Five Of My Favorite Anime Girls

So this apparently drove the internet insane a couple of months ago but I only saw it on a podcast yesterday, in a video discussing the fallout. No, I don’t mean putting the K-On poster where Bocchi The Rock should of been because I didn’t catch it. A few commenters did or I wouldn’t have mentioned it. Apparently someone said they wanted more female protagonists in anime and he listed a bunch to show that are out there in shows that should have more attention. This, of course, got him hit face first by the culture war and people who know less about anime than the girl he was responding to because some activists don’t just want a seat at the table they’re allowed to have. They want to be head of the table, then have the table made for them alone, then the only one at the table, and then they want that table over there because they don’t have it and insist that’s “gatekeeping”. That’s all I’m saying about all that, but here’s his video responding to his attackers. Watch it if you want. I’m moving on.

While I prefer to have as little to do with the culture war on this site that I can as it’s not the main topic (and yet harder to ignore every day), this did inspire a topic. In the past I’ve done articles on favorite female characters, proving there are good ones out there if you actually look for them. They don’t have to be the protagonist because my favorite character isn’t always the main one. Often it is, but that doesn’t decide whether a character is a favorite. It’s based on how cool they are, would I want to hang out with them, and do they give me some kind of positive inspiration despite not “looking like me”. See, I can’t even escape this crap in the intro after saying I didn’t want to touch it again. I’m not above using the culture war to make an article, though, especially at deadline. If I can hold my buffer for real emergencies, I’d like to.

So while this is fresh in my mind, here are five of my favorite Japanese drawn lady people and I’d totally hang out with them. Note, I said “HANG out”. I specifically chose characters that I wouldn’t be interested in anything romantic or sexual to further prove to anyone obsessed with sex that some of us still believe platonic friendships exist and a boy and a girl can totally chill out and fight aliens with giant robots together…especially given how many minors are on this list. Like the first one!

“That skull’s not uncracking anytime soon.”

Tomo Aizawa

Tomo-Chan Is A Girl

Let’s see if I can finish off the culture war invasion for awhile, because it’s rare to see a straight tomboy on TV…and it ain’t comin’ from any Western country writer. In Japan, crossdressers aren’t trans or butch lesbians. They CAN be, but nobody insists all the drag queens want to alter their bodies. Tomo isn’t a crossdresser. She’s a tomboy. It’s not surprising. Her mom was also a tomboy while her dad runs the tough as nails karate dojo she and her best friend and neighbor, Junchiro, study martial arts at. With those genes it’s not surprising that she’s taller and stronger than most Japanese high school girls and she’s proof you don’t have to be a “girlboss” to realistically beat the tar out of bullies, especially in a comedy.

All of that makes it easy to accept she can fight school tough guy delinquents, be so good at sports she has to compete on the boys team just to have a challenge (and because she scares the girls to death), and that people have trouble immediately recognizing her as a girl…until they see her two clear bits of evidence. And I don’t mean the female legs kicking your chest in. Look, she’s a teenager in a show meant for teenagers. In Japan. Fanservice is a thing, and in this case they’re just there as evidence and the occasional gag, not titillation. Deal with it or stop trying to culturally appropriate Japanese media.

Her real strength comes not from her body but from her heart. As she says multiple times in the sadly too short anime, if you’re her friend and in trouble, of course she’s going to help you. It’s in her nature. She will fight, she will help, she will listen, she will do whatever it takes, even if its embarassing or dangerous, for her friends. It’s equally easy to believe that her can-do attitude, her determination, and her self-confidence are an inspiration even to the captain of the boy’s karate club she’s forced to join because of the level of martial arts training she gets at home.

Slight caveat to that “self-confidence” thing, though. She’s totally in love with Junchiro, her friend since he moved to her town when they were children. The series opens with her confessing that love…and him appearing totally clueless that it’s not platonic love she’s talking about. Too bad he’s got his own confidence issues and didn’t know until middle school that Tomo even was a girl, when he saw her in a dress for the first time as part of the school uniform. (They went to separate schools before then, but apparently nobody used a pronoun around him. Japanese language is strange.) So the show is about Tomo, aided by her friends Misuzu and Carol (a British girl unless you listen to the VA…who sounds closer to like New England than old England in the dub), tries to prove she’s a girl without changing everything that makes her Tomo Aizawa.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m obsessed with this anime, but whenever it hits the Crunchyroll freestream rotation, Sling is told to record it for me and I do love watching it. I just wish there were more seasons and I could get the original manga. I love all these characters, but we’ll get to that show at a later date. Time for girly #2

Cool robots AND awesome swords and capes? What more could you want?

Hikaru Shindou

Magic Knights Rayearth

I was first introduced to this series through a sampler manga by Mixxzine and then stumbled upon a fan translation of the anime. Now I have the full series in manga volumes, but sadly only season one on official DVD, though I have seen the end of season two streaming. I still want to get the full series in my collection, and now there’s a new anime adaptation coming out in October. I hope they don’t use the manga’s final twist. It never sat right with me. You can see my manga reviews here on this site, and I used the show for Saturday Night Showcase. Actually, twice due to circumstances.

Frankly, any of the Magic Knights could be on this list. I can identify more with the other two. Umi is sarcastic and serious with a bit of a temper, plus she has water powers. Fuu is the team healer thanks to her wind magic, but she’s also shy but willing to help others. She’s also a bit of a nerd, though she’s more into fantasy RPGs than I am. There isn’t a bad female character on this show. Even the show-only villainesses are interesting to watch as you cheer their defeat, and the girls turn other antagonists into friends and allies before the show is done. I like when both happens.

