Aoba is the Best Girl of 2010 even though
Adachi Mitsuru can only draw one face.

Congratulations to Tsukishima Aoba, 2010's Best Girl. This was a pretty easy choice despite a lot of strong contenders. More about Aoba herself and the rest of this year's nominations below.

Shimizu sees Goro again after a long absence.

Shimizu Kaoru from the sixth season of Major got an automatic nomination by virtue of being last year's winner. Unfortunately, Shimizu did not get many scenes during this epic baseball show's final season, and had many of her presumably more important moments from the manga relegated to the montage during the last episode. I suspect Major probably has enough material for a seventh season, but I don't think we'll get any more in anime form unless there are OVAs.

This usually means somebody's about to get fucked.

I've decided to add Mouri Ran to basically every Best Girl of the Year list from here on out on general principle because Ran is one of anime's All Time Babes. Detective Conan doesn't change much and appears capable of running indefinitely, and Ran is enough of a sweetheart that she could potentially win this contest any year, so consider her a baseline metric of sorts. Certainly anyone below the Mouri Ran Line has no hope of winning.

Katja breaks Sasha's brain.

Only people who watched Seikon no Qwaser will fully understand why Katja gets a nomination. Too many people either did not watch the show at all or gave up on it far too early to fully appreciate just how ridiculous Qwaser managed to be. Katja's contributions are too numerous to list here, but I'll point to three key moments that cemented her nomination in 2010's Best Girl competition: (1) The scene where she connects her phone to her television. (2) The railgun powered by breast milk. (3) The scene where incorruptibly loyal Hana comes flying in out of left field.

Yamada is basically Ranpha, the early years.

Yamada from B Gata H Kei barely makes the list for being outrageous (only medium outrageous in a year containing Seikon no Qwaser) and for being an excuse for Yukarin to say amazing things.

Be glad this isn't a Key story, Yuki.

Nagato Yuki qualifies this year because of the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya movie. As I've said before, this is more her movie than Haruhi's. Now, in order to answer the obvious question that people who have seen the movie must be asking without venturing into spoiler territory before those who have not seen it, let me just say this: Based on how Kyon views Nagato in the beginning of the film, the middle, and the at the end, I think the impact she has on him (and hopefully the viewer) elevates her into the upper pantheon of this year's nominees.

Squids love the long ball.

A late arrival, especially because I did not start watching Shinryaku! Ika Musume until it was already half over, Ika Musume herself easily gains a nomination as one of 2010's Best Girls. A genius at everything (except invading) and filled with verve and imagination, Ika Musume should be on everyone's list of this season's Best Girls. Well, I guess there is that technicality about whether or not squids can be girls, but I consulted the judges panel and they allowed it.

Nobody on the team trains harder than Aoba.

Finally, our victor, Tsukishima Aoba from Cross Game wins the title of Best Girl of the Year for 2010 with her solid showing throughout the yearlong baseball anime. Aoba nearly won the title last year, and was an early favorite to win even though Cross Game ended in March.

The best coaches are in the stands.
-Charles M. Schulz

It's easy to describe Aoba as another Haruka Tomatosauce tsundere, but I believe Aoba honestly hated Kou when they were children—jealous of the attention he got from her sister. However, Aoba grudgingly comes to respect Kou's physical talents for baseball and dedicates her considerable knowledge and love for the game into transforming him into the type of pitcher who can make her sister's dream come true. My memory is very hazy on this point, so the accuracy of the following anecdote is suspect at best: I believe Don Drysdale once lamented it was a shame the Los Angeles Dodgers did not have a pitcher with Orel Hershiser's brain in Kevin Gross' body. That's basically the idea behind the Aoba + Kou combination in Cross Game. It's a pity Adachi Mitsuru could not re-write the rules of Japanese high school baseball, but Aoba's head—and her heart—were enough for her to win it all this year, even if her arm could not officially compete.

That's still an awesome phone.

If you're wondering why Shikinami Asuka Langley didn't win by default, it's because Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0 came out in 2009. Also Soryu > Shikinami.

[Update: Added Panty from Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt.]

I hope you live somewhere that only gets
four hours of sunlight in the winter.

