Forum - View topicAnime with Strong Female Leads/Co-Leads?
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Akane the Catgirl
Posts: 1091 Location: LA, Baby! |
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I'd like to support the following nominations:
Attack on Titan: Mikasa Ackerman for being a BAMF and having an interesting backstory and (in the case of the manga), Christa Lenz/spoiler[Historia Reiss for calling out her horrible father and being proactive in battle. All hail the queen.] Fate/stay Night: Rin Tohsaka for actually knowing her stuff and calling Shirou an idiot and Saber for being badass and calling out Shirou for not letting her do her job. (Sorry Sakura, but you're just a waifu so far.) Flowers of Evil: Sawa Nakamura in the case of the manga. (Haven't seen the anime.) This woman is so fascinating in how utterly sex-crazed and f***ed up in the head she is. She's kind of what I wish Yuno Gasai from Future Diary was. Girl Who Leapt Through Time: Makoto Konno, for a great character arc and wonderful performance in the English dub. Haibane Renmei: Reki, for intriguing depth and a wonderful arc. Also, Rakka to a lesser extent. Kill la Kill: Satsuki Kiryuuin. This woman is a BAMF and a completely awesome proactive character. I love her, as well as Ryuko and Mako. Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Haruhi herself. She's a b***h, but she's an interesting b***h. I like how thoroughly we delve into her mindset, really getting to see what makes her tick and how much of a foil to Kyon she is. Michiko and Hatchin: The two eponymous leads. They balance each other out, so much so that when they were forced to be apart, I almost lost interest in what was going on. There is no Michiko. There is no Hatchin. There is only Michiko and Hatchin. Porco Rosso: Fio, for being a plucky determined heroine, even though she's basically Porco's sidekick. That's not a bad thing, though. (Gina's cool, too, but I like Fio more.) Princess Tutu: Duck, for being just plain adorable and never giving up on happy ending. However, I am against these nominations: Ghost in the Shell: Major Motoko Kusanagi in the case of the movie. I haven't seen the TV series, so my opinion could change later. However, the Major's film counterpart is so freaking bland in her "strong independent woman" non-personality, and exists only to be a mouthpiece for whatever the director wanted to say at the time. If you don't believe me, there's a point in the movie where she sits us down and starts blabbing about philosophical BS for two minutes, thus putting the movie to a stop. Sorry, but Movie!Major blows. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind: Nausicaa. Honestly, she never really seemed like a character to me. It felt more like she was an idealization or strawman for a young Miyazaki's environmental views. That's not to see I don't disagree with the message, but Nausicaa never had much of an arc or development. Hope Chapman's V-Log on the film explained it much better than I could, even though I disagree on a few points regarding the main heroine. Wolf Children: Hana, mostly for the same reasons provided for Nausicaa. There's this archetype that Mamoru Hosoda has in all three films he's made so far. This is the cool older female who provides life advice for the young heroes of the story. It worked with Auntie Witch, and it worked for Granny Sakae. It didn't work for Hana, because the archetype requires that she never actually change or have any sort of arc, in spite of the fact that she's ostensibly the main heroine. |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5150 |
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^
Done. Please review the lists to ensure that I entered your username properly. BodaciousSpacePirate-- Please review the lists to ensure that I entered your username properly. Also, did you want to include all of the Maria-sama ga Miteru series, or just the 1st series? |
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BodaciousSpacePirate
 Subscriber Posts: 3019 |
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All the links work, and everything seems correct.
Rightstuf/Nozomi packages the 2004 Maria-sama ga Miteru series, Maria-sama ga Miteru: Printemps, the Maria-sama ga Miteru OVA, and the Maria-sama ga Miteru 2009 series as "Season One", "Season Two", "3rd Season OVA", and "4th Season", so I'm used to thinking of them all as one single series. In order to be consistent with Anime News Network's encyclopedia entries, I think you should list all four series. Together, they cover 25 of the original 37 light novels. It's okay to leave out Maria-sama ni wa Naisho, though, since it's basically all non-canonical omake material. |
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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Having watched The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye based on phia_one's suggestion, I'm going to nominate Honoka for membership in this pantheon. The fact that no one has yet nominated such an obvious contender shows how obscure and under-appreciated The Third must be.
Honoka is nicknamed "Sword Dancer" because of her swift swordplay and acrobatic skills. She routinely disposes of numerous automated soliders with just a few swings of her blade. She also has access to some other impressive "chi" powers that she uses from time to time. All that said, in the end these skills play only a partial role in determining the outcome. Honoka is quite effectively voiced by Toyoguchi Megumi who delivered another powerhouse performance that same year, 2006, as Revy in Black Lagoon. Occasionally when Honoka makes a snide comment, you can hear Revy saying the same thing. Overall though Toyoguchi gives the two characters distinctive voices that fit their distinctive personalities. |
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Cam0
 Posts: 4927 |
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Since yuna bumped this thread and I just recently watched Murder Princess I thought I should nominate Falis.
