Do people relate to human characters more or does any character work as long as they are cool?

[Silver7]

Like a human character such as Satoru Gojo would it be that a character like him would always be more popular than a non-human character?

Then again Sonic The Hedgehog isn't human and he is very popular, so I have to wonder

[moontokkym]

Any character works as long as their feelings speak to the reader. Cool doesn't tend to speak to people on it's own, that's why when you set out to make a "cool" character they often come across as aloof, unkind, stuck up or entitled rather than charismatic (kind of the same as trying to be "cool" irl).

[Oriflamme]

Are they truly not human or just funny shaped humans? The latter is generally harder, but not impossible. It just just might require a little more effort and care. For the former, it is possible, but you need something else to captivate people, that requires a lot more thought.

Also, having a character being human will not make your audience automatically relate to them.

[jwabeasley]

People relate to emotions and situations more than to physical features. Look at the huge array of famous and enduringly popular stories of anthropomorphic animals. In the Hundred Acre Wood, which character are you most like? Almost nobody says they are like Christopher Robin because he's a human.

Donald Duck is a more relatable character for me than Tony Stark. I've never been a super genius playboy philanthropist, but I've had days where nothing seemed to go right, I got frustrated about it, and then made things worse.

[NickRowler]

Seeing how animal characters are popular as well as vehicle characters like from Cars, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Putt-Putt. I think people just want characters that express themselves.

[Lensing]

Donald Duck is a good example. I don´t relate to him because I relate to a duck,
I relate to him because I see my human character traits in him. He is anthropomorphized
and he´s an antihero, that´s why I love him. I only liked Mickey Mouse when I was
a kid, Mickey is cute, but as I grew older I was missing the human flaws because
MM doesn´t have any.

My answer is that I relate to human character traits.

[NOOR_ASAKZ05]

I don't know how Gojo Satoru became a human character because, frankly, he has an exaggeratedly idealized personality that makes him far from being a real human being.

In any case, I am genuinely drawn to human characters who are written with real negatives and positives, and that is the style I follow in writing characters in my stories.

For example, the character Na Hye-soo from the manhwa "Tears on a Wilted Flower" represents the reality of victims of toxic relationships and the state of confrontational bonding, and how the victim can heal from this. Honestly, I was shocked to find a romance manhwa where the female character is written in such a wonderful way, and this is the secret to my admiration for the heroine and the work, even though my peers hate it, and well, they have the right to hate it because of the sexual scenes and the poor development of the male lead.