Overlooked Anime: Female Lead Edition
Here is a short-list collection of overlooked anime that has a female character in the lead role or sharing the lead role. I prefer to possess minimal information when watching so I’ll only be providing a promo image and a short synopsis.
Project A-ko
Director: Katsuhiko Nishijima — Studio APPP (1986)
In the not-too-distant future, A-ko Magami, a schoolgirl with superhuman strength fights to retain her carefree days despite being attacked on all sides.
Jubei-chan
Director: Akitaro Daichi — Madhouse (1999)
Jiyu Nanohana moves to a new town with her writer father. On her first day of school she is approached by an odd stranger who begs her to take a strange eyepatch…
Figure 17
Director: Naohito Takahashi — OLM (2001)
Elementary school girl Tsubasa Shiina moves to Hokkaido as her father follows his dream to become a baker. One night she follows a shooting star…
Yami to Boshi to Hon no Tabibito
Director: Yuji Yamaguchi — Studio DEEN (2003)
Hazuki Azuma searches for her missing sister with the aid of Lilith, caretaker of the Great Library, where each book contains an entire world.
Uta~Kata
Director: Keiji Goto — Hal Film Maker (2004)
On the last day of school before summer break, Ichika Tachibana discovers that a lost charm has ended up inside a mirror. Manatsu Kuroki, a girl inside the mirror, offers to return it in exchange for a favor…
Asatte no Houkou
Director: Katsushi Sakurabi — JC Staff (2006)
Karada Iokawa, a young girl entering her first year of junior high, wishes she could become an adult. Shouko Nogami, a young woman, wishes she could be a child again. Both wishes are granted, but…
Hitohira
Director: Akira Nishimori — Xebec (2007)
Extremely shy Mugi Asai is encouraged by her friend Kayo to become more outgoing now that they’ve started high school. An unexpected outburst from Mugi attracts the attention of the president of the Drama Research Society club.
Nanatsuiro Drops
Director: Takashi Yamamoto — Studio Barcelona (2007)
Sumomo Akihime is a shy girl who accidentally splashes Masaharu, the boy she likes, with water, after which he is inducted into the gardening club. This leads to him drinking a potion that turns him into a stuffed doll at night and Sumomo must become a Magical Girl in order to turn him back to normal.
Allison and Lillia
Director: Masayoshi Nishida — Madhouse (2008)
A continent split down the middle is divided into two countries that have been at war on and off for most of their history. But this hasn’t stopped friendships from blossoming across the border, like the one between Allison Whittington and Wilhelm Schultz…
Telepathy Girl Ran
Lead: Makoto Nakamura — TMS Entertainment (2008)
Ran Isozaki gains telepathic powers upon entering junior high and quickly discovers that Midori Naha, a transfer student, has telepathic powers as well. The two of them use their powers to try to solve other people’s problems.
The Daughter of Twenty Faces
Director: Nobuo Tomizawa — BONES (2008)
Chizuko Mikamo lives with her aunt and uncle after her parents died. Her guardians slowly poison her in hopes of getting her massive inheritance for themselves. But before their plan succeeds she is kidnapped by a world famous Phantom Thief known only as Twenty Faces…
The Girl Who Leapt Through Space
Director: Masakazu Obara — Sunrise (2009)
In the distant future humans inhabit space colonies orbiting the planet Earth. Akiha Shishido is one of many daughters of the prestigious Shishido family, though admittedly not one of the most talented. In the course of running away from home to avoid an arranged marriage she happens across the rarest of the rare; a colony with an advanced AI, a brain colony.
Armed Librarians: The Book of Bantorra
Director: Toshiya Shinohara — David Production (2009)
In a world where the dead turn into tablets whose memories can be read by anyone who touches them, they must be stored in the safest place protected by the strongest warriors in the world. The Armed Librarians are led by a terrifying woman with a insatiable lust for battle, Hamyuts Meseta.
Shangri -La
Director: Makoto Bessho — Gonzo (2009)
To prevent catastrophic climate change from decimating the world, Tokyo is transformed into a carbon dioxide absorbing jungle. However, Atlas — the mega-structure built for the displaced population — is not large enough to house everyone. A rift grows between those chosen to live inside and the refugees left to fend for themselves. Tensions are strained further by the actions of the terrorist group Metal Age and the release of their heir apparent, Kuniko Hojo.
King of Thorn
Director: Kazuyoshi Katayama — Sunrise (2010)
With the appearance of a devastatingly deadly virus, a small number of people are chosen to test an experimental cure, including Kasumi Ishiki. They are put into cold sleep as part of the treatment…
And Yet the Town Moves
Director: Akiyuki Shinbo — SHAFT (2010)
Hotori Arashiyama wants to be a detective when she grows up. In the meantime she finds work in a Maid Cafe and spends her time solving minor mysteries in the sleepy little town she lives in.
The Mystic Archives of Dantalian
Director: Yutaka Uemura — GAINAX (2010)
In post WW1 England, Hugh Anthony Disward inherits from his grandfather the duty of caring for the Bibliotheca Mystica de Dantalian archive of thousands of forbidden books. They are stored inside the guardian of the archive, a young woman by the name of Dalian.
