Cartoon Pundit Hall of Fame: Favorite Female Characters

I thought for my next top 10 I would do a more personal list. After some careful consideration I decided to do a list of my favorite characters of all time. I thought it prudent to do individual lists of female and male characters. I thought this based upon the fact that I wasn’t sure within my top 10 how many I would have of each gender. Specifically, I didn’t want a list with say 7 females and 3 males or vice versa. Each deserved their own list. I decided to do my favorite female characters first. You could say I’m being ‘gentlemanly’ and letting the ladies go first. However, the truth is with Mother’s Day and my youngest sister’s birthday just passed, I’ve had strong females on the brain so thought it was a good time to celebrate strong female characters. I remind everyone that all opinions are my own. I can pretty much guarantee you that my list will be different that yours. Also, spoilers might be ahead. You have been warned. I hope you enjoy the Cartoon Pundit’s Favorite Female Characters.

10.) Velma Dinkley (Scooby-Doo Series)

So I have to give a confession, Scooby-Doo, Where are You! is probably my favorite series of all time. I know it’s the same plot every single episode. Also, the writing is pretty much garbage by today’s standards, but I can’t get over the nostalgia. I used to watch it every single day. Now that, that is off my chest, on to Velma. Velma is strong-willed, smart, and usually at least somewhat funny. She’s extremely inquisitive and always looking for the next mystery. I value a person’s intelligence above all else which I why I vastly prefer Velma to Daphne. I personally don’t hate Daphne, but her original design was to be a beautiful but clumsy damsel-in-distress, which is archaic by today’s standards. Thankfully, most of that has been retconned, either way Velma to me has always been the stronger character. She always seems to find the one clue that needed to solve the mystery. Also her random knowledge of things like hieroglyphs or ancient Viking texts, etc. always seemed to come in handy. She was also always helping Fred with his Rube Goldberg Machines, although none of those ever seem to work, so take that for what it’s worth. Velma was the first truly strong female character I ever saw as a kid and she’s stuck with me ever since. There is one factor, however, that holds her back from being higher on my list…she’s my third favorite character from her own show. Also the whole completely unable to function without her glasses thing doesn’t help. Overall, however, I still love Velma enough to put her at number 10 on my favorite female characters list.

9.) Touka Kirishima (Tokyo Ghoul)

For anyone who’s never seen or read Tokyo Ghoul, I’ll give a basic overview of the series. Tokyo Ghoul is set in modern-day Tokyo, the big difference is that it’s a Tokyo infested with beings called Ghouls. Ghouls basically look and act like humans save for the fact that they can’t metabolize food other than human meat. They also are physically stronger, faster, and have more stamina than normal humans. In addition, they also develop an organ (Kagune) used for hunting humans. The main character is Ken Kaneki, who after a major accident, has a Ghoul’s organs put in him which turns him into a Human-Ghoul Hybrid. Ken unable to eat any human food begins working for a coffee shop that’s where he meets Touka Kirishima. Touka is Ghoul. Touka is also a complete bad-ass. She is super powerful, smart, full of quips and is just overall, awesome. She is also extremely dutiful to her friends and family. Now note, she is a bit rash at times. Literally, to avenge the death of one of the Ghouls she attacks Ghoul Inspectors in the middle of the night and later purposefully tries to bait the killer of the Ghoul to kill him. Now note, she nearly gets herself killed during these events. What makes her even more impressive is that she’s fully integrated herself into human society.  Not many Ghouls go to any school, let alone college. She even takes it as far as purposefully allowing herself to get sick when her human best friend gives her food. Oh and did I mention her Kagune makes her look like a One-Winged Angel, which is pretty much awesome. Tokyo Ghoul is a series with a lot of great (albeit mostly psychotic) characters and for the first 11 episodes of the show, Touka by far was my favorite one. What brought her down was episode 12 occurring. Ken went from mostly pathetic to ultimate bad-ass in that one episode (with a good bit of insanity thrown in). She’s also mostly absent from season 2 which kind of sucked, honestly. Now neither of those take too much away from her because she’s still really awesome, but they are worth mentioning. Thankfully, she’s allegedly going to be featured more in season 3…whenever that comes out.

