Favorites List Resolutions
Taking a cue from sirac and imperatorr, here's a quick rundown of my personal answers to the meme that's been catching lately.
There's no real rhyme or reason for the works I selected, they're basically things I can remember fanning heavily over at one point or another off the top of my head.
1. Rose of Versailles -- Andre Grandier (Not Guessed)
Rose of Versailles has as one of its main running plotlines a classic romantic staple, a story of unrequited love amongst people of different classes. I think what I like about Andre is that he's a steadfast fellow who tries his best to support the person he loves without expecting anything in return. He'll bear any amount of suffering for her, even though she is unaware of his love at first and later on, even rejects it. He's an endearing character throughout the run of the series and in the latter half as it draws towards the events of the French Revolution, his perspective becomes pivotal in revealing the plight of the French common class to his master.
2. Sakura Taisen (Hanagumi/Parigumi/NY Hoshigumi) -- Maria Tachibana/Lobelia Carlini/Sagitta Weinberg (First and third guessed by imperatorr)
Sakura Taisen's one of those guilty pleasures of mine. Not exactly complex or entirely innovative, it's nonetheless managed to hit a soft spot in my heart for girls in mecha. Steampunk mecha even. The games are fairly fun and feature a lot of voice acting. In fact, that's one of the main draws of the franchise and all my choices reflect that in some way. First off, Maria. I like Takano Urara's soft spoken register for her a whole lot and when coupled with her gunslinging prowess and her reliable and steadfast personality, she hits a lot of my win buttons. Lobelia Carlini is voiced by none other than Kikuko Inoue and her acting is a big part of why I like that character. It's a departure from her mild mannered roles as Kasumi Tendo in Ranma and Belldandy in Ah! My Goddess. Instead, it's a sultry rough voice put into a character who's borderline criminal at times. The fire and chains aesthetic of her design appeals to me even though it's a bit strange coupled with the mad scientist look of her flock of seagulls hair and cracked glasses. Sagitta Weinberg is voiced by Minagawa Junko, who seems to be a recent up and coming idol in the seiyuu business. I like her imperious tone of voice, which seems to fit for an anime styled black lawyer from Harlem who pursues hot blooded justice. Sagitta's character design has that strange Mavis Beacon factor going for her, which intrigues me a little more than the other character designs in Sakura Taisen V.
3. Shaolin Soccer -- 3rd Older Brother (Not Guessed)
Probably an unfair choice to put up since almost none of the Shaolin team even had names aside from their titles given to them as disciples. I would've accepted guesses that stated what crazy kung fu power they had. But I love this movie. This was a classic underdog sport team story filtered through the twisted genius of Stephen Chow and I enjoyed it entirely too much. The manhua rendition of Shaolin Soccer that the Christianburg crew got for me last New Year's was also great (and showcases Andy Seto's complete inability to draw women that aren't stunningly hot). 3rd Older Brother was the disciple who had mastery of the Iron Shirt technique, allowing him to survive some serious beatdowns and propel soccer balls at high velocity from his chest. I found his neurotic stock broker personality hilarious and the heroic last stand he made during the championship game near the end of the movie was great as well.
4. The Red Elvises (favorite comrade) -- Oleg Bernov (Guessed by sol_halo)
Ever since bensanaz exposed me to the sword swinging hard rocking cult indy film "Six String Samurai", I've been hardcore hooked on this groovy Santa Monica based Siberian surf rock band. They're great live and exude a wonderful fun loving charisma that makes you unable to do anything but sing along and dance while they're rollin'. Oleg's the man with the hyuuuuuge red bass balalaika and he affectionately calls it his Russian surfboard. He also affectionately asserts quite often that he wishes to make love to each and every one of you. Hey, when in Moscow...
5. Tenchi Muyo! -- Ryoko (Guessed by kalciane)
Orikasa Ai was my first seiyuu obsession and Ryoko was the first role I heard her voice in. It was the right mix of seductive sultry feline, rough angry battle veteran and vulnerable lovestruck soul that I got hooked almost right away. Tenchi Muyo! was among one of the first anime I saw when I actually found out what anime was and although the show and the character have lost a lot of their luster in hindsight, I still have a fondness for Orikasa Ai's voice. Even if she does play disturbingly fey little boy men half the time.
