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- Attack on Titan
- Wit Studio
In the vast world of anime, protagonists are the heart and soul, engaging audiences with their development and complex narratives. From intense battles to emotional encounters, a well-crafted anime protagonist navigates through trials and triumphs, compelling viewers to follow along.
Consider the protagonists ranked as some of the best-written in anime history. These characters possess a range of personalities and dilemmas. Their creators sculpt intricate backstories and motives, ensuring that they have an impact on viewers.
Take Thorfinn from Vinland Saga. His transformation from a vengeance-driven boy to a peace-seeking individual tells a tale of profound personal evolution. Equally compelling, Guts from Berserk navigates a brutal world, finding glimmers of camaraderie amidst relentless struggle. Meanwhile, Light Yagami in Death Note explores how absolute power corrupts absolutely, starting as a principled young man but descending into morally ambiguous chaos.
These characters are merely a fraction of the coolest anime protagonists. Vote for your favorite and see which character takes the top spot.
- 1662 VOTES
Thorfinn - 'Vinland Saga'
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Over the course of Vinland Saga, Thorfinn undergoes some hard-won character development. He begins the story as an excitable kid who follows his father out of their village because he wants to see and experience war. When his peace-loving father is betrayed and slain before his eyes, he's outraged. While he wants to get revenge on Askeladd, the person responsible, he isn't strong enough and must instead depend on Askeladd for survival.
Over time, he not only grows attached to Askeladd, he ends up completely changing his world view. When Canute slays Askeladd, Thorfinn strikes out in vengeance, but is enslaved for four years. The experience made him forget about waging war and getting vengeance to instead pursue peace - exactly as his father once wanted.
- 2592 VOTES
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Without its excellent characterization, Berserk could be just another grimdark action show. It's special because of how well-written the characters are - particularly the protagonist, Guts.
Much of Guts's story is about deciding what is truly important to him. As a kid, he existed in survival mode. He couldn't rely on anyone to protect him - every adult either passed away or actively tried to hurt him. He finally finds camaraderie with the Band of the Hawk, but is betrayed by Griffith, a man he previously risked his life to save. Understandably upset, he decides to get revenge on the God Hand - the group that Griffith joined.
But revenge isn't the most important thing to Guts. He still wants that camaraderie he found before, and he realizes that he's more concerned with finding and nurturing it again. Also, he has a major responsibility: helping Casca, who is traumatized by what Griffith did.
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- 3414 VOTES
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Dr. Kenzo Tenma had a promising medical career that was left in tatters after he prioritizes the life of a child over a politician; the last time he declined to treat a patient in favor of a more high-profile one, the former passed away. But he comes to believe he made the wrong decision when the boy he saves becomes a serial killer. Feeling responsible, he dedicates himself to taking down the killer.
While Dr. Tenma is a morally upstanding person who is hard not to root for, he's also flawed. His reaction to the destruction of his career is to declare that everyone who was involved should lose their lives. He didn't mean it - it was said out of frustration - but he still has the capacity for darkness.
More Dr. Kenzō Tenma - 4667 VOTES
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Light Yagami is the living, breathing personification of power corrupting. He starts off as a kid who is constantly praised for his intelligence and good looks. Perhaps because of all the praise, he doesn't really see himself as likely to misunderstand something or fail. He's also bored out of his mind - everything comes easily for him, and he doesn't have any meaningful relationships or hobbies that he's passionate about. He has friends, and he cares about his family, but everything exists on a surface level - he's not really connected.
When he gets the Death Note, he not only has something to occupy his time, he has a purpose. With his intelligence, he's the perfect person to rid the world of crime. Why is he so focused on crime? Probably because his father is a police officer who has been largely absent from his life.
But Light isn't as infallible as he thinks he is. Drunk on power, he repeatedly violates his own moral code to evade L and become a godlike figure. But he also takes major risks that lead him closer to L, because deep down, he truly doesn't believe that he can fail. And that's why, narratively speaking, he has to. Pride is his fatal flaw..
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- 5852 VOTES
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Eren Jaeger starts off the series as a stereotypical hot-headed shonen protagonist. In some ways, that's who he is, and that's part of why his story ends the way it does.
Eren is understandably furious with his situation. He hates being stuck behind a wall while monsters terrorize the outside world, and he is determined to destroy every Titan in existence to make that happen. His willingness to destroy everything doesn't change when he learns more about why they're stuck there. Once he realizes that he and his friends are Eldians who transform into Titans and that the rest of the world fears and despises them, his goal becomes destroying everything except the Titans.
He nearly accomplishes that goal, but he isn't happy with it. He wishes he could have found a future where he doesn't initiate the Rumbling, but no matter how hard he tries, he can't find one. In the end, he's a broken, miserable person who desperately wants to be stopped.
