Moving on to the next list and no prizes for guessing that this is the worst females in a harem list.
Honorable Mentions
The One who means well but will Likely Kill you with her Cooking Type
Mizuki Himeji from Baka + Test
The Emotionless Girl who's only Facial Expression is Blank Stare Type
Nino from Arakawa Under the Bridge
The Constantly Pissed off One who takes all her Frustrations out on you Type
Akira Kogami from Lucky Star
10. The Workaholic who Chooses Career over Romance Despite being the Most Popular Girl Type
Ami Mizuno from Sailor Moon
Not that there's anything wrong with the decision only this hits harder knowing that I have been on the receiving end of this particular type of girl before.
9. The Socially Bankrupt one who expects Popularity on a Plate and then goes Crazy when Nothing Happens Type
Tomoko Kuroki from Watamote
Don't take your dating advice from dating games especially when it makes you look stoned from playing them too much, not made any easier by Tomoko's twisted take on reality.
8. The Bella Swan Wannabe Type
Yuki Cross from Vampire Knight
You're another reason why Vampires can never be cool EVER AGAIN!
7. The One who Forces you to do things for her Amusement and Destroys the World when she doesn't get her way Type
Haruhi Suzumiya from Haruhi Suzumiya
If you're going to give god a form, don't choose a form of a school girl who gets her kicks from bullying people into doing her bidding.
6. The Unstable Murderer Type
Diclonius from Elfen Lied
Any Female Character from Higurashi
Yandere Characters in General
There are some names within the two anime listed to run away from really fast, and I'm fully aware that the point of Elfen Lied is to sympathize with the Diclonius I just find it hard knowing that even when trying to help them my spine is probably going to explode in the process.
5. The Violent Tsundere Type
Houki Shinonono from Infinite Stratos
Naru Narusegawa from Love Hina
Taiga Aisaka from Toradora
At least a Yandere you can pin down to being mentally insane, Tsundere's know what they're doing and 9 times out of 10 there's no reason for the victim to be abused. Speaking of which the next two have similarities to this one.
4. The One who thinks her Title gives her the right to be a Complete Utter Bitch Type
Louise Francoise Le Blanc de la Valliere from Familiar of Zero
Louise takes Tsundere to another level and uses her title as another excuse for violence, what makes this worst is that she still ends up with Saito despite forcing him to sleep rough, making him her slave and hitting him for no reason. You know Japan there's a reason these characters aren't popular anymore.
3. The Psycho Lesbian Feminist who Hates you and Hits you for no Reason Type
Ume Shiraume from Ben-to
You can see a theme going now, while Ume has no business in a harem in the first place it still doesn't excuse her behavior towards men and equally her behavior towards women, she has some pretty sick ideas in her head and I had to purposely skip her focus episode because of it.
2. The One who takes Advantage of Your Kindness who then Dumps you for not being Good Enough to solve her emotional issues Type
Flay Allstar from Gundam Seed
The scary thing about this one is that this is the type of thing you read in gossip magazines and Jerry Springer Esque chat shows and none of them end well. While the Death of her father is a source for all of this that doesn't excuse her from playing emotional mind games with her targets and it only ends badly for her in the end.
1. The Crazy Stalker who goes too far Type
Ringo Oginome from Mawaru Penguindrum
This one takes the award for sickest individual female in anime. Ringo is obsessed with a teacher her deceased older sister was dating and is convinced by her diary and using the excuse of Destiny tries to win his heart, while the early stuff is Juvia level stalking it gets worst when she tries drugging, raping and killing him to get her way. Oh wait I forgot, the guy who made Utena did this show. Kunihiko Ikuhara you are one sick individual!
Now for a special set of lists because A) I've not done one for a while and B) It's a special super duper quadruple list featuring the best and worst types to have in a harem for both male and female characters.
We start with the worst types of males in a harem.
