Anime Crush List II

A companion piece to the male version here except this time it’s all about girl power! My strong, beautiful queens. Really I meant it to be all anime but then I had to add in the last two non-anime ones, so the numbering is no longer accurate 7 onward.

I also kept the rule of restricting myself to only one female character per anime, which is why some of my favorite heroines didn’t place.

Anyways. Enough blathering. Without further ado I present to you my list of perfection:

1. Mikasa Ackerman (Shingeki no Kyojin)

Um. Goddess. With. Abs. 

Her abs are legitimately my motivation to work out.

And she is. So. Beautiful. I could make one of those Mikasa appreciation posts here but I don’t have time to crawl through the internet / binge the anime for screenshots. 

Mikasa is perfect and deserves to be happy. And some people LIKE subtle character development, okay? Subtle and slow. Not to mention she kicks ass. Every panel of her swirling around like a mini-Levi. I live for it.

I’m extremely worried about how this manga is going to end for her because I just want her to be happy okay Mikasa just ditch Eren and go for Jean he is hotter and has one consistent personality and set of memories and clearly dreams about starting a family with you

Favorite moment: ‘Fall, Annie’

Honorable mentions: Sasha my potato goddess *sobs* and Petra my tree goddess *sobs more*

2. Kushina Uzumaki (Naruto)

She is female Naruto with better hair.

We don’t get much of her but every scene with her in it is gold. She’s a fantastic kunoichi, wife and mother.

And she’s nicknamed after a hot pepper,and I have an ongoing (somewhat masochistic) love affair with hot peppers and spicy food in general. I put chillies in everything. Douse it all in Cayenne Pepper powder. Bathe it in Garam Masala. My poor husband has spent hours in the toilet, suffering the aftereffects of my flaming hot cooking.

So basically, Kushina is my spirit vegetable. You know?

And her and Minato are couple goals.

Favorite moment: the speech to Naruto when the Kyuubi pierces her, I’ve memorized the Japanese version

Honorable mentions: Tenten my badass underrated weapon master, and Sarada by virtue of being the lovechild of one of my favorite Naruto couples ever 

3. Misty (Pokémon)

A childhood sweetheart, this one. I cried (more than Ash cried) when she left, and basically gave up on the anime at that point. After that, I only ever watched the episodes where she made a comeback.

Misty is my sassy Pokéqueen. I used to get so excited whenever it was time to challenge Cerulean Gym in the games, just to see her sprite. Sometimes I’d lose on purpose so I could keep challenging her. And do you realize how hard it is to lose on purpose to Misty when you have a freaking Pikachu, which unlike Ash’s Pikachu has no compunctions around thunderbolting her entire team to a crisp?

I do think the anime did her dirty. I mean, she wants to become a water Pokémon master which is such a great dream, but then she barely catches anything, I mean there are so many water Pokémon but the only really good ones on her team are Gyarados and Starmie – okay, end rant.

Favorite moment: Misty Mermaid (I am pretty sure every prepubescent kid had their first crush during this episode) and the scene where she swims out to save Ash in Pokémon 2000, that was so touching

Honorable mentions: Leaf from the manga, and also that girl Melody from Pokemon 2000 because she was sassier than Misty and awesome at playing that shell/flute thing. Also really like Whitney, Jasmine and Erika in the games. 

4. Umi Sonoda (Love Live!)

Love arrow shoot! For one thing, Umi-chan is the Love Live! version of Legolas. Archery skills equals 10++++ points regardless of fandom.

I also adore her VA / seiyuu Mimorin, who is adorable and wonderful so that’s a perk. And I love her voice. It is a fresh of breath air amongst some of the nasally squawking they have some of the Love Live! girls do, despite the seiyuu (voice actors) being absurdly talented and capable of so much better. Like Hanayo. Her seiyuu has such a beautiful voice and they ruin it and make it sound like she swallowed a potato and it’s stuck in her throat and I know some people find that weirdly cute but why has Kubo Yurika-san’s melodious voice been reduced to this travesty I mean her anime voice makes me want to punch someone like no Hanayo I will not tasukeru you just go away and eat a bowl of rice somewhere

When I played the Love Live! mobile game I legimately spent a good portion of my bonus just on love gems to get her URs. Yes, I know. Not my proudest purchase but I got the Yukata!Umi and the Sailor!Umi and all these other wonderful, beautiful Umi so it was worth it.

I also love how organized and responsible she is. I don’t know how she puts up with Kotori and Honoka’s general flakiness and bullshit but somehow she does, because Umi is a perfect angelic saint and I want a friend who is exactly like her.

