Blondes occupy a special place in the otakuverse. They almost always represent foreign nationality, either American or European. They grab the attention of background characters, but never win the heart of the main character who goes for the dark-haired, traditional girl. They often have huge knockers (we made a video on Blonde Bombshells a few months back you should watch) and even bigger hearts. Let’s look at some of my favorite flaxen-haired waifus.

Kisshot Acerola Orion Heartunderblade/Shinobu-chan (Monogatari Series)

I love what NisioIsin does with this King of Apparitions, and how her character arc revolves around a sad, twisted relationship with her servant, Araragi Koyomi. Kisshot is stripped of her vampiric powers and reduced to a pathetic, taciturn girl (Shinobu) who offers little to the franchise before Monogatari Series Second Season. We come to learn that almost everything that happens to our characters pivots on how Shinobu’s presence disrupted the spiritual order to Japan. Like, she is peak heroine status.

I think Kisshot is beautiful, but what’s most attractive about her is the way everyone in the show respects and fears her. Kisshot is not only a vampire but an apex predator capable of destroying civilization. We don’t see much of her past Kizumonogatari, though, so the person we get to know best is her younger alter ego, Shinobu-chan, who steals each episode she is in. I won’t call Shinobu a “waifu” because she’s obviously lolicon bait; but moe, in its tamest form of adoration and childhood sweetness, describes how I feel here.

Android 18 (Dragonball Z)

Confession time: most of what I know about Dragonball Z is based on playing the video games, or talking to my friends, or just picking up wiki facts for the past 29 years of my life. Take Android 18 for example. I fell in love with this waifu because I would play Budokai: Tenkaiichi with my friends on the Nintendo Wii and I would whoop some serious ass. Her grab move seized opponents by the collar and slapped them up, which I found humiliating in the best possible way. As a result of my fascination with her beautiful brutality, I have two Android 18 figures in my collection.

There’s also, like, a lot of Android 18 fan art and hentai on the Internet. Most of it is quite good. Echo Saber and Nort are my favorite artists for 18 content on Twitter. Nort is especially talented at 4-koma comics. Makes me want to read the actual DBZ comics since I know I’ll never take the time to watch the anime.

Ikumi Mito (Food Wars!)

Mikumi! My gorgeous gal! My savory wagyu princess! They did my favorite Food Wars girl dirty, they really did. Stupid Yukihira Soma somehow wound up blowing off this babe every opportunity he got. She had the hots for him and he fucked it up. If you haven’t seen or read the series, just know that Mikumi deserves all the love she never received.

I can’t remember why she’s always wearing an American flag bra underneath her school uniform. Maybe it’s because Americans love beef? Ikumi Mito isn’t foreign born or even mixed as far as I know. They gave her the sexual aggression of a foreigner, in any case. Her earlier, horny-for-meat personality eventually yielded a soft-hearted heiress with an even softer spot for her friends at Totsuki Academy. I do have a figure of her on my detolf because she really is top-shelf waifu material.

Nero Claudius (Fate series)

Closing out my list is the girl with the absurd catchphrase (UMU!), Nero Claudius. I have no idea what “umu” means, but it’s her thing. Kind of like, “Leave it to me!” I think it’s hard to find a better combination of passion, bravado, and grace in a blonde waifu. I remember watching her in Fate Extra/Last Encore and being awestruck. I have one Nero figure I recently purchased from a nice seller on MyFigureCollection.

The odd bit here is that Nero Claudius is considered one of Rome’s worst emperors and a terrible human being. The real Nero supposedly killed his mother, burned Rome to build himself the Domus Aurea (her Noble Phantasm in Fate) and persecuted Christians as political scapegoats. Fate’s Nero acknowledges her debaucherous lifestyle in Last Encore when describing how she was spurned by the people and eventually killed herself. Fate somehow turns all this into a loveable character well aware of their past faults but not haunted by them–probably because that would require her to feel regret, and that’s not in her skillset. They really used that moe touch here…