Home Anime 65 Popular Anime Characters Of All Genres: The Definitive Guide

65 Popular Anime Characters Of All Genres: The Definitive Guide

This is the ultimate guide to the best anime characters who belong to the male, female, Cute, Cool, and Smart segments. 😎

And let me be clear about something:

This is NOT your average anime guide. After exploring this guide, you can know the most Popular Anime Characters Of All Genres.

Let’s explore this guide. 😍😍

‘Anime’ is a term that has been derived from the English word called ‘Animation’. It includes hand-drawn and computerized animation, and the art originated in Japan.

In the Japanese language, the term ‘anime’ means any sort of animated character that might be regardless of style or origin. Still, outside the country, people refer to the Japanese form of animation as the art of anime.

The initial trace of the art of animation in Japan traces back to 1017, but the style has kept evolving throughout the generations.

Besides the original works, anime includes adaptations of light novels, video games, and Japanese comics, colloquially known as ‘manga.’

The fun fact about anime is that it has been classified into numerous genres that cater to different types of audiences, including broad and niche audiences. 

With time and advancing technologies, anime production and execution techniques have evolved gracefully into anime, becoming a whole new culture altogether.

Interesting techniques used to produce and create exciting anime characters are graphic art, digital sketching, characterization, cinematography, and photo manipulation, among others.

The most striking difference between the western form of animation and anime production is that the western form of animation focuses more on the movement of the characters.

In contrast, typical anime production focuses more on the details of settings use of camera effects such as panning, zooming, and angular shot details. 

While designing any anime character, many different art styles and methods are used. Each anime character is unique and individualistic when designed, and the characters’ proportions and features can vary.

Every anime character’s overall look, feel, and effect have some similarities and can often be easily identified as an anime character.

One common feature among most popular characters is their large and expressive pair of eyes.

When these characters are designed specifically, more importance is given to designing an exclusive pair of intimidating, expressive, attractive, and interactive pairs of eyes. 

The anime production industry comprises a whopping number of 430 different anime-producing companies. The industry includes valuable contributions from major renowned studios like Sunrise, Ghibli, and Toei Animation.

Since 1980, there has been an incredible rise in the international anime industry because of the dubbing and addition of subtitle opportunities.

According to the latest records of 2016, the Japanese anime art form solely accounted for 60% of the entire world’s animated television shows. 

Anime’s social status and how important is it?

Although anime has a vast fan following worldwide, it is often said that anime does not receive the right amount of appreciation and respect from the audience, especially in the United States of America.

Often people claim that anime is made keeping in mind children as its audience and does not cater to the teenage or the grown-up audience.

This blame is not true! A part of anime is indeed aimed at the audience below fourteen, but on the other hand, a vast part of anime includes animated films and television shows and is made keeping in mind the adult audience.

The content in these films and shows is serious and appealing and deserves a chance to be watched. 

Attributes of Anime:-

Anime can be easily distinguished from other art mediums by its diversified styles, methods, techniques, production process, and overall look and appearance.

The overall style and look of anime vary depending on its creator, artist, or the studio that produces it. No art styles available are similar to anime, but anime does share common features with some of the other very well-known styles. 

TECHNIQUE:-

In modern times, the production and making of anime follow a typical animation production procedure, including storyboarding, voice acting, character design, and cell production.

With the contribution of the latest scientific upliftment and technologies, anime production now consists of a lot of use of computers and software to make it look and feel more realistic and appealing.

In the early times, the anime production process included methods like drawing on the blackboard, stop motion animation, the use of paper cutouts, and silhouette animation.

These methods can also be used in modern times, but with the advancement in computer technologies, people will likely use the more straightforward method than the primitive one, which involves a lot of hard work. 

Animation studios based in Japan are the pioneers of the art form and are also responsible for many limited animation techniques. It is said that these studios are accountable for giving anime a distinct set of conventions.

Unlike most other animations that focus more on movement, anime focuses more on the quality of art and the overall appeal. The creation of backgrounds is very important in anime production as it is said that backgrounds are instrumental in creating the atmosphere of the work.

These backgrounds are not always artificially created or invented; sometimes, these backgrounds are based on real locations and are a delight to watch. 

Almost the entire star cast of these anime productions look breathtakingly impressive and attracts a large number of fans and audience. In anime, camera techniques are used to make it more lively and real.

These camera techniques include panning, zooming, distance, and angle shots, and various other camera actions.

A significant difference in anime and American animation is that in anime, the animation is produced first, in accordance to the animation, the voice acting is directed and synced. Still, in American animation, the voice acting is produced first, and then the animation is produced and put to sync with the main voices. 

CHARACTERS:-

In anime, the body proportions and sizes of the characters used are very realistic and often accurately reflect the proportions of the normal human body in reality.

According to the technical guidelines, the height of the head of the character is considered to be the base unit of the proportion of the entire human body. Many artists also use this technique to make realistic body sketches.

