Poll: Which Key protagonist is your favourite and why?

Key Discussion
#61

I’m still voting for kotarou. But not just because he is the funniest key protagonist in a common route. (Of course he is.)

What I like about Kotarou is that you get to see so many sides of his personality. He has a different goal in every route and different things he wants to protect and achive. Sometimes he wants to get strong to reach his goal and sometimes he wants to stay normal. Sometimes he fights hard because he thinks thats right and sometimes he trys to avoid fights because he thinks thats right. And everytime he does something it fits to the goal he wants to achive. Even if it is stupid or it makes no sense for other people. He decides on something that he wants to do and he goes through with it.

2 Likes
#62

I just changed it to Kotarou… Well… I’ve re-read parts of CLANNAD recently and it seems like I was overstimating Tomoya a little. Kotarou’s the best after all. Tomoya’s the second tho.

1 Like
#63

Kotarou’s just such a shitlord its hard not to love him.

5 Likes
#64

I choose Riki, he’s cute and is actually shown to have weakness, instead of other main character who are either really skilled at several things or are powerful.

Plus he has a nicer personality than others who are not very expresionless, kinda mean even to their own friends, etc

1 Like
#65

They’re all cool but Hinata’s sexy so

1 Like
#66

I think my favorite protagonist would have to be Tomoya because I can relate to him when it comes to dealing with change and how his life wasn’t different from today or the next day. His dreams were shattered and every day was a real struggle to him with things became dull and boring.

When he met Nagisa, it didn’t change him at first as he was getting to know her and how he still hated the town. As he started to learn more about the people and their situation, he slowly realized that a family wasn’t just a mere concept to him but it meant how people are brought together and enjoy one’s company to experience happy and sad times too, as well as finding fun and new things.

His character goes through a lot of development that made me think that he has so much potential in him that truly finding new things and experiencing them with others can be a wonderful treasure.

#67

If I could vote for more than 1, it would’ve been Yuu, Otonashi and Riki but Yuu took the vote and was surprised how few votes he had.

His development as character warmed my heart more than other KEY protagnist (not to say others don’t warm them up!) I’ve read/seen so far. He started off as a selfish dick who cheated his way to the top while not giving a fuck about others TO a whole different person who took a huge risk (that could have killed him and potentially time issue) just to save the world filled with strangers who does not even know him.

If this exact situation happend to a different protagnist, how many of them will actually be able to do it fully knowing the risk? For me Otonashi and Riki are the only candidates given how they love their friends so much that they’re willing to do things against the odds.

1 Like
#68

I dunno, I kinda felt like Yuu’s progression was a watered down version of Tomoya’s. They started out with different problems with Yuu in Charlotte taking care of his sister after losing his memories of his brother and Tomoya in CLANNAD’s relationship with his dad, but both of these are family-related (not that this is bad, family has always been a theme in Meada’s works).

They both not only became better persons throughout their stories, they also become much stronger after being hardened by (Charlotte and CLANNAD)the death of a family member which causes them to sink into a self destructive spiral. In both cases this is (Charlotte and CLANNAD)undone through key-magic. In Charlotte it is straight-up undone by time travel, but depending on your interpretation of CLANNAD’s magic the deaths of Nagisa and Ushio are not undone, they are only saved in one timeline.

Not to say Yuu is a bad protagonist, just that because of this and the fact that Charlotte was kind of rushed in the character development department (as well as every other department) makes me think a lot of people who liked Yuu would have liked Tomoya better. Their opinions of the shows/VN would make a difference too, I mean you are comparing one of the best VNs/animes of all time to a mediocre at best show.

1 Like
#69

Actually it can be argued that (charlotte spoilers)while Ayumi’s death is undone, Yuu’s experience and character growth from that doesn’t really go away. He learns from that experience to, well, not be such a self-centered asshole, and I think it shows in the later episodes.

#70

You are right, Yuu and Tomoya are developed differently for better or worse. That is one aspect of Yuu that I do actually think was done fairly well, possibly even better than Tomoya was. The big thing that gives Tomoya a lead isn’t that he’s neccessarily a better handled character but rather that he has a huge advantage when you consider the lengths of the stories. You can do much more in 44 episodes than you can in 13, and that’s why a lot of people that liked Yuu might like Tomoya better.

#71

The deveopement of a character isn’t the only thing that someone would like about him/her. I mean, except for the developement, I don’t see anything in common between Yuu and Tomoya.
Yuu is probably unpopular because he’s not “narrating” since Charlotte is but an anime. We don’t know much about he “thinks” like Tomoya and Kotarou. I’m sure that if Charlotte would ever come out as a visual novel, Yuu’s popularity as a protag’ would increase.

2 Likes
#72

Yeah there’s countless reasons why someone may like a character, I was just talking about development since that’s what lulucandy said they liked about Yuu.

Yuu’s not narrating is an issue, as is the length of the story, and Charlotte had a weaker story than other Key works. Even though the quality of story doesn’t directly effect Yuu as a character it would probably effect people’s decisions subconsciously or otherwise.

I will say that I’ve really liked the whole “protagonist with a superpower” thing Key’s been trying lately, so credit to Yuu for that.

#73

Haha. That might be the case but I’m still too biased to see the simliarity :blush:

But I do agree, Charlotte anime was… let’s say not up to par. I thought they would have learned their mistakes from AB! anime. The only thing that kept AB! interesting for me was the 1st Beat and Heaven’s Door.

Perhaps if they both had 26 episodes or longer then the poll could’ve been different :slight_smile:

#74

Tomoya! Because he jokes and can be nice

#75

Just because one story was weaker and just because the development the protagonist had undergone was somehow similar does not necessarily mean that you would like them any less than the stronger story. @lulucandy gave their own reasons and I think those are valid reasons enough, and those reasons cannot necessarily apply to tomoya