trace_by_echo (
trace_by_echo) wrote2020-08-04 02:05 pm
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Entry tags:
Recommendations Special: Railgunfan75's Anime Favorites A-Z Challenge
I loved the idea of this challenge the moment I read it. In brief, one chooses one favorite anime for each letter of the alphabet; titles must be consistently either in the original style or in the official English translation (I picked the original titles), substitution is allowed on a limited basis for missing letters, and explanations with pictures if possible are preferred. While I can't embed pics, the rest is doable.
In general, shows with completed plots beat out incomplete but excellent shows, personal taste beat out objective quality, and the ability to watch a show with friends and family beat out solitary enjoyment - although all of these had exceptions. I've added runners-up and honorable mentions when I felt it necessary, as well as translated titles when available for clarity. I've excluded movies, shorts and OVAs from consideration, and marked singular seasons and particular versions as needed. EDIT April 2022: I've watched quite a few more anime in the last two years, so I'm adding (and occasionally subtracting) recs - they will be at the end of a letter marked with EDIT.
A: Amaama to Inazuma (Sweetness and Lightning)
Runner-up: Akatsuki no Yona (Yona of the Dawn)
Honorable Mentions: Ao no Exorcist (Blue Exorcist), ACCA-13
Sweetness and Lightning is one of the few shows that I have successfully watched repeatedly with non-anime-fans. Furthermore, it's appropriate for all ages and is a very low-key, family-friendly show about a widower learning to cook in order to feed his pre-K daughter. While I love Yona of the Dawn, there's no denying that it's geared more towards anime and fantasy fans, and that the show is fundamentally unfinished (now, the manga is continuing and I buy it enthusiastically). I'm new to Blue Exorcist, but I quite enjoyed its supernatural high school action hijinks. ACCA-13 strikes me as political intrigue being done realistically in a fantasy setting - to wit, nobody is in much of a rush to instigate things, and the larger picture gets pieced together before the fine details do. EDIT: I'm adding Appare-Ranman as another Honorable Mention; while the clothing choices are cringey, the characters are fun and the plot premise of a cross-country car race in steampunk America went pretty quickly off the rails.
B: Baccano!
Runner-up: Boku dake ga inai Machi (Erased)
Honorable Mentions: Bungou Stray Dogs
"B" is for brutal action, apparently. I love my immortal mafia/thief/serial killer/gang children, and Baccano! is a wild ride worth taking even if you can't stand the occasional buckets of gore. Erased has fewer action and more thriller elements, but there's no denying the cause for the main character's drastic time rewind being the murder of the Best Anime Mom Ever (I am right about this); someone who enjoys mysteries might find it too simple, but I really *don't* like mysteries and prefer my thrillers to dispense with that element in favor of the tension of worrying about how to stop the killer from doing it again. Bungou Stray Dogs surprised me with how good it was given the frankly dopey premise (people who are coincidentally named after international literary giants have book-related superpowers and waste them being criminals and detectives), and any time Ranpo and Poe interact is a delight. EDIT: Blue Period fits as another Honorable Mention. It explores the tensions of college application and artistic burnout well.
C: Chihayafuru
Runner-up: Cowboy Bebop
Honorable Mentions: ClassicaLoid
My first but not last favorite that revolves around students playing a sport - but it's a card game about classic poetry, which nevertheless requires high levels of speed and stamina (if this was a mere variation on Concentration, rest assured I would not consider it a sport), and it's refreshingly coed. The love triangle of Chihayafuru is one of the few that I've tolerated, largely because it *should* be an OT3. I don't think there's much I need to say about Cowboy Bebop; it's a beautiful tragedy of a classic scifi story, and everyone should try to get through it at least once. ClassicaLoid is more of a fever dream, in which bloated filler episodes can't quite obscure the energetic and funny core. If you aren't already running away at the idea of reincarnated classical musicians using the power of Musik to alter reality...
D: Death Parade
Runner-up: Doukyonin wa Hiza, Tokidoki, Itama no Ue (My Roommate is a Cat)
Honorable Mentions: Dennoh-Coil
And the prize for Most Deceptive Opening Theme goes to Death Parade, which is not at *all* light or comedic, but rather a serious look at the underpinnings of our ideas about the fairness of an afterlife. In a bad case of tonal whiplash, I pivot to My Roommate is a Cat, which is about the travails of a first-time pet owner and the confusion of the stray cat he takes in (the POV is split between the two each episode, which works very well). While Dennoh-Coil isn't precisely my thing, I'm glad I saw it, and think it would work well as a preteen's first serious scifi/cyberpunk show. The female leads have no problem running the boys ragged, and are the heavyweights in the virtual fights. EDIT: I'm adding Deca-Dence and Dragon Ie Wo Kau (Dragon Goes House-Hunting) as Honorable Mentions. The former is a good scifi dystopia that doesn't quite stick the landing but makes a lot of bold choices, while the latter takes a while to find its groove but ends up as a pleasant found-family SoL about fantasy house-hunting.
E: Eizouken ni wa Te o Dasuna! (Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!)
Runner-up: Eyeshield 21
The first letter that I couldn't come up with Honorable Mentions for! Mind you, if I had gone with the English translations, The Eccentric Family would be here, but as it would displace Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, a delightful Bold Girls Doing Bold Things show (as contrasted with Cute Girls Doing Cute Things, which is still far more common and of less interest to me) about high schoolers running a film club.... well, that's a trade-off I wasn't willing to make. I never bothered finishing Eyeshield 21, as I was satisfied with the manga and knew that the anime wasn't going to finish the story, but the VA for Hiruma was on-point and I still love my dumb football kids. EDIT: Eve no Jikan (Time of Eve) is joining Eyeshield 21 as a runner-up. It works very well as a movie set in a near-future with androids as mistreated and misunderstood lower class workers, with several choosing to spend their limited time off hanging out in a robot-friendly club.
F: Free! [Seasons 1 and 2]
Runner-up: Fruits Basket [2001]
The most obvious contender for F couldn't be here under the naming convention rule, so my next best choice was Free! Specifically, the first two seasons, as I never watched the third and feel no need to - the character development for the leads was satisfactory for where I ended. The fanservice is very much for the female gaze, which is a refreshing change, but best of all is the dedication to beautiful animation of swimming. The original Fruits Basket is an old favorite, enough so that I haven't been able to bring myself to try the new version. EDIT: Fukigen no Mononokean (The Morose Mononokean) and Fumetsu no Anata e (To Your Eternity) are new Honorable Mentions. The former is a mix between Kamisama Kiss (ordinary person is drawn into working for the spirit world by a jerkish dude they have chemistry with) and Natsume's Book of Friends (protagonist has immense compassion for spirits who are drawn to him). The latter is a scifi brainburner on the nature of life and immortality, and if it continues for a few more seasons might jump up this list.
G: Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun (Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun)
Runner-up: Given
Honorable Mentions: Golden Kamuy
There was no real question which G anime was going to top this list. The antics of Nozaki, Chiyo, and the rest of their manga-making crew continue to delight me, and I buy the manga as soon as it's out. Season 2 when? Anyway, Given turned out to be a heartwarming story about LGBTQ teens dealing with grief and first/second loves, with a show-stopper song in episode 9. Golden Kamuy, with its historical setting and creepy-funny murderous characters, as well as its stealth cooking show tidbits, charmed me more than I expected when I caught up on it this spring.
