Welcome to the Anime Walk of Fame, a series of retrospectives on the many characters of the anime world. You'll see all your favorites along with a few that deserve more than their reputations give.

So sit back relax and enjoy the show.

Alfred's Back Story is More Tragic Than Any Shonen Protagonist

Sometimes I wonder how we get certain things in anime.

This cute little duck is Alfred, he's the star of the Japanese and Dutch made Alfred J Kwak, now on first glance, it looks like nothing more than a friendly kids show and the first episode certainly sets the tone for what looks like a rather joyful series of adventures with a curious little duck.
Then episode 2 happens and Alfred loses his entire family in a car accident leaving him completely orphaned, the shock and awe of such a massive whiplash in tone likely did it's fair share in upsetting alot of kids, heck even adults.
I didn't watch alot of this series as my memory of it from the late 80s and early 90s is pretty vague but I'm kind of glad I missed that episode.
So how is the series in comparison? Oh lord we aren't even touching the service, it's going to need it's own article just to describe the amount of heavy themes this series tackles.

Haga is the Only Villain to Piss Off the Pharaoh

We've got a bumper crop of characters lined up today starting with Insector Haga.

Haga or Weevil in the dub by looks and role is very much a B-Villain yet he holds on to some surprising roles in the story.
To start with, he was the one to get rid of Exodia from Yugi's deck, for a while afterwards he continued in that role until the Orichalcos arc where he duels the pharoah shortly after he lost to Raphael.
Haga being the calculating and manipulative person that he is, triggers the Pharaoh into such a rage that what followed was the biggest beatdown for a single Yu-Gi-Oh character in history when the pharaoh triggered his monster to endlessly attack Haga even long after his life points hit zero.
The meme drawo monsta cardo was born, even when Anzu finally stops the Pharaoh and Haga's soul is taken, the Pharaoh is still willing to use violence.
Kaiba and Bakura wish they could trigger Pharaoh like that.

There's Something About Relena

So what exactly is the deal with Relena? Well you are about to learn about some early Western Otaku culture.

Relena is the lead female character of Gundam Wing acting as a lonely rich girl, self insert love interest of Heero, pacifist politician to a royal lineage she never knew she had and later Queen of the entire planet, even beyond the series she was holding high positions of power.
So what's her deal?
My opinion is that she kinda forces the plot to follow her script despite the fact that she is in Heero's words "In over her head" as her character has the most awkward transition up to her final role as politician.
The other issue is that the five Gundam pilots awakened the inner yaoi fangirl of the late 90s early 00s.
The boys of Gundam Wing were the anime equivalent of a boy band, the official art pushing that belief strongly with fans at the time, you had the bad boy, the fun boy, the quiet boy, the sensitive boy and the one who keeps leaving because of creative differences.
It's not really surprising considering scenes between Heero and Duo along with Trowa and Quatre could easily be interpreted as more than friends.
The Gundam boys were paired off with their own female characters but while most were at friend, sister or colleague levels of respect, Relena was the only one who was a threat to the yaoi fantasy, if Twitter existed back then, there would be a petition to get rid of Relena and make the Gundam boys canon gay, I wish I was joking, they live on through My Hero Academia instead.
But I find myself weirdly agreeing with them on at least Heero Yuy, because I think his character would've developed better without Relena.
My final thoughts on Relena is that she's a character that really didn't need to be that involved in the plot of Gundam Wing.

Amelia is the Justice Princess Done Right

In stark contrast to previous entrant Rosalie, we have the same type of character with better execution.

Amelia is the justice loving princess of Saillune, raised by her father who instilled in her the righteous path of justice.
What that means in laymans terms is that the King and by extension Amelia, are the main defence for their kingdom.
While Rosalie's troops come down with a bad case of death, Amelia actively makes sure that all her troops survive any ordeal that comes their way even if it's sometimes from her own ally Lina Inverse herself.
Having returned to playing Dynasty Warriors recently where these fancy buzz words are thrown around all the time, it's refreshing to find a character who can live up to their boasting for once, even if you do get sick of it by the end of her debut episode.

Rosalie is a Terrible Ruler

Mistress 9 is going to be a while writing so for a mini special let us look at a wide range of princesses and see how well they rule starting with the most recent anime I watched, Cautious Hero.

I'm being very generous with Rosalie's picture as this is her at her best, she doesn't really deserve it though.
Rosalie is Gaeabrande's princess, daughter of the veteran king dubbed the Warmaster. Growing up with such a known hero gave young Rosalie a strong sense of justice which she uses to motivate her army in defeating the legions of the Demon King, only problem is her head strong determination gets most of her army butchered, it's a trait that I expect from a poorly written Dynasty Warriors character not a monarch in a fantasy anime.
And while yes, doing nothing just prolongs the bloodshed on innocent people but blindly going into battle without a strategy wastes soldiers lives, call Seiya unheroic as much as you want, but his actions saved way more lives and took out way more enemies than Rosalie ever did. It's any wonder she got slapped so many times before stepping back.
After all "What can you protect when feelings are the only weapons you have?" - Kira Yamato