Partly inspired by one of the entries, these are the characters who can wear absolutely anything, these characters never stick to one outfit for very long, they always change clothing frequently and have plenty to choose from, so without further delay lets begin.
Honorable Mentions
Elizabeth Midford from Black Butler
Always appears in a different dress each time she appears, if it weren't for restrictions in the time period she'd wear every type of dress going.
Isaac & Miria from Baccano
They wear a different costume on every heist but the series is too short compared to the other entries who come from longer series.
Any Idol or Precure Anime
Because naming them all would not make this list very interesting.
10. Toru Kouno, Yuujirou Shihodani and Mikoto Yutaka from Princess Princess
Our first entries are the only male entries on this list, saying that these pretty boys can pull off absolutely anything whether it be male or female clothing, a testament to the art design this anime has.
9. Naru Narusegawa from Love Hina
As the artist's favorite, Naru gets the pick of pretty much every costume going including anime only, manga covers and promotional art exclusives. It helps that Ken Akamatsu is a cosplay otaku and that his wife is the inspiration for Naru.
8. Usagi Tsukino from Sailor Moon
While all the Sailor Scouts go through a decent wardrobe of clothes, Usagi gets bonuses for using disguises and battle costume upgrades, heck she even pulls off a very convincing male in the manga.
7. Lum from Urusei Yatsura
The only entry on this list to have more costumes in promotional art than her actual anime, it's something which Rumiko Takahashi did alot of which would transfer into Ranma 1/2, in fact for a long time Lum was the face of anime itself.
6. Honey Kisaragi from Cutey Honey
Honey is a master of disguise and will show case any costume when the situation calls for it, in fact her trademark catchphrase often involves her showcasing her disguises before becoming Cutey Honey.
5. Yuri from Dirty Pair Franchise
Yuri is an interesting case because a good majority of her wardrobe appears in one episode of the Flash series if only to spoof how many outfits she's had over all series in the franchise even those outside of Japan with the Adam Warren comics.
4. Rebecca Miyamoto from Pani Poni Dash
Appears in a different outfit every episode and some of her DVD cover costumes are spoofs of other anime characters like Gendou Ikari or cultural icons like Bruce Lee and the Terminator.
3. Sakura Kinomoto from Card Captor Sakura
This is the only entry to actually have her own personal fashion designer in Tomoyo, not by choice and Tomoyo is a little too eager to dress up Sakura for all her battles. Saying that, this is the most diverse set of Magical Girl costumes ever assembled in one show.
2. Erza Scarlet from Fairy Tail
She has an armor for every occasion and battle, she even uses her magic to change into regular clothes, she even has special outfits she only gets out when the situation calls for it such as her legendary bikini and her wedding dress. I hate this word but Erza is a real fashionista.
1. Fujiko Mine from Lupin III
This women has appeared in disguises so often that one wonders what she really looks like normally, this even became the subject of her own TV Series spinoff. While previous entries have multiple clothing and one trademark outfit, Fujiko Mine just wears everything and anything, even her trademark catsuits are diverse.
I've been wanting to review this anime since I started it and now that it's done here is what I think of Pani Poni Dash.
We begin with ten year old Rebecca Miyamoto whose about to start a new job as a teacher at a Japanese High School, if you're wondering where you've heard that before, you may be thinking of Negima but Pani Poni Dash started in Manga format back in 2001, yes like Needless it's older than it looks.
On the way Rebecca is subjected to many strange things including a cat locked in a vending machine who hands out warm cans and claims he's god, Rebecca is also being spied on by Aliens who look like funky trash cans whose job in this series is just to spy on Becky and make snarky comments. Traveling with Becky is Mesousa, a horribly depressed bunny rabbit.
Now a game for anyone who fancies posting comments called trope bingo.
Episode one introduces most of the cast and by episode five we learn pretty much everyone so all you need to do is name ten character tropes without looking at TV Tropes and you win.
Back to the review, the students get very excited at the prospect of having a kid teacher so they mess around with her to the point that they scare her off behind the curtain. While there are plenty of characters in this series the ones were focusing on the most is Class 1C made of Rei, Himeko, Ichijo, Kurumi, Miyako & No.6 Sayaka.
