The Anime Characters that Made An Impact!

The Anime Characters that Made An Impact -- Part 1

Hey guys and welcome back to another post. Today we will be talking about some anime characters that made and impact in our lives. We each picked 2 characters among all the characters that we are familiar with so you can imagine that these must be some special characters. 

There are obviously many other characters that have could have made an impact to you and not be on the list but don't worry about that. Instead, share why you were impacted by that character down in the comment below. 

1. Jaguar-kun :

Kyosuke Usuta isn’t a household name, even in Japan, but his influence can be felt far and wide in the world of comedy manga and anime. 

His debut manga, “Sexy Commando Gaiden: Sugoi yo!! Masaru-san” was serialized in Shonen Jump during the late 90s, and likely paved the way for future gag manga releases like “Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo” and the more recent cult hit “Saiki Kusuo no Psi-nan.” Even the mangaka responsible for internet favorite “Gag Manga Biyori,” Kousuke Masuda, cited Usuta’s work as a primary influence.

 However, it’s Usuta’s second long-running series that really caught my interest…

“Pyuu to Fuku! Jaguar” (which translates roughly to “You Blow and it Goes Pyuu, Jaguar!”) is the story about a gang of misfits attending an art school to study music… Well, it’s only sort of about that, actually… It’s more just about the crazy antics of the titular character, Jaguar.

Jaguar is many things. He’s a visual artist, a poet, a cosplayer, and a spiritual medium. First and foremost, however, he’s a professional recorder player! Jaguar’s abilities with a recorder are so powerful, he’s able to make images appear in other people’s minds simply through the sound of his instrument.

What makes the manga so popular is how well it refines Usuta’s style of humor. Jaguar plays the part of the “boke,” the crazy wildcard with a bombastic personality, while everyone else plays the “tsukkomi,” or “straight man. However, there are many instances in the manga where Jaguar’s craziness affects other characters, and they start to become more and more like him. This extends even to readers, who may feel themselves become lost in Jaguar’s wacky logic and silly antics.

As a comedy writer myself, I simply love how much work Usuta put into expanding Jaguar’s bombastic personality, and how creative he managed to be with the various scenarios he wrote around his cast.

I hope to one day create a character as striking and memorable as Jaguar-kun!

2. Itou Kaiji

It’s hard to understand the appeal of the anime Kaiji (adapted from Nobuyuki Fukumoto’s manga of the same name), without simply watching through it yourself.

The premise of the show is deceptively simple: the titular Kaiji learns that a shady loan he co-signed has defaulted, and the borrower has disappeared, leaving Kaiji with a massive amount of debt. The lenders give Kaiji two options. He can either spend the rest of his miserable life paying off the debt, or he can participate in a series of competitions to have his debt forgiven. He chooses the later, which starts a series of very, very unpleasant events…

What makes Kaiji as a character special is the opposite of what makes Jaguar special. Kaiji is unremarkable in every way. He’s less than that, actually. He’s a total loser, something that the anime makes abundantly clear in the first episode.

Kaiji is a man who has coasted through life. He had no soaring ambitions, nor any noteworthy drive to excel in anything. He simply subsisted from paycheck to paycheck in miserable loneliness. When the audience is introduced to him, he’s sneaking around his neighborhood stealing the emblems from expensive cars, an act of resentment and bitterness toward the world around him, a world he feels utterly powerless in. To put it simply, Kaiji is the perfect character for the story the show is trying to tell.

Many people recognize the theme of dehumanization and the corrupting power of money in the show, but the themes go much farther than that. One noteworthy theme is the concept of “luck.” Kaiji is a man who often leaves much of his fate in the hands of lady luck, and gets crushed every time he does so.

Hyoudou, the main antagonist of the series, is Kaiji’s foil. While he lacks Kaiji’s heart and empathy, he also knows the truth about “luck,” and has created a gambling empire to use the idea of easy success against other people. He’s a man who “never loses,” as he puts it. What this really means, however, is that he doesn’t play a game unless he’s reasonably sure he’ll win, a strategy that Kaiji gradually learns the hard way.

The series is filled with intelligent and well-written villains like this. They’re generally despicable people, but they sure do be making a lot of sense tho 🤔.

Kaiji is an immensely relatable character. He’s riddled with flaws, and the story takes every opportunity to punish him for that fact. Whenever things start to look bleak for him, there’s always the looming possibility that they could end up becoming even worse (ZAWA ZAWA). He’s a man who finds himself pushed into the depths of hell, and has to overcome his shortcomings to fight his way out.

If all of that doesn’t make for a good character, I don’t know what does...

By Koji Kojou

Check out his light novel "Everything is CANCELLED!" here

We will be doing 2 characters each day so follow us to be reminded to check out the next post. 

In the meantime, what characters made an impact to you ? 

Let us know down In the comment below. 

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