Every year treats anime fans to all kinds of new and returning series, which also means meeting fantastic new anime characters and saying "welcome back" to many more familiar faces. Now that 2024 is almost over, anime fans can fondly look back at not just their favorite titles of this year, but also the best characters who brought those animated stories to life. Coolness isn't the only factor to keep in mind when analyzing excellent character design, and this year was very compelling evidence of that.
The best 2024 anime series featured some fantastic character designs, from battle-scarred fighters to comedic goofballs to dramatic, subversive young adults trying to figure out their tricky lives. Such excellent character designs include a compelling and fascinating personality, creative powers that lead to excellent fight scenes, deep themes, or even cool outfits and aesthetics to make these well-designed characters pop.
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10 The White Mage/Faris Threatened Fairy Tail's Wizards in a Unique Way
She Was Just a Tool For the Real Villain, However
For the most part, the Fairy Tail anime has conventional character designs, but at least the magical combat system is generous with its wide array of creative, unusual powers and their combos. A fresh example arrived in the Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest anime in the form of the enigmatic White Mage, or Faris. The members of the Diabolos guild felt routine, but the White Mage was something shockingly new.
The White Mage posed as a new recruit to make everyone lower their guard, then suppressed their magic with her own White-Out magic, turning everyone into her minions. That was a much-needed new angle for the villains threatening the powerful Fairy Tail guild, robbing them of their powers rather than trying to fight them in a contest of strength. It's a cool idea, though it's not as thematically or emotionally deep as other character designs in 2024, so the White Mage humbly ranks last.
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Fairy Tail
TV-14
Action
Adventure
Animation
Lucy, an aspiring Celestial Wizard, becomes a friend and ally to powerful wizards Natsu, Gray, and Erza, who are part of the (in)famous wizard guild, Fairy Tail.
Release Date October 12, 2009
Creator(s) Hiro Mashima , Masashi Sogo
Cast Cherami Leigh , Todd Haberkorn , Tia Lynn Ballard , Colleen Clinkenbeard , Newton Pittman , Brittney Karbowski , Monical Rial , Brina Palencia
Main Genre Action
Seasons 9
Studio A-1 Pictures, Satelight, Bridge, CloverWorks
Creator Hiro Mashima
Writers Hiro Mashima , Masashi Sogo
Number of Episodes 328
Streaming Service(s) Crunchyroll
Franchise(s) Fairy Tail
Directors Shinji Ishihira
Based On Manga
MyAnimeList Score 7.57 (Season 1)
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9 Gyomei Himejima is a Warrior-Monk Haunted By His Past
He Challenged Tanjiro to Grow in a Whole New Way
Time and again, the Demon Slayer anime delighted fans with the nine powerful Hashira, all of whom had fantastic designs with their outfits, breathing styles, and personalities. Season 3 entertained fans with the dazzling debuts of Muichiro Tokito and Mitsuri Kanroji, while 2024's own Demon Slayer season put the Stone Hashira, Gyomei Himejima, front and center.
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Gyomei was an intriguing blend of a Buddhist-style monk, a fierce warrior, a skilled coach, and a mentally scarred skeptic, which added up to one cool Hashira. Gyomei shook things up in the Hashira training arc by teaching everyone how to use Repetitive Action, all while nursing his mental scars about a child betraying his entire orphanage to a demon. Despite his monkish ways, Gyomei is cynical about trust, so Tanjiro had to go pretty far to impress the Stone Hashira.
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Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
TV-MA
Animation
Action
Adventure
Release Date April 6, 2019
Cast Natsuki Hanae , Zach Aguilar , Abby Trott , Akari Kitō , Yoshitsugu Matsuoka
Main Genre Animation
Seasons 5
8 Mash Burnedead is a Quiet Himbo Who Proves Something With His Fists
He's the Musclebound Muggle Who Will Change Society
It's nothing new for shonen anime to feature a melee powerhouse with a blunt and straightforward attitude, but it was much more meaningful in Season 2 of Mashle: Magic and Muscles. This anime is a deft blend of Harry Potter parody and a surprisingly dark comment on societal intolerance, and it all revolves around Mash himself. He's a Muggle born in an unfair world of wizard supremacy, and he won't let that keep him down.
