Stefan's weekly rant

For as long as I can remember, I've been a big fan of game, comic, anime, and novel characters. There are some really great movie and TV characters, but those were all portrayed by real people, and they've never made near the impression on me. Anyhow, I've been reading comics & novels since I was a little kid. And I've been watching cartoons for as long as I've been alive. Although I know so much about so many different characters, there are probably twice as many out there that I still haven't experienced yet. So this list here is just based on my personal experiences and of course my own personal preferences.

Besides just listing my top 8 characters and giving a quick reason why, I also created a little rating system based on the 4 things I think are most important in all characters... appearance, personality, storyline, and potential.

8) Lei Lei (aka Hsein-ko)
Appearance: 10 Personality: 6 Storyline: 8 Potential: 6
Lei Lei may be the most unique character ever created, and that alone makes her deserving of a spot on almost everybody's list. She also happens to be super-cute, and that's always a good thing. To be honest, she really lacks in exposure and storyline, but she's so cool in other ways that it makes up for that.

7) Blue Mary
Appearance: 10 Personality: 9 Storyline: 8 Potential: 9
Even if she wasn't Terry Bogard's girlfriend and a part of the King of Fighters universe, she'd be a very cool character. She is one of the most well-rounded characters... I'm not talking about her body... I mean she's good in almost very aspect. With just a little bit more involvement in animes, comics, etc., Blue Mary could definitely shoot way up my list to the number 4 or 5 spot.

6) Tasslehoff Burrfoot
Appearance: 5 Personality: 10 Storyline: 9 Potential: 8
Tasslehoff is from the DragonLance novels by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, and he's not only the 'original' member of the kender race, but he's 'perfect' kender. If you don't know what kender are like, PLEASE get a DragonLance book and experience them for yourself! I wish I could tell you all about them, but that would take a lotta time to do justice.

5) Terry Bogard
Appearance (FF/KoF): 7 Appearance (MotW): 10 Personality: 10 Storyline: 9 Potential: 8
To me, Terry is the embodiment of the ideal hero. He's not always the best, but he's got SO much heart that he'll keep fighting until he comes out on top! And he's one of the coolest, and nicest guys I could think of. Terry's the guy I wanna be when I grow up ^_^

4) Wolverine
Appearance: 10 Personality: 10 Storyline: 9 Potential: 8
Before Battle Angel Alita was published in the USA, Wolverine was my #1 character. Although he's down to #4, he'll always have a very special place in my heart, and he's a big reason why I like Kenshin, Gally, and Cammy so much. He may have been over-used in a lotta lame roles over the years, but at heart he's still one of the best characters ever.

3) Kenshin Himura (aka Samurai X)
Appearance: 8 Personality: 9 Storyline: 10 Potential: 7
He's from the anime and comic called Ruroni Kenshin. The comic has never been translated, but the anime has, and it's my favorite of all-time! Kenshin is famous for being his world's best swordsman, but he's also on of the greatest philosophers as well. Like Cammy, he's an ex-assassin with a trademark scar on his left cheek. In many ways, he's a lot like Cammy & Alita.

2) Gally (aka Battle Angel Alita)
Appearance: 8 Personality: 10 Storyline: 10 Potential: 8
For a long, long time, she was my #1, but I finally moved Cammy into that spot. I'm sure Cammy was based on Gally/Alita, but for personal reasons, Cammy has just become more special to me. Anyhow, if you don't know Gally, then just try to imagine a cyborg Cammy living in a Blade Runner meets Mad Max world. Like a few other characters, I gave Gally a perfect 10 rating on personality, but she's actually the #1 personality.

1) Cammy
Appearance: 10 Personality: 10 Storyline: 10 Potential: 10
I LOVE pigtails! I always have, and I always will. But Cammy's SOOOOO much more than a cute girl with pigtails... to me, she's the perfect character! The only thing I can really take away from her is that she hasn't done enough stuff, but then again, I don't know if she could ever do enough comics, games, animes, etc., to satisfy me. I've had a few different #1 characters in my lifetime, but I'm sure that there will never be a character better in my eyes than Cammy. See my January 6, 2003 rant for the full story on Why I Love Cammy.

Cammy is the best! She is more gooder than the rest.

Well, that's it. My top 3 make up my 1st tier of characters, and then #s 4-8 make up my 2nd tier. There are a lot of other really great characters that could make up my 3rd tier #8, but they just haven't had the exposure that they deserve, and it's too complicated to try and sort 'em all out. And I'm sure there are quite a few characters that I haven't even seen yet, that could break into my to 4-8 list. But I seriously doubt that my top 3 will ever change... even if I could create my own character, game, comic, novel, etc., I don't believe that I could do better than Cammy, Gally, and Kenshin.