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.

Anna is Best Waifu

Continuing the trend for Shaman King, this will be the last character from the anime for now.

Anna is an Itako and the wife of Yoh Asakura, not self proclaimed but actual wife, she appears early on with strict ambitions of training Yoh to be Shaman King much to his dismay at least at first.
A defeat at the hands of Faust and a draw against Tao Ren soon made Yoh listen.
Anna started as an orphan with her abilities unintentionally creating oni that caused mischief and attacked people, Yoh would help subdue the oni that kept tormenting Anna leading her to develop romantic feelings towards him.
Having toughened up as she grew up, she made it her mission to see to it that Yoh is made Shaman King, while her tough love approach seems a bit too far from a viewers perspective and certainly through Manta, it's done out of love, something Yoh returns the night before the Tournament, heavily implied that they did more than sleep together.
This quote sums it up best.
"I'm hard on you, because I know what you are capable of" and Anna certainly understands that better than anyone else.

Chocolove's Past Covers a Very Real Problem

Spoiler warning is in effect.

Chocolove was a late comer to the Shaman King cast after Lyserg deserted the group in favour of the X-Laws, he's introduced as a jokester with a firm goal of saving the world through comedy, a memento from his mentor, sadly as with most comedians, the smiling mask is often next to the tragic mask. Choco's parents were murdered on Christmas Day leading him to being raised by the Shaft Gang, unhinged and full of rage he murdered anyone who crossed him or his gang, even innocent bystanders in the wrong place at the wrong time, even after learning a different path from his mentor, his gang would later murder him as well, awakening to a new goal in life.
The sins weighed heavier as he would confront the children of the father he murdered and only through Yoh's heavy handed talk on the cycle of revenge that Choco would survive the encounter.
To pay for his sins, he gave up his sight and even after the world was saved, Choco willingly turned himself in to serve jail time for his crimes.
Gang land violence is all too real and it speaks volumes about Hiroyuki Takei's writing that he was able to show it's brutality and how easy it is for anyone to fall into it.

Is Tao Ren Supposed to be Intimidating?

While HoroHoro is a victim of a bad first impression, Tao Ren is just down to unfortunate design.

Tao Ren is a rich Chinese boy brought up in a family of assassins all his life and brutally conditioned into a harsh upbringing that ultimately failed to make him the villain he was originally introduced as nor the anti hero he became later; might be because he's 4ft 9inches making him the shortest in the group and his starting outfit, the prep school uniform doesn't shout Vegeta or Hiei but Ciel Phantomhive trying to learn Chinese Martial Arts in a foreign exchange program, he's about as threatening as a yapping Chihuahua.
The single spike hair and his grander forms of dress clearly compensating for something as well.
Not off to a good start with the cast but I assure you the next character is a doozy.

Why is HoroHoro a Snowboarder?

Taking a little break from attempting to dissect characters I don't like anymore for a Shaman King special, I'm looking at doing five characters starting with HoroHoro.

Usui Horokeu or HoroHoro is an Ainu Shaman from the great North of Hokkaido, his goal is to save the Koro Pokkuru "Minutians", a tiny spirit people. As part of this goal, he intends to plant a vast field of Butterbur, the leaves of which are used by the tiny Koro Pokkuru.
He's an environmentalist at heart and takes the role very seriously despite not looking the part as he's introduced as cheerful and a bit of a goofball.
He does take the Shaman Fight more seriously as it goes on even confronting some of his troubled past and building his dream with his own two hands at the end.
But why he's a Snowboarder, is completely baffling.
With how his character develops as the series goes on, it becomes increasingly obvious that his design would never support the radical extreme sport persona we were first greeted with, I'm aware there's a section of that community that are more in tune with nature and would share that interest but HoroHoro is not Californian, Hawaiian or Australian nor is he a surfer.
4Kids didn't make it any better by giving him an embarrassing nickname and a voice that's trying too hard, early 00s Tony Hawk skater culture I suppose.
The updated retelling of the anime is a little less cringy but the snowboard is still there.