Yes. 　In certain types of stories. 　Like the coming of age shonen material that is extremely popular. I.E. so many of the high school romances where the main character is confessing for the first time, to a person with no prior experience, etc.

Of course, the thread title is broad, so while in many types stories an innocent lead would be antithetical to the motif of the narrative.

Clear?


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Listen here
Livin just to keep from dyin

How to put this...I love yandere. So I like innocence. But there has to be just as much of a dark side to complement it.

i see what your saying but i think the idea that the young shonen protagonist has to be innocent is a little close minded to the fact that anyone can find love and it never has to be portrayed in any specific way with any specific character persona's, i think if you can't see past that then you've just been brainwashed to believe that love can only be found with a pure hearted essence involved.

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why because i am the president of the student council of course

i think it gets annoying after awhile with girls but innocence is mostly good on bishies.

Yes...yes it is!

I want my characters to have more depth and more life experience them them. Which is probably why I prefer manga with 20+ y/o characters. From college students to career salarymen/women, these characters have more to offer to the reader because there's more dimension to them than just school and homework. They have to balance out work, finances, living, romance, and personal wants all in one chapter often. The school idol isn't on their mind constantly, because they have parts of their lives that need to be taken care off first. The rooftop confession isn't a priority because they're lunch break is only fifteen minutes. They get done fighting an alien invasion, but realize they're late for work and need to figure out how they can pay the electric bill this month. As oppose to taking down the monster of the week and going to the arcade and waste their precious allowance.

Innocence is overrated.

To me, most of the time no, but usually it depends on the character/plot/story.

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depends on the content

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D'oh!

Eeerm in the beggining of the story, especially shoujo, the main tends to be innocent. Sometimes it's endearing like Kyoko in Skip Beat! I try to withstand it for a bit but if a character remains innocent for the whole story then that's what pisses me of because I like characters that developed.

All in all, in the beginning: it's ok (for a while)
but if she/he continues to act like a five-year old, then it's a no-no

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"Those phases in our lives are just an illusion; we live one long play which we just cut up into acts. Changes will happen, but it won't really end until the final curtain falls"

Innocence is absolutely fine, great, and awesome, if the mangaka can pull it off- making it natural without going overboard.

... do you think being a "badass" character is over rated?

If she is only innocent in some areas and is able to get mad and able to see when people obviously want to dupe her then having a bit of innocence mixed in her personality is fine. However, if innocence, purity and naivety completely rule over her personality then that just makes her seem like a stupid bubble-head.

Some innocence can be cute and it can work well for stories where you are watching a young character go through life. Sometimes it's overdone to the point its sickening though.

It depends on what you mean by "innocence".

If it's naivety, I absolutely despise it (unless used for comedy). Nothing's worse than a character who has absolutely no clue about anything around him/her. It's especially infuriating when a plot twist can be seen a mile away, yet a main character will mindlessly blunder into it.

Purity? Also hated, mostly because it almost always means "useless". We get it, you're a saint. Now stop being a dead weight. (tolerable if the character has brains and an active intellectual role).

Optimism and idealism? That I can stand, namely because it's the hallmark of nearly every protagonist...so if I hated that, I probably wouldn't be reading any manga at all...

It's part of the character design. I don't know what you mean by overrated. Is it becoming too popular nowadays?

It depends on the plot though. I seriously dislike the shojo use of of 'purity'(virginity?). But I can tolerate 'naivety' in shonen stereotypes. Depends if the 'innocence' suits the story/character... or not (which is mostly the case so I guess it can be considered as over rated)

Hee hee. But I want more 'evil' characters instead of nice protagonists. Light from Death Note was sort of anti-cliched so yea... More 'evil' bishies!!!!!!

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Simply another normal human being...

Nuff said.