Forum - View topicMost Improved Character Tournament: Post-Mortem
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Tris8
 Posts: 2114 Location: Where the rain is. |
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Group A-23
Fakir, Princess Tutu vs. Sawako Kuronuma, Kimi ni Todoke – From Me to You Fakir. The magnitude of his change is undisputably greater. Group A-24 Taichi Mashima, Chihiyafuru vs. Daikichi Kawachi, Bunny Drop Taichi. Like Key, this is purely an anti-Daikichi vote. I love the series Bunny Drop, but don't see any improvement at all in Daikichi. He starts out as a generous and noble guy who takes in Rin, and ends as a generous and noble guy who is taking care of Rin. He learns how to be a father to Rin, but that's not an improvement in and of itself. If Daikichi was irresponsible before and taking on a caretaking role had him grow out of it I'd vote for him, but that's not what happens. -------------------------------------------------- Group B-23 Chihiro, Spirited Away vs. Kyoko Mogami, Skip Beat! Both candidates go through very strong improvements and are personally beloved, but I have to go with Chihiro. What tips me in her favor is this. Kyoko, even when she was a doormat, had a mind of her own and direction in her life. I certainly didn't approve of her choice to quit school to be with Sho, but she knew what she wanted and was strong-willed enough to follow through to get it. Her decision was stupid (especially when we were shown that Sho was tricking her), but she was strong enough to actually make it and she handled everything impressively. Chihiro on the other hand just let people and circumstances throw her around in the beginning. She wasn't strong enough to make decisions for herself at first, but in the bathhouse we see her gaining courage and becoming her own person. When she decides to take the train to Zaneba's house despite council against it, we can really see how far she's come. Group B-24 Scar, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood vs. Shoukei, The Twelve Kingdoms Shoukei. It is extremely difficult to open your eyes to the mistakes a loved one has committed, especially if they are as serious as the ones Shoukei's father committed. |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13230 |
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True, but it's much harder to let go of deep rooted hated, especially when it's completely justified. |
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Aylinn
 Posts: 1684 |
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Doesn't he let go of his deep rooted hatred for state alchemists only after learning who is really behind the massacre of his people? |
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Vaisaga
Posts: 13230 |
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That certainly helped, though it didn't change the fact that state alchemists still massacred his people. Some were even happy to do it.
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Unicorn_Blade
 Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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Group A-23
Fakir, Princess Tutu vs. Sawako Kuronuma, Kimi ni Todoke – From Me to You Fakir, purely because Sawako's development was only initially heart-warming and funny, but in the long run turned out a bit painful to watch, especially in the second season where for an unknown reason her relationship with Kazehaya went back a few steps and she pretty much got stuck for almost 10 episodes. Group A-24 Taichi Mashima, Chihiyafuru vs. Daikichi Kawachi, Bunny Drop Not having seen either, based on the write up and comments, I am going for Daikichi Kawachi. -------------------------------------------------- Group B-23 Chihiro, Spirited Away vs. Kyoko Mogami, Skip Beat! Kyoko Mogami - Not that Chihiro's development was not good enough, but Kyoko's to me seemed to have more angles to it. She manages to get past her questionable motives to e successful. Maybe the reasons why she wants to be a star are not from those most honourable ones, but in the end, she really manages to make an improvement because she opened her heart to other people, and opens other's hearts too. Group B-24 Scar, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood vs. Shoukei, The Twelve Kingdoms[/quote] Scar - Regardess which Scar you are looking at- the one who saved Rose and Al in FMA1, or the one who sided with Elrics and co to save Armestris, his character made an amazing improvement throughout the series: from a monk to serial killer to a fighter for freedom and protector of his people. It would be perfectly all right for him to just leave Armestrians all by themselves, knowing that their soldiers mercilessly slaughtered so many of his family members and friends. And yet he even manages to convince some Ishvalans to participate in the master plan to save the country. He is also capable to fight side to side with people who were personally responsible for many of the deaths (Mustang and Hawkeye), and positively influence them. |
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Unicorn_Blade
Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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To be precise, Scar lets of his hatred when he faces Winry and her forgiveness for him killing her parents. |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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Here's the Sunday tally.