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- 6404 VOTES
Shoya Ishida - 'A Silent Voice'
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Bullying is a serious offense, but the people who commit it aren't necessarily evil. That's the case for Shoya Ishida. As a kid, he didn't really think about the consequences of his actions and was more concerned with entertaining himself than anything else. He bullys a deaf classmate named Shoko Nishimiya, and while, at first, this earned him popularity amongst his peers, it eventually leads to being ostracized. This experience helps him understand what it felt like to be bullied. Not only did he feel terrible about himself, he also feels deep empathy for Shoko and wants to make up for what he did to her.
A Silent Voice is primarily about his attempts to do just that. It's not easy - there are plenty of complications and he doesn't always respond perfectly. Nevertheless, it's hard not to root for him as he tries to make amends.
- 7378 VOTES
Maomao - 'The Apothecary Diaries'
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It's uncommon for female characters to be weird little nerds, so it's refreshing to see such a character take the lead. Maomao is the daughter of an apothecary who grew up being fascinated by all forms of medicine. She loves making and creating drugs, and she even enjoys testing poisons on herself.
In some shows, this would be enough to carry a character through a series. But Maomao is multi-dimensional. Her medical abilities are both impressive and entertaining. But she's not just a medical professional - she'll do pretty much whatever she has to in order to earn a living. This means working as a serving girl at a brothel, sending customers to said brothel once she's working at the palace, or serving concubines with a combination of awkwardness and skill.
No matter what she's doing, she seems to have things under control. But the truth is, she's had some terrifying experiences which are reflected in her idiosyncrasies. This prevents her from coming off as a joke character but instead a nuanced, complex one.
- 8320 VOTES
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At first, Gintoki Sakata seems like a great protagonist for a comedy. He's lazy, scrounges together a living through odd jobs, often can't afford rent, and is constantly getting into weird situations. While he often reacts to the world in sarcastic and hilarious ways, Gintoki isn't there solely to make viewers laugh. He also has a tragic past.
Gintoki was once an unhoused child who was taken in by a teacher he grew to love and respect. In order to protect that teacher, he ended up becoming a child soldier. But he was ultimately faced with a terrible choice: let his beloved teacher be slain, or let his friends and comrades meet the same fate. He saved his friends, knowing that was what his teacher would have wanted.
Gintoki is obviously traumatized by what happened. In his case, his trauma exhibits itself as apathy, bursts of anger, and adamant protection of the people who are important to him now no matter the cost.
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- 9194 VOTES
Chise Hatori - 'The Ancient Magus' Bride'
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When we first meet Chise Hatori, she's given up all hope. Her mother tried to end her life, her father abandoned her, and she can't control the powers that impair her mental and physical health. In the hopes of surviving, she puts herself up for auction. As a result, she's purchased by Elias Ainsworth, a mage who thankfully just wants to help her use her powers.
Chise spends the beginning of the series absolutely traumatized. But as she comes out of her shell and starts to interact with others, two things happen. The first is that she starts to heal. She's able to think about her future and what she wants, and she's able to stand up for herself. But she hasn't quite learned to value her own safety, so she throws herself headlong into dangerous situations to protect others. This is the source of many of her conflicts with Elias - he wants to protect her, and she wants freedom, but she also hasn't learned to protect herself. In fact, she ends up getting cursed twice to help others.
As the series progresses, she starts helping others more through empathy and concrete action rather than flinging herself into danger. She isn't perfect - she backslides a lot - but that's how growth works in the real world, too.
- 10151 VOTES
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Nana Osaki has a tough-as-nails exterior, but she's equally messy when it comes to love. She refuses to join her own love interest, Ren, when he moves to Tokyo, because she wants to make it as a musician herself, not just be his girlfriend. Eventually, she does go to Tokyo too, but it's for her own career and she doesn't want to see him. Except that she can't help herself - she still wants to be with Ren, and she still sees him in secret while denying that she wants him at all. She's the same way with Hachi. Instead of straight up telling her that she values their friendship, she tries to manipulate events so that Hachi won't leave her.
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- 11280 VOTES
Tohru Honda - 'Fruits Basket'
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Tohru Honda is a deceptively complex character. On the outside, she seems like a typical kind-hearted and naive shojo heroine, but there's a lot more going on beneath the surface.
Tohru lost both of her parents - her father through pneumonia, and her mother through a car accident. Both of these deaths impact her greatly, especially her mother's, which happens at the start of the series. But because Tohru's mother was a teenager when she had her, and had pretty much not been parented herself, Tohru had to do the bulk of the housework and took on a lot of her mother's emotional issues.
