Allen Walker is the best protagonist in manga, for many reasons.
First and most obvious is that he is one of few shounen protagonists with common sense. Unlike Midoriya from My Hero Academia, Eren from Attack on Titan, Natsu from Fairy Tail or a slew of other shounen protagonists, he is generally level-headed, practical, and if necessary, underhanded – as can be seen below:
Further, Allen is a very good (and very dark) on the typical Shounen protagonist trope. Normal shounen protagonists are destined for greatness, to save the world. Monkey D. Luffy is the Joy Boy, Natsu Dragneel was the one who defeated Zeref and the Acnologia. Izuku Midoriya is the new All Might. They are all destined to rise to the top and become saviors and heroes, even if some of them may die after achieving that. Midoriya even says in the opening of the manga that his is the “story of how (Midoriya) became the great hero”.
Allen is the opposite of that.
He is indeed a child of prophecy – but he is not destined for greatness, he is destined for destruction, being slowly erased from his own body as Neah is taking over. Allen does not have the strongest power in the series – he is strong, but there are many characters on both sides who could swat him like a fly if they tried. Allen is determined and headstrong in achieving his goals, but this determination is a consequence of repeated torture of being able to see the tortured souls of the Akuma. His goal is not “achieving a dream”, but it is rather the constant, repetitive, never-ending self-sacrifice.
Allen’s childhood is one of deprivation and even torture, to the point that manga (chapter 232) implies he had been sexually assaulted by troupe master of the circus he was working in as a child. Whatever the case, his experiences in the circus had traumatized Allen at an early age, being 9 or 10 years old while there. He has a chronic depression that he hides behind a smiling face and nearly suicidal determination to save both living humans and the souls that were imprisoned within the akuma.
Allen’s trauma is far more personal as well. While he has indeed been abused as a child, that has little bearing on current events. His trauma and adversity cut far more deeply than normal for a shounen protagonist. Luffy is fighting to become a Pirate King, the “freest man in the world”. Natsu fought to protect his friends, and later the world from annihilation. Midoriya is fighting to become a hero, and later also to protect the world. Naruto was shunned by village for having a murderous demon fox sealed within him, and also has to fight to protect his friends. But none of them are facing the adversity that is so destructive and so deeply-cutting as what Allen is facing. In D.Gray Man, it is not just the freedom and the lives of people that are at stake, but their very souls – entire world is facing fate worse than death, and this is especially personal for Allen himself as he too is directly facing said fate as the host of the 14th Noah.
Allen struggles with his own identity, he is unsure whether he should even be alive yet keeps walking because that is the promise he had made – to a person who was the closest to a father he had ever had yet may also turn out to become his greatest enemy.
He is also extremely well rounded character. Allen is not a one-dimensional “nice guy” despite how it may appear on the surface. The nice guy persona is a mask. Allen is indeed a good person, but he is also a liar, a cheater, something of a simp, and very definitely a manipulator. He is ready to cheat and lie his way out of an uncomfortable situation and will sucker punch the opponent should opportunity present itself. And while on one hand he is ready to sacrifice himself for his friends, on the other hand Allen also has an almost pathological need to handle his problems alone, on multiple occasions literally running away when presented with a helping hand.
The way Allen is presented to us is unique. With most other protagonists, we see their backstory – what motivates them to start out onto the hero journey – firsthand, and immediately out of the gate (one exception being Luffy, where we only learn his backstory some 550 chapters in). With Allen, we only start getting his backstory after some 200 chapters – far later in terms of storyline than is the case with even Luffy. For most of the story, we don’t really know where Allen came from and who he is.
What we do see immediately is Allen’s kindness, compassion and determination. He wants to save the Akuma, seeing them for the tortured souls they really are instead of merely the soulless machines. Yet while his powers are obvious – ability to see the souls of Akuma, and ability to destroy their bodies – we do not even begin learning true implications of these powers until much later in the story. Indeed, story itself takes some 40 – 50 chapters to truly pick up. But this allows time to develop Allen himself and to set foundations for what will come later.
Fact that Allen can see the souls of the Akuma makes his desire to save them believable. He is deeply aware that they are not mere weapons, and that the souls are being torn apart by the pain they are in. Over time, as Allen gains friends and people he sees as family, he also gains another goal – to protect them.
