Waifu Wars! J-List Ranks the Most Iconic Anime Girls of 2024!

The year is winding down, and now is a good time to look back at what kind of year 2024 was for anime fans. Specifically, what kind of cute anime waifus we all enjoyed! In this post, I’ll rank the most iconic anime girls of 2024, based on how much fans on the Internet fell in love with them. Keep reading to see if your favorite waifu is on the list!

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How J-List Ranked the Top Waifus of the Year

With something like 200 new series broadcast this year, fans had more anime than they could hope to watch…and more cute anime waifus than they could keep track of. To create this list, I used the following criteria:

Was the girl a target of love by anime fans, at least while her show was airing?
Did fans make memes or fanart about the girl, or start discussion threads about her on Reddit?
Was the voice acting work done on the character so great, it made the character stand out?
Sometimes a show is popular, but there’s no standout “waifu” for fans to latch on to. A good example would be Mato Seihei no Slave, which had a good balance of sexy female characters but no memorable waifus. Our picks had to be standout waifus.

J-List Picks the Best Anime Waifus of 2024!

Here’s my list of the top fifteen anime waifus of the year. Read the list, and tell me in the comments below if you disagree with my picks!

15. Towa from One Room Tenshi Made Us Want to Live with an Angel

A fun if predictable concept about a guy who ends up living with an angel plus several other supernatural beings in a tiny one-room apartment. We certainly got a lot of views of Towa’s pantsu! I’ve got a blog post on this show here.

14. Rin Nanakura from Pseudo Harem

If you love voice actress Saori Hayami, then this is the show for you. Rin Nanakura is interested in joining the school’s drama club…and dating her senpai, Eiji. When he expresses the wish to have his very own harem of girls, she plays various roles for him: little sister, Tsundere-chan, and so on. It’s a one-trick pony, but I love this voice actress so much that I didn’t mind at all.

13. Nephelia Made Us Want to Marry an Elf Bride

If I had a nickel for every time the word “slave” got removed from the English title of an anime in 2024, I’d have two nickles. That’s not a lot, but it’s funny that it happened twice. How To Love Your Elf Bride, aka I, A Dark Lord, Want To Make My Elf Slave My Bride, How Can I Properly Cherish Her? was a lot of fun while it was airing. And fans loved how Nephy’s ears wiggled when she got nervous. Read my blog post about this series here!

12. We All Wanted to Tie a Knot with an Amagami Sister

If you wanted a sequel to Quintessential Quintuplets, but with the girls living in a Shinto shrine and working as shrine maidens, this is the anime rom-com for you. And I’ve got great news! This is a 24-episode series, so it will continue in the new year. My post on this series is here!

11. 2.5D No Ririsa Made Us Want a Cosplay Harem

What’s the best kind of harem an otaku could want? How about a bunch of sexy cosplayers who undress in front of you, to put their cute costumes on? My post about this fun series is here!

10. Sylpha from Reincarnated as the 7th Prince Made Us Want to be Reborn as a Magical Shota

Another sexy anime girl that fans reacted to was Sylphy, a maid and tutor to Prince Lloyd. Between all her sexy fan service moments and being one of the biggest badass anime girls of 2024, a lot of fans liked her. I’ve got a post on this show here!

In addition to cute anime waifus, we had a lot of fun ecchi anime moments in 2024. Read my ranking of fan service anime here!

9. We Were Thrilled Watching Rudy Find Love in Mushoku Tensei

I often criticize “Narou-kei” anime — which are based on light novels that got their start on the Shousetsuka ni Narou! online website — for having poor structure and relying on tired tropes. But one such anime I’ve been constantly impressed by is Mushoku Tensei. This year we finally got to see Rudy with the love(s) of his life, and it was really great to see.

8. Minami Fuyuki Made Us Want to Date a Gal in Hokkaido

Then there was Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable, about a boy who moved up from Tokyo to Japan’s cold northernmost island of Hokkaido where he found a cute Gal to keep him warm!

J-List has sexy new Gal products in stock for you. Browse them all here!

7. Alya from Roshidere Made Us Want a Russian Kuudere to Date

Another popular anime waifu was Alisa Mikhailovna Kujou, who was half Russian and half Japanese. Did you fall in love with Alya?

6. We All Cheered for Chinatsu Kano in Sports and Love

One romance anime I’m totally loving is Ao no Hako / Blue Box, about a boy named Taiki who has a crush on his senpai Chinatsu. She’s the most popular girl in school. Imagine his shock when he hears Chinatsu will live with him for a year! With the anime season winding down, I assumed this show would be ending, too. But I read that it will be a full 25 episodes, so we can look forward to more amazing episodes in the Winter 2025 season! My blog post on Ao no Hako is here.

5. Lemon Yakishio from Make Heroine Was the Perfect Tanned Waifu

I love it when a side character comes out of nowhere to steal the show. That’s what happened with Lemon in Too Many Losing Heroines! She’s an airhead with dark skin, and fans fell in love with her hard.

If you love “tanned waifus” in anime, we have lots of products in stock for you. The link is here!

4. Erufuda Was “Tons” of Fun

Another new anime that delighted us was Elf-san wa Yaserarenai, or Plus-Sized Elf. It was about a bunch of elves who came to our world where they got fat eating french fries.

3. Utena Made Us Love the Blending of BDSM and Magical Girls

What would you do if you could use magic? Would you use it for good or evil? This is the central question of Gushing Over Magical Girls, which took the magical girl genre in a totally new direction, exploring sexy fetishes. I loved every episode!

2. Anna Yamada Was a Dangerous Waifu for Our Hearts

A lot of fans might have dropped this anime because the first few episodes were about a boy with a dark personality. But if you stuck with it, you were rewarded with one of the best school romance series in years. I loved the second season, which tied up some parts of the story. I sure hope we get a third season after more volumes of the manga have been released.

1. Yuki Suou Was the Top Anime Waifu of 2024

Finally, we get to Yuki Suou, the secret sister of main character Masachika in Roshidere. She grew up apart from her brother after their parents’ divorce. She loves to prank her brother and read novels about brother-and-sister incest. This show is so good, even the English dub is good!

Thanks for reading this blog post about the top anime girls from 2024. Did I miss your favorite waifu on my list? Tell us about her in the comments below!