The Anatomy of an Anime Waifu – This Week in Anime

Nick

Sorry, Lucas, we couldn’t make the timing work this time, so we’ll have to wait for next year to do a MILF TWIA. Worry not, though, because instead, we’ll be talking about an equally complex, astute, and intellectual topic: The Anatomy of a Waifu.



As you can see, we’ve conducted a lot of hands-on research.

It’s one of those loanwords that Western otaku adopted through some frothy mix of irony and thirst that just meant “anime girl I maybe have a crush on.” However, since its inception, I’d argue “waifu” has grown into a more complex, broad concept. Its use implies a certain level of superficial attraction matched with paradoxical devotion. A prospective waifu must inspire a certain level of aesthetic fascination while being marketable enough to inspire mountains of merchandise. Why, I’d say waifus don’t even have to be tied down to any single gender. For instance, last season’s biggest waifu was obviously Bravern.

…You know, I’m just not gonna try to think about the ethics of wifing Aerial because I don’t want to get into how old the ghost haunting is. But yes, as far as we’re concerned, anyone and anything can be a waifu if you’re brave enough. If Makoto Shinkai can have his latest heroine kiss a chair, you can smooch whatever imaginary cartoon you want. We promise only to judge you in our minds.

I’d argue that the standout waifu of 100 Girlfriends is Rentaro, and at least 100 girls would have my back on it.

But I get your point about how some characters can feel almost tailor-made to attract the kind of attention that defines the term. Rem is a character defined by her devotion to Subaru, almost slavishly dedicated to supporting him even at his worst. She’s the focus of one of the show’s most well-known scenes, lit with an almost heavenly backdrop as she breathlessly tells Subaru that he’s not a gigantic piece of crap. There are multiple POV shots where she is staring into the eyes of the audience. You couldn’t craft a more perfect recipe for a waifu frenzy if you cooked one up in a lab.

My go-to for this type of character is Chizuru from Rent-A-Girlfriend because of how self-explanatory the show is about her. Her entire character for the first two seasons is to be The Perfect Girlfriend. She’s endlessly patient, sweet, intimate, and says and does whatever the guy she’s working for wants to hear – and also so pretty that literally every time she walks outside, everyone has to comment on it. You’d think that would be a setup for a swerve, but outside of not having a ton of patience for the dickweed protagonist, that’s also exactly who Chizuru is for most of the show.

What sets Chizuru apart is that the audience accepts that she’s also the waifu of her creator. There’s a reason no other girl in that show has a shot, and it has something to do with Reiji Miyajima‘s penchant for drawing Chizuru into real-world photographs.

スタバなう pic.twitter.com/6lGIGRrB72

— 宮島礼吏 Reiji Miyajima (@Miyajimareiji) April 20, 2024

Honestly, RAG would be more forgivable if it was a long-con to siphon psychic energy for turning his dream anime girl into flesh and blood.

Author appeal is a key factor, though that alone doesn’t automatically make for a quality waifu. Though much like with music, sometimes quality isn’t all that important so long as you’re hitting the familiar beats in a catchy way or just hit the right note. I remember a decade ago when Hestia from DanMachi briefly became a viral sensation entirely because of her inexplicable boob ribbon.



Did I ever learn even a scrap of information about her character from any of that? Nope. But I sure saw a lot of fan art with load-bearing tiddies that season.

Yor’s a fascinating example because she hits so many different vectors simultaneously. Modern fandom is massively fragmented across social media, so getting a “seasonal” waifu that gets traction across many different areas is rare. Yor did it by having that cosplay appeal and being in a mainstream comedy many people watched. At the same time, she’s also got the Murder Mommy thing going on for all the Steves in the world and is also a regular mother for the other Steves in the world. She’s like a single throwing knife that managed to pierce through four different hearts in a single trajectory.



Also, you can’t go wrong with the red bottoms.

Such is the nature of the “Seasonal Waifu” branch. I like Marin’s personality and thought her show was pretty funny. Still, longevity is a rare luxury when every three months brings a New Hotness and multiple shows purposefully trying to vie for the title, though popularity helps. Pine for Aerial if you want, but the real waifubait of Witch From Mercury was the girl who never left the couch.

Trust me, you don’t have to look for Foot Guys in the animation industry. They will make themselves known.

Seriously though, it’s a running joke that Secelia inspired mountains of fan art, memes, and Comiket exclusives while having a total of seven minutes of screen time across the entire show. Other characters have more fan content, but they’re also prominent figures in the narrative who get story arcs and the kind of stuff you can build fandom around. Secelia got to where she is through the power of dolphin shorts and unrestrained thirst.

Fate is an interesting vector because it spans eras. Back in the day, the strategy was to come up with a handful of core characters with distinct but simple designs that would appeal to different swathes of the audience. Nowadays, the model is to load your gacha game-related franchise with dozens of overdesigned weirdos to appeal to as many niches as possible. Fate has made that transition successfully, integrating characters from across Kinoku Nasu’s work to the point where they’re having a Witch on the Holy Night event as we type. It’s legacy characters from across franchises sharing space with game original freaks, which is weirdly beautiful.

I’m the opposite. This topic interests me because different character ideas, design choices, and other creative decisions can catch on for different reasons. Having everything fragmented so you can get your algorithmically developed laser-targeted waifu to spend money on means fewer iconic designs. It’s like how VTubers end up so over-designed that they stop feeling memorable. Part of me yearns for the day when a simple yet likable character could become a pillar of fan discussion for years rather than weeks. Somebody in Japan agrees because they’ve started rebooting those too.

You could ascribe some of that to Holo being at the upper end of what was acceptable furry design in the mid-2000s, but honestly, I think her longevity comes from being a good character who’s part of a perfect on-screen couple. She and Lawrence have an infectious chemistry that carries the show, where she’s playful and occasionally aggressive but also has a vulnerable side that she only shares with him. Both then and now, that chemistry can be hard to find in anime romances, and that struck a chord with fans who were perhaps looking for a more mature, adult kind of romance.

Or maybe the “Stretching with Holo” bonus feature on those DVDs awakened something in people. Who’s to say?

It can vary, but you need some substance to stick around in popular consciousness past the show’s expiration date. A popular character design can carry you a long way – see Stella Vermillion, aka the only thing anybody remembers about Chivalry of a Failed Knight.



However, if you want a character to survive post-nut clarity, having something people can attach to, think about, or even fantasize about in a more involved manner than “dang, they’re hot” is essential.

There’s a long history of anime fans wanting a cute anime girl who may or may not kill them. Still, Yuno is the one who achieved escape velocity, and I imagine she was a lot of fans’ introduction to the whole character type. Nowadays, yandere is played out enough that you also have to give them exposed armpits to catch on.

Well, besides broadcast standards.

I agree that I’d like to see wild or bold innovations in waifu technology. With how fractionalized the internet is these days, it can feel like nothing sticks in the public consciousness anymore, and I’d like that to change. There’s something fun about not immediately knowing which of my friends is retweeting a particular piece of fan art or watching in shared confusion as thousands of fan artists imprint onto a character from a textbook.

That whole idea probably isn’t helped by the rise of VTubers, who come pre-waifu’d with preselected hashtags to organize all their saucy fan art. I fear that’s a topic for a different study. For now, we need to return to our research.