This head height may vary, but most of the characters are about six to eight heads tall, as used in fine arts as well. According to the storyline, anime artists make certain exceptions to create highly deformed body structures of characters that need severe modifications.

An example of such intense modification is the world-famous show Shin-Chan. 

One common feature among most of the popular anime characters is their large and emotive pair of eyes. When these characters are designed, specifically, more importance is given to designing an exclusive pair of intimidating, expressive, attractive, and interactive pairs of eyes.

Osamu Tezuka first started the idea, concept, and execution of large eyes in anime figures. Tezuka is known to be a very popular figure in the history of anime and Manga, whose style of art and design of characters breathtakingly displayed human emotions and expressions through the bold, big and vivid design of the human eye. However, there are many exceptions to the conventional designs of the characters. 

Most characters have very unnatural and vividly colorful hairstyles designed to give them a stylish tinge and display their individual characteristics in a better way.

These characters are often given very vivid and unrealistic hair movements, which are incredibly exaggerated, and these movements are used to create the display of vivid emotions and expressions.

These expressions are not only added in terms of hairstyles but also unique and crazy hair colors that end up speaking a lot about the respective characters. Facial expression is another key feature of these characters that brings out many realistic emotions and ideas. 

MUSIC:-

Every anime movie, television show, and series comes with some nice background music, another feature that attracts a massive audience to watch anime.

In the case of television episodes, the show’s opening and the credit deliverance section come along with really nice Japanese pop or rock songs, which are often recorded by reputed bands.

Special efforts are put into creating these musical pieces. Although they are usually made for these films or television shows, they also cater to the general music market.

Anime often uses music to highlight particular scenes or moods of movies and shows. This music plays a very important role in these kinds of films and shows to bring out the right emotions and attract an audience. 

GENRES:-

The world of anime has been divided into various genres keeping in mind the kind of content and the audience. There are different dedicated anime productions for girls and boys, and an entirely different anime segment is dedicated to children as an audience.

‘Shoujo’ and ‘Shounen’ are two different kinds of anime that cater to children of both sexes and win over a crossover appeal. The difference between adult anime and anime for children could depend on many aspects like the storyline, the complexity of plots, po##rnographic elements, and more straightforward cinematography, among others. 

This article talks about some of the characters who belong to the male, female, cute, and cool segments. 

Best Anime Characters Of All Genres 👌👌

Male:-

Most of the male characters are extremely good-looking and appealing. They resemble the original human figure and sizes but are extremely cute and adorable.

These male anime figures have a unique sex appeal and are classy. They attract many female audiences, and although these are just animated figures, they have fan followings just like any other real male superhero.

These male figures have extremely appealing hair, body, and facial features. Special efforts are put to design their looks, clothes, and appearances so that they can attract massive audiences to the shows.

Some of the male anime are as follows:-

1. LIGHT YAGAMI

Light Yagami is a very popular male manga character who first debuted in Death Note. Yagami’s birthday is on 28th February 1986, and his death day is 28th January 2010.

Best Anime Characters Of All Genres

In the Death Note series, Light Yagami is known to be the main protagonist who discovered the death note had decided to utilize this particular note to finish off the world of criminals.

In the series, he kills multiple criminals using this death note, and his murders are set to be the work of Kira by the people of Japan. Light Yagami is a very handsome and cute-looking young man with an above-average height with light brownish hair and bold and expressive brown eyes.

In part 1 of the series, Light mostly wears his school uniform, Consisting of a tan suit and a red tie. But most of the other times, his entire look is very casual.

This casual look consists of dress shirts underneath a jacket or a V-neck sweater and a collared t-shirt underneath it. In part 2 of the series, his entire clothing is very similar, and wherever there is s change, he is seen wearing a suit. 

In the series, the character of Light Yagami is known to be very talented and hardworking, and he is known to be a natural genius. His character has a highly intellectual perspective with very good problem-solving capabilities.

He is also a skilled planner and is known to be very good at mapping out scenarios. His character is loved and respected by his friends and family, and he constantly receives praise and affection. Like Yagami’s father, he also believed in a strong sense of justice.

His understanding says that the world is rotten, and using the Death Note, he tries to make the world a better place by getting rid of the evil characters of the world.

Yagami’s dream is to build a new world where there would be no crime and people would be kind, honest, and loving. In light’s perspective, although murder is extremely wrong and is a heinous crime, he would still do it as a sacrifice to save the world.

After being at one with the Death Note, Yagami’s character starts to develop a cold and ruthless nature of a murderer, which contradicts his identity.

Although he is an avid lover of his family, he still doesn’t stop even after realizing his actions are putting his family in harm’s way. Light Yagami’s character unfolds beautifully throughout the series and is one of the best characters of all time.

The Life Of Light Yagami (Death Note)

2. LEVI

Levi Ackerman is known as humanity’s strongest Soldier and is 30 years old. He has a height of 160 cm and a weight of 65 kg. Levi Ackerman is known as captain Levi and is called the squad captain leader of the soldiers.

