And so with this post we mark the halfway point in this series that I started last month. Often when someone makes a list like this people are much more focused on who isn't on the list as opposed to the characters who ARE on the list. Believe me, there are several characters that I've left off this list. To be honest, the current list doesn't entirely have to be a list of my favorites. There are plenty of characters that I may like more that don't make the list but the characters on the list generally are stronger and better developed characters. So without much ado, here's a short list of characters that I love that just missed the cut.
Lets start with the man pictured above, Jeremiah Gottwald from Code Geass. If this list was based purely off of who is the biggest badass of all-time, "Orange-kun" would rank very high on the list. The dude is literally a walking mountain of badass. However, the reasons that he fails to make the cut is that in terms of character development, the guy is lacking. He does get a bit of a break because the reason he became such a badass is because the writers had no idea that he was going to become so popular. For most of the first season he's just an elitist asshole who gets curb-stomped by Lelouch's tactics on numerous occasions. However, the fans took to his characters and the writers brought him back as a badass cyborg who spouts nothing but hammy, badass lines while performing feats of badassitude. He's so badass, he's been brought back from death twice!! However, the writers never really explored or developed his character enough which is why he doesn't make the list.
Then theres Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho and Vegeta from Dragonball Z. Both of these characters, like Gottwald, are plenty badass. Unfortunately, they suffer from being all to similar characters. To make this list a character needs to be original and exciting. Unfortunately, these guys, as badass as they are, are essentially the same character. Awesome in their own series for sure, but in the grand scheme of the genre, too similar.
Melissa Mao from Full Metal Panic! is another example of a character who has all the qualities to make the list but unfortunately she's not the first of her type. She's essentially Misato Katsuragi from Neon Genesis Evangelion, even played by the same voice actress. Melissa was easily my favorite character from the show but I had to give the nod to the original Misato Katsuragi.
No doubt, Hellsing's Father Alexander Anderson is a badass character of the highest class. However, he's another instance where a lack of character development holds him back. He can fight one on one with Alucard and hold his own, despite the fact that he's a human. Not to mention the loads and loads of blessed bayonets that he somehow is able to store in his robes. Unfortunately, I felt that Hellsing never really developed his character beyond the fact that he was a badass. For that reason, I couldn't include him in the 20.
G Gundam's Domon Kasshu made being a badass by the merit of your own unstoppable manliness cool almost a decade before Gurren Lagann did. Neo-Japan's Gundam figher is a pretty legendary character in anime just on the basis that he's full of hot-blooded rage. I love Domon as a character, over the top yelling and all, it's just that his character at times is so absurd that he's hard to take seriously. G Gundam is a show you watch as somewhat of a guilty pleasure due to the fact that it crosses over into So Bad It's Good territory frequently. The cold, hard fact about Domon is that as awesome as he is, he's full of cliches and stereotypes. For me a character needs to be deeper and more original than that.
Notice a common trend here? The characters that currently populate the list that I have created are all deep and complex characters. It is hardly enough to commit deeds of badassitude on a regular basis, after all I outlined the requirements for a "cool" character in the first post of this series. As I begin the final ten characters in this list I hope that you'll all enjoy the wide variety of awesome characters.
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