My Favorite Anime Protagonist

Welcome to day 12! I did a 30-day anime challenge last year and had a blast with it. It would be fun to do it again this year. Let’s see if my tastes have changed at all in a year.

Here is day 11 in case you missed it.

The purpose of these challenges is to post a picture, but I, being the extra person I am, will write a blog about each topic.

This differs from what I am used to blogging, which excites me to test my creativity and go back to find the answers to these writing prompts.

Feel free to join me in the comments below! I’d love to hear your answers too!!

Day 12 My Favorite Anime Protagonist

Breaking this up into two categories seems the simplest to explain my thought process.

Male Protagonist: There are a ton of amazing male leads but a few came to my mind as being the best. As I put this list together I am one of those fans that gravitate to side characters move than the leads. Are you like that or do you connect with the main character for the most part?

Unlike female leads, there are rarely whiny male characters. More often than not, the male leads tend to be bland, or a copy and paste from another show. So when I picked these it was mostly for their uniqueness and creative writing for the character.

Female Protagonist: The female characters would either make or break an anime for me. There are some badass, funny, and incredible female characters, but there are also some annoying, overly sexualized, and pretty much useless female characters. With anime, it is either a hit or miss.

With that in mind, I thought of way more inedible leads than annoying ones. Let’s get into my favorite protagonists.

Tanjiro — Demon Slayer

When I think of a revenge story the main character is normally dark and resentful towards everything. That however is not the case for sweet Tanjiro. Even after his family was brutally murdered and his sister was transformed into a demon he never became dark or twisted. He is kind-hearted through all of that hurt.

Another factor that made me put Tanjiro on this list is the realistic training he had to endure. I am not the biggest fan of a main character falling into power and then being unstoppable without any training. Tanjiro didn’t just train for a month, it took him years to reach the stage of being able to fight and slay demons. Even still he gets extremely beat up during almost every fight and the only factor in his winning is his determination.

Shiro — Deadman Wonderland

She is the definition of never letting them know your next move. I am a sucker for a crazy female character with an insane story to show why she is the way she is. People are so quick to call girls crazy but never look at who made them crazy.

Decim — Death Parade

For someone to show little to no emotion yet be an extremely emotional character was perfect for this show. I remember the first time watching Death Parade and was shocked at the emotional psychology of human nature. This is what also interests Decim.

I enjoyed his character development throughout the show and how his eyes opened to humans and came to an understanding of why we do what we do.

Celty — Durarara!!

Maybe she isn’t exactly the main lead of the story but she is too amazing to leave off the list. I have no idea how a character with no head can have so much emotion. I thought her story was wild and she was so well written.

Tatsu — The Way of the Househusband

A bad boy who turned house husband? yes, please! I adore his relationship with his wife. He is supportive and caring and is constantly thinking of her well-being. He is tough and is not afraid to cuss someone out for a sale of eggs. He is the perfect husband.

I love that even though he has seen horrors we can’t even imagine being in a gang, he still chooses to help those around him and is making the choice to be kind.

Yumeko — Kakegurui

She was an insane lead! I could never tell what she was thinking which I guess is the point when you're gambling. I have never seen a more intense character. The whole show had so many amazing female characters but Yumeko takes the cake when it comes to the best-written and most insane.

Loid Forger (Twilight) — Spy x Family

Of course, I couldn’t leave Agent Twilight off this list. We find out at the beginning of this series that he had a terrifying childhood and decided to become a spy to save other kids from the childhood that was stolen from him. I love watching him transition from spy to father and learning there is more to this parenting mission than he had originally thought. You can see Anya soften his heart and turn him into a proud parent. Then he has to learn how to be a husband to Yor and what it means to be supportive and understanding to your partner.

Twilight is going through what I call reverse character development. Instead of starting as a normal person and learning to be a spy, he starts as a highly trained spy and has to relearn how to be human.

You can’t get much better than the Spy x family story and the amazing writing of the characters.

Yor and Anya — Spy X Family

I cannot think of two better female leads. Their relationship is adorable. They both are learning how to navigate how to become a family while hiding their secrets. Every time I see the two of them on screen I know it is going to be an amazing episode.

Tooru — The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting

The main character Tooru is now my husband. It is adorable to see someone nicknamed the demon learn how to be human. He struggles throughout the show but still is about to show his kindness and patience. He is proof that we can all start again and can learn so much from the children around us.

Komi — Komi Can’t Communicate

When I say I have never related more to a character before in my life I mean it. As someone who deals with crippling social anxiety seeing a character with the same fear but trying her best to overcome it was so encouraging to me. They don’t make fun of social anxiety or use it to crack some jokes, but they bring it into the light of us not wanting to be anti-social we just don’t know how to be social.

Emma — The Promised Neverland

Emma is the definition of leadership. She not only saved everyone and restored the broken worlds, but she also did it all with a smile on her face. I thought it was funny that Norman and Ray were too drastic and violent with their plans and Emma was the one who prevented a war that they tried to start. I wish we had more women in leadership like Emma.

Class 3-E — Assaination Classroom

Okay, this one might be a stretch to put on a protagonist list but hear me out. With such a large cast of characters, this show mastered the ability to give every character show time, a backstory, unique quirks, and life lessons and makes you connect with every character. This is one of the few shows that I have seen that was able to blend in all of the characters across the episodes.

You can read my full review here:

I am sure there are some incredible anime leads that I forgot to add, but these were the first ones that popped into my head which was a sign my brain thought they were the best. I am thinking I might make a longer list of some more male and female leads that I thought were well-written.

Who is your favorite anime protagonist? Do you agree with any from this list?

Thanks for reading!!

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See you tomorrow!!