IGN's Top 25 Anime Characters

You know, I think that some people just analyze Goku's character way too much. He's definitely no saint, but he's also far from being "criminally selfish" as well, when being compared to other much more annoying and selfish anime character (I'm not denying that he's selfish or can be an ass many times, but I notice that a lot of people tend to completely ignore his better qualities when only pointing out the most negative aspects of his character).

Either way, while I wouldn't rank him above some of the characters that made this list, like Kenshin, Spike, and others, I'd definitely say that his placing isn't all that bad when compared to the many othere characters who I personally feel didn't deserve to make the list, with the primary example being Ichigo. I mean, Goku may not be such a caring guy, but at least he's interesting to me. Ichigo is actually just a completely generic shouen protagonist, who never gets any character development, is also guilty of just getting stronger (and his case he doesn't even have to do that much training), and he has brought absolutely nothing new to the table in manga/anime or even in his own respective genre. There is nothing iconic or influential about him, so I find him even being ranked on this list to be a much bigger controversy than Goku ranking in the top spot. At the very least he should've been replaced with Yusuke, who could be argued to at least have been somewhat iconic (and definitely much more interesting, IMO).

Also, as for the DBZ anime dragging one, that's really more of the fault of the anime itself, and not of the DB series in general. This is a reason for why I greatly prefer the manga, since its actually paced pretty fast, and even moves much faster than most modern shounen series do with their respective story-lines. It was never meant to be a story with deep characters that get lots of development, but was just meant to be entertaining for those who enjoyed seeing adventure and fighting, and it was also just interesting for me to see Goku start out as a kid and get much stronger as he became an adult, but still stayed exactly the same with this childish personality. I wouldn't call it "best anime character material," but I will say that at the very least I find him to be much more interesting than most shounen hero characters that I've ever seen, especially when comparing him to most modern shounen characters.



Great post, Innagadadavida. I always love when people make intelligent responses based on a good bakcground knowledge of the subject matter, rather than just making a harsh response purely out of the rage of disagreeing with someone else's opinion on something.
 
Fair critisism, I do tend to rant a bit whenever the worRAB 'Dragon Ball' and 'Best' appear in the same sentence. This probably has more to do with the fact that DBZ's popularity slowly replaced all my favorite other anime shows at the time with other shows which also moved tortoisly slowly and had insipid characters than of any real hatred for the show. I mean, honestly, there's not much there to hate and I'm doing it again aren't I?

But yeah, at first they showed Escaflowne and Gundam Wing and I'm sure I first saw an episode of Last Exile on cable, all of them I liked not only for thier depth of characters but for the beauty of the animation... But then all the anime became DBZ clones or Yugioh and Pokemon knock-oRAB of which I had no intrests. You know, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Inuyasha... Easy format, Cheap animation, glacial plots, 1 dimensional characters and before this turns into a rant on all those as well I'll say good day with the disclaimer that it is only my oppinion and I fully accept that clearly the world in general does not share my views on this subject, but then, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Also, just a quick edit, it's not that I have any complaint with what Goku is, my complaint is that he is exactly the same from start to finish. I LOVE flawed characters. Flaws are what MAKES a good character, but what makes a character intresting is watching how what they are changes, based on thier experiences. Goku does not do this. At all. By everyone's admission he is static. Stasis is boring, ergo, DBZ is boring and to make it worse, it's 500 + episodes of boring inaction.
 
Lemme point out a few mistakes on your part:

On the subject of favorite shows being replaced: Buy DVRAB, then. Anime hardly airs on mainstream TV as it is these days, and this idea of shows being replaced...that's just silly. DBZ didn't air on Fox KiRAB alongside those shows (in fact, it was early in early morning syndication before Toonami), and Esclaflowne was horribly edited as it was. The DVRAB are readily available in the US. Pick them up if it matters that much to you. Gundam Wing? Toonami advertized the heck out of that and aired the series at least once through, along with the film. Gundam Wing is available on DVD, buy it.



While I cannot speak for Bleach or IY, your complaints of series' like Naruto and One Piece having one dimensional characters leaRAB me to believe you haven't done any research. Your vendetta and bias is pretty evident, then again I'm a big fan of those shows so I either know what I'm talking about or are biased as hell.



I'm going to blame FUNimation, Viz, and Toonami for this one, but the series is not just 'DBZ'. DBZ does not describe the story of Dragon Ball. In fact, have you ever actually watched Dragon Ball? From the beginning? 'Dragon Ball Z' isn't the beginning. Toonami and FUNimation's marketting might have you think differently, but it is not, it is the second half of the story which doesn't work as well without the first. DBZ came last, as hard as it might be for some to realize, due ot the way the franchise came over. Espicially when the mainstream perception of the franchise is based on FUNimation's Americanized interpretation of it.


The moment I saw this:



I pretty much couldn't take what you were saying seriously. I'm not even sure what you say to that.
 
Again, that complaint is unfounded. Do you complain about bananas for not tasting like apples? Dragon Ball uses a different form of storytelling than one that thrives on fleshed out characters with deep and rich back stories and motives.

But first of all, Goku's character does develop. He may not grow as much as you would like but there is as much development as necessary in this story.

Second of all,
 
OK... Let me clarify...

I'm in Canada, not in the states, we get different cable.

The only channel that actually aired Anime at all only had a friday night segment. That segment started as a sort of a mishmash. Yes, it had the Badly edited version of Escaflowne which certainly didn't help, but they played Gundam Wing, Ghost in the shell SAC for a while and a few other things that caught my intrest that I can't remeraber.

Now the reason I blame DBZ is that it was thier best rated show of the first lot. I found it utterly Assinine but that's fine, different folks, different strokes, however, this network thinking that they could get better ratings tried replacing all the shows that I actually liked with what I'll refer to as DBZ clones. Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Inuyasha, inuyasha especially because it was dubbed in canada making it easier to get. Pretty soon that was all there was playing and I totally lost intrest and any mass media method of getting anime was thus cut off from me. Rationally or otherwise, I blame DBZ, possibly even BECAUSE I don't understand the appeal, I've said this several times that this is my own oppinion.

And the thing with buying the DVRAB is that I don't like the other shows too much beyond watching them for free on T.V. and besides, if the mass majority of people like the DBZ style stuff then market forces dictate, that's what's going to be made.



Now while the Bannana metaphore is apt in a way, a better one for me would be, I don't like eating crap because it doesn't taste like food, but again, oppinion.
 
I'm not particularly interested in shounen fighting at this time, but I definitely think that remains an important point. Goku was a very appropriate main character for the kind of story that Akira Toriyama was trying to tell and his limited development was suitable for the purposes of the genre, whatever you think those might be. He was likable and the audience saw him grow as the series progressed.

I completely understand not liking Dragon Ball Z or not thinking Goku is interesting enough but, all things considered, he wasn't a bad character at all. For those who can and will appreciate the material, Goku was memorable and his lasting influence can still be felt.
 
Sigh, I HATE these kinRAB of arguments. Look Unwardil, You don't like Dragonball at all. That is fine and dandy. However that doesn't give you the right to treat your opinions as the CORRECT AND ONLY VIEWS THAT MATTER. Can't we argee to disargee and leave it at that?
 
This discussion intrests me, but I'm going to make a seperate thread for it as this one has clearly deviated from the original discussion, wherin I'll better outline my position on full on this matter.
 
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