Forum - View topicCoolest Character Tournament - Post-Mortem
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Ggultra2764
 Subscriber Posts: 3907 Location: New York state. |
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Been a while since I last voted in this tournament.
This is a rather interesting final match: the strong-willed warrior woman from an anime of recent memory against the easygoing bounty hunter from one of anime's most famous and well-known titles. Both characters personify "coolness" in different way with Spike naturally giving it off through his character while Balsa gives it off through the various actions she commits to in protecting Chagum from harm. While Spike's laidback and easygoing character makes him one of anime's prominent mainstream characters, his character is a bit two-dimensional as not many other facets of his personality are displayed throughout Cowboy Bebop. In addition, his character is the type that ticks people off in his series at points, particularly Faye, Jett and Vicious. One of the major traits for a "cool" character I tended to judge throughout this tournament was how charismatic a character was in drawing others under their wing. While Spike's character has helped to make Cowboy Bebop the mainstream success that it is, that doesn't necessarily mean he drew the same kind of charisma towards drawing others in for his series. On the other hand, Balsa had become respected by both ally and foe alike for her actions in protecting Chagum against both human and supernatural enemies without taking any lives. She's one of the prominent strong-willed female characters of recent memory not falling under the superficial stereotypes that female characters in a majority of anime titles tend to fall in nowadays. Her character is also multi-dimensional as she serves as both protector and surrogate mother figure to Chagum, helping to get him to adjust to living life as a commoner and encouraging him to develop a backbone in confronting the challenges he faced later in Moribito. She is an intelligent woman quickly able to grasp the oncoming challenges that she would face with protecting Chagum and isn't afraid of defying anyone in upholding her goals, whether it be an entire kingdom or the supernatural. For having these many facets to her character, I will be voting for Balsa as the potential winner of this tournament. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Ggultra2764, charisma =/= cool, and have you ever heard of the cool loner? Coolness is not defined as how many friends a person has, or how loved they are, or how they inspire people or whatever. So Spike doesn't get on well with the other members of the Bebop; that doesn't make him less cool. In fact, the dysfunctional relationships aboard the Bebop have a role in making the characters even more cool, since it is cool for cool characters to bicker with one another coolly. And I typed that sentence with a straight face.
Spike is two-dimensional? I disagree, but even if he was, what the heck does it matter? This isn't a Deepest Character contest, this is about coolness. Well, it was supposed to be about badarseness, but that's long gone. Anyway, even if Spike was a one-note character, do you know what that aspect would be? Cool. He is pure cool. He is coolness incarnate. He is the only Anime character that has made me yearn to smoke. He is the coolest character in an extremely cool series. He is Spike. And he should win. My vote goes to Spike. |
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ClownFREAK
 Posts: 29 |
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voting for spike more of a vote against balsa, but spike is a laid-back bouty hunter which is simply cool
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The Naked Beast
 Posts: 1028 Location: A Blue Planet |
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Finals
Balsa, Moribito – Guardian of the Spirit vs. Spike Spiegel, Cowboy Bebop This was a very hard choice but ultimately I went with Spike. Everything he does is so cool that he makes it seem like second-nature to him. Whether it is beating up goons with jazzy background music or piloting the Swordfish II in the movie again with jazzy background music, he does it with style on land, air, and space. My vote goes to: Spike Spiegel. |
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Ggultra2764
Subscriber Posts: 3907 Location: New York state. |
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Never thought you would be trying to pick up a squabble with me. Think of it like this. Some people have the natural ability to draw others to them whether through gestures or actions. Balsa's accomplishments and her commitment to protecting Chagum earned her respect and admiration from those that came across her, even when those within Chagum's kingdom were actively trying to kill her earlier in Moribito. Spike gives off the type of personality that makes you want to kick his ass for being smug and easygoing if you were to meet up with him in his series. I'm not voting for a character just because casual mainstream anime fans think of him/ her as the personification of cool. I am voting for the character who shows the ability to draw others towards them and be respected or feared for it within their series. And in that case for me, Balsa has this in spades over Spike.