Group A-23 Fakir, 11 vs. Sawako Kuronuma, 1 Group A-24 Taichi Mashima, 6 vs. Daikichi Kawachi, 6 Group B-23 Chihiro, 5 vs. Kyoko Mogami, 7 Group B-24 Scar, 6 vs. Shoukei, 6 Lots of really close match-ups this round. And one that isn't close at all. Pretty sure nothing is going to stop Fakir from taking this round (nor the next, for that matter). Taichi caught up after a string of votes for Daikichi at the beginning. The other two matches have been close the entire way. So once again, it looks to be down to the wire to see who moves on, unless the last voters all really like someone, which has happened in previous rounds. |
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Olliff
 Posts: 550 |
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Group A-23
Fakir, Princess Tutu vs. Sawako Kuronuma, Kimi ni Todoke – From Me to You Fakir due to the fact that Sawako's improvement stagnates when her relationship with with Kazehaya frustratingly goes nowhere and takes a few steps back. I'm mainly docking points for consistency something that Fakir has down once he improvement begins. Group A-24 Taichi Mashima, Chihiyafuru vs. Daikichi Kawachi, Bunny Drop I'm really torn here since I believe that neither deserves to go on. Daikichi Kawachi's improvement is very novel for anime, very credible and consistent. Its less than hyperbolic nature and the subtlety of the progression counts against him. However, I am even more unsure about Taichi. Sure, he starts out as a bully when he is a kid and matures, but this process is very brief occurring in only a few episodes. His later material even counts more against him when he has lapses of confidence and his belief that his bad luck is holding him back from his full potential combined with some confidence crises. Group B-23 Chihiro, Spirited Away vs. Kyoko Mogami, Skip Beat! Kyoko Mogami -Kyoko's improvement is more multi-faceted, developed, and impactful than the development of Chihiro. Kyoko escapes her submissive servitude pushover persona and initially starts out too much the other direction. Slowly, over time her personality finds more balance while her motives shift away from getting even to getting better. Group B-24 Scar, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood vs. Shoukei, The Twelve Kingdoms[/quote] Scar - Both are quite strong, but the shocking nature combined with how Scar's entire world view and perspective changed for the better makes for the more impressive improvement. Shoukei's improvement is quite strong, too, but when you look at the state, Scar is far more impressive. Shoukei mainly just shakes a lot of her bad traits, and the end result is nothing approaching what Scar ultimately becomes. |
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Ggultra2764
 Subscriber Posts: 3893 Location: New York state. |
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Sorry for the late vote. My interest in the tourney's been waning as of late. Let's see:
Match A-23: Fakir (Princess Tutu) Compared to Sawako overcoming shyness and social isolation, Fakir getting over his aloof personality and overprotectiveness of Mytho is much more considerable improvement for me here. Match A-24: Daikichi Kawachi (Bunny Drop) Voting more for the unique approach to how Daikichi's growth came about since I'm not too familiar with Taichi's growth from my limited exposure to Chihiyafuru. Match B-23: Chihiro (Spirited Away) From what I'm reading, Kyoko only has her obsession with revenge to contribute to her growth. This doesn't seem too significant compared to Chihiro learning independence and responsibility through her experiences at Yubaba's bathhouse. Match B-24: Shoukei (Twelve Kingdoms) A more tricky decision for me to make since here both are dealing with shocking changes to their world views on events that personally affected them. I'm gonna side with Shoukei here since she not only has to learn to let go of her pride as a former member of royalty, but she also learns of the misdeeds of her father and what effect they had on the populace of her kingdom. This made her much less selfish, develop a much better understanding of the outside world beyond her sheltered life of royalty she wanted to return to and she became a major ally of Youko's later on in dealing with corruption within her kingdom's politics being exploited. |
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Aylinn
Posts: 1684 |
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It reminds me of inconsistency in his characterization. I mean, he admits that he had no legitimate reason to kill Winry’s parents, so he was not so totally blinded by revenge. That’s why I have never understood why he wants to kill Ed, to be sure, Ed is a state alchemists, but, I suppose, it couldn’t have escaped Scar’s notice that Ed is also too young to have any involvement in the massacre of his people. Why didn’t he just go after the state alchemist who were involved and hunted down those who enjoyed massacring his people in the first place. If he killed Ed, he would just do the same mistake as with Winry’s parents and would kill an innocent person. I also don’t understand why such a big deal is made of the fact that he allies with the Erlics brothers as if they wronged him in any way. I would give him credit for being able to ally with Roy, but not with the Erlics. That’s partly why I find him uninteresting, it looks like his reasoning turns on or off when it serves the plot or the dramatic tension. |
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Vaisaga
Posts: 13230 |
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Well by the point the thing with Winry's parents came to light, he had already undergone a bit of a change already.
