Which one is more important to you?

[Fantastische Hure]

I agree with everything aside from maybe rephrasing the first paragraph. 2 2 2

 

[Let's Go Fearless!]

Characters for me. I'm a fan a lot of Rumiko Takahashi's characters despite the stories are average and repetitive.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

A writer can be good at writing characters but not necessarily stories and like I said AT is one that I straight-away thought of just now. He's a person that doesn't even plan ahead, yet he wrote some good characters.

He wrote a few characters that were initially good, but the spark behind some of them tended to see some problems as the series went further, which often correlated with the writing quality. The Cell and Boo Arcs for example saw a lot of problems in not just the plot inconsistency, but characters such as Piccolo becoming fairly directionless or ones such as Goku or Vegeta seeming inconsistent compared to their past actions.

Besides good and likeable are two different things you can have likeable characters but you don't particularly like or care for the stories, there's a reason why slice of life and sit-coms exists.

That is true. In the discussion of "interesting" characters as your initial point was about, however, I'd say that lines more in the criteria of a good character rather than a likeable one. It takes good writing to make a character interesting, whereas many people can find a generic and uninteresting character likeable for a variety of reasons, the main one being relatability. The large amount of popularity in the endless number of self-insert Gary Stus dominating mediums such as light novels, for example, are terribly written but extremely popular due to the wish fulfilment aspect of them. Interest can indeed be a point to make a character likeable, but not one mutually exclusive to them, whereas a well written character usually also has to be one with interesting traits.

We're discussing subjectivity again. Writing is not an equal skill. All writers have their strengths and weaknesses, be it character writing, world building, narrative, prose, dialogue etc. It's up to the reader to determine which of those factors is the tipping point to not liking an Author.

If we were strictly discussing the OP in regard to likeable characters and general preferences, then we would be discussing subjectivity. With the discussion Gog opened, however, the focus shifted to the discussion of good characters in a mediocre or bad story, which requires a far more objective standing to really get anywhere with.

"interesting" characters, "trash" story. He could literally use any example and not be wrong.

"Trash" story is something that can be measured objectively though. Such would be a different case if only referring to it as a story they didn't like, but stating that a story is outright "trash" is something that can easily offer contention and if so, would require more than just the opinion card to validate it in debate.

Good characters in bad or generic stories is how we get tropes. You don't read the 20th iteration of "quirky underdog accomplishes his dreams" shounen if it doesn't make you care about the characters. Likewise in fantasy with "farmboy defeats the dark lord".

And in such cases, the more tropey characters are the ones who definitely feel the weakest, be it from the objective standpoint of writing or the more subjective standpoint of grabbing an audience's attention, given how they're often overshadowed in a fanbase by the more interesting cast members. An example of such would be Gon's popularity in Hunter X Hunter being overshadowed by that of Killua and Kurapika.

 

[Fantastische Hure]

If AT's characters weren't intriguing to at-least some extent, why are people still discussing characters and their relationships to this day from the original manga. Vegeta's relationship with the others, his growth etc. and same goes for others, there is obviously something that's worth discussing to people.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

If AT's characters weren't intriguing to at-least some extent, why are people still discussing characters and their relationships to this day from the original manga. Vegeta's relationship with the others, his growth etc. and same goes for others, there is obviously something that's worth discussing to people.

That depends on the context, in some ways. Providing interest is the first stage of making a good character, but it's not always a be-all-to-end-all for them, especially if their story spans across a long segment of a series. Sometimes, the interest in discussion comes more from questionable writing choices rather than very solid ones.

Also, I was agreeing with you that he indeed made intriguing characters, but he ran out of steam for quite a few of them or ended up ruining them as his writing ability slowly burnt out. Take Yamcha, for example. He started out as one of the most interesting characters in the series with his life as a bandit and the knowledge he accumulated on so many things such as the Kamehameha or Bacterian to the point he was the series' exposition master for the first 2 arcs. All those are interesting traits, but weren't enough to keep him going as the series went in a direction where his experiences couldn't be explored and he gradually went from a valuable source of knowledge to a jobber who received character assassination in the Cell Arc and had been gradually phased out more and more since the start of Z to make Kuririn the staple human fighter, rather than offering Yamcha a more dignified send off from plot relevance like Kuririn had in the Boo Arc.

 

[Fantastische Hure]

Kuririn's send-off was growing hair and getting eaten by Super-Boo. Much Wow.

Either-way though there must certainly be something to those characters for people to talk about so much, even if not just looking at power-levels which is something that gets discussed a-lot. Even Fearless above said it about Rumiko Takahashi's work, it's stagnant a-lot of times but the likeable characters make you want to watch the next episode.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

Kuririn's send-off was growing hair and getting eaten by Super-Boo. Much Wow.

As well as scoring with a hot wife and achieving the peaceful family life, the former which he'd wanted ever since his introduction and the latter being his main goal in adulthood. Compare that to loyal Yamcha being rewritten as a cheater and the girlfriend he got after that never even being shown (not to mention Super pushing the "Yamcha is a loser" narrative as far as it can go outside of the baseball filler).

