Top 50 favourite anime

10/10

10/10

10/10

9/10

Welcome to the NHK! is a comedy/drama series, that both pokes fun at and provides social commentary about otakus (people obsessed with consumeristic things like anime, manga, video games, porn etc.) and recluses, making it a pretty subversive series within a medium, that whether directly or not helps reproducing said obsessions and psychological issues. It's strongest element is the fact, that it doesn't just point fingers, but presents a strong psychological and sociological base giving you not only the ability to identify with the characters, but also understand the problematics with this social occurences. This being said the characters are mostly fleshed out well (though the manga proves it could have been done a bit better) and fun to follow around. The series can be also seen as a twisted romance story.

9/10

Berserk (1997) took the best part of the Berserk manga and transformed it into a pretty great adaptation. While the title and the medieval war premise may suggest this being just another blood and gore infested action series, there's more to it than meets the eye. In fact the strongest part of it, are the characters, which are all fleshed out well and have interesting development and integration in the grand scheme of things as the story goes on. The story, dealing with man's ambition, ultimately culminates in one of the most impactful climaxes I have ever seen in anime history. Before anybody calls me out on the previous sentence and the obvious controversy, that's connected with it; no the series does not end there. You can always continue by reading the manga, watch the final Golden Age arc movie for a proper anime conclusion or ignore episode 1 and consider it open ended. However, none of this is the perfect solution. Too bad the manga series declines in quality after the Golden Age arc.

9/10

This series is definetly not for the casual watcher, who just wants something fun to watch. The series doesn't spoon feed the audience and instead just throws them in a world, where the wired (the internet) is about to get integrated in everyday life. This way some people might get turned off, but at the same time I don't feel like the series is as hard to understand as some people make it out to be. The story is still linear and there aren't all too many complex methaphors, which couldn't be grasped. You just need to pay a little more attention. If you manage to keep track, you will find alot of substance underneath the obviously budgetary constricted but still beautiful visuals. The series is not only prophetic in terms of the influence the internet had on society, but also poses interesting philosophical and existential questions. It's truly a unique experience.

9/10

The Tatami Galaxy has the one big weakness that it alienates it's (especially not Japanese speaking) audience right off the bat, by having the protagonist have fast-paced and long winded exposition narrations, that may make you want to quit after 5 minutes and go watch some simpler stuff like Naruto, Bleach or whatever instead. But despair not, the protagonists babbling gets reduced as soon as the plot thickens and happens far less often in later episodes and when it does you get used to it. Once the barrier is broken, you're bound to find a pretty substantial, though abstract, story about life and the decisions a man makes. The substance of the series however goes beyond just telling a meaningful story, since it's also pretty impressive in the department of animation, having a style that's truely unique within the medium and even pretty good humor as well as interesting characters, that you get attached to. It's also a far superior series to the otherwise widely praised Steins;Gate (not that I dislike it) in telling a story with the time reset element in it's story.

9/10

Paranoia Agent is Satoshi Kon's, who is otherwise better known for his critically acclaimed movies; Perfect Blue, Millenium Actress, Paprika and Tokyo Godfathers, excursion into the serial territory. The series however in no way falls short, when compared to other works in Kon's filmography. Paranoia Agent could be described as a social panorama, with the many characters and subplots it covers, that however all have one thing in common; the need for an escape. Kon makess his ideas come to life, by literally taking physical form in his story. This could alienate some viewers, but felt to me like something, that actually made the series more worthwhile and a feast for the eyes. Ultimately a lot of it blows up into ridiculous proportions to the point where it is funny, which I however don't consider a flaw due to quite a number of hints sparkled throughout the series, that give a feeling of self-awareness and because it is, as already mentioned pretty entertaining.