H: Hyouka
Runner-up: Hagane no Renkinjutsushi (Fullmetal Alchemist) [2003]
Honorable Mentions: Hataraki Saibou (Cells At Work), Higashi no Eden (Eden of the East)
In comparison, the choice between first and runner-up for H was a real strain. While I remain fond of the first FMA anime (an unpopular opinion these days, but I like the tone & themes of it, and never bothered to watch the second), I find it easier to watch Hyouka with non-anime fans. It's beautifully animated by Kyoto Animation, the mysteries the kids solve are interesting, and the character dynamics are compelling. As for HMs, Cells at Work is edutainment that genuinely entertained me, enough that I borrowed the manga from the library; I like learning about the different cells and their functions, and think the anthropomorphic framing works well. I just finished watching Eden of the East, and found it to be unusual in its setting (several episodes and a movie occur outside of Japan, and Washington DC and NYC are faithfully rendered with local American accents and crowd diversity) and its plot (anonymous gajillionaire decides to hand money out to people he thinks could fix Japan, and threatens death if they fail). The leads had adorable and believable chemistry as well, which I can't often say.
I: Idolish7
Not a lot of options for I anime (I enjoyed, but didn't care enough about, Iroduku: The World In Colors or Bofuri to make either a Favorite). Not that I wouldn't still have picked the idol boys, though! Besides Idolish7, there's only one other idol show on this list, because I don't really care for the genre as a whole. However, the moment the seven members of the Idolish7 group met and started interacting, I was charmed. They have a natural chemistry, and easy-to-remember but distinct characterizations. Sure, there's some unbelievable drama, but on the other hand, it was refreshing to see the female lead *not* be set up for romance with any of her charges, but rather be an aspiring businesswoman who finds her joy in learning how to be a better manager (and while she's not ace, her flirting with the rival idol who is undercover as a soba delivery boy is cute).
J: Junketsu no Maria (Maria the Virgin Witch)
Runner-up: Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun (Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun)
Honorable Mentions: Jinrui wa suitai Shimashita (Humanity Has Declined)
I just watched Maria the Virgin Witch in July after literal years of being recommended it by AnimeFeminists, and once I started it I knew I had waited too long to get that Funimation subscription (which was for one glorious free month, and during while I mainlined a dozen shows). It's an excellent historical fantasy, focusing on the oft-neglected period of the Hundred Years' War, and maintaining a high level of accuracy in fashions, behavior, religion, warfare - you name it, everything except the witchcraft is backed up by scholarship. Maria is a great protagonist, a steadfast humanist who refuses to abide by Heaven's rules when it means allowing the slaughter of the common people as collateral military damage. In contrast, Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun is a deceptively light supernatural high school dramedy. Poor dear Hanako-kun has his afterlife rather rough, being responsible for the antics other ghosts get up to in the school he died in; he gains a living girl as a sidekick when she makes the unwise choice of eating a mermaid scale. The unusual art style (rather like stained glass) is soothing to look at, and the characters are fun to see stumble, fall and pick themselves up again. Finally, Humanity Has Declined is everything I wished for in a surrealist, velvet-apocalypse of a story. You'll never see a piece of toast commit violent suicide in any other show, I'm quite certain. As a mild caveat, I looked up an episode guide and chose to watch them in chronological rather than broadcast order, which worked better for my sanity. EDIT: I'm adding Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun (Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki) to the Runner-up category, for the sheer subversion of its initial romcom structure. The male lead starts off one inch away from an incel, and puts in a ton of hard work over the course of the show - that we see happen, it's not a case of telling rather than showing - to fix his attitude and learn to live in a society. I am really looking forward to season 2.
K: Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuite Iru (Run with the Wind)
Runner-up: Kyousougiga
Honorable Mentions: Kono Oto Tomare!, Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Ren'ai Zunousen (Kaguya-sama: Love is War)
Run with the Wind brings back memories of competitive running - although I'm more like Prince, the out of shape otaku, than the more svelte members of the track team. I appreciate that the story subverts many of the typical sports drama plotlines (ex. the rival on another team is just an ass who doesn't get any better or more sympathetic, the African student is there as a business major not on an athletic scholarship, most of the main characters have to be dragged and cajoled into running), although it could do better with its female characters. Kyousougiga, like many shows centered on Kyoto, continues the tradition of depicting it as a weird city, mostly by creating a Wonderland-esque mirror city to it, in which imagination and creativity are the rule, and trying to live an ordinary life is impossible. As for the HMs, both are high school stories, but very different in tone; Kono Oto Tomare revolves around the efforts of a pack of earnest and endearing kids to build up their koto club into a true national competitor, while Kaguya-sama Love is War lampoons the living daylights out of the standard romcom (the second season in particular is a delight, fleshing out previously flat characters). EDIT: I'm booting Kyousougiga to Honorable Mentions and replacing its spot as Runner-Up with Kekkei Sensen (Blood Blockade Battlefront). I love this show with its Weird Eldritch NYC and the ridiculous characters that populate it. I wouldn't want to live there myself - too many ways to lose your body and/or soul - but the action is great and the characters play off each other well.
L: Log Horizon
Like with I, I just didn't love the other L shows I watched (Little Witch Academia and Lovely Complex) enough to consider them favorites. However, Log Horizon is something of a problematic fave. I like the general plot concept - people who get sucked into a video game figure out that they can't keep going on as if it's a fake world; they need to respect the people living there and set up actual governance and economic systems for themselves - and I enjoyed most of the characters most of the time. Unfortunately, they dip into a few characterization wells that I hate a few too many times: more women than statistically probable like the protagonist and get catty/scheming with each other rather than interacting in any way that would pass a Bechdel Test; there's a trans character who's considered somewhat creepy and it's unclear why the others can't accept the gender she's presenting as; one of the male characters has perpetual pervy foot-in-mouth syndrome that is met by one of the female characters' use of comedic violence (no, I don't think it's okay just because a woman is doing it, but that's how the show frames it). The light in the darkness comes from the fact that most of this stuff doesn't happen too often - I'd say the first few episodes were the worst, and then it toned down considerably. EDIT: I'm adding Love Lab as the Runner-up. This comedic SoL about middle-schoolers who have dumb ideas about romance was better than I could have expected, probably because the comedy was perfectly timed and executed.
M: Mairimashita! Iruma-kun (Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun)
Runner-up: Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai Kara Kurusou, desu ka? (Problem Children are Coming from Another World, Aren't They?)
Honorable Mentions: Moretsu Pirates (Bodacious Space Pirates), Mousou Dairinin (Paranoia Agent), Made in Abyss
I almost feel guilty putting the shows in this order. Paranoia Agent is an undisputed psychological thriller masterpiece by the late Satoshi Kon, and it's the only one of the five that's currently a complete story. However, this is a favorites list, not a quality-grading list, so I tip my hat to Iruma-kun, which was a delightful monster school romp in season 1; I particularly like how the villainous mook was countered by Iruma in the last few episodes, and I'm heartily anticipating season 2 next year. Problem Children has one of the few isekai power fantasy plots that I adored, possibly because there is no powering up or fish out of water element whatsoever; these kids are given the choice to pull an isekai and live on a perpetual games & tournaments planet, and being already OP for their homes they jump at the chance to be amongst equals and friends. Bodacious Space Pirates gets credit from me for being a feminist space adventure (with canonical lesbians!), with interesting worldbuilding that had touches of beauty (the home planet has proto-ring asteroid fields that make every sky shot lovely, for example) interlaced with humor (the pirates suss out an infiltrator because she's NOT being as much of a jerk as the real deal). Made in Abyss is new to me, and I remain horrified at the characters' terrible decisions - going on a one-way trip to Nature Hell as a teenager is dumb, y'all - while marveling at the animation. EDIT: I'm adding Mo Dao Zu Shi (the donghua version of the live action The Untamed) as a Runner-Up, for nailing the character designs and action of this convoluted cultivator fantasy. This series is all over the place with something for everyone: zombies, swordfights, heavy romantic tension between the male lead and his male soulmate, betrayal, revenge schemes that last a decade, tragedy, pun wordplay... I'm also surprised that the government allowed it to be released without more censorship. I'm also adding Moyashimon as a new Honorable Mention. For once, a show about college students doing microbial science - well, for some of them its to figure out how to make better alcohol, but all the same. Plus, it's trans-inclusive with the protagonist's best friend quickly using college as an escape from his parent's expectations and switching to living as a woman (granted, she won't call herself a woman, but that's because she knows she's going back to take over the family business and can't relax quite that much).
