No, way – Jazz had him beat by a Cybertronian mile. The guy grooved to good rock music, transformed into a Porsche, and was voiced by Scatman Crothers, for Primus’ sake!
And he didn’t need any electronic flanging to twiddle his voice, either…
Alita from Battle Angel Alita – man she’s cool.
Coolest character ever: Bugs Bunny. Definitely epitomizes the concept: no matter what, he never even got singed, and definitely never lost his cool.
And, in the campy sense of the word, The Tick. Spooooooon!
ggurl
(in order of appearance)
Muttley (of Wacky Races etc)
Foghorn Leghorn
Johnny Bravo
… Hmm, I think there is some common thread there, probably something to do with their indominatable egos.
The Tick would be there too, (hmm, for the same reason!) if it wasn’t for the fact that I found the TV series to be vastly inferior to the original comics. 
You will notice I’m new to the board. My husband asked me to throw in my two cents, I don’t know why.
I saw a lot of great characters from other folks; Bugs Bunny, The Brain, Wolfwood from Trigun, Marco from Porco Rosso, Ed from Cowboy Bebop, etc.
Here are my honorable mentions:
Arthur (The Tick) because he is not well-nigh invulnerable
Earthworm Jim
Saitou Hajime (Rurouni Kenshin)
the Baron (The Cat Returns)
The grand prize for utmost coolness goes to Monkey D. Luffy from One Piece. He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer and he rarely thinks before doing but he has so much heart he is cool. Also, he really seems to enjoy being a rubber man and doesn’t repine that he didn’t get a more ostentatious power like fire.
He is the guy who will pull a buried 6 foot carnivorous bunny out of the snow despite having just been attacked by that bunny. He is the pirate who’s greatest treasure is a battered straw hat.
Hmmm…a strong challenge to Faye, at the very least!
An honorable mention should go to Blaster, the Autobot Boom Box, and his cassette warriors.
Now, now. There’s no need to be snarky.
“It’s easy to be cool when you’re head, mouth, and body are drawn on different cels.” “It’s easy to be cool when you’re only composed of 7 colors.” “It’s easy to be cool when you don’t have shadows or highlights.” See how immature that sounds?
Tarrsk and Bosda Di’Chi, don’t you guys start it, either. It’s perfectly reasonable to compare (animation-wise, obviously the content usually doesn’t match up that well) Eek the Cat to Ranma ½, Scooby Doo to Macross, or the Cowboy Bebop movie to Treasure Planet. It is NOT reasonable to compare high end movie animation from last year to inexpensive TV animation from the 60s, 70’s, or 80s. Or even cheap TV animation from today. Comparing Millennium Actress to Cartoon Networks latest crap-fest is no more reasonable than comparing DBZ to The Little Mermaid.
You may notice than ‘animation’ fans never do this, but that’s no excuse for us to start.
Ideally you’d want to compare the same KINDS of show as well, but that may be too much to ask.
–
Now we’ve gotten that out of the way. Eat Man ‘98’s Bolt Crank. BGC’s Largo. Another vote for Saito Hajame. (“I know somewhere safer than Shanghai. It’s called Hell.”) Though Kenshin’s master, Hiko, was pretty damn cool in his own right. (Kenshin himself was only cool while in battosai-mode, unfortunatly) Sergei/D, the scientist/agent/assassin/geist addict from Key the Metal Idol. (“You don’t have the slightest evidence for this non-scientific drivel.”) Megabyte from Reboot, dispite the silly name. (Dot had her moments, too. And she had a ridiculously phallic strap-on gun. “Does it make me look too butch?”) Folken Faniel from Escaflowne. He was cool while wearing a dress, which is tough for a guy. Another for Optmus Prime. Ashraum from Record of Lodoss War, who took the armor-and-long-hair thing about as far as it can reasonably be taken. (Sorry, Viggo)
Damn. Just too many. Maybe we need to subdivide the category some. Coolest animated hero, coolest animated villain, coolest animated supporting character, coolest animated father-figure, coolest animated cross-dresser . . .
Saber Marionette’s Faust should get some kind of award for innovative coolosity. Conventional wisdom, of course, is that turning evil makes you cooler. While evil, he was a whiny, abusive putz. Once he redeemed himself, he was utterly badass. And he did it while wearing a very fey pastel cowboy outfit.
Damn, forgot Kuno! How could I forget Kuno?
I hated “Hellsing”, but when it comes to being cool I suspect Alucard does have it made (the series was based solely around that very premise as far as I can tell).
But my personal favourite character remains Mutley.
The guy from Heavy Metal who was on trial at the space station.
Stern, I think his name was.
He had this big hulking guy chasing him through a space station and he just whips out the cash and saves his ass.
Top Cat.
I agree,
Also, I agree with the earlier postings on Trigun and Cowboy Bebop.
Race Bannon
No one else even comes close.
well… maybe Mutley.
I see Samurai Jack has already been mentioned, but I have to mention him again, if only for the scene at the end of the big battle in episode 3.
I think R. Dorothy Wainwright from “Big O” has a shot at the title as well. Unless, of course, Big O himself counts as a character in which case he out-cools Dorothy by several orders of magnitude.
Mine (in order):
- Bugs Bunny (again, old-school only)
- Stewie Griffin
- Bobby Hill (he’s such a delightfully odd kid)
- Homer Jay Simpson
- Eric Cartman