9/10

Neon Genesis Evangelion 8/10 End of Evangelion 9/10

Evangelion is one of these animes, that I initially didn't quite get. The characters seemed unlikeable and there is this abstractness to both its existing endings. It took me sometime, but I eventually decided to revisit the story and to my surprise it was written with quite a lot of complexity and it wasn't as abstract as I initially thought. The story is about Shinji Ikari, who after years gets reunited with his father, so he can force him to pilot a giant robot for him and deal with the "Angels" (gigantic alien entities), who are a threat to mankind. It does start like a pretty standard mecha series, but eventually evolves into a war drama about a world, which is on the brink of apocalypse, with well-characterized leads, who clearly don't have the proper mentality to fight in wars of such a scope. Like I said the characters are not the most pleasant, but they're personalities and their psychological struggles at times fit in eerily well with the setting, that gets presented. Now to deal with the controversy; the last two episodes of the series are a clear result of something going wrong with the animation process in the studio and I personally don't like them. Luckily they remade them in the 1997 End of Evangelion movie, which offered a more satisfying conclusion, that didn't try to pass the entire series off as a metaphor for depression or a coming of age situation and exploded in one of the most memorable animated spectacles I've seen.

8/10

8/10

8/10

In my opinion this is the best battle shounen series. It's pretty remarkable how author Nobuhiro Watsuki managed to take the typical arc based structure series like this usually have and still make a well connected and wholesome series, that never feels like slowing down and stays true to it's core ideas. Unfortunately there is a catch. The anime, as good as it may be, does not do perfect justice to the manga series. The series leaves out the entire Jinchuu arc and backstory arc, which was originally integrated in said arc. Instead half of the 94 episodes consists of filler, that you might as well skip in my opinion. They did tackle the missing arcs in two movies, however even though "Trust and Betrayal" is well received it feels tonally alien and has poor pacing and "Reflection" is just an completely botched product consisting of flashbacks, overly dramatic speeches and 10 minutes of actual Jinchuu arc adaptation leading to an anime only ending, that you no longer care about after being bored for an hour straight.

8/10

8/10

8/10

8/10

8/10

8/10

8/10

8/10

The "Big 3 Question" has had a pretty clear answer for quite some time. Even though I personally always preferred Naruto, One Piece is the best of Shonen Jump's popularity monsters as far as quality goes. One Piece has managed to stay true to it's core idea, fun atmosphere, large world it set up and interesting characters, with equally as interesting designs (something some people complain about, but to me the artstyle (not the animation) is outstanding) for most of it's run. While much praise can be said about One Piece, it still suffers from long running shounen series syndrome, by having poor pacing and a bunch of fillers (though some of them are actually pretty good in One Piece), making you consider to jump over to reading the manga instead entirely. Another flaw is also, that while the main cast is indeed interesting, their development is pretty much reversed or nullified after the time skip, leaving a heavy toll on the enjoyment of the latest arcs.

8/10

Another series, that is hailed by most of the anime community as one of the best. But personally I think the series can only be seperated from other fighting shounen series by so much. It's biggest strenghts are indeed the consistent writing and clever battle mechanics, that author Yoshihiro Togashi put together with quite an impressive amount of creativity and detail. But if you look at it from bird's eye you still have an arc-based fighting series, that keeps moving on at a relatively slow pace (but atleat it doesn't have fillers and flashbacks) and after the events of the manga towards the unknown. It's highly likely, that the only thing keeping the manga on-going is Togashi's contract with Shonen Jump and the undying dedication of it's fandom (Which to be fair is excused, since Hunter x Hunter is a step ahead from it's contemporaries within the fighting shounen genre), when obviously Togashi is trying to stay away from it as much a possible with his constant hiatuses. As from it's pretty good consistency the plot ranges from mediocre to pretty great arcs. The Yorknew and Chimera Ant arcs are definetly the two high points of the series, but getting there took quite some dedication. For example the entire first arc felt like a patchwork created to keep the audiences going every week. If you look at the hunter exam as a whole, which is the central event of the arc, it's overly convoluted and unfocused. On the other hand it has pretty good animation and fight scenes and I quite enjoy the cheezyness of the "You can smile again"-theme song.

