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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesThere is no objective ranking of the best character development in anime. A compelling arc gives a character a recognizable starting point, lets experience or relationships change them, and then makes that change visible in later choices. By that measure, these seven characters stand out for personal, moral, relational, or maturity-based growth—not simply for becoming more powerful.
What makes anime character development compelling?
Development is more than a new ability or a change in circumstances. The useful questions are: Who is the character at the start? What experiences or relationships challenge that outlook? What do they choose later that they would not have chosen before? A character can regress, contradict themselves, or change how they understand their own motives and still have a meaningful arc.
The seven below are a subjective selection, not a consensus ranking. They are discussed through their anime adaptations, with examples kept to broad turning points rather than a claim that every arc is complete or uniformly positive. That scene-based approach is also a sound way to analyze character development: choose a framework, then support it with examples from the work, as the Journal of Anime and Manga Studies article describes.
Seven anime characters with standout development
1. Thorfinn — Vinland Saga
Thorfinn’s arc is a sharp contrast between a childhood shaped by tenderness and a youth consumed by revenge. After his father’s death, he attaches himself to the Viking band led by Askeladd, hoping to earn the chance to kill him. Survival and combat become the terms through which he measures himself; revenge narrows his idea of the future.
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The anime’s chronological adaptation makes that transformation part of the story rather than a gap the viewer must fill in. In an official interview, writer Hiroshi Seko said the team wanted to show Thorfinn’s growth, while director Shuhei Yabuta described the adaptation as showing him change from a gentle boy into a young man who learns to survive and fight. Yabuta put the question this way: “I was interested in seeing how a six-year-old would survive after being suddenly taken in by a Viking band, and I also wanted to see how Thorfinn grew from a gentle boy into the young man he becomes.” The official interview also notes that the anime fills in a period skipped in the manga.
Thorfinn’s development is not a simple upward line: the skills that help him survive also bind him to violence. What makes the arc stand out is the later reckoning with what that life has cost and the struggle to choose a purpose beyond revenge.
2. Naruto Uzumaki — Naruto
Naruto begins as a lonely, disruptive child who wants recognition from a village that fears and rejects him. His wish to become Hokage is partly ambition, but it is also a bid to be seen and accepted. As he forms bonds with teammates, teachers, and allies, his persistence becomes more than a way to demand attention: it lets him understand other people’s pain without giving up on them.
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That change is tested most directly through his bond with Sasuke. Naruto’s commitment to bringing his friend back can look stubborn, but it also reveals a deeper shift: he treats a broken relationship as something to keep working toward rather than discard. In a 2024 interview, creator Masashi Kishimoto said his own changing perspective affected how he continued writing Naruto and that he was satisfied with the resolution of Naruto and Sasuke’s conflict. The official Naruto interview offers context for the creator’s thinking; it does not make any single ranking of character arcs definitive.
3. Sasuke Uchiha — Naruto
Sasuke’s path is a counterpoint to Naruto’s. He starts as a gifted, guarded boy carrying the trauma of his clan’s destruction and a single-minded desire for revenge. His relationships with Team 7 offer a life beyond that mission, but he repeatedly rejects those ties when he believes they obstruct the power or answers he needs.
His development is compelling partly because it is painful and inconsistent. Sasuke’s choices take him further into isolation before he can reconsider what revenge has done to his understanding of himself and others. The eventual resolution of his conflict with Naruto matters not because it erases the harm or makes every decision right, but because it gives their long-running bond a new basis. Kishimoto’s comments on that resolution appear in the same official interview.
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4. Vegeta — Dragon Ball Z
Vegeta arrives as a proud Saiyan prince who treats strength, status, and victory as proof of worth. His early rivalry with Goku is bound up with humiliation and the loss of the superiority he believes should be his by birth. Later, living among the people he once regarded as beneath him, especially through his relationship with Bulma and their family, creates pressures that brute strength cannot settle.
His arc does not discard his pride or turn him into a gentle character. Instead, it changes what he is willing to protect and what he can admit about his own motives. The contrast between his self-image as a solitary warrior and his eventual choices for others makes his development legible: the important shift is not a higher power level, but a widening sense of responsibility.
5. Subaru Natsuki — Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World
Subaru is transported to another world with no special combat skill, but he does possess the ability to return after death. At first, he mistakes that extraordinary burden for a reason he can solve every crisis by trying harder. His confidence, attachment to being the hero, and attempts to control events can hurt the people he means to help.
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Repeated failure forces Subaru to confront the distance between his self-image and his actual behavior. His growth is not simply becoming braver; it involves learning to ask for help, listen, and recognize that other people are not supporting characters in his personal story. Setbacks remain part of the arc, which makes the change feel earned rather than like a permanent upgrade.
6. Rei Kiriyama — March Comes in Like a Lion
Rei is a young professional shogi player whose independence initially looks like competence but is also a way of keeping others at a distance. He carries grief and loneliness into adulthood, and his ability to succeed at shogi does not resolve either of them. The contrast between his public discipline and private isolation gives his starting point emotional specificity.
As Rei encounters the Kawamoto sisters and builds connections in the shogi world, care becomes something he can receive as well as offer. His development is quiet and uneven: it shows in accepting companionship, recognizing other people’s needs, and finding reasons to engage with life beyond winning or enduring. The change is in how he relates to himself and others, not in a sudden cure for grief.
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7. Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama — Mob Psycho 100
Mob has overwhelming psychic power, but he does not want that ability to define his value. At the start, he is reserved and unsure how to express emotion, while his efforts to improve himself focus on ordinary goals such as making friends and becoming stronger physically. His mentor Reigen adds another influence: a flawed adult whose advice and example Mob must learn to assess for himself.
Mob’s growth comes from taking responsibility for his feelings and choices rather than treating psychic strength as either his whole identity or something that can be ignored. His relationships test his judgment, and his increasing self-acceptance lets him acknowledge parts of himself he has tried to suppress. The arc’s central measure is emotional maturity, not the scale of his powers.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Which anime characters change the most?
That depends on what kind of change matters to you. Thorfinn undergoes a profound moral and personal reckoning; Sasuke and Subaru are shaped by painful setbacks and difficult revisions of their beliefs; Naruto’s development is especially visible in how he sustains bonds. Vegeta’s change is relational and moral, Rei’s is intimate and gradual, and Mob’s is rooted in self-understanding.
A useful comparison is to look at the distance between a character’s starting outlook and later choices, while asking what caused the change. A dramatic transformation is not automatically better written than a quiet one. The contrast-and-change approach discussed by creator Aka Akasaka in an official Weekly Young Jump interview is a useful writing lens, not proof of a definitive best-character list.
Why this is a subjective shortlist
No established statistic or authoritative poll in the cited material ranks anime characters by development. “Best” therefore depends on the criteria a viewer values: moral change, emotional maturity, relationships, consistency, or the cost of transformation. These seven arcs offer different answers rather than a single scale, and a character’s development may include regression or unresolved tension as well as progress.
For readers who want to continue beyond the adaptation, Vinland Saga and Naruto also have source manga. The official interviews discuss the relationship between the Vinland Saga anime and manga and Kishimoto’s work on the Naruto source series; the anime adaptations remain the focus of the examples here.
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