Asuka May/June 2009 calendar.

Someone get me this calendar. You have until Friday.

Kaoru is the Best Girl in Major. Ryoko has more game, but Kaoru is a peach.

Kasumi from Hand Maid May is one of anime's All Time Babes,
and only partly because she's a natural right-hander
who takes baseball seriously enough to bat left.

Minori also deserves special mention for batting left and throwing right...

...and for being kinda broken inside.

Chidori vents some aggression.

It's Narue's World. We're just living in it.

Mamini is this post's Mendoza Line.

Sakaki is pretty athletic, but I'm scoring that at bat E-9.

Iizuka also bats left, but she's a natural southpaw.
I doubt she can hit, but her on-base percentage is pretty good.

I guess Daniel isn't technically a bat, but it's kinda academic, since
you can't really let Momo from Shinigami no Ballad play ball.
People would die.

Her hair is usually in the way, okay?

After all these years, I somehow never noticed this obvious detail: Asuka has a giant God damn 2 on the back of her plug suit. Perhaps I did notice it before, and simply forgot until this latest Evangelion Re-Watching Project, but either way it's inexcusable.

Can I get my membership card back if I suggest the macabre satisfaction in Asuka's voice when she utters (mispronounces, really) ERSTE after dismantling the first Eva Series flunky in End of Evangelion is likely related to her intense loathing for Rei? (Recall that Asuka usually refers to Rei as "First," rather than by name.) Dag.

Judy > Julia.

I've uncovered the magic behind Judy's coat: It isn't just draped over her; it's actually form-fitted to her body. It's as if the coat has a built-in bra. You know what this means? It Goddamn means that this outfit is theoretically possible in real life! Someone invite the attention of some fashion designers to this entry so they can start churning out scalloped coat-bras for all the trendy beautiful women out there looking for The Next Hot Thing.

Kasumi.

Listen, okay? It worked a few years ago after my Hand Maid May CHECK when girls started wearing baseball jerseys together with mini-skirts all over Southern California, however briefly. There's no reason why warm-weather form-fitted coat-bras couldn't make it in L.A.

Shinji is aghast. Rei should be ashamed.
Asuka loves Kaji. And Mana is quite the sticker-whore.

Who is the best anime/manga character of all time? Of ALL TIME. This is a question frequently discussed (usually inadvertently) in many forums and channels (although the term "best" is usually taken to mean "hottest"). These discussions often arise in the form of binary comparisons of characters from popular contemporary shows such as "Teana > Subaru" or "Shamal > Signum" that ultimately lead to final decrees such as "FATE > *."

Nanoha and Fate.
Fate > Nanoha.

Whatever the cause, and regardless of form, one thing is certain: Anime fans are fickle. Inevitably, their favorite characters are quickly replaced season by season; demonstrations and pronouncements of current favorites (such as message board avatars) are ephemeral, soon replaced, and sooner forgotten.

Saber, Emiya, and Rin.
Rin > Saber.

I've mentioned this phenomenon among anime fans in the past, and the general consensus seems to be that this flightiness is entirely normal. After all, they are fully cognizant of the fact that their favorites cannot love them back; these fans are not delusional even as they compulsively download and hoard pictures of their favorite characters and collect figurines and paraphernalia emblazoned with their likenesses, only to begin the cycle anew next season when they develop a new favorite in a month or two.

Meyrin, Athrun, and Lunamaria.
Meyrin > Lunamaria.

I am not damning this behavior. I am merely setting the stage for the real object of my curiosity: Why is it so rare to find a fan with unshakable, indefatigable, incorruptible loyalty to a single character—one for whom there is no superior, no equal, no rival, no successor? To be honest, in the past seven or eight years during which anime emerged as my primary hobby, I can think of very few people who appear completely devoted to a single character. Bear in mind that this is a fandom in which nearly unimaginable perversions, grandiose neuroses, and unspeakable habits are not at all uncommon. And yet, I know of far more people who genuinely enjoy, for example, guro than I know people for whom there is adamantly only one best character. Are the latter the more perverse, since they are the more rare?

Souju and Sara.
Souju > Sara.

Perhaps this behavior is related to the aforementioned tendency to associate "best character" with "hottest character." Relying on the old standard, "familiarity breeds contempt," (or the more modern axiom, "show me a hot girl, and I'll show you a guy who's tired of fucking her"), it seems natural that people who are fully aware their 2-D love affairs will remain unrequited must quickly find and fixate on new characters as their fervor for their current favorite inevitably fades. So, do the rare Incorruptible Few not realize that their idols can't love them back, or is it that they just don't care?

Sara.
A Little Princess > The Secret Garden. Wait....

My optimism tells me it is the latter. For that reason, as far as I am concerned, for these few, their unique peculiarity is an attribute—their uncommon determined, dedicated devotion their defining characteristic. And so, so damning if I am wrong.

P.S. Asuka > *

Re-watching Hand Maid May makes me want to eat ramen. Tragically, noodle carts never frequent my neighborhood.

I realize this screenshot has little to do with ramen or noodle carts, alas.

In other news, they never explained where May slept after episode five.

In the spirit of the KERO-CHAN CHECK, I hereby present the first ever KARMABURN.COM CHECK. This feature will spotlight anime bits that really should be adopted by the real world.

Kasumi from Hand Maid May

The First Check features Kasumi from Hand Maid May. Here we see a baseball jersey matched with a pleated skirt for an excellent tomboy-babe effect. With summer fast approaching, girls are hereby strongly encouraged to adopt this look. Disclaimer: The preceding recommendation only applies to girls who can throw.

While I consider Chobits be a failure in the robot-girlfriend genre, Hand Maid May is surprisingly good. All 11 episodes are already available on three DVDs, and while I've only seen the old, low-res fansubs, I'm prepared to heartily recommend them.

Hand Maid May and Kazuya Saotome

Hand Maid May neatly joins two staples of anime: The robot-girlfriend and the maid-uniform genres. (See also Mahoromatic.) It's a fairly simple, silly, stereotypical anime in the giant-sweatdrops and "falling down after hearing something surprising" vein with rampant rampant fan service throughout the first episode. Somewhat ironically, because it's not at all ambitious, it succeeds brilliantly. Hand Maid May is simply a cute comedy about a clueless geek (Kazuya Saotome), his spirited sex bomb neighbor (Kasumi Tani), and a tiny devoted robot maid (Cyber Doll May), and on that level it works very well.

Okay, Kotaro Nambara (Kazuya Saotome's chief rival and antagonist) is incredibly annoying, albeit intentionally so. However, I am willing to cut him some slack because everyone else in the show is pretty charming. Besides, Nambara's voice actor is Ueda Yuuji, who also played Urashima Keitaro in Love Hina and later went on to do fairly innocuous soft core porn with Asakawa Yuu, the voice of Motoko from Love Hina and Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh. Whoop!