With a number of nurses in my own family, most of which have served in the profession for decades, I have a deep respect for all that they do. I know their ups and downs and all the in-betweens. And that includes the humor that can come from it as well. With today being National Nurses Day, we wanted to celebrate a bit with a look at some of our favorite anime nurses with all that they do to bring care to us, the viewer, throughout their run in their respective series. Each brings this about in different and key ways.
5) Asuna Kangoshi – Comical Psychosomatic Medicine
Asuna is certainly one of the more amusing recent nurses, especially since the show was attempting at times to be educational as well. Considering her personality throughout it and the bonus of her wearing her outfit for most of it, let’s just say she certainly made an impression with some of her questions.
4) Joy – Pokemon
Joy has the patience of a saint considering what she has to deal with and that she’s always there, perky and upbeat as can be, day after day says a whole lot about her. She’s one of the longest-serving nurses out there in the anime world and deserves a whole lot of respect for that.
3) Aki Nijou – Maken-Ki!
Another recent addition to the league of anime nurses is Aki Nijou from Maken-ki. She made an impression on me to be sure in the first season of the series but I grew to love her caring spirit and commitment to the cause after the second season. It also didn’t hurt that she spent practically an entire episode naked in it while still doing her best to care for her companion at the time.
2) Sakura – Urusei Yatsura
One of the earliest anime nurses to make an impression me was the Tomobiki high school nurse Sakura from Urusei Yatsura. Her no crap approach to dealing with this incredibly rowdy and crazy bunch was often a highlight in any episode and she had some of the best material in the Beautiful Dreamer movie as well.
1) Shizuka Marikawa – Highschool of the Dead
When it comes to nurses you may want with you in the apocalypse, there may be better ones out there to some degree, but if you’re also thinking about future repopulation, well, you want Shizuka from Highschool of the Dead. Shizuka has a lot of fun in the show while also being eye-candy as she handles things well, usually maintains her calm even when she shouldn’t, and she has all the right connections to help the cast survive longer. You can see just how much she cares, and you want that as a patient.
Honorable Mention: Night Shift Nurses
Let’s be honest, there’s a slew of hentai nurses that could have dominated this list from the beginning so we gotta give them some love. While this group of nurses may or may not work considering how extreme their situations are from time to time, these are some very dedicated nurses that will go the distance for their patients and for their doctors. They too must be celebrated.