The most intellligent anime character

[Bakaizer]

Some guy ranked various characters according to intelligence.
. I want to hear your thoughts. and tell me why does izaya have two ranks lol

[speedyexpress48]

This thread is worthless.

Seriously.

[Jan-Poo]

As much as pointless as the series of "x vs y" of screwattack! on youtube.
This is not unlike any discussion of who is the strongest superhero of all time and who's stronger than whom.

Well first of all, intelligence is really an umbrella term, there are many kinds of intelligence and it's not really easy to compare them, and it doesn't even make much sense.

Secondly, when it comes to fiction sometimes characters are just unreasonably skilled, simply because the author is making things going their way. And sometimes there's just a plain inconsistency.

For example Accelerator can perform thousand calculations per second, he can even make calculations related to a bullet that is coming his way, which also implies superhuman reaction time. Later he loses this ability but he regains it through a proxy network (which then begs the question if he can still be considered a genius).
But then even with that external help he cannot calculate nor predict how the punches of a normal man will move, even after he explains what he does.
Moreover Accelerator forgets he can fly or superjump when he is in a pinch, and insists on using wind to attack from afar when he could simply use projectiles. That screams stupidity to me.


Now let's take Shiro fron NGNL (I suppose that's the Shiro in the list). If you consider what she does in the series it's simply insane. Shiro can use her computational skill to predict human behavior with an almost absolute precision. That's something that even Yuki Nagato (first in this list and erroneously labeled as omniscent) cannot do.
Think about this: if there was Shiro instead of Ryouko Asakura in that famous episode of Haruhi, would she have missed?

Basically Shiro can calculate what Yuki cannot simply because she exists in a fictional universe where what she does is possible.
It's like, well, concluding that the strongest super robot in anime history is Gurren Lagann. That's really not a fair contest.

[Triple_R]

There's probably too many anime shows for a discussion like this to work well. It would probably come down to series/character favoritism on the part of competing fans.

Plus, weighing certain intellectual feats against each other could be tricky. Galilei Donna has a young girl who built a fully functional and armed goldfish mecha-ship that can comfortably carry several passengers, and she did it all on her own. Phi Brain has a teenage guy that solves highly difficult elaborate puzzles with consistent brilliance. How do you measure these against each other? And that's just the teeny tiniest tip of the iceberg, of course.


This sort of discussion might work with comic book characters because you have big, sprawling shared universes that provide a decent basis for comparison, but it's much harder with anime, I think.

[Jaden]

Yeaaahh, too many characters out there are just omnipotent by design. It's impossible for me to be impressed by the intelligence of someone like that.

For example...

Shiro and Sora: Hi, we grew up in a basement playing games and now we're the absolute world champions at everything imaginable. OK then.

Yuki Nagato: Born with full understanding and mastery over everything in the universe (other than Haruhi). Wow, you're so "smart".

I guess I'd vote for Lelouch, because while he has a superpower, it's all about how he uses it. Light is also quite similar. These shows actually give some insight into the mind of the genius and how they come up with their schemes, in a somewhat believable manner. That's the kind of intelligent character I like to see.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Rather than claiming certain characters from certain series being more intelligent than others, I'd like to address more about the steady grow of popularity for MCs who are awesome for being strategists, schemers, planners, or all-around outside-the-box thinkers that pretty much became one of the the driving force of their respective shows (outside of murder-by-murder detective genre of course), for example:

Shiroe (Log Horizon), Chihaya Gunzou (Arpeggio of Blue Steel), Sora (No Game No Life), Katsuragi Keima (The World God Only Knows), Hachiman Hikigaya (Love Kome wa Machigatteiru), and many others.

Could this be the after effects of the mega-popularity of Lelouch, Light & L and their respective shows? Basically, MCs who you expect to say "Just as planned" after they solved a problem at the end of the day .

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Could this be the after effects of the mega-popularity of Lelouch, Light & L and their respective shows?

That's some of it. But I think a lot of it is a reaction against the classic dense milquetoast anime male lead. I think a lot of the anime/manga/LN fandom is tired of this sort of generic and often indecisive character type that can be a bit of a pushover at times.

