Balsa from Moribito: The Guardian of the Spirit
This was an easy one! Almost three minutes into watching this standalone anime, it was blatantly obvious that Balsa was going to be my final Woman of the Month for 2024. The sad truth is that female characters like her are so rare: mature and stoic and kind, yet also efficient and highly-trained and lethal when need be – and all in such a way that she doesn’t get Mary Sue accusations lobbed at her.
Balsa is a bodyguard-for-hire approaching her thirtieth birthday, proficient in wielding a spear in defense of herself and her clients. Though we don’t learn her backstory until far into the series’ run, she’s on a self-appointed mission to save the lives of eight people, as atonement for the eight lives that were taken to protect her when she was just a child.
She gets her chance to save the eighth and final life when happenstance puts her in the right time and place to save young Prince Chagum from a carriage accident that sees him fall off a bridge and into the river below. But it’s not that simple – on being summoned to the palace in secret later that night, the prince’s mother reveals the accident was a planned assassination attempt, ordered by the boy’s own father.
Now Balsa doesn’t have to just protect Chagum, but to find out why exactly his father wants him dead. Though she’s not a naturally maternal person, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the two of them will bond across the course of their journey together, and that Chagum will grow into a wiser, nobler ruler due to the influence Balsa has upon him.
The most notable aspect of the story is that although there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Lone Wolf and Cub tales, the lone wolf in the equation is hardly ever a woman. And neither are there any silly depictions of Balsa being unnaturally standoffish or unpleasant to the boy in her charge – she may not have much familiarity with children, but all the expected clichés (she’s bad at cooking, she’s a strict disciplinarian who gradually lightens up) are avoided.
In fact, there are plenty of subversions regarding gender roles strewn throughout the story, such as Balsa’s old friend and quasi-love interest Tanda, a healer who spends most of his time collecting herbs and sharing his gifts with those in need. Though there is something of longstanding attraction between them, the show’s conclusion doesn’t depict them settling down into marital bliss. Instead, Balsa heads off on another mission while Tanda tells their friends he’s content to wait for her return.
That’s not even getting into Balsa’s reluctance to use lethal force when she’s fighting her enemies, or the circumstances of her vow to save eight lives, or the fact that she’s technically past her prime and just as often has to use her wits as much as her strength in battle...
In short, just an incredibly rich and wonderful character to close off the year.
