Between Delicious in Dungeon’s feral cat girl Izutsumi and The Apothecary Diaries’ weirdo poison taster Mao Mao, I’m absolutely thriving with current-wave chaotic little anime gremlin girls.

It’s very common for shonen anime to feature heavily sexualized female characters. Yes, there are exceptions, but it’s such a regular occurrence that boob close-ups and panty shots almost become background noise. So, seeing characters who could otherwise fit in those tropes do a total 180 to be completely nonsexual — and, in fact, repulsive — is so damn satisfying.

Izutsumi and Mao Mao aren’t the only characters to ever fit this bill, but watching the two shows in succession really scratched a good itch for me, kicking off the summer anime season with a growl. They join the canon of freaky gremlin gals with Skip and Loafer’s Mitsumi, an ambitious but totally awkward and kinda........

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