Interpreting Jugdral Popularity Data, Part II

[mark_asphodel]

OK. So, as a follow-up to this post, here's Gen 2 and miscellany:

Low Tier:
Hannibal 2
Areone 13
Corple 14
Johan 21
Johalva 24
Oifaye 24
Altenna 47

I continue to be surprised by the dearth of Arion art.  The low placing of him and Altena demonstrate that simply being part of the grand sweeping Thracia plotline doesn't land one a great deal of fanart attention... despite the presence of dragons and long pretty hair.  Weird.

Also Low Tier:
All the subkiddies
All FE5 exclusives not named Sara

Color me surprised about Linoan.  I guess the people who like her really like her, and nobody else cares about her or her tragic romance.

Middle Tier:
Alvis 50
Delmud 50
Shanan 51 
Lester 53
Faval 55
Eltoshan 63
Aless 65 
Sara 68 (She's a popular non-canon love interest for Leif)
Julius 90

Can someone explain to me why Shanan and Ares are barely above garbage tier in terms of fanart?  Shanan's one of those sexy swordmasters.  He's got the robes.  He's got the hair.  He has a sword that kills stuff dead.  Then you have Ares, who has a spiffy design, a magic sword, angst, and that whole Black Knight thing.  And yet neither of them stands out in a crowd.  If anything, Ares is buoyed by the people who draw him with Nanna, the same way Eldigan is boosted by Raquesis fans.

High Tier:
Ishtar 106
Patty 109
Skasaha 120
Leen 133
Fee 139 
Arthur 144
Leaf 146

Scrabblebits Ulster has two key factors boosting him above his Tirnanog compadres.  One, he's a twin, and he and Larcei together make for a highly popular subject.  Two, he's a popular love interest for Julia because she's dead easy to pair with him.  Leif's showing looks pretty respectable for an FE4 character until you remember he's a Lord with his own damn game.  I honestly thought Ishtar would be waaaay higher, too.

"Top" Tier:
Sety 182
Lakche 196

LOL.  The 150-199 bracket for Gen 2 basically duplicates Gen 1.  One (1) sexy black-haired "exotic" swordswoman?  Check.  One (1) serious-dutiful-"nice" guy?  Check.  I'd hypothesize that Finn and Ced are more popular than most Jugdral guys because of extra development in FE5, except that FE5 seems to have very little impact everywhere else on this list. Their association with popular ladies likely gives them a boost a la Ulster, but I'm guessing the actual personality type has something to do with it.

Goddess Tier:
Nanna 200 (Essentially tied with her mother.)
Tinny 217
Rana 234

Like I said, get out your raincoats and brace yourselves for incoming moe.  Soppy Tinny and underwritten Lana score bigtime with Pixiv artists.

Messiah Tier:
Celice 263

Sorry if you think Sigurd is all that and a bag of chips and Seliph's a pallid, effeminate substitute for his magnificent father.  Clearly J-fandom gravitates towards the actual hero of this saga, even if he's probably the most tepid Lord in the franchise.  

Super-Special Sparkly Incarnation of Naga Tier:
Julia 458

Wow.  Just... wow.  What even.

I did this with the data Ammie gathered in part because I think that, if we're using art as a metric for character popularity in Japan, we do see some definite trends that aren't necessarily related to how well-written a character is, or how awesome a unit they are, or how big a role they have in the plot.  All that seems to be a factor-- you don't see Alec with 150+ pieces of fanart in the archive-- but overall I kind of think the niche the character fills must matter a lot.  Spunky sword princesses who remain suitably feminine?  Yes.  Dutiful reserved guys who'd meet with parental approval if you brought them home?  Yes.  Seliph, the temperate and malleable Perfect Boyfriend?  Yes.  Gracious all-forgiving magical girls?  Yeah, that too-- with or without a side order of serious mental problems.  There's just a shying away from extremes here-- away from the manly men and distinct alpha males, and likewise away from the "powerful" females who fit into a masculine role like Altenna and Briggid.  And yet also away from the dancing girls and even the peg knights.  Definitely away from all the colorful comical supporting characters-- as I said in a comment on the previous post, it's less about the nuts, flakes, and "crunchy" characters and more like a fandom embrace of, I don't know, a creamy, homogenous bowl of frozen vanilla custard.

Of course, since this is purely working with visual "secondary creations" I have to wonder how the fanfiction stats really go.

Comments

[writerawakened]

Looks like only two people weren't afraid of having their livers eaten/Legions crushed underfoot. (Guessing Hannibal is a Lorenz-Wallace tough guy type?)

[mark_asphodel]

Yeah, he's the resident Lorenz for FE4 (FE5 gives another Lorenz who's even less popular because he has the shittiest recruitment scenario in all of Fire Emblem).

Hannibal's less tragic than Lorenz and far less boisterous than Wallace. I never use him for much in gameplay but I really like his character-- but sexy he ain't even by Lorenz-type standards, so the low fanart count does NOT surprise.

[samuraiter]

No love for the subkids? ... Go stand on the X, please, J-fandom.

[mark_asphodel]

Yeah. Even the subkiddies who enjoy *some* esteem for gameplay, like Linda, didn't have many pieces of art to their credit. Or any.

[knmc]

You Know here in a Fan Art contest, to a friend of mine they think a picture of both Mana and Radney were 'original characthers', the estraz kids are never loved here in western fanon.

Sorry if you think Sigurd is all that and a bag of chips and Seliph's a pallid, effeminate substitute for his magnificent father. And that is what somehow i think of Celice/Seliph, he is so girly in his arts, was so much for Kaga make him a girl?.

[mark_asphodel]

And that is what somehow i think of Celice/Seliph, he is so girly in his arts, was so much for Kaga make him a girl?.

I used to think Seliph was an overdressed twerp, but I've come to respect a lot more just because he's not dumb. And certain other Lords who shall not be named are DUMB. You know the ones.

[jsnd]

"Can someone explain to me why Shanan are barely above garbage tier in terms of fanart? Shanan's one of those sexy swordmasters. He's got the robes. He's got the hair. He has a sword that kills stuff dead."

He take a coffee break from fanart of course

What make this data rather interesting is IMO the fact that J!fandom seems to like Gen 2 more than the gen 1, although its not really surprising since gen 1 is relatively barebones but eh....

[the_geek]

Personally, Gen 2 always felt more... Fire Emblem-ey than Gen 1 did. I don't know why.

[amielleon]

Technically the data here includes fanfiction posted on Pixiv, but Pixiv hosts fanfiction like deviantart hosts fanfiction -- yeah, you can post it, but that's fundamentally not what the site was made for and it doesn't get as much attention, love, or contributions. As far as I know, there's no cohesive archive for fanfiction. The closest idea you can get are with those personal site directories, and you remember how that went.

[mark_asphodel]

Ah, I wondered why I was getting slightly different results in the pic archive last than you posted.

I actually poked through the Pixiv FE4 fanfic archive last night. Hadn't really bothered before; some of it looked promising. And most of it didn't.

[the_geek]

So, kind of like FE-fic over here.

[mark_asphodel]

Yep. Sturgeon's Law in full effect in the home market.