Lynn Sheridan

Who is your favourite anime couple? So, this should be good. Anime has a number of very interesting relationship types and my favourite couple fit right into that mould. It may seem insane to pick a couple from a harem anime, but that’s what I’m doing. My favourite anime couple is Rias and Issei from High School DxD.

Why is that? There are several reasons, but the most recent was in season four – Hero where I got so frustrated with Issei that I took to Twitter threatening to kick him in the nuts if he didn’t tell Rias he loved her. This is not my usual response to harem anime.

They have a fascinating relationship. She literally saved his life, making him a part of her devil family. Even though he was a massive screw up, she persisted with him. He had a quality that only she could see. Issei, himself, struggled to understand why she put up with him.

But time and time again, Issei has stepped up to save Rias and his friends. He has put his life on the line more times than you could imagine, enamouring himself with the other girls under Rias. There was a beautiful moment between Rias and Issei at the end of season three, once he’d saved her from the Juggernaut Drive.

What caused the Twitter rage? Through season four, it became quite apparent that Rias had developed strong feelings for Issei and was struggling to see them returned. Issei had numerous times to confess his feelings, but he just kept blowing it. In one instance, Akeno referred to him as a useless dildo!

Issei, however, had the same feelings but couldn’t bring himself to act on them. In short, he was suffering from post-traumatic stress from the last time he opened up to a girl. She killed him, literally. Finally, though, he found the will to step up and save his nuts from my wrath…

Anything else you’d like to say? I’m sure there will be people out there rolling their eyes at this, thinking it’s lewd and silly, how can there be a romance? To those people, I say ‘Pull that stick out of your arse and live a little.’ There is undoubtedly a romance element to High School DxD, maybe it’s not your magical view of romance, but it’s definitely there and I love it!

Who is your favourite male anime character? In the relatively short time that I’ve known this character, he has quickly found his way to becoming one of my favourite anime characters. He has a sword… well, actually he has three of them. My favourite male anime character is Zoro.

Why is that? At first, I was more than a little dubious of someone claiming to be able to fight with a sword in his mouth, but I only had to see him fight once to know that this guy was awesome. Similar to Saeko, he’s calm and calculating. Then, when it’s time to fight you had better stay out of his way.

Unlike, a number of the other strong characters in One Piece, Zoro doesn’t have any devil-fruit powers. This makes his achievements all the more spectacular because he’s done it through training and sheer determination. He doesn’t always join in with all the frivolities and is often found enjoying a nap.

He has a very pragmatic view on life and isn’t bogged down by possessions, with the exception of his swords and bandana. There’s isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for his friends, willing to put everything on the line more than once.

What is it with you and swords? It’s hard to say really. I grew up in England with tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Then there was He-man and the Masters of the Universe. Even in Star Wars, they had swords. They have just struck me as a more honourable way to fight.

Anything else you’d like to say? So, One Piece is an insanely long series. Each episode tends to include a little catch up on the previous episode which can be a little annoying. Even with that, I would say it’s well worth your time to watch it. I’m working my way through it daily and tweeting about each episode. Have a read, it may pique your interest.

Who is your favourite female anime character? If you’ve been following my posts in this challenge so far, I think this should be pretty simple to guess. I like strong female characters, both mentally and physically. The damsel in distress has her place, but it’s not as my favourite female anime character. No. That honour is reserved for a strong woman with a sword… Saeko Busijima.

Why is that? (Like we don’t already know!) Saeko is my favourite character in Highschool of the Dead, my favourite anime and one of my guilty pleasure anime, which I also credit with my anime reawakening. So, she’s off to a great start just from that standpoint.

On top of that, she is calm and collected. Her studies of Bushido have no doubt helped with this, and when the zombie outbreak happens you want her by your side. She is fearless and dependable, always looking out for her friends and prepared to throw herself into any situation.

Like anyone else, she has her demons. When fighting off an attacker on the way home from school one day, she realised that she enjoyed the fight and worries about her darker side taking hold. These feelings have left her feeling unworthy of friendship and even love. Something that is clearly not true.

Is there anything else? Absolutely! She is also smoking hot. Sorry, not sorry. And another thing, and this something that often bothers me, whether she’s wearing combat gear or just an apron, it won’t stop her from rushing into action. If someone needed my help and I was in the shower, I would absolutely race out to help without a care in the world and so would Saeko.

Anything else you’d like to say? I think I’ve probably said enough already…

What anime destroyed you emotionally? Full disclosure, I find it takes me five episodes before I get hooked to a show. After that, I bond with the characters and the world. There have been a few that have left me feeling numb for some time after, but the one that hit me really hard was Akame ga Kill.

Why was that? In a strange twist of normality, I read the manga first. Often, I’ll watch a show and then go read all the manga to fill in the world. Not only did I read the manga first, but I breezed through the fourteen volumes in little over a week. Then I discovered that the fifteenth volume would be the last in the series and it wasn’t due to be released for another month.

I was already, terrified of what would go down in that final book. I had my suspicions and it had all the warning signs of being pretty tragic. So with a month to wait, I bought all of the anime on iTunes and started watching. I watched all twenty-four episodes in the next twenty-four hours.

The thing with this series is that there are a lot of deaths. Pretty much every episode someone significant is killed off. One of the things I really enjoyed was that the bad guys were given motivations and backstories, making their deaths just as significant as the heroes.

Since then, I have read the final volume of the manga. For the first half the anime followed the books quite closely, then I would assume some creative license was allowed to complete the series before the manga had finished. I enjoyed both endings, although the anime hit me much harder than the manga.

Why do you think it got to you? Another aspect I really enjoyed was the unrequited love story between Tatsumi and Esdeath. It had funny and sincere moments. She really did love him. She was crazy, but she loved him. Having them fight in the end would have been too much, so I’m glad it didn’t come to that.

Then, Leone said her farewells and I just sat there, staring at the screen as the credits rolled by. Numb and breathless. I think this series really got to me because of how much I threw myself into it, but then I wouldn’t have done that if there wasn’t a connection.

Anything else you’d like to say? No. I’m drained just thinking about it again. I have an unusual gift. It’s like a photographic memory but for video. So, I’ve just relived the whole thing from start to finish in about half an hour…