Alter Rozen Maiden Shinku

Ah, Rozen Maiden. What more can I say? At first I was highly apprehensive of this series, thinking it was another shoujo piece, period. However, after I watched the anime and read the manga, it seemed quite the contrary. A hybrid blend of shonen, shoujo, otaku and gothic lolita elements coalesced and presented itself nicely in this series. Characters were pronounced and memorable too: there's the web-phenomenon creating Suiseiseki (Desu), the paranoid sadistic Suigintou, the traumatized teenage protagonist Jun Sakurada, and of course, elegance embodied - Shinku. The perfect tsundere, intelligent, compassionate and strong, Shinku is one of my favorite heroines of all time; in part, she strongly reminds me of that person, so far away now. As a side note, to those who aren't aware, a new manga serialization by Peach-Pit is currently running, and the story takes a twist from where it left off in the anime's second season, Traumend (not the first manga series).