1.
Son Goku (Dragon Ball-This is all because of Masako Nozawa. I don't like any other anime, so I probably won't hear any of her other performances, but her roles as the Son family males is the reason why she's my favorite actress. Seeing Goku's joyful and carefree attitude, is really appealing to me since I have OCD. One of my obsessions was working out to the point where anytime I went for a ride, I had to get in the back seat of the car to do crunches, or do pushups in the stall of a restaurant. Even when I was really ill in the hospital, I'd sneak into the bathroom so I could do exercises. I kind of relate to Goku in that way, and watching him, I changed that obsession into a fun hobby. Seeing Goku get brutalized so much and still retain his cheery disposition, helped me cope with the pain from my chronic illness. I know it's silly to take inspiration from a fictional character, but if it helped, it helped!
2.
Batman- (Strange Apparitions, Year One, The Dark Knight Trilogy)-I prefer Batman being grounded as possible, but I like a little fantasy to spruce it up.
3.
Big Boss (Metal Gear Solid Franchise)- The first character by heart broke for! Listening to codec conversations on my second playthrough made that scene hit even harder, such as when Big Boss tries to hide how nervous he was to make the Halo Jump. Unlike a lot of video game characters, he has a character arc that allows for further development in subsequent games. I loved how he was so naive to all the politics and pop culture, unlike his son, "Professor Solid Snake." Big Boss had his hobby as a gun nut and loved the sport of battle. I love how he sad he was in the codec conversations if you killed the bosses before the battle started. That is not Solid Snake! Pun intended. What we learned about his philosophies through Solid, Liquid, Psycho Mantis, Sniper Wolf, Frank Jaeger, Solidus, and MGS3 is enough to get him this high on the list. I don't understand why fans want him to become some mustache twirling villian, when Sniper Wolf compared him to Saladin and Gray Fox said that he believed in what they were doing. I know the cool thing is to hate on him, but I'm loyal to myself. Pun intended again! As soon as we learned that Solid and Liquid were clones, I couldn't wait to learn more about the "real Snake." Not only only are we going to see the character in his prime, but we got to grow with him starting from MGS3. Bring on MGSV! From playing MG2 and MGS, I was under the impression that Frank Jaegar kind of like his Tommy Hagen, and Big Boss was Vito Corleone, so I'm hoping for something like that!
4.
Vegeta (Dragon Ball)
5.
Michael Corleone (Godfather Trilogy)
6.
Walter White (Breaking Bad)
7.
The Joker (The Dark Knight Trilogy, The Killing Joke)
8.
Homer Simpson (The Simpsons Seasons 1-8)- 1. American Bonehead 2. To Pull a Homer- to succeed despite idiocy.
9.
Daredevil (Frank Miller, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker)
10.
Bane (Venom, Vengeance of Bane, Sword of Azrael, pre-Knightfall issues, Knightfall, Vegeance of Bane II, Legacy, Bane, Bane of the Demon, No Man's Land, Veritas Liberat) - Probably the most inspirational character for me as a kid. One of the best aspects of Bane is that he had a complete story arc and was one of the only villains where it made sense that he kept re-appearing. He was his own character and didn't need Batman in a story to be interesting. As evil as he was, I always had sympathy for him.
Here was my workout routine as a teenager, thanks to Bane:
I'm sorry if I wrote too much!
