Welcome to the Anime Walk of Fame, a series of retrospectives on the many characters of the anime world. You'll see all your favorites along with a few that deserve more than their reputations give.

So sit back relax and enjoy the show.

Samantha Was a Missed Opportunity

Leave it to toy anime to not take full advantage of it's characters.

Kikuhime better known to us English as Samantha is the boss of the starter villain team the Screws.
While mostly seen as school yard bullies they sort of become chaotic neutrals as the series progressed and eventually get shots at the world championship filling in for the frequently absent Space Medafighter X.
Samantha along with Peppercat had an interesting back story, that while being a bit of an ego maniac, has a more feminine graceful side that she's embarrassed to show, her set up with her friends reminds me very much of Yatterman's Doronjo and her crew, I would've loved to have seen her character evolve more and she should've been the third fighter full time in Team Japan.
Character writing in Medabots was always it's strongest point, the Rubber Robo Gang each having their own pride that they show if the situation calls for it.
Sadly for Samantha she never got a chance to flourish, the abysmal season 3 proving to be Medabots downfall.

Larry is a Reminder of Reality

So Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have been out long enough for a proper analysis so we start off advent by doing just that.

After going through the Gym Leader run, you start to piece together that the Gym Leaders are all adults with real jobs.
Katy is a baker.
Brassius is a gardener/artist.
Iono is a vtuber.
Kofu owns a fish restaurant.
Larry is an office worker.
Ryme is an aging rapper.
Tulip is a fashion influencer.
Grusha is a former snowboarder.
But each leader hides a deeper emotion.
Katy has to keep up a mask as she knows she's way more powerful but because her gym is nearest the Academy she inevitably has to hold back.
Brassius looks the part of the tortured artist, looking drained and constantly frustrated.
Iono spends her entire gym fight caring more about subscribers than how well she does her job.
Kofu is so focussed on trying to make one job succeed, he forgets he has another.
Ryme is clinging onto the notion that rap is still popular despite not being a big hit for decades.
Tulip is so busy it's surprising she even had time to fight.
And Grusha is contemplating life after a forced retirement from snowboarding due to an injury.
But it's Larry who makes for a very real gym leader, he's an overworked office worker, who looks burned out, lost the will to live, despite being voiceless you could hear Larry being monotone, he also looks reluctant to fight despite doubling as an Elite Four member.
Why does this matter? Think how old Pokemon is and figure out the ages of the audience who started with Gen 1.
You'd probably get 30 something or even 40 year olds, while all Gym Leader portray a different kind of adult, Larry hits the nail of being the most real, something that even my 30 something self is going through with my own job.
Not so much a warning, but a reality.

Mai is a Terrible Duelist

No excuse for any duelist to lose to Mai.

For much of the season, Mai was the lone female duelist but she's a terrible player, she relies too heavily on cheap tricks, buckles when her strategies fail and only duels players so low ranked you wonder how she got so far.
To compare against other female characters of the season.
Anzu - Doesn't know what she's doing but somehow was the only duelist to have zero losses.
Serenity - Not really a duelist.
Rebecca - Duels competently despite having a lousy win/loss record.
Vivian - I honestly forgot she was in the show but she was introduced as the Asian champion so she at least has some skill.
Ishizu - Best female in the show and should've had more duels.
The history of female duelists hasn't exactly been that strong, even later seasons have introduced argubly better duelists but their impact on the show has been very little, even Asuka and Akiza have had their roles shortened as their season went on, if you don't start your female characters strongly you don't grab that demograph and Mai set a very poor standard that is still being felt today.

Did Anyone Care About Esper Roba?

The original series of Yu-Gi-Oh produced some interesting rivals, while you can argue that Haga and Ryuzaki (Weevil and Rex) are fairly credible threats while Kajiki and Kotsuzuka (Mako and Bonz) were at least interesting, then there's Esper Roba.

Roba was introduced in Battle City as one of many duelists Jounouchi had to defeat to progress to the last eight, he gave the impression that he had clairvoyance and was able to see everything in Jounouchi's hand, unfortunately for the green haired duelist, Roba was exposed as a fake, his younger brothers spying for him and reporting through radio.
A generic design that would barely pass for a background character by Yu-Gi-Oh standards, probably the most annoying dub voice I've ever heard as he has no indoor voice and his motives were basically to stop bullying by making Roba seem invincible, while admirable it does require Roba to actually get away with it, being exposed won't make the bullying stop.
His only redeeming feature is that he has Jinzo which was portrayed better by one of the big 5 and the fact that Roba had to give up Jinzo to Jounouchi.
You could replace him with an actual psychic and they would've been far more tolerable, for a series that prides itself on having the most wild anime designs, this is a big miss for them.

Chad Deserves Better

Not sure if it's poor character writing or just bad story telling but Chad is about as useless as Orihime.

I don't hate Chad or Orihime, I like that Ichigo surrounds himself with good friends and Chad brings alot to the table in terms of having a strong personality particularly in the face of constant bullying, I just wish Tite Kubo would give him a win.
There was also a case of dub actor Jamieson Price not coming back to voice Chad due to some pretentious bull shit about not wanting to take on non white roles but is totally fine dubbing Japanese characters, kinda dug your own grave there mate, we live in a world where an 86 year old woman can voice Goku and characters like Samurai Jack, Donald Duck and Sonic the Hedgehog have or had black actors, only the voice matters, not the person behind it.
Just to get to the point, you could take away Chad's voice and he'd contribute exactly the same to the Bleach story as a mute, in fact making him mute gives more weight to his body language which in some cases works better in story telling.