Mash believes in the magic of hard work and friendship as a soft-spoken himbo, and so far, it's working. No matter his bad grades and tacky haircut as a Muggle in a wizard school, Mash is going the distance to validate his existence, and it's winning over more and more wizards. That makes Mash endlessly entertaining, especially when his power and dark thematic depth are contrasted with his goofy, plain facial expressions.
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Mashle: Magic and Muscles
TV-14
Animation
Comedy
Fantasy
Release Date April 8, 2023
Creator(s) Riichiro Inagaki
Cast Chiaki Kobayashi , Reiji Kawashima , Kaito Ishikawa , Takuya Eguchi , Reina Ueda , Hiroaki Hirata , Yuuichirou Umehara , Hiroki Nanami , Yûki Kaji , Takehito Koyasu , Koki Uchiyama
Main Genre Animation
Seasons 1
Writers Riichiro Inagaki
Streaming Service(s) Crunchyroll
Franchise(s) Eyeshield 21
Directors Shin'ichi Watanabe , Masayoshi Nishida , Shin Katagai
Character(s) Mash Burnedead , Finn Ames , Lance Crown , Dot Barrett , Lemon Irvine , Narration , Abel Walker , Abyss Razor , Rayne Ames , Margarette Macaron , Carpaccio Luo-Yang
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7 Senjumaru Shutara is a Playful But Deadly Soul Reaper With a Breathtaking Bankai
She Nearly Crushed the Schutzstaffel Single-Handedly
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The end of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War's second cour starred Senjumaru Shutara, a member of the Royal Guard who used her incredible bankai to take the fight to the Schutzstaffel. It was a costly move on her part, but Senjumaru's loom-like bankai did the trick against Yhwach's guards... at first.
In 2024, Bleach fans saw the horrible truth, that Uryu Ishida and the Schutzstaffel had a way out of this. Senjumaru may have fallen, but she is still one of 2024's best anime designs, starting with her awesome cloth-centric bankai, which weaves unique fates of doom for every victim in spectacular fashion. Fans also adore Senjumaru's cool confidence that contrasts with her vaguely goofy side, giving her some charming depth.
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Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War
Animation
Action
Adventure
The peace is suddenly broken when warning sirens blare through the Soul Society. Residents are disappearing without a trace and nobody knows who's behind it. Meanwhile, a darkness is approaching Ichigo and his friends in Karakura Town.
Release Date October 10, 2022
Cast Masakazu Morita , Johnny Yong Bosch , Takayuki Sugô , Richard Epcar , Ryûsei Nakao , Aleks Le , Karen Strassman , Neil Kaplan
Seasons 3
Studio Pierrot Films
YouTube Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi_sIP-wjC0
Creator Tite Kubo
Story By Tite Kubo
Writers Tite Kubo
Number of Episodes 35 (9 - Part 3)
Network TV Tokyo
Streaming Service(s) Hulu
Franchise(s) Bleach
Directors Tomohisa Taguchi , Mitsutoshi Satô , Hikaru Murata , Hodaka Kuramoto
Showrunner Tite Kubo
Japanese Title Bleach: Sennen Kessen-hen
Based On Manga
MyAnimeList Score 8.98 (Part 3)
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6 Noko Shikanono is Proudly Bizarre Deer Maiden
She Gleefully Embraced the Power of Weird
The deer girl Noko Shikanoko helps prove that stellar character design doesn't always have to include jaw-dropping superpowers or grim, complex personal themes in anime. Good design can take many forms, and in the case of My Deer Friend Nokotan, good design is rooted in the elusive "it" factor that makes characters like Noko so outrageously funny and wonderfully weird.
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It's not easy to nail down the "weird is good" formula for comedy characters like this, since comedy and taste are so confusingly subjective, but Noko makes it seem so easy. The trick was for this deer girl to energetically and shamelessly embrace her comedic wackiness, and anime fans were all dazzled by her proud silliness. It also helps that the anime didn't fully explain the technical details of how this deer girl functions, letting fans come up with their own silly theories or just accept the nonsense at face value.
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My Deer Friend Nokotan
Animation
Comedy
Fantasy
Koshi Torako has everyone fooled. Her classmates see her as the perfect honor student, unaware of her secret delinquent past. But her new picturesque school life is thrown into chaos when she bumps into Shikanoko Noko, a girl with antlers! Mayhem seems to follow this strange doe-eyed girl.
