The Best Anime of 2022

Nicholas Dupree, Richard Eisenbeis, Rebecca Silverman & The Best Characters

5. The Orbital Children

It took far too long for Mitsuo Iso to helm another original production, but by god, he made the most of that opportunity. While Orbital Children has its flaws, they're nearly all the result of the work's sheer ambition. It tries to take a heady speculative sci-fi movie, a family-friendly coming-of-age story, topical political commentary, and fit it all into roughly six episodes of runtime. By the end of things, you can clearly see the seams ready to burst. But through some alchemy, that chaotic and, at times, contradictory mixture makes for a compelling, heartfelt production from one of the best artists working in anime today. The characters are a lovable and diverse spread of personalities that feel like authentic kids. They are still perfect fits for the increasingly dangerous and complicated sci-fi narrative they have to survive. The production mixes 2D animation with CG in ways I didn't think were possible in the current anime landscape. And even months later, I still find myself spinning its ultimate conclusion around in my head, which means it's well and truly got its hooks in me. It's messy, but only because it has so much it wants to do and say, and I will take that over a precision-engineered but sterile piece of seasonal fodder any day.

4. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

Edgerunners really shouldn't have worked. It just goes against the entire narrative cohesion of the universe. Netflix Original Anime is a branding almost synonymous with phoned-in garbage and forgettable sci-fi. Since its disastrous launch, Cyberpunk 2077's legacy was that of the most prominent and publicized botched release in video games this decade. Yet somehow, nearly two years after that infamous bag fumbling, this piece of tie-in media completely rehabilitated the franchise's image while also putting a Netflix-exclusive anime in a spotlight not seen since Devilman Crybaby. And this Studio Trigger production absolutely earned every bit of that goodwill, crafting a show that is at once distinct from the studio's other creations yet still carrying all of the idiosyncratic craft that has made them a household name for nearly a decade. Its unique access to the video game's lush and diverse soundtrack allows it to craft stunning needle drops that are almost unheard of in anime. It's harsh, brutal, and uncharacteristically bleak for a Hiroyuki Imaishi joint, but that new perspective works to focus and intensify the classic Trigger energy of it all, delivering consistently striking, stunning, and even heartbreaking moments across its compact 10-episode run.

3. Love Live! Superstar!! Season 2

The first season of Superstar!! was already fantastic, combining almost everything I loved in the greater Love Live franchise with a seasoned delivery that made its comedy and drama way more potent. The second season doesn't just maintain that level of quality but aims even higher, helped in large part by having the time to give proper attention to both the returning cast members and new arrivals. In many shows, doubling the cast size and spending half a season bringing in new characters could destroy the comedy chemistry, but here are the first years of Liella! feel like they've always been there and only serve to enhance everything that made the first season's core five so great in the first place. Complementing all that is by far the franchise's most thoughtful and well-constructed dramatic storyline to date, building to resolutions that are genuinely surprising in how they break from expectations but nevertheless feel perfect for these characters. It's as funny, vibrant, and emotionally effective as the best of the previous Love Live series and represents an accessible new peak for the whole franchise.

2. Call of the Night

Would you believe I didn't initially have this show on here? Sure, I remembered liking Call of the Night a lot, but when I would mentally juggle titles in anticipation of making a Best Of list, it never jumped to the forefront of my mind. Yet as I sat down to hammer this thing out for real, I kept ranking it above every new thing I added to the shortlist, and I realized that I really, really god damn love this show. I love its clever yet thoroughly grounded dialogue. I love how it tackles so many ideas about love, friendship, identity, and personal happiness in a way that's so relaxed you almost don't realize how deep it has its emotional hooks in you. I love the gorgeously rendered nightscapes and playful direction that can slingshot between menacing and hilarious in half a second. And most of all, I loved how it accomplished all of this while maintaining a distinct, unique atmosphere that captures both the joy and ennui of isolation. It's not the most ostentatious title by any means, but Call of the Night has a special kind of magic to it that nothing else could touch this year.