Favorite scene: Akiramecha dame na-nda~ (Start Dash)

Honorable mention: Kashikoi Kawaii Elichika~. Also tsundere Maki-chan. You can probably see a pattern here. Soldier Game trio is best trio. I also like (admittedly to a lesser extent) Kanan from Sunshine basically for being Umi 2.0

5. Kallen Kozuki (Code Geass)

After Mikasa, she is probably wins this list in terms of pure badassery.

Note that the anime I watched prior to Code Geass was Death Note, which made Kallen seem just 1000000x cooler in comparison to that wretch Misa Amane. She definitely cleansed that pungent taste Misa Amane left in my mouth as the worst female character to basically exist in any anime, I hate Misa soooo much but okay let’s be positive [edit: after rewatching Death Note and better understanding the nuances of Misa, I want to say that she’s not as bad as I pegged her out to be. Still bad, in my personal opinion. But an interesting character, I guess, and she kind of grew on me in a you-suck-and-you-are-annoying-but-I-still-kind-of-find-you-amusing-so-I-guess-I-don’t-hate-you way].

But Kallen. Let’s talk about Kallen.

I like Kallen so much that the first car I buy – if I end up learning to drive, I’m 28 and I have a license, but roads scare me – will be maroon, and christened Guren.

Kallen is basically what Sakura Haruno should have been, I mean she even has the same hairstyle, albeit a smaller forehead (gomen ne Sakura-chan)

All her fight scenes – with Suzaku, with that other hot Knight of Seven guy – had me gripping my seat. Hands down one of my favorite female fighters in anime.

Favorite scene: all the fights against Suzaku, my two faves facing off

Honorable mentions: Shirley – I don’t know what it is I like about her because she is so clingy, and she kind of guilts Lelouch into kissing her… I guess it’s just her design, I like orange-haired heroines. Euphie is fabulous and her death scene was so well executed. Milly somehow I like despite her starting off as super fluffy and inconsequential.

6. Mio Akiyama (K-On!!)

I mean, who else would it be.

Yoko Hikasa is also Mikasa (hey that rhymed!) to me since she sang Utsukushiki Zankoku na Sekai (which is basically Mikasa’s character song). So I have this headcanon of a kawaii Miokasa. 

But anyways, Mio-chan is the cutest and she also has the best voice in my opinion. Her rendition of Fuwa Fuwa Time is infinitely superior to Yui’s weird gulpy nasally voice. Yui’s is like a terrifying Hanayo / Kotori hybrid of gulping and nasality. Why is this considered cute again? And again, the voice actress is infinitely talented, so of all the voices they could have made her do… why that one?! Sorry I keep coming back to this rant but let’s get back to Mio-chan.

Favorite moment: the neko mimi!!! Also love her friendship and all her scenes with Ritsu.

7. Erina Nakiri (Shokugeki no Souma)

Another goddess. Just step on me, Erina-sama.

I also happen to love eggs benedict. And her prim / proper / snobbish way of speaking Japanese, you know with kashira and all that.

Did not really dig her post-timeskip haircut (I always rant when characters cut their hair) but she has one of the my favorite anime hairstyles otherwise.

Honorable mentions: Hisako, she reminds me of Sakura Haruno. Which is not a bad thing because as much as pre-Shippuuden Sakura annoyed me and post-Shippudden Sakura wasted her potential (like did you forget about the Sasori fight?!) I actually really do like her as a character. Oops, there we are talking about a Naruto character again. Now you see why I needed the 1-character-per-anime rule?

8. Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)

Not anime, but still on my anime list, which is why she has an unreasonably low ranking. Literally one of my favorite female characters in literature / on screen ever and Cursed Child does not count, I really disagree what they did with the plot overall, as well as her character arc. There’s just too much to say here and given it’s an anime blog I won’t ramble on too much.

9. Arwen Undómiel Evenstar

Well, there’s my answer to the eternal Arwen versus Eowyn debate, though I very much love and admire the shieldmaiden of Rohan.

It’s just. Arwen is an elf. I am an elf. I have to be loyal to my people.

Again, too much to say about my ethereal Elven princess. I pretty much loved every scene she was in movie and book. Okay, mostly movie, I admit. If it were just book, Eowyn would probably win. But Liv Tyler was just way too breathtaking and I know she stole my favorite elf lord Glorfindel’s scene but scene where she rides away from the ringwraithes? “If you want him, come and claim him!” Beautiful elven murmurings that release the river? Yeah, sorry Glorfindel, mellon nim. I love you deeply, but I’m on Team Arwen for this one. I am not a movie-only I promise I have read each of the books countless times including the Silmarillion but Liv Tyler is just divine it’s like she actually carries the blood of Luthien or something, oh wait –

I am also missing all the accented letters in this section but I can’t be bothered. Elven typography is a pain.