In common English usage we like to define an Otaku as someone who’s really into Japanese culture (like a weeb, though I have my own personal definition for that!) But in its purest form, an Otaku is a geek. A gamer. A geeky game-y lover. But of course, there’s more to it than that. NEETS, Gamers, hikokomori are all related personalities. And let’s be honest. A lot of us anime and gaming fans would consider ourselves Otaku, so how great would it be to see ourselves in the media we love right? Well look no further because I’ve listed out my favourite anime girls that fit the mold of geeky gaming characters.
22. Tsukino Usagi (Sailor Moon)
Anime: Sailor Moon Before Sailor Moon was Sailor Moon, Sailor Moon was a big fan of Sailor V: a superhero and pop culture icon with her own show and game. Usagi Tsukino was quite a fan and often wished she could be a superhero like Sailor V. Every day she would go to the arcade to try and play the new Sailor V game with her crush, and while it’s difficult to call Usagi a gamer girl (she’s like really, really bad), it wouldn’t be right to exclude her from this list. So here she is. At the bottom.
21. Haruhi Suzumiya
Anime: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Incredibly famous, Haruhi needs little introduction. She’s the leader of the SOS brigade, a school club on the lookout for aliens – something’s she’s obsessed with. Extroverted and attractive, it’s a surprise that she features in many listicles of Otaku Girls. There’s a couple of points here:
She has a one track mind towards the paranormal (obsession, check) She doesn’t care for anyone she considers ‘normal’, which is almost everyone (lives in their own world, check) She cosplays in every other episode (Otaku mode, check!)
20. Nao Kamiya
Anime: iDOLM@STER The all-inclusive anime/video-game/K-Drama/MMO/Arcade Game/Manga/Audio Drama series iDOLM@STER is also all-inclusive in its choice of waifus by including a cute Otaku girl. NaoKamiya joins 765 Productions, the company that trains all the idols in the series, because she feels she’s too masculine enough. A secret Otaku, she wants to be comfortable with being feminine and so tries to become the most feminine thing she can think of – an idol.
19. Maddy Iroaya
Anime: MegaMan NT Warrior Maddy is one of the main villains in the original MegaMan NT Marrior run. In this alternate future, the Internet has developed to such a point that people use ‘NetNavi’ to travel through an alternate online world which is able to impact our real world. Alongside with her NetNavi ‘Wackoman/Colorman’, Maddy is introduced as able to control the whole of Tokyo’s traffic system, causing car crashes left, right and center. And even threatening the lives of our main characters.Oh my!
18. Erika Karisawa
Anime: Durarara!! Erika is part of Dollars, an online gang with a group split between doing good and doing violent crimes. Erika, however, was part of a much more dangerous group in the past where she was an interrogator. Her partner Walter, meanwhile, was an arsonist. Both Walter and Erika get along because of their Otaku vibes. She’s more than into anime and manga, it seeps into her everyday life and was even told by Dollars to stay in the car during a raid because she would be too recognizable!
17. Sensei
Anime: Denki-gai no Honya-san Sensei is a clerk at the Umanohone manga store, though not a teacher in any sense of the word. She picked up her nickname because of her dedication in becoming the next great mangaka. And she sure does work hard at it too, staying overnight in the back of the store living off convenience store onigiri and bottled tea, forgoing a shower in favour of washing her hair in the sink and spraying deo on her armpits. Sound familiar?
16. Yuuki Asuna
Anime: Sword Art Online Asuna just wanted to try out a new game that her brother got, but was trapped in Sword Art Online alongside another 10,000 unlucky individuals. Death in the game world means death in real life and because of that Asuna locked herself in a tavern for several weeks. But life is a game (and here game is life), staying in a locked room forever simply won’t do – so Asuna goes out and proves herself to be a worthy adversary, slaying monsters at incredible rates for EXP. After beating SAO, she continues to game putting her avatar into ALfheim Online where she got the nickname ‘Berserk Healer’ from her tactic of rushing in headfirst with a rapier despite being a healer.
