Top picks Summer 2009 Part 1: Cast and Character Awards

Again, credit goes to The Null Set for the idea and the catagories. Check the blog out!

And without futher to do, the winners.

Best Female Main Character

Winner: Alice from Pandora Hearts

 

Our ever cheerful Alice.

Alice, who has been my fandom obsession for the past two seasons, takes the award for best female main character. The monstrous chain proved to a surprisingly complex character. Alice may have a tough exterior, but inside she was a rather lonely insecure person. She was also rather childish and playful. Still, unlike Oz who tended to be emo about his insecurities, she fought to overcome them, being blunt and straightforward with what she wanted. Not to mention her quite strong obsession with food. 

Best Male Main Character

Winner: Battler from Umineko

 

Any guy who has the line of ‘Slice up those cowtits and make me a sandwich,” is a pretty awesome guy. I rather like Battler have a character, he’s clever and tough, but he’s not perfect, as shown by his shameful loss in episode II of Umineko. Battler also shows himself as probably the only character in Umineko who can keep his head screwed on straight when everyone else is losing it.

Best Supporting Character

Winner: Shannon from Umineko

Runner-up: Itsuki from Haruhi and Break from Pandora Hearts

 

I place her as a supporting character because I view all the characters not in the metaworld as supporting character. I personally really like Shannon, her fighting spirit impresses me, as does her willingness to change her own destiny rather then accept it. Shannon also refuses to let Beatrice break her, choosing to treasure what she has at the end, rather then grieve over what she lost. Not to mention a yummy tattoo on her upper thigh.

 

It was hard to choose her over Itsuki from Haruhi and Break from Pandora Hearts. Itsuki is just an entertaining character who never fails to get an interesting response from Kyon. His manner of approaching problems is also unique, it’s not often in anime we get a good example of passive-aggressive character. Break is also a unique character, often hiding a very intelligent self under the mask of a complete clown. One of the interesting parts of Pandora Hearts was watching Oz manage to unravel who this man was.

Best Couple

Winner: Fumi and Akira from Aoi Hana

 

I know Fumi and Akira are not a canon couple, but the canon couples this season really didn’t appeal to me. There was the necrophilia couple in CANAAN, Akiko and her fiancée, Sugimoto and Fumi, as well as the Umineko couples.

Fumi and Akira are horribly cute, with the many activities they do together that feels very couple like, such as going to the movies, and their sleepovers together. The two also contrast each other very well, the quiet Fumi contrasted with the energetic Akira. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a couple that invoked so many ‘D’awww’ moments.

 Best Character Ability/Power

Winner: Mikuru Beam!

 

While it may not be the most practical power, and while people could argue that there were cooler powers this season, I’ve always wanted to shoot laser beams out of my eyes. Have a character with no idea how to control said power randomly shooting laser beams is a recipe for win in my book.

Best Cast of Characters

Winner: Sora no Manimani

 

Sa no Manimani gives a cast of lovable and thoroughly enjoyable characters. We’re given not only the members of the clubs, which includes an anemic President, but the two-sided head of the student council, the astronomy network, the museum staff, and so many more. All of these characters never fail to entertain, and receive a decent amount of screentime for a large cast in a 12 episode anime.

 

Best Character Development

Winner: Pandora Hearts

 

While there were a fair amount of characters that didn’t get much screentime, most of the ones that did grew and changed as characters. Although near the end of the series that tried to hit you over the head with how much the characters developed, it was indeed interesting to see how much the characters changed from point a to point b. The characters and the character development was the main draw to Pandora Hearts, and was done pretty well. It was enough to make up for lacking art and at times confusing storyline.

Best Character Development of a Single Character

Winner: Saku from Sora no Manimani

 

Watching Saku change as a character is a very interesting experience. He goes from a person closed off from the world and solely involved in books to a person openly interacting with the world around him, and noticing what’s happening. The metamorphous is startling, and beautiful to watch, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

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