The Best Anime Characters of 2024

An engaging story is often only as good as its characters. A character can bring catharsis when his journey mirrors our own. A villain can become sympathetic when we can relate to her backstory. Or sometimes we just love a funny dwarf who cooks a killer hotpot. Below are our critics' picks for the best anime characters of the year.

Note: Entries below may contain spoilers for series and plot developments!

Laios (Delicious in Dungeon)

God, I didn't think seeing a character with my kind of autism on screen would feel this good, but here we are! To hush the naysayers out of the gate, yes, I know that the original mangaka hasn't confirmed that Laios is on the spectrum. As a rebuttal to that point, I'd like to ask, are you watching the same anime that I am? Because everyone I know who has any level of familiarity with autism spectrum disorder and watched Delicious in Dungeon agrees that Laios has some high-functioning stuff going on under the hood!

I'm also a high-masking autistic person, and every time Laios dealt with the same kind of frustrating social stuff that I have to deal with, he became my favorite anime character of the year all over again. The daily loneliness he feels at not having many people with whom he can share his passion for monsters and dungeon exploration hits me where I live! The part of the second cour where he confronts Shura and they have a big blow-up about all of the little frustrations and misunderstandings that had been simmering in their relationship (that Laios didn't even know about!) is a conversation that I've had more times than I can count and it was so incredibly validating.

The last thing I want to do is put out “woe is me” energy, but if y'all will permit me a moment of indulgence, God, it can be so annoying to be hot and autistic! I want to tear my hair out every time someone emotionally monitors me in a social setting because I wasn't emoting in the way they wanted! Not to mention how much time I've wasted trying to express to others why I love a given interest, only to be met with soul-crushing apathy.

Seeing Laios confront a lot of the situations and problems that I'm intimately familiar with in Delicious in Dungeon was incredibly validating, uplifting, and inspiring, and that's why he's the best character of 2024.

Pitohui (Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II)

Some people say that it is the antagonist, not the hero, who makes a good story, and Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online's Pitohui certainly makes a good argument for that. To be frank, I am obsessed with her character.

Pitohui is an obsessive thrill seeker. Nearly everything she does is for the rush of it, and she's quick to discard everyone and everything once the novelty has worn off. Then there is the defining moment of her life: Not having been trapped in the death game Sword Art Online. Missing out on such a unique experience weighs on her as the years go by until she can take it no more. If she can't experience Sword Art Online, she'll make her own Sword Art Online alternative. She'll play Gun Gale Online, and if she dies in the game, she'll kill herself in real life.

The main story of the first season is Llenn, Pitohui's best in-game friend, trying to use a loophole (a contradicting promise) to keep Pitohui alive. In the end, she succeeds. The trick is that without her death game ambitions, Pitohui's obsession switches to Llenn entirely, chasing the high she had when her life was on the line in her battle against Llenn. How this all falls out—and what it means for Pitohui personally—is the focus of the show's second season.

Pitohui is intelligent, driven, and utterly ruthless. She is willing to betray anyone at any time just for the chance of attaining her goal. But more than that, she is incredibly self-destructive. In the first season, she puts her life on the line. In the second, she bypasses the safeties on her VR gear and drives herself to mental exhaustion, so much so that she's in the midst of a delusional mental breakdown by the end of the arc.

To make things more complex, she is a pop star in the real world, with singing/songwriting (and its emotional release) the only thing that can temporarily distract her from whatever her current obsession may be. This means we get several actual songs sung by ReoNa, whose lyrics further flesh out Pitohui's thoughts and emotional state. All this makes her an absolutely fantastic character—a villain who is equally terrifying and sympathetic—who steals every single scene she's in.

Satoru and Daifuku (Wonderful Precure!)

I admit that I won't stop being salty about this pair not getting to be official TV series Cures, but that's only because I love them so much. Not only do they have a lovely relationship (even if it feels like Daifuku occasionally despairs of Satoru's communication skills), but they have it despite not being able to regularly talk to each other. It's less remarkable that Yuki and Mayu or Iroha and Komugi have that sort of relationship, but Satoru and Daifuku's is built solely on trust. And even more impressive is the way Satoru supports the Cures despite not having his own powers. He's the brains of the operation with his animal knowledge, but he's also unfailingly just there for the girls, offering a helping hand, a listening ear, or friendly support. He's respectful in his relationship with Iroha and never pressures her. He reminds me of Yui from Go! Princess Precure, helping in his own way with what he has naturally. I still think he was robbed of a transformation, but a piece of me has to admit that he and his rabbit are maybe more important characters because they did it all without one.

Bravern (Brave Bang Bravern!)