Honorable Mentions
The I Make a Better Girl than the Girl I'm Actually Dating Type
Ranma Saotome from Ranma 1/2
The You Look Like my Dead Sister so you'll be her Replacement Type
Tokiya Mikagami from Flame of Recca
The I have an Entire Class in my Harem yet I'm Young Enough to Get Away with it Type
Negi Springfield from Negima
10. The Doesn’t Know the Meaning of Personal Space Type
Ichiya Vandalay Kotobuki from Fairy Tail
Ever met those types who like to flirt with you but come across as really creepy? That's exactly what Ichiya is like and I can see why Erza is scared of him. Yes I did say Erza, the same Erza who can take down a hundred monsters by herself.
9. The I Always Travel with Different Female Companions and Ignore all of their Hints Type
Ash Ketchum from Pokemon
Makes me wonder if Ash Ketchum's cross dressing phase had other implications but in all seriousness he's on his fifth female traveling companion and the current one really does have a crush on him, does someone have to slap some sense into the guy but then again he's not just this but also number 8.
8. The Shonen Protagonist who is Oblivious to Love Type
Monkey D Luffy from One Piece
The sexiest woman in One Piece can't get the potential Pirate King to look her way. This is the same woman who under normal circumstances looks down on men so much that she looks up, yet when she does fall madly in love with Luffy, nothing happens.
7. The You’re Going to Die if you try to Date me Type
Any Gundam Pilot from the Gundam Franchise
If death follows you everywhere don't fall for the one who's creating the Death in the first place, this goes double if your love interests are from Gundam Seed.
6. The Over the Top Manly Man who likes Lolita Type
Adam Blade from Needless
Adam Blade is a big guy in terms of muscles, ego and personality, basically Kamina on steroids, so liking little girls doesn't bode well for the female cast of Needless.
5. The Doesn’t Realise he’s in a Harem Type
Ichika Orimura from Infinite Stratos
These are the ones that attract countless women of all types, the same ones who created the Harem Genre in the first place yet some are too stupid to know this. The only one who's excused from this is Hibiki from Vandread as he grew up in a world where the genders are separated but Ichika is just an idiot. Tenchi Misaki comes to mind as well.
4. The Stupidly Popular Angsty One who is really a Dick Type
Sasuke Uchiha from Naruto
He broods, he's stoic, he wants revenge, all the girls love him because they want to save him, he's basically Edward Cullen with a Ninja Headband, he's actually a dick, it's Sasuke Uchiha! Everyone who's ever tried to get close to this guy has been stabbed and yet Haruno Sakura still married the dick
3. The I’ll Use Your Feelings to further my Goals and Kill you when I don’t need you Type
Light Yagami from Death Note
While this is normally reserved for a metric ton of evil villains, Light Yagami is supposed to be the hero yet he cares so little for Misa that he'll happily kill her when he's done. Do you really want a guy who eats potato chips and writes in notebooks with as much subtlety as firing a handgun in public.
2. The I Like Fake Girls Better than Real Girls yet I have better Dating Skills than the best Dating Experts on the Planet Type
Keima Katsuragi from World God Only Knows
Oddly specific this one but understandable when you consider that Keima is a master troll at doing this sort of thing. Well done Japan, you've made the harem hero a troll worth punching.
1. The Any Male from Utena Type
Every Male from Revolutionary Girl Utena
Just try and watch this anime and try and understand how the men in that world function.
The words "Narcissistic and Proud" come to mind along with a few things that I'd rather not talk about, as I feel ashamed that males were designed this way.
We've come to the end of Digital Week and sadly I've not finished Log Horizon in time to review it, but no matter. This innovative cartoon more than makes up for it as we look at Reboot.
Now the opening Narration is better at explaining this show than me so here's the low down for you.
"I come from the Net. Through systems, people, and cities, to this place - Mainframe. My format, Guardian: To mend and defend. To defend my new found friends, their hopes and dreams, and to defend them from their enemies. They say The User lives outside the Net and inputs games for pleasure. No one knows for sure, but I intend to find out. ReBoot!"
Long story short we follow the life of Bob, a Guardian for the world of Mainframe, who along with, mentor Phong and friends Dot Matrix and her irritating brother, fight to protect Mainframe from the evils of Megabyte, a relatively simple plot but what really gives this series the edge is that this is the first ever full CGI cartoon ever made.
