If you have not already listened to the podcast of this category, this is the final results, so this will spoil the course of the discussion on that podcast! Be warned!
Breaking the categories into Major Character and Side Character has nudged the scales even harder, and the discussion clearly leaned towards characters that had serious and emotionally resonant or moving arcs. I think that’s a healthy thing… jokes can have legs, but they can rarely run marathons. When we think about the stories that are really important to us, it tends to be about struggle and growth. Our winners represent that pretty well.
The Winner
Anon Chihaya (BanG Dream: It’s MyGO!!!!!)
Gah, of course I have to write this. I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to, exactly. But it would be easier for Jen and Kyrie to say why Anon is so great, rather than me, because it’s too close to home.
The 2010s and 2020s have been big for art about anxious disaster people. Enough so that it’s ceased to be as remarkable- I still appreciate and enjoy it, but simply having major characters with mental illness isn’t unique anymore. Everyone in BanG Dream: It’s MyGO!!!!!! is dealing with some form of anxiety, depression, angst, or what have you. Some of them, it’s just part and parcel of being a teenager- they probably don’t have a disorder about this, or anything.
But poor Anon. I guarantee you she does. Cuz it’s so similar to what I went through.
Anon doesn’t have classic social anxiety- talking to others is easy for her, and she comes across as friendly and charming to most. She doesn’t mope around, she isn’t melodramatic in a way that suggests she’s troubled. It takes a little watching her to understand what her problem is, but once you see it, it’s over everything she does: the girl is just living in a form of psychic coyote time.
She is the driving force behind forming the band, taking the initiative to gather everyone up… when she actually can’t sing and has no idea how to play guitar. She tries to come across as self-assured and confident when she’s struggling with an overwhelming sense of inferiority. She’s just trying to move ahead as fast as she can as the road crumbles behind her.
As I say, it reminds me a lot of how I lived for a long time. It took some pretty major life events for me to face my problems and start sorting them out instead of thinking I could just stay one step ahead of them and never have to engage. The rest of the band is there to help Anon try and face hers, and with that help she makes some real progress in the show. But she isn’t done with that work, not by half. If anything, accepting that she can’t play guitar was the easy part. When will she be ready to accept that she’s got no plan, and is doing everything she can not to face her failures in school and ambition?
Well, it took me til my mid-20s… I hope she can get there sooner, for her sake.
(i don’t want you to get the wrong idea, i’m 35, i figured this stuff out a while ago. this isn’t that raw for me. but thank you for your concern.)
The Runners-Up
Shikikan (Girls Frontline 2)
In Girls Frontline, the Shikikan is a faceless protagonist, initially silent and merely a narrative justification for why the player has an inside perspective on events. A little self-insert too, as the gacha characters express their appreciation for this invisible commander. That was the style at the time for gacha games: a silent main character that everyone loves, so the player can easily self-insert and feel loved.
But… Mica Team doesn’t write like that. And the more they wrote story events, the more the Shikikan became a character with a clear voice. Not literally, because they never gave them a voice actor, or a face, or a name. But their dialogue painted a clear picture: a dedicated, resourceful, tenacious workaholic with enough cunning and intelligence to get out alive in the worst of situations, but not quite enough to permanently escape the situation. A survivor, a leader, and a mercenary who ultimately can’t turn their back on those in need, even when that’s the smart play.
With Girls Frontline 2, the writers decided to just accept who they are, and how they write things. From the start, the Shikikan has a face (your choice of two, masculine or feminine), and a voice actor to match that face. Their first lines of dialogue are them quitting their job and walking away from the role of main character of the first game. And that’s who this character is- the same relentless tactician with fierce loyalty, eminently practical, but still taking jobs they shouldn’t to help others.
What’s more, a lot of the world remembers them. Sure, plenty of people treat the Shikikan as just some random mercenary. But at least as many sigh and say “I guess I do owe you a favor,” or wonder where you’ve been, or offer kindness without being asked because of the Shikikan’s history. The portrayal of this tired, brilliant, and troubled middle-aged lesbian is the writing I needed in 2024.
Heismay Noctule (Metaphor: ReFantazio)
Metaphor is in essence a Persona game, and as such it lives as an entry in a line of mascot characters. Koromaru from Persona 3 is charming. Teddie from Persona 4 is… I mean. Some people like him. And Morgana from Persona 5 is better than Teddie, but… well. Not amazing. Heismay as the latest in this tradition being a bat-knight voiced by the deep, somber-voiced Akio Otsuka is inspiring as a foundation.
From that foundation, Metaphor takes the admirable tact of simply… taking him seriously. The very concept of a “mascot character” can be turned on its head by respecting the character and writing them like a serious member of the cast. Heismay’s story as a disgraced knight whose failures loom larger in his mind than anyone else’s feels vulnerable in a way that escapes the detachment of the epic and makes him into a character you can connect with.
it doesn’t not help that’s he’s a cute bat-guy, though.
Week 2, day 1 in the bag! Come back on Wednesday to hear about the Best Side Character, a fitting sister category to this one.
Our art is a commission from Sarracenian on Bluesky.
