My top 30 anime

To try describ­ing my tastes in anime without using examples is a tedi­ous and often mis­lead­ing task. A far sim­pler and more effi­cient way would be to list my favour­ites, which, rather unsur­pris­ingly, is exactly what this page is for. These are all anime I would recom­mend without a seconds hes­it­a­tion. My all-time favour­ites, the best Japan has to offer.

If you want more, there’s my 31–60 favour­ite anime too.

30: Black Lagoon: Second Barrage

Not that the first sea­son wasn’t awe­some or any­thing. It’s just it was totally swept away by the second. Everything the first did the second did bet­ter. A bet­ter focus of the true hor­rors of Roanapur, a greater cast of the true wild­cards that inhabit that devil city. OK, the first sea­son man­aged the Rock/Revy rela­tion­ship bet­ter, but Roanapur is the real reason to watch this anime. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

29: Full Metal Panic (first season)

Full Metal Panic is a great to use to intro­duce a friend to the world of anime. Not only is it hugely enter­tain­ing, very access­ible, well-written and all-round fun, it’s the most fun­da­ment­ally ‘anime’ title out there. The mecha, the aqua­mar­ine hair, the tsun­dere, the wacky com­edy. All of these ste­reo­typ­ical anime tropes are done bet­ter in Full Metal Panic than you’ll find pretty much any­where else. If your friend doesn’t like Full Metal Panic, chances are anime is not for them.

28: Neon Gen­esis Evangelion

Evan­gelion is an odd one. It wasn’t until the end that I real­ised how little I under­stood about the plot. Yet, as you can see from its inclu­sion in here, I still loved the show. It had a true sense of epic cine­ma­to­graphy with the way it frames the mon­sters, height­en­ing the awe inspir­ing fear they gave off. Com­bine this with that ever-growing sense of fear and mind­fuck­ery endured by the main char­ac­ters, and you have this bril­liantly enga­ging show that draws you in and scares you away. Which is why that damn end­ing is such a fuck­ing anti-climactic way to end the series argh!

Related Posts: Com­par­ing Evan­gelion to Infin­ite Ryvius

27: Mil­lenium Actress

Satoshi Kon is a mas­ter at storytelling, and this isn’t the only time you’ll see one of his works in this top 30. Mil­lenium Act­ress is his best con­struc­ted of the lot. Each story fold in on the oth­ers, cre­at­ing this fant­astic single story that’s basic­ally the same one told each time around, but also incor­por­ates a lin­ear nar­rat­ive as well. It’s such a fant­ast­ic­ally told story.

26: Arakawa Under the Bridge

Arakawa is a com­edy anime, but the true genius isn’t in the com­edy. Oh sure, it’s funny. End­lessly so. It has Sis­ter; a trig­ger happy, war vet­eran dressed as a nun. But what really makes this show is the intel­li­gence behind its con­struc­tion. The story is so per­fectly done. The way it wraps in on itself, col­lapsing Recruit’s world in on him­self, fol­lowed by build­ing up an entirely new world foun­ded upon a dif­fer­ent form of logic. It des­troys his per­cep­tion of com­mon sense and builds up a world that tells him hey, what’s com­mon sense anyway?

Related Posts: I wrote about every epis­ode in the first sea­son, there’s plenty of fan­boy­ing in them

25: Tokyo Godfathers

Satoshi Kon again, Tokyo God­fath­ers is the ulti­mate feel-good anime. It cracked my usu­ally stone cold heart as I watched stor­ies sur­round­ing these three home­less idi­ots. It made me tear up like a big baby. Not through the typ­ical exploit­at­ive sad meth­ods that the usual tear-jerkers employ that have almost no effect on me, but through mak­ing me happy. For that feat alone, it deserves all the praise it can get.