I think there's been a shift away from this type of character to a more wish-fulfilling "winner" type of character. An impressive take-charge sort of guy rather than someone who's at the complete mercy of hotheaded haremettes and harsh tsunderes.

[risingstar3110]

The list is more on how popular these intelligent characters are rather than anything else. Near, L, Katsuma for example, was on a realistic side, they are nowhere as intelligent as Shiro (NGNL) when it comes to calculate bullets projections and things like that

And then of course we have to identify intelligent at what field. For example, on making intelligent facepalm remark, Kyon (Haruhi) would top the list.

[speedyexpress48]

Ok, maybe I was a bit too cruel at first. Still, there are massive problems trying to carry out a discussion like this one.

First of all, what does "25 intelligent characters ranked" even mean? I'm assuming intelligence, but...some of the characters on the bottom of the list are more intelligent than the ones on the top. And intelligent how? There are like a million omnipotent characters in anime, so now what?

In the end, it's all a popularity contest, which is fine, I guess. But it's hard to do actual comparisons.

[GreyZone]

I think it would be better to rate the character's intelligence by the scale of the person's actions and the deductions they reveal. But that is not always possible because in a lot of cases either their thoughts and deductions are not revealed to the audience at all, or the characters themselves try to hide the fact that they are very intelligent.

So we cannot really make an accurate guess about who IS the most intelligent one, be it by stats, opinions of other characters, or their actions... we can only make an accurate guess about who APPEARS to be the most intelligent one, with the limited amount of information we have and that is probably completely different to the intelligence levels the respective authors of the works had in mind.

[Lenneth4]

lmao , no kindaichi hahahah

wow.

[ArabianLuffy]

So many characters with high IQ to count aren't in this list.

You failed.

[kirikirito334]

And they are in different situations and context so, there's really no concrete way to determine highest IQ.

[GuZidi]

No love for Golgo 13 "Duke Togo" the assassin I guess.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by ArabianLuffy

So many characters with high IQ to count aren't in this list.

You failed.

And you nailed another problem there. In order to make a fully comprehensive list you'd need someone who has watched all anime in existence.

Unlike a beauty contest, you'd need more than a few pictures and a few seconds to judge how intelligent a character is.

You could split the job between different people, but then how can you create a standardized measure of intelligence? It's not like you can take the characters and make them take an IQ test.

[ArabianLuffy]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

And you nailed another problem there. In order to make a fully comprehensive list you'd need someone who has watched all anime in existence.

Yeah, someone who watched animes from 80s to now would take forever to list most intelligent.

Strategists in wars, sports and anything
Crime solving people as detectives
Agents
Martial Art practitioner
Students
Hackers
Terrorists

etc

so from where you're gonna start

Actually, intelligence can be used in everything.

[GreyZone]

How about limiting everything to people who were shown to create plans on "keikaku level" (yes I know I just said "plans on plans level", but for me "keikaku" has become a synonym for a "plan that perfectly predicts the behaviour of people from the moment it was created and leads to a certain goal").

Additionally we can also add people who were able to counter such keikakus using intelligent (being simply unpredictable does not count).

I think with that we could severly limit the list by quite a bit.

[Irenicus]

I think the whole notion's still bloody stupid. What is intelligence? Can I eat it? How do you even rank it?

And don't tell me it's the IQ 220 (!!) Super Moe Mentats. Those are fun and cool characters and they certainly fit one criteria of intelligence, but to extrapolate that into them topping some imaginary list of Anime Ubermensch is a sign of one-dimensional immaturity from the list's creator.

Even the just-as-keikaku types are set in specific settings that vary dramatically in the degree by which the author dumbs down other characters, and the plot, to accommodate their just-as-keikaku-ness.

