My next anime rewatch project is Major 2nd Season 2. This is one of the series that aired last year that I haven't rewatched yet, even though I promised to rewatch all anime ranked as 'great.' To prove it is great, it has to be watched twice and liked both times, so now I'm going ahead and proving it. I'm supposed to have a grace period of 3 years if there's no blu-ray release, and 2 if there is, but recently I've been rewatching stuff before even a year has passed because I'm too impatient.
A bunch of new characters, almost all girls, are introduced in this season and they're all wonderful pivots the story makes use of. They do such a good job talking to each other and characterizing each other. This is the girls' baseball anime everyone tried to do but only Major did right. But one character stands above all the other newbies and that's Chisato, Fuji's daughter. Fuji was Goro's teammate in high school, and now Goro's son, Daigo, is teammates with Fuji's daughter, Chisato. It's fate I tell you!
Chisato is beautiful, talented, has cute mannerisms and gets along with everyone. Even though she's super nice, she can also be passionate and encourage others to get out of ruts and correct their mistakes. She actually has the tongue of an asp sometimes, but it's never out of malice, it's always because she genuinely wants what is best for the other person. She's a minor character but her magnetism is such that she dominates every scene she's in anyway. If Mutsuko weren't so cute as the main heroine (voiced by Kana Hanazawa of all people) Chisato would derail the entire manga by stealing even her spotlight.
Of course I loved Chisato the first time I watched this series, but I thought to myself I had to endure, she was only a minor character, there was no reason to include her in my fictional character hall of fame. But that changes now that I've read the latest 12 Kingdoms novel. 12 Kingdoms is only a good series due to one exceptionally good book, the one about Shushou. It's completely out of sync with the rest of the series and seems to be a miraculous coincidence that it was good unlike everything else. The more 12 Kingdoms I read that isn't the book about Shushou, the less I like it. Therefore, there's no reason for 12 Kingdoms to be hogging 2 name slots in the fictional character hall of fame. It doesn't deserve so many. Shushou alone is fine.
To make matters worse, Shoukei, my other representative, isn't even that good a person. She was the daughter of a tyrant who tried to justify the execution of 600,000 people. Then when that didn't work out, she became a thief from, of all people, the one admirable character in the series -- Shushou! She betrayed her benefactor and became a common criminal in the same moment. Admittedly, she's very pretty and a great singer and dancer. She also eventually redeemed herself and did some good deeds later in life, realizing she had been out of line. But is that really such a great feat? To become less of a scumbag than you previously were? Isn't it better if you never stoop to crime or mass murder at all?
On top of that, I still have a mention of Shoukei (though not by name) when discussing the merits of the death penalty in '100 Waifus' anyway, so she's represented either way and loses nothing.
On top of that, Major is an amazing series, one of my favorite, currently ranked #21. It deserved more recognition in my hall of fame than a lousy two names. So all the stars aligned and proclaimed Chisato as the new entrant to my fictional character hall of fame. There's one sore point, that it's a name that's already been used, so my unique name count is lower than before. But I'd rather have good characters with identical names than a bunch of uniquely named thieving treacherous mass murder accomplices.
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