N: Natsume Yuujinchou (Natsume's Book of Friends)
Runner-up: Noragami
There was never really any chance that these two would be in the opposite order, though. Natsume's Book of Friends is a soothing, feel-good show about found family and growing up that doesn't forget to keep the bitter with the sweet. Natsume himself is an endearing protagonist, who struggles to trust others after years of being rotated around extended family as their unwanted foster child, and who finds both human parents that love him and a veritable squadron of spirits who adore him, including a gruff not!cat major yokai he calls Nyanko-sensei. Noragami is, oddly, also about the fine line between the physical and spirit worlds, but the focus is less on mundane problems that need solving and more on the unusual partnership between a particular god, his weapon-companion and a human girl.
O: Ore Monogatari! (My Love Story!)
Runner-up: Ouran Koukou Host Club (Ouran High School Host Club)
Honorable Mention: Oushitsu Kyoushi Heine (The Royal Tutor)
Wow, odd - three of four O shows are romcoms, a genre that I watch but normally don't think of as a favorite. While two of them are comedies (and therefore more to my tastes), My Love Story is a sweet, down-to-earth and honest look at a high school couple that prioritizes communication and experiences unconventional attraction. I want to put it on the queue of teens everywhere as a "how to do it" guide to relationships. Ouran Host Club is set up as a comedic reverse harem, but constantly transcends its form - and frankly, anime!Haruhi reads as mostly ace, so I'm quite happy with its non-pairing-confirming ending. The Royal Tutor surprised me with how well it depicted the skill of teaching that a good teacher must hone, and I loved the character dynamics. EDIT: I'm adding Ookami to Koushinryou (Spice & Wolf) as an Honorable Mention. Yes, there's a few nudity scenes at the beginning, but Holo the Wise Wolf going on a neverending trade trip through medieval Europe with Lawrence is a deeply compelling historical romance, medieval economics and all.
P: Princess Principal
Runner-up: Psycho-Pass [Season 1]
Honorable Mentions: Princess Connect: Re:Dive
Another Bold Girls Doing Bold Things show, Princess Principal scratches an itch for steampunk AU London spy shenanigans I didn't know I had. It's animated with fluidity and attention to detail, elevating it above the average action show. The movies have been delayed by the coronavirus, so here's hoping they make it over soon. Also full of fluid action and criminal activity, but on the cyberpunk end of the Punk scale, Psycho-Pass had a self-contained first season full of violence, dystopian police states and AI overlords; I've been heartily warned against bothering with season two. Newest to my heart, Princess Connect Re:Dive just finished, and delighted enough people other than me to get season two greenlit almost immediately. The little disguised-video-game-isekai that could, it stands on a solid foundation of good cheer and a core group of true companions that know what's really important: good food, good people to share it with, and the satisfaction of having acquired said food by heroically defeating monsters.
Q: Quanzhi Gaoshou (The King's Avatar)
I'm so glad I hunted down this anime for this list - Q anime are thin on the ground to begin with, and the vast majority are hentai - because The King's Avatar was engaging and immediately got me on board with its depiction of e-sports professional gamers. It's a Chinese production, available on YouTube, and it's another show that delves into adults having real-life problems (losing one's job, workplace scandals, depression, etc.) while keeping up its level of videogame-esque action.
R: Rokuhoudou Yotsuiro Biyori (Yotsuiro Biyori)
Runner-up: ReLife
Honorable Mentions: Ristorante Paradiso
R isn't terribly common for titles, but there are a respectable number of them. Yotsuiro Biyori is the one that I have shared with friends and family, so it's the undisputed winner. The plot is light, concerning itself with a year in the lives of four men who run a teahouse and the way their customers find solutions to their personal problems in its peaceful rooms. Outside of one man's brother and said brother's best friend (who is a troll, but is always acting as such to push people out of their comfort zones into new experiences - he's kinda the tough love version of the Rokuhoudou guys), there's no tension or drama here, just beautiful food and relaxing atmosphere. I just finished ReLife, and I'm so glad it didn't go in the sleazy direction that was wide open and the obvious option; since it's about twentysomethings who are part of a psychological experiment and who get deaged to go through high school again (they're not really deaged, though - it appears to be just skin deep, with muscles, organs and bone structure remaining the original age), there was every sign that there would be an age gap romance, but the show is full of delightful subversions of expectations. On the other hand, Ristorante Paradiso does have an age gap romance as its fulcrum, but it's one of the few in any medium I've ever seen done right - that is to say, by going slowly, establishing an equal power dynamic, and focusing on enthusiastic consent. It helps that the older man is shy, and not the one instigating the dating, either. Since I'm not into pure romance, it was also great that it had a really unique story and setting, being about a young Italian woman tracking down her deadbeat mom in an Italian city, then sticking around to learn how to become a professional chef.
S: Shirobako
Runner-up: Sakurada Reset (Sagrada Reset)
Honorable Mentions: Seirei no Moribito (Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit), Sora Yori mo Tooi Basho (A Place Further Than the Universe), Saiki Kusuo no Sainan (The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.)
Well, they're adults, but otherwise the ladies of Shirobako also fit the "Bold Girls Doing Bold Things" label. In their case, they're learning the different aspects of the anime industry from the ground up, dealing with dumb dudes and horrendous crunch conditions as they get good. I am very much looking forward to the movie being released statewide. I found Sagrada Reset to be a thoughtful, intelligent take on the superpower genre - too often, the society warps around superpowers to create hero/villain comic-style shenanigans while ingnoring how people actually behave. In contrast, the powers here are both limited in scope but creatively used, and the main characters spend more time solving mysteries than they do fighting crime. Moribito is smoothly animated with gorgeous scenery and action; this historical fantasy grants center stage to a truly badass woman, Balsa, who is free to both pummel thugs and care for children rather than be pigeonholed. A Place Further Than the Universe is, without any caveats, a Bold Girls Doing Bold Things show, as these intrepid teens choose to pursue a trip to Antarctica as half self-empowerment, half coming to terms with loss. Finally, Saiki surprised me with its dub - I had no choice, but given the rapid fire dialogue and dry sarcasm of the lead, I feel like it enabled me to enjoy it more than the sub would have - and I chortled through every episode, as Saiki dealt with his annoying friends, dysfunctional family and his burgeoning psychic powers with a perpetual air of resignation. EDIT: I'm flipping Sagrada Reset and Saiki K., just due to changing tastes. I'm also adding Suisei no Gargantia (Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet) as a scifi whose setting - a future water-world Earth - was immediately arresting and had the worldbuilding to reinforce the plot.
T: Tsuritama
Runner-up: Tanaka-kun wa Itsumo Kedaruge (Tanaka-kun is Always Listless)
Honorable Mentions: Tamako Market
Seeing as anime starting with "The" were off-limits, I was startled to find that my list of T anime was not overfull with favorites. I would say that all three of these are hovering around the edge of iyashikei/soothing, and they are definitely all about high schoolers, but Tsuritama is the closest to being something else, having trappings of a plot-driven scifi action show. Tanaka-kun has less going on, being extremely chill in its humor, and full of dramatic pauses as Tanaka-kun surprises his friends with his odd ways of thinking. (Warning, though, for a little sister plot tumor that should never have been thrown in.) Tamako Market is a Kyoto Animation production, and it has some fantasy elements (talking birds, a quasi-mystical distant kingdom) while revolving around a more down-to-earth story regarding the people who live and work in one of Japan's street markets. The follow-up movie, Tamako Love Story, ditches the fantasy and wraps up some dangling plot threads, but can also be watched as a standalone.
U: Uchi Tama?! Uchi no Tama Shirimasenka (Uchitama?! Where is My Tama?)