There've been a lot of memorable anime characters this year, from everyone's favorite cooking dad, Senshi from Delicious in Dungeon, to the literal teenage disaster that is Ouran from Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction. I was honestly really close to giving this one to the former. But when I sat down and thought about it, I knew there was only one correct choice, as no other character this year was quite as memorable as this campy giant robot. When the Earth suddenly falls under an alien invasion, Bravern brings the supposedly gritty real robot setting he's in, kicking and screaming into the hijinks of a super robot anime, and it's all the better for it. While other characters are dealing with the horrors of war, he's happily singing his own theme song. When the American military tries to torture him for intel on the aliens, they can't find a water source big enough to waterboard him with. While you'd expect his antics to get old very quickly, Bravern's sense of self-awareness never fails to be hilarious, and when you see him going as far as 3D printing his own merchandise, it's impossible not to get swept up in his charms.

It's equally fun watching him bounce off of his boyfr... I mean pilot, Isamu, as he keeps pushing him to fight by his side, and Isamu's attempts to refuse him lead to the two having some great comedic chemistry. Said chemistry also leads to one of the most memorable twists we've gotten in anime this year, and I'm keeping it vague only because it must be experienced firsthand to be truly appreciated. All you need to know is that the result not only takes the gay subtext between him and Isamu and mecha punches you in the face with it, but makes every aspect of Bravern's character even more insanely brilliant than it already was, which is a heck of a feat. Bravern may not have garnered as many fans as some other characters this year, but that doesn't make him any less deserving of our praise, and if there's any reason to give Brave Bang Bravern! a try, it's to watch this silly robot in all his glory.

Bravern (Brave Bang Bravern!)

If you can, I implore you to read this section while the opening theme to Brave Bang Bravern plays in the background, even if only softly. So, with that request being made:

You know that part in Bravern where Lulu reveals that she's wearing a shirt that reads, “I ❤️ Robots.” Well, same. Super robots are awesome, and Bravern—the sentient super robot who stands resolutely at the burning core of Brave Bang, well, Bravern—is hyper-aware of that and leans all the way into it. Or rather, he doesn't do anything half-heartedly—he doesn't “lean into” anything. He charges headfirst, nary a thought to be had about anything except which dramatic pose he should do once he's reached his destination. He's very purposefully the super robot-iest super robot who's ever super robot-ed. And I—a lover of all things super robot—am 10 million percent here for it.

Bravern really is the character that has it all: he's the archetypal hot-blooded mecha protagonist AND the mecha itself all rolled into one. And he's also a huge mecha dweeb—he has a 3D printer called Build Burn, which he uses to make more mecha merch. He demands that attack names be yelled out with fiery passion. His theme song diegetically plays in his cockpit. I can go on, but do I honestly need to? Have you not already thrown away the receipt—are you not sold?

This is all to say that Bravern is every over-the-top super robot-ism rolled into one glorious character. He's like the physical manifestation of the caps lock button, and I think that's beautiful. In all his in-your-face grandeur, he completely sets the tone for the show—not to mention, absolutely steals every scene he's in.

Iseri Nina (Girls Band Cry)

We need more characters like Nina. She's prickly, she's angry, she's hard to get along with, and she's the deserved center of Girls Band Cry. The gravity with which she draws the other band members is predicated on her genuine love of Momoka's music, even as her relationship with Momoka is necessarily rockier. Nothing about Nina's arc is as clean as you might expect from a series like this. She doesn't finish out her education, she commits to fully dropping out of school. She tries to pick up playing the guitar but is still a struggling amateur at the instrument by the end of the series. She confirms and confesses her love for the person she admires, but the sheer complexities of that situation mean they aren't able to see any movement in the relationship. Everything about Nina is an embodiment of the awkward holding patterns we so often find ourselves at in the young stages of life.

Through it all, Nina grapples with self-destructive feelings, projecting them by lashing out, often at people she genuinely cares for. Even holding yogurt is enough to make her cry. She is, quite simply, a mess, and that's why I loved watching her as the heart of Girls Band Cry. There's something powerfully real about all of Nina's issues, as the show's revelation of the reasons behind them forms the backdrop of its overarching narrative. She's embodied by a tremendous vocal performance by Rina, who hits the cathartic highs of Nina's emotions, whether ingloriously yelling or triumphantly singing.

Senshi (Delicious in Dungeon)

Due to some challenging life circumstances, I haven't had access to a kitchen in a month. Not only has this meant living on takeout, along with the associated weight gain and poor nutritional balance, but I've been totally unable to cook. I'm deprived of one of my greatest pleasures, a source of pride and a way to express my love at the most food-focused time of year. As, once again, I dig into a container of leftover butter chicken, my thoughts keep drifting back to Senshi of Delicious in Dungeon, pushing any and all competition out of my mind as I choose my character of the year.