From there we are subjected to the weird and wonderful the show has to offer in an Azumanga Daioh meets Excel Saga as painted by Roy Lichtenstein and that's where things start going off key.
A gag series needs to keep the jokes and references flowing constantly and can't afford to stop or repeat anything otherwise the characters will end up falling flat later on. Pani Poni Dash insists on going with running gags for 90% of it's content and suffers for it as a result.
Himeko's "Maho" (Ten times worst in the dub), Sayaka's "XY of the year", Kurumi's boring sulk routine, Miyako's shiny head and Mesousa's constant depression fall really flat when it's played out every episode with only Rei, Ichijo and Becky making an effort to diversify but even they fall flat sometimes when you fail to be surprised by them anymore (Which is strange considering how random Ichijo can be). This also extends to the rest of the cast apart from a few exceptions but still ultimately falling flat when they do their routine for the tenth time.
To put all that in more simple terms, it's like being told the same joke everyday, it gets less funny the more you hear it and by the end of it you just want to watch something else, this gets harder to watch when you're trying to catch references as well. I think ADV had Video notes but the version I got was a re-release so I've got the unfortunate task of re-watching the series to catch all the references.
You know what, I expected better from this series, especially when the art style is so attractive to watch; when you look back at it's senior shows Azumanga Daioh and Excel Saga you get the feeling that the creators watched both shows and then showed up at the meeting saying "combine these two!"
Final Verdict: I expected a lot more from this series considering how good the art style is; while it does keep you drawn in, the show can be tiring to watch and can easily become boring if watched constantly. I recommend for best viewing to watch one episode a week to stop it from becoming boring.
In the world of Anime it's easy to point out the anime art style which most of the time has just improved from the old days but not evolved but this list celebrates those who dared to be different and succeeded.
10. Hetalia Axis Powers
Style: Soft color tones that give the characters such a unique appearance & glow.
Although Hidekazu Himaruya's art style is better known in Hetalia, when used in a different story it's almost as if you're reading a painting.
9. Princess Mononoke
Style: Miyazaki Hand Drawn Style that rely on epic scenery.
There's a reason why Miyazaki is considered the Japanese Disney, all of his works rely on epic scenery which is entirely hand drawn and Mononoke was his crowning achievement of this.
8. Redline
Style: Strong color scheme similar to pop art relying on exaggerated animation.
7 years and 100,000 hand made drawings show just how much effort this film took to make.
7. Pani Poni Dash
Style: Strong colors used in free flowing animation to demonstrate surreal & exotic imagery.
I'm not sure if this was the first title to use this type of art but Pani Poni Dash is certainly the best at using it. At times the quality fluctuates but it works well in the shows favor in order to show off some of the more surreal moments of the series. Negima has used this style as well.
6. Puella Madoka Magica
Style: Nightmarish abstract art which draws the viewers attention to the story.
Madoka Magica was ground breaking for the Magical Girl Genre by taking the happy parts and redesigning it into a nightmare world. Each witch resembles an abstract painting showing just how corrupt the mind can get.
5. Shamanic Princess
Style: 90s style at it's highest quality.
The short series Shamanic Princess really wanted to stand out and the 90s Anime style was set on strong color and high quality scenery and animation. I'd like to see how much money this cost to animate.
4. Panty & Stocking
Style: Western Cartoon Style based heavily on Adult Swim and Modern Cartoon Network.
If Americans can copy us then we can copy them and the result is the anarchy that is Panty & Stocking, a show that makes Excel Saga look normal.
3. Soul Eater
Style: Tim Burton Art Style.
It's been said in pretty much every review for Soul Eater that if Tim Burton ever did an anime then it would look something like Soul Eater and who can blame them when the moon is smiling with such a sinister grin.
2. Hyakka Ryoran Samurai Girls
Style: Wood Block Art Style using ink blots & brush strokes for action sequences.
An old printing technique used in Japan & China which became in the art world the official style of Japanese art. Samurai Girls is drawn in such a way that the animation looks as if it takes place on a wood block with ink blots & brush strokes to create unique action sequences.
1. Tiger & Bunny
Style: Evolution of the detailed art style used in Akira mixed with CGI.
The animation team behind Tiger & Bunny really worked for this series, it is one of the best anime worlds I've ever seen and really mixes well with the CGI parts. If someone took the time to reboot Akira it would look something like this.