Runner-up: Uchouten Kazoku (The Eccentric Family)
I had been solidly behind The Eccentric Family as the only real, good option for the U anime, until I caught up on recommended shows from earlier this year, and Uchitama swept its feet out from under it. I'm not one for anthropomorphic animals or kemonomimi characters (trust Japan to have a word for this), but I really enjoyed the humor in this show, and the fact that the characters were truly animals whose appearance shifted only for the audience - they never really changed into human form, it's just to help us empathize with them, and occasionally to pull off a gag better - made the premise easier to swallow. There are also serious bits involving the plight of strays that tugged at my heartstrings. The Eccentric Family is another zany!Kyoto story, this time with classic mythological creatures like tengu living secretly alongside humans; the main characters are shapeshifting tanuki, who struggle to maintain the ties of culture and family while avoiding detection and the stewpot. This is another story where I love a minor character to distraction (the middle son who's shapeshifted into a frog and is living in a well in a depressive funk) and care less about the overarching story. EDIT: I'm adding Umamusume: Pretty Derby as a new Honorable Mention. Sometimes, a show's premise is so stupid but the execution is so committed that it comes around again to funny. Girls having the spirit of racehorses, meh. Horse-girls having their own traffic lanes because they run as fast as cars, hilarious. The second season also switches the plot into a serious look at the nature of sports injuries, which is a topic that isn't covered enough in sports anime.
V: Vinland Saga
There aren't many V anime - those that exist tend to have foreign names since V is not a commonly pronounced letter in Japanese - and I'd heard that Violet Evergarden was beautiful but maudlin, which I'm not sure I can take. Luckily, Vinland Saga was airing last year, and the show gets through the entire Prologue in its first two cour (hey, it's a saga, not a sprint). The Prologue is ostensibly about a young Icelandic boy losing his father violently, joining a Viking army to learn how to get his revenge, and slowly losing the principles his father had tried to instill in him; in practice, he's one of three protagonists, who all end up positioned as candidates for the throne in the British Isles (at the time, one of the frequently conquered satellites of the Vikings), and who are remarkably different characters in their behaviors and beliefs. Naturally, only one can get the throne. I'd been lightly spoiled as to the plot twists, so I deeply enjoyed the attention to historical detail, the excellent action tempered by a humanist core that denied the value of said action, and the exploration of early Christian philosophy (listen, that might sound dull, but it really fleshed out the pious characters for me, given that one of them ends up deciding that God's love is cruel and he'll make a better world as a future king). EDIT: Some new additions are needed! I have to disagree with the person who told me Violet Evergarden was too maudlin, as I think that 90% of the time it was exactly as heartfelt and emotional as it needed to be. The idea of a female child super-soldier during not-WWI is still silly, but once you accept that the rest of the show is grounded in realism, and focuses on how she struggles with PTSD and learning to live in society. I'll put it as my Runner-Up. Vanitas no Karte (Case Study of Vanitas) is a new supernatural steampunk show that deserves an Honorable Mention.
W: Watashi ga Motete Dou Sunda (Kiss Him, Not Me)
Runner-up: Witch Craft Works
Sometimes I want a show that reminds me of my youth, warts and all. Kiss Him, Not Me isn't exactly that show - I never attended cons or created/consumed merch - but it touches on how absorbed I was in fandom, and how as a teen I directed my emotional energies towards cherishing fictional characters and worlds. As an adult, I like how it diverges from a standard romcom in small ways: our lead was never embarassed about being overweight, and the guys that like her when she's thin have to question themselves as to whether their attraction is too shallow; she's not really interested in dating any of them, so they have to work together to go places as a pack of friends; there's a girl in this reverse harem and it's not really an issue for anyone; etc. Witch Craft Works, in contrast, also maintains a subversive throughline, but this time sending up shoujo tropes by flipping gender roles - it's consistently the male lead who acts as the damsel and the tall, buff female lead who rescues him, and so on. This is a show that would benefit strongly from an additional season, as the plot seems to be barely getting started, but it was quite enjoyable as is.
X: XXXholic
I admit it, this one is a cheat, as I have it on my to-watch queue. I will update once I've actually seen it. EDIT: I found XXXholic dull at the start, but once it drifts a bit away from the initial formula of "woman comes to shop having done something dumb/immoral, ignores the shopkeeper's advice and misuses the supernatural item she bought, and ends up dead" more towards supernatural events that happen to and around the main characters, it was much more interesting. I have also found a movie that starts with X and which I might prefer: Xuyuan Shenlong (Wish Dragon). It's a charming Chinese CGI movie about a teen who accidentally acquires a magic wish-granting dragon and needs to use the wishes to get reacquainted with a childhood friend.
Y: Yuri!!! on Ice (Yuri on Ice)
Runner-up: Yojouhan Shinwai Taikei (The Tatami Galaxy)
Honorable Mentions: Youjo Senki (Saga of Tanya the Evil)
The title punctuation bothers me, and that's the only real quibble I have with 2016's breakthrough hit, Yuri on Ice. It's about one of my favorite sports to watch, it's nicely animated, the plot is compelling - an adult man who feels like he's near the end of his skating career gets inspired to try again by the arrival of his coach, the current world champion - but also full of delightful and genuinely surprising twists... and no, I don't just mean the canon mlm relationship being built between the leads. It truly moved me, in a time when the mood of the country seemed dire. I can't really say the same for The Tatami Galaxy, although that's nothing for it to be ashamed of, as very few shows make me feel so strongly. No, instead it impressed me with its intricate and slowly unfolding time-travel/looping plot. The main character is close to finishing college and feels like he's wasted his time, so a friendly neighborhood god (yes, this is another zany!Kyoto setting, by the way) gives him a new lease on life by letting him go back, repeatedly, to the beginning of college to try out new clubs and friendships. By the end, our perception of all the characters has changed, just as surely as the lead has. Finally, Tanya the Evil was repeatedly recommended to me, and while I wasn't sure that I was up to watching another isekai, this time the premise is useful rather than an ego-trip. Tanya was a salaryman in Japan in his first life, and while dying a being claiming to be God gets irritated at his persistent humanism in the face of a higher power and sends him to a fantasy Europe during the equivalent of WWI. It's an exploration of the effects of a long war on a people, it's a magical action thrill ride, it's a condemnation of faith for selfishness' sake, it's a look at how even a sociopath can choose to fight for what they think is right. EDIT: I'm adding Yaku Nara Mug Cup Mo (Let's Make A Mug, Too!) as an Honorable Mention. It's a lovely SoL about girls in a pottery club, one of whom is learning how to make pottery specifically to connect with her dead mother who was a world-renown potter.
Z: Zombieland Saga
As promised, here are my other favorite idols. The numbers in each group sync up too, so clearly I need to write a fic with the girls of Zombieland Saga meeting up with the Idolish7 boys, as the internet has failed to provide. Just as with Idolish7, I was able to see the character chemistry and comfortable friendship growing between the girls of Franchouchou. Their manager is sometimes a blot on the mood, but it helps to read between the lines in later episodes and realize that his underlying motivation is much different than his stated goal of revitalizing Saga prefecture via resurrecting girls to be local zombie idols (if the latter really were his goal, he's living somewhere in 4020 with a galaxy brain). The transgirl Lily is handled fairly well, and the culture clash from the girls' different eras is not ignored. If you want interesting songs, rest assured that there is rap and heavy metal mixed in with the pop. If you dislike horror - and I consider myself not a fan - no worries, it's mostly played for comedy.
Well, I guess I've learned something about my tastes! Well, I already knew about the scifi and fantasy preferences...
Common themes/plots:
SciFi - 19
LGBTQA (Declared and/or Implied) - 15 [you'll have to watch to find out how!]
Fantasy - 12
Supernatural - 8
Historical - 6
Subverted Romcoms (More Com than Rom) - 5
Bold Girls Doing Bold Things - 5
Cooking/Restaurants - 5
Edutainment/I Learned Something That Wasn't History - 4
Zany!Kyoto - 3 (Plus the Kyoto Arc of Blue Exorcist)
Cats as Characters - 3 (plus another Good Cat who wasn't a POV character in Yotsuiro Biyori)
EDIT: the amount of Slice of Life (SoL) is probably even larger than scifi.
