Memorable Anime Chracter: Konata Izumi

Name: Konata Izumi

Where You've Seen Her: Lucky Star

Her Story: She's a typical high schooler in Japan.  Well, maybe not that typical -- she's an intelligent girl who is more interested in her manga, anime and video game interests than her studies.

Why She's Memorable: Because she's somewhat representative of what most people think of when it comes to being an "otaku."  Although in her case she also plays games that her friends would find "distasteful" such as adult dating sims.  She really loves her lifestyle and doesn't care what her friends think of it, even encouraging them to get involved.  And she's loyal to her family, despite their proclivities.

Tomorrow -- The very first mecha.

Memorable Anime Character: Haruhi Suzumiya

Name: Haruhi Suzumiya
Where You've Seen Her: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Her Story: Haruhi Suzumiya is bored by life in general. She starts the SOS Brigade in hopes of tracking down espers, time travelers and aliens, unaware that they were already in her ranks.  She is also unaware of the fact that she has the power to control her surroundings.
Why She Is Memorable: Haruhi has a lot of energy, and is very controlling.  She has her softer side that peeks out on occassion.  She can be very manipulative in order to get what she wants. She's a hard character to like, but despite these qualities somehow you do. The only person who seems to be able to keep an eye on her and reign her in when she starts to go too far is non-supernatural SOS Brigade member Kyon.

Tomorrow -- an otaku character that we can identify with.

"Tomie Unlimited" Trailer Released

If you're familiar with Japanese horror, then you're probably familiar with the series of "Tomie" films.  The story, created by Junji Ito, is a series of stories involving a teenaged girl named Tomie, who seems to embody lust and every single emotion involved. Her goal is to invade the person's life until they give in to their own self destructive impulses.

The series has had 8 films, with the last one, "Tomie Vs. Tomie," being released in 2007.  She's basically become the Japanese version of Jason Vorhees.

Well, a new "Tomie" film is going to be released in May, and the trailer has been released.  It's in Japanese, but you can get a decent idea of what's going on in it. Warning: NSFW due to a brief decapitation featured.



I will admit the first one was pretty good.  I haven't seen the others, but I don't know how much longer they can possibly keep this series of movies going.

Memorable anime Character: San

Name: San (also goes by "Wolf Girl" and "Princess Mononoke")
Where You've Seen Her: Princess Mononoke
Her Story: Raised by wolves, San helps her family to protect the woods around Iron Town.
Why Is She Memorable? San cares for those she helps to defend. She also falls in love with Ashitaka, a boy with a fatal curse on him. When it comes down to making a choice, San chooses her family over the human world.

Tomorrow -- a popular tale of a girl who doesn't realize her influence on the world around her.

Memorable Anime Character: Chihiro

Name: Chihiro

Where She Can Be Seen:  Spirited Away

Her Story:  Chihiro and her parents are moving to a new town, much to Chihiro's disappointment.  They encounter what they think is an old fair when they get lost.  Her parents, not realizing they are eating spirit food at one booth, gourge themselves and turn into pigs, leaving Chihiro to navigate her new surroundings on her own.  She encounters the bath house, and finds herself working there as a contracted slave, and given a  new identity (Sen).

Why Is She Memorable? When the story starts, Chihiro starts out as the typical 10 year old girl with 10 year old problems.  She's whiny about having to move, and is just upset about the whole thing.  After her and her parents unwittingly find themselves in a spirit realm, Chihiro has to figure out how to get herself out of the predicament that she finds herself in. Over the course of the story, she learns that she has to grow up and find her path.

Tomorrow -- A Princess of the forest.

Memorable Anime Character: Il Palazzo

Name: Il Palazzo

Where You've Seen Him:  Excel Saga

His Story: This world is corrupt!  At least according to Il Palazzo, the leader of ACROSS, which consists of him, his overly energetic employee Excel Excel, space princess Hyatt, and their emergency food supply Menchi. His goal - to take over the world. However, he wants to start small and take over F city in F prefecture first.

What Makes Him Memorable? His lack of patience for Excel in every episode provides a running gag where he's constantly promoting her co-workers to positions over her, despite the fact that she's been there the longest.  Another running gag is the fact that, despite his orders to take over the world, he really doesn't have much to do, and is seen pursuing ordinary pursuits such as video games and guitar playing.  In the grand scheme of things, he's a huge character with grand plans who needs better empoyees at his disposal.

Trivia: Although the anime strays from the manga in a lot of aspects (mostly due to the fact that there are aspects of the manga that couldn't go on television), they seem to like to reference it.  In a Christmas episode, Il Palazzo starts to go on a possibly anti Christianity rant, but Excel stops him, reminding him of the controversy when it was published in the manga.

Tomorrow -- a young girl loses and regains her identity in a critically acclaimed Miyazaki film.

Memorable Anime Character: Spike Spiegel

Name: Spike Spiegel
Where You've Seen Him: Cowboy Bebop
His Story: Spike is a "cowboy" -- a futuristic bounty hunter who is trying to make a living in a future society that's surrounded by crime and corruption. Spike hides a checkered past with a crime syndicate and a femme fatale that he's still very much in love with.
What Makes Him Memorable? Well, other than the fact that in the English dub he's voiced by Steven Blum (the computer TOM in the Toonami bumpers on Cartoon Network, Hiroyasu Ueda in Chobits, among others), Spike just exudes cool in every aspect imaginable.  He knows Jeet Kune Do, can handle a firearm with ease, snappy dresser, and can handle himself in a fight pretty well.  He and his partner Jet Black don't make much money from bounty hunting, usually because of unforseen circumstances involving their bounties.  But they still manage to at least get the bad guys in the end.
Trivia: You can still see Cowboy Bebop on Cartoon Network, despite the show's limited run of 26 episodes. 

Tomorrow: Haaaaaaaaaail our next character!