Do you like lists? I heard you like lists. I like them too. Today I’m sharing with you my top ten favorite female anime and manga characters. Some might be surprising, some are no brainers if you follow this blog. Some are there cause they have great character arcs. Some are there cause they have big fat anime tiddies. Either way, they are there. Join me after the cut as go through my top favorite female anime and manga characters!
I have long been an observer of the pop culture landscape. While I never directly engage with it to protect both sanity (and because I don’t have the time to waste on that bullshit) I have always enjoyed watching the “discourse” evolve around entertainment and the people involved in it. Is that weird? Kinda, but we all got our interests I suppose.
One thing that I’ve noticed in the last few years, is that in the west, there seems to be a real battle over the depiction of women in cartoons and media, and while I am absolutely not an expert in that field, I’ve been coming to the conclusion that, in terms of the west, female characters often seem hampered by the need to be about “something.” Too often I find that female characters are often held to impossible standards, and that they must spend more time constantly justifying their existence or fighting for a “cause” than just being actual characters. Female characters have to adhere to silly shallow ideas of “strong” and “independent” and aren’t allowed the vast creative freedoms offered to male characters. They can’t just be normal, they can’t be people full of flaws or virtues. They are always judged by how they contribute to “the cause,” whatever that cause may be.
Anime I’ve seen, doesn’t suffer from that problem. As the medium is almost neatly split down the middle, with a large, respected and well entrenched female fan-base. I’ve noticed that female characters are often given far more creative liberty and freedom to encompass a wide range of archetypes. Most of all though, they are allowed to be just be people, and the best example I’ve seen lately came from the most unexpected place. After the cut let’s take a character dive into the titular lead of Magical Sempai: Magical Sempai.
((For the sake of avoiding confusion, I will now refer to the lead character as just ‘Sempai’))
Normally I tend to give shows the full ‘shallow dive” treatment on this blog, but since most of what I want to talk about with this series is the main character herself, I have decided to give the titular Magical Sempai the full character dive later this week. Regardless I want to also talk about the show itself, so here are my thoughts on Magical Sempai
I’ve mentioned in other reviews that sometimes anime can feel like a series of Sunday morning comic strips, and that analogy is no more perfect than with Magical Sempai. Instead of opting for a 24, or even 12 minute single story, Magical Sempai instead has its run-time devoted to a series of one or two minute skits, with multiple in a course of a single episode. I thought I would soon get bored of this format, but I was surprised that it worked quite well, and allowed the story to focus on what makes it work: Magical Sempai sucking and magic, and ecchi hijinks.
Much of this show’s success and frankly meme potential is placed on the titular lead herself, who is yet another stellar example of the freedom that anime and manga give their female characters. With no over-arching plot, or dramatic stakes, Magical Sempai is free to just be a story about a bunch of kids having fun with their little magic club, with plenty of well done ecchi hijinks to boot.
I wish I could say more, but that is going to be saved for later this week when I talk about our female lead. All I’ll say this is: Magical Sempai is a solid, fun and entertaining ecchi comedy and its shorter run time never means it outstays its welcome. I’ve said it has been an absolute shit year for ecchi and harems in 2019, but Magical Sempai along with Hensuki and Do you Love your Mom have really helped turn it around. Don’t miss this show if you love ecchi and harem, or just a cute anime girl doing memeable things.
We aren’t done with the One Year Anniversary just yet. I pushed this back one day, but Don’t @ Me, like the sex drive of Takuya from YU-NO, simply can’t be stopped. Join me after the cut as I smack down ten of my opinions on…since it’s the anniversary post, pretty much anything I want! Enjoy!
The Summer Season is staring to wind down and the anime of the seasons are reaching their zenith. So far Summer has been a decently strong run, with some good shows that have surprised me. Let’s get into my thoughts on these shows, eight episodes in, after the cut!
I love everything about the character Magical Sempai, who feels like something only anime could create. I love even more the catch opening theme and the walking animation, seriously someone GiF that shit. Anyway the tune of the week is the opening theme to Magical Sempai: FANTASTIC ILLUSION by i☆Ris
The Summer season has begun and there have been several shows that have I started watching. My list from the last post has changed alot since then, having dropped both Vinland Saga due to it being on Amazon and not bothering to look at Arifureta due to people saying it was just horrible. That being said, there is still plenty to look at, so join me after the cut as I give you my thoughts: three episodes in!
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