While it does look horribly dated now it was also CGI's infancy and no one expected to see it go anywhere, but then when Toy Story came along a year later it was a big enough phenomenon that it's the go to format for animated movies now. However on a TV level Reboot was more than just an early CGI mess of green people, as it was well backed up by a good story and exceptional voice work, something more important than getting the CGI to look nice.
If it wasn't for the fact that this was the first CGI cartoon, it would've been ridiculed for it's animation but as it stands now, it's a piece of archived history and while there has been talk of a revival, I don't think it needs one as they got it right first time.
Were coming to the end of Digital Week and were down to our final two reviews starting with Corrector Yui.
In a world where the internet is run by a huge network called COMNET, there will inevitably be people wanting to disrupt said network so this is when the Correctors come in, champions of defending the COMNET; one such Corrector is Yui, a computer illiterate young girl who gets dragged into fighting the viruses of the enemy organization Grosser by accident and becomes an online magical girl in the process.
Well this is certainly a unique idea, so much so that no one knows about this, seriously even the dub was made by complete unknowns, yet you go to any European Country (Not the UK) and most anime fans there will tell you who Corrector Yui is. It's a real shame because Corrector Yui as a Magical Girl series is quite underrated.
Apart from the fact that every transformation sequence can be taken dangerously out of context, Corrector Yui works by taking the Card Captor Sakura approach to the online world genre and running well with it, the art style is attractive, Yui is very approachable and the side characters do well to support the story but it does run longer than it needs to and the amount of times it plays safe doesn't really give it enough weight to challenge it's more popular rivals. So if you can find it, give it a try, but it's a safe bet that you'll likely forget this anime exists.
Final Verdict: A horribly underrated series but sadly the chances of this show getting another shot at the States is the same as admitting 4Kids is a good company.
Next up on Digital Week, an Anime Film that set a new standard for the Genre, this is Summer Wars.
OZ is a super advanced online system that controls every notable function that can be computerized on Earth, everything from basic communication and gaming right down to the serious business and government systems. In the meantime a maths genius named Kenji is drafted by his school friend Natsuki to pose as her fiancee for her Great Grandmother's 90th Birthday along with meeting the large extended family Natsuki belongs to.
During his visit Kenji is tricked into cracking the security code for the OZ mainframe which unleashes a rogue AI named Love Machine onto the network wreaking havoc on the system and disrupting a number of world services which gets worst by the minute.
It's up to Kenji and Natsuki's family to save the world using online battles of Martial Arts and Hanafuda in the truest Samurai Spirit that so follows the family.
Summer Wars is one of the best anime films you'll ever see, a unique blend of family bonding along with some of the best animation and action seen in a long time; you can tell that the same director worked on Digimon as you can see alot of the scenery of OZ was lifted and improved from the Digimon Movie.
The threat from the Love Machine AI is convincing and paints a haunting picture of what might happen if the world continues to put everything online, Skynet has nothing on this guy.
Also when watching King Kazma fight or seeing Natsuki take on Love Machine in Hanafuda, you see this film put to shame a lot of popular mainstream anime including many Shonen titles and most notably Yu-Gi-Oh.
My only complaint is that the dub is a bit lacking and is way more effective in Japanese.
Final Verdict: I've been an anime fan for close to 20 years now; from the earliest memories of wondering what Dragonball Ice Cream was on my holidays in Spain, why a Giant Panda in my Gameboy game is throwing Kettles and Buckets at me, the sheer happiness of seeing Sonic the Hedgehog on film leading to the Trailer of my first proper anime watching of Dirty Pair Flash to writing this review for Summer Wars and having just come back from an anime convention a few days ago, I now find myself in a position of witnessing an Anime Film that personifies the art form so perfectly that it irritates me that it didn't at least get nominated for an Oscar the year it was released. Summer Wars is an emotional roller coaster that offers the truest meanings of family, grouped with the limitless potential of human imagination to the surreal scenarios that no live action show could copy, the Holy Trinity of a Great Anime.
Summer Wars is great and all of you should watch it.
