Happy Valentine’s day to all of you! Apologies for not posting anything for almost a month as I was busy with both real life and some other projects and to make it up to you guys, I am going to talk about something the anime community has participated in since time immemorial: the waifu wars.
As I’ve mentioned years ago, waifuism, even the term waifu itself, gained popularity in 2007 in Kiyohiko Azuma’s Azumanga Daioh but the whole phenomenon gained sentience during the peak of modern anime’s popularity in Japan: the 1980s with a super dimension fortress.
I. Minmay vs Misa: Do You Remember Love?
Yes, there have been female characters that can be considered waifu material before the release of Macross in 1982 but the classic mecha anime staple introduced love triangles outside the confines of shojo manga and television dramas by introducing the main contestants Lynn Minmay and Misa Hayase.
Shoji Kawamori, one of the fathers of the franchise, has long stated in interviews that the show is a story of “a love triangle against the backdrop of great battles” and it shows throughout the show with the multiple love triangles that were being littered within it.
The center of the love triangle that we’re going to talk about in this section is Hikaru Ichijou, the main character of this story and a prodigy in piloting. He would encounter both Minmay and Misa at the very beginning of the series.
The basis of this waifu war boils down to the differences between the two competitors: if I’m going to compare it to totally different characters from totally different anime, Minmay would be the 1980s equivalent of Ai Hoshino from Oshi No Ko meanwhile Misa would be Mirai Yashima of Mobile Suit Gundam.
While this waifu war is something that’s not really that popular in modern times, this love triangle became the prototype of the modern waifu wars wherein fans would set up teams based on who they associate themselves with/who is the best girl for the main character of the show and then duke it out with the opposite camp as to why so and so is the best character for mister main character.
The waifu wars would be a tradition for anime fans whenever a new hit anime gets released but that didn’t seem to be the case once Macross went off the air and anime went back to the status quo it had before Macross until 1995 when a little-known anime named Neon Genesis Evangelion aired on TV Tokyo on October 4 of that year.
That event leads us to the longest waifu war in history.
II. Rei vs Asuka: A Rivalry That Lasted Twenty-Six Years
Ah yes, the longest and most well-known waifu war in all of anime fandom. In the blue corner, we have Rei Ayanami: aloof, mysterious, emotionless…? In the red corner, we have Asuka Langley Soryu: outspoken, lively, headstrong, German…?
While the show itself focuses on interpersonal relationships with giant interplanetary kaiju battles as the backdrop of the series, the otaku of the 1990s and beyond still managed to find waifus to wage war for (even though a: one of them is a clone of Shinji Ikari’s mom and b: they’re both underage) but ever since the release of Evangelion 2.0, another girl comes to the scene: Mari Makinami Illustrious.
As the title mentioned, the waifu wars in the Evangelion franchise lasted for almost three decades and it only ended with the release of the last Rebuild of Evangelion film in which neither Rei nor Asuka won.
With that said, the Evangelion franchise has the longest waifu war in history and, in some circles, it is rumored that it’s still going on to this day.
III. Waifu Wars 2000: The Era of Waifu Battle Royale
The 2000s, in my opinion, is what I can consider the peak of the post-Evangelion anime landscape wherein stories don’t just cater to elementary schoold aged boys and girls anymore with subject matter more suitable for adults became prominent in the airwaves.
This also opened for fans of certain anime to set up camps as to who is the best waifu of their respective series.
One of the few differences between this era of the anime fandom and the ones where Macross and Evangelion belonged to is that there is no anime show or movie that became the nucleus of that era’s waifu wars. Instead, we had these factions spread out to various anime, regardless of genre whether be it the flavor of the month shonen anime like Naruto and One Piece or some kids show like Mirmo de Pon.
The 2000s would also see the birth of the husbando because why should only men have all the fun in these anime fan wars? Not only that, the Internet became a global phenomenon so you can now argue with John from Arkansas or with Takeshi from Saitama as to why your waifu is better than their waifus.
This free-for-all waifu wars would change the landscape of how anime fans would discuss the topic of best girl as nowadays, you can have multiple best girls on your waifu list and it would be all from different anime.
The next decade, however, would give us a taste of the not-so-distant past as one series would be the epicenter of the biggest waifu war in recent history.
IV. Team Chitoge vs Team Kosaki or: How a False Love Resulted in a Global Waifu War
Ladies and gentlemen, we are now at what I could consider the greatest waifu war in the history of the anime fandom: Team Chitoge vs Team Kosaki (or Team Onodera as they call it because Haru Onodera is a non-entity when the anime adaptation got released).
As far as I can remember, the anime fandom on the Internet is in full swing. Gone are the days of Usenet groups and Geocities pages, we are now in the Facebook era as we speak. Where do I even begin with this?
It’s not only Nisekoi fans who relished in trashtalking with each other, but also the people who hated Nisekoi even joined in on the fun.
Memes and other sorts of images and videos were produced and uploaded every second on the Internet during the show’s run and there would be comments after comments as to how Chitoge should win the Rakubowl, why Kosaki is better than Chitoge, how Tsurugi would steal the win, etc. etc.
Also, this waifu war involved the whole world in it, not just Japan, Southeast Asia, and the United States but the whole world tuned in to see if Raku would choose Chitoge or Kosaki with bated breath.
I would say that the Nisekoi waifu wars were bigger and more well known than the Evangelion one because during the time of NGE, the Internet is still in its infancy and many of the fans who tuned in to the Rakubowl were born after the Shinjibowl ended and it wasn’t cool to be an Evangelion fan at the time.
All in all, when Nisekoi ended, the anime fandom landscape returned to its 2000s self and in this decade, we now have multiple best girls scattered around different anime shows and manga, just like how it was back then before Nisekoi came.
Well, that’s it for today’s Valentine’s Day post. I hope you guys enjoy this special day with your friends, family, lover, whathaveyou.
See you next time!
Rayas-WEB 