In general, shows with completed plots beat out incomplete but excellent shows, personal taste beat out objective quality, and the ability to watch a show with friends and family beat out solitary enjoyment - although all of these had exceptions. I've added runners-up and honorable mentions when I felt it necessary, as well as translated titles when available for clarity. I've excluded movies, shorts and OVAs from consideration, and marked singular seasons and particular versions as needed. EDIT April 2022: I've watched quite a few more anime in the last two years, so I'm adding (and occasionally subtracting) recs - they will be at the end of a letter marked with EDIT.
A: Amaama to Inazuma (Sweetness and Lightning)
Runner-up: Akatsuki no Yona (Yona of the Dawn)
Honorable Mentions: Ao no Exorcist (Blue Exorcist), ACCA-13
Sweetness and Lightning is one of the few shows that I have successfully watched repeatedly with non-anime-fans. Furthermore, it's appropriate for all ages and is a very low-key, family-friendly show about a widower learning to cook in order to feed his pre-K daughter. While I love Yona of the Dawn, there's no denying that it's geared more towards anime and fantasy fans, and that the show is fundamentally unfinished (now, the manga is continuing and I buy it enthusiastically). I'm new to Blue Exorcist, but I quite enjoyed its supernatural high school action hijinks. ACCA-13 strikes me as political intrigue being done realistically in a fantasy setting - to wit, nobody is in much of a rush to instigate things, and the larger picture gets pieced together before the fine details do. EDIT: I'm adding Appare-Ranman as another Honorable Mention; while the clothing choices are cringey, the characters are fun and the plot premise of a cross-country car race in steampunk America went pretty quickly off the rails.
B: Baccano!
Runner-up: Boku dake ga inai Machi (Erased)
Honorable Mentions: Bungou Stray Dogs
"B" is for brutal action, apparently. I love my immortal mafia/thief/serial killer/gang children, and Baccano! is a wild ride worth taking even if you can't stand the occasional buckets of gore. Erased has fewer action and more thriller elements, but there's no denying the cause for the main character's drastic time rewind being the murder of the Best Anime Mom Ever (I am right about this); someone who enjoys mysteries might find it too simple, but I really *don't* like mysteries and prefer my thrillers to dispense with that element in favor of the tension of worrying about how to stop the killer from doing it again. Bungou Stray Dogs surprised me with how good it was given the frankly dopey premise (people who are coincidentally named after international literary giants have book-related superpowers and waste them being criminals and detectives), and any time Ranpo and Poe interact is a delight. EDIT: Blue Period fits as another Honorable Mention. It explores the tensions of college application and artistic burnout well.
C: Chihayafuru
Runner-up: Cowboy Bebop
Honorable Mentions: ClassicaLoid
My first but not last favorite that revolves around students playing a sport - but it's a card game about classic poetry, which nevertheless requires high levels of speed and stamina (if this was a mere variation on Concentration, rest assured I would not consider it a sport), and it's refreshingly coed. The love triangle of Chihayafuru is one of the few that I've tolerated, largely because it *should* be an OT3. I don't think there's much I need to say about Cowboy Bebop; it's a beautiful tragedy of a classic scifi story, and everyone should try to get through it at least once. ClassicaLoid is more of a fever dream, in which bloated filler episodes can't quite obscure the energetic and funny core. If you aren't already running away at the idea of reincarnated classical musicians using the power of Musik to alter reality...
D: Death Parade
Runner-up: Doukyonin wa Hiza, Tokidoki, Itama no Ue (My Roommate is a Cat)
Honorable Mentions: Dennoh-Coil
And the prize for Most Deceptive Opening Theme goes to Death Parade, which is not at *all* light or comedic, but rather a serious look at the underpinnings of our ideas about the fairness of an afterlife. In a bad case of tonal whiplash, I pivot to My Roommate is a Cat, which is about the travails of a first-time pet owner and the confusion of the stray cat he takes in (the POV is split between the two each episode, which works very well). While Dennoh-Coil isn't precisely my thing, I'm glad I saw it, and think it would work well as a preteen's first serious scifi/cyberpunk show. The female leads have no problem running the boys ragged, and are the heavyweights in the virtual fights. EDIT: I'm adding Deca-Dence and Dragon Ie Wo Kau (Dragon Goes House-Hunting) as Honorable Mentions. The former is a good scifi dystopia that doesn't quite stick the landing but makes a lot of bold choices, while the latter takes a while to find its groove but ends up as a pleasant found-family SoL about fantasy house-hunting.
E: Eizouken ni wa Te o Dasuna! (Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!)
Runner-up: Eyeshield 21
The first letter that I couldn't come up with Honorable Mentions for! Mind you, if I had gone with the English translations, The Eccentric Family would be here, but as it would displace Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, a delightful Bold Girls Doing Bold Things show (as contrasted with Cute Girls Doing Cute Things, which is still far more common and of less interest to me) about high schoolers running a film club.... well, that's a trade-off I wasn't willing to make. I never bothered finishing Eyeshield 21, as I was satisfied with the manga and knew that the anime wasn't going to finish the story, but the VA for Hiruma was on-point and I still love my dumb football kids. EDIT: Eve no Jikan (Time of Eve) is joining Eyeshield 21 as a runner-up. It works very well as a movie set in a near-future with androids as mistreated and misunderstood lower class workers, with several choosing to spend their limited time off hanging out in a robot-friendly club.
F: Free! [Seasons 1 and 2]
Runner-up: Fruits Basket [2001]
The most obvious contender for F couldn't be here under the naming convention rule, so my next best choice was Free! Specifically, the first two seasons, as I never watched the third and feel no need to - the character development for the leads was satisfactory for where I ended. The fanservice is very much for the female gaze, which is a refreshing change, but best of all is the dedication to beautiful animation of swimming. The original Fruits Basket is an old favorite, enough so that I haven't been able to bring myself to try the new version. EDIT: Fukigen no Mononokean (The Morose Mononokean) and Fumetsu no Anata e (To Your Eternity) are new Honorable Mentions. The former is a mix between Kamisama Kiss (ordinary person is drawn into working for the spirit world by a jerkish dude they have chemistry with) and Natsume's Book of Friends (protagonist has immense compassion for spirits who are drawn to him). The latter is a scifi brainburner on the nature of life and immortality, and if it continues for a few more seasons might jump up this list.
G: Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun (Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun)
Runner-up: Given
Honorable Mentions: Golden Kamuy
There was no real question which G anime was going to top this list. The antics of Nozaki, Chiyo, and the rest of their manga-making crew continue to delight me, and I buy the manga as soon as it's out. Season 2 when? Anyway, Given turned out to be a heartwarming story about LGBTQ teens dealing with grief and first/second loves, with a show-stopper song in episode 9. Golden Kamuy, with its historical setting and creepy-funny murderous characters, as well as its stealth cooking show tidbits, charmed me more than I expected when I caught up on it this spring.
H: Hyouka
Runner-up: Hagane no Renkinjutsushi (Fullmetal Alchemist) [2003]
Honorable Mentions: Hataraki Saibou (Cells At Work), Higashi no Eden (Eden of the East)
In comparison, the choice between first and runner-up for H was a real strain. While I remain fond of the first FMA anime (an unpopular opinion these days, but I like the tone & themes of it, and never bothered to watch the second), I find it easier to watch Hyouka with non-anime fans. It's beautifully animated by Kyoto Animation, the mysteries the kids solve are interesting, and the character dynamics are compelling. As for HMs, Cells at Work is edutainment that genuinely entertained me, enough that I borrowed the manga from the library; I like learning about the different cells and their functions, and think the anthropomorphic framing works well. I just finished watching Eden of the East, and found it to be unusual in its setting (several episodes and a movie occur outside of Japan, and Washington DC and NYC are faithfully rendered with local American accents and crowd diversity) and its plot (anonymous gajillionaire decides to hand money out to people he thinks could fix Japan, and threatens death if they fail). The leads had adorable and believable chemistry as well, which I can't often say.
