Ask John: Who is the Most Elderly Anime Character?
Question:
Watching “giant killing” made me wonder, who is the oldest manga/anime hero you came across? And please dont include immortals or someone started the manga as a kid and grown through the series.
Answer:
My speciality area of expertise is anime rather than manga, so while there may be some overlap, I’ll concentrate my answer to this question specifically on anime. Because the majority of anime is targeted at children, teens, and young adults, the majority of anime protagonists are young people that viewers can relate to and empathize with or idolize. However, there are numerous anime productions which happen to star adults and even seniors. In fact, there are too many elderly characters in anime for me to discuss them all, so I’ll instead focus only on adult and elderly leading characters. I can provide some examples, but I don’t think I can identify a singular oldest anime character because characters in many shows don’t have specific ages.
The very well known anti-hero Golgo 13 and the recurring cast of Lupin III are clearly grown adults. The primary cast members of anime including Cowboy Bebop, The Big O, Kaze no Yojimbo, Jin-Roh, Flag, Ghost in the Shell, and Captain Harlock, are adults. The protagonists of series including Kacho Ouji, Cooking Papa, Tsuri Baka Nishi, Coyote Ragtime Show, Salaryman Kintaro, Master Keaton, Monster, and Dr. Chichibuyama are all middle-aged men. Two of the three lead characters in Tokyo Godfathers are middle-aged men. Nearly the entire cast of Ristorante Paradiso is middle-aged men. Older female characters
also sometimes headline anime. Hiroko Matsukata, the star of Hataraki Man, is 28. Balsa, the star of Seirei no Moribito, is 30. Ureshiko Asaba of Okusama was Mahou Shoujo is a mature adult.
Elderly protagonists in anime in anime are, I’ll admit, a bit of a rarity. Kiyuro Takazawa of Roujin Z may immediately come to mind, but strictly speaking he’s the character whom the film revolves around, but he’s not the film’s protagonist. Animator Kunio Kato’s award winning Tsumiki no Ie and Koji Yamamura’s Kafka Inaka Isha may not be immediately thought of as “anime” because they’re independent, non-commerical productions. But strictly speaking both of these shorts are anime films that star elderly men. The main character of the 1983 television series Spoon Obasan is a spry elderly lady. Two of the co-stars of the 2007 television series Yattokame Tanteidan are grandmothers.
There are doubtlessly other illustrative characters that I’ve forgotten to mention, but I hope these examples begin to provide a satisfactory answer.
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I don’t know if she qualifies or not based on your definition of old, but I often think of Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle when I think of elderly protagonists. While she’s technically younger, the movie primarily revolves around her age. Regardless of what she actually is, she’s very much an old woman for most of the important movie moments.
There’s also the principle band cast of Black Heaven, who are all adults going through what could be called a rational mid-life crisis.
Finally, while she isn’t the primary protagonist, you could make the argument that the matriarch in the recent film Summer Wars is a shining example of an elderly hero. The entire movie revolves around her (similar to Roujin Z), but it’s specifically about her accomplishments and the efforts of her remarkably large family to live up to her standards. Every character in the movie gets where they are as a result of her and in many ways the nation of Japan needs her.
You forgot Miss Marple from 2004 anime TV show Agatha Christie no Meitantei Poirot to Marple… but maybe she is more a co protagonist than the main character
Does Master Roshi count as an anime hero?
How about Chiyoko Fujiwara from SENNEN JOYU? I think she fits the criterion of the discuss rather well. Although she does “age” over the course of the film, it’s derived from her memory as an older woman.
Old folks are awesome, especially in anime. Some of my favorite secondary/tertiary elderlies would be Nero, Jose, Carlos, and Barrio (from GUNxSWORD).
I usually enjoy anime whose main characters are college-aged or slightly older because it often lends to a different type of narrative being told.
Also, old man Roshi is disqualified; he’s immortal.
Wouldn’t Chiyoko from Millenium Actress count? Granted, most of the movie is flashbacks of her life at younger stages, but she is in her 70s as she tells the story and is unquestionably one of the two principle characters.
Most of the characters in the series “Baccano!” are well over 200, but the catch with that series is that the word “protagonist” is incredibly loose in that series.
Counting Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle is, I think, debatable. I’ll leave that up to the individual. I consciously excluded Chiyoko Fujiwara because her role as an elderly dame is so minimal in the film. The guys do count as middle-aged protagonists, but I already listed a bunch of examples. I think I forgot about Poirot to Marple because I only watched the first episode or two that starred Poirot but not Mrs. Marple. And I did mention “Black Heaven.” I just used its Japanese name “Kacho Ouji,” which I’m more used to referring to it with.
Actually the grandma *is* the main character in Yattokame Tanteidan and the youngsters are the co-stars. And that grandma has a whole bunch of granny-friends, at least two of them being regular characters. I’d say Yattokame is probably the anime with the highest age average.
Then there’s this whole bunch of family anime, where the parents are as important as the kids, such as Sazae-san, Shinchan, Atashinchi, Kaa-san’s Life or My Neighbors the Yamadas. Not too forget the tragic misadventures of Dame Oyaji and Tensai Bakabon, which are terrorised by their families, or the shows that focus on the tyrant woman itself, like Obatarian or Ultra Baa-san.
But maybe the oldest anime character (though she isn’t a main character) is probably Shampoo’s granny in Ranma 1/2. How old was she again? 200-something? She certainly looks that way.