24: Ghost in the Shell:

Stand Alone Complex

Pro­duc­tion IG, you sure are cap­able of some amaz­ing work when you put your mind to it, which is unfor­tu­nately not nearly as much as your repu­ta­tion claims you might. What I loved about Ghost in the Shell is how intric­ate the plot­ting was. Each plot level was so com­plex. I’d fre­quently pause an epis­ode halfway through to wrap my head around the latest devel­op­ments. It’s so delib­er­ate and bril­liantly con­struc­ted. Also, the Major is hot. Like, really really hot.

23: Hare + Guu

Guu is the queen of com­edy. You must all bow down now towards her majestic use of everything a comedian has in their arsenal. From par­ody­ing to coax­ing to chil­lin’ to afros to kiss­ing to some­times simply goof­ing around in the back­ground. She can twist any situ­ation to her lik­ing. Some­times it takes noth­ing more than a well timed evil grin to warp the mind of poor Hare.

22: Akira

You know, they don’t make anime like they used to. Where is that level of viol­ence and depth and dis­sect­able fea­tures that was pre­val­ent in anime back in the good old days. When is the last time we’ve seen a truly adult anime take the west­ern world by storm. When was…what am I say­ing, I wasn’t even alive when that happened. So shut up you old­f­ags, stop scar­ing away the newer anime fans and let them enjoy Akira for what it is.

21: Ten­gen Toppa Gur­ren Lagann

If there’s a wall in our way, we’ll des­troy it! If there’s no road, we’ll pave it with our own hands! Your drill is the drill that will pierce the heav­ens! Don’t believe in the me who believes in you. Don’t believe in the you who believes in me, believe in your­self! Go bey­ond the impossible and kick reason to the curb! WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE!!!

Related Posts: More about Lagann-hen, but still relevant

20: Last Exile

This is why I miss Gonzo. They were cap­able of glor­i­ous cre­ations like Last Exile. This was one of those per­fect adven­ture anime in which everything seemed to be tailored to my tastes. Never stayed too long on a cer­tain plot point, fant­astic ima­gin­a­tion to cre­ate that world of Anat­oray and Disith, a fant­astic open­ing song and CGI incor­por­ated prop­erly. This is why I watch anime. Because it can pro­duce a series like Last Exile.

19: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

One of the best told stor­ies anime has ever pro­duced. You know that because of how obvi­ous each plot twist and rev­el­a­tion felt in ret­ro­spect. Everything about it was so delib­er­ately set out to play with your expect­a­tions, drop­ping in plot twists just before you star­ted expect­ing such a thing was going to hap­pen. It was visu­ally invent­ive too, with the Shaft visu­als actu­ally adding some­thing to the story for a change, and included one of the greatest anime ant­ag­on­ists of all time. Kyubey you mag­ni­fi­cent bas­tard, I will never for­get you.

Related Posts: Before the end­ing and after the ending

18: Eden of the East

Mar­gin­ally super­ior to his efforts on Ghost in the Shell, Kam­iyama really knows how to set my mind in motion. No other anime made me con­coct such wild the­or­ies for pos­sible dir­ec­tions in the plot only to later shove it in my face that I’d picked up a red her­ring. Shame the movies aren’t as good, by the TV series is still fant­astic as a stand-alone piece. Noblesse Oblige. Please get me one of those mes­siah phones with Juiz’s voice.

17: Full Metal Alchemist

+Broth­er­hood

After some delib­er­a­tion, I’ve decided to lump both the ori­ginal and Broth­er­hood together. Broth­er­hood reminded me, both through its strengths and through its faults, why the ori­ginal Full Metal Alchem­ist was such a good story. This is shounen at its finest. Well, it would be if you could com­bine the pacing of the first series with the sense of epic tim­ing (like comedic tim­ing, except with *phwoar* instead of laughs) in Broth­er­hood. Then you’d have the per­fect shounen. But until someone makes that anime, we’ll have to do with FMA.

