The Tiger's Top Ten: Most Badass Characters in Anime
Monday, September 19, 2011
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| Akai: This is just the daily ride to work for me. |
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| Say what you will about his appetite and lack of brains, Gourry helped take down Shabrinigdo with the rest of them. |
Why so surprised? Well I can understand because he's not the obvious choice from the show. Some might say Zelgadis, Xellos, or even Lina Inverse herself might be a more obvious choice, but here's my argument. Sure Lina has faced down more monsters and god-beings then any of them, and the other spellcasters are definitely quite powerful, but it takes a special kind of normal guy to be able to keep up with them and be relevant when all he can do is swing a sword around even if that sword is usually the Sword of Light. He may be an idiot, but Gourry's raw strength and determination in the face of often impossible odds while still being able to match the others in power is awesome, and that's why, even though most of the other characters in the nakama are worth mentioning for sheer awesomeness, Gourry actually gets the #10 spot.
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| Ashitaka: Get me angry enough and I can even defy the laws of physics! Just look at what I did to that guy with my bow about fifteen minutes back. |
This guy is pretty incredible. In the beginning of the movie, he kills a giant boar that's at least 10 times his size, and spends the rest of the film running around trying to stop a war between man and nature. He manages to stop two very competent female warriors from fighting, bending swords and throwing people out of the way to get to them, walks out of the settlement where it happened carrying one of them, gets shot and keeps going, only collapsing when he succumbs to the pain about a mile or so out, and spends the rest of the movie fighting everybody while trying to prove that fighting doesn't have to happen. All of this happens while he's dealing with a curse that (even though it gives him super strength) not only causes him intense pain, but is eating him from the inside out, and he's only keeping himself together by sheer will. That's impressive enough to get my attention, and enough to put him at #9.
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| Don't let his short stature fool you, this guy's dangerous. A later DC inductee perhaps? Only time will tell. |
How many guys would have a third eye implanted into their skull so they could do super dangerous attacks that if done wrong can probably kill them? The answer is "not many." But that's just what Hiei did. Starting out as a dangerous enemy turned reformed villain... uh... sort of, Hiei has very little that motivates him like his little sister... well, that and the desire to kick a whole lot of demonic butt in the fight tournaments, and he does a lot of the latter with gusto, utilizing his Jagan eye to destroy any enemies with attacks like Dragon of the Darkness Flame. In contrast to many of the other characters on the list, rather than being known for facing insurmountable odds and triumphing over them, he's instead notorious for unleashing ludicrously power attacks on his enemies leading to his badassery coming more from his raw power, which is enough to get him on the list.
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| He even looks bad-ass when he's lecturing his opponents! |
As much as Kenshin has done in his short life (the guy's only thirty when the anime starts) he deserves at least a mention on this list. While fighting in the Meiji Restoration Kenshin was pulling assassinations on a regular basis, but even in the story he does some pretty incredible stuff, sometimes even while horribly wounded, in order to protect the people he cares about. Even when he hasn't gone all battousai on his opponents, he's done things with his reverse blade katana that most fencers would never be able to pull off. Examples include the time he sent on of Gohei's henchmen into the ceiling of Kaoru's dojo. But there have also been times where he's faced down enemies with crippling handicaps and won. Like when he faced down Shishio in spite of being wounded, or the time he fought with the christian rebel who blinded him later in the series and still beat him. Examples like this definitely make a good case for Kenshin being here.
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| If you thought this was impressive, just wait 'till you get to Black Jack 21! ^^ |
A lot of characters got on the list for their fighting prowess, but Black Jack gets on here for other reasons. While he has dealt with attackers before, often using scalpels as throwing stars, and performed miracle surgeries afterward, that in itself is not remarkable enough to get you on the list. A number of people on this list have also faced down crime bosses, blackmailed people and done whatever it takes, but there's something else that brings BJ into top ten territory. Not a lot of guys can say that they've performed open surgery on themselves, multiple times, often without help, and one time, he did it while in the Australian outback and surrounded by carnivorous dingoes. If that's not crazy badass, I don't know what is. You might not like his prices or his attitude, but even aliens don't question BJ's expertise in the medical field. When the chips are down, he knows how to pull through, which has allowed him to climb his way up to #6 on this list.
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| Vegita: I'll be #1 as soon as I kill everyone else! |
No one can deny Vegita's status as the baddest character in DBZ. Starting out working for Freeza, and eventually becoming a rival and lancer to Goku in a lot of the later episodes, he's had plenty of opportunities where he's had to show off his metal as a fighter and maintain his honor as a warrior. If he didn't establish himself as an evil badass in the first fight between him and Goku's nakama, he solidifies it later when he turns on Freeza and actually holds his own pretty well until he dies (death in DBZ is only just a bit inconvenient but that's another discussion entirely). He tries so hard to catch up to Goku later on that just when he manages to pull even with the guy, it's impressive. In all fairness, many of the other characters in DBZ fit this bill too, but Vegita pulls ahead in badassery by tenacity, which is why I give him the #5 position.
