He Just Like Me, fr
I have never in my life related to a character as much as I do to Laios Touden.
To those of you who don't know who that is, that is the protagonist of a little show called Delicious in Dungeon, or Dungeon Meshi: it's a pretty standard fantasy show by all regards with elves, dwarves, magic, the titular dungeon, but with one central difference - the main cast of characters are dirt poor after a dungeon trek gone exceedingly wrong and are now forced to eat whatever they find. Laios, when introduced with this burden, seems willing to take it on himself and bear the brunt of the pain. He seems a little too willing, in fact. You know, I think he's liking this.
This man is your standard fantasy adventuring knight: he's a tall male human with blonde hair, a love of every living creature, and an undying determination to complete his quest. However as just mentioned, this man has an obsession with eating monsters. Even before the plot started, he was just carrying around an entire monster cookbook inside his armor1 which he already read start to finish. Everyone thinks he's an utter freak for this, both in and outside of the show, which leads to a lot of comedic moments.
Except for me. Seriously, while watching the show I thought "haha, people are reacting negatively to him, but he's not that weird. A little excited maybe, but man if I could eat cool new delicacies of course I'd rush right ahead. Why wouldn't you want to do it?" But then I talked to some other friends of mine who watched the show, who also thought he was a freak, and I realized "oh. oh ok it's just me." Turns out most people think this kind of behaviour is odd, or even awkward. However, I do not care.
I think this man is the greatest. He is friendly, he has a topic he loves and can talk at length about, he's helpful, he's apparently a good cook (when given a good recipe), and so far This Man Can Do No Wrong2. He is hilarious and I empathize with him heavily when he goes on giant rants regarding topics no one asked him to talk about before being told to shut up by his friends.
However before finishing I feel it's a bit pertinent to mention that Laios is autistic. Like, it's laid on as thick as a layer of concrete. Unsubtle. Impossible to misunderstand layer of autistic. As far as I am aware I am not, but this is probably something else I should ask my therapist about when I eventually go back to see her.