8.) Angelica Pickles (Rugrats)

This is a strange circumstance. I hated Angelica as a kid. Royally hated her. She was my middle sister’s favorite character. Maybe “favorite character” isn’t the right phrase more like “alter ego”. Seriously, my sister to this day refers to Angelica as her alter ego. What changed for me is that, I’ve rewatched as an adult and honestly, she’s more entertaining than all of the babies combined. Sure she’s bratty, bullies the babies, and plays the adults for chumps, but personality-wise she’s just so entertaining. I also argue a lot of her bratty personality stems from the fact that her parents have no time for her. That and being the only, “only child” on the show by the end. I mean seriously the only way she can get attention is by being bad. Now note she probably takes it too far with babies, most of the time, but still. Also, it’s clear that she loves the babies. Don’t let her bullying fool you, she’s come up to bat for them more than once. To her she really treats the babies like the younger siblings she never had. What really makes her so awesome, is that she’s insanely quotable. Everything from the responsibilities means you can’t have fun anymore for the rest of your life to calling her dad out for being threatened by working women to needing “elastic perjury” to stay beautiful, they are just awesome. On a per quote basis she is by far the best on the show and probably some of the best Nickelodeon has ever had. Honestly, in retrospect, Rugrats would have been pretty bland without her. Of course, as an adult I have more respect for the foil or villainous characters than I did as a kid. So that’s probably the main reason, why I love Angelica now when I hated her as a kid.

7.) Rika Nonaka (Digimon Tamers)

As mentioned in Pokémon vs Digimon, Digimon Tamers is by far my favorite season of Digimon. The plot line and the 3 core characters of that season are amazing. With that said, coming from that season is my favorite Digimon character of Rika Nonaka. Now Digimon had written female characters prior to that fairly well, but none of them compare to Rika. Rika at the start of the series is completely ruthless and only cares about getting stronger.  She’s so ruthless that she calls out her digimon for not being able to digivolve.. Her experience level is way beyond the other characters and you can tell. She’s also sarcastic, argumentative, and completely intimidating. Basically, she’s awesome. As the series goes on, you get more of her backstory which is that her mother is a famous model and actress that has no time for her. Also her mom basically wants her to be just like her, more girly and feminine, even though that’s completely opposite of Rika’s personality. It turns out that Rika’s mom and dad divorced sometime before the series and she basically never sees him. Her personality is basically a contradiction early in the series. What she actively does is to try to be the best tamer ever, but what she actually wants to have friends and to be herself. Not the person everyone else wants her to be. This is actually deep stuff here for a kid’s show. Eventually, she saves Renamon which changes her personality mightily. She becomes great friends with Takato and Henry and a pseudo big sister to Jeri. It also vastly improved her relationship with her mother. Eventually, the series culminates in a tearful goodbye between her and Renamon. She has the most character development of any character in the series’s history. Between her personality, backstory, and character development, she was my favorite anime character until very recently.

6.) Daria Morgendorffer (Daria)

The show Daria is basically a shot at every high school TV show trope ever. Center to this show is its main character in Daria. I’m not going lie from my perspective, Daria’s pretty much the most awesome high school girl you are ever going to meet. She’s socially awkward, and honestly gave up trying to fit in a long time ago. She’s completely cynical and sarcastic. Daria is also very intelligent albeit a little lazy. In fact, one of her favorite activities is actively making fun of her parents and sister. Which honestly she’s a little bit justified because her parents actively try to make her ‘normal’. Instead of supporting her unique qualities they try to get rid of them. In addition, she’s also heavily opinionated and fairly staunch with those opinions. She is actually EXTREMELY unwavering for a characters that seems chill most of the time. Daria actually has a good bit of depth to her personality. She knows that most people will not like her personality, thus she preemptively strikes to get them to hate her that way it won’t hurt as bad when they chose to hate her. I see a lot of my personality in Daria, I don’t actively try to make people hate me, but I gave up trying to fit to societies ‘normal’ standards a long time ago. I just chose to be myself. I’m also very deadpan and somewhat cynical. So basically I love Daria for being able to see a lot of myself in her except for the cartoony level she occasionally takes things…and obviously the gender swap.

5.) Tanya Degurechaff (Saga of Tanya the Evil)

How does a character go from not even being on television a couple of months ago to my number 5 favorite female character? Be completely awesome and Tanya Degurechaff is just that. If you need a detailed explanation on the world of Saga of Tanya the Evil refer to my WTF Moments in Anime post. Just for a quick recap, though, it’s an alternate WWI time frame where magic exists. Tanya is a ten year-old girl with vast magical powers who joins the military to give herself a cozy life. Now here’s where the fun begins Tanya is a completely ruthless social-Darwinist who only cares about herself. She is completely brutal when it comes to training and discipline to the point where she doesn’t care if she kills her own soldiers during these events. In addition, she shows absolutely no remorse killing the enemy whether they are a civilian or a soldier. She also a master manipulator removing higher ranking officers in front of her, and formalizing a plan that makes her look better in her superior’s eyes. Not to mention playing off the fact that she is a cute little girl to lull enemies (and allies to a certain extent) into a false sense of security. She’s completely insane and I absolutely love it. Saga of Tanya the Evil is not like most entries on this list that have several great characters. In fact, I found none of the other characters to be all that interesting, to be completely honest. With that said, I loved this series. That was based almost purely upon Tanya. She is just so entertaining. Her insanity and manipulative skills make the entire series. Never has a single character affected my opinion of a series so strongly.

