The Best Characters of 2019

Hibiki Sakura (How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?)

There were a lot of great characters in the anime I watched this year. People who had tremendous, interesting growth to watch or provided enlightenment perspective. But sometimes I just gotta go with charm, so I'm giving this one to the dopey gal who learns to love lifting. The Dumbbells show had some infectious enthusiasm for its given subject, and Hibiki's viewpoint was a major factor in imparting that. Her relatively simple goals of toning up, learning to be a bit more active and healthy, gave way to seeing her in competitive scenarios like arm-wrestling and weight-lifting competitions. And knowing how much her progress meant to her made rooting for this good girl in those situations that much more of a given. Now, if only all her bodybuilding buddies would quit giving her guff about her food and let her eat in peace!

Lord El-Melloi II (aka Waver Velvet), Lord El-Melloi II's Case Files: Rail Zeppelin Grace note

I was sorely, sorely tempted to put down Bench-kun from ORESUKI here for being one of the year's best running gags, but ultimately it's a prop, not a character. Nezuko from Demon Slayer is definitely Best Girl (and I won't hear any argument on this!), but she wasn't allowed to do enough to win this broader honor. Reines El-Melloi Archisorte, from a certain Fate-affiliated title, was also a more sharp-tongued delight but had the same problem. Boogiepop in Boogiepop and Others dominated whenever on the screen, especially with the slightly condescending smile, but also wasn't on the screen enough. Hence the runner-up pick then becomes Myne from Ascendance of a Bookworm, as much for her adorable expressiveness as for her entrepreneurial personality and mix of childlike and adult behaviors. However, even she didn't make her series what it was as much as the grown-up Waver Velvet did. He matched Myne for expressiveness, and was a delight in the way he could be a logical genius one moment and a hapless fool the next, but what puts him over the top is his soul-searching over his experiences with Iksander in the previous Holy Grail War and how he comes to a resolution on that.

Jeeg the Ant, Kemono Michi: Rise Up

There were so many more serious choices I could have gone with here – Erina who continues to become her own person, Wendy in her continued rise to powerful awesomeness, Mafuyu who manages to figure out how to accept and move on, which is nothing to sneeze at. So why go with Jeeg the Ant? Because they can do basically anything – clean, cook, protect puppies, multi-handedly keep me at least semi-excited to watch a show…and I don't even like ants. Jeeg stood out in the generally icky cast of Kemono Michi: Rise Up in a positive way, just quietly working mostly in the background to help everyone get through the day, and for all that, they didn't even get a name until the final episode. Jeeg, you are an unsung hero and no one can rock a bright pink apron like you.

Askeladd (Vinland Saga)

This is as good an opportunity as any to remind folks that recognizing a character as "great" does not equal an endorsement their actions. For instance, old Askeladd is a murderous thief who will raze entire villages to the ground just to keep his men fed and entertained. He's a backstabber, a king killer, a conspirator, a shameless opportunist, and an unrepentant mercenary who orphaned Thorfinn and threw him into the life of a child soldier without a second thought. He is also a deeply scarred and ambitious man who dreams of a better world, and a (mostly) loyal and (occasionally) honorable leader of men. Willing to do whatever he must to deliver his homeland the salvation it had spent centuries begging for, Askeladd is a perfect specimen of the time and place in which he lives. To live in a cruel and merciless world is to survive as a cruel and merciless man, or so Askeladd would have you believe. He may be an absolute bastard, but he also stands as a testament it the kinds of powerful and challenging stories Vinland Saga has been telling this year.