Anime & Manga Anime

Note: I am treating each franchise as a single title, so as to avoid a single franchise holding too many spots, and also because I feel like many series don't make sense to only watch parts of, and have their quality influenced by the existence of further material.
Note 2: This is a reposting of an old post of mine on this topic, but it still applies here pretty much the same.


  • My Top Ten Favorite Anime
    1.Re:Creators
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    Re:creators is an anime that fascinates me. Beyond just the themes, the very construction of the show, every scene and every character is riddled with layers upon layers of meaning and impact to discover, the show plays with various pretty unique and thought-provoking ideas and is not afraid to make use of all of it's resources, bringing in meta elements unlike those I've seen anywhere else.

    Re:creators is a show where various characters are mysteriously brought from their respective stories into the real world by an even more mysterious girl wearing a military uniform. She seems to have some kind of grudge against humanity, so the characters band together to try and stop her plans, whatever they might be.

    While the show admitedly has a slow start, it by no means lacks action or characters, however it is the kind of show that asks you to pay attention to what is being said. Re:creators has an excellent mix of genres and understanding of tropes, which it uses to build upon the characters and ideas, in particular the questions it raises in regards to story telling. It also has superb art, music and animation, and a fair mix of comedy, action and drama.

    Overall, I wouldn't call Re:creators the best at any particular field (though it is great in pretty much all of them) , except in how it manages to entertain, speak for itself and bring in great ideas, questions and thoughts in the midst of it all. Re:creators is a story about stories, and as a writer, roleplayer, reader and anime watcher it has a special place in my heart.

    I am currently working on an in-depth review of the show, so as to better surmize why I love it so much.

    2.Log Horizon
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    Coming in second place is Log Horizon, a show about a group of gamers who suddenly inexplicably find themselves in a world very similar to that of the Elder Tale game they were playing (your average MMORPG), except ALIVE. With seemingly no way to go back, people have to cope with their new exist and learn coexist in scociety in this new world.

    Log Horizon just strikes so many cords with me that I don't even know where to start. I love the world building and the general isekai/game aspects of it, I love the politics and mind games (which I would put almost on par with death note's), but the thing I probably love most about the show is the excellent structural writing that goes into it, the mindblowing build-up and foreshadowing.

    While the show certainly has dark and serious elements it also has it's fair share of comedic ones, making for a very well balanced atmosphere played at just the right moments, with just the right set up to work. The characters are well-defined but always seem to have something more to learn about who they are or who they are changing into through the marvelously handled character arcs.


    3.Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru.
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    One of the thinks that strikes me almost as odd when I watch this show is the sheer rewatch value it had for me. I've watched it some four or five times and each time it felt like a deeply connecting experience for me, both on comedic and serious tones. Each time I felt like I was unveiling more about the show and the characters and catching more onto certain subtle hints being delivered.

    One of this show's greatest assets is the main character, Hikigaya Hachiman. A self-professed loner this kid has his hand forced in joining the volunteer club, a club currently with only a singular member which dedicates itself to "helping people achieve their dreams". Hikigaya's inner monologue not only is a hilarious aspect of the show, the cynical viewpoint he displays and the way it contrasts with others is a major driving force of the show's action and themes. I would call Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru. a show definitely built around characters, as the relationships that surround them and they form, their personalities and viewpoints, and how it applies to their lives in society and highschool are exactly what the show focuses on, and in that area the show is both inventive and thought provoking.

    There's also quite a unique element of self-sacrifical tragedy in the show, though I will hold on spoilers beyond that. However, it is a major aspect of what makes the show as great as to propell it to the third spot, and a driving element of the second season's plot.


    4.Konosuba
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    In my "humble" opinion, one of the best comedies out there right now, Konosuba is about Satou Kazuma, a japanese boy who gets "hit by a truck" (you'll understand why I put that in air quotes when you see the show) and ends up with the offer to go to a fantasy world to be reincarnated, with the promise that, should he defeat the demon king, he will be granted 1 wish. However he quickly finds that things don't go as expected and among other matters his party seems to fill up with one useless/crazy girl after another.