Either-way though there must certainly be something to those characters for people to talk about so much, even if not just looking at power-levels which is something that gets discussed a-lot. Even Fearless above said it about Rumiko Takahashi's work, it's stagnant a-lot of times but the likeable characters make you want to watch the next episode.

Whilst that can be true, this is where we're getting back more into the subjective nature of likeability, as what makes a character likeable is far less quantifiable as what can make one good, as one person may not find the same character likeable as another person may.
Using Rumiko Takahashi as an example, some people may like the personality of her characters, whilst others may hate the lack of major development given to them to shake things up. For example, many may be frustrated by the harem elements of Urusei Yatsura due to how it's made apparent Lum is the chosen girl from the start and not quickly getting to the point of Ataru choosing her and the series evolving from there could be considered not just a flaw to the story, but in character development due to it being a purely character-driven choice. If someone's priority is on seeing the characters develop with good pacing, this will be a turn off for them, whereas those who care more about colourful characters and sheer entertainment will definitely enjoy them.

Moral of the story, discussion on subjectivity always ends up becoming problematic.

 

[Fantastische Hure]

Even so I would say DragonBall was a good example of that. Not the best written story but the characters.

 

[Boo Brand Milk]

Logically it'd be a great story, but DB is really a shitty story with great characters. Funny how that works.

 

[Fantastische Hure]

DragonBall is good.

 

[Boo Brand Milk]

Other than Namek saga in Z, the story is immensely one dimensional.

The wealth of established heroes and badass villains makes the show legendary.

:rape :1down

 

[Fantastische Hure]

Yeah, but I do like some of the characters growing-up as-well. As-well as some of the relationships and inter-actions.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

Even so I would say DragonBall was a good example of that. Not the best written story but the characters.

Original DB, yes. Z kind of prevents that from being solid as despite having some flairs of stand outs such as Saiyan Arc Piccolo, Namek Arc Vegeta and Bardock, a lot of their arcs ended up running out of steam after their limelight moment.

 

[Pocket-Gog~]

Logically it'd be a great story, but DB is really a shitty story with great characters. Funny how that works.

Dragon Ball's a simple story but that doesn't mean it's a bad one.

 

[Fantastische Hure]

But those things don't get erased out of existence just because the series gets worse and the series was never going to win any awards for outstanding writing.

 

[Kyo]

I'd say Blade Runner 2049 is one example I can think of where a lot of the plot and world, to me, is just not that good or just doesn't work on several levels (particularly when considering the ramifications it has on the original's film plot, which would be spoilerific if I were to discuss but if anyone's seen both movies they might know what I mean). But the film's main character had a pretty good arc. That, and the film's atmosphere in general, made the movie pretty watchable.

Baccano is an anime where the plot pretty much carries the anime despite its lack of characterization. Although, the charisma of the ensemble cast is still a huge factor in drawing the viewer in and having them care about every plot thread in the first place, so it's hard to discount that factor regardless. Which is why my answer to the poll was characters over story. The characters are the entities we're following, the ones who evoke emotions from the audience -- where does the work's pathos come from if not from the characters? (That last statement doesn't apply to Baccano, but in general.)

Obviously the best of the best will have both good characters and plot, and the worst of the worst will have both bad characters and plot.

I do think the quality of plot and characters are somewhat tied together in practice. You'd be hardpressed to find a 2/10 story with 9/10 characters and vice versa. And naturally, the two aspects will affect each other a lot. For example, one of the issues I had with certain episodes of Shingeki no Kyojin was the pacing, but it was the characters' dumb actions that fucked with the plot and affected the pacing in the first place. But there are also aspects of characterization that don't drive the plot. Like-wise, there can be hiccups in the plot that don't affect the characterization (for example, the really janky spoilerific plot point at the end of the director's cut of Evangelion episode 24 that has had fans fanwanking for years has little to no bearing on that episode's character moments, though I realize this is an example that works best in isolation since I generally think Eva has a, err, good plot that is intertwined with its characters). And we don't need to be talking about the extreme examples, i.e. incredibly bad story + incredibly good characters or vice versa. I think the poll would be easier to answer for most if the question were phrased like: "Do you prefer a mediocre/boring story with good characters, or a mediocre/boring cast with a good story?"

 

[Pocket-God]

I didn't say one of the things had to be bad, I just asked which one contributes more to you liking a series.

 

[Kyo]

Right, my bad. Although when people start discussing a question like that it's common that they'll immediately go to the most extreme examples, so not your fault but yeah.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

I didn't say one of the things had to be bad, I just asked which one contributes more to you liking a series.

It's still difficult to fully answer the question if both elements are an equal strength for the series though. As Kyo said, most of the time great works tend to be the result of both good plot and character writing, so it's far easier to judge which one stands out if one of the elements doesn't fully live up to the other.

 

[Notaka]

Good story. If it's going to have a piss poor cast, then at least entertain me with an incredible story.

I'm not going to invest in a terrible story, even if the characters were interesting. It's like a slice of life show, might have interesting characters but the plot is non existent