Kesh said:
I haven't seen Naruto, Berserk or Samurai Champloo, so I can't comment there. Vegeta? Eh, not really. Vegeta was an antagonist for most of DBZ, and only fell into the "secondary hero" role around the Cell Saga storyline. There really wasn't anything mysterious or Shoujo about him at all, he was just an anti-hero at that point.
Wolfwood... maybe. I can see how he sort-of fits the role. He's certainly not more powerful than Vash, nor does he defeat him in battle. And he's anything but shoujo! He's a slick ladies-man with a mysterious past.
Generally, I don't see the stereotype in the anime I've watched. Not as described, anyway. The closest I could associate with that is
Sesshomaru from
Inu Yasha, and he's an outright villain rather than a secondary character.
Aw, Sesshomaru is a perfect example. This role--I swear it's so common, it's gotta have a name, but I don't know it--isn't really specific to "main character's best friend" guys; it definitely encompasses mentors, rivals, and outright enemies. I think it's more about the intended audience response than the character's actual relationship to the protagonist.
Vegeta is admittedly a long shot, because his character design is miles away from what we usually expect in this character type, and I have trouble imagining that he was created with a female audience in mind, but he seems to have turned into the type we're discussing, or something like it. He's got the whole "Initially more powerful than the cheerful hero guy and outright antagonistic to him, later beaten by the hero and becomes an ally, but still acts like a jerk" character arc, and also the female fans (however accidentally).
Good Christ, I cannot believe I'm discussing Dragonball Z.
WizarDru said:
Although again, that's not a uniquely anime archetype. Heck, the characters you just described don't fit his description. Sasuke doesn't wear trenchcoats and dress in black (he wears shorts, for heaven's sake),
Oh, I wouldn't say there's anything like a checklist of character personality or design traits to fit into the phenomenon I'm talking about. It's more of a general character tone, and a vague cluster of character elements that tend to occur alongside other character elements.
WizarDru said:
None of them sound at all like the Shadowcaster.
Well, that angle was Cadfan's thing. I can't really say for sure, but I don't think he meant that shadow-based powers were a major component of this character type. Maybe they often show up on characters with cold, aloof personalities in anime, and that'd be a reasonable connection. I won't try to make a case for it.
WizarDru said:
(As for tailoring the characters to appeal to female readers....well, not so much. While a lot of girls read Shonen Jump (it's actually the most popular manga book for girls, despite it's name), the titles they read are NOT the ones we're discussing. The most popular series for female readers are not fighting action stories like Naruto or DBZ, but comedy or suspense like Prince of Tennis or Death Note.)
I'm mostly bringing up fighting anime because that's the only stuff I've seen that's likely to have made it to American TV. And the
size of a given show's female audience isn't really the issue, so much as the fact of certain characters being intended to appeal to certain tastes. You can look at a very male-oriented show like Naruto, Scryed or Flame of Recca; or a harem-anime-for-chicks like--Jesus, what was that thing--Fushigi Yuugi (only in shoujo stuff, it's the loud, hot-headed guy who sticks out, as opposed to the aloof one, and obviously the rival-to-ally character arc isn't there).
If you haven't already noticed the phenomenon, and you try to go looking for it based on a specific set of criteria, you'll probably never find it. It's not really a formula, just a general sort of stereotype, which shows up best when you hit a really clear cool guy / crazy guy pair.
