We often turn towards the fictional realm for an escape and anime is a great source for this. With its larger than life settings, the audience gets easily driven towards it. While watching any form of animation, our suspension of disbelief expands. This sort of medium is used for kid’s entertainment as well. But as adults, we also need some connection with reality as well. A good story should be able to forget your problems. And sometimes feel a connection with the media you are consuming. So in anime as well, we often see stories and characters based on reality.
As we all know, Attack on Titan is currently one of the biggest animes. And one of the biggest twists of this series came during season 3. The story started becoming more realistic. And this increased the fandom for the series exponentially. There are various storylines and characters that we don’t realise are grounded in reality. Fantasy series like One Piece and Demon Slayer also have such characters. And elements like these often make a series more interesting. And we have curated a list of 10 such characters. Some of these are individual characters of a show. While others are shows that often use characters based on actual people.
1. Arte
The story of the anime takes place in the 16th century. The main character of this series is Arte and she belongs to a noble descent in Florence, Italy. Arte has had amazing expertise in painting since childhood. But since she is a woman, she can’t take up such jobs. And must get married to another noble. This character is inspired by Artemisia Gentileschi. The real-life counterpart was one of the first female artists during the Renaissance. And the historical story gets very dark after some time. But Arte maintains a light-hearted demeanour throughout the series.
2. Major Characters of Drifters
This anime came out in the year 2016 and the series has a very unique plot. We see various historical fighters summoned at an unknown place. And these fighters have to use their battle skills to save their world from destruction. The series comprises both popularly loved and hated characters. Some of these historical characters are Toyohiza Shimazu, Oda Nobunaga and Yoichi Suketaka. And this series has several western characters as well. Hannibal Barca and Adolf Hitler are some of these. So we see people coming from various timelines and regions coming together. And we get a different perspective about all these actual people.
3. Thorfinn from Vinland Saga
Thorfinn is the protagonist of Vinland Saga. And his nickname in the series is Karlsefni. This anime shows a fictional retelling about the Vikings. So this character is also loosely based around a historical character. Thorfinn Karlsefni Thordarson was an explorer aand he had Icelandic origins. The real-life Thorfinn also went to Vinland. But this is mostly where the similarities stop and the author starts taking artistic liberties. With MAPPA taking over Vinland Saga, the series has a lot of hype around it right now.
Also Read: Vinland Saga Season 2 to be animated by MAPPA
4. Characters from One Piece
One Piece is regarded as one of the best animes to ever exist. But it also has extremely bizarre world-building and characters. So some of these characters resemble today’s celebrities. While others have similarities with historical people. Amongst the pirates, Zoro is based on Francois l’Olonais, Blackbeard on Edward Teach, and Yamato on Yamato Takeru, and various characters are similar to modern-day celebrities. So God Enel is similar to Eminem, Steven Tyler to Jango and Hody Jones to Michael Jackson to name a few.
5. The Wind Rises
This is a movie created by the legendary Studio Ghibli and the director of this film is Hayao Miyazaki. The story follows Jiro Horikoshi. He was the designer of the Mitsubishi A5M and A6M Zero. Japan used these planes during World War 2. And this movie is a fictional biography of Horikoshi. This film has won various awards and critical acclaim and this was the highest grossing Japanese film in 2013.
6. Yuri on Ice Characters
This anime created a lot of hype during 2016 and to date is considered one of the most successful queer animes. Some real-life skaters have themself admitted that they see some of the similarities. The protagonist of the serial is Yuri Katsuki. And he is heavily inspired from Yuzuru Hanyu. Like Yuri in the anime, Hanyu also holds Russian skaters in high regard. Viktor may have been inspired from Evgeni Plushenko. And this skater is kept in high esteem by Hanyu.
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