I: Idolish7
Not a lot of options for I anime (I enjoyed, but didn't care enough about, Iroduku: The World In Colors or Bofuri to make either a Favorite). Not that I wouldn't still have picked the idol boys, though! Besides Idolish7, there's only one other idol show on this list, because I don't really care for the genre as a whole. However, the moment the seven members of the Idolish7 group met and started interacting, I was charmed. They have a natural chemistry, and easy-to-remember but distinct characterizations. Sure, there's some unbelievable drama, but on the other hand, it was refreshing to see the female lead *not* be set up for romance with any of her charges, but rather be an aspiring businesswoman who finds her joy in learning how to be a better manager (and while she's not ace, her flirting with the rival idol who is undercover as a soba delivery boy is cute).
J: Junketsu no Maria (Maria the Virgin Witch)
Runner-up: Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun (Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun)
Honorable Mentions: Jinrui wa suitai Shimashita (Humanity Has Declined)
I just watched Maria the Virgin Witch in July after literal years of being recommended it by AnimeFeminists, and once I started it I knew I had waited too long to get that Funimation subscription (which was for one glorious free month, and during while I mainlined a dozen shows). It's an excellent historical fantasy, focusing on the oft-neglected period of the Hundred Years' War, and maintaining a high level of accuracy in fashions, behavior, religion, warfare - you name it, everything except the witchcraft is backed up by scholarship. Maria is a great protagonist, a steadfast humanist who refuses to abide by Heaven's rules when it means allowing the slaughter of the common people as collateral military damage. In contrast, Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun is a deceptively light supernatural high school dramedy. Poor dear Hanako-kun has his afterlife rather rough, being responsible for the antics other ghosts get up to in the school he died in; he gains a living girl as a sidekick when she makes the unwise choice of eating a mermaid scale. The unusual art style (rather like stained glass) is soothing to look at, and the characters are fun to see stumble, fall and pick themselves up again. Finally, Humanity Has Declined is everything I wished for in a surrealist, velvet-apocalypse of a story. You'll never see a piece of toast commit violent suicide in any other show, I'm quite certain. As a mild caveat, I looked up an episode guide and chose to watch them in chronological rather than broadcast order, which worked better for my sanity. EDIT: I'm adding Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun (Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki) to the Runner-up category, for the sheer subversion of its initial romcom structure. The male lead starts off one inch away from an incel, and puts in a ton of hard work over the course of the show - that we see happen, it's not a case of telling rather than showing - to fix his attitude and learn to live in a society. I am really looking forward to season 2.
K: Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuite Iru (Run with the Wind)
Runner-up: Kyousougiga
Honorable Mentions: Kono Oto Tomare!, Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Ren'ai Zunousen (Kaguya-sama: Love is War)
Run with the Wind brings back memories of competitive running - although I'm more like Prince, the out of shape otaku, than the more svelte members of the track team. I appreciate that the story subverts many of the typical sports drama plotlines (ex. the rival on another team is just an ass who doesn't get any better or more sympathetic, the African student is there as a business major not on an athletic scholarship, most of the main characters have to be dragged and cajoled into running), although it could do better with its female characters. Kyousougiga, like many shows centered on Kyoto, continues the tradition of depicting it as a weird city, mostly by creating a Wonderland-esque mirror city to it, in which imagination and creativity are the rule, and trying to live an ordinary life is impossible. As for the HMs, both are high school stories, but very different in tone; Kono Oto Tomare revolves around the efforts of a pack of earnest and endearing kids to build up their koto club into a true national competitor, while Kaguya-sama Love is War lampoons the living daylights out of the standard romcom (the second season in particular is a delight, fleshing out previously flat characters). EDIT: I'm booting Kyousougiga to Honorable Mentions and replacing its spot as Runner-Up with Kekkei Sensen (Blood Blockade Battlefront). I love this show with its Weird Eldritch NYC and the ridiculous characters that populate it. I wouldn't want to live there myself - too many ways to lose your body and/or soul - but the action is great and the characters play off each other well.
L: Log Horizon
Like with I, I just didn't love the other L shows I watched (Little Witch Academia and Lovely Complex) enough to consider them favorites. However, Log Horizon is something of a problematic fave. I like the general plot concept - people who get sucked into a video game figure out that they can't keep going on as if it's a fake world; they need to respect the people living there and set up actual governance and economic systems for themselves - and I enjoyed most of the characters most of the time. Unfortunately, they dip into a few characterization wells that I hate a few too many times: more women than statistically probable like the protagonist and get catty/scheming with each other rather than interacting in any way that would pass a Bechdel Test; there's a trans character who's considered somewhat creepy and it's unclear why the others can't accept the gender she's presenting as; one of the male characters has perpetual pervy foot-in-mouth syndrome that is met by one of the female characters' use of comedic violence (no, I don't think it's okay just because a woman is doing it, but that's how the show frames it). The light in the darkness comes from the fact that most of this stuff doesn't happen too often - I'd say the first few episodes were the worst, and then it toned down considerably. EDIT: I'm adding Love Lab as the Runner-up. This comedic SoL about middle-schoolers who have dumb ideas about romance was better than I could have expected, probably because the comedy was perfectly timed and executed.
M: Mairimashita! Iruma-kun (Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun)
Runner-up: Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai Kara Kurusou, desu ka? (Problem Children are Coming from Another World, Aren't They?)
Honorable Mentions: Moretsu Pirates (Bodacious Space Pirates), Mousou Dairinin (Paranoia Agent), Made in Abyss
I almost feel guilty putting the shows in this order. Paranoia Agent is an undisputed psychological thriller masterpiece by the late Satoshi Kon, and it's the only one of the five that's currently a complete story. However, this is a favorites list, not a quality-grading list, so I tip my hat to Iruma-kun, which was a delightful monster school romp in season 1; I particularly like how the villainous mook was countered by Iruma in the last few episodes, and I'm heartily anticipating season 2 next year. Problem Children has one of the few isekai power fantasy plots that I adored, possibly because there is no powering up or fish out of water element whatsoever; these kids are given the choice to pull an isekai and live on a perpetual games & tournaments planet, and being already OP for their homes they jump at the chance to be amongst equals and friends. Bodacious Space Pirates gets credit from me for being a feminist space adventure (with canonical lesbians!), with interesting worldbuilding that had touches of beauty (the home planet has proto-ring asteroid fields that make every sky shot lovely, for example) interlaced with humor (the pirates suss out an infiltrator because she's NOT being as much of a jerk as the real deal). Made in Abyss is new to me, and I remain horrified at the characters' terrible decisions - going on a one-way trip to Nature Hell as a teenager is dumb, y'all - while marveling at the animation. EDIT: I'm adding Mo Dao Zu Shi (the donghua version of the live action The Untamed) as a Runner-Up, for nailing the character designs and action of this convoluted cultivator fantasy. This series is all over the place with something for everyone: zombies, swordfights, heavy romantic tension between the male lead and his male soulmate, betrayal, revenge schemes that last a decade, tragedy, pun wordplay... I'm also surprised that the government allowed it to be released without more censorship. I'm also adding Moyashimon as a new Honorable Mention. For once, a show about college students doing microbial science - well, for some of them its to figure out how to make better alcohol, but all the same. Plus, it's trans-inclusive with the protagonist's best friend quickly using college as an escape from his parent's expectations and switching to living as a woman (granted, she won't call herself a woman, but that's because she knows she's going back to take over the family business and can't relax quite that much).
