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.

Reese is Really Underrated

Earlier this week, we were given the sad news that voice actress Racheal Lillis had past away from cancer; Racheal had some of the best range for a dub actress everything from sassy villains to tomboys, valiant prince like maidens to sweet ditzy android girls, but one role went under the radar was her role as Dr Reese Drake from Dinosaur King.

Dinosaur King felt like a Pokemon clone trying too hard, made even more obvious when the lead is pretty much Ash Ketchum with a Dinosaur (same voice).
Reese in the games was sweet and caring, but her anime counterpart is serious and looks like she's always so done with this shit, game purists may not like it but making this personality change made Reese the best character, she's a great foil for manchild Dr Spike Taylor, she plays off equally well with the kids particularly her little sister Zoe and some of the best one-liners and moments come from Racheal Lillis delivering her best performance.
Dinosaur King could've been insufferable but Reese gives us the perfect audience surrogate straight woman and we have Racheal Lillis to thank for bringing her A game to an anime that didn't deserve it.

Amy Rose is the Perfect Feminine Heroine

With her classic debut happening near 30 years after being introduced in Sonic CD, Amy Rose has become as well knowm as the rest of the cast with very little changing bar just getting older.

In her debut she was introduced in a green blouse with orange skirt looking closer to the default Sonic design, this is a far cry from the prototype eras where Sonic had a human girlfriend with a curvy figure and red dress akin to Betty Boop with a blonde wig; her role was to play damsel and I've said this before, there's nothing wrong with being a damsel character if it's proven that the one who kidnapped you is shown as very threatening, this of course was Metal Sonic, this is why I usually give Princess Peach a pass going up against Bowser. From there, Amy shows up in racing titles with her own car and Sonic the Fighters with her Piko Piko Hammer, Sonic Adventure was the breakthrough game sporting an older look that gave her a retro red dress and a new hair style which still acts as her design today.
She starts out running from a robot pursuer only to fight back at the end perhaps being inspired by Sonic's constant heroics, from there she was a frequently playable character.
Her personality started as a hopeless tween romantic, becoming a more active romantic when she decided to simply get what she wants, some of my other favourite iterations includes Fleetway Sonic as a more committed Freedom Fighter dressed in a plaid skirt or combat pants, this version is closer to Sonic's more heroic traits complete with her own sidekick; Sonic X as a more fleshed out version from the games and Sonic Boom where she develops a more peace keeper mentality akin to a therapist.
At no point does she ever sacrifice her feminine persona to follow other female protagonists in the recent trend of action girls with no colour palette, Amy has evolved in the right way to remain as popular as her Nintendo counterpart Princess Peach and that popularity has made her playable in the classic games as of this Friday.

Maki is Too Good for Fire Force

Yeah you can tell I'm talking about a low grade shonen series.

Maki Oze is a former soldier and 2nd Generation who joined Fire Company 8, known as a witch for her aesthetic of a witches hat and using her flames to create sentient fire sprites much like a spell caster, not limited to fire, Maki is buff and is likely the strongest in Company 8 bar Captain Obi but her role in Fire Force is limited to being a butt monkey, maybe Maki gets treated better later on but Fire Force's opening 12 episodes did little for her character development.
A muscle bound fire witch is fantastic character design, it reminds me of Louie the Rune Soldier, a muscle bound wizard in more or less the same mold, Maki is wasted on a below average shonen series like Fire Force. Don't get me started on Shinra, he's a lost cause.

Airi is Too Good for the 90s

I want to see more characters from unknown shows shine and Airi is no exception.

Those Who Hunt Elves is a very underrated isekai from way back in the 90s featuring a misfit cast of a martial artist, an actress, a military obsessed school girl and an army tank that later gets possessed by a cat spirit, while much of the story is slapstick in an absurd environment, Airi stands out as being an exceptional character.
Master of disguise, can read any scenario, can emote on command and brings a presence that the other characters fail to achieve if they ever went solo, in fact it was Airi that first unveilved one of the anime's biggest plot reveals, she reminds me of the performers of the Takarazuka Revue even though her bio suggests mixed American and Japanese, also at aged 24 is the obvious adult of the group.
Way more capable than her era would suggest.

How Hululu Helped a Lonely Penguin Find Peace

A cute story from 2017.

In Tobu Zoo in Miyashiro, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, there is a Humboldt Penguin enclosure. One penguin known as Grape-kun had a rough time of things having been rejected by his partner of ten years for a younger penguin and was then isolated from the rest of the enclosure as a result, coming near the end of his life span come 2017 at aged 21 it seemed like Grape-kun would die alone but in April 2017, a collaboration with surprise anime hit Kemono Friends saw 60 or so cutouts of the cast placed in all the enclosures of the zoo, Hululu a Humboldt Penguin Girl was placed in Grape-Kun's enclosure and the little old penguin fell in love with the cardboard cutout becoming an internet sensation over night, the attachment so strong that the cutout was kept in Grape-Kun's enclosure long after the collaboration finished, even Hululu's voice actress would visit the enclosure; Grape-Kun would die in October from old age, among the shine to the beloved penguin is an illustration from Kemono Friends artist of Hululu and Grape-Kun together shown below.

I'd like to think Grape-Kun died no longer feeling lonely, even if Hululu wasn't real, his final year cuddling up to his cardboard waifu gave him thousands of friends and well wishers.