The List

7 Dirtiest Jobs

I'm talking to you from the future at Sakura-Con! While in the midst of Seattle's largest anime convention, why don't we take a look at some of anime's less savory jobs? Hardly fun but always necessary, these jobs rarely get the respect they deserve. It's not the most glamorous jobs that make the anime world go round!

7. Touya's Odd Jobs (Card Captor Sakura) Sakura's older brother, Touya, is employed in no less than 11 places over the course of the Card Captor Sakura anime series. Most are in the food industry (not an easy job by any means) while some of his even less savory employs including feeding penguins (cute, but smelly), working at a strawberry farm, and handing out balloons in a bear costume. Regardless of which job he's coming home from, he's bound to smell like fish, sweat, and children's tears.

6. Persocom (Chobits) The job of humanoid persocoms (personal computers) in the 22nd century can be dirty work. Beyond the typical administrative tasks like e-mail, there are plenty shday places set-up to take advantage of computer's feminine form but lack of social awareness. Chii finds herself almost the subject of a live-streaming peep show at one point, reaffirming the fact that being a (typically) non-sentient being in a world of humans can lead to plenty of unsavory situations.

5. Love Me! Section (Skip Beat) Entry-level employees at the LME talent agency definitely have it rough. Kyoko is forced to do plenty of menial jobs around the studio to earn "points" all with a smile on her face. The pay-off is a major acting debut with the added bonus of wiping the smirk of her ex-boyfriend's face. Until then, Kyoko is stuck cleaning out lockers and dressing up in a chicken suit to appear on children's programs.

4. Psychotherapist (Paprika) In the world of Paprika, a psychotherapist is no longer listening to patients empty out their souls on the office couch. Instead, the experimental device DC Mini is used to enter the patient's mind. Therapists now gets to enjoy the sometimes terrifying and often strange mental delusions their patients in an attempt to decipher their issues. Dr. Atsuko Chiba finds herself in a circus crowd filled with her patient's faces, or wandering through a deserted carnival before nearly being trampled by a melting parade.

3. Teacher (When They Cry: Higurashi) If you imagine for a moment what the day-to-day life of Rumiko Chie is in the world of Higurashi, it's pretty awful. On top of being the only teacher in a classroom in the middle of nowhere, a good portion of her students are highly disturbed. One has a strong connection to what can only be described as a local mafia family and she has to handle any grief-counseling of her students when they start being murdered left and right. On a smaller scale, the main kids' club involves pulling pranks that routinely mess up the classroom. I wonder if she drinks?

2. Space Trucker (Cowboy Bebop) VT is introduced in "Heavy Metal Queen," where the rough-and-tough woman shows the Bebop crew what it takes to make deliveries in space and chase down a terrorist. In a galactic scale episode of "Ice Road Truckers," VT dodges asteroids and bombs and gets into dog fights while delivering her freight in a space semi-truck. Any person with less nerve and skill would die on day one, if they didn't crack under the pressure first.

1. Tokyo-3 Clean Up Crew (Neon Genesis Evangelion) I want you to imagine for a moment that for some reason unknown to you, giant alien beings are continually attacking your beloved city. Also imagine that giant robots that spurt a blood-like substance are battling these beings and spraying fluid all over what isn't already destroyed. When the evaculation status is lifted, the residents have to return to work. Someone has to clean up all the blood, all the debris, repave the roads, and any other infrastructure repair tasks. That someone is you, and anywhere from a month to a few weeks, you get to do it all over again.

The new poll: Which in-series anime idols would you pay to see in concert?

The old poll: Last week's poll asked what Dragon Ball Z character you were most excited to see in the new film. The difference between #1 and #2 is one, single vote. Let it be known that at The List every vote DOES matter.

1. Vegeta 21.6%
2. Goku 21.5%
3. Gohan 10.2%
4. Piccolo 8.1%
5. Android 18 7.1%
6. Trunks 6.9%
7. Krillin 4.3%
8. Mr. Satan 4.1%
9. Yamcha 3.6%
10. Bulma 3.3%
11. Videl 3.1%
12. Buu 2.7%
13. Goten 2.1%
14. Chi Chi 1.2%

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Alright everybody, see you all next week! I look forward to your input in the comments and feel free to follow me on Twitter @ANN_Lynzee or e-mail me at [email protected].