6. Devin Townsend (favorite non SYL track) -- "Earth Day" from the Terria album (Guessed by sol_halo)
Hevy Devy Townsend is the best thing to come out of Canada. Period. I'll go as far to say that he's one of the most innovative metal artists of our generation. Terria's a great ambient album and... yeah. I said it. Despite the distorted guitars and occasional growling lyrics, it's a real ambient sounding work and quite listenable even when you're in an introspective sort of mood. That being said, "Earth Day" is probably the least ambient sounding track on the album. It just hits you in the face with hugeness after the first two tracks and forces you to be at attention. And then after the message has been said, it fades back into gentle background ambience, soft whisperings of a wood flute being played and the local Cantonese news, evocative of the sizeable Chinese population that lives in Vancouver and perhaps Devy's past fascination with Asian things.
Edit: Or not. Upon a relistening of the album, that ambience was actually in the preceding track Mountain. Earth Day is just straight 'listen to me, goddammit' material all the way through. Still awesome though.
7. Mobile Fighter G Gundam -- Saisaishii (Guessed by imperatorr)
A solid fighting anime wrapped up in the skin of the Gundam franchise. My pick is the representative of Neo-China, fighting to restore the prominence of Shaolin kung fu in his nation. AZN pride gotta represent, yey YEAY. He's a clever kid, to the point of being awfully shady in his first encounter with Domon. What cinched my approval of the character, however, was the episode dedicated to him in the second story arc. I've got a soft spot for stories that involve the fulfillment of parental legacies and when Saisaishii found out the lengths his father went to for the sake of his legacy, it galvanized his own motivations for winning the Gundam Fight. The match between him and Domon, as a result, was very emotionally charged for me and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
8. Aim For The Top! Gunbuster -- Kazumi Amano (Not Guessed)
An amusing entry for me, since folks managed to guess nearly every character in the anime except for her. While I do like the rest of the cast quite a bit and had a hard time deciding, I think it was the character design for Kazumi's older appearance in the 6th episode that tipped the scales for me. Yeah, it was that shallow a reason.
9. Combattler V -- Professor Yotsuya (Not Guessed)
The first of Nagahama Tadao's Romantic Trilogy, Combattler is quite fun to watch in small stretches. It still follows the formulaic episode structure of its era a bit too rigidly sometimes but it has a quite likeable and charming team of protagonists in its favor. Yotsuya is a bit of a lush at times, but I think he's my favorite mecha show professor by dint of that and coming up with the awesome idea of using giant electromagnetic yo-yos for weapons.
10. Voltes V -- Prince Heinel (Guessed by maiku84)
The second of Nagahama Tadao's Romantic Trilogy and a remake of Combattler V, Voltes V is probably his first real attempt at planning and writing a true interplanetary epic. Prince Heinel is a noble but misguided character and I think I like him best because he's a refined version of Garuda, given a true link to the Voltes V team that becomes a central point of conflict against them. His role in the story evolved the most from the original Combattler premise and I found it quite interesting.
11. Toushou Daimos -- Hareck (Not Guessed)
I didn't really expect anybody to get this one since he was basically a minor one shot character in the series but he was very well written in my opinion. An honorable man, loyal to his race and the ideals his race once strived for under the rule of Prince Richter's father, Hareck fights the show's hero Kazuya and finds a kindred spirit in him despite the fact that they're supposed to be enemies. He ends up nobly sacrificing himself to save the prospect of finding peace and understanding between their two people, and also to save the man whom his liege princess fell in love with as well.
12. Macross 7 -- Viffidas (Guessed by maiku84)
Back to choices heavily influenced by seiyuu. I didn't realize this until I watched one of those rare episodes where Viffidas decides to actually speak out loud but she's voiced by Takano Urara. Not that she's not cool when she doesn't speak out loud, since her drumsticks usually manage to do the talking for her. And she wrestles giant Zentraedi in her spare time, what's not to like?
13. Victorian Romance Emma (manga) -- Monica Mildrake (Not Guessed)
Another minor character that I didn't really expect anybody to get. I liked her character design quite a bit and she's got a strong forceful personality that stands in contrast with many of the characters around her, including her younger sister Eleanor Campbell. I found the slight pseudo-lesbian subtextual relationship between the two siblings oddly cute as well. Kaoru Mori, the mangaka, is weird like that sometimes.
14. Angelic Layer (Deus/Angel) -- Sai Jounouchi/Lightspeed Suzuka (Angel guessed by kalciane)
Angelic Layer's one of the few CLAMP anime series I can admit to liking to this day. The characters are emotionally compelling and it takes fighting anime and reapplies it liberally in a shoujo context. Sai's an ice cold character on the surface, but is fighting in the Angelic Layer tournament for a sentiment that's anything but. I tend to like that sort of archetype at times and Sai managed to catch me. As for Lightspeed Suzuka, she goes faster than sound and light. I think that's all that needs to be said, really.