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| How much do you think that thing weighs anyway? |
The main reason Sango makes the cut has to do with her entrance into the show, although the giant boomerang is a convincing argument too. It's definitely impressive that she was slinging that thing around for a living prior to joining the Inu-nakama. She enters very traumatically, with the death of her entire family, and it was believed at the time that she didn't make it either. Instead, she digs herself out of her own grave, and with the help of a shikon shard pulls herself along several miles after being convinced by Naraku that her comrades back at her village were murdered by Inuyasha, just so she could attack him out of revenge (while still bleeding to death!). Later, after learning the truth (Naraku did it), she fights tirelessly to bring about his end and protect her comrades. By now you can probably see that I like extraordinary normal people. Consider that even compared to Miroku (human but with special training as a monk and a nasty yet awesome curse), she's the closest one in the group to being normal and yet she can fight it out with most demons and win, reliably. That's pretty impressive, and enough to land her at #4.
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| Motoko: Trust me boys, you don't want any of this. |
Unlike Sango, this character personifies badassery from both end of the the spectrum. On the one hand she could be considered to be the most physically handicapped, being that her only living parts are her brain and spinal cord. The rest of her is a prosthetic body. But on the other hand, I'll be damned if she doesn't know how to use that body to do some pretty incredible things (lets keep the dirty jokes to a minimum folks). The gymnastics Motoko pulls off are impressive in their own right, as she regularly jumps off of buildings and pulls stunts that would make most Navy Seals turn green with envy, but when it comes to hacking and heavy combat, the Major is queen. With camoflauge capabilities that outstrip a ninja, (literally in the movies), the ability to capture/kill most opponents, and the capacity to take on a mech (she actually does take on a small one in 1st Gig and though Batou did help a bit, she ends by scaring the pilot senseless!) the Major definitely belongs on the list.
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| The fact that he's voiced by Crispin Freeman in the dub goes a long way too. |
There are many people who would put Alucard at number one, and he's certainly a good example of one on the opposite end from the normals. A super-human elder vampire with guns is pretty bad, never mind the way he uses them. Of course, just wait until he gets really mad and reveals the abomination he really is. At least with the others, you stand a chance. Get Motoko mad, she'll just scare you a little bit and turn you over to the authorities. With Alucard, really get him mad and all you'll get for your trouble is a real short trip to the hereafter. That's assuming he doesn't open the can super-quasi-abyssal powers he has at his disposal. But this is actually why I put him second. His powers mean it's rarely an uncertain thing that he'll win. So who beats out this lord of the night for #1?...
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| It was hard choosing between Spike and Vicious, they're both pretty badass, but in the end, Spike won by a Swordfish. And Steve Blum. ^^ |
I like Spike. He's a martial arts master, ex-syndicate mook, bounty hunter, with a false eye. Like Sango, his badassery is largely derived from what he does for a living, which is hunt down bounties, and he doesn't always get them. Even so, some of the situations he's been in are still pretty impressive. One of my personal favorites was the chase sequence in the movie where the Martian military chases him through a city in his spacecraft, but some of the better examples of how tough this guy is would be his face-offs with Vicious and Mad Pierout. (His suicide run through the syndicate's headquarters just to get to Vicious at the end also helped.) Though he gets himself beaten up quite horribly in those encounters and also in his encounter with Vincent in the film, he still manages to come out of it looking totally awesome, even in the last fight where we don't know if he survived. He approaches everything brazenly and confidently, and even when he doesn't win, he still manages somehow to come out if not on top in the situations he's in, he's at least on top in our minds, and that's what makes him my #1 pick for most badass character in anime.
Please note, this list is just based on the anime I've seen. I'm sure there are plenty of characters in anime I haven't watched that definitely have a fighting chance here, but if I haven't seen the show, then I can't talk much about the character without any amount of authority. For instance, I had considered Guts from Berserk as a possible candidate but when it came down to it, I didn't know enough about the character to have a really good frame of reference. Maybe in a couple of years I'll revamp this list (assuming I'm still doing this stuff), but in the mean time, this is what I've got. Also note, that this is just my opinion. If you want to argue the details, you can comment below, but no flaming please. See ya next week!
Images taken from Black Jack, Cowboy Bebop, Detective Conan, Dragon Ball Z, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Hellsing, Inuyasha, Princess Mononoke, Rurouni Kenshin, and Slayers.