telophase | (no subject)

I was reading my page of "monitored" LJs - the users and communities I don't really read often, but occasionally (if you comment on my LJ you're not in the 'monitored' filter; that's mostly for those who I've friended to read every so often but don't consider them acquaintances).

Today, the author/artist of Peach Fuzz posted a mini-review of the Howl's Moving Castle movie (no spoilers) where she noted that she didn't have high expectations going in because she heard that the movie's heroine was an old woman. Quoted:

When I originally found out that much of the movie was about a girl in the form of a 90-year old woman, I had my doubts that she would make for a very likable or appropriate lead character. You generally expect your main character to be vibrant or youthful or energetic (not that the lack of dissuaded me from seeing it, obviously.)

I have to say that I don't think we have the same conception of what makes for a good lead character. Which probably explains why I don't like her manga and can't stand any of the characters.* What I look for in a lead character is depth. I like it when aspects of their personality or history are hidden, so you have to poke at them and peel them away to reveal what makes them tick and who they are. I like it when they have contradictions and paradoxes which turn out to make perfect sense once you dig deep enough. I actually loathe most genki-type characters, and they have to have deeper, more serious sides to them revealed early enough on to get me to like them.

Goku, Tohru Honda, and Naruto are characters that I wouldn't normally like if they didn't have their serious sides revealed early enough -- Naruto starts off in a cranky, prankster mood, and it's revealed that he usually shoves his doubts under a confident facade. Goku was played off of three not-genki characters before we started learning his tragic backstory, and he does show very deep currents of fear for what he's capable of doing. Tohru Honda is shown as very deliberately placing her negative emotions underneath her surface because she's got such an inferiority complex that she thinks she doesn't deserve any sort of happiness, and you get hit with that the moment the book starts, when she's living in a tent instead of imposing on anyone. If we'd met her before her mother died, I wouldn't have liked her as much, I think, because I think that her insecurites all stem back to that one issues.

There's supposed to be a meeting at work now - will come back if I think of anything, or a better way to say something. [ edit ] Cancelled, it seems. At least nobody's showing up to it. Not that I have anything else to say.

* I don't hold that against her, though, I am just emphatically Not Her Audience, and I enjoy reading her posts about learning how to be a professional mangaka. Caveat posted to head off any "If you don't like her, why do you read her LJ?" cries, although I think most of my regular readers are sensible enough to understand where I'm coming from without me having to spell it out.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I was going to offer Cpt. Harlock as a counter-cute example, but you know, the eye-patch and the scar really work for him. :sigh: And they don't look half bad on Emeraldas either.

Hee. :) Yup - the characters that are supposed to be not cute I often find quite cute. In the interviews with the artist and author of Death Note published in the recent hiatus, the artist said that when he was designing L, he asked the writer if it was OK to make him not good-looking, but weird and quirky. And you know? I am all about L. I think quite a lot of us are. Yet he's supposed to be not cute.

L's not supposed to be cute? Hmm. Maybe we're making the word "cute" do too much work here.

If characters are cute = really young, simplified design, big-eyed, then they tend not to appeal to me as much, partly because I read them as being too young for *me*, and I'm vaguely discomfited by thoughts of cradle-robbing.

Older, quirkier (even disfigured) characters, are easier for me to keep sorted out in my mind, and the age/quirks/disfigurements hint at rich backstory.

There's probably a translation issue here, too - I don't know what the original Japanese said, and I know that there's subtleties to "kawaii" and I'm sure plenty of other words in the same area that we're not getting. I know that he's not supposed to be traditionally good-looking, in contrast to Light, but that succeeded in making him far more attractive to me, because I really don't go for traditionally good-looking.

When I was a TA, I always learned the names of the non-American students, and the annoying students first, because they stood out in my mind, whether it was for an unusual name, a nifty accent, or because I ~~CURSED THE DAY THEY WERE BORN~~, er, had issues with their behavior in class. I feel sorry for the sea of generic frat boys who I always mixed up, because I couldn't ever keep them separate until they finally stood out as individuals in some way.