15. Future GPX Cyber Formula -- Miki Jounouchi (Not Guessed)
I knew somebody would try to go for the safe guess and say Karl Lichter von Randoll. ;p And no, the recurring last name Jounouchi is just a coincidence, I think. But Miki's got the rough and tumble pit crew head mechanic role down pat and is cute in the traditional tomboy sense. While I do like the primary cast members quite a lot, she managed to be memorable in the TV series as a secondary role. She's a solid supporting character and isn't afraid to slap some sense into people when she thinks it's needed.
16. Futurama -- Bender (Not Guessed)
Wow, I would've thought somebody would have defaulted to Bender even if he or she didn't know my actual preference. But yeah, the morally bankrupt bending machine is my Planet Express Employee of the Month. John DiMaggio is awesome.
17. Final Fantasy IV -- Cecil (Not Guessed)
Cecil was and still is pretty cool in my book. There were plenty of characters I liked in FFIV but I think I enjoyed his redemption plot the most. When I got to play Hardtype, I realized how king badass he was as a Dark Knight too. The Darkwave special attack is just too good.
18. Chrono Trigger -- Magus (Guessed by maiku84)
Yep, I was a Magus fan back in the day. The fact that he never explicitly got to see his sister again even if you recruited him and beat Lavos made me feel a little sad when I saw the ending for the first time.
19. Xenogears -- Citan Uzuki (Guessed by imperatorr)
Ahh, Xenogears. Truly the Alpha and Omega for me as far as modern RPGs go. It was the first game I picked up for my PSX and the last RPG I ever played in any real depth to this day. I liked the mecha tinged plotline a lot, even though I was mostly unaware of its inspirations at the time and the combat engine was quite inspired. Citan was cool as a mentor type figure to Fei and once he got his sword, he was just a beast in combat. In retrospect, his character might've been inspired by Doctor Ido from the Gunnm manga. There's quite a few similarities that I've now just noticed.
20. Giant Robo -- Chief "Silent" Chujo (Guessed by imperatorr)
There's a lot of great characters in Giant Robo but I have to give props to a man who can pose a serious threat to whatever he's facing just by punching it so hard that he explodes with the force of a tac nuke.
Hmm, if there are any underlying trends to this list, it's probably that sometimes I'm a fairly simple person to please. If you give me an attractive character design, a great acting voice or a compelling emotional hook, I'll probably give at least a cursory bite. =p
There's no real rhyme or reason for the works I selected, they're basically things I can remember fanning heavily over at one point or another off the top of my head.
1. Rose of Versailles -- Andre Grandier (Not Guessed)
Rose of Versailles has as one of its main running plotlines a classic romantic staple, a story of unrequited love amongst people of different classes. I think what I like about Andre is that he's a steadfast fellow who tries his best to support the person he loves without expecting anything in return. He'll bear any amount of suffering for her, even though she is unaware of his love at first and later on, even rejects it. He's an endearing character throughout the run of the series and in the latter half as it draws towards the events of the French Revolution, his perspective becomes pivotal in revealing the plight of the French common class to his master.
2. Sakura Taisen (Hanagumi/Parigumi/NY Hoshigumi) -- Maria Tachibana/Lobelia Carlini/Sagitta Weinberg (First and third guessed by imperatorr)
Sakura Taisen's one of those guilty pleasures of mine. Not exactly complex or entirely innovative, it's nonetheless managed to hit a soft spot in my heart for girls in mecha. Steampunk mecha even. The games are fairly fun and feature a lot of voice acting. In fact, that's one of the main draws of the franchise and all my choices reflect that in some way. First off, Maria. I like Takano Urara's soft spoken register for her a whole lot and when coupled with her gunslinging prowess and her reliable and steadfast personality, she hits a lot of my win buttons. Lobelia Carlini is voiced by none other than Kikuko Inoue and her acting is a big part of why I like that character. It's a departure from her mild mannered roles as Kasumi Tendo in Ranma and Belldandy in Ah! My Goddess. Instead, it's a sultry rough voice put into a character who's borderline criminal at times. The fire and chains aesthetic of her design appeals to me even though it's a bit strange coupled with the mad scientist look of her flock of seagulls hair and cracked glasses. Sagitta Weinberg is voiced by Minagawa Junko, who seems to be a recent up and coming idol in the seiyuu business. I like her imperious tone of voice, which seems to fit for an anime styled black lawyer from Harlem who pursues hot blooded justice. Sagitta's character design has that strange Mavis Beacon factor going for her, which intrigues me a little more than the other character designs in Sakura Taisen V.
