So, like, has anyone found a manga equivalent of Mr. Darcy? As I said in that other thread: A man who is pure, devoted and generous to a fault - who is oh-so-proper and stiff-upper-lip and yet given to stunningly heart-throbbing romantic confessions at just the right time... But is also generally a bit abrupt/awkward and socially misunderstood - who is proud, distant, apparently misanthropic and a bit of a loner. (Except that he's secretly a wuv-bear with a heart of cotton-candy.)
From this source, here's a Darcy quote:
Quote from Mr. Darcy
"By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased."
HEH, HEH, HEH. Yeah, now that's what I'm talking about!
Or Heathcliff, who is the original hot bad-boy, wild and dangerous and yet totally, almost creepily devoted to the woman he loves, heart and soul - and yet who has a dark past and a shadowy thirst for vengeance threatening to consume him.
Quote from Heathcliff
"And I pray one prayer–I repeat it till my tongue stiffens–Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you–haunt me, then! The murdered DO haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts HAVE wandered on earth. Be with me always–take any form–drive me mad! only DO not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I CANNOT live without my life! I CANNOT live without my soul!"
Wow, um. Scary. AND YET SO HOT. Goddammit, Heathcliff. You're not even my type, and I can't resist...
I'm also looking for a male protagonist like Mr. Rochester - yet another loner, bound by duties that do not allow him to love, and yet harboring a heart so full of banked passion that, in the end, his duties crumble before it. A man that becomes better for the sake of his love, that matures through that love, that starts out harsh and ill-adjusted and yet softens in a believable and really quite beautiful way.
Quote from Mr. Rochester
I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you–especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you–you’d forget me.
*SOB* Oh, Mr. Rochester! No, I won't forget you! Like I could!
And, last but certainly not least, I'm looking for Erik, you know, from The Phantom of the Opera... A damaged and wounded soul that hides away from society and conceals his true identity - who thinks himself hated and thus kind of is - who yearns for a woman of beauty and light, and yet himself remains chained in absolute darkness. A man who is prisoner of his own grief, and yet finds an inexplicable tenderness within him to reach out to something that is filled with joy... Even if he never quite manages to get it (or does he?). A man who is physically and/or psychologically deformed, yet falls in love with a woman who is all-too-perfect... A woman that he knows is too good for him...
Quote from Phantom of the Opera
"I tore off my mask so as not to lose one of her tears... and she did not run away!...and she did not die!... She remained alive, weeping over me, weeping with me. We cried together! I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer... If I am the phantom, it is because man's hatred has made me so. If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me."
Characters like these, please? And I mean adult men, not, um, teens. Unless they fit the bill really well. Any genre is okay! Shoujo, josei, shounen, seinen, yaoi... As long as there's a male lead that resembles one of the above characters!
The only one I can think of at present is the male lead of Hana no Namae, who resembles the Phantom of the Opera. <3 Thankfully, he's redeemed at the end.
MOAR PLZ!
Last edited by tartufo at 6:17 am, Dec 5 2010