However, I can only put one on the list and Hikaru is best girl by my definitions. She’s in 8th grade, so excuse the 53 year old man for not being attracted to her. We call that “#$%#$%ing normal, you pervs!”. She’s just that great to watch. Hikaru, like the others, were drawn to Cephiro, whose connection to willpower puts the Green Lantern Corp to shame, to save the world. Hikaru immediately takes up the challenge…unaware of the first major twist of what that actually entails. Having a personality that matches her looks rather than her chronological age (something else I relate to as my aging seems to have gone slow since high school outwardly…though not inward), it’s not surprising she gets the fire magic, becomes the de facto leader of the trio, and gets the title Mashin, Rayearth. She’s brave, heroic, will put her life on the line for her friends…she and Tomo could get along. She even has her own dojo ties.

Falls just short of the anthro list for cuddle interest. I don’t think she has lips.

Aisha Clanclan

Outlaw Star

To further prove this isn’t a dating list, Melfina isn’t here. And neither is the cute barmaid who was into Gene Starwind, but since Melfina got together with Gene maybe she and I could console each other? I doubt it. I’m not fictional…as far as you know. Anyway, Twilight Suzuka is amazing to watch in battle as an aerobic samurai but she’s also an assassin and not very interesting when she isn’t fighting. No, this spot of favorite anime girls can only include Aisha Clanclan, resident officer of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire and willing to make absolutely sure you know that before she finishes you off for the glory of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire!

She’s also a royal class screw-up who loses her position after being beaten more than once by Gene Starwind and Jim Hawking, and has to end up joining the crew of the Outlaw Star to reclaim her honor. That’s where the fun starts.

If it wasn’t for the last character she’s be the most fun one on this list, and it’s still a toss-up. Aisha isn’t bad, just headstrong, patriotic, determined, proud, and doesn’t really think before she acts. She is also a good fighter against the villains of the show, turns into a “werecat” form in the moonlight, and will eat you out of house and home. And possibly eat the house. You start laughing at her failures, come to feel sorry for her WHILE laughing at her failures some more, and then cheering her on with the others as they continue their mission. Last Tomo comparison: they’d totally be rival BFFs and it would be awesome to watch.

I know you have a helmet. Don’t just wear it when the Invid attack!

Houquet Emrose/Rook Bartley

Genesis Climber Mospeada/Robotech (New Generation)

There’s not much change between Emrose and Rook, but since I’ve seen more of the Robotech version in my youth that’s the name that sticks (no pun intended for the knowledgeable) with me, so that’s what I’m going with. I enjoy both versions as the Third Robotech War (depending on how you view the non-Earth war of Robotech II: The Sentinels) is my favorite of the three to watch. It’s more interesting to me.

Rook grew up in a city that came up in one of the craters from the Invid attack and conquest of Earth. It was a tough city and she was a tough girl, until she got sick of the thug life and left town. We learn this when she and her friends end up near her old hometown while heading for the Invid base of operations to shut it down for good. This is not a girl you mess with, even when she isn’t using a motorcycle as a battlesuit.

She also has a caring side. As one of the three actual women in the group she also has a big sister side that she shows with the other two, and one of those “enemies to lovers” dynamics with the hick rebel Rand (Ray in the original), and only shows a vulnerable side once…twice if you count being freaked out by leeches falling on her. She has the coolest of the Cyclones (or Ride Armors in Japan according to a Fandom wiki–apparently Emroses’ is called a Bartley model and designed for female infantry…so “boob armor”), though I prefer blue to red myself. She doesn’t get enough attention due to the beef anime fandom has with Harmony Gold and not being the Macross war, but when has that ever stopped me?

If you’re trying to make sense of her, you missed the point. It’s also impossible.

Radical Edward

the GOOD Cowboy BeBop

Netflix can bite me with their spazzy, non-binary, Pee-Wee Herman voiced holo-Edward. (I don’t blame the performer; you work with the crap the writers and director give you and that poor kid got garbage!) Edward in the original anime is awesome and you will never convince me otherwise. And yes, Edward is a girl! She has corrected people who called her a boy, though her character was based on a boy the creator knew. They just decided Faye needed another girl around the ship and Edward was it. Not that Edward cares. Edward is Edward. She knows she’s a girl…and it stops there.

Edward is kind of nuts, the freest spirit in the bestest way. A hacker who helps get the team access to the inaccessible, she’s also the comic relief of the show. As dark and grim as Cowboy BeBop needs to be to properly tell it’s story, Edward’s hijinks help lighten the tone enough along with the personalities of the others that you can handle how dark it gets. You can be too serious and Edward breaks the darkness without breaking the tone or the world like the quirky attempts at humor we see in some more recent stories.

Edward would get along with everybody on this list, even after driving Aisha a bit nuts first. If Tomo can put up with Carol, she can handle Edward. Hikaru makes friends with everyone, even her enemies. Rook…might come around eventually. Maybe. She breaks the pattern of this list as I went with the butt-kickers who earned their status, but I had to put her here. She’s Edward!

This is not even close to a full list. Come on, internet. Give me another dumb excuse to do another one of these lists. You’ve got that stupidity in you. I know you, even when I wish I don’t. I am glad I know these girls, even if only vicariously as they’re works of fiction and not my romantic type. Although a couple of them do have friends that…I might be saying too much.