15. Tamiya Nika
Anime: Switch Girl A common otaku girl archetype is the one who ‘switches’ between two her two personalities. In public, the girl is perfect, beautiful, and outgoing. But in private, she’s messy, lazy, and only cares about manga. I apologize that this is not an anime but too perfect to ignore, Switch Girl is a manga and live-action series centring on Tamiya Nika, the most stylish and fashionable girl at her school. However at home her room is full of trash, unwashed mugs and piles of manga that have fallen off the shelves. Awkward to the extreme in this form, she accidentally shows her crush that she likes him by sniffing his neck without realizing; then to slip and fall on top of him just as her mom and sister barge into the room.
14. Fubuki
Anime: Arcade Gamer Fubuki The spiritual successor to the golden-age era ‘Game CenterArashi’, a show about a boy who becomes the greatest arcade gamer in the world, Arcade Gamer Fubuki is a self-reflective parody of the whole gaming anime genre. Arashi himself does show up as a superhero and as the person who gave Fubuki her ‘gamer’s spirit’…and panties. Fubuki is an arcade gamer, but she’s only actually good when her skirt gets blown up and she does a magical girl transformation using her ‘passion panties’. In this state she’s able to best anyone, quickly becoming Japan’s best gamer and in the running for the world’s B.A.G (Best Arcade Gamer) title. However an evil organization is using the same competition for nefarious purposes. Can Fubuki and her panties stop them?
13. Narumi Momose
Anime: Wotakoi: Love is Hard For Otakus Narumi Momose and HirotakaNifujiare an otaku couple. However, Narumi was introduced to the lifestyle by Hirotaka, who she has known her whole life before getting together and tries to hide it from her family. Hirotaka, meanwhile, does not care and open flaunts how great he is at his games. Though she’s nowhere as aggressively open about it as her boyfriend, Narumi loves manga, anime, games and the like. When Hirotaka asked her out, he did so by saying he’d grind for her. A match made in heaven.
12. Aoba Suzukaze
Anime: New Game Aoba is the newest hire at Eagle Jump, a video game company in Tokyo. Though young, she’s a talented artist and quickly rises through the ranks to become lead designer, taking over the position of her idol Kou Yagami. Despite clearly being a gamer, you never really get to see her game. And when she does, there’s nothing to say she’s particularly good at them. Then again, game design isn’t about winning games. It’s about knowing about them, and Aoba certainly does.
11. Shiro
Anime: No Game, No Life Shiro is an eleven-year-old extreme genius who alongside her brother Sora are known as BLANK, two human gamers who were transported into a universe made entirely of games ruled by Tet, the god of games. How did she get there? Well, the siblings just about defeated every human player online and the only enemy left was a literal god. Despite her intelligence, she finds it difficult to read the moves of real people, finding spontaneity confusing and relying on Sora for help. Their goal is to subdue all the civilizations in Tet’s world so they can challenge him one more time.
10. Kaho Hinata
Anime: Blend S Kaho Hinata is one of the waitresses at Café Stille, a maid café where everyone plays a stereotype. Kaho, one of the youngest and most naïve workers, plays the tsundere, a personality which could not be further from her actual person. She’s bubbly and cute, but she’s also known around town as a great gamer. She visits the arcade almost every day and easily gathers crowds of onlookers as she dances away on DDR (though they could be looking at more than her scoreboard!). Once she got locked inside the café overnight but all she could think about was whether she’d have enough battery on her console to last her till morning.
9. Kirino Kosaka
Anime: Oreimo Kirino is another one of those ‘perfect in public, otaku at home’ archetypes. She’s also one of the cute but annoying little sister archetypes. In public, Kirino is a high achiever. She has pretty good grades, is great at sports and is pretty enough to model part time (using all the money for her figures, manga and games of course!). She manages to hide all this from her family and especially from her brother Kyosuke, who she could never get along with – that is until she misplaces an 18+ game and Kyosuke finds out her secret.
8. Umaru Douma
Anime: Imotou Umaru-Chan Umaru, despite being the main character of a series named after her, is a pretty boring archetype. Another ‘perfect-in-public, Otaku at home’ + Little sister, Umaru literally has two forms that no one but her brother realizes is the same person. In her otaku form, she’s a two-foot-tall chibi hamster who throws tantrums all the time. The strength of her character comes from how versatile it is. People gather around Umaru (one of the Umarus) and she does all she can to stop them from seeing the other side. It’s great for the story, but not necessarily too interesting for her character.