N: Natsume Yuujinchou (Natsume's Book of Friends)
Runner-up: Noragami
There was never really any chance that these two would be in the opposite order, though. Natsume's Book of Friends is a soothing, feel-good show about found family and growing up that doesn't forget to keep the bitter with the sweet. Natsume himself is an endearing protagonist, who struggles to trust others after years of being rotated around extended family as their unwanted foster child, and who finds both human parents that love him and a veritable squadron of spirits who adore him, including a gruff not!cat major yokai he calls Nyanko-sensei. Noragami is, oddly, also about the fine line between the physical and spirit worlds, but the focus is less on mundane problems that need solving and more on the unusual partnership between a particular god, his weapon-companion and a human girl.
O: Ore Monogatari! (My Love Story!)
Runner-up: Ouran Koukou Host Club (Ouran High School Host Club)
Honorable Mention: Oushitsu Kyoushi Heine (The Royal Tutor)
Wow, odd - three of four O shows are romcoms, a genre that I watch but normally don't think of as a favorite. While two of them are comedies (and therefore more to my tastes), My Love Story is a sweet, down-to-earth and honest look at a high school couple that prioritizes communication and experiences unconventional attraction. I want to put it on the queue of teens everywhere as a "how to do it" guide to relationships. Ouran Host Club is set up as a comedic reverse harem, but constantly transcends its form - and frankly, anime!Haruhi reads as mostly ace, so I'm quite happy with its non-pairing-confirming ending. The Royal Tutor surprised me with how well it depicted the skill of teaching that a good teacher must hone, and I loved the character dynamics. EDIT: I'm adding Ookami to Koushinryou (Spice & Wolf) as an Honorable Mention. Yes, there's a few nudity scenes at the beginning, but Holo the Wise Wolf going on a neverending trade trip through medieval Europe with Lawrence is a deeply compelling historical romance, medieval economics and all.
P: Princess Principal
Runner-up: Psycho-Pass [Season 1]
Honorable Mentions: Princess Connect: Re:Dive
Another Bold Girls Doing Bold Things show, Princess Principal scratches an itch for steampunk AU London spy shenanigans I didn't know I had. It's animated with fluidity and attention to detail, elevating it above the average action show. The movies have been delayed by the coronavirus, so here's hoping they make it over soon. Also full of fluid action and criminal activity, but on the cyberpunk end of the Punk scale, Psycho-Pass had a self-contained first season full of violence, dystopian police states and AI overlords; I've been heartily warned against bothering with season two. Newest to my heart, Princess Connect Re:Dive just finished, and delighted enough people other than me to get season two greenlit almost immediately. The little disguised-video-game-isekai that could, it stands on a solid foundation of good cheer and a core group of true companions that know what's really important: good food, good people to share it with, and the satisfaction of having acquired said food by heroically defeating monsters.
Q: Quanzhi Gaoshou (The King's Avatar)
I'm so glad I hunted down this anime for this list - Q anime are thin on the ground to begin with, and the vast majority are hentai - because The King's Avatar was engaging and immediately got me on board with its depiction of e-sports professional gamers. It's a Chinese production, available on YouTube, and it's another show that delves into adults having real-life problems (losing one's job, workplace scandals, depression, etc.) while keeping up its level of videogame-esque action.
R: Rokuhoudou Yotsuiro Biyori (Yotsuiro Biyori)
Runner-up: ReLife
Honorable Mentions: Ristorante Paradiso
R isn't terribly common for titles, but there are a respectable number of them. Yotsuiro Biyori is the one that I have shared with friends and family, so it's the undisputed winner. The plot is light, concerning itself with a year in the lives of four men who run a teahouse and the way their customers find solutions to their personal problems in its peaceful rooms. Outside of one man's brother and said brother's best friend (who is a troll, but is always acting as such to push people out of their comfort zones into new experiences - he's kinda the tough love version of the Rokuhoudou guys), there's no tension or drama here, just beautiful food and relaxing atmosphere. I just finished ReLife, and I'm so glad it didn't go in the sleazy direction that was wide open and the obvious option; since it's about twentysomethings who are part of a psychological experiment and who get deaged to go through high school again (they're not really deaged, though - it appears to be just skin deep, with muscles, organs and bone structure remaining the original age), there was every sign that there would be an age gap romance, but the show is full of delightful subversions of expectations. On the other hand, Ristorante Paradiso does have an age gap romance as its fulcrum, but it's one of the few in any medium I've ever seen done right - that is to say, by going slowly, establishing an equal power dynamic, and focusing on enthusiastic consent. It helps that the older man is shy, and not the one instigating the dating, either. Since I'm not into pure romance, it was also great that it had a really unique story and setting, being about a young Italian woman tracking down her deadbeat mom in an Italian city, then sticking around to learn how to become a professional chef.
S: Shirobako
Runner-up: Sakurada Reset (Sagrada Reset)
Honorable Mentions: Seirei no Moribito (Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit), Sora Yori mo Tooi Basho (A Place Further Than the Universe), Saiki Kusuo no Sainan (The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.)
Well, they're adults, but otherwise the ladies of Shirobako also fit the "Bold Girls Doing Bold Things" label. In their case, they're learning the different aspects of the anime industry from the ground up, dealing with dumb dudes and horrendous crunch conditions as they get good. I am very much looking forward to the movie being released statewide. I found Sagrada Reset to be a thoughtful, intelligent take on the superpower genre - too often, the society warps around superpowers to create hero/villain comic-style shenanigans while ingnoring how people actually behave. In contrast, the powers here are both limited in scope but creatively used, and the main characters spend more time solving mysteries than they do fighting crime. Moribito is smoothly animated with gorgeous scenery and action; this historical fantasy grants center stage to a truly badass woman, Balsa, who is free to both pummel thugs and care for children rather than be pigeonholed. A Place Further Than the Universe is, without any caveats, a Bold Girls Doing Bold Things show, as these intrepid teens choose to pursue a trip to Antarctica as half self-empowerment, half coming to terms with loss. Finally, Saiki surprised me with its dub - I had no choice, but given the rapid fire dialogue and dry sarcasm of the lead, I feel like it enabled me to enjoy it more than the sub would have - and I chortled through every episode, as Saiki dealt with his annoying friends, dysfunctional family and his burgeoning psychic powers with a perpetual air of resignation. EDIT: I'm flipping Sagrada Reset and Saiki K., just due to changing tastes. I'm also adding Suisei no Gargantia (Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet) as a scifi whose setting - a future water-world Earth - was immediately arresting and had the worldbuilding to reinforce the plot.
T: Tsuritama
Runner-up: Tanaka-kun wa Itsumo Kedaruge (Tanaka-kun is Always Listless)
Honorable Mentions: Tamako Market
Seeing as anime starting with "The" were off-limits, I was startled to find that my list of T anime was not overfull with favorites. I would say that all three of these are hovering around the edge of iyashikei/soothing, and they are definitely all about high schoolers, but Tsuritama is the closest to being something else, having trappings of a plot-driven scifi action show. Tanaka-kun has less going on, being extremely chill in its humor, and full of dramatic pauses as Tanaka-kun surprises his friends with his odd ways of thinking. (Warning, though, for a little sister plot tumor that should never have been thrown in.) Tamako Market is a Kyoto Animation production, and it has some fantasy elements (talking birds, a quasi-mystical distant kingdom) while revolving around a more down-to-earth story regarding the people who live and work in one of Japan's street markets. The follow-up movie, Tamako Love Story, ditches the fantasy and wraps up some dangling plot threads, but can also be watched as a standalone.
U: Uchi Tama?! Uchi no Tama Shirimasenka (Uchitama?! Where is My Tama?)
