It's almost the end of the year, and that means it's time for Top Ten Anime lists! I had a very hard time picking out my favorites since a enjoyed a lot of anime titles this year. I've also decided this year to not rank them--I feel that each title is different enough from the others that it makes it hard say that one is better than another when it really all comes down to personal taste. With that said, all of these shows are the best that I watched in the last year, and I highly recommend all of them.
Tonari no Seki-kun
As short anime have become more common in anime season line-ups, it's also becoming clear what kinds of setups work the best in this limited format. Comedies have had the most success so far, and Tonari no Seki-kun is the best of the bunch. The premise is simple: dedicated student Rumi sits next to her carefree classmate Seki, who distracts her from her lessons by playing around on his desk. However, can you really call something like creating a remote control car racetrack or acting out drama worthy scenes with shogi pieces just "playing around?" Much of the humor comes from Rumi's reactions to the absurd situations that Seki creates, and thanks to the simplistic animation style, her expressions are hilarious as well. Every episode delivers on at least one solid joke, and even manages to build up into more and more elaborate setups as it goes on. It makes perfect use of its small runtime, and never feels rushed or stretched to pad for time. It even has time for a great ED sequence! Tonari no Seki-kun proves that short anime do not need to feel limited by their runtime, and can reach the same levels of comedy as full-length anime.
Hozuki no Reitetsu
Take The Office, set it in Hell, pack it to bursting with eastern mythology references, and you get Hozuki. While I'd be lying if I said that I understood all the references, the unique cast of characters alongside the show's blend of slapstick combined with dark humor makes the show fun to watch regardless. While the title character Hozuki is not always the focus, his personality is what really made the show for me. His sadistic nature contrasted with his complete devotion to his job running Hell always made him interesting to watch. The show has a very different sense of humor than what typically shows up in anime comedies, which makes it a fun watch.
Log Horizon
I did not watch this when it initially aired earlier this year because I assumed that it would be an SAO clone. After that show, I didn't want to watch anything like it. However, seeing discussions on Twitter and other anime blogs about how Log Horizon executed its premise in a way that felt believable, I decided to take another look. I'm glad that I did. The show follows a group of top players from an MMO called Elder Tale that has suddenly become reality after an expansion pack was released. The gamers slowly figure out the differences between the way the game works and how this new world operates, presenting it in a way that feels like it could really happen if, say, WoW suddenly became real. The plotlines deal with guilds, quests, raids, PvP, and more, integrating features familiar to anyone who's played these kind of games before. The characters are just as believable, ranging from the hardcore questers and roleplayers to people who just want to be with their friends and have fun. It's realistic while still being entertaining, and delivers on a compelling storyline once everything is established. If you watched SAO but wished that it had done more with MMO mechanics in its story building and character arcs, then this is the show for you.
Space Dandy
No, it's not the next Cowboy Bebop, but I don't think Space Dandy ever had aspirations to try to take over the top spot anyway. It is what it is--an episodic series loosely following the premise of bounty hunters Dandy, QT, and Meow as they journey across the universe looking for rare aliens to turn in for money and fame. Each episode is unique in its plot and character designs, with humor and the main three characters acting as the connecting line through all of their different adventures. Strictly animation wise, Space Dandy is a must-see show for it's creativity. The final episode is also a surprise in and of itself, but I won't spoil that here. If you want to see some of the best that the anime industry has to offer within the constraints of a premise that pokes fun at old sci-fi tropes, then you can't get any better than this.
Haikyuu!
In some ways, I feel like this year was the year or fujoshi-oriented sports anime. Both Free! and Kuroko got their sequels this year, and a third show also rose up along with them. Haikyuu! stands solidly in the middle between the two shows that I mentioned previously. It's not literally dripping in homoerotic subtext like Free!, and despite their characters displaying amazing skills on the volleyball court, it doesn't reach the same display of insane skills like in Kuroko. However, this works in Haikyuu!'s favor, allowing fans to interpret the characters however they wish while still maintaining focus on the game itself. Regardless of our feelings on the fujoshi phenomenon, Haikyuu! holds its own very well as a sports anime, focusing on how the characters gradually learn to work together as a team. It even provides explanations about the tactical side of the game, making it easy to understand for someone like me who isn't very familiar volleyball in the first place. In some cases it even feels like you're watching a real game and rooting for the underdog. I think that the broad appeal has a lot to do with Haikyuu!'s spike in popularity, and I'm excited to see what will happen in future seasons!
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
One day after school, Sakura Chiyo finally works up the courage to confess to her crush, Nozaki. At first, it seems like he's accepted her feelings...but then he hands her an autograph. It turns out that Nozaki is actually the mangaka of a well-known shoujo manga, and he mistook Chiyo for a fan. Unwilling to become discouraged, Chiyo takes this as a chance to get closer to Nozaki and ends up helping him with his manga. While the premise may make it sound like the show is about romance (and I won't deny that it's in there), where Nozaki-kun really excels is in its comedy. The otome game scene that briefly went viral on Twitter and Tumblr is a great example of the series' sense of humor; the majority of the show lampoons popular tropes while still putting its own original twist on it. Additionally, it's never mean-spirited--it pokes fun, but the jokes feel like they come from a source of love for the medium. Even when it's not tackling shoujo tropes specifically, the characters themselves easily carry the show are well-written and developed in their own right. It's a blend of humor and strong characterization that is not only rare to find in the genre, but an overall great show that I recommend to any fan of anime.