16: Infin­ite Ryvius

Ryvius is pain­ful to sit through. As the situ­ation aboard the space­ship gets pro­gress­ively worse with each epis­ode, the view­ing exper­i­ence becomes even more gruelling and dif­fi­cult to watch. You want these char­ac­ters to get over their prob­lems. To redeem and suc­ceed in their lives. Why can’t they all just get along? It’s a mag­ni­fi­cent char­ac­ter study, prob­ably the best out there. Plus, the end­ing makes it worth sit­ting through those pre­vi­ous gut-wrenching episodes.

Related Posts: Com­par­ing Ryvius to Neon Gen­esis Evangelion

15: Cow­boy Bebop

For what is con­sidered in many quar­ters to be the greatest anime ever cre­ated, it sure does start of very slow. The first epis­odes, while still good, were nowhere near as good as I anti­cip­ated it would be. It star­ted to turn around epis­ode 8, improv­ing sig­ni­fic­antly when Ed arrived, but it wasn’t until epis­ode 13 when it finally hit me. As the cred­its rolled down the screen with the song ‘Space Lion’ play­ing, it finally dawned on me why. This truly is one of the greatest anime of all time.

14: Kaiba

Quite often when it comes to these  artsy anime, I just find myself rolling my eyes at the des­per­ate attempts to prove that they are dif­fer­ent from the norm. In fact, I did that in Kaiba some­times too. But what I was treated to bey­ond the Dr.Seass style art­work was a mas­ter­class in storytelling and ima­gin­a­tion. Power­ful and beau­ti­ful, this turned me into an instant Yuasa fan.

Related Posts: Bit of an old post when my writ­ing was still rusty, but the points it brings up remain as true as they were the day I wrote them

13: Cro­martie High School

The abso­lute fun­ni­est fuck­ing thing in exist­ence. When writ­ing about Cro­martie High School, even the memory of the show sets me into a fit of giggles. Argu­ably the single greatest first epis­ode (and final epis­ode, by asso­ci­ation) in anime his­tory, I knew I would love this show as soon as that ran­dom thug placed that pen­cil inside his mouth. He.…ate.…my.…pencil.…HE ATE MY PENCIL!

12: Love Hina

I’ll admit, there is more than just a touch of nos­tal­gia for my gate­way drug to anime. But there’s more than that. When the moun­tains of harems that came after tried copy­ing his loser arche­type, they for­got to take the real aspect that makes him easy to relate to: hon­esty. Often to my det­ri­ment, I believe in the good­will in human­kind, and Keit­aro is that per­son­i­fied. Chiv­alry is alive and well.

11: Samurai Champloo

It’s not often that you can pin down the exact moment you were sold on a par­tic­u­lar anime. Often it’s just a gradual feel­ing as the awe­some­ness takes over. But when it does come down to a spe­cific scene, it’s usu­ally sev­eral epis­ode in. For example, in Bebop, Champloo’s sis­ter series, it took until epis­ode 13 before I was sold. For Samurai Champloo, it was about 4 minutes into the first epis­ode with that timeskip scene. This was a show try­ing to be the coolest thing ever and suc­ceed­ing spectacularly.

10: School Rumble

Greatest cast of char­ac­ters ever. If I was ever to make a true my dream harem post, it would con­sist of about half the cast of this series. It must have been such an easy thing to write this series once the char­ac­ters were formed. All you needed was for some­thing to hap­pen and then think ‘ok, who would be the fun­ni­est out of our extens­ive cast of fant­astic char­ac­ters to place in this scene?’. And so you get Har­ima being hit in the face with a mop.

9: Legend of the Galactic Heroes

One day, your mind will start to stray. The latest moecrap that fans are going gaga over starts erod­ing your will to live. The moster-of-the-week old mecha show that was hyped up by old­f­ags insults your intel­li­gence. Even­tu­ally you’re mind will turn to that quietly yet relent­lessly praised anime. If, after read­ing the reviews and the descrip­tions, you still want to check out this anime, then you have noth­ing to fear and everything to look for­ward to. For those who are the type of per­son to search out all 110 epis­odes of Legend of the Galactic Her­oes will adore it. For that reason, I’ll never recom­mend this anime. For only you will know when you’re ready for it.