Depth allows one to know what makes a character tick and what they desire from the people that they influence. It also gives the viewer a better sense of why people in the world of said character's series would consider that person cool on the surface. |
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DerekTheRed
 Posts: 3544 Location: ::Points to hand:: |
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Ok, I'm popping back in for the finals to vote for Spike. He embodies cool in every way that I define the word. He has the visual aesthetic. The ruffled clothing, the posture (tall and straight at times but usually with hands in pockets and glance aimed downward), the unruly shock of hair, aloof personality and voice. He's got superb fighting skills in hand-to-hand combat, armed combat and aerial combat. His moral compass generally points to good, regardless of his profession, his past or what he claims (Spike, Spike, Spike, if you hate women, children and dogs so much, why do you fly around with all three for like 20 episodes?).
I understand that Balsa has pretty much the exact same qualities, but I'm more inclined to find a gunslingin', spaceship flyin' bounty hunter cooler than a spear wieldin', prince protectin' ex-soldier (I think? I'm only like 7 episodes in and I saw them like a month ago). It's pretty much just a personal preference as to who we'll pick at this point. |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
 Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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I'm really having trouble deciding who to favor here. Balsa or Spike. Balsa is a character I wasn't familiar with before this tournament, Spike I was. I think Balsa's air of nobility about her seems cool, but I don't know if that's just because of her image or if she really comes from a distinguished family lineage. Regardless, it shouldn't matter because how you shine in life depends on what you do with it yourself: Not letting the actions or reputations of predecessors dictate who you are and all that jazz. Maybe Balsa does have a lot of skeletons in her closet anyway, but its pretty cool how those things can give her much more drive to strive for greatness as a result of focusing so much on redeeming themselves of past misgivings? All these themes seem to play a lot in Balsa's character and in the story. In consideration of these and many more that could be mentioned, it dawned on me who my vote goes to: Balsa.
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18252 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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The Coolest Character Tournament is now complete.
With 20 votes in, the winner, by a 12-8 margin: 
Balsa put up a good fight and actually had a 6-4 lead at one point, but a run where Spike took 8 out of 9 votes reversed that situation and reminded me once again that trends established in the early voting often don't reflect how voting will go in the long run. This also marks the second time that Balsa has powered her way into a Final Four but been unable to finish. (The first time was the Best Hero/Heroine tournament, where she lost in the semis to co-champion Shu Maritani.) So the tournament is now officially in the bag. Thanks to all who participated, and a special thanks to ccdx (for once again doing a fine job with the video clips) and Dorcas_Aurelia (for administering the minigame). The Post-Mortem will continue in this thread, while I will start up a new one to discuss the next tournament. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18252 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Post-Mortem
For those who haven't done one of these before, this continuation of the thread is for making reactions to the tournament results and the tournament as a whole, as well as discussing what could have been done differently. When thinking about what to write, also consider the following questions: 1) Is/are there any character(s) whom you feel were glaring omissions? 2) Has anything that you've learned about characters over the course of the tournament made you reconsider your earlier voting selections? 3) Is there any new series you have watched, or expect to watch, because of discussions and/or video clips in this tournament? 4) New Quesion. How much did you actually use the video clips? Personally, I think one of the most glaring omissions is Guin from Guin Saga, who could have scored well on either Bad-Ass or General Cool criteria. Istavan and Prince Scaal from that same series would have been worth considering, too, but they would have been early-round exits while Guin could have easily made the fourth round if his match-ups weren't ugly. |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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I wanna reply with a thanks to all the participants of this tournament, I truly enjoyed interacting with you all. Hopefully I wasn't a bother with my constantly last minute vote submissions, negativity with certain characters and shoddy explanations to support my votes.
