Anime Girl Rankings

Running out of episodes has left me in despair!

The first entry of 2010 is for an anime which has turned me into a bonafide Studio SHAFT fan: Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei. The franchise, currently composed of three television series and a three episode OAV, follows the exploits of Nozomu Itoshiki (a teacher who can only see things in a negative light) and his students who must put up with him. Nozomu's class is filled with a variety of damaged goods girls with various obsessive, antisocial, or just plain wrong personality quirks, and they all spend their days spewing political and pop culture satire mixed with hilarious observations of the everyday absurdities of life and the human condition. It's an excellent show for which success in the event of its licensing here is far from assured. The cute girls and bits of universal humor are an easy sell, but the uniquely Japanese style, humor, and Japan-oriented pop culture references will leave most scratching their heads. In the meantime, there are seventeen cute but damaged girls waiting for votes. Happy new year!