It is amazing when a great group of characters get together. Here is my choice for best cast of characters in 2019.
I’m finding more and more that I’m less interested in stand out protagonists and more interested in the cast dynamic as a whole as I get a bit older. Probably that’s because with protagonists you’ve kind of seen most variations, but it is in the cast combinations and interactions where stories can make even pretty generic characters feel fresh and new. That’s why it feels right that I should end my look at 2019 by looking at some of the great casts of characters that we came across throughout the year.
Please note, the nominees and winning choice are entirely my own opinion and are not based on any rigid criteria. Feel free to nominate your own winners for the categories in the comments. Help other readers find some awesome anime from 2019 to watch.
Best Cast of Characters in 2019
This category was insanely hard to narrow down however I finally got my nominations down to 5. Even then, I wanted to give the victory to most of the titles in the nomination list.
And the winner is…
Dr Stone
Dr Stone was a curious anime that for about five or six episodes was perfectly fine to watch, interesting enough, but hadn’t really grabbed my attention. Then Senku left on his own and ended up at Ishigami Village where we met a delightful cast of characters who surrounded and bounced off of Senku for the remainder of the series. It brought the anime to life and turned it from a curiosity to a must watch. I cannot overstate how necessary the cast was in bringing this story to life and really grabbing my attention.
Individually these characters aren’t particularly unique or special. It is the combination of these characters, the way they group them within episodes, the small ways they contribute to the overall narrative, whether they are getting along or rubbing each other the wrong way, collectively the people of Ishigami Village are just great fun to spend time with. Despite some amazing characters in other anime, and ones I really do want to celebrate, I had to give the title of best cast to Dr Stone. The cast sold this story.
So many great choices but I’d love to know which anime had your favourite cast of characters in 2019 so be sure to share. Also, if you missed any of my best anime of 2019 posts be sure to check them out using the links below.
Thank-you for reading 100 Word Anime.
Join the discussion in the comments.
Karandi James
Man, this is hard. I think you managed to find my top 2 with Run With the Wind and Kanata no Astra. I think ultimately Run with the Wind makes the cut, as it’s really an exceptional cast.
I do have to give a shout-out to Wasteful Days of High School Girls for its ever permutating cast of weirdos, and to The Ones Within for much the same reason. But while Highschoolgirls does its permutation the standard comedic way, The Ones Within actually did surprisingly well within its genre confines. While there were some overt pairings, the show generally resisted pairing the characters up, so that they all pretty much constantly played off each other. It probably helped that every single character was an immediately recognisable type, but they still came across as themselves. I mean, Run with the Wind did the same thing better (starting with the exceptional character designs), but this sort of thing is far more common in sports series than shounen survival games, so I wasn’t as surprised.
Neverhteless, Run with the Wind wins this category for me.
The Ones Within almost made my short list though I kind of felt like those characters were still kind of finding themselves when the series ended. That said, they actually did do a very good job throughout the series and it was a pretty good cast.
Idk, I like Dr. Stone but the cast feels a bit atypical of shounen. I’d say Mob Psycho S2 had a nice and diverse cast of interesting xhracters with depth.
Great choice. I’m surprised to not see Fruits Basket in here with its vast and sprawling cast. Dr. Stone would still win it for me, but I think the cast of Fruits Basket was excellent. They seemed to come and go and still be able to impact you.
I think with Fruits Basket it is more that the cast is so broken up where we see one or two (sometimes three) characters who interact and then another group and we see how Tohru moves between them all but the whole cast are rarely all interacting. They are still awesome, but they didn’t immediately spring to mind as a unit for me.