Release Date July 7, 2024
Creator(s) Oshioshio
Cast Megumi Han , Saki Fujita , Rui Tanabe , Fuka Izumi , Yurika Kubo , Rio Tsuchiya , Chinatsu Akasaki , Kôsuke Toriumi
Main Genre Animation
Seasons 1
5 Kafka Hibino is a 30-Something Shonen Lead With Amazing Half-Other Powers
He Proves No One is Too Old to Chase Their Dreams
Kafka Hibino, the star of Kaiju No. 8, has 2024's middle-best character design not just because he embodies the beloved half-other trope, but because he does so in a strangely resonant way. He's not another anguished teen struggling with weird powers -- he's a 32-year-old man who fears that his dream of joining the Defense Force his behind him. Plenty of older anime fans can relate to that, making Kafka's character design that much stronger.
Kafka still clings to hope and tries to smile about it, which is sympathetic, and now he has a chance in a way no one expected. A small kaiju crammed itself down his throat, turning him into Kaiju No. 8, the JAKDF's worst enemy hiding in plain sight as he joins the Defense Force to finally achieve his dream. It's also interesting to have a shonen lead who's much older than his fellow recruits, unable to relate to people who are much closer to the typical age of shonen protagonists.
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Kaiju No. 8
Science Fiction
Action
Kafka Hibino merges with a kaiju and gains powers, leading him to attempt his childhood dream in Kaiju No. 8.
Release Date 2024-04-00
Cast Fairouz Ai , Wataru Katou , Masaya Fukunishi
Main Genre Anime
Studio Production I.G.
Main Cast Masaya Fukunishi, Fairouz Ai, Wataru Katou
4 Himiko Toga is a Suffering Villain in Need of Validation
Only Ochaco Uraraka Saw Her as a Girl in Need
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By now, Himiko Toga has cemented her position as one of My Hero Academia's best-designed villains of all, both on the inside and outside. She is a tricky fighter with her Transform Quirk and stealthy ways, but more importantly, Himiko represents the humanitarian crisis that the existence of Quirks and hero society created. She was born with the "wrong" kind of Quirk and couldn't handle the constant rejection.
Himiko spent Season 7 trying to lose herself in darkness with Sad Man's Death Parade, but destruction would never heal her wounded heart. Instead, Himiko was touched when Ochaco Uraraka saw the real her, warmly acknowledging Himiko Toga as a beautiful, lovable girl with a cute smile, and that changed everything. Inspired, Himiko cast aside her villainous ways and saved Ochaco's life at the cost of her own.
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My Hero Academia
Action
Superhero
Animation
Izuku has dreamt of being a hero all his life -- a lofty goal for anyone, but especially challenging for a kid with no superpowers. That's right, in a world where eighty percent of the population has some kind of super-powered "quirk," Izuku was unlucky enough to be born completely normal. But that's not enough to stop him from enrolling in one of the world's most prestigious hero academies.
Release Date April 3, 2016
Cast Aoi Yuki , Ayane Sakura , Christopher R. Sabat , Yûki Kaji , Nobuhiko Okamoto , Luci Christian , David Matranga , Justin Briner , Kenta Miyake , Clifford Chapin , Daiki Yamashita
Rating
Seasons 7
Website https://www.funimation.com/shows/my-hero-academia/
Franchise My Hero Academia
Characters By Kohei Horikoshi
Distributor FUNimation Entertainment
Main Characters Tsuyu Asui, Katsuki Bakugo, Ochaco Uraraka, Izuku Midoriya, Shoto Todoroki, All Might
Production Company Bones
Story By Kōhei Horikoshi, Yōsuke Kuroda
Number of Episodes 113
Streaming Service(s) Hulu , Crunchyroll
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3 Turbo Granny Went From a Monster to a Cat Mascot
She is the New Kon, and With a Serious Attitude
Early on, the wacky new Dandadan anime introduced fans to the villainous Turbo Granny, a shaggy-haired, mean ghost who haunted a tunnel that Okarun visited. Eventually, that noxious spirit was defeated, and while her powers went into Okarun, her mind ended up in a lucky cat model. In many ways, that makes her Dandadan's version of Kon from the Bleach anime.
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Now, Turbo Granny is a delightful antihero who reluctantly aids Momo and Okarun because she has no way out of this, giving her an unusual yet entertaining position in Dandadan's cast of characters. She is still a snide, uncaring, and predatory being, but her threats are more funny than serious coming from a powerless cat model.
