== Archetypal tsunderes and the transience of (anime) fame

Scamp of [[The Cart Driver http://thecartdriver.com/]]
somewhat recently wrote [[Anime Archetypes: The Superior Appeal
of the Tsundere http://myanimelist.net/featured/412]] for MAL ([[via
http://thecartdriver.com/mal-articles-roundup-6-tsunderes-twintails-and-new-season/]]),
in which he said:

> There are some debates over who the original tsundere is. I've seen it
> argued that Lum from *Urusei Yatsura* was, but she's very open about
> her affection so I don't think it counts. However there's no doubt
> which character became the popular face for the term with anime fans.
> That would be the hot-headed robot pilot, Asuka Langley from *Neon
> Genesis Evangelion*.

While I don't doubt Asuka's current status as the popular and
archetypal 'first tsundere' in anime fandom today, I find this status
interesting. Particularly, it leads me to reflect on the transient nature
of something being a famous or well-known anime. Because, you see, Asuka
is not the first famous tsundere that Western fans were exposed to, not
even the first one in a big series. Who I'm thinking of here is Akane,
from *Ranma 1/2*.

Akane's a clear and undeniable fit for the classical tsundere; she's
hotheaded and quick to mete out some violence to the object of her
affections (that would be Ranma), periodically soft and affectionate,
and of course neither she nor Ranma are at all willing to admit their
love for each other. *Ranma 1/2* itself predates *NGE* by several
years and back in the 90s it had a massive presence in anime fandom.
Despite all of that, today *Ranma 1/2* and memories of Akane have faded
from fandom, including her archetypal tsundere nature (to the point where
Scamp didn't even bother to mention her). Instead she's apparently been
displaced by Asuka, who may not even be a tsundere as such, as well as
later characters that she seems pretty clearly a template for, such as
*Love Hina*'s Naru Narusegawa.

(You can argue a lot about if Asuka actually ever likes Shinji.
As for Naru, Scamp's description of her behavior in [[his article
http://myanimelist.net/featured/412]] applies just as much to Akane.)

I can speculate about various reasons why Asuka has stuck in people's
memories and Akane hasn't, but it's more interesting for me to just note
that it's happened. An entire influential series and its characters, one
that inspired or at least touched a whole generation of fans, has just
disappeared from the modern landscape of fandom. If you'd told someone
in the mid-90s that *Ranma 1/2* would be barely remembered or mentioned
in fandom in twenty years, I'm not sure they'd have believed you. Yet
here we are.

(In the early and mid 90s, even if you didn't particularly like *Ranma
1/2* you could hardly avoid hearing about it if you were part of anime
fandom. People cosplayed, people talked about it, people wrote a huge
number of fanfics (some of them well known and relatively influential),
and so on. You could say that it was kind of the *Naruto* of its day.)

=== Sidebar: Some views on why this happened

I suspect that a fair part of it is a combination of fandom turnover (and
growth) and the relative views of both shows. I wouldn't be surprised if
most old fans from the 90s who've been exposed to *Ranma 1/2* and Akane
have left (modern) anime fandom, and certainly fandom has grown a lot
since then. At the same time, new fans are much more likely to be told
they really should watch *Neon Genesis Evangelion* (which is considered a
classic for good reason) than that they should explore *Ranma 1/2* (which
is, uh, not as good as *NGE* and is much bigger and more sprawling),
so they're much more likely to either see or hear about Asuka than Akane.

(Leaving fandom is not the same thing as not watching anime any more, and
for that matter fandom has fragmented. I know of at least one cluster of
relative oldbies that barely crosses over into the modern anitwitter or
MAL or ANN based fandom. Scamp was of course writing his article for the
MAL fandom audience, since that's where it was published; your mileage
may vary elsewhere.)