Oh boy was Falis a joy to watch. She is a bit of a brute and loves to fight, but she can also be kind and she never backs down. She trusts and deeply cares about her two partners Pete and Dominikov (I really like the character design of that little dude. He looks like a tiny grim reaper.) and of course she quickly gets very close with the real Alita. She is possibly one of my favourite female leads in recent memory. |
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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I definitely agree with and second both of those. I am actually embarrassed that I did not think of Murder Princess myself. I have watched the anime and read the manga at least twice. From that show I would also nominate Princess Alita, the original one, as a strong female lead. She does not have the physical strength of Falis, but she has at least as much moral and emotional strength. |
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鏡
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Kino no Tabi, with bonus points for playing with and blurring the gender dichotomy in general with Kino.
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Night fox
 Posts: 561 Location: Sweden |
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^ I have to disagree with you on Kino. I see her as being emotionally challenged and that makes her personality feel rather androgynous, which in turn makes the whole play with gender roles pointless. Kino also lacks enough charisma to qualify as a "strong lead" in my book and I find her to be quite forgetable. She does have some fighting skills though, but that's about it afai am concerned. (Yes, I left out the spoiler tags since this thread is all about female leads.)
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鏡
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That's a really interesting take on the character, since the novels and the show especially regularly try to make a point of her sagacity and self-awareness; I'm reminded of her prayers to the rabbits in episode 2 and her comments to Hermes about her own doubts regarding the validity of her vocation and the shaky truth of the line she feeds herself regarding why she only stays in a place for three days. I think she's written to be philosophically precocious so that she can be a competent intellectual participant and judge of all the morally ambiguous situations she's placed in. She certainly is designed to be pretty androgynous, but the switching of gendered pronouns with one being tied to childhood and the other adulthood seems to effectively abstract gender away from sex if nothing else. Whether that's a valuable move depends on your stance on those issues I guess. I'd say she has pretty significant emotional depth and awareness of it, but spoiler[the role her trauma plays in her character is definitely an interesting question.] The more I think about it the more I see your point though; she's emotionally stunted insofar as she doesn't allow herself emotional vulnerability with anyone other than Hermes, but I think that's just a product of the world she exists in rather than a weakness of the character herself. She's aware of that shortcoming and compensates for it in other ways I think. |
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6584 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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I'll endorse Spastic Minnow's nomination of Michiko & Hatchin. I must set myself down and go through what I've watched since I last posted here.
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nobahn
Subscriber Posts: 5150 |
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^
Indices updated. (BTW, what was your motivation in capitalizing your user name? I just now noticed it.) |
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Errinundra
Moderator
Posts: 6584 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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It was an oversight when I first registered. I just recently discovered I could fix it.
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Entelechy
 Posts: 11 Location: Seattle |
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Im so glad this thread exists!
I will also accept the challenge of nominating a reverse harem lead and offer up Haruhi from Ouran High School Host Club. Haruhi is not physically strong. Her slender arms look like they could be snapped like toothpicks. She deserves to be here because of her intelligence and quiet strong-will, but most of all she knows what direction she's going in, how to get there, and she knows herself. Seconding: Falis of Murder Princess Mikasa from Attack on Titan Mokoto from The Girl Who Leapt Through Time Fio from Porco Rosso Duck in Princess Tutu Titular Nausicca Taiga of Toradora Yoko Nakajima Twelve Kingdoms Hakaze from Blast of Tempest Lady Eboshi of Princess Mononoke Yuri from Angel Beats! Titular Beast Player Erin Toru Fruits Basket Mai of Ghost Hunt Victorique from Gosick Titular Kurau: Phantom Memory Ginga Like the Clouds, Like the Wind Balsa of Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit Haruka from Noein: To Your Other Self Hiyori in Noragami Dr. Atsuko from Paprika Homura of PMMM |
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nobahn
Subscriber Posts: 5150 |
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↑
OK, I've (Finally!) updated the indices. Please look them over to see if I've updated them correctly. Thank you. |
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Cam0
Posts: 4927 |
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It seems that Fubuki from KanColle hasn't been nominated yet. I'd count her as a strong female lead. She is enthusiastic and headstrong. She may lack confidence, but she makes up for it with persistence, even though she fails a lot at the beginning she always gets back on her feet. She is kind, selfless and down-to-earth, and so she quickly makes friends who help her overcome any obstacle. Fubuki is simply the best... or Kongou is. I can't decide.
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