 4.) Sam Manson (Danny Phantom)

Danny Phantom as a series was one I did not fully appreciate until I was an adult. The time frame when the show originally aired was the direct cause of this. Until last year, I had never even seen all of the episodes which in retrospect was a travesty because the series is amazing. As much as I love Danny, my two favorite characters from the show are Sam and (an Honorable Mention for this list) Ember. Sam is strong, independent, and smart. She has proven on more than one occasion to be able to handle herself against the ghosts. She is the one individual from Team Danny that always maintains a level-head. I respect her choice of style as a medium to express her individualism, specifically given how annoying and hypocritical her parents are. As an aside, Sam has the best quips on the show. This is probably because she’s the smartest of the main characters, but either way, she’s really funny. Her best quality, though, is her dedication to doing the right thing. Whether that’s trying to save frogs, help Danny fight ghosts, or making sure he doesn’t give up. She’s even the one that makes sure Danny gets his powers (the 2nd time). Of course, that dedication has gotten her in trouble before too, but still. To be complete frank, she’s pretty much the rock that holds the team together. Just look at the fact that Tucker is often jealous of Danny and Danny often wants to live a ‘normal’ life, but she keeps them together and continuing the fight. Also she gets bonus points for being part of one of my shippings that actually became canon. As a note with that comment, while I, personally, agree with most that Danny Phantom ended too soon, the ending with Sam and Danny finally admitting to loving each other was very well done. It’s kind of the inverse to the Kim Possible season 3 ending with them finally admitting their feelings for each other and being the more logical ending point, yet the series going on for a less-than-stellar additional season. Back to Danny Phantom, I’m glad they ended it that way because it was the perfect ending for both of those characters and the series as a whole. Not going to lie, would still love a followup movie to the series though. Fingers crossed.

3.) Helga Pataki (Hey Arnold!)

Hey Arnold! probably has the greatest collection of diverse characters I’ve ever seen. The strange thing is that overall Arnold is probably one of least interesting characters on the show and that’s saying something because he’s still a great character. The only problem with Hey Arnold’s characters is that the female presence, given the number of characters, is kind of weak. Aside from Helga, you really only have 3 female classmates (Rhonda, Phoebe, & Lila) with any significant episode focus at all. Among those three only Lila really has an interesting backstory, but her characterization of being Miss Perfect other than her home life is kind of boring. You have Arnold’s Grandma who’s worthy of an Honorable Mention because between her personality and mental instability she’s pretty much awesome. All that brings me to number 3 on my favorite female characters list, Helga Pataki. She completely makes up for the shortcomings of all of the other female characters in Hey Arnold. We get more in-depth with her than even Arnold to the point where there are theories out there that Helga is actually the POV character of Hey Arnold. Just start with her backstory, her family life basically sucks. Her father, “Big Bob” Pataki, is a workaholic beeper emporium owner who barely acknowledges Helga’s existence. He completely favors Helga’s older overachieving sister, Olga, to the point where he often calls Helga, “Olga.” The only time he acknowledges Helga is during contests where he pushes her to win just like Olga did. Helga’s mom, Miriam, is a depressed alcoholic who pretty much gave up on life. She also doesn’t acknowledge Helga’s existence, but really she’s apathetic to almost every thing. The only time she shows a semblance of life is when Olga shows up and when she took over the beeper emporium from Bob for a while. Basically, Miriam gave up living after the mistake of marrying Bob. Helga’s sister, Olga, is basically ‘perfect’ in every way, so much so that she suffers from a horrible case of perfectionism. If she gets even one ‘B’ or any failing she completely breaks down. Now you can kind of feel for Olga in that situation, but still, at least her parents acknowledge her existence. This is not the case for Helga. One of the most telling episodes in the show’s history was “Helga on the Couch” which shows Helga having to walk herself to preschool in the rain. Let me repeat “PRESCHOOL IN THE RAIN.” The only person that acknowledged her and show her any kindness was Arnold. Which brings me to her current interactions with Arnold. She has been in love with Arnold since those preschool days, the problem she doesn’t know how to show it. This of course leads her to do the only thing she can think of to get his attention, bully him. She also does a couple other things kind of weird like keep all of his old gum, locks of his hair and she also writes rather graphic love poetry about him. Again she really doesn’t know how to show her love, but that’s what makes her interesting. Everything about her personality is amazing. She’s strong and determined while still having a soft caring side. She is almost a perfect character, actually, and yet she’s only number 3 on my list.

