Today, for the first time in a while, I publish a Special Post which is more personally. This time, it's about my favorite characters and childhood heroes from anime, manga and video games.
Without doing a ranking, I chose ten of them.
In the following, I'm going to amplify said characters and explain which things of them excited be back then and excite me still nowadays and which learning can you take from some of them.
Without further ado, let's go:
1. Vegeta from the Dragon Ball-Series
Vegeta in the movie Dragon Ball Super: Broly |
Moreover, he is Goku's best tag-team partner ever. The friendship between them (which was grown up of a enmity, secondly being a rivalvy and then turned into a friendship) is a paragon that long-time enemies can become friends for life. Even though Vegeta is quite feisty, when it matters most, he manages to look beyond what he want and do what's best under the given circumstances. Best example is not least the fusion with Goku.
2. Roronoa Zoro from One Piece
Zoro during the Wano Land-arc |
Remarkebly, Zoro always draws important lessons from every of his fight and he gains more skills and experience than he had before.
The two-years-trainung under Mihawk helped Zoro to the extent that he can heavily damage Logia-type users. This hadn't been imaginable before the time skip. The learning you can draw from it is: "Take everything you can get". It means you should take every chance you can get for a level-up, if you wanna progress in life.
And by the way, Eiichiro Oda (尾田栄一郎) himself declared a few years ago that Usopp has meanwhile become as strong as Pre-Timeskip-Zoro which indicates the Straw Hat Pirates really help each other becoming respectively constently better fighters. It shows that the success stands and falls with the people around you.
3. Kakashi Hatake from the Naruto-franchise
Kakashi while perfoming his new, previously mentioned signature Jutsu |
In other word, the fact Kakashi don't possesses the Sharingan anymore doesn't mean that he is weak right know. Indeed, he can use neither the Chidori nor the Lightning Blade anymore (because these both techniques require a precision which can only be met by the Sharingan) but for this very reason, he created the Jutsu Lighning Style: Purple Electricity which he can use multilaterally and whereby he can get better along than the Chidori and Lightning Blade combined. This bespeak Kakashi's solution-focused thinking.
4. Mewtwo from Pokémon
Mewtwo appearing in Pokémon Journeys EP046 (= EP1131) |
Besides, as a child, I often pretended being Mewtwo by slipping in its role when it came to roleplays - to the extent that I additionally wanted to stay in that role.
Furthermore, Mewtwo is among the Smash Bros.-characters being mained by myself.
5. Chunky Kong from the N64-Game Donkey Kong 64
Chunky Kong |
Furthermore, Chunky Kong might be added as a further DLC-character for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Certain attacks of him might be implemented as moveset, e.g. that spin attack from Donkey Kong 64 might be implemented as recovery (i.e. the Up-B-attack) and the magnification plus the power punch (being from Donkey Kong 64 too) as Final Smash. The latter would be similar to Bowser's Final Smash but with the difference that Chunky would't levitate in the air but standing on his both feed while punching.
By the way, it has surprised me well that Chunky hat a cameo appearance in The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023).
In every Super Mario-game where Luigi is featured, I mostly preferred playing with Luigi. In most cases, I always preferred Luigi over Mario. Partly, I do this still nowadays. Remarkably cool is also the fact that Luigi was firstly a clone characters in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 64 back then but since Melee, his moveset and other movements have been refined step by step to the extent that no one would contemplate that he used to be a clone character.
But independent from the Smash Bros.-series, he ain't in the shadow of his brother Mario.
All in all, Luigi is my absolute favorite character from the Super Mario-Franchise.
7. Genos from One Punch Man
Genos' firelicious fighting spirit |
Genos' determination comes to light in many of his fight and he doesn't rest on his laurels, i.e. that he's a cyborg and he started his career as a S-class hero. Hence, despite everything, he has maintained his humbleness and moreover, he's worth being Saitamas tag-team partner.
The character designs of Iori & Armadimon from Digmon Adventure: Last Evolution - Kizuna |
The DigiDestined Iori Hida having debuted in Digimon Adventure 02 and his Digimon partner Armadimon are among my childhood heroes as well. But I regard both of them as unity. Nevertheless, it's rather Armadimons Adult-Level Ankylomon who knocked my socks off back then.
Among Daisuke Motomiya & V-Mon, Miyako Inoue & Hawkmon as well as Ken Ichijōji & Wormmon, Iori staged his comeback in the newest movie Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution - Kizuna wherein he fights against the Eosmon army, together with the former mentioned DigiDestined.
But I wish I had see the Perfect- and Ultimate-Digivolutions of Armadimon, V-Mon, Wormmon and Hakwmon too - without the Jogress Digivolution, notabene - but none of them had been occured in the movie. At least, it's satisfiying that Iori, Daisuke, Miyako and Ken as well as their respective Digimon partners got lots of screentime in that movie - enough screentime to the extent that they shouldn't be considered as cannon fodder.
At any rate, Iori is an exhibit A for a person who knows that responsibility has nothing to do with the age but rather with the question if you exercise it or not.
9. Spider Man
The Japanese Spider Man |
Regarding this series, Spider Man is also listened here in this article due to the Japanese connection by that Japanese live-action series.
And before you get mad and angry: THIS Spider Man doesn't exist in any case, since it's a Spider Man-multiverse and that Spider Man-entity from the MCU-movies who belongs to the Avengers and played by Tom Holland, isn't the same entity like the Spider Man being in seriousness. Hence, the Japanese Spider Man can also be considered as an additional entity.
Anyways, Spider Man is one of my childhood heroes as well and moreover, he's my absolute favorite avenger.
10. Genzō Wakabayashi from Captain Tsubasa
Genzo Wakabayashi in Captain Tsubasa 2018 |
Hereof, a little fun fact: Unlike the English dub and German dub where the characters' names remained the same like in the Japanese dub, the names had been altered in Latin America, the Far East and the Arab world.
In the Arabic dub, Captain Tsubasa is called Captain Majid (كابتن ماجد). Yes, you've read it right, the protagonist Tsubasa Ozora is called Majid in the Arabic dub. And Genzō Wakabayashi's name in the Arabic dub ist Waleed (وليد).
And yes, it was mind-blowing to me when I got to know that the real name ain't Captain Majid but Captain Tsubasa. But nevertheless, I was happy that I was among the people having the advantage over everyone who didn't know Captain Tsubasa - Road to 2002 until the German release in 2005 by the title Super Kickers 2006 - Captain Tsubasa. At a time when there was no simulcast and when it was a luxury to know this, that and the over before Tom, Dick and Harry.
Regarding the Arabic dub, a litte excursus: In foreign prodcutions, everthing is dubbed in Standard Arabic. Only in-house productions are dubbed in the respective Arabic dialects, for instance, in Morocco where the in-house productions are released in Darija (also known as Moroccan-Arabic).
As a bonus, I hyperlink a magnificent YouTube-Video from the linguist Langfoucus where he shows the differences between Darija and Standard Arabic: → Moroccan Darija: an Arabic Dialect?
Anyways, Genzō fascinated me to the extent that I often pretented to be him when I was a child.
And feel free to admit it: You also had simulated fictive characters and played role games and fun fightings with your siblings as well as your friends.
Well then, I've shown ten of my favorite characters and childhood heroes, manily from anime, manga and video games.
And now, I ask you: Who are your favorite characters from manga, anime and video games? And who were your childhood heroes? Don't hesitate writing it in the commens.
PS: Here you can go to my other Special Posts: