I thought I would kick off the Friday Five feature with something light and fluffy and silly. Not to be taken seriously in any way. I have been spoiled by a wealth of absolutely delicious anime characters in my time to the point that I have now splintered my anime harem into a myriad of subcategories. One of my favorites, is my beloved prince girls. Androgynous ladies who could have their pick of anyone.
These aren’t all yuri ladies, so I may not stand a chance, but they’re also imaginary so…I’m not sure where I was going with this. Look, pretty girls!
Oscar
Lady Oscar or Rose of Versailles, was one of the very first animes I ever saw and it’s still one of my favourites. I was dazzled by what I considered at the time to be breathtaking animation, all those luxurious costume designs and crazy palace intrigue. Toddler me lapped it up!
But nothing impressed me more than Oscar herself. This absolutely gorgeous woman was a hero and leader. Unrepentant and self-assured, always the most capable person in the room. I wanted to be her and be with her simultaneously, even though I was probably way too young to understand what either of these impulses meant. You will be hard pressed to find a nobler gentleman anywhere.
Sailor Uranus
I wasn’t planning on doing these in chronological order… Full disclosure, unless she was wearing a suit, I didn’t find that much difference between Haruka’s character design and that of the other characters in Sailor Moon, so as a younger girl the gender issues didn’t really hit me much. What I did love was how fantastic she was with Michiru.
For some reason I never warmed up to Mamoru. I thought he was a bit of a jerk. So seeing an important couple in the series where both partners were devoted and respectful really attracted me. If I had my pick of Sailor Moon hotties, I would always go for Uranus (that’s not a pun, I didn’t pick the name…)
Shizuku
All right, this one may be considerably more to do with character design than anything else. There were a lot of fantastic characters in Magical Girl Raising Project and Shizu is not among the more interesting. Her persona was fairly simple and straightforward. Nothing wrong with that, just not quite as memorable as some. But her “real life” character design had me rewinding scenes over and over again. I’m not sure what Nana was thinking but if I had a girl that looked like that the only thing I’d want to change is… well this is a PG blog. Kinda. She’s really hot you guys…
Naoto
Sweetie pie Naoto is my favorite cosplay. I have just about every possible version of the character. She’s a little trickier to include on this list since there are some self-loathing or possible trans tendencies in her character that make her a tougher to pin down as an androgynous girl, but however Naoto choses to identify, the character remains deeply endearing.
Naoto was my only romance choice in Persona 4 (OTP with Kanji though). I desperately want to give Naoto a hug. I want to hear what’s on Naoto’s mind. A powerful combination of strength and vulnerability and a beautiful character all around.
Kashima
There’s a reason everyone loves Kashima (Hori does too he just has a little trouble admitting it), she’s just plain awesome. What’s always been wonderful about Kashima, and really most characters in Nozaki-kun is the uncomplicated acceptance of themselves.
Kashima is fine the way she is. She is so perfectly comfortable with herself that it’s guaranteed to put you at ease too. That sort of inner peace is completely irresistible to me which is why Kashima is not only my top pick for today’s list but also a role model I want to be more like. I would totally be part of her fanbase.
5 is really not a lot. I’ve left some very noteworthy ladies off this list. Do you have a favorite I didn’t name? I bet you do…
I can’t keep my eyes off Shizuku.. Can’t say I know her personally (through aniwatching of course) but I love her character design!
You have a good eye Chizue…
Great choices!! I LOVE Naoto!
What’s not to love really… P4 had a lot of great charas but she completely stole the show
I would DEFINITELY love to cosplay as her!! I’ve already had her hair and the rest would be pretty easy!
DO IT!!!! post pics or just send them to me!
Oscar omg!!!! I loved it and her 😍💗💗 the ending left me really sad for the series 🙁 it’s one of the series I want to read the manga of one of these days 😄
Utena was another great prince girl, though she was tomboy she didn’t pretend to be a man or pass as one, but she was a great prince too 💗
Mamoru was a giant bag of dicks to a 14 year old, plus he was in college with a car aka at least 18 and dating middle school girls…
Oof Uranus and Neptune, my lesbian princesses 😍💗
Their scenes always stole the show for me 💗
Oh Naoto is a good pick for sure, she was so brave and smart 💗
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun did so well with their characters, Kashima was gorgeous and funny, love her 💗
This is a list full of wins, you have excellent taste my friend 😍💗
Great – I’m not the crazy one about Mamoru – he was a jerkface!
