The summer 2020 anime season’s surprise hit Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out is all about how a loner college student named Sakurai gets his life turned upside down by his energetic kouhai Uzaki. Uzaki is a classic “manic pixie dream girl” – a term coined in 2007 by film critic Nathan Rabin that refers to boisterous female characters whose only purpose in the story is to give a sad-sack male protagonist a new lease on life through wacky antics and bright smiles. One of the most prominent anime examples in recent memory is, of course, Haruhi from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Even though this kind of character is usually portrayed in a negative light (mostly because it smacks of shallow wish fulfillment for male viewers), it’s possible for her to be well-written and likable despite that. So, let’s compare Uzaki and Haruhi to see which one of them is the better manic pixie dream girl!

This article was written for Honey’s Anime, so please read it on their site.