Discussion Quality of a series

General subforum as this pertains to novels, manga and anime.

I have a hypothesis that the quality of a work in a jp ln/manga/anime meant for general or male audience is correlated with the ability of readers of the said work to remember the name of the male mc (at the very least, and often also the side chars) just as well as they would remember the name of female characters / waifus, few years after they have watched/read the work.

Of course if they cannot remember either, then the work is either too old or shit.

This can perhaps be generalized to a statement that says the quality correlates with reader's ability to describe the said mc (and their actions). Maybe.

Essentially if I were to ask you few years after you have watched show X that "Hey do you know the name of mc of X?" and you can answer, well the series was probably decent. (bonus points if reverse is true too)

Here are some examples of such question,

1. Hey do you know the names of characters from Toaru series?
2. Hey do you know the name of mc from Infinite Stratos?
3. Hey do you know the name of mc from Haruhi?
4. Hey do you know the name of main cast of Konosuba?
5. Hey do you know the name of characters from Future Diary?

What I would assume the majority answers will be,

Spoiler

1. Misaka, Accelerator, Touma and perhaps Index.
2. idk, I dont know the name lol.
3. Kyon duh.
4. Hai Kazuma desu + Aqua + Lalatina + Megumin
5. The only char name I would expect would be Yuno.

I personally doubt it always holds true in the negative case but it seems to often be true in the positive case.

 

haruri's mc don't have a name

 

Sometimes I can't even remember the name of protagonists from novels I'm currently reading lol.

After reading a lot I don't bother with names anymore. I usually recognize side characters by using their characteristics.

 

haruhi's Mc is not Suzumiya haruhi?
I can only remember the one for konosuba because that is what is popular around me, so even if I had not read it, I naturally know the main chara names

but yeah I agree that if you think a series is good you tend to remember the character names. I usually don't remember character names and if I do it's probably because I had a phase where I was really into the series

 

His name is not revealed but for all practical purposes the name Kyon can be used instead.

 

I can't remember the names but i can remember the role of a character in a story and what they did.
That's the upside of immersive reading where you put yourself as the character following his/her personality. The downside is, if you're not emphatic enough, you might've put your logic in it and think the mc just dumb because you think you can do something else in that situation