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OP has never seen Mad Max.

Most often the most interesting character is so interesting because he ISN'T the protagonist.

>Impossible
You all need to read more manga

Not dominating the screentime means you're less likely to get sick of them, especially if their role in the story isn't too complex. See Kaworu in the series versus him in Rebuild, or Index after her arc.

If you're trying to make a good story that actually ends, then this is true. In most anime or manga where the goal is to run indefinitely, the main character has to make concessions to draw out the story.

It depends on the context of the story. If the protagonist is meant to be changing the world then their character arc largely needs to stay static so that their actions and motives remain consistent and logical, and stay that way in the face of adversity so that their results feel earned. This usually makes characters boring since they're very consistent, but lets characters around them change greatly in response which makes secondary characters more interesting. This is the typical Goku - Vegeta, Naruto - Sasuke, Gon - Killua, Deku - Bakugou relationship.
If a character isn't changing the world but is being changed by the world, their character arc is much more open and can be more inconsistent or dynamic. The problem with doing this with a main character that writing a character this way usually makes them more passive and responsive, meaning it can be difficult to move the plot along unless you have an existing structure for the story.
The best written protagonists in most media usually occupy both states at different times, usually going from the second type to the former type as they become more proactive than reactive and more rigidly define their character arcs, with periods where they fall back into the former.

>something's only value is being rare
You should apply that logic to your breathing patterns and see if you can inhale only once or twice a week.

this

It's not my fault that the Japanese are abysmal as writing characters and the more time they spend fleshing out something the worse it tends to become.

Sorry to hear you read/watch garbage. Read&watch more or refine your selection

Sorry to hear you're a shiteater who deludes themselves into believing that the "refined" works they watch aren't equally terrible to the garbage read/watched by others.

This is wrong. MC should be the least interesting character so he doesn't pull attention from other things the story is about.

There are some cases where it holds but it's mostly the character being mysterious. Like in KnK, Kino and Lain.

I still feel the complete opposite.
I can use my own brain to make up a character tailored exactly to my liking, it feels "empty" and flavourless compared to finding a character written in a way I love by someone else.
And I wouldn't actually like the character then, just a madeup fanon version of the character.
> The more information the writer adds, the worse the character usually becomes.
I honestly can't imagine viewing things this way. I literally never really like characters until they are properly fleshed out and developed because otherwise they're dime a dozen and there's nothing really to draw me to that particular character.
This explains a lot about why certain characters are popular though.

WRONG. It just means the author is not talented.

This.
Gotta say, this thread explains a lot about why certain characters are popular.
Imagine thinking likeThe more time is spent on a character the better they should get as a character or the writing is shitty. If their character arc is done, they shouldn't have any more focus as a character.
Sounds like a lot of people here just like character archetypes that fit their fetishes or they find cool and not actual characters.

>Sounds like a lot of people here just like character archetypes
Rather sounds like a lot realize that Japanese can't write characters for shit.

Feels like this thread is split between people with different definitions of "interesting character"
As in interesting=I'm interested to know more about the character
And interesting= I find this character interesting from what we know about them
Japan has nothing to do with this, it's not an anime specific thing.

>it's not an anime specific thing
It very much is given how there is more live action an literature so the fact that most writers are incompetent becomes a non-issue due to the sheer mass of avaiable content. Meanwhile in Japanese media you're gonna hit a wall quickly, very fucking quickly. If you don't have an interest in animation as an art form I personally don't see why anyone would bother with this medium for more than a year. You should have ran out of good content by then and be left with the mediocre to terrible schlock that isn't worth anyone's time.

Why'd you reply to me if your post has nothing at all to do with what I said?

"I've taken your argument about fictional characters and applied it to physiological functions. Ha! You are beaten by my clever logic-smithing"
Internet argument should be a required class.

if you think good writing predicted by hard rules and generalities, you should graduate high school first

>See Kaworu in the series versus him in Rebuild
But there's also Shinji, Asuka and even Rei in the same show and I like them more despite them getting more screentime.

Sorry, I meant "anime" as a catch-all term for weeb-media.
All my favourite characters are either from manga or VN, I don't actually watch much anime these days.

How does my reply have nothing to do with what you said?
I disagree deeply with the notion that the more you know about a character the worse they get, as it's the complete opposite for me.

Part of keeping intrigue within a story is knowing exactly when to stop focusing on a certain subject. You are able to develop a character in a short amount of time. Meaningless screentime does not make a character more likable. It has nothing to do with your headcanon, it has to do with writing. I never said a side character should be static either, I'm making it's fine if a character gets little screentime and becomes popular off of what we manage to learn about them within that time. Screentime doesn't have a direct correlation to complexity, and adding more details to a character can make them less interesting if it's coming at the expense of taking away focus from something more significant. There's an opportunity cost to screentime.

This is how HxH fails.

I don't get why writers don't use FF6's example and just have a ensemble cast and have no main character at all. I mean if people are always going to bitch about the MC being boring or annoying or whatever no matter how their written why not just have no MC at all then and have a group of characters get equal screentime?

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Go play a fucking video game. If I ever saw you I’d kick you until you twitched on the ground and flames at the mouth you shithead. And yes, I do love Naruto.

>If their character arc is done, they shouldn't have any more focus as a character.
And that's how you end up with DBZ-tier character irrelevance

Naruto is the perfect example for a group of side characters being more interesting than any of the main cast members. Itachi, Jiraiya, Shisui, Danzo, Hitler, Sasori, you name it. The main cast, be it Team 7 or any of the other teams, are all terribly bland trope shit.

Because its very hard to do in an ongoing series with no defined endpoint

Thanks for actually explaining this well as opposed to the retards in this thread saying the less you know the better.
>Part of keeping intrigue within a story is knowing exactly when to stop focusing on a certain subject.
Agreed, but the character that gets the most focus should be the most interesting, as that focus should be used to do something interesting with it, or you're using it wrong.
It's not about screentime, but the amount of focus a character gets.
Exceptions would be series where side characters get comparable focus to the MC or the supposed "MC" isn't actually the main focus (like Madoka).

Ange is the most interesting

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Depends on the story you braindead retard.

At this point all manga and anime should just follow the example of and have no MC at all.

>how do you like a character without really knowing them?
have you ever met someone in real life? like, a real person? most of the time the more you get to know someone the shittier they seem. finding someone who gets cooler the more you learn about them is really rare

They need to become the most interesting character by the end of their series

I love every character in Baccano

Terra is the MC though

That's how Otaku focused media works: throw a bunch of character tics and fetishes into a blender, squirt them into 1 to 5 female templates, take a generic audience cipher in kind, pervy or literally me flavors and call it a day.

Edgy
>most of the time the more you get to know someone the shittier they seem.
Sounds like you expect too much from people.
>finding someone who gets cooler the more you learn about them is really rare
That's what gives them their value though.

Intersting is inherently a subjective value; the main character could be very compelling and well written but part of the audience will still rally behind the mysterious side character with minimal panel time solely for that reason.

you can play the entire ruined world section without her until right before kefka.

based

not neccesarily but his presence should be associated with the main theme

terrible analogy

The antagonist should be the most interesting character

agreed

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>bro just introduce a bunch of stick figures with nothing to suggest any kind of personality, people will fill in the most interesting shit ever by themselves!
Fuck. Off.
I hope none of you faggots that think just leaving empty fucking gaps in a character is good writing ever end up with creative control over anything.