    My description doesn't even begin to do justice the whackyness and fun of the show and it is no coincidence that many consider it a comedy staple in anime. The characters are extremely compelling, well-defined and become more rounded as the show goes on and we are allowed to see them in different contexts and different light. This empowers the already powerful comedy (especially for those well-aware of the tropes of isekai),alongside Konosuba's remarkable continuity despite being essentially an episodic show.


    5.Date a Live
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    Somwhere in the near future, disastrous events capable of wiping out cities called "spacequakes" begin to randomly appear and cause havoc. Secretely, alongside the spacequakes always appear girls named "spirits", who cause spacequakes as they subconsicously use their power to leave and re-enter Earth. The typical solution is to attempt to kill them off so they can't do that, however, the main character, Itsuka Shido, is tasked with an alternate solution: To make them fall in love with him, so they love the world by proxy and don't leave in the first place.

    Date a live has remained lurking at the bottom of my top tens for a while, mostly because I have yet to be able to articulate why I love this show so much. However, it is a fact that I do love it to that extent: The character's are absolutely adorable (and well-rounded), the art is nice and polished, the comedy is fun, the romance nice and I can rewatch the show many times over, and specific scenes even more, without ever seeming to really get tired of seeing them.

    I guess that last bit especially is what propells it despite the obvious presences of tropes and very common ideas in harem anime (of which I would consider this a greater breed, in that it is the kind of harem where the main character is actively trying to make the girls fall for him, thus removing the forced coincidental nature some harems have). However, while the show has plenty of tropes in it's deck, I would point out how far beyond those tropes the show goes. Furthermore the cast is plenty diverse and well-rounded, each character's shortcomings being complemented by the remainer of the group. There's a bit for everyone except haters to enjoy, which does not guarantee you will, but I definitely love it.

    6.Code Geass
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    Code Geass is a show with an absolutely fantastic ending. Throughout it's run, the shows embarks in a variety of genres, mystery, warfare, political, mecha, scifi, science fantasy even a bit of slice of life and romcom, but throughout the whole run it continually displays intelligent writing, interesting themes, and more significantly, a very smart way to play with the existing pieces in the chessboard if you will.

    Code Geass is about Lelouch, a disowned heir to the throne of the greatest empire in the world Britannia, which now rules even over Japan through the use of mechas named knightmares. Lelouch meets a girl that confers onto him a geass, however, a power which allows him to send any command he wishes onto someone's mind, and with that he becomes the terrorist leader Zero, and begins enacting his revenge.

    Lelouch and his geass are probably one of the best things about this show. Seeing his resourcefulness and clever strategies play out, trying to follow along with what is being set up and about to happen, the political and social strategies to symbolic chess matches and war fights. Seeing Lelouch's descent and rise, the emotional arcs, there's a lot I'd like to talk about but I'd be spoiling so much just to do that.

    7.Monogatari
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    *tilts neck shaft-style*

    I have to confess it's hard to give a summary of Monogatari. I guess the best I can say is "guy solves paranormal monster-based problems from a new girl every couple of episodes" and that'd be it, though you may have guessed there's a lot more to the show.

    I think the best part of Monogatari (other than Shinobu, but we'll get to her in a second) is the sheer amount of bizarre and almost abstract ideas it carries with it. As a big fan of anime, philosophy and clever worldbuilding, watching this show feels like I'm being showered with a well-done mesh of these things in just the concepts and ideas floating around. Each is so clever and unique and taps into this kind of world you just don't see elsewhere.

    While I wouldn't say every character in Monogatari is especially compelling (Depends on the tastes), when Monogatari hits the nail on the head they really do. There's one character I could talk about, but there are too many spoilers, but I'll just cash in on my promise and talk about what is potentially my favorite character in all of anime, Shinobu. This is an almost-vampire loli and I don't think it'd be a stretch to say that she is iconic enough to have probably motivated waves of Monogatari watchers to have seen the show in the first place because of her. This is a character that just puts everything you'd want in a character and somehow makes it work, adorable, badass, somewhat wise and nice, snarky, cocky, individual yet not entirely distant from the other characters... So yeah, she's one of the things that puts the show so up high for me.