8/10

8/10

8/10

8/10

7/10

7/10

If you're looking for a good integration of music into a slice of life plot, then "Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad" is probably one of the better choices you can make. It definetly helped, that they hired japanese alternative rock band Beat Crusaders to write and record some authentic sounding songs for the soundtrack. Other than that you'll get a story about Yukio "Koyuki" Tanaka, who discovers his love for rock music, picks up an instrument and eventually decides to aim for the stars with a band. Based on that sentence you can probably already notice a flaw in the presentation of the series. Simply said the band in the series, while catchy and far from bad, is nowhere near as good as the audience resonation makes them out to be. To be fair though; the series, except for the climax (which is kind of convenient and farfetch'd), the band's success is never anything too far off from what such a band would achieve in real life. It's also worth mentioning that the anime series only covers about a third of the whole manga story, but to be honest having read the entire manga I'd have to say that the first third was best anyway (even though the manga doesn't get bad).

7,25/10*

8/10 (Dragon Ball) 6,5/10 (Dragon Ball Z)

Dragon Ball, the classic battle shounen. But it wasn't always like that. The series was at it's best, when it was an over the top martial arts and slightly absurd comedy/action series and didn't quite descend into it's mindless power measuring, kicking and punching and yelling-accompanied transformations. But even with that descent DBZ remained an entertaining and fun series throughout. As far as my rating goes, I didn't include any of the two sequels, that followed, because I consider both unnecessary and bad. GT had some good ideas to continue the story, but ultimately failed by feeling redundant and having stale characters. With Toriyama back on board you'd think Super would be better. But it's even worse. The characters are just as stale, the arc's even less elaborate and the twists and turns are full of rehashing from the first two series.

4,5/10 (Dragon Ball GT) 3/10 (Dragon Ball Super)

7,5/10

7/10

7/10

I guess an anime like Digimon may give people the association, that it's all just a marketing vehicle for a toy line and to be fair, that's technically exactly what it is. Luckily the writers didn't treat it that way, for I would dare calling Digimon one of the better kid-oriented anime series. Lots of series like this tend to be an escapist adventure, where the stakes aren't too high and the drama of real life is far away and irrelevant (like (for example) in Pokemon, which Digimon often (unfairly if I may add) gets accused of ripping off). The leading cast in Digimon is relatively down to earth. They're all somewhat realistic, relatable and dealing with their own personal struggles, that go beyond being trapped in a strange land with gigantic bugs and dinosaurs (which actually is a problem in Digimon and the characters don't react to it with joy). It's true however that the plot is kind of simple, plot turns and twist aren't particularly clever and the digivolution is a pretty silly concept to sell toys, but it's still a pretty fun series, that I enjoy revisiting every couple of years. I guess it's also worth addressing that Digimon spans multiple seasons and movies. Currently the 8th season is in the making, but only the second one (Digimon 02) and the still on going Digimon Tri. movie series are direct sequels to the story of the original, so I guess I can add a sentence or two for those as well (Other spin off series will get their own entries). Digimon 02 replaced most of the original cast with new characters, which could be a good idea, but backfired, because the new cast is in fact closer to the generic escapist kid-oriented adventure series, who embark on their adventures with a happy-go-lucky attitude. The series somewhat makes up for that by adding some pretty interesting antagonists, but once again blows it with worse plot turns and twists. There is also the "Digimon Movie" from 2000, which is an anthology of additional side stories tying in with the first two seasons, which is okay, but nothing great. Then there's Digimon Tri., which currently spans 3 movies (more aree to come). These unfortunately don't move very quickly and I only really enjoyed the latest of them, otherwise they're heavy on forced emotional moments, that just drag on too long and feel contrived, but appearently still appeal to the emotion-addicts in the anime community.

Digimon 02; 5/10 Digimon the Movie; 6/10 Digimon Tri. Part 1: Reunion; 4/10 Digimon Tri. Part 2: Determination; 4/10 Digimon Tri. Part 3: Confession; 6/10