Mine:
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Violet Evergarden
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Spirited Away
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A Place Further Than The Universe
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Gintama
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Steins;Gate
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Frieren
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Fruits Basket (2019)
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Tsurune S2
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Your Name
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Your Lie in April
It’s hard to pick a top 10. The top 5 on this list are pretty firmly my favorites but after that there are any number of great shows that could’ve filled the latter 5 slots.
- Redline - This movie showed me that an anime doesn’t need a complex plot to be awesome.
- LOOK BACK - Really emotional story about two artists.
- Kaguya-sama: Love is War - So far this is a perfect adaptation of my favorite romance manga, and my favorite comedy manga. I didn’t want to use the term “romcom” simply because I want to emphasize that it excels on both points individually. Here’s hoping they continue on to finish the second half of the story.
- Gurren Lagann - Much like Redline, this show is just awesome.
- Skip and Loafer - Extremely charming story about a girl from the countryside getting accustomed to Tokyo life. Season 2 airs later this year so it’s a good time to catch up if you haven’t seen it!
- Bang Brave Bang Bravern! - Big gay robots.
- Legend of the Galactic Heroes - Space opera. The worse modern US politics has gotten the more depressing this show has been to watch.
- Gundam Build Fighters - The most charming Gundam show. Unfortunately some of the jokes and references won’t land unless you’ve watched an ungodly amount of not-quite-as-good older Gundam shows.
- Eureka Seven - An excellent mech anime held back a little by a slow first several episodes.
- Mob Psycho 100 - A story about a boy trying to grow up into the best version of himself he can manage.
MOST BASIC LIST EVER
- Trigun
- Spirited Away
- Dandandan
- Solo Leveling
- Cowboy Bebop
- Nausica and the Valley of the Wind
- JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
- Trigun Stampede
- Bloom into You
- Gurran Lagan
MOST BASIC LIST EVER
If everyone else enjoy the anime that you enjoy, it just means that you’ve got great taste.
In no particular order (maybe)
- Ghost in the Shell (all seasons, even if they had different names)
- Dragonball Z (you either wanted to be Goku or Vegeta, simple as is)
- Claymore (short, and holy fuck did it go hard at times)
- Fullmetal Alchemist (even if it went off-trial, I still loved it!)
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (a more-true to the manga release - also dope!)
- Samurai Champloo (they had Dutch-speaking characters! Also made me learn a bunch of Dutch history and how we used to trade with the Japanese since 1609 because of an Englishman called William Adams (Miura Anjin)!)
- Alfred J. Kwak (Kwak the Duck - あひるのクワック- my childhood favorite)
- Ox Tales/Boes (a childhood classic)
- Dommel/Wowser/Bigger and Better: Dommel & Ron (another childhood classic)
- Moomins (a Finnish classic!)
I so rarely see other people rank FMA’03 over Brotherhood, but I really preferred it. The more serious tone, the origins of the homunculi, the much stronger ending (“better” is debatable, but it was definitely strong), and most of all, the Pride reveal. '03 revealing it like 2/3 of the way through the series made for a better twist. I’m so happy I was able to avoid that particular spoiler until I watched the show, because that blew my goddamn mind
An honorable mention to who actually killed Winry’s parents. Having us grow to like the guy for a while before revealing that particular sin was a stronger choice than just saying “yeah, the antagonist did it”
In no order whatsoever:
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Orb: On the Movements of the Earth
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Vinland Saga
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Jujutsu Kaisen
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Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
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Apothecary Diaries
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Summertime Render
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Oshi no Ko
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Chainsaw Man
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My Hero Academia
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Dr. Stone
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(because I couldn’t decide what to ditch from the list above) Dungeon Meshi
I hesitated to put Orb very high on my own list due to worries about recency bias, but it really was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. I started it because, I mean, look at my username. A show about astronomers studying heliocentrism in 15th century Poland sounds like it’s tailor made for me. But it’s even better, because it’s not actually about astronomy. It’s about the anonymous contributors to history, whose names and faces were never recorded, and yet were instrumental to building their era, and by extension every era afterward.
Near the end of the show, a certain character makes reference to the fact that “when the people of the past or future gaze across the span of time, they’ll merely see us all as people from the fifteenth century.” Indeed, he feels that “we, who happened to live in this day and age, even if we hated one another enough to kill, are comrades who built an era together.” Even if your name won’t survive over the next five centuries, you still have laid a brick in the foundation of history.
Idunno, I can write a three page essay about this show, and it still wouldn’t capture all of my thoughts and feelings. It’s the easiest 10/10 I’ve given a show since Standalone Complex. Truly the only valid criticism of it is that it is physically difficult to watch if your room isn’t pitch black. They gotta go back and turn the brightness up on some scenes.
- Your Name
- Spy x Family
- My next life as a villainess
- Fruits Basket (2019)
- Suzume
- Shangri-la Frontier
- Ranma ½
- Zenshu
- Samurai Champloo
- So I’m a spider so what
I just started watching anime again recently after not watching much for over a decade, so a lot of mine are newer