A thing I definitely want to respond to with Key's question are the sereis that I became more interested in because of this tournament. I ended up watching East of Eden because of it and I'm very interested in seeing Guardian of the Spirit. I hope that maybe some of the characters I supported will encourage more people to be interested in the shows they were in, like Samurai Champloo and Lupin III. |
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The Naked Beast
Posts: 1028 Location: A Blue Planet |
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1. There were a couple of characters which I thought should have been in the tournament. However, I thought of them after the nomination phase. In my opinion, Birdy Cephon Altera (Birdy the Mighty: Decode), Goemon Ishikawa XIII (Lupin III), Daisuke Jigen (Lupin III), Sousuke Sagara (Full Metal Panic! series), and Tybalt (Romeo x Juliet) should have been in the tournament. Most of the characters I mentioned have a nice mix of cool and badness especially Goemon. 2. For most part, not really. I generally vote for the characters I want to win. 3. A couple of titles I have are in my backlog, the most prominent being Eden of the East and my recently received Revolutionary Girl Utena. Having seen a couple episodes of Moribito, I plan to pick it up eventually. I am especially interested in Noir due to some of the characters that were in the tournament. Oh, I almost forgot about Mushishi as well. 4. I really did not use the videos a lot unless it warranted them. The couple of times I used them were for some of the Balsa (Moribito), Claire (Baccano!), Guts (Berserk), and Kenshiro (Fist of the North Star) clips. One of the Balsa clips I used/enjoyed was the fight against the Emperor's personal Hunters. Overall, I'd probably say when the video clips appeared, my total usage is about 5-8%. Preliminary thoughts at the end of the tournament I had a great time filling out the bracket and participating in the tournament. At some point, when characters that I thought would advance but were eliminated, I slowly lost interest and my enthusiasm for it. Some rounds included but not limited to Lady Eboshi/Lelouch, Roronoa Zora/Mugen, and Akira Tokizawa/The Count. I was especially disappointed at the results of those rounds but the tournament must keep going. In the words of C-3PO from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope: He made a fair move. Screaming about it can't help you. The quote sums up my thoughts exactly. I generally do not like complaining since it will not change the result. I did my part and put in my vote. Despite having some results turning out the way they did, I still voted in every round. |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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1) Not so much in this one. Maybe some characters from newer shows but I'm not 100% sure they would have been eligible when things started anyway.
2) Nope. 3) Moribito is definitely higher on my to watch list now but that's the only one and I already did intend to see it at some point. 4) Not really, no. I've tried in the past but even with the context notes, I find that watching a clip from something I've never seen just doesn't really have a great affect on me. I did sometimes watch clips for stuff I have watched but more to relive the moment than anything else. |
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Ggultra2764
Subscriber Posts: 3907 Location: New York state. |
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1. Can't think of anyone off hand whom I felt might have been neglected for consideration to be entered into the tournament. 2. I did overestimate on how far I thought Claire Stanfield would have advanced. And as much as I liked Balsa, I definitely underestimated how far she could have advanced. 3. The presence of a couple Star Driver characters led me to look into the series (which I found to be just as over-the-top and subpar as Code Geass) and another appearance from Roy Focker led me to watch the original Macross series which I enjoyed much better. Other titles I plan to look into at some point thanks to this tourney are Black Butler, The Third: Girl With the Blue Eye and a series that seems to be a big favorite among some on ANN, Legend of the Galactic Heroes. 4. Never made used of the video clips at any point during the tournament for my decisions due to bandwidth concerns from my wireless ISP. I normally just research on what I can find on said characters before making a decision. |
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Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4620 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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1) Is/are there any character(s) whom you feel were glaring omissions?
Ryoko from Tenchi Muyo. Nominated and got some support but a couple people decided they couldn't accept a character from a harem comedy so she was eliminated before the game started. A bit bitter about that one. 2) Has anything that you've learned about characters over the course of the tournament made you reconsider your earlier voting selections? nope. 3) Is there any new series you have watched, or expect to watch, because of discussions and/or video clips in this tournament? Watched the first arc of Darker than Black. If Kino had made it one more round I had planned on watching that, but then I've been meaning to do that anyway. 4) New Question. How much did you actually use the video clips? probably watched a quarter of them. None in the final couple rounds. They helped me make a decision a couple times, helped determine my support for Kenshiro/FotNS. |
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Tris8
 Posts: 2114 Location: Where the rain is. |
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It's episode 10, and she's fighting a bounty hunter, Nagi, and she decides to let her go and Nagi tells her she'll regret it and Ryoko responds: "I doubt it. I've never ever regretted anything I've done in my entire life." |
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