immature RPs with a friend of mine over it and it's just the thing I least mention or remember, but his character too works in this situation. Often overlooked for his older brother, he strives to be better (and cuter) and then...turns evil suddenly. I dunno. Lol.
Then there's Hetalia. You know arguably I should've gone for England, the massive world fan-favourite since he isn't really portrayed as the "bad boy" but like...a dork however the Japanese fans have him as that "PERFECT HUNK" when paired with the suddenly incredibly submissive Japan, and then on the other side they just pair him with the idiot America which makes England...still cool, at least as a father figure/older brother figure.
But you see I went for Hong Kong, but WHY? You ask? (Besides being Asian) When I did he had no personality, but that was what fandom was for. My favourite characterization of him is the rebellious teenage loser who fails at all social situations. (I laugh if his favourite bands are Linkin Park or My Chemical Romance, it's just adorkable and hilarious) I liked Korea too but he's not cool, he too is a dork who watches sappy Korean dramas and plays Starcraft all day, while bothering all his bros. I found him very endearing. :D
The entire main cast for Digimon Tamers are all goddamn nerds. THEY ALL PLAY CHILDREN'S CARD GAMES, and the card games aren't even ATTEMPTED to be portrayed as "super-cool" like the Yu-Gi-Oh universe is. There are even girls giggling at how stupid the boys are for playing children's card games, and the one girl who is a main character is probably the most OBSESSED with the game, getting her own real digimon BECAUSE of the cards. I liked Jenrya the most for many many reasons, but again the whole "we're not cool emotionless characters" does help. Also he's nice and also (at least partly) Chinese, so I can relate to him more. The only character who showed up being portrayed as super awesome is Ryo who has no personality and is stupid and I just have no clue why people like him. >_>
I actually thought giving that role to a Digimon itself was very different for a change, so rather than a little stick-kid (the anatomy in this series is a wonder to look at) trying to be cool, you can be super creative with the design of a Digimon and so Beezlebumon is born. He is awesome.
And that's only male characters? Female, we have Mariam as the prototype here. All my favourite female characters are the strong independent type. Not the weak female or the damsel in distress or whatever is the favourite of today. The obvious character here is Kazumi. I actually have a theory involving this why I stopped liking Yue (my initial favourite in Negima) is completely because of this reason.
You see Yue I started to like by watching the first Anime. The ending of said Anime I completely erase from my mind because not only was it absolutely stupid, but Yue herself seemed very out-of-character and bitchy especially compared to how the manga went. After this anime, I watched the second anime (but it only had nine episodes out at the time) so I instead read the manga in the meantime. In the manga, I still had Yue as my favourite even after 120 chapters however she was slowly falling out of favour, why?
Her crush on Negi. Now I know a girl does not suddenly become dependent just because they fall in love, but the cool character I knew just went all blushy and panicky and head-over-heels that by the time 126 arrived despite how dramatic and awesome the entire mini-arc went I just fell out of favour for her. So rather than simply just Yue, we now have Yue in love with Negi so most of the time she appears in a panel, it's because of Negi, or blushing for him, or watching him, and I found her Ariadne Knights mini-arc in the Magic World rather refreshing for her character because NO Negi and yet she still tries to remember who this Negi is. By that time it was too late, her character went from cool to being so much about Negi I just...I didn't like it I guess.
I suppose this is the true reason also why I'm not into that many het pairings. Too many of them feel stereotypical, have the STRONG man and submissive girl. All these shoujo-animes where a girl is like "OMG A GUY!" It's always the girl imagining some tough and manly hunk or whatever. For example we have Sailor Moon, and all the girls at one point are like "OMG A GUY!" and the guy is never some cute dork (UNLESS THE CHARACTER HERSELF IS A DORK, AKA AMI AND URAWA) (What? Dork and dork? That's just cheap!) but like, some cool and mysterious tall and dark guy. (Such as Mamoru who is boring and stupid.) This is also why I'm on the "UsagixSeiya" wagon of fans because SEIYA acts like an ADORKABLE guy and not some boring protective emotionless man like Mamoru. So he happens to be an alien who turns into a female as well, who cares. THE CHARACTER AND RELATIONSHIP IS THERE!
This is also why I dislike the silly stories where a guy and girl date, and one of them pretends to be something she's not (like putting on a fat suit) to test the guy. And if the guy actually likes the girl for who she is, HE IS REWARDED WITH THE HOT ONE INSTEAD. That's just double-standards! If you tolerate someone's cover and like them for who they are, you get the hot version! What kind of message is that trying to throw out!? As long as you're nice you will get a hot chick? I mean that just means all the fiction out there will always portray a guy always getting an attractive female while attempting very poorly to throw in a moral (but hey, in the end you still got the hot chick!). This is why all these cartoons with a fat slob and an attractive female is ridiculously unrealistic, but I suppose it does add to the humour factor.
