Miguel Rivera (Coco)

Miguel Rivera is the main character of Coco. He is a young aspiring musician who struggles against his family's generations-old ban on music. Despite this, he actually does keep his musical side hidden. When a magical mishap lands him in the Land of the Dead, Miguel seeks out his idol, Ernesto de la Cruz while he attempts to return to the Land of the Living before consequences do happen.

Why He Rocks

 * 1) He's inspired to become a great musician which is rather realistic in the sense that many views like the kids and adults can feel like they want to become anything they want to be like an artist. Sure, it can take a while but at least Miguel knows that he can follow his dreams.
 * 2) The way he lives with his family during the beginning in the film is deep because his family would ban music for some reason due to such belief that it was a curse. If you had a family that bans stuff for the silliest of the reasons, how you would feel? However, that didn't stop Miguel to see music differently compared to the rest of his family.
 * 3) He does have impressive musical skills thus singing some good songs like Un Poco Loco and Proud Corazón.
 * 4) His betrayal with Ernesto de la Cruz is really touching because that goes to show you that just because some people are talented and do act nice at first, does not always mean that these people are actually good thus dubbing them as wolves in sheep's clothing. He also learned that Héctor was actually telling the truth.
 * 5) He alongside Mamá Coco contributed to tell the truth about Héctor to the family which lead to the rest of the family members to realize that they were a little hard on Miguel (though Coco did most of the work, but at least Miguel did helped Coco to get her memories restored by singing Remember Me). You can actually hear the sadness in his voice when he started to sing for Coco.
 * 6) *Similarly enough, he's a key role in mending Imelda and Hector's relationship, as he revealed Imelda that Hector was trying to return home to her and Coco but De la Cruz murdered him before she could get home.
 * 7) He's normally portrayed as a cheerful, energetic, and adorable boy with an adorable design.
 * 8) He started to have this character development where he wants to wish to follow the footsteps of Ernesto de la Cruz regardless of what his family things of him after years of having his dreams stifled. However, he's also insecure as well and started to show some unappreciation towards Día de Muertos. As he went to to land of the dead, he started to learn what Día de Muertos really means and reconnected with his family thus learning that family is more important which is a good message.
 * 9) He does have some moments that are admittedly funny such as thinking that vitamins were just a thing made up by adults or suggesting music ideas for Frida.
 * 10) He's is friendly like when he started to have a fast friendship towards Héctor when they first met (Though it was later revealed that the latter happens to be Miguel's great-great-grandfather) or is simply likable to everyone he meets. This also makes him to be able to help others like agreeing to put up Héctor photo.
 * 11) It may be true that he does not like arguing with his family, he actually a familial person. It becomes more notable at the end of the film and when he was in his journey in the Land of the Dead.
 * 12) He can come up with plans, especially when going to steal back Hector's photo from Ernesto.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) He's also stubborn as seen in his argument with Imelda.
 * 2) In the beginning he was insecure and somewhat unappreciative of the Día de Muertos. He also had that hypocritical moment when he accuses Héctor of only caring about himself while reneging on their deal to save Héctor from becoming Deader Than Dead to pursue his own musical dream.
 * 3) While Miguel is street smart and witty, he's somewhat lacking in the academic department.
 * 4) When he stayed too long in the Land of the Dead, he started to turn into a skeleton which is not to bad at first for some viewers, but he starts to become disturbing to some when he transforms even more.

Trivia

 * Miguel is Pixar's first human protagonist for a full-length feature film not to be caucasian.
 * Miguel's shoe size is size 7½ in Mexico, or 9 US.
 * According to Miguel's footprints and his late relatives, his right foot is pronated. It remains unknown whether or not the same applies to his left foot.
 * The name "Miguel" is the Spanish variant of the English name "Michael", so in a way, Miguel's name in American tongue would be "Michael Rivera".
 * Miguel was going to be an American child who had trouble coping with the death of his mother in the earliest story draft of the film; this would have been resolved with him learning to let go of his grief. However, since this went against the meaning of Día de Los Muertos, Pixar abandoned that concept to prevent misrepresentation as seen in Pocahontas and Ratatouille
 * Miguel's design was inspired by two real-life kids who were Emilio Fuentes (who provided the original scratch voice for Miguel while the movie was in development) and Adriel Arriaga (the son of a character designer)
 * In early drafts and deleted scenes, Miguel was originally called Marco, who was more confident and arrogant. He was originally not cursed when he stole Héctor's guitar as it went to the deceased Riveras instead (causing them to sing strangely whenever they open their mouths). He originally was also able to cross the bridge to the Land of the Dead with Héctor's guitar as his ticket. Marco was redeveloped into Miguel because the production team realized that Disney had another character named Marco from Star vs. the Forces of Evil who looked exactly like Miguel.