See here.
even moar
bakaraptor: The idea that GAR is about becoming and not finality presents too narrow a definition of GAR.
Digiboy’s take is subjective, only a personal lensing of GAR.
You could even insert it in my graph:
One might be tempted to say that degree of emulation is a product of degree of hyperbole, that only characters exhibited a high degree of hyperbole will be the object of the viewer’s emulation, but it is perfectly reasonable to desire to emulate a non-hyperbolic character – “I just wanna be average”.
You can be hyperbolically mediocre, but it is, nonetheless, hyperbole. And that is usually for satirical purposes. When “plain vanilla yogurt” isn’t satired, it’s usually not hyperbolic. And so there’s your frame of reference – using more than several anime to establish a comparative framework.
I’ll give you some subjective, personal examples using a relative rating system – format is Character, (x, y, z)
x axis: The Rock > Master Asia > Kamina > Emporer Charles > Holland (E7) > Reinhard > Lelouche = Light > Shinji >Kouta (Kanokon)
y axis: Emporer Charles > Shinji > Kouta > Master Asia > Lelouche > Kamina > Light > Reinhard > The Rock > Holland
z axis: Reinhard > Lelouche > Light > Master Asia > Holland > Kouta > Shinji > Emporer Charles > Kamina > The Rock
now to assign relative values…
The Rock, (10, 2, 1)
Master Asia, (9, 7, 7)
Kamina, (8, 5, 2)
Charles, (7, 10, 3)
Holland, (6, 1, 6)
Reinhard, (5, 3, 10)
Lelouche, (4, 6, 9)
Light, (3, 4, 8)
Shinji, (2, 9, 4)
Kouta, (1, 8, 5)
This is largely an inductive process – using this relative system to establish what GAR means to you in quantifiable terms. Deductively trying to say what GAR is usually fails, as we’ve seen.
Comments 3
Admiral Bucock, HE IS GAR.
Posted 08 Jan 2009 at 5:13 pm ¶Guts from Berserk actually won the Saigar competition back when it first ran. So, I have to say, if anyone wants to try and understand ‘gar’, or at least, what the word means to the majority of people, you should probably be looking at him first.
Posted 08 Jan 2009 at 5:41 pm ¶I was gonna mention “dude from Berserk” since bakaraptor always shows pictures of this insanely buff guy.
and how did I leave out everyone from DBZ??? For me, Vegeta is the EPITOME of GAR.
@ghost: I forgot, and thanks for reminding me, about the distinction between GAR and MANLY TEARS – if there really is a difference. We may think of GAR as a character trait, but MANLY TEARS as an event.
Bucock really elicited a ton of MANY TEARS in the episode I won’t spoil for innocent bystandards. I mean, every character in LoGH produced MANLY TEARS at one point or another, and MANLY TEARS may not even be as related to GAR as we may think.
Though I’d like to say that this 3 space graph is totalizing – are there any other aspects (axes) that are missing?
And, as for Bucock, he’s not GAR when he’s just an old man, but he becomes GAR later on, so when we situate characters on the graph I made, you really have to homogenize them disregard the temporality of the character.
Posted 08 Jan 2009 at 6:52 pm ¶