Welcome back to Waifu Wednesday, Niche Gamer’s column where we talk about characters, their appeal, and a little on their history.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu) was the Neon Genesis Evangelion of the mid 2000s. Not in the thematic sense but in the waifu war sense. Instead of Asuka and Rei we had Haruhi, Nagato, and Mikuru.

Today we’re focusing on Yuki Nagato at the request of BoomerWeeb on Twitter. In my opinion, Nagato is at least partly responsible for popularizing the Kuudere (cooldere) trope of characters, they’ve existed before (like Rei) but weren’t as mainstream as tsundere, deredere, and yandere.

For those who don’t know, Nagato is an alien, after a fashion. Rather than an alien she’s a humanoid interface program that represents a collective alien intelligence. Her mission is to collect and organize data on Haruhi which the alien intelligence acknowledges as having some sort of power over reality.

She also has one of the best character CDs with the original songs “SELECT?” and “Yuki, Muon, Madobe ni te” which are sung by her VA. You can check out “SELECT?” below.

Nagato is voiced by Chihara Minori who’s known for her past roles in the Ikkitousen franchise and Tenjou Tenge.

Feel free to share who your waifu is on our Twitter or Facebook and who knows, we might feature them in a regular Waifu Wednesday post!