    8.Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika
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    Just a typical magical girl show.

    Nothing to see here.

    Nothing at all.

    Wanna make a contract?

    Spoilers head...
    Is there anything to even say about a highly praised show that managed to leave me depressed for a week like Nina from fullmetal alchemist? One that spawned an entire subgenre of anime and gets held as the ideal that subgenre strives for?

    Well, it's not like public opinion can't be wrong, but in this case, I definitely wouldn't say it is. Madoka Magika manages to leave an impact on a variety of levels, especially as you get to the more tiwsted parts and learn more about Homura by the end. The questions it raises and world it creates are great too, but one thing that really holds it very high for me is definitely the music. It was Madoka that made me take classical music without lyrics more seriously, and even today it's songs still pull my heartstrings as not only are they beautiful, but they utterly fit the characters they represent.


    9.Steins Gate
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    Okarin Okabe is a poor "scientist" who discovers the dead body of a prodigy that came for a lecture, Christina (that's not her name, but fans of the show will know why I used it). After sending an email to his friend reporting on what he saw, he accidentally sends an email to the past, causing events to change to where Christina is no longer dead.

    I like Steins Gate. It's entertaining. It has good characters, and the story is top notch. Really, part of me feels like, construction-wise, it's perfect. However, it lacks the "umph" for me. It is consistently excellent, except I don't find any of the characters especially interesting and compelling, the story is good but ultimately mapped out in a lot of ways by the very genre it is inserted in.

    I'm putting it on this top 10, because I genuinely think it is a mind-blowingly masterpiece of a show, but it's a bit like having a pristine car that is only that clean because noboy ever went beyond 10KM/H with it.

    10.Ore, Twintail Ni Narimasu
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    The polar opposite of my words for Steins Gate, this is a show I have such a visceral love for that it's hard to really convey it into words, though I am aware that is structurally has a lot of flaws, this anime is just a crazy comedy only really seen in anime. Soji is a boy who loves twintails, he obsessively loves them in fact. One day, an alien race invades Earth, this particular alien race living by extracting "elements" (fetishes, things people just like etc...) from people, and the most powerful of those elements turns out to be, you guessed it, twintails. In order to stop them, Soji is given a ring that transforms him into Tail Red.

    The comedy deriven from the sheer silliness and whack of what is happening is really the selling point of the show. The alien invaders each having their own thign they seem to obsess over and be attracted to builds a lot of this comedy and I find it hard to stop laughing at a lot of these, even havign already watched it. It isn't the most intelligent thing out there, but it is a ton of fun.

    11.World God Only Knows: Old demons have escaped from hell and are using the gaps in people's hearts as a way of hiding in their souls. In order to capture them, new demons partner with humans to find and extract the old demons. One guy in particular, known online as "the king of conquest" signs a contract with one such new demons wh believes him to "never fail to conquer any girl", so she wants him to fill the heart of girls with love and expell the demon that way. Problem is she misunderstood, as he is "the king of conquest" for dating sims, not real life.

    12.Kore Wa Zombie Desu Ka: After meeting a mysterious girl, Ayumu dies to a serial killer and is brought back as a zombie. He is living his undead life, minding his own business, when he assaulted by a bear creature, which is defeated by a magical girl (not before he gets literally torn in half by her chain saw though). She attempts to erase his mind with magic, but ends up accidentally having her powers sucked up by Ayumu instead. Whacky adventures ensue. PS: Later a vampire ninja that plays the violin "joins the party".

    13.Fate: I hesistate in even putting fate in here at all, as there are just so many different versions of fate in the franchise that it's hard to lump them all together. The basic concept of fate centers around the holy grail war, a fight to the death between mages each summoning one "servant", heroic figures from myth, legend and history, which are given special abilities based on their legend. What is the goal of the war? Nothing less than the holy grail, a magical device said to be able to grant any one wish.

