Your favourite male leads

[Okarin]

I know that we, as males, tend to focus on the waifus (if you're a girl and reading this, I'm afraid this is not aimed at you), and even though we are dudes, often we put on waifu avatars.

I'm on the opposite team, the team where we like to be acknowledged as males (not in a macho way, only for what it's worth), and I tend to put male character avatars. Because, you know, moe girls in avatars can be deceiving.

Male leads I really liked include:

- Okabe Rintaro (of course, he's probably one of the most influential male characters in Japanese media)

- Deardrops' Shouichi

- Deardrops' Samejima (a secondary character but I liked him)

- Noragami's Yato (my current avatar, pretty interesting character, but this is an anime and manga)

- Quartett's Phill

- Zero Escape's Sigma (sometimes he was a blockhead, especially in ZTD, but he's a troubled man, though some may argue that he lacks charisma)

- Zero Escape's Carlos (your brave action man)

- EF's protagonist for the second arc (I believe he was called Keisuke? anyway, I put him with the tsundere Kei and it was cool, man)

Male leads I despised with various degrees:

- School Days' Makoto (especially in the anime)

- Amagami's Junichi Tachibana (in the anime, he's a good for nothing, perverted rascal most of the time)

- EF's protagonist for the first arc (he's just... not very cool)

- Wanko to Kurasou's protag (half human pets ask him to screw them because they're in heat, he's like, "okay... booty!")

- Sakura Beach's protag (gets abused by his friends and he's all okay with it)

- Kira Kira's Shikanosuke Maejima (not a very nice person)

- Crescendo's protag (kind of an asshole)

Note how in the protags that I don't like, I can't remember the names of a lot of them.

Edited November 30, 2016 by Okarin

[Kurisu-Chan]

Okabe Rintarou for non-romantic reasons since i'm not related in any way to that idiotic baka.

Makoto Naegi from Danganronpa because...he's a better Subaru than Subaru.

The protag from Comyu actually, i like to hate him, but his character is quite interesting.

 

[akaritan]

I think that it's normal to focus on the girls more (except when you're reading an otome), ahaha. I know that I normally do that, even if I am a girl. I think that the vast majority of male characters, especially in bishoujoge, are really dull. But Michel from Fata Morgana is one of my favorite characters in anything. Contrary to the many eroge protagonists that all feel like copy-pastes of each other, he's incredibly well-fleshed out and unorthodox as a character.

[TexasDice]

Tomoya from Clannad, because he's basically just me.

I generally like most male characters in Overdrive games (excluding Edelweiss, because it's the male version of Ikikoi). Lastly, the protagonist from Ayakashibito is easily one of the most believable characters I've ever come across. After finishing the VN, I felt like I had known him for years and wouldn't be surprised if he suddenly appeared on my doorstep. 

Edited November 30, 2016 by TexasDice
btw, what is this thread doing in 'General'?

[EastCoastDrifter]

You do make a point with the avatars. It still baffles me why we choose females over males. Maybe it's just our unconscious instinctual desires?

EDIT: Oh wait, this is about VN male leads. My bad.

Edited December 1, 2016 by KonpekiUmi

[Fred the Barber]

2 hours ago, TexasDice said:

Tomoya from Clannad, because he's basically just me.

In the anime, he's full of personality and I find him really likeable, but in the VN, since the player is making all the decisions and since you hardly see his face, he comes off as not having much of a personality, at least to me.

I can appreciate most any protagonist with a sprite. If they don't get a sprite, I generally don't think of them much at all. Akihito from Comyu and Gii from Sekien no Inganock were both interesting to me, but probably largely because they had sprites (even though Akihito's wasn't used all the time, by a long shot).

I also rather like Daijuuji Kurou from Demonbane... can't remember if he gets a sprite or not (I don't think he does), but they're not shy about showing him in CGs, at least, which is almost as good. When they make the protag faceless even in CGs, I can't help but roll my eyes.

[Chronopolis]

Quote

I'm on the opposite team, the team where we like to be acknowledged as males (not in a macho way, only for what it's worth)

I............dang, that's a good point.

Haruhiro and co. from grimgar. (you can just really get into his shoes after a while....and you get the whole deal)

It's been a while, but I also enjoyed Okabe Rintarou's perspective. That was actually quite good.

I find it hard to remember male characters because a lot of them are trapped in the role of VN protagonist... The story has to have a bit of realism before I can identify with them.

[Limerence_]

I like most male characters from Key, especially the ones in Little Busters! (Except maybe Riki, but then again I think he was intentionally designed to be weak to fit the story, so I guess I can't dislike him either.)

 

[Okarin]

Riki is just meh.

Note that the thread allows other kinds of protagonists, like from anime, or maybe light novels.

[Arcadeotic]

Nikola Tesla from Ourai no Gahkthun is by far my favorite VN male character lead. He's exactly what I'd want from the stoic/badass character archetype with some witty sarcasm I can appreciate and he's just exhuding charm. Another good male lead would be Akihito from Comyu, who I very much love for how much more down-to-earth he is in comparison to most chuunige protagonists.

Now, I've never really cared for anime protagonists unless they're adapted from certain Light Novels or Manga, but I must say that my favorite Light Novel protagonists have to be Ainz Ooal Gown/Momonga from Overlord, and Dantalion from Dungeon Defence.

They both share the similarity of being somewhat of normal persons coming from our normal world to a fantasy-setting, though Dantalion's circumstances are a bit different. They're both different than the norm in a way that they just don't even want to go back since they don't have anything special to go back to.

The two are also warped in their mindset, though in Ainz's case, it's because of the transformation, but Dantalion was just warped before he came to the new world.

They're both intelligent and are that what you'd call "rulers". The way they drive their own goals above all else is quite interesting and entertaining to read. They're both also pretty sadistic and ruthless to everyone, who's not on their side, but show a degree of manners before all of that, which I do enjoy to a immense degree.

They're both exceptionally fleshed out characters, and their mindsets, goals, and means of achieving said goals differentiate quited a lot from the norm, and overall, it's quite refreshing to see and read that.

They're fantastic

[Shota_Victory]

https://vndb.org/c18937

[Valmore]

15 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

In the anime, he's full of personality and I find him really likeable, but in the VN, since the player is making all the decisions and since you hardly see his face, he comes off as not having much of a personality, at least to me.

I can appreciate most any protagonist with a sprite. If they don't get a sprite, I generally don't think of them much at all.

Yeah, I think I fall under this statement as well. Tomoya was great in the Clannad anime, in the VN not quite as much.

I really like Hachiman from "My Youth Romantic Comedy is Wrong, as Expected." I like how he falls in between realist and nihilist without really being either, as well as being so short-sighted about the people around him in spite of his general self-awareness.

[Ariurotl]

I haven't seen the anime, but I absolutely despise the VN Tomoya.

[Kawasumi]

https://vndb.org/c4736

hes a little like yuuji from Grisaia without all the mary stu crap and shitty monologues that comes off as "I know it all" shit.