Ping Pong the Animation
I feel like this show got ignored because it doesn't really look like "anime," in the sense that the style is geared more towards the needs of the animation than the big-eyed character design style that we're used to associating with Japanese animation. That's a shame, since this show is easily the best sports anime that I've ever seen. Directed by Masaki Yuasa, who some of you may recognize as the person behind The Tatami Galaxy, another anime that I strongly recommend, the show follows high school students Peco and Smile who play ping pong. Peco wants to be a world-famous player while Smile is happy with serving as a stepping stone to Peco's dream. However, Peco plays for the sake of his own ego, while Smile has a natural talent he's been suppressing. The two get slowly involved in the high-stakes world of the tournament circuit, but in the end, what are they really playing for? The show gets off to bumpy start pacing-wise, appearing to meander around without a point, but once its narrative direction becomes clear it makes for a compelling watch. I was also a big fan of how the visuals occasionally mimicked the look of manga panels, which also added a lot to the flow of the action. It's a show that delivers all around, and if you're looking for something a little more original and different, Ping Pong is a great watch.
Kill la Kill
It's been months since I finished watching it, but I still don't know where to start when I talk about Kill la Kill. The term "roller coaster ride" comes to mind, and not just because of the twists in the plot. I mean, the premise itself is crazy enough on its own: A girl named Ryuko, who wields a giant half-scissor blade, transfers to -- to find out who killed her dad and ends up teaming up with a sentient sailor school uniform in order to fight against other superpowered school uniforms so that she can face Kiryuin Satsuki and find out the truth. That alone would've been more than enough for any other two-cour show to cover, yet anyone who is familiar with the staff at Studio Trigger (they were also responsible for Gurren Lagann and Panty and Stocking) won't be surprised to hear that it doesn't stop there. The twists kept coming and the stakes got ever higher, to the point that I'm not sure when I stopped feeling uncomfortable at the fanservice and started to genuinely care where everything was going. On the topic of the fanservice, I don't completely agree with the argument that I've seen floating around that it is "empowering," yet I do think that the show deserves credit for creating characters that were interesting and compelling enough that eventually it didn't matter what they were wearing (or not wearing, depending on the scene). Provided that you can get through some of the slower earlier episodes, watching Kill la Kill is liking going on a thrill ride for the first time; you enjoy the twists and turns, but the overall experience is what makes it great in the end.
Knights of Sidonia
This show shares a lot of similarities with Attack on Titan, except it is set in space and has a much clearer thematic direction. The plot tells the story of the seed ship Sidonia, one of the last remaining strongholds for humanity in the universe as they defend themselves from attacks against Gauna, strange shapeshifting alien creatures that seem t have only one purpose--destroy what is left of the human race. While the Attack on Titan parallels are immediately obvious the show also draws from the best of the mecha and sci-fi genres, creating a show that is not only interesting for the action but also for its world and characters. It's the only show in recent memory I can think of that has a third-gender character that isn't treated like a joke (although be warned that the English dub calls them an "it"), and the other revelations about what the residents of Sidonia have done in order to keep the human race alive raises some interesting ethical questions. When's the last time an anime made you question the definition of "humanity"? Knights of Sidonia s a great watch for all of these reasons, and it easily makes my top ten for not just being a solid action sci-fi show, but also for not being afraid to delve into some deeper questions with its story.
Tokyo Ghoul
This show was a pleasant surprise for me, since at first I wasn't even planning on watching it! It follows Kaneki Ken, a college student and book nerd who is transformed into a ghoul--a being that can only eat humans. Despite his attempts to stop his newfound instincts, Kaneki has to learn how to survive in the ghouls' violent world. There were a lot of complaints while this was airing about the censorship of the violence (I didn't mind the inverted colors so much, but the black bars were annoying), but I still found it compelling thanks to the way the show handled its characters. While it was violent, I wouldn't say that this is the kind of show that's preoccupied with showing as many bloodbaths as possible. Instead, it ended up being more about how the characters tried to reconcile their true natures with living in human society. It serves as a strong metaphor for people who feel that they are living on the fringes of society, or those who feel like they're just faking it to get by. It also ended with one of the best character study episodes that I have ever seen. It has its rough patches, but Tokyo Ghoul is still a compelling show that lives up to the attention it has gathered.
Hunter x Hunter
I know I said at the start of this post that I wasn't going to rank these, but Hunter x Hunter is indisputably my number one show for the year. It's shown up on some of my previous Top Ten rankings before, and since it didn't start airing this year it is a little unfair to pit it against other titles from 2014, so I'm not technically counting it among my Top Ten. However, the final two arcs that aired this year on Hunter x Hunter put it solidly in the top spot for the year regardless. The Chimera Ant arc and the Election Arc have some of the best storylines and character arcs that I've ever seen in my life, not just in anime, and that's not something that I say lightly. The way that the characters grew and changed, the detail put into every part of the world they inhabited no matter how small, and the final episode that wrapped everything up while still leaving things open to a wider