12 Days of Anime – Day 12 – The Return of my Favorite Character

Quick, who’s your favorite character in all anime?  Probably was pretty easy, right, picking your top character or a small pool of candidates that depending on your mood would be your favorite.  It’s highly likely that those characters are from anime that are already completed (or if you’re lucky has material for potential additional seasons) so what remains are fond and charming memories.  It’s the same for me, too, but this year saw the reappearance of my favorite character in the form of manga and is taking the final spot on my 12 Days of Anime list (and yeah, I realize this isn’t anime).

My favorite character in all of anime, manga, and well, anything else is Setsuna from Needless.  Like most of you, the anime she’s in is over, but fortunately, the manga is still being produced and a new chapter debuts every month. I’m lucky that she has a chance to reappear every month but she hasn’t appeared since I started following the manga in 2009 and has been in the middle of a three year absence in the manga.

But all that changed this past November when Setsuna appeared for 2 pages in Chapter 96.  Yup, those 2 pages in an unpopular manga with a minor character setting up for some events down the road are taking up my final day on my 12 Days of Anime.  That should tell you how significant, delightful, and rewarding that moment was when I saw my favorite character reappear before my eyes.  Just think if she were interacting with important characters, got in a fight, or better yet, was used in some sort of a gag.  I’m sure everyone else would feel the same if they saw their favorite character return in some appropriate way, especially since this is the first time I’ve seen her in the manga since I started over 2 years ago.  And right behind Setsuna is another all-time favorite character in Kuchinashi, so that just made this moment even more wonderful and gratifying.  And while I never structured my 12 Days list to go from 12^th to 1^st (the list is in a random order) this moment is indisputably my top moment of the past year, better than any anime I watched or anything like that.  Yup, that just goes to show you how important my favorite character is to me and what a magnificent and treasured moment that was to see my favorite character return.