    14.Zombieland Saga: Sakura Minamoto dies on her way to go to an audition to become an idol. Ten years later, she finds herself ressurected as a zombie and put alongside a team of legendary people (all zombified) with the goal with becoming an idol group to save the prefecture of Saga. And if you are wondering how whatever hilarious hijinks they get into in their attempt to become zombie idols will help save Saga, well-

    15.Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha: While unlike Fate Nanoha is one continuous story line, it is still a very large franchise with a lot of variety in it. The way this series waves magical girl matters with space dimension travelling and develops into this fully expansive world to explore, mixing in drama, action, comedy and even a bit of mystery, seeing the characters develop and grow up over time (MC goes from young child to adult over the course of the series) is really one of the things that gives it this spot for me.

    16.Hinamastsuri: A psychic girl appears inside a capsule that just pops into existence inside a Yakusa's apartment, and said Yakusa becomes the girl's sorrogate father. A shows that juggles comedy and tragedy in a way many can't, who can bring you to the verge of tears in one half of the episode and make you laugh your lungs out in the other half.

    17.Action Heroines Cheer Fruits: In an alternate version of the present, the current "big thing" is action heroines, local "heroines" that put on staged shows for children. A heartwarming sequence of events leads the main cast to come together and join their efforts and respective talents in order to become the local heroines their area was missing. One of the handful of shows that actually managed to make me cry, it really develops the characters in an absolutely masterful way and progresses everything in a realistic and relatable way.

    18.Rewrite: Kotarou Tennjoi is a boy with the ability to "rewrite" any part of his body to improve it, who finds himself targeted for reasons unknown by someone after his life. The layers of this show as it develops are honeslty comparable to Steins gate, and it adds an element of action and fantasy not present there. It's really great, but it only unveils it's real glory by the second season so it's hard to say much more.

    19.No Game No Life: Sora and Shiro are two gamers who get taken by to another world by Tet, the god of games, after beating him in a game of chess. In this world, all conflict is impossible to resolve through violence or crime: All disputes are to be solved by the medium of games, be that chess, poker, a random bet or any other kind. It's a clever anime with a lot of sheer fun packed into it.

    20.Overlord: Not wishing the game he spent his blood, sweat and tears on, Yggdrasil, to go away, the protagonist Momonga (a powerful skeleton wizard) decides to stay until the servers shut down as a final send of. Only when the time comes, he is not logged out, and the world seems much more alive than a game should ever be. Don't be mistaken: More than the protagonist's story, Overlord is the story of this protagonist's presence in the world they were taken to. How the lives and the people of that world are affected and changed, what response they come up in response to this imminent threat. It's not the smartest thing in the world, but it's definitely exciting, badass and awesome, especially if you like a side of worldbuilding and game mechanics accompanying the action.

    21.Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru
    22.One Punch Man
    23.Nisekoi
    24.Tensei Shittara Slime Datta Ken
    25.Tonari No Kyuketsuki-san

    Movies:
    1.Sayonara no Asa ni Yakusoku no Hana wo Kazarou
    2.No Game No Life Zero
    3.Planetarian Hoshi no Kito
    4.A Silent Voice
    5.Chuunibyou Demo Koi Ga Shitai Take on Me

 
There is only one Anime that stands above all, which is I got teleported to another world with my Smartphone.

Truly, a masterpiece.

Other Masterpieces include Sword Art Online, the recently aired Isekai Cheat Magician and, of course, HAND SHAKERS WITH IT'S TOP NOTCH, TOTALLY NOT SEIZURE INDUCING CG ANIMATION AND IT'S BEAUTIFUL WRITING THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE.

Tbh though, kinda surprised I din't see Death Note. What's wrong with you?
And I didn't see Highschool DxD, which is a bummer, but I get it.

Kimetsu no Yaiba and Doctor Stone are good.
Evangelion. Rising of the SHield Hero,Tensei Shitara Slime datta ken.
 

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