Her newfound friends are used to life-threatening situations, and are thus cautious and sometimes selfish. She promptly adopts a motley crew (or maybe it’s the other way round) to search for her father, while trying to evade the capture of a human-harvesting villain. The chaos drove her above-ground, where she encounters dangerous strangers and dangerously cute critters. But a giant Mute, or mutated creatures, destroys her home. In Kipo and the Wonderbeasts, Kipo (Karen Fukuhara) is an average, slightly nerdy girl who has been living underground all her life (yes, in the show, that’s normal). In the face of survival-of-the-fittest, they do not succumb to obvious – some would say ‘grown-up’ – solutions. But Kipo and Emma are made of groovier stuff. Or would have, had they been normal people. Yet, Circumstances are forcing them to grow up overnight.

Both celebrated their birthdays in the first season Kipo just turned 13 and Emma has turned 12. The two girls are at the cusps of entering teenhood. One is Kipo from Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts, and the other is Emma from The Promised Neverland (both shows are on Netflix). They are over half my age and animated – both figuratively and literally. She may not always do the right thing, but has just enough earnestness, spunk and anxiety in everything she does that made her life as a romance writer with two hot men in her orbit, while warding off a criminal mastermind, very much a compass for my slightly duller (okay, very much duller) existence.īut, strangely, the current two beacons in my head now are not grown women, and technically, not even flesh and blood. I also often find myself asking, WWJD? As in, what would Jane do? I’m talking about Jane Gloriana Villanueva (the magnetic Gina Rodriguez) from Jane the Virgin. So much so that she defied the conventions of her time to tell jokes – cue old-fashion gasps – on stage. Her rapid-fire wit is reminiscent of Lorelai Gilmore (both Gilmore Girls and Marvelous share the same creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino), but Miriam is very much her own person. Then, there is Miriam Weissman (Rachel Brosnahan) from Amazon Prime’s The Marvelous Mrs. Their incisive intelligence, refreshing methods and internal struggle with the justice system made for such a riveting watch that I – kid you not – had the urge to sign up for the police academy. There are the two cops, Detective Karen Duvall (Merritt Wever) and Detective Grace Rasmussen (Toni Collette), in the Netflix series Unbelievable. But now, with the golden age of TV amidst the streaming war and the growing force of women storytellers in the industry, there’s a galore of inspirational leads that fit no mould and take no shit. The paltry few women-led, well-written TV shows meant I only had Lorelai Gilmore to look up to in the past. =)Įdit: Here’s one of those ’ actors expressions“ books.I grew up seeing female leads in television shows as role models. but the best reference you can get is right in the mirror. If you’re interested in learning the physical changes of the face for realistic emotions, I very highly recommend, “The Artist’s Complete Guide to Facial Expression.” There are also some great books full of photos of actors doing different facial expressions. There’s no reason why the symbols can’t be used in conjuction with realistic expression. I just personally find it much more engaging when the symbols aren’t used as a crutch or excuse not to learn how to draw real emotional responses. There’s nothing wrong with using them, in fact I think it’s pretty cool that Japan has basically invented a new comics visual language that has become internationally accepted. We all know them: sweatdrops, anger veins, blush lines, etc. This peeve goes along with another typical anime/manga trait that irks me: using emotion symbols rather than drawing actual emotions on the characters.

I mean, how often do people really stand their with a wide open-mouthed smile? How often do you see an entire group of people doing it at the same time (not counting when they are all screaming in terror at the camera?) It’s an easy way to make the characters look like they have some sort of expression without really having one at all. It’s especially popular in shoujou art, to have all the characters pose in some kawaii manner with their mouths hanging agape.

You see it all the time in anime and manga. I have a big peeve when it comes to emotions in comics and animation.

Cool anime wallpaper symbols