At first, Senshi comes across as a comical character with beady black eyes, a bushy beard that obscures his facial expressions, and an obsession with eating monsters. He doesn't seem to understand much about other races, and his assumptions that Chilchuck and Marcille are children lead to some hilarious misunderstandings. But as in all great stories, the script peels back his layers over time, revealing the trauma that drives his need to feed those around him.

Detractors of Delicious in Dungeon criticize the story for how its characters take their time to eat well. While eating monsters was Laios' idea, Senshi insists that they do so properly, not just cooking to survive but preparing flavorful, nutritious meals from what they have available. While their unhurried approach does have some serious consequences, the core lesson still holds: food is important. Good food nourishes not just our bodies but our minds and hearts, and sharing meals is a foundational way for humans to come together and bond. It is a way to connect to the world around you, as hunting and harvesting your own food means knowing exactly where it comes from, and it becomes part of you. These are the lessons that Senshi imparts to his party and to the audience via excellent performances by Hiroshi Naka and Sung-Won Cho in Japanese and English, respectively.

Nina (Girls Band Cry)

The one thing you need to know about Nina is that she's angry. She's loud, immature, short-sighted, stubborn, and prone to tears (hence the title), but she is angry first and foremost. She's so angry that the anime quickly establishes a visual shorthand for it, in which menacing-looking black and red spikes emanate from her like a protective hedgehog-esque aura. That symbol and her anger permeate throughout the best parts of Girls Band Cry, which looks at a high school runaway like Nina through a refreshingly unvarnished lens. Nina's flaws create problems and friction all around her, but they're also the rough edges that add depth and character to her rock and roll journey. She never feels like a cardboard cutout. She feels like a hormonal teenager full of righteous rage.

The best compliment I can give Nina is that she's too good a character for the show's ultimate ambitions. Girls Band Cry never completely drops the ball, but it loses some steam towards the end as it attempts to address and assuage Nina's angst. The truth is that Nina has plenty of legitimate reasons to be angry. She's bullied. She doesn't get the support she needs from her family. She doesn't fit in and, moreover, doesn't want to fit in. Nina is a firecracker, and I would have liked to see more of her blowing up around the people who deserve it. That's authentic to my own experiences in adolescence, and therefore, it would have made for a more satisfying narrative. Instead, Girls Band Cry takes some easy ways out in pursuit of a neater conclusion, and I don't believe that does her justice. Nina lights up while onstage, belting her anxieties out for the world to hear. That's the quality that unites her with the rest of her misfit bandmates. That's real rock and roll.

Asebi (YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master)

WARNING: I am about to spoil the ever-loving bejeesus out of one of the best anime of 2024, and it is one that I'm betting you haven't watched just yet, which is a mistake you need to fix right now. I'm serious: stop reading this article, pin the tab, get onto Crunchyroll, and watch every last episode of Yatagarasu right this minute. At the very least, get to the end of Episode 13. I promise that you will not regret it.

…are we all good? Did you follow my instructions? Perfect. Wait, what's that you said? “Yatagarasu is a criminally underrated gem that so many more people should be talking about all of the time?” I know, right!? Anyway, now that you're all caught up, we can properly freak out over how great Asebi turned out to be. I mean, obviously, I don't mean “great” in the moral sense because that is one seriously messed up psychopath, right there, but hot damn if Yatagarasu didn't do a perfect job of setting up her last-minute heel-turn, a delightfully devious cherry on top of the crazy conspiracy sundae that Yatagarasu delivered by the end of its first major storyline.

If you watched the ANN After Show, you'd know that Lynzee Loveridge and I spent months theorizing and debating over which of these magical bougie birds was behind all of the murder and villainy working its way into the Cherry Blossom Palace. What makes Asebi such a perfect villain is that we could never quite be sure if our distrust of the character was intentionally crafted by the show, or simply a result of us being paranoid anime critics trained in a lifetime of murder mysteries and court intrigue. It is a testament to Yatagarasu's quality that the final reveal of her truly evil scheming and betrayal could still be so shocking and upsetting, even after we'd already assumed that there was something sinister lurking beneath her “Aw shucks, aren't I just so innocent and caw-waii?” façade. There may have been characters that I loved more in 2024, but none left such an impression that I'm still raven about them to anyone who will listen so many months after the fact.