Runner-up: Uchouten Kazoku (The Eccentric Family)
I had been solidly behind The Eccentric Family as the only real, good option for the U anime, until I caught up on recommended shows from earlier this year, and Uchitama swept its feet out from under it. I'm not one for anthropomorphic animals or kemonomimi characters (trust Japan to have a word for this), but I really enjoyed the humor in this show, and the fact that the characters were truly animals whose appearance shifted only for the audience - they never really changed into human form, it's just to help us empathize with them, and occasionally to pull off a gag better - made the premise easier to swallow. There are also serious bits involving the plight of strays that tugged at my heartstrings. The Eccentric Family is another zany!Kyoto story, this time with classic mythological creatures like tengu living secretly alongside humans; the main characters are shapeshifting tanuki, who struggle to maintain the ties of culture and family while avoiding detection and the stewpot. This is another story where I love a minor character to distraction (the middle son who's shapeshifted into a frog and is living in a well in a depressive funk) and care less about the overarching story. EDIT: I'm adding Umamusume: Pretty Derby as a new Honorable Mention. Sometimes, a show's premise is so stupid but the execution is so committed that it comes around again to funny. Girls having the spirit of racehorses, meh. Horse-girls having their own traffic lanes because they run as fast as cars, hilarious. The second season also switches the plot into a serious look at the nature of sports injuries, which is a topic that isn't covered enough in sports anime.
V: Vinland Saga
There aren't many V anime - those that exist tend to have foreign names since V is not a commonly pronounced letter in Japanese - and I'd heard that Violet Evergarden was beautiful but maudlin, which I'm not sure I can take. Luckily, Vinland Saga was airing last year, and the show gets through the entire Prologue in its first two cour (hey, it's a saga, not a sprint). The Prologue is ostensibly about a young Icelandic boy losing his father violently, joining a Viking army to learn how to get his revenge, and slowly losing the principles his father had tried to instill in him; in practice, he's one of three protagonists, who all end up positioned as candidates for the throne in the British Isles (at the time, one of the frequently conquered satellites of the Vikings), and who are remarkably different characters in their behaviors and beliefs. Naturally, only one can get the throne. I'd been lightly spoiled as to the plot twists, so I deeply enjoyed the attention to historical detail, the excellent action tempered by a humanist core that denied the value of said action, and the exploration of early Christian philosophy (listen, that might sound dull, but it really fleshed out the pious characters for me, given that one of them ends up deciding that God's love is cruel and he'll make a better world as a future king). EDIT: Some new additions are needed! I have to disagree with the person who told me Violet Evergarden was too maudlin, as I think that 90% of the time it was exactly as heartfelt and emotional as it needed to be. The idea of a female child super-soldier during not-WWI is still silly, but once you accept that the rest of the show is grounded in realism, and focuses on how she struggles with PTSD and learning to live in society. I'll put it as my Runner-Up. Vanitas no Karte (Case Study of Vanitas) is a new supernatural steampunk show that deserves an Honorable Mention.
W: Watashi ga Motete Dou Sunda (Kiss Him, Not Me)
Runner-up: Witch Craft Works
Sometimes I want a show that reminds me of my youth, warts and all. Kiss Him, Not Me isn't exactly that show - I never attended cons or created/consumed merch - but it touches on how absorbed I was in fandom, and how as a teen I directed my emotional energies towards cherishing fictional characters and worlds. As an adult, I like how it diverges from a standard romcom in small ways: our lead was never embarassed about being overweight, and the guys that like her when she's thin have to question themselves as to whether their attraction is too shallow; she's not really interested in dating any of them, so they have to work together to go places as a pack of friends; there's a girl in this reverse harem and it's not really an issue for anyone; etc. Witch Craft Works, in contrast, also maintains a subversive throughline, but this time sending up shoujo tropes by flipping gender roles - it's consistently the male lead who acts as the damsel and the tall, buff female lead who rescues him, and so on. This is a show that would benefit strongly from an additional season, as the plot seems to be barely getting started, but it was quite enjoyable as is.
X: XXXholic
I admit it, this one is a cheat, as I have it on my to-watch queue. I will update once I've actually seen it. EDIT: I found XXXholic dull at the start, but once it drifts a bit away from the initial formula of "woman comes to shop having done something dumb/immoral, ignores the shopkeeper's advice and misuses the supernatural item she bought, and ends up dead" more towards supernatural events that happen to and around the main characters, it was much more interesting. I have also found a movie that starts with X and which I might prefer: Xuyuan Shenlong (Wish Dragon). It's a charming Chinese CGI movie about a teen who accidentally acquires a magic wish-granting dragon and needs to use the wishes to get reacquainted with a childhood friend.
Y: Yuri!!! on Ice (Yuri on Ice)
Runner-up: Yojouhan Shinwai Taikei (The Tatami Galaxy)
Honorable Mentions: Youjo Senki (Saga of Tanya the Evil)
The title punctuation bothers me, and that's the only real quibble I have with 2016's breakthrough hit, Yuri on Ice. It's about one of my favorite sports to watch, it's nicely animated, the plot is compelling - an adult man who feels like he's near the end of his skating career gets inspired to try again by the arrival of his coach, the current world champion - but also full of delightful and genuinely surprising twists... and no, I don't just mean the canon mlm relationship being built between the leads. It truly moved me, in a time when the mood of the country seemed dire. I can't really say the same for The Tatami Galaxy, although that's nothing for it to be ashamed of, as very few shows make me feel so strongly. No, instead it impressed me with its intricate and slowly unfolding time-travel/looping plot. The main character is close to finishing college and feels like he's wasted his time, so a friendly neighborhood god (yes, this is another zany!Kyoto setting, by the way) gives him a new lease on life by letting him go back, repeatedly, to the beginning of college to try out new clubs and friendships. By the end, our perception of all the characters has changed, just as surely as the lead has. Finally, Tanya the Evil was repeatedly recommended to me, and while I wasn't sure that I was up to watching another isekai, this time the premise is useful rather than an ego-trip. Tanya was a salaryman in Japan in his first life, and while dying a being claiming to be God gets irritated at his persistent humanism in the face of a higher power and sends him to a fantasy Europe during the equivalent of WWI. It's an exploration of the effects of a long war on a people, it's a magical action thrill ride, it's a condemnation of faith for selfishness' sake, it's a look at how even a sociopath can choose to fight for what they think is right. EDIT: I'm adding Yaku Nara Mug Cup Mo (Let's Make A Mug, Too!) as an Honorable Mention. It's a lovely SoL about girls in a pottery club, one of whom is learning how to make pottery specifically to connect with her dead mother who was a world-renown potter.
Z: Zombieland Saga
As promised, here are my other favorite idols. The numbers in each group sync up too, so clearly I need to write a fic with the girls of Zombieland Saga meeting up with the Idolish7 boys, as the internet has failed to provide. Just as with Idolish7, I was able to see the character chemistry and comfortable friendship growing between the girls of Franchouchou. Their manager is sometimes a blot on the mood, but it helps to read between the lines in later episodes and realize that his underlying motivation is much different than his stated goal of revitalizing Saga prefecture via resurrecting girls to be local zombie idols (if the latter really were his goal, he's living somewhere in 4020 with a galaxy brain). The transgirl Lily is handled fairly well, and the culture clash from the girls' different eras is not ignored. If you want interesting songs, rest assured that there is rap and heavy metal mixed in with the pop. If you dislike horror - and I consider myself not a fan - no worries, it's mostly played for comedy.
Well, I guess I've learned something about my tastes! Well, I already knew about the scifi and fantasy preferences...
Common themes/plots:
SciFi - 19
LGBTQA (Declared and/or Implied) - 15 [you'll have to watch to find out how!]
Fantasy - 12
Supernatural - 8
Historical - 6
Subverted Romcoms (More Com than Rom) - 5
Bold Girls Doing Bold Things - 5
Cooking/Restaurants - 5
Edutainment/I Learned Something That Wasn't History - 4
Zany!Kyoto - 3 (Plus the Kyoto Arc of Blue Exorcist)
Cats as Characters - 3 (plus another Good Cat who wasn't a POV character in Yotsuiro Biyori)
EDIT: the amount of Slice of Life (SoL) is probably even larger than scifi.