Who is your best anime girl/best anime guy of 2014?

[gigastar]

As far as girls go, i tend to find myself favoring the 'cute and psycho' types.

And of all the anime that was aired and i watched this year, the only one of those that actually stuck out at me was Jibril from No Game No Life.

Best guy, well i have two for that.

Steely Dan for best punching bag of the year.

Spoiler

He manages to take all of that and theres still enough of him left to be smashed through a brick wall. Sure, he died, but thats still alot better than most who end up on the recieving end of Star Platinum.

And Araragi Koyomi simply because i want to get a reference to Tsukimonogatari in here.

 

[Fox12]

Schierke and guts, respectively. The characters compliment each other so well, and in a story overflowing with great characters, their the best.

Edit: oh, 2014. I'll go with the lovebirds from toradora, one of my new favorite shows. Is that 2014? Well, I watched it in 2014, so I say it counts.

 

[PapaGreg096]

Best Girl- Pitou from Hunter X Hunter, there is a lot I like about this character but the most that intrigues me is that she is the perfect catgirl. What I mean is that when you actually think about cats are kinda eerie to look at and their the only known animals to kill for pleasure, Pitou displays both these qualities by looking both intimidating and having a high bloodlust


Best Boy- Polnareff from JJBA, sure I could have chose Dio or Joseph but Polnareff imo is the most developed Crusaders. He has a goal, gets the most development and while is not easily shown he does care most about his fellow Crusader being the most hurt about Abduls death

 

[Lightspeaker]

I'm somewhat with Elfgore on Bulat being pretty awesome. But to submit an alternative who I feel is as good or better from the same anime: Bols.

Spoiler

The guy is one of the most fascinating characters of the year to me. He's introduced as this massively intimidating guy who you quickly find out is extremely shy and caring. He has a wife and a young child and likes cooking.

He's also a soldier working with the Empire's Incineration Squad and is typically given the job of executing people using his flamethrower, burning entire villages to the ground and so on. Suffice to say he has some emotional problems resulting from this. But he does it to provide for his family.

Honestly that whole anime is great. The whole thing is just steeped in grey, with basically no black or white. Even the co-protagonists admit, when the main protagonist tries to say they're "assassins for justice" or some such nonsense, that they're simply brutal murderers and that there's nothing noble about it.



On the female front...well I have to give a mention to Esdeath who is my top antagonist in any media this year. She's a total sadistic psychopath, but also quite clearly very human. She also has my absolute favourite dialogue exchange of the year:
Tatsumi: "Will you hurt me?"
Esdeath: "Tatsumi...to think you had such a fetish. Just as I thought, we really are meant for each other."

Spoiler

But I'm afraid I have to place Asuna from SAO S2 a little higher. Asuna is by far the singular best thing about that series; she's an exceptional character and was very strong in the Mothers Rosario arc. She makes it worth watching.

Spoiler

(Still prefer her S1 1st arc avatar though.)

 

[natenate95]

Best male anime character:

Araragi from Tsukimonogatari/monogatari series in general, which would include this year's Hanamonogatari.

I don't want to draw this into a lengthy comparison and this is all my opinion, but I just don't view characters coming out of shonen action/fantasy with the same level of respect or interest as someone like Araragi. I won't deny that their is something inherently appealing about a character trying to get "stronger," which is what most of these shows focus on when employ that motif, but after a while it's difficult to really relate or care about protagonist x, y, or z's struggle with power or responsibility in that straightforward of a manner.

So, I wonder to myself what does Araragi have going for him as a interesting character, and I think that's a product of the writers and studio creating the character in such dialogue heavy franchise in which facets of life like conflict, relationships and maturing are discussed with relative depth that you don't see elsewhere. I envy the way the Araragi interacts with other characters who are either his mentors or peers in different regards, sometimes learning from them, but other times giving out advice. In Hanamonogatari, Araragi acts as the senior and assists the main female protagonist Suruga, but in Tsukimonogatari(more so as a result of the passing of time), he needs the help of Kagenui to identify and handle that crisis. Another thing working in Araragi's favor is Ougi, a character that without going too much into it, can provide exposition and criticism towards Araragi's actions and mentality. Of course their is nonsense within the series, all the incest bait and stuff, but you realize that those are such blatantly comic grab bags that you can ignore it.

Tsukimonogatari explores Araragi's usage of power, and the consequences of creating a habit from relying on something that is not totally within his control, to overcome the various oddities. I can't stress enough how lengthy bits of dialogue change this from being some sort of generic action plot device, into a full dissection of a character's acceptance of prior actions and maturity to understand and face a new obstetrical in a completely different way than his prior engagements. Sure their is a villain that needs to be stopped, sure the villain did a bad thing, but I challenge any other anime to put a more interesting antagonist on the table as Teori, who is shown for maybe 5mins in total.

Best female anime character:
I could go with the 5 mins of Senjou, but rather I'll give it to Akane from Psycho Pass 2. Sure the second season suffered from a staffing change and 11 episode rush to fit as much content as the first season, however I'll give my due respects to Akane for growing as a character and challenging the sibyl system from the inside.