The Five Character Theory of Anime

[camwyn]

Many years ago, when I played Dave "Speaks-Like-Microsoft" Grishin as a Glass Walker Ragabash at Metro: Toronto by Night, Dave was offered the chance to join a hengeyokai pack (sentai, whatever). Dave looked around at the others - a kitsune sorceror, a Bastet lady with wicked claws, a were-ferret* thief - and asked, "Where's the other one?"

"Excuse me?"

"The other one. We need five."

Dave rose in the kitsune's eyes after that statement, because the kitsune assumed Dave knew the positions of a sentai and the wisdom of having one of each position. This was not the case, but Dave had the sense to hold his tongue.

No, Dave was operating from the point of view of the Five Character Theory of Anime, which states:

"A successful long-running group of anime characters must consist of no less than five core characters, and those five characters must include:

The Hero,
The Brain,
The Big Guy,
The Other Guy, and
The Chick.

Other characters may be included - the Ancient Mentor, the Wizard, the Spooky One, and the Kid being the best candidates - but the core needs to have those five."

I got the Five Character Theory of Anime from GarouMUSH long ago, and while it's needed some tweaking off and on it does seem to make a lot of sense when you see what's out there. I tried applying it to the original cast of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and I think it works okay there as long as you assume that either the Yellow Ranger or the Black Ranger was the Big Guy, so there you are.

Today we had a staff meeting and I passed the time, as I usually do, scribbling pictures too small to have much detail on a piece of scrap paper. This time it was the League characters from cadhla's game. I looked at them after a bit and then started labeling.

Tom Swift - Brain
Hugo Danner - Big Guy
Dorothy Gale - Kid
Mary Poppins - Chick

Wasn't sure whether Sgt. Preston or the Shadow should be the Hero, since the other one would be stuck as the Other Guy. The alternative would be to declare Mary the Hero, Dorothy the Chick, Preston the Other Guy, and the Shadow the Spooky One.

Just a thought.


*Long story short - some staffers like to use their position as staffer to play Caine the Almighty, and some would rather play were-ferrets

Comments

[avram]

The Five Character model that my late friend Mike Rubin formulated at least a decade ago was:

The Hero
The Rebel
The Princess (or just Girl)
The Kid
Lunk the Mechanic

I think G-Force (originally Gatchaman) was the archetypical version of this. Star Wars almost conforms; Luke is fulfilling both the Hero and the Kid archetypes.

But anyway, The Other Guy is the Rebel. You need to have a straight-laced heroic type in charge, and then a shadier guy to argue with him. The Rebel is more skilled than the Hero, but the Hero generally has a special power or something.

The original League setting is too dark and cynical to have straightforward heroes, which is why the Rebel archetype is distributed among Quatermain, Hyde, and Griffin. And it’s all about upsetting the stereotypes — which is why Moore transposed the Hero and Girl roles.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

This seems to have been noticed by several of us.

G-Force, yes (which I knew as Battle of the Planets).

And Voltron :)

[ahmeemee.livejournal.com]

Turn The Chick into The Cute One and you've got the template for a boy band.

[aethereal-girl.livejournal.com]

This works for Cowboy Bebop only as long as you can call Ein the Other Guy.

[batyatoon]

But but but ... no! No! A hero group needs to be four people, a Quaternity, breaking down as follows:

The Head (Leader, decision-maker, possessor of knowledge and cold logic)
The Heart (Motive force, emotional purity)
The Hand (Strength, usually some animalistic aspect)
The Spirit (Intuition, connection to the mystic, usually some feminine aspect)



...Sorry, I like my groupings Campbellian. :)

[camwyn]

The Head = The Brain
The Heart = The Hero
The Hand = The Big Guy
The Spirit = The Chick or the Ancient Mentor

The Other Guy, well, he's The Other Guy; he's there to fulfil the deeply archetypal role of making wisecracks and having whatever skill the plot requires that would be too ridiculous for the Brain or the Hero to have that week.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I just immediately flashed to Buffy on this, in which case:

Head = Giles
Heart = Xander
Hand = Buffy
Spirit = Willow

Or, alternatively, Buff's the Hero (obviously), Xander's the Other Guy, Oz is the Big Guy (in appropriate seasons and parts of the month - otherwise it's Riley or Faith), Willow's the Brain, and Tara or Dawnie get to be the Chick. Or Cordy, sufficiently early.

Also explains why Angel didn't work without Doyle until they rejiggered the characters again: Angel = Hero, Gunn = Big Guy, Doyle = Brain, Cordy = Chick, Lorne = Other Guy. And then we lost Doyle and substituted in Wesley.

Aaaaaaagh! Must ... stop ... overanalzying ... categorically!!!