2.) Star Butterfly (Star vs. the Forces of Evil)

I’m assuming this probably comes as a surprise to no one that Star would be towards the top of my favorite female characters list. Star vs. the Forces of Evil is my favorite show currently on television. The writing is consistently amazing and basically every character is great. With that said, Star is by far the best character on the show. She is very strong and independent. Her personality is exciting and fun. She’s generally optimistic and full of enthusiasm. The chemistry between her and Marco is basically perfection. She’s also pretty much a bad-ass. I mean she regularly fights monsters and other villainous characters with the utmost ease. Along with her fighting the monsters, you get to see her actually be a high school girl. She has crushes, heartache, struggles with math, babysits, questions her future, and argues with her mom. All things ‘normal’ high school girls do, however she experiences them in her exciting over-the-top fashion. It’s a very nice contrast because if the series was just the same Star fights some monster it would get boring rather quickly. Season 2 didn’t even have a centralized villain until the last couple episodes, however, you get to see Star’s personal struggle to accept her feelings of having a crush on her best friend. You also got to see her first full failure when she lost Glossaryck. Part of what makes Star so awesome is that she chooses to follow her own path. She has no issues with monsters (as long as they aren’t actively fighting her), she writes her own spells, she helps write a song more indicative of her actual personality, heck she even willingly sacrificed her wand. All of these things are vastly different from most Mewman queens. Star is a character that is great on a basis of being an eccentric, fun, out-of-this-world magical girl while still being very much human on the inside.

1.) Yuno Gasai (Future Diary)

Final confession of this list, I love crazies. At least as characters. Knowing that and knowing my previous list of Most Psychotic Characters of All Time, it’s probably not that surprising that Yuno Gasai is my favorite female character of all time. Future Diary is a good concept series with some great psychotic characters, but without Yuno Gasai it’s pretty vanilla. I mean Yuki is not really that interesting and most of the cool characters don’t survive very long. But the series has Yuno Gasai. As I’ve said previously in my Future Diary Review, there are plenty of people who don’t even know the name of the anime, but know who Yuno Gasai is. She is arguably the most insane character from any anime, and that is definitely saying something. The amount of effort she goes through to get her “Happy Ending” with Yuki is just amazing. She literally kills anyone that gets in her way. One of her most telling scenes is her hacking through dozens of cult followers with an axe to help him. Of course that’s ignoring her drugging him, stripping him down, tying him up, introducing him to her “parents,” and attempting to kill his friends. Her conviction is completely insane. The scariest part is that she can go from sweet cute girl to attempting to kill someone on a drop of hat and then she can go instantaneous go back to being sweet again like nothing ever happened. Her insanity is well documented, but what I actually like the best about her is her backstory. Her adoptive mother was completely abusive. Heck, she put Yuno in a cage if she was late getting home from school. Her adoptive father was rarely there. Honestly, Yuno’s mother out-and-out says she blames Yuno for her father never being there. The father might have not agreed to the cage punishments but also didn’t do anything about it, either. Eventually, Yuno snaps and locks both her parents in the cage who eventually die of starvation. She then goes into depression because she wasn’t actually trying to kill them just give them a lesson. She then latches onto Yuki because he is depressed about his parent’s divorce and she needs something to live for, which turns out to be becoming Yuki’s bride. Such a menial event complete changed the course of her history. Everything about Yuno Gasai is so impressive from a characterization standpoint, she has a little bit of everything. She’s strong, she’s funny (sometimes), she’s surprisingly intelligent, her backstory is super dark and full of depth, her conviction is amazing, oh and less we say, she’s a complete bad-ass. She is basically a culmination of everything I love about the other 9 characters on this list, put into a single character. That’s why she’s my favorite female character of all time.

I hope you enjoyed my personal list of favorite female characters of all time. I welcome your thoughts and opinions. Also, your personal list is welcomed as well. Who knows you might even make me watch (or rewatch) a series and add a new character to my list. Thanks, until next time.