© Aki Hamaji / Houbunsha • Aniplex

1. Bocchi the Rock!!

I love music. When I say that, I don't just mean that I love listening to or analyzing it. I mean that I love everything that comes with music. I love the diverse perspectives and personalities that so many musicians bring to their art. I love the atmosphere of a small-time venue with a bar in the back, hosting crowds of people I don't know who are, nonetheless, shoulder to shoulder with me, brought together by the sounds and lights on stage. I love flipping through CDs and vinyl records at yard sales or used bookstores. I love learning about the people and circumstances behind the songs I adore and the often weird or ridiculous lives they lead. And I love anime about music, but it's been a looooong time since I encountered one that loved music in all the same ways I did, that could capture the thrill and apprehension and catharsis of it all in a way that felt real.

Bocchi the Rock does that in spades and uses those emotions as the foundation for a hilarious, creative, heartwarming comedy. Then it goes beyond that to make a genuinely affecting story about an anxious kid desperate to find herself and build up the courage to connect with others. And while it's doing all that, it has time to craft a picture of social anxiety so close to home it might as well be ripped straight out of your high school LiveJournal posts, making you laugh and cringe in equal measure. It has some of the best concert scenes ever put to animation, capturing the heightened emotions that make live music so special without ever losing track of the authentic reality behind them. It is, without caveat, my favorite thing I watched this year – anime or otherwise – and I promise you it's well worth your time—Bocchi rocks, plain and simple.

5. Birdie Wing -Golf Girls' Story-

As a child of the 90s, there's this scene I love from a Kevin Costner movie called Tin Cup. In it, on a bet, the main character plays a game of golf using gardening tools instead of proper clubs. It's a hilarious scene and easily the film's most memorable moment. Birdie Wing is the same kind of golf-based insanity—though to an even greater extreme. It has mob wars settled through golf games, reconfigurable golf courses built on giant moving plates, VR golfing battles, and even the most extreme game of mini-golf ever animated.

Yet, beyond the craziness is a surprisingly heartfelt story about two girls searching for meaning in their lives—and finding it in each other. Eve is a girl from the slums who makes her living as a golf shark, fleecing money off overconfident men. Meanwhile, Aoi is the wealthy heiress of a golfing dynasty. Yet, neither have ever had a real challenge or someone their age to make golf truly enjoyable. Their obsession with each other is the plot's driving force, making it easy to root for the unlikely pair. Even if you don't like sports anime in general, give Birdie Wing a chance. If you're anything like me, you'll be hooked by the time the first episode's credits roll.

4. Uncle from Another World

For years, we've been at the point where the “isekai” subgenre has primarily taken over the “Western Fantasy” genre in anime. But with this situation comes a general familiarity with its tropes and stereotypes. This, in turn, allows a show like Uncle from Another World to exist and ask a simple question: What happens after an isekai adventure ends?

The story has two sides: one half is about Uncle's time in the fantasy world, while the other is about his struggles to adapt to our world again. The result is a non-stop riot of fish-out-of-water humor. Be it Uncle's (mis)adventures in the fantasy world or his fanatical love of all things Sega, the jokes come fast and hard—and often hit you right in the soul as you sympathize with Uncle's constant, socially awkward failures. The stellar supporting cast takes it to the next level—but you can read more about that in the Best Characters section below.

3. Lycoris Recoil

More than a few shows take an innocent premise and then reveal the hidden darkness underneath. Lycoris Recoil basically does the opposite by taking a dark premise and revealing the goodness within. While it's the story of a secret government organization of teenage girl assassins who keep the peace in Japan by flat-out killing anyone suspected of criminal activity, it's also the story of one such killer who refuses to kill and would instead help her community by working in a coffee shop and teaching Japanese to immigrants. It's basically about the battle between idealism and pragmatism—and our idealist is the most unlikely person to be one.

It's also a story of friendship between unlikely allies and exploring the relationship between talent, responsibility, and personal freedom. Add some of the most amazingly choreographed gun fights this side of John Wick with absolutely stellar animation to match, and you have one of the best original anime in years.

2. The Eminence in Shadow

The Eminence in Shadow is the story of Cid, a high schooler with a severe case of “chunibyo,” who is reincarnated in a fantasy world—and doesn't realize he's become the overpowered head of a shadowy organization that he's always pretended to be. He thinks he and his friends are LARPing and doesn't care about killing people as long as he gets to play his game of pretend.

Of course, to be a proper shadowy puppet master, one must have an equally mundane secret identity to hide behind. So, our “hero” puts just as much effort into that—and thus, he tries so hard to be “below average” that he ends up being anything but.

This makes The Eminence in Shadow one part dark comedy and one part over-the-top slapstick. Yet, because everything is played completely straight, there are times when everything comes together, and Cid is precisely as cool as he's pretending to be, even as we laugh at his ridiculous edgelord antics. If dark comedy and isekai anime meta-commentary are your thing, this is one show you should definitely check out.

© 2022 Kotoyama・Shogakukan／Call of the Night Production Committee

1. Call of the Night

Humans are creatures of routine. Each day we get up, go to school or work, come home, have some fun, sleep and do it all again. Even if our routines are less than ideal, once things become “normal,” we can accept them—often to our detriment. Call of the Night is the story of a middle school boy without any significant dreams or aspirations who one day questions the monotony of his daily life. He stops going to school and begins walking the streets at night, finding a world drastically different than the one he is used to.

There he encounters a kindred spirit in the form of an immortal (and perpetually bored) vampire. Together, the two find new novelty in their lives—her by showing him all that can be done at night and him by taking in all she has to offer. Through each other, they can re-examine what they want in life—all while trying to come to terms with the inscrutable concept of love.

All in all, it's a cute story about unlikely friends and how the joy they find in each other spreads to those they encounter on their nightly adventures. It's even got some decent stakes and solid action scenes. But most of the time, you'll be spending time learning a bit about yourself and human nature in between fits of light-hearted laughter.

I struggled with coming up with this list this year. This is because it was a tough year for me personally; there were a lot of things going on in my family that made me much more likely to latch onto fictional escapes than in previous years. And while I eventually narrowed it down to the five here, I want to mention that slow and sweet Sasaki and Miyano, surprisingly good Waccha PriMagi, and Delicious Party Pretty Cure were also significant sources of joy for me. At the same time, the first half of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon IV kept me in its thrall. If nothing else, 2022 helped to remind me of something that I learned back in middle school: sometimes, it really is the stories that get us through.

5. Raven of the Inner Palace

I've read a lot of fiction set in pseudo-Chinese palaces of the past but finding anime versions is a somewhat more difficult proposition. Raven of the Inner Palace touches on many of the same story beats as The Story of Saiunkoku, another one of my favorites, and unlike that title, we'll soon be able to read the source novels for this one in English. But Raven of the Inner Palace is more than just a Chinese-based fantasy. It's a story about a girl trying to find her place in a world that is actively lying to her about her own role in it and the suppression of female power. Shouxue has risen from a difficult beginning with her sex worker mother to become the feared Raven Consort of the emperor, a position that not only makes her the safeguard against a banished goddess but also entrusts her with the ability to help the dead move on. The truth about her position has been a closely guarded secret for a millennium. When it comes out, it's a lot to take in for her and the new young emperor, who finds himself increasingly invested in this consort he is not supposed to interact with. The animation may need improvement, but the art itself is beautiful, and the world-building is fantastic. Raven of the Inner Palace blends supernatural mystery with mythological fantasy to create something from which it is hard to look away. It may not be perfect, but it is striking, and it will be one of those shows I find myself thinking about long after it is over.

4. Aoashi

It always fascinates me that I enjoy sports anime because I couldn't care less about sports in real life, and I'm certainly no great athlete myself. Aoashi is one of those stories that I barely even realized I was enjoying until I suddenly figured out that I couldn't stop watching it; my sister keeps telling people how she watched one episode with me in the middle of the series and found herself utterly hooked. The answer to why this show is so darn watchable lies in the intersection of the basic sports show tropes and a protagonist who might be obnoxious if only everyone else in the series wasn't worse. More than that, there's a really interesting “us versus them” sentiment that underlies things—and everyone is “them” to a certain group of “us.” Ashito himself may not be all that different from the other underdog, plucky young athlete characters we've seen before, but something in the determination with which he conducts himself makes him stand out. It certainly helps that 99% of the adults he encounters are, shall we say, less than helpful; I have rarely seen coaches so eager to avoid actual coaching. This show is an addictive experience, with everything dialed up almost as high as it can go without making it feel like a parody of itself. It's frustrating, it's intense, and I desperately hope we get another season.

3. The Case Study of Vanitas Season Two

No surprises here - the second season of The Case Study of Vanitas picks up right where the first left off, but rather than focusing solely on the dynamic between vampire Noé and self-proclaimed vampire doctor Vanitas. The story becomes more invested in their pasts and how they came to be who they are in the story's present. While we had an inkling about Noé himself, Vanitas largely remained a cipher, and this season seeks to rectify that. It also continues to make excellent use of real-world history and folklore; the entire Beast of Gévaudan storyline is ripped from French history while also using European werewolf mythologies. The story blends these elements with its lore in a way that feels organic, and it still manages to focus on the personal tragedies and the struggles of its main characters, even when expanding on what it means to suffer under a curse and the circumstances that might make one actively seek out a cursed state. It excels in atmosphere while providing many fascinating visual details (Vanitas' hourglass earring became a major point of conversation among viewers). It could stand on its own as a piece of historical fantasy even without the anime stylings. It's the kind of story that grabs you and doesn't let go easily, like a heterochromatic cat digging into you with its claws.

2. Shadows House Season Two

If you're getting the impression that I enjoy historical fantasy, hi, and welcome to the site, I'm Rebecca, and that's my thing. Shadows House is even set in my favorite historical period, the Victorian era, or at least a fantasy approximation. The second season of this Gaslamp fantasy is much more fraught than its predecessor. This is because Kate is a lot smarter than any of the adult Shadows want to believe she is; even before she started digging, she knew that Emilico was more than just a “living doll.” And Kate is not one to simply sit on her knowledge like a dragon on its treasure. She is a detective and sees figuring out what's going on in Shadows House and breaking the harmful cycle as the most important mystery she will ever solve. She's not wrong; as this season reveals more and more of what's going on, the task of freeing the living dolls from the Shadows' thrall becomes ever more critical. The revelation of what the adult shadows actually are is, to put it mildly, upsetting. It frankly says more about Lord Grandfather and his cronies that they feel this is the way things ought to be than about the younger Shadows who go along with it. It also plays with 19th-century literary works, most notably Hans Christian Andersen's The Shadow and Lewis Carroll's Alice duology. As Kate and Emilico establish their coalition, they learn more and more about the truths hidden behind the adult wing's door, and the situation becomes increasingly perilous for everyone involved. The reveal that Kate is not the first Shadow to go up against Lord Grandfather may or may not be reassuring. The whole story seems like it could descend into Mary Elizabeth Braddon-style supernatural terrors at any moment. Add in some excellent-looking glass imagery; this is everything a Victorian-set fantasy should be. We've always been afraid of what lurks in the darkness. This season certainly gives us more reason to distrust it.

© Tatsuya Endō／Sheuisha・SPY×FAMILY Production Committee

1. Spy x Family

There's a case to be made for Spy X Family also to be a historical fantasy; the series takes place in an alternate, totally-not-Germany Cold War period. This is important to a degree; the pseudo-1960s setting means that the characters cannot rely on too much technology, and when Twilight is out in the field, he's on his own. But even more than a delightful use of setting and spoofs of spycraft, Spy X Family is one of those shows that works on almost every level. It is spot on as a parody of schlocky spy films and James Bond-inspired media. The gadgets, the insane hyper competency of the main character, and the idea that this is all just for World Peace create a solid foundation for the series to build.

On top of that foundation, the story crafts a delightful and emotionally meaningful tale about one family wrapped up in all of this. The father is Twilight, a top spy going under the alias of Loid Forger. He requires a wife and child to carry out his mission (Operation Strix), and that's when things start to get good. Twilight may be a master spy, and the woman he chooses to play his wife may be a master assassin, albeit unknown to Loid, but neither of them are what you would call adept in other areas of life. Add into that that adopted daughter Anya became a psychic after government experimentation, and you have the recipe for the mother of all family comedies. But it's not just the humor that makes Spy X Family so good. This series has a genuine warmth and beating heart that keeps it going. Loid never had the opportunity to grow up in a family; he was orphaned during the in-series equivalent of World War Two. That means that he's learning how to be a member of a family at the same time that he's doing everything else. So much of this journey for him is about coming together as a family and valuing that, as well as learning how to maintain it, that it does prove its title apt: it's just as much about family as it is about being a spy. That it manages to avoid being a cheese fest is impressive; at least part of that owes to the fact that Anya acts like a real kid, not what adults think kids act like, and her interactions with best friend Becky and mini Domyoji (from Hana Yori Dango) are delightful. There's a real humanity and heart to this series that made it my absolute favorite this year, even with a second cour that wasn't quite as good as the first. Being a dad may be more complicated than being a spy sometimes, and sometimes the dog you adopt has precognition. But the important thing is to roll with it and welcome the anxiety as an old friend.

© Aki Hamaji / Houbunsha • Aniplex

There were some real quality picks for this superlative, but I've honestly known who I would put here for weeks. This day-drunk, shark-toothed bassist immediately made my ears perk up like a dog hearing its owner say, “go for a walk,” and she was a lock for number one from the moment she shambled her hungover body into frame. Kikuri is an absolute mess of a person, even more so than the anxiety-riddled heroine of Bocchi the Rock, but that's precisely what makes her such a striking and likable disaster. She's a total wreck of a person, living life by the seat of her pants or at the bottom of a sake bottle, spending her evenings selling out live shows with her psychedelic rock band and her nights partying so hard it's genuinely concerning. She's not a walking disaster, but only because her gait is more of a perilous stumble. If she were a real person, you would hear a Days n Daze song playing in the background whenever she was nearby. In short, Kikuri is the platonic ideal of a Rock Star, for good and ill, and I absolutely love her.

But it's not just her wild side that makes Kikuri work – it's also thanks to the role she plays in the larger emotional arc of the show, as she takes the main character Bocchi under her wing and teaches her the ropes of being an independent musician. You'd think having a total lush who scrapes by on cheap booze as a teacher would doom a socially maladjusted kid like Bocchi, but Kikuri's guidance is, ironically, exactly what our heroine needs. Kikuri may not be living the healthiest lifestyle, but she has fully embraced what she loves – music – and deftly shows her student the joys and magic of putting herself out there on stage. Kikuri is messy, sometimes gross, and deeply undependable, but by god, she's living the life she wants at every moment, and in that respect, she's the perfect role model for a loner kid desperate to follow her own dreams. She's also deceptively insightful, supportive, and empathetic in ways that aren't immediately apparent behind the elevated BAC, making it clear that she's helping out her protégé because she's been in the same position. She's here for a good time, not a long time, and damn if that ain't rock & roll.

© Hotondoshindeiru・Kadokawa／Uncle From Another World Production Committee

When I first read Uncle from Another World a few years back, Mabel was my least favorite of the three fantasy world heroines. It wasn't that I disliked the character; it was just that everyone's favorite tsundere elf overshadowed her. In the anime, however, it's an entirely different story. Mabel steals every scene she's in. This is largely because of the incredible range of the character. Brought to life by the always-excellent Aoi Yuki, Mabel goes from cold and reserved to psychotic and rage-filled—from shy and demure to socially awkward and over-enthusiastic. It's a voice-acting tour-de-force if there ever was one.

Meanwhile, Mabel herself is a wonderful deconstruction of the “ice queen” trope. Her job in the fantasy world was waiting for a hero to come and thaw her frozen heart in return for a special sword to slay an unstoppable dragon. Of course, Uncle skips all that and kills the dragon. This leaves Mabel homeless, jobless, and without any purpose in life. Worse yet, Uncle quickly tells her she doesn't need to grow or change—basically the opposite of thawing her frozen heart.

This leaves Mabel as a proxy for... well, many of us. Mabel is a slacker who wants nothing but to lounge around and do nothing. She's allergic to the idea of a hard day's work and wants to get by doing the bare minimum. This, in turn, leads to tons of comedic moments whenever she enters Uncle's life—especially since, when it comes down to it, he wants the same as her (though he wants to return to our world first). So, while she may not appear in every episode of Uncle from Another World, you can bet that things are about to get hilarious whenever she does show up.

© Tatsuya Endō／Sheuisha・SPY×FAMILY Production Committee

Don't get me wrong; I love the entire Forger family. But there's something wonderful about Anya and Bond as engines of chaos that make them stand out. As I said before, Anya is a much more true-to-life small child than many we see in the media, and when we add a dog to her energy, magic happens. As the only person who actually knows what's going on in the story (not that she always understands it), Anya filters things through her worldview. She's always willing to use whatever tools she has at her disposal, including her dog, who was gifted with precognition by the same experiments that made her a psychic. Anya grills Bond as to what's going on, only to get distracted when the dog shows her a picture of what they're eating for dinner is a moment I think about and chuckle over frequently. But even beyond the humor, Bond represents another sign that Anya gets to keep this family she so desperately wants, while she represents the same for him. She is the beating heart of the show, and Bond helps keep her warm. There's really nothing so wonderful as a person and their dog.

© Tatsuki Fujimoto / Shueisha • MAPPA

I had intended to wait until later seasons to recognize the likes of Chainsaw Man, but this entry will be my exception. Look, Power was the character who got me to read the manga in the first place, the one multiple people I know called me out ahead of time on regarding her obvious status as my foretold fave. And this year, anime audiences were finally introduced to this wonderful horrible trash-boat of a person, and they even cast my new favorite voice actress, Ai Fairouz, to play her? It's not even my birthday! It's not just that Power is an endlessly entertaining snot-goblin of a girl on her own, but she also has her expertly portrayed relationship with Denji that makes her so special. Too many shonen series fall into the trap of making it seem like the natural endpoint of its partnered-up male and female leads should be romance (see all the people who still insist on shipping Ichigo with Rukia). Chainsaw Man scribe Tatsuki Fujimoto commits to the platonic ideal of Denji and Power's friendship in his story, following a spectacular failure-to-launch of sexual tension that is a highlight of the series. Power's dynamic with Denji, that male-female best-friend feeling, is an important one for me to see expressed in a series like this, and exemplified in the anime right from the beginning, in the way we watch the duo dance like doofuses over the opening theme.

© 2022 CD PROJEKT S.A. All rights reserved.

No character personifies the strengths of Edgerunners as much as Rebecca. While Hiroyuki Imaishi's entry in the Cyberpunk universe ranks among his more reserved projects (somehow!), he and the rest of Trigger found a release valve for their signature brand of chaos in this violent foul-mouthed gremlin girl. In fact, I think she's the glue that holds the whole show together. Edgerunners did much better than 2077 in terms of intelligently utilizing its cyberpunk trappings to tell a tragedy wrapped up in the grim politics of its setting, and it was also much better at having fun with it. Nowhere was that more evident than in Rebecca's scenes. This little powder keg carried some of the story's most seething statements and its most sensitive. She brought humor and pathos into David's arc, and she kicks ass all the way up through the series' final moments. And, of course, I need to mention her stellar character design—I love her oversized jacket and big meaty claws—and the delightfully apeshit performance from Tomoyo Kurosawa. While we've had some intense competition this year, I'm confident in crowning Rebecca as 2022's gremlin queen.