Yay I got Nes’s approval!!! Almost said Cat…
Oh yes not the biggest fan of Mamoru, he wasn’t even that charming or pretty in the original, so I didn’t understand what they saw on him. Seiya though was gorgeous and I had the biggest boner, and I hoped Usagi would get with him , but alas 😢
Haha! It’s okay, I’m still adapting to Nes too hehe~ 😄
Ooh, great list. Can’t really come up with one of my own, mostly because at some point the entire gender divide collapses for me. Lately, I’m always hunting around for what pronouns what people use for what character (Japanese doesn’t have gendered pronouns). I’ve settled on “they” for Kino (Kino no Tabi) and Nanachi (Made in Abyss), and probably for obvious characters like the main character from Wagaya no Oinari-sama, a fox with both a male and a female form, who is so old and has taken both forms so often that they’ve forgotten their original gender and don’t seem to care (I’ve only seen a few episodes, so I don’t know if the show pulls something later on).
On your list I don’t know Sailor Uranus (never got that far into Sailor Moon), and I’m unsure how to handle Naoto (since the Persona games aren’t exaclty renouned for their deep understanding of gender nuance). I’d never have thought of Shizuku, not because she’s not hot, but because I just don’t have that category if the show itself doesn’t use a sledgehammer to pound the type into my skull.
Utena? (Have never seen the show past episode one – it’s rather hard to find.)
Also, I’m really bad at names, so I wouldn’t have remembered Kashima’s name. Relevance: when I read Auri’s post my first reaction was, but isn’t the show called Kashimashi and what was the main characters name? And then I read on and felt like a fool. [Kashimashi is a show where a boy accidently obliterated by a passing UFO, and then reconstructed by aliens who don’t quite get gender [or simply messed up, It’s been a while and I don’t really remember], so he ends up a girl (not a very masculine one).]
Utena is a fantastic show I highly recommend it. This is a personal basis of course but I never thought of Utena as androgynous. I always saw her as very feminine (much like Integra Hellsing and Olivier Armstrong or else the would make my drooley lists every time…)
Kino from Kino’s journey and Miss Kobayashi are both fairly androgynous; in fact, it’s part of Kino’s back story that she goes from being a girly-girl to more mannish as part of becoming the person she is.
See i thought of Kino. She’s my first footer pic but somehow Kobayashi had totally slipped my mind. I think I identify with her too much to find her drool worthy…
Oh, yeah, drool-worthy no. I like her chill, though. Dragon at door? Close door.
LAAADY OSCAAAAR!!! *signal hoards of trumpets, dove release*
Oh, and Sailor Uranus! You’ve got excellent taste.
I do! In blogs as well I might add!
Kaa- Shiii- maaa- chhi <3
Oh yay I love this list Rin-chan!
Prince type girls are awesome~
Ahh, really, what I would give to be Kashima-cchi…..
I don’t know, you seem pretty amazing just as you are….
ToT
Well to be honest, I’m half of what Kashima is…..
I think people can’t juge their own awesomeness, that’s just not how it works. You’ll just have to take my word for it 😉
Thanks Rin-san!
Thank goodness you included Kashima! I was going to have to write a strongly worded comment otherwise!
phew…that was a close call….
Please do an androgynous guys list, I have like three already off the top of my head.
hmmm maybe we can do it together…
I’m down, man, whenever you want.
Probably DM me on the twitters
Sounds good. Gimme a few days and I’ll get back to you
Sure thing, I’m free most days.
Oscaaaaar! All those girls squeeing over her at Versailles? Yeah, I would’ve definitely been one of them.
Realistically I would never have made it to court but if I had…
I might not have made it to court either, come to think of it. I did however once make it to a Takarazuka Revue performance of Rose of Versailles – and that’s gotta be the next best thing, right? 😉
Ooohh that must have been impressive! Jealous..
I knew Kashima had to be here. And okay Shizuku has really great character design.
I’m glad to see you have great taste!
Kashimaaaaaa~ love her. She’s so cool!
No argument here except you know….mine… stay away!
Lololol I’ll try to stay away 😉
Some cool choices! I’m not familiar with some of the shows mentioned here, but going purely by the character design in those cases… man, Shizuku is hot as hell. That shaggy hair over the eye thing totally pushes my buttons.
Right….I know. I may have rewatched certain Magical Girl Raising Project episodes just to gawk at her…
Naoto was a pretty cool character.
I very much agree
Isao Takahata passed away yesterday
I heard. Grave for fireflied was a devastatingly beautiful film that still haunts me.