And Allen’s character develops with the story – or later, we start seeing more of Allen as a person. Allen’s kindness and determination never go away, yet there is so much more to him – pain, trauma, loneliness and sadness, but also adaptability and resillience. Yet Allen himself is unstable and full of contradictions. His attitude towards the Akuma and desire to save them means that Allen truly is in the “gray zone”, as two sides of the holy war have no compassion for each other – or even for themselves, really. Allen’s desire to save humans and akuma souls both is in contradiction to both the Black Order, which sees the akuma as merely machines of war to be destroyed at all cost, as well as the Noahs, who see the akuma as again machines of war to be used to destroy humanity. Despite this, Allen’s desire to save extends as far as to include the Noahs themselves. And unlike the other protagonists, who will be extremely kind and go to extremes to save even enemies for no clear reason (*cough* Deku), Allen’s kindness is a natural consequence of his ability to see the Akumas’ souls. Allen will smile and generally try his best to make his friends feel safe and content – yet his smile is fake, and only grows faker as life keeps dumping trash onto him.
But Allen’s struggle goes even further. As the host of the 14th Noah, he struggles against being erased, struggles with doubts, identity issues, questions of who he really is or if indeed anyone ever loved him for himself or just because he was a host; if he will lose himself to the 14th or if he ever even was his own person in the first place. Even without the 14th Noah within him, Allen often focuses so much on saving others that he loses himself, his path, and has to struggle to find his way back. Yet he has to keep walking, because if he doesn’t, he will disappear.
Allen is basically a funhouse mirror. Whenever it seems to the reader he has Allen figured out, placed in a box, another twist throws a completely different perspective on his character. Yet these twists are never retcons, they are merely culmination of facts, of groundwork that had been laid down dozens of chapters ago. Allen at the beginning of the story appears completely different from the current Allen and both are also completely different from flashbacks kid Allen. Yet this progression feels natural, and it soon becomes obvious that for all the differences, “three Allens” truly are the same person deep down and that the changing exterior is just a mask.
When we see Allen as a kid in flashbacks he is brash, arrogant, rude and overall incredibly different from the Allen in the main story. Yet this too is a mask that kid Allen had constructed to protect himself from the world that was incredibly cruel to him. Young Allen has closed himself off from the world so much that he does not really comprehend emotions and does not know how to accept kindness. It is only with Mana that he learns to – somewhat – deal with his emotions, allowing his gentle side to show itself. This in fact starts with meeting Allen the Dog, but these qualities carried on with Allen later in life, only becoming more pronounced with time.
The “real” Allen is only apparent at moments. Most of the time Allen wears a mask, deflecting concern and pain away from himself. Yet deep down, he is lonely, scared young man who does not feel he belongs anywhere, and latches onto those who show him kindness and essentially allow him to have a home: first to a dog, then Mana, and now his friends at the Black Order. This is why he tries to save everyone he can, yet his loneliness also impacts how he goes about it, pushes him to break himself without even asking for help. It is only over time that Allen learns to ask for and accept help from others, which presents one of major elements of his character growth. He ends up losing both of his adoptive fathers – Mana and Cross – but because he had learned to accept others into his life, he ends up not being alone the way he used to be before meeting Mana.
Allen’s evolved Innocence is a reflection of himself. Crown Clown, a bringer of hope – but also an armor that protects Allen from the world, and a clown mask that shields his eyes and emotions from being seen by others. Yet Allen keeps on walking, and discovering not just hope but also himself, walking his own path.
Allen’s role in the story is also fairly unique. Usually, shounen stories are told about their protagonists. One Piece is the story of how Luffy becomes a Pirate King and ultimately savior of the world. Fairy Tail is a story about Natsu and Lucy, and while it eventually turns global, they remain front and center. My Hero Academia is literally a wish fulfillment story for Midoriya. Allen Walker is the protagonist, the main character of the story, but he is not front-and-center. Allen is not heavily emphasized at the cost of other characters, and unlike other manga listed here, he is not even the driving force behind the story. It is the Noahs and the Innocence that drive the story, the Millenium Earl and the Heart, and Allen got involved in it entirely by accident. Allen is more along for the ride, being pulled by the rapids, and story itself often takes the spotlight off Allen to allow other characters time to shine: Kanda, Lenalee, Lavi, even the side characters like Johnny and Tiedoll. Yet because these characters all tie back into Allen and his story, they make Allen’s story even more important and interesting even when Allen himself is not actually present. Even though story is not about him, Allen is never really thrown to the side and forgotten; he is always there.
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