© Tatsuki Fujimoto / Shueisha • MAPPA

For the longest time, I was convinced that my pick for Best Character of 2022 would be Power, one of the other breakout Chainsaw Man gals, because…well, c'mon, it's Power! Power is such a little piece of crap trash goblin, and she rules. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there probably wasn't any single character from 2022 that I've come to appreciate more than Himeno. This walking alcoholic disaster makes Evangelion's Misato Katsuragi look like Maria from The Sound of Music by comparison. Himeno is crass, irresponsible, and dangerously prone to seducing and manipulating the underaged teenagers who have been placed in her care for some reason.

She's also a profoundly human woman who lives in fear of losing the people she loves, and she wants desperately to earn the affection of the only guy she's capable of trusting with her life anymore, especially given the fact that neither of them are destined to live all that long given their particular line of work. She's one of the characters that contributes to Chainsaw Man being so much more than the sum of its bloody bits. Himeno might not necessarily be the most “significant” character in Chainsaw Man, but she may be the secret to unlocking the gnarled but still beating heart that lies underneath the series' viscous layers of gore, beer sweat, and God-knows-what other unmentionable fluids that have gotten all mixed up in the gunk of it all.

© Yuto Yotsuba・Ryō Ogawa・Kodansha / Paripi Kōmei Production Committee

At first, I wanted to put My Dress-Up Darling's Marin as “Character of the Year.” After the disgrace that befell Please Tell Me! Galko-Chan! and a terrible shadow was cast over Galko; Marin stepped right up to take her place in encouraging people to be their best selves, to enjoy what they enjoyed, and to be kind to one another (also, boobs get sweaty in all those fancy bras, so appreciate when your girl sends you those photos because that stuff isn't easy to make!). Marin's bright smile and endless enthusiasm for food, eroge, her many waifus, and her burgeoning attraction to her friend and colleague Gojo make her a gem.

But then I remembered Eiko, the woman who inspired Zhuge Liang, courtesy name Kongming, to move heaven and earth so that everyone could hear how lovely her singing was. When Kongming first hears her singing, he weeps; a world where a woman like her can enjoy music the way she does was the very thing he and his compatriots sacrificed their lives for. Eiko is the very definition of “loveable”: she's got a smile like a sunbeam, she's humble as they come, but she has endless love for music. Music saved her from the darkest moment in her life, and she wants people to hear her music. She doesn't want fame for fame's sake; she wants to change other people's lives the way hers was. She doesn't have a spiteful bone in her body, which might be where Kongming's admittedly-cutthroat tactics are needed, and it's all the better. Eiko jumps at the opportunity to prove herself when she sees a challenge. When times get tough, she locks in her knees in the name of her dream.

I say gratefully to whichever Three Kingdoms-era tactician may have helped Eiko find her path to the stage: good job on the Eiko. She sure is cute.

© Akiba Maid War Production Committee

This year introduced us to many charming characters from the pint-sized Anya to the disaster demon named Power, but none of them quite captured my heart the same way as 36-year-old professional maid and death machine Ranko Mannen. Ranko is a commentary on entertainment's fixation on youth and how women after a certain age "disappear" when they're no longer cute and marketable. Characters regularly remark on how strange it is for a woman past her prime thinks she can be a part of an industry focused on desirability. I mean, who would want a 36-year-old to dote on them and why hasn't she gotten a real career or a husband yet? I felt that.

Ranko isn't the protagonist but she's arguably the center idol of Oinky Doink Café, delivering her lines with deadpan sincerity no matter how gimmicky or full of pig puns. She's equal parts sexy and deadly, whether it's when she's batting for the outfields or reenacting Ashita no Joe's final punch-out match. What an icon.