8: Mushishi

Mushishi is a rare beast. It’s one of those very few times where prac­tic­ally every­one in anime fan­dom has stood back in col­lect­ive admir­a­tion for a single cre­ation. It’s one of those times where, while watch­ing it, you real­ise that you are watch­ing a mas­ter­piece. It’s a hard feel­ing to con­vey but there’s so many scenes, such as stand­ing under the rain­bow, the goopy-eye scene, the entirety of one-eyed fish, that it really hits you. Mushishi is a true masterpiece.

7: Gankut­suou

Want to show some­body what anime is truly cap­able of that no other medium of enter­tain­ment can prop­erly con­vey? Shove a copy of Gankut­suou in their faces and let them watch and be amazed. Like the rest of my top 10, this is one of those shows in which everything clicks. Topped off by our favour­ite homo­erotic Count, this para­graph is yet another let­ter mourn­ing the loss of Gonzo in the anime world.

6: Chob­its

For ages after watch­ing Love Hina I searched for a series that was able to mir­ror that exper­i­ence of my first anime but all those com­pared to it were shitty fanser­vice harem knock-offs. I might have even stopped watch­ing anime until Chob­its came along. Chob­its ignited what before was a near non-existent romantic side to me. It made me believe. It made me believe that, even in the most extraordin­ary of cir­cum­stances, love over­comes all boundaries.

Related Posts: Com­par­ing Chob­its to Time of Eve

5: Ber­serk

Ber­serk is flaw­less. There’s not one mis­step through­out the entire series. No scene is shown without it hav­ing mean­ing. No twist is intro­duced without prior fore­shad­ow­ing. Never once did the pacing drop or get too fast. Not once did a someone act out of char­ac­ter and their devel­op­ment all worked nat­ur­ally. It all wraps in on itself to cre­ate one bril­liant story. Ber­serk is perfect.

Related Posts: Prob­ably the most gush­ing fan­boy­ing post I ever wrote

4: Code Geass

Are you not enter­tained? Is this not why you are here? This is Code Geass, the series with the hon­our of giv­ing the name to this very web­site you are read­ing. Yet even this blog is but a small shrine to a single second char­ac­ter in the almighty encom­passing cre­ation of the Code Geass uni­verse. Do not be fooled, this anime will not be for­got­ten in the com­ing years. A mod­ern clas­sic in every sense of the word, I’ll make sure of that myself.

Related Posts: This is prob­ably cheating…

3: Bac­cano

Bac­cano is dis­tilled enter­tain­ment. This was 16 epis­odes of pure, unadul­ter­ated and migh­tily viol­ent enter­tain­ment. Psy­chos boun­cing off other psy­chos while the lesser nut­ters get out-nutted by the wilder folks as the crazed kids fight the sud­den her­oes and mass destruc­tion on a small scale. There is no good and evil. Only nut­ters, and that’s how I like it.

2: Legend of Black Heaven

The strangest thing about my love for Black Heaven is that I’m not the tar­get audi­ence for it. I was only 20 years old when I watched it, prob­ably a bit young to be exper­i­en­cing a mid­life crisis don’t you agree? But the feel­ings and inten­tions got through to me. One giant meta­phor through the medium of space opera and heavy metal just to con­vey the feel­ings of our ordin­ary salary­man going through an iden­tity crisis. Ima­gine if the first time I watched this was when I was 40.

Related Posts: Why Black Heaven didn’t make #1

1: Death Note

Yeah, this is a really bor­ing choice as num­ber one isn’t it. It’s the most pop­u­lar series on MAL and the most com­mon one to rank inside peoples top 5. So why is it my num­ber 1? Because it gave me the rush. It gave me a feel­ing of sheer energy and enthu­si­asm, as though there was noth­ing in my life that could pos­sibly be more exhil­ar­at­ing than watch­ing what was on my screen.