65 Popular Anime Characters Of All Genres: The Definitive Guide

Like all other characters, Levi is a handsome young man with short straight black hair and a cool-looking undercut. Although Levi has very dull-looking grey eyes and dark circles beneath them, his face seems comparatively nice and youthful.

Levi has a short height and a small stature, but his physique is quite masculine. Most of the time, this character is expressionless, and when not, he is seen frowning.

He has an extremely calm demeanor, and it often becomes difficult for other people to understand his thinking. 

This character is mostly seen during the show in his survey corps uniform, the light grey button-up shirt, and the trademark white ascot.

After various encounters, Levi has many scars across his face, including one on his right eye, and is missing both the index and the middle fingers of the right hand.

Levi has this strange personality trait according to which he likes everything, meaning his environment and himself to be spotlessly clean. Due to this reason, everybody calls him a clean freak.

Levi, as a character, is not very approachable by nature and is the one who does not show any sort of emotion. Most of the time, he believes in giving a cold expression and the way he talks seems very blunt and insulting.

Even his sense of humor is known to be very dark, humiliating, insulting, and vulgar. Levi is known to be a guy who doesn’t like to take orders from anyone and would do nothing if told by anyone he is not pleased with. 

Although it is very difficult to understand Levi’s weird characteristics, he has a very strong sense of morality and empathy.

one of the greatest values he holds is preserving human life. Though Levee has incredible battle skills, he bears no pride about it. Levi is undoubtedly one of the best characters of all time in Anime production.

The Life Of Levi Ackermann (Attack On Titan)

3. ITACHI UCHIHA

Itachi Uchiha is a very handsome and smart-looking fictional character who had starred in the Naruto manga and anime series which had been created by Masashi Kishimoto.

65 Popular Anime Characters Of All Genres: The Definitive Guide

Itachi was the person who was responsible for killing all the members of his clan, excluding Sasuke. Itachi is known to work as a part of the terrorist organization Anbu.

Itachi is known to be a character who can be played in most of the video games based on the series, and his character is one of the most popular characters with the readers of Manga.

He plays the role of an antagonist and this fact has been appreciated by most of the critics of this show. This character’s fights have been voted some of the series’s best fights. 

Itachi is a very, very handsome-looking character who is known to be a tall man with a fair complexion. He has very long bold, and expressive eyes and jet black hair, which was pulled back in the form of a ponytail and had facial bangs that extended till his chin.

Over the years in the series, this ponytail and the facial bangs grew longer and gave a different look to the character. Itachi’s character is known to have a vast number of female fans and acts as an infatuation for many female audiences.

This character wore tan pants with the weapon pouch held on his back. On duty, he wore the standard Anbu uniform with a flak jacket and a porcelain mask. Itachi was a master of Jutsu and is one of the best characters of all time. 

4. KAKASHI HATAKE

Kakashi Hatake is a very handsome-looking fictional character that belongs to the Naruto Manga and anime series created by Masashi Kishimoto.

Best male Anime Characters Of All Genres 3

Throughout the series, the storyline goes in such a way that Kakashi happens to be the teacher of team 7, which consists of the Other primary characters of the show, Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, and Sakura haruno.

As the series progresses, we get to know this character’s compassion and loyalty towards his friends and students. 

Initially, Kakashi was created and designed to be a harsh and ruthless teacher. Still, with time, the author decided to avoid this characteristic and made kakashi’s character much more calm and generous.

kakashi’s character is known to calm and soothe his students whenever under challenging situations. Kakashi has most of his face covered with a piece of cloth, which makes it even more difficult for the author as it becomes difficult to make any form of expression through this character’s face.

His covered face is barely capable of showing any kind of emotion to the audience. Despite this, there is no shortage of fan following for this particular character, and the female fan following still goes gaga over him. Kakashi is one of the best anime characters of all time.

5. SASUKE UCHIHA

Sasuke has a very strong resemblance to Izuna Uchiha. This character has beautiful bold black eyes and spike-like black hair with a blue tint. His hair has typically hung over his face like bangs since he was young.

65 Popular Anime Characters Of All Genres: The Definitive Guide

With time as he gets older, his hair grows longer, and these bangs almost cover his entire face from the sides. This character, as well as a huge number of female fans, acts as an infatuation for many girls. This character’s clothing has substantially changed during the series and is fashionable.

Sasuke Uchiha Is another fictional character in the Naruto manga and anime franchise created by Masashi Kishimoto. Sasuke is a part of the Uchiha clan, which is known to be a very notorious ninja family of that time.

Throughout the series, this character abandons his friends and family to become stronger and leaves for his quest. The creator of this character found designing this character very, very difficult.

In the beginning, he wanted to design this character as the villain of the story, but with time, he decided to change it and make this character one who is to be loved. This character has received mixed criticisms from the viewers and the critics of this show.

Although this character plays some really interesting fighting sequences and plot contributions, this character was still highly criticized as a stereotypical rival in the mold of similar characters from other Manga shows.

You may like to explore our 11 Best Action Anime Series That You Must Watch guide.