Inga from the series UN-GO. My buddy AoiShu recommended this series to me because the main character was very
bendy ^^ It's quite rare to see in anime, I think the only other flexible character I ever saw was Ty Lee from Avatar. Oh and Luffy, lol XD
But after watching the whole thing I gotta admit Inga is also adorable and cute to no end, he's a real sweetie with people he likes and yes he's indeed very bendy and acrobatic and like many kids he gets excited a lot about many things that adults would find nothing special about and he loves to draw adults' attention too, like pulling on his boss Shinjuurou's hand to show him something silly he found ^^
But at the same time he's very different from, say, Radical Edward, I'd even say I haven't seen characters like Inga before, but then I only watched a few anime series, maybe 200 to 300 total :>
Anyways, just had to draw a few contortion poses that I think would fit his character ^^ I very often have these ideas to draw various characters from anime doing something bendy but then a few seconds later I end up realizing it wouldn't quite fit their character. So in most cases it's much easier to create my own characters designed mainly for that purpose XD I was quite excited about Luffy because it fit him totally, and now Inga ^^ Of course Cammy White has always been a great candidate too. But whom else? Ok, I'm babbling now... XD
`anmari has been spreading her infectious positivity throughout our community for over 6 years. Throughout this time Ana has been at the core of all things devious, passionately developing an eclectic gallery, helping organise devmeets, participating in chat events and also recently completed dedicating her time as a Community Volunteer. We are absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for May 2013 to `anmari, congratulations! Read More
Sta.sh
First, actually, splits aren't that uncommon in anime... from the top of my head, Sheril does it in the ep.9 of Macross Fronties, and, by the way, there are some shots of Kazamori doing some stretching in ep.10 of the very same show we're taling about (Un-Go, that is.)
Of course, decent backbends are somewhat harder to come by, but... there is a character who IS, explicitely, a contortionist - Mei Mei from Nagasarete Airantou. (I heard these scenes didn't get in the anime, but the manga gives us this:
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That middle panel, by the way, is not a frontbend, but a full-fledged Ruppel, shown rather obvious in some other scene with her bending... which I can't find right now.)
Actually I was surprised by your site in general, before seeing your website I was sure that the most flexible "anime" character was Ty Lee from Avatar and it kinda pissed me off twice as much because Avatar is an American feeble attempt at mimicking the anime style for marketing purposes, and not a genuine anime. Before watching Avatar I heard about Ty Lee and was sure she's from some real anime, but after finding out that she's from a pseudo-anime I was quite disappointed. Not because of Avatar but because I was thinking that I *finally* found a contortionist character in a real anime, only to discover that it's fake.
UN-GO recently really surprised me a lot because it was a real anime (and you're right about Kazamori too). And your website's findings surprised me even more so, as I've already mentioned. By the way, I remember seeing some rhythmic gymnastics in Ranma 1/2, here I've even clicked through it and found some pages for you: [link] [link] [link] [link] I'm not sure if there's more but there could be ^^
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