Now that's more like it. After dragging my way through the constantly cringeworthy Haruka arc of Amagami SS, I find the beginning of the Kaoru arc much more promising. Junichi was still completely shell-shocked by his soul-crushing disappointment at being stood up on Christmas two years ago. (I bet you she's the crazy-broken girl. I just know it.) The dude waited around for her until nightfall, for crying out loud. But evidently all it took to pull him back from the brink and prevent him from constructing a hikikomori anxiety womb for himself was having the sense slapped back into him by his childhood friend with the persistently tousled hair.

Swing and a miss.

There's a lesson to be learned here: Annoying, whiny, bitch-ass male anime protagonists can always be improved by having someone slap the shit out them. This was true of Renton Thurston, and it's true of Potato-kun here. The dude can't take a punch, though. Kaoru hits him like one time in the gut and puts him in the infirmary for the rest of the day. I guess he's lucky he didn't end up in a hospital—or at the vet.

DOWN GOES FRAZIER!

Aside from having the best hair of the season, Kaoru also has much more charisma than Haruka, even if she is recycling some tsundere idioms. I'll give that a pass because Amagami SS is still a galge adaptation. There's not really time for actual character development in a four-episode arc, especially when part of that limited screen time is already blocked off for requisite library petting. (Not Haruka's kind of petting.)

If you can only afford either Benadryl or Trojans
at Rite Aid, go with the Benadryl, Potato-kun.

To fill that hole, Junichi has resorted to stroking his imagination in order to placate his anime-blogging detractors with some of the fan service that was curiously absent from the Haruka arc. Kaoru's hair alone is a fan service GAME-BREAKING HOME RUN, so squeezing in some purely gratuitous slices of cheesecake should put Amagami SS back into the black, even if Potato-kun's fantasies are a little ambitious. I guarantee a loser like Junichi would have debilitating allergies that prevent him from ruining Kaoru for pollination regardless of his best efforts.

Switching to widescreen has been such a boon for Ran service.

Ran has to find excuses to bend over a lot because otherwise her head won't fit in the same frame as Conan's. This is also true when her father is passed out unconscious on the floor. I counted at least two occasions during the most recent episode of Detective Conan where she had to do this. You know, now that I think about it, I guess Ran is eligible for Girl of the Year 2010 contention as well. Shimizu might end up third.

Baseball is a cruel sport, Shimizu.

Shimizu Kaoru easily won Best Girl of the Year rights in 2009. Despite her lack of screen time, it appears she is making a solid run at repeating for the title in 2010. Unfortunately, it's difficult to mesh Shimizu's daily life into the current main plot of the sixth season of Major. Thus, I was very glad to see the recent episode focusing exclusively on her. Hopefully her role will expand again as the season progresses. She still has a lot of catching up to do before she passes Aoba from Cross Game. However, lucky for her, Shimizu is up last.

Just ask yourself what Ryoko would do, Goro.
[Hint: Ryoko is a beast.]

With regard to the main story, Major takes the narrow path between embracing serious baseball drama and remaining accessible to casual fans of the sport. For example, Goro's recent moral dilemma about payback—contrasting the view of Murdoch (the belligerent new troublemaker on the team) versus Goro's position on the matter—does occur on the field occasionally, but rarely as overtly as depicted in episode 12 of Major season six (episode 141 overall). Ultimately, the qualified instructions Keene relays probably prove the most appropriate, but I personally think Murdoch was right this time.

Does this count as a spoiler?

I'm not really a fan of B Gata H Kei's Girl Next Door. It's probably because she's also a Clumsy Girl and I despise dojikkos as a whole. Besides, they don't even call her a Girl Next Door in the show; they call her a Childhood Friend. I don't understand why Japan doesn't get this.

Holy crap. THIS CHAIR.

In other news, if B Gata H Kei keeps this up, Yamada is seriously going to challenge Aoba from Cross Game and Shimizu from Major season six as Girl of the Year, 2010. This is most unexpected. Takeshita is also going to place well as the clear voice of reason à la Nobu from Lovely Complex.

I'll watch B Gata H Kei if Yamada actually screws 100 guys.
Queen's Blade → Seikon no Qwaser → B Gata H&K
[Spoilers: Never going to happen.]

After looking over this list, I'm afraid there aren't very many shows that interest me except for the sixth season Major. (Season six! Fucking awesome.) Of course, this probably means Shimizu Kaoru is going to win Girl of the Year two years running. And here I had thought Aoba from Cross Game had the title all but locked up.

Fine, fine, I'll also watch D.C. ~Da Capo~ Ext if the franchise returns to its Sakura-killing-deadbeats roots. But if there are no Sakura murders, no deal.