3. Shaolin Soccer -- 3rd Older Brother (Not Guessed)
Probably an unfair choice to put up since almost none of the Shaolin team even had names aside from their titles given to them as disciples. I would've accepted guesses that stated what crazy kung fu power they had. But I love this movie. This was a classic underdog sport team story filtered through the twisted genius of Stephen Chow and I enjoyed it entirely too much. The manhua rendition of Shaolin Soccer that the Christianburg crew got for me last New Year's was also great (and showcases Andy Seto's complete inability to draw women that aren't stunningly hot). 3rd Older Brother was the disciple who had mastery of the Iron Shirt technique, allowing him to survive some serious beatdowns and propel soccer balls at high velocity from his chest. I found his neurotic stock broker personality hilarious and the heroic last stand he made during the championship game near the end of the movie was great as well.
4. The Red Elvises (favorite comrade) -- Oleg Bernov (Guessed by sol_halo)
Ever since bensanaz exposed me to the sword swinging hard rocking cult indy film "Six String Samurai", I've been hardcore hooked on this groovy Santa Monica based Siberian surf rock band. They're great live and exude a wonderful fun loving charisma that makes you unable to do anything but sing along and dance while they're rollin'. Oleg's the man with the hyuuuuuge red bass balalaika and he affectionately calls it his Russian surfboard. He also affectionately asserts quite often that he wishes to make love to each and every one of you. Hey, when in Moscow...
5. Tenchi Muyo! -- Ryoko (Guessed by kalciane)
Orikasa Ai was my first seiyuu obsession and Ryoko was the first role I heard her voice in. It was the right mix of seductive sultry feline, rough angry battle veteran and vulnerable lovestruck soul that I got hooked almost right away. Tenchi Muyo! was among one of the first anime I saw when I actually found out what anime was and although the show and the character have lost a lot of their luster in hindsight, I still have a fondness for Orikasa Ai's voice. Even if she does play disturbingly fey little boy men half the time.
6. Devin Townsend (favorite non SYL track) -- "Earth Day" from the Terria album (Guessed by sol_halo)
Hevy Devy Townsend is the best thing to come out of Canada. Period. I'll go as far to say that he's one of the most innovative metal artists of our generation. Terria's a great ambient album and... yeah. I said it. Despite the distorted guitars and occasional growling lyrics, it's a real ambient sounding work and quite listenable even when you're in an introspective sort of mood. That being said, "Earth Day" is probably the least ambient sounding track on the album. It just hits you in the face with hugeness after the first two tracks and forces you to be at attention. And then after the message has been said, it fades back into gentle background ambience, soft whisperings of a wood flute being played and the local Cantonese news, evocative of the sizeable Chinese population that lives in Vancouver and perhaps Devy's past fascination with Asian things.
Edit: Or not. Upon a relistening of the album, that ambience was actually in the preceding track Mountain. Earth Day is just straight 'listen to me, goddammit' material all the way through. Still awesome though.
7. Mobile Fighter G Gundam -- Saisaishii (Guessed by imperatorr)
A solid fighting anime wrapped up in the skin of the Gundam franchise. My pick is the representative of Neo-China, fighting to restore the prominence of Shaolin kung fu in his nation. AZN pride gotta represent, yey YEAY. He's a clever kid, to the point of being awfully shady in his first encounter with Domon. What cinched my approval of the character, however, was the episode dedicated to him in the second story arc. I've got a soft spot for stories that involve the fulfillment of parental legacies and when Saisaishii found out the lengths his father went to for the sake of his legacy, it galvanized his own motivations for winning the Gundam Fight. The match between him and Domon, as a result, was very emotionally charged for me and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
8. Aim For The Top! Gunbuster -- Kazumi Amano (Not Guessed)
An amusing entry for me, since folks managed to guess nearly every character in the anime except for her. While I do like the rest of the cast quite a bit and had a hard time deciding, I think it was the character design for Kazumi's older appearance in the 6th episode that tipped the scales for me. Yeah, it was that shallow a reason.
9. Combattler V -- Professor Yotsuya (Not Guessed)
The first of Nagahama Tadao's Romantic Trilogy, Combattler is quite fun to watch in small stretches. It still follows the formulaic episode structure of its era a bit too rigidly sometimes but it has a quite likeable and charming team of protagonists in its favor. Yotsuya is a bit of a lush at times, but I think he's my favorite mecha show professor by dint of that and coming up with the awesome idea of using giant electromagnetic yo-yos for weapons.