And well I suppose I need more than more female character ti sustain this outlook, and I suppose the only other place to really look is PPGZ. Why do I like Kaoru? Why do I like Kaoru, do I dare say it, MORE than the original Buttercup? (I mean if I was forced to compare, but I really wouldn't want to either way as both series are very different in both style and genre) You could argue that PPGZ is just another silly shoujo and it has the "OMG A GUY!" problem Sailor Moon seems to have, but it actually subverts that surprisingly.
Sure Momoko is all like OMG A GUY but she's played so over the top it's more like she's parodying the characters. In episode 12 you have the Miyako episode, where Momoko asks her who this mysterious boy she likes is like, and she says "Is he COOL and mysterious!? Smart and athletic!? A HERO TYPE!?" Miyako's reply? "He's a bit of a coward and a crybaby I guess."
Of course the subvert is kind of subverted ITSELF when it flashbacks and shows Takaaki coming to steal-your-soul chibi Miyako's rescue, but he does kind of cry and then plays with the little girls around him! Awww, I saw him as a very compassionate older-brother type at this point. Then he becomes a super-awesome looking wolf-lion thing and this entire saga can only be completed in two episodes D: It doesn't COMPLETELY subvert the type, but the boy in question is a lot different than your usual shoujo-random-boy-crush. (How would I know though? I only watched like two shoujos, LOL)
But then you probably wonder why one of my favourite episodes ever (that I actually can rewatch several times without getting tired of it) is the KAORU love episode. You know, the independent-strong character I like...falling in love!? WOULDN'T THAT TURN INTO YUE AGAIN? The issue is surprisingly done quite well. There were lots of fans (including me) doubting that this next upcoming episode would work because Kaoru and love is really OOC, but it WORKED. She "falls-in-love" with a guy after seeing how muscular he is, but the conflict thrown in involves her father in a contra-wrestling match where the loser must remove their mask. The fact that the conflict has so many different things hanging from it (she also wants to see his dad's face, who never removes his mask due to his job, and has completely forgotten what he looked like at this point, the guy she likes is a huge fan of his OPPONENT) and then it goes into this whole manly-pride origin story OF said mask and good god words cannot describe how well-done this episode was alone. The fact is in the end it is SHE who dumps HIM because she realizes her mistake (her reason for "falling in love" was quite shallow, LOL) but he was also very shallow as well, actually improves Kaoru's character and makes her MORE independent and strong and awesome.
So yeah, I could go on with someone like Yuuna who actually might be the biggest oddity if what I think is true comes in place. Yuuna isn't particularly portrayed as strong nor independent (but again, not weak or dependent either) she's simply an idiot. The only idiot I actually like in this giant group of characters I have mentioned. I don't KNOW why I like her, honestly. Is it because of Aoi-dono and her love of Yuuna's voice? I think why I like her is her potential to be what I've mentioned actually. I mean I never gave any notice to her until later and it's probably because of her own plot point and origin in the storyline itself.
If she becomes as strong as what she is hinted to be, I'll be satisfied. Unfortunately at this point of the story it doesn't really look like that will happen because all she's done in the plot so far is pactio with Negi for a gun she can barely shoot. Sure she found out about her origin but nothing particularly changed at all. I hope in the future something will, but if not then this is just a character that never reached her foreshadowed potential, which would make Spotto very sad. Fighto, Yuuna! (I doubt this might happen because atm it REALLY has become a Negi story with the girls just side-characters now, I really can't see arcs focusing on other people anymore. It's just so goddamn Negi-centric....)
Speaking of Negima though, I am quite sad if anyone particularly people not familiar with Negima writes Kazumi off as some "stereotypical reporter who will do ANYTHING morally or not for a story". Sure she's pretty eager for a story, but Kazumi is actually quite compassionate and the two BIGGEST stories that would skyrocket her career she hasn't bothered to report on. (BECAUSE of her morals.) I mean people are free to dislike or like whatever characters they please, but I really don't like it if they just assume things because a certain character is of a certain something and this doesn't just apply to fandom it also applies to real life obviously. Hell, this applies to everything. To Starcraft Brood War purists who write off SC2, to old school Pokemon purists to the newer generations (my own reason for not liking the newer games is just the new Pokemon really, they do not interest me P: ), to PPG purists to PPGZ, to people who grew up in a certain area. Just because they grew up in the south doesn't mean they're stupid hillbillies for example.
I could be hypocritical with that statement, since I'm quite positive I've assumed before, but even so I think the statement applies to myself as well, and to everyone else in the world, but there we have the origin, the beginning of what started it all. If a show has something like that in it, I don't care if it's spinning tops or girly-transforming sentai shows....I will like it.
Spotto was here.