7. Patricia Martin
Anime: Lucky Star “Otaku are the pride of Japanese culture! My critical mission is to absorb as much as I can and take it back to America!” The first of two Lucky Star entrances here (don’t even act surprised), Patricia ‘Patty’ Martin is an exchange student from America studying at Ryoohighschool along with the rest of the cast. Having learned all her Japanese from Anime and Manga before going to Japan, she speaks like an anime character – even for an anime character. Surely no American exchange students in Japan are like that in real life…right?
6. Tsukimi Kurashita
Anime: Princess Jellyfish Tsukimi is part of five women who live at the Amamuzukan, an apartment building in Tokyo whose inhabitants all happen to be Otaku. Basically women leading to them calling themselves the ‘Amars’ (Nuns). Our main girlTsukimi is the youngest of the group. She loves jellyfish, something her late mother instilled in her, and wants to become the best illustrator in Tokyo. Unfortunately her introvert energy is too strong, and she couldn’t even make it to an exhibition on Jellyfish in Art. Truly a role-model for Otaku everywhere.
5. Kou Yagami
Anime: New Game Kou Yagami is Aoba’s role model and the original character designer for Eagle Jump. She dedicates her life to making games and is infamous in the company (which is all filled with girls) for her lack of poise. She stays overnight at the company most days, sleeping under her desk in her underwear. More often than not, someone walks in on her before she wakes up. Her skills as a designer are known far and wide, and at the end of Season 2 she’s invited to work in France as a designer. Lovely ending. Season 3 isn’t out yet as of this writing, but the Manga has some pretty interesting scenes of the shut-in otaku being flustered by French kissing customs!
4. Tomoko Kuroki
Anime: No Matter How I Look At It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular Tomoko is the stereotypical otaku. She’s socially inept, lives alone, perverted and has difficulty talking to people of the opposite sex. She does nothing but stay at home to game and read manga. She’s a NEET. She’s an Otaku. The whole show revolves around the fact that she tries to get out of this social slump, but she’s unable to. To her benefit, it’s not her fault. She started high school with 50 YEARS of dating experience and had dated 100 boys already!…on her dating SIM but it’s the thought that counts.
3. Gabriel Tenma
Anime: Gabriel Dropout Fallen angels come in all shapes and sizes. Lucifer, once the right hand man of God was dispelled from heaven after a great rebellion. Cast aside, he became the leader of Hell. It’s not a simple feat! Unless you’re Gabriel, the shining, perfect example of an Angel, best in her class, sent to Earth to learn about humans and save them from eternal suffering. Arriving on Earth, the angel is accidentally introduced to online MMOs. She hears the cries of avatars who need to be healed. How could an angel resist helping the needy? She helps. And helps, and helps. And by the time she realizes the online world is not real, it’s too late she’s addicted. Now she has no interest in returning to heaven or even carrying out her angelic duties. She just wants to sit at home and game. And really, who doesn’t?
2. Konata Izumi
Anime: Lucky Star Konata is the leader of the Lucky Star gang – if you can call it leading. She doesn’t do much. In fact, she does nothing. She sits at home all day reading manga and playing video games instead of doing her homework, despite actually being quite smart and athletic. In the opening episodes, Konata tries to get a part time job and what better job for someone like her than working at a cosplay café? A second lucky star entry, but one that cannot be ignored. Konata is the quintessential Otaku from the quintessential slice-of-life school girl anime.
1. Tachibana Sylphynford
Anime: Himouto Umaru-chan Probably a surprising choice for first place, considering the show’s main character Umaru was only placed 9. But Sylphynford is, at least in my opinion, a much more interesting character. Going around striking sailor moon-esque poses and ending every sentence with desuwa, it’s almost as though she’s realizes she’s in an anime. However what really sets Sylphynford apart from other Otaku girls is the character writing. Unlike Umaru, Sylphynford feels no need to hide her two sides – she’s perfect, and she’s an Otaku. In fact, her Otaku side is what keeps her grounded to Japan. Raised in Germany by her European Father, she was introduced to Japanese culture by her brother, Alex, who moved to Japan to live with Mom when Sylphynford was still a kid. Absorbing all manner of Japanese culture, she eventually moved over as well. Otaku culture gives her those sweet memories of childhood and like many third culture Asians she dedicates her life to perfecting what she feels most important to her – being an Otaku.