10. Voltes V -- Prince Heinel (Guessed by maiku84)
The second of Nagahama Tadao's Romantic Trilogy and a remake of Combattler V, Voltes V is probably his first real attempt at planning and writing a true interplanetary epic. Prince Heinel is a noble but misguided character and I think I like him best because he's a refined version of Garuda, given a true link to the Voltes V team that becomes a central point of conflict against them. His role in the story evolved the most from the original Combattler premise and I found it quite interesting.
11. Toushou Daimos -- Hareck (Not Guessed)
I didn't really expect anybody to get this one since he was basically a minor one shot character in the series but he was very well written in my opinion. An honorable man, loyal to his race and the ideals his race once strived for under the rule of Prince Richter's father, Hareck fights the show's hero Kazuya and finds a kindred spirit in him despite the fact that they're supposed to be enemies. He ends up nobly sacrificing himself to save the prospect of finding peace and understanding between their two people, and also to save the man whom his liege princess fell in love with as well.
12. Macross 7 -- Viffidas (Guessed by maiku84)
Back to choices heavily influenced by seiyuu. I didn't realize this until I watched one of those rare episodes where Viffidas decides to actually speak out loud but she's voiced by Takano Urara. Not that she's not cool when she doesn't speak out loud, since her drumsticks usually manage to do the talking for her. And she wrestles giant Zentraedi in her spare time, what's not to like?
13. Victorian Romance Emma (manga) -- Monica Mildrake (Not Guessed)
Another minor character that I didn't really expect anybody to get. I liked her character design quite a bit and she's got a strong forceful personality that stands in contrast with many of the characters around her, including her younger sister Eleanor Campbell. I found the slight pseudo-lesbian subtextual relationship between the two siblings oddly cute as well. Kaoru Mori, the mangaka, is weird like that sometimes.
14. Angelic Layer (Deus/Angel) -- Sai Jounouchi/Lightspeed Suzuka (Angel guessed by kalciane)
Angelic Layer's one of the few CLAMP anime series I can admit to liking to this day. The characters are emotionally compelling and it takes fighting anime and reapplies it liberally in a shoujo context. Sai's an ice cold character on the surface, but is fighting in the Angelic Layer tournament for a sentiment that's anything but. I tend to like that sort of archetype at times and Sai managed to catch me. As for Lightspeed Suzuka, she goes faster than sound and light. I think that's all that needs to be said, really.
15. Future GPX Cyber Formula -- Miki Jounouchi (Not Guessed)
I knew somebody would try to go for the safe guess and say Karl Lichter von Randoll. ;p And no, the recurring last name Jounouchi is just a coincidence, I think. But Miki's got the rough and tumble pit crew head mechanic role down pat and is cute in the traditional tomboy sense. While I do like the primary cast members quite a lot, she managed to be memorable in the TV series as a secondary role. She's a solid supporting character and isn't afraid to slap some sense into people when she thinks it's needed.
16. Futurama -- Bender (Not Guessed)
Wow, I would've thought somebody would have defaulted to Bender even if he or she didn't know my actual preference. But yeah, the morally bankrupt bending machine is my Planet Express Employee of the Month. John DiMaggio is awesome.
17. Final Fantasy IV -- Cecil (Not Guessed)
Cecil was and still is pretty cool in my book. There were plenty of characters I liked in FFIV but I think I enjoyed his redemption plot the most. When I got to play Hardtype, I realized how king badass he was as a Dark Knight too. The Darkwave special attack is just too good.
18. Chrono Trigger -- Magus (Guessed by maiku84)
Yep, I was a Magus fan back in the day. The fact that he never explicitly got to see his sister again even if you recruited him and beat Lavos made me feel a little sad when I saw the ending for the first time.
19. Xenogears -- Citan Uzuki (Guessed by imperatorr)
Ahh, Xenogears. Truly the Alpha and Omega for me as far as modern RPGs go. It was the first game I picked up for my PSX and the last RPG I ever played in any real depth to this day. I liked the mecha tinged plotline a lot, even though I was mostly unaware of its inspirations at the time and the combat engine was quite inspired. Citan was cool as a mentor type figure to Fei and once he got his sword, he was just a beast in combat. In retrospect, his character might've been inspired by Doctor Ido from the Gunnm manga. There's quite a few similarities that I've now just noticed.
20. Giant Robo -- Chief "Silent" Chujo (Guessed by imperatorr)
There's a lot of great characters in Giant Robo but I have to give props to a man who can pose a serious threat to whatever he's facing just by punching it so hard that he explodes with the force of a tac nuke.
Hmm, if there are any underlying trends to this list, it's probably that sometimes I'm a fairly simple person to please. If you give me an attractive character design, a great acting voice or a compelling emotional hook, I'll probably give at least a cursory bite. =p