Hi I'm Dranzerstorm
You may remember me as a regular contestant on the caption battle contest.
Welcome to Retro Retrospective, my world dedicated to the old guard of the Otaku world; expect some reviews of the old & obscure, and in-depth geeky knowledge with the occasional top ten and I now have a logo.
Little info about me
Well I'm British and I'm in to all things animated and nostalgia.
I've grown up with every cartoon going and have watched hundreds of anime.
Oh and to answer a question I was asked once, no I don't wear glasses in real life, I would wear Loke's sunglasses though.
Having re-watched Kung-Fu Panda I've come to realize how silly the concept sounds but the film is still awesome, so this time here are the top 10 Anime Characters you should never underestimate.
Rules are that if there is more than one person in the franchise I'll judge the group instead of certain individuals. This doesn't look like a Commander of a Nuclear Submarine
10. Yurika Misumaru from Martian Successor Nadesico
A ditz will always be a ditz but Yurika makes up for much of her short falls by being tactically gifted, the fact that the Nadesico survived it's voyage is testament to the abilities of it's captain.
9. Every Gundam Pilot from the Gundam Franchise
You'd feel pretty stupid if you came back to your commander and say you've been shot down by a kid, although in the Gundam Universe if you did that exact same thing, you'd be given a medal for bravery.
8. L from Death Note
An insomniac who sits funny, eats cake all day and looks more like death than the actual death gods; worked out who Kira was straight away.
7. Sunako Nakahara from The Wallflower
Sunako's position as the loner into all things horror can instantly transform into a beautiful bad ass complete with entirely different art style to emphasize the change in emotions.
6. The Strawhats except Zoro from One Piece
If you ask an outsider to identify a pirate on a picture of the Strawhats crew, 100% of the time they'll pick Zoro as he's the only one who looks like a pirate despite not originally being a pirate at all. Those Bounties aren't just for show, they are entirely justified.
5. Negi Springfield from Negima
A 10-year old boy wizard in charge of a class of 31 teenage girls of various descriptions, can defeat vampires, high ranking wizards, samurai, demons and a hack character with a million cheat codes. (That's how Chisame described Jack Rakan)
4. Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist
He's short, very short, something he takes offense to on a regular basis but take off the red coat and you see the Automail arm and you'll know that this guy will take you down.
3. Simon from Gurren Lagann
When you start watching Gurren Lagann everyone will believe that Kamina is the main character until he suddenly dies. (Hardly a spoiler)
Simon has to pick up the pieces and after a Shinji moment not only takes Kamina's place but surpasses him, and here we thought we'd get another Shinji.
2. Teletha Testarossa from Full Metal Panic
She's a 16 year old with poor coordination, a childlike voice and behaves like a school girl. Yet she's the captain of a Nuclear Submarine! She dwarfs Yurika in military knowledge and is more capable than most of the Gundam cast.
1. Mitsukuni "Honey" Haninozuka from Ouran High School Host Club
Honey looks like a kid despite being the oldest of the group, he likes plush toys and cake, yet he's so strong that the rest of the world judges him as a weapon of mass destruction if he so much as release his full power.
As I said in my Saban Moon feature, there was another series that had the same awful treatment. This is the story of the Americanized Gundam Series Doozy Bots.
It's probably better to see for yourself how bad this is.
The story goes that Sunrise wanted to bring the Gundam franchise to the States but were blocked with the simple problem that at the time, 1991 to be exact, Gundam wasn't exactly the most child friendly series in the world, even the over the top G Gundam would have to wait until the Dragonballz era before getting TV coverage. Sunrise then remembered that over the past three years they had developed SD Gundam, a series of five OVAs played over three years as a child friendly alternative to the kill frenzy that was the original series, so it was decided that it would use that to create an American equivalent but the results sadly ended up as a McDonalds style super fun kids cartoon with a serious amount of cliche characters. We have a Wacky Scientist, Wacky Scientist daughter that may become the love interest of the main character, a Jock, a token female, a fat guy, a skater/surfer boy, a black guy that is also disabled and two kids who always get involved with one of them unfortunately called Tagalong, wow that's cruel, his role in this is actually his name. As for the villains they are escapees of the Scientist who want to ruin fun.
I don't know what's worst. The fact that they even attempted this or the fact that Sunrise actually made it themselves; At least with Saban Moon, Toei at least had the decency to go with a dub, this is just fail. And it's based on SD Gundam! A series which according to Anime News Network is the second worst anime series ever, only an OVA named Hametsu no Mars is worst.
I'm glad this never made a series but sad that it was actually made and it's because of this that we had to wait so long for a decent Gundam series and thankfully Gundam Wing delivered.
90s may have delivered the best of cartoons but they also delivered the worst, let this be a lesson to those making cartoons now.