His hating all State Alchemists instead of just the ones who fought at Ishival is natural. When bad stuff happens we always blame the entire group, not just the ones responsible. Just look at the anti-Muslim attitude in the wake of 9/11. Besides, he went after them for his whole "Alchemy is an insult to God" thing too. So overcoming that idea and working together with them is notable. Not only that, he convinced his fellow Ishvallans to help out too. Shoukei on the other hand, from what I've read, her hatred of Youko was entirely misplaced and based on very little, so her letting go of it wouldn't be that hard. She blamed the whole populace for her father's downfall, but she never went on murderous rampages. Scar started off in a far darker hole so his climb out of it is more notable. |
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Aylinn
Posts: 1684 |
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I am not convinced. When he meets Winry for the first time, he tells her and Ed that she has the right to shoot him, so he must have realised that killing her parents was not justifiable earlier than that.
But how is Scar's hatred for the Erlics brothers not misplaced? I don't see how his letting go of hatred for people that did him nothing wrong is more notable than Shoukei's. And Shoukei also supports Youko later on by giving her a critical advice, so Scar doesn't have an advantage here.
Thereby either he or Kenshin should win the whole tournament, because the remaining characters were not murderers. I don't think it is just. Shoukei's improvement is of a different kind, but it is as significant turnaround as Scar's. I give Shoukei edge, because the quality of her improvement makes her development more interesting and memorable than Scar's, whose back story is very effective, but could have been done better. I think that comparing the quality of writing, which can be done for all characters, is just more fair than comparing accidental aspects like whether someone has a unique experience, for example, of being a murderer, that no or few characters have. |
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Maidenoftheredhand
 Posts: 2633 |
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Absolutely not true! Taichi doesn't believe luck has anything to do with it. He believes he only has hard work on his side and he just isn't as skilled as some of the others. It's Harada Sensei who believes luck hasn't been on Taichi's side and that he is more skilled than he gives himself credit. Taichi's story is still ongoing, he is still flawed and is still developing, so I understand if people will use this against him. But it seems strange to ignore the growth he did have over the course of the first series. It wasn't just that he was no longer a bully, it was that he literally would not give up on something even though he is not the best and isn't going to win 100%. It's the fact that he decided to work hard at karuta and not take the easy way out. This was significant growth for his character and it didn't happen only after 3 episodes. As for Taichi's confidence issues, yes that is still a problem he has to overcome but his confidence was not why he was nominated in the first place. And again Taichi hasn't really had a focus episode this season to work on those confidence issues. Anyways Daikichi's a great character but for him it's more that his world expanded. He did not become a better person because there was nothing wrong with him to begin with. What flaws did he have that he improved on? Taichi did have flaws that he improved on. Does he still have flaws? yes! But again his story is ongoing so it would be a pretty boring character arc if all his issues were already solved. |
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Unicorn_Blade
Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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To butt in... Scar has killed Winry's parents in blind range, not fully ware of what happened. Imagine waking up as the only survivor of a massacre, with your brother's arm sewn to your body. Quite a shock. Scar realised, later, what he has done At the moment of his awakening the Rockbells seemed just like any other Armestrians. So yes, he did realise he was wrong, but it was the power of Winry's forgiveness that made him aware that he has a purpose in life. Scar was aware that killing Ed was a bit pointless, but he did not care, for him they represented the force that destroyed his homeland and killed his family. But he admitted his failure, although no one would have blamed him if he decided to stick to his prejudices. There was a moment when Scar saw no value to his existence and would not mind receiving punishment for his crimes, or even looked for it subconsciously. In short, he wanted to die, hopefully taking as many State Alchemists with him as possible. The change in him on this level is remarkable. Not only he decided he wanted to live on, but he found a purpose in life, made his life meaningful by helping Ed save the country and then to help rebuild his own. From a gruesome murderer he transformed into a saviour and a person who inspired others to carry on. |
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Vaisaga
Posts: 13230 |
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I didn't say it wasn't misplaced. It's just far more understandable and justifiable for the reasons Unicorn_Blade pointed out. It's harder to let something go when you're absolutely convinced you're in the right and in a way you truely are. And yeah, Scar still has the advantage. Shoukei gives Youko advice? That's all? Scar orchestrated and executed the plan that gave everyone their alchemy back. Think on that for a second: Scar, who initially viewed alchemy as blasphemy against God, is the one responsible for giving alchemy back to the others.
Kenshin killed in the service of the government, so it's not really murder. Scar killed for his own personal vendetta. That his hatred was so strong that he went so far as to kill just highlights how difficult letting it all go would be. |
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