Freya (Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? V)

Fiction's best villains can often be divided into two main camps – those who are so evil, their actions reprehensible enough that their eventual comeuppance becomes cathartic, and those whose motivations are so sympathetic, despite their villainy, that it's almost disappointing when they lose. DanMachi Season 5's goddess Freya straddles both definitions and, in doing so, becomes a legendary anime antagonist.

Freya has lurked in DanMachi's background since the very first episode, closely observing the heroic Bell Cranel, biding her time before implementing her terrible plan to make him hers forever. Sneaking her way into his life by way of complex impersonation magic, she becomes one of his most trusted female friends and admirers, first attempting to win his heart through fair means, and when that fails, foul. And what foul means they are. As a goddess, Freya is essentially immortal, and despite ruling an entire cult-like Familia of devoted worshippers, she's eternally alone. She pines for her fated “Odr”, a partner who will devote his heart to her not merely out of worship, but pure love. In Bell, she sees the unblemished heart of a hero, a man worthy of her love, a man whose love may finally make her empty eternity feel full. Goddesses don't like to take “no” for an answer, so when Bell earnestly rejects her offer of love, she warps reality and the minds of those around her to bring Bell to despair and break his spirit for her to be the one to reshape his pieces the way she sees fit.

Freya's actions are so horrifying because she doesn't just gaslight Bell into believing that he has always been a member of her familia, but she does the same to the entire city, even his closest friends. By removing every positive interpersonal connection in his life, she isolates him like the very worst manipulative partner. Isolation is often the first tactic in an emotional abuser's armory, and that is exactly what Freya is. Despite her so-called “love” for Bell, she's ultimately selfish, treating him like a trophy to be won and then owned. She denies Bell's autonomy and selfhood, coming closer to breaking him than any monstrous Minotaur or scaly dungeon abomination. For that reason, she's an incredibly potent, hateful, yet sympathetic villain – her motives are all too recognizably human, and her pitiful weaknesses even more so.

Kyotaro Ichikawa (The Dangers in My Heart)

Kyotaro Ichikawa serves as a reflection of who I was when I was young. In middle school and part of high school, I was a very withdrawn kid who put a lot of pressure on myself and tried to interact with people as little as possible. I only did things when asked and thought I didn't deserve anything beyond what I already had. When something good came my way, whether in the form of positive reinforcement or affection, my first instinct was to reject it because I didn't think that was something I deserved. I got better as I got older, but I wonder how I would've felt if I had watched this show sooner.

The Dangers in My Heart has recently become one of my favorite anime of all time, and a lot of that comes down to Ichikawa's characterization. What I thought was going to be a dumb, edgy teenager ended up being…exactly that, but in the best way possible. Ichikawa is a lot more dumb and silly than he thinks because, while many of his insecurities are understandable, they're not found in any practical reality. No one really hates him or is made uncomfortable by him, but that shows that a lot of the insecurities he feels are created of his own volition. His journey throughout the series is about coming to terms with the fact that he is someone who is deserving of love and kindness. It took a while to get to that point, and he was still embarrassed that he could be just as horny and possessive as his classmates. But there's nothing wrong with indulging in that normalcy; there's nothing wrong with letting yourself be dumb and happy like everybody else.

The journey that Ichikawa goes on is not the most complicated, but it is deeply rooted in its relatability, and I would argue it is profound because of its simplicity. I feel like everybody has been at this stage where they were unsure if they were ready to let themselves be happy. But I think that's why characters like this and shows like this are so important, it helps us process the fact that there are other people out there like us and, if we can be there for those people, then we can also be there for ourselves. It's not an easy journey, but characters like Ichikawa show that it can be rewarding if you are willing to take the first step.

Kumiko Oumae (Sound! Euphonium Season 3)

Could it have been anybody else for me? Through three seasons and a feature-length movie, we have seen our floof queen go through a lot, going from a directionless and awkward kid content with being a background character to maturing as the dominant class president whose presence is illuminating. Still having the spirit to carry through after failing so many times, as well as to see how far she has come, it is a thing of beauty to see it all crystalized. And that very final frame, man. If some pictures are worth a thousand words, then that final frame was worth a million, bringing the season full circle and such a high, memorable note to end the series.

With a key theme of Sound! Euphonium being about understanding, Kumiko would be nothing if it weren't for the people providing a challenge to her. I could only pick one character to fill this slot, but Mayu, being Kumiko's dark mirror this season, has her so close that it's almost a tie. Even though this is Mayu's one and only year being in Kitauji versus Kumiko's third, Mayu's inability to flounder around like Kumiko once did makes for a wonderful rivalry between the two and does wonders in adding drama and memorable moments to the last leg of Kumiko's character arc.

Also, a special shout out to this this spectacled dork. She's a weirdo just like me, I love her.

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