Anime has always emphasized the appearance and impression of intelligence over philosophical digressions into the nature of sentience and intelligence, as it should given that it's a proper entertainment medium that's supposed to entertain first and foremost. Not that you can't think about it: we can certainly say this and that character is intelligent, because clearly they are designed to be so -- and there can be interesting discussions about the level of intelligence of some characters. Perhaps Mr. Mediocre Grades is actually a genius in disguise because of his emotional intelligence and/or kickass references that reveal his cosmopolitan interests; cool, awesome thesis, work on it and share with your fellow fans (Kyon's a genius! Here's why, A, B, C). But to try to compare different fictional universes because Light can TOTALLY kick Lelouch's ass? lolwutwhywhocares?

[Fireminer]

I don't know much, but real robot protagonist (especially Gundam) is on the upper spectrum. Any kid that could learn to pilot (and even design in some case) a giant robot without going to a true boot camp is certainly not your average.

(Excluding case with Magic or Magitek - Like Evangelion, Linebarrel and Valvrave.)

[Tenzen12]

Originally Posted by Irenicus

I think the whole notion's still bloody stupid. What is intelligence? Can I eat it? How do you even rank it?

And don't tell me it's the IQ 220 (!!) Super Moe Mentats. Those are fun and cool characters and they certainly fit one criteria of intelligence, but to extrapolate that into them topping some imaginary list of Anime Ubermensch is a sign of one-dimensional immaturity from the list's creator.

Even the just-as-keikaku types are set in specific settings that vary dramatically in the degree by which the author dumbs down other characters, and the plot, to accommodate their just-as-keikaku-ness.

Anime has always emphasized the appearance and impression of intelligence over philosophical digressions into the nature of sentience and intelligence, as it should given that it's a proper entertainment medium that's supposed to entertain first and foremost. Not that you can't think about it: we can certainly say this and that character is intelligent, because clearly they are designed to be so -- and there can be interesting discussions about the level of intelligence of some characters. Perhaps Mr. Mediocre Grades is actually a genius in disguise because of his emotional intelligence and/or kickass references that reveal his cosmopolitan interests; cool, awesome thesis, work on it and share with your fellow fans (Kyon's a genius! Here's why, A, B, C). But to try to compare different fictional universes because Light can TOTALLY kick Lelouch's ass? lolwutwhywhocares?

I don't particulary agree, you can compare characters from different universe. Simple rule is unrealisticaly smart characters are automaticaly smarter than realistic ones and genius in various aspects smarter than specialised ones.
-You can say that Yuki Nagato has highest IQ out of all, you can also say Blank would be able outsmart her 10 times from 10.
-You can say that Light and Lelouch are roughly around same level
-as well as Katsuragi Keima but whose inteligence is more specialised, so in THIS case there is no realy point comparing them. He would win if conquest, loose otherwise.
-Victorique is smarter than Oreki and Kindachi, but around same lv. as Conan
- Izaya, Urahara can't be realy compared to each other unless you actualy on same level, because these actualy doesn't allow show extend of their inteligence and keep own wild card Status, both of these would be able screw plans of Lelouch or Light, but not Sora who is unrealisticaly good in reading people (and shinigami in this case). And person who is genius in two or more areas is smarter than specialised genius. Detectives are too specialised thus

-Armin, Edwart and Motoko actualy shouldn't be even mentioned, they are indeed smart, but they aren't on same level with characters WRITED as geniuses.

Spoiler for my ranking:

1. Yuki Nagato (brute IQ beat all when stats is what counts)
2. Blank (composited character Sora+Shiro)
3. Accelerator
4. Shiro
5. Near (I belive he was explicitly stated to be smarter than L)
6-8. L/Light/Tatsuya (he is there only due composite inteligence, he suck otherwise and I don't mind lower his rank anytime anyone ask.)
9. Lelouch (becouse he makes mistakes)/Keima Katsuragi (too specialised to be precissely ranked)
10-12. Izaya/Sora/Urahara (too much unknown to be compare them between each other)
13-14. Victorique/Connan (both are too specialised to rival higher ranks)
15. Kurisu-tina - realistic writen scientist, might actualy on same level as detectives

PS: Unless Light had Misa with him, Lelouch would be win. Because while they are roughly on same level Lelouch require less steps to reach goal.