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Dandadan
TV-MA
Animation
Action
Adventure
Comedy
Fantasy
Release Date September 13, 2024
Creator(s) Yukinobu Tatsu
Cast Natsuki Hanae , Shion Wakayama , Nana Mizuki , Ayane Sakura , Kaito Ishikawa , Mayumi Tanaka , Kazuya Nakai , Kaori Maeda , Miyu Tomita , Ryûnosuke Watanuki , Hikaru Tanaka , Seitaro Taniguchi , Satomi Kobashi , Mayuko Kazama , Ryuuzaburou Ootomo
Main Genre Animation
Seasons 1
Studio Science Saru
Creator Yukinobu Tatsu
Number of Episodes 12
Streaming Service(s) Crunchyroll , Netflix , Hulu
Based On Manga
MyAnimeList Score 8.70
Character(s) Ken Okarun Takakura , Momo Ayase , Seiko , Aira Shiratori , Jin Jiji Enjōji , Turbo Granny , Serpoians , Miko , Muko , Momo's Boyfriend , Male Student A , Male Student B , Elementary School Boy , Flatwoods Monster
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2 Ranma Saotome Blurs the Line of Gender in Fascinating Ways
His Girl Side Has Kuno Totally Fooled
Ranma Saotome from Ranma 1/2 is probably one of the oldest character designs anime fans saw in 2024, since the original manga and anime date back to the late 1980s, but he still feels compelling and fresh to this day. To begin with, he is a punk martial artist with zero tact but plenty of power, making him a rough antihero in some ways as he butts heads with Akane Tendo.
Most of all, Ranma has a mystical curse that transforms him into a girl when splashed with cold water, which fuels the comedy but also has a few more layers of meaning. Ranma must grapple with this other half of his identity and figure out what it means for him, which may resonate with some fans. While there's no solid evidence that Ranma's condition is meant to be an LGBT parallel, fans are free to interpret it that way to see that much more in Ranma -- and themselves.
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Ranma 1/2
TV-MA
Animation
Action
Adventure
Fantasy
Release Date October 6, 2024
Cast Kappei Yamaguchi , Megumi Hayashibara , Noriko Hidaka , Minami Takayama , Kikuko Inoue , Akio Otsuka , Chō , Shou Okumura , Soshiro Hori , Kouichi Souma , Koichi Yamadera
Main Genre Animation
Seasons 1
Studio MAPPA
Creator Rumiko Takahashi
Number of Episodes 10+
Streaming Service(s) Netflix
Based On Manga
MyAnimeList Score 8.08
Character(s) Ranma Saotome , Ranma , Akane Tendo , Nabiki Tendo , Kasumi Tendo , Soun Tendo , Genma Saotome , Passerby , Postman , Jusenkyo Guide
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1 Kana Arima Must Shine Like the Sun
She is an Inspiration for Performers Like Akane Kurokawa
Close
Oshi no Ko's second season helped establish this subversive seinen anime as one of 2024's best titles, complete with some of the best character designs, such as Kana Arima. Kana is the series' Best Girl because of her emotionally resonant blend of confidence, imposter syndrome, her tsundere ways, and the power of love. Kana is a contradictory characters in some ways, and that's what makes her such a fascinating anime heroine.
Kana always benefited from the unfair business practices of the entertainment industry to get roles, and she had the power to shine like the sun in Akane's eyes, but Kana didn't always feel good about it. Cheating her way to the top made Kana feel bad deep down, so now she will push herself harder to truly earn her fame. Along the way, she's in a love triangle with Aqua and Akane, and there's no telling how that will turn out. All that and more make Kana Arima the best-designed anime character that 2024 has to offer.
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Oshi No Ko
TV-14
Animation
Mystery
Supernatural
A doctor and his recently-deceased patient are reborn as twins to a famous Japanese musical idol and navigate the highs and lows of the Japanese entertainment industry as they grow up together through their lives.
Release Date April 12, 2023
Cast Manaka Iwami , Jeremy Gee , Jack Stansbury , Alyssa Marek , Savanna Menzel , Natalie Rial
Seasons 1
Creator
Production Company
Story By Aka Akasaka
Writers Jin Tanaka
Number of Episodes
Streaming Service(s) HIDIVE
Directors Daisuke Hiramaki
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