This parentification follows her into her relationship with the Sohma family. Though she is enormously helpful to them in negotiating their own issues, she constantly neglects her own needs. That was the main lesson that she has to learn throughout the story - a lesson that she only learnes because of the man she loves, Kyo. Kyo encourages her to actually care about herself, which not only allows her to understand others better, it makes her a happier person.
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- 12278 VOTES
Natsuki Subaru - 'Re:ZERO - Starting Life in Another World'
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Re:ZERO stands out amongst other isekai anime, and one of the reasons for that is the main character, Natsuki Subaru. Subaru starts off the story as an incredibly annoying person - but there's a good reason for that, and he doesn't stay that way.
When he's brought to another world, it's the usual isekai story - he's a shut-in who stopped going to school. The reason for this isn't something extreme. It's that the one method he had for making friends - his sense of humor - stopped working for him. He couldn't figure out how to change course and he was unable to make friends, so he withdrew.
In the new world, he takes his problems with him. Now he knows even less about how to interact with others, but he wants to start fresh. So he ends up humiliating himself and causing problems for others repeatedly. Because there isn't much else he can do, he uses his one power - Return by Death - to excess. This power allows him to travel backwards in time to a “reset point” when he loses his life, but he still has to experience the pain and trauma of endlessly dying.
He thinks that this is okay because it's the only way that he can protect others and be of any value, but what he eventually realizes with Emilia's help is that hurting himself also hurts others - and even if it didn't, what happens to him still matters.
- 13130 VOTES
Rei Kiriyama - 'March Comes in Like a Lion'
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The most important thing about March Comes in Like a Lion isn't the shogi games - it's Rei Kiriyama's emotional development. Rei starts off the series as a depressed and isolated teenager. His parents passed away, and he has some serious problems with his adoptive family. His adoptive father is more interested in his shogi abilities than anything else, while his adoptive siblings hate him because their father is so focused on Rei's shogi career that he ignores them. What's more, he is being bullied in school. After all of that, he assumes that he is a burden to everyone, and has trouble trusting people.
That changes when he starts spending time with the Kawamoto sisters. Through their help - and through multiple other events that also contribute to his growth - he realizes that he can not only find people who will love and support him, he is also capable of loving and supporting others. Toward the end of the anime, he helps Hina Kawamoto deal with a bullying problem by simply listening to and supporting her. He also helps a fellow shogi player he once feared navigate during a storm and sees a totally different side of him.
Essentially, Rei learns to look beyond himself and his own misery to the wider world and is better for it. This isn't depicted in a preachy or obvious way, but with nuance that springs organically from the character's experiences.
- 14126 VOTES
Nana Komatsu - 'NANA'
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Nana Komatsu, AKA Hachi, is a hopeless romantic who is willing to do pretty much anything for the men she falls for, but this often means betraying herself. She moves to Tokyo to follow a boy who ends up cheating on her, then spends a while floundering. She ends up sleeping with Takumi, a celebrity she's obsessed with when she meets him through Nana Osaki, but she soon realizes that he's not exactly what she wants in a relationship. She falls in love with someone else, but when it seems like she's finally about to be happy, she realizes that she's pregnant and it's probably Takumi's. So she dumps the boy she loves, even though he's willing to raise a child with her, because she doesn't want him to have to give up his dreams of being a musician to take care of a kid.
- 15246 VOTES
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Have you ever noticed that some anime protagonists are totally fearless about life-threatening situations? While this can be inspiring, it can also be kind of off-putting. After all, it's not exactly relatable or realistic.
That's part of what makes Shinji Ikari such an interesting character. When faced with the prospect of piloting a giant mecha robot and possibly perishing in the process, he balks. Of course he does - most other reactions would be unrealistic. This is doubly true because Shinji was ordered to do it by his emotionally abusive father who he's not exactly inclined to listen to.
Not only does Shinji start off as a realistic kid, he has some pretty interesting growth over the course of the series. The focus isn't on his increased strength or physical capabilities, but on his journey to learn how to trust himself and open up to people.
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- 1683 VOTES
Kikuhiko - 'Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju'
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It's rare for an anime to follow a character through multiple stages in life, and even rarer for them to depict a character in their elder years. Viewers first meet Kikuhiko when he's a bitter old man with a reputation for being one of the greatest rakugo performers in history - rakugo being a form of traditional Japanese storytelling. Kikuhiko resents his reputation and wants the art to leave the world with him. So he's not thrilled when a former gang member named Yotaro appears and asks him to be his mentor.
Yotaro forces him to rethink his commitment to rakugo, but this doesn't happen before we learn how Kikuhiko got there in the first place. The series takes us back to his childhood, his rise to fame, and his complicated relationship with his rival and friend Sukeroku and his lover Miyokichi. It also shows us the tragic end that befalls them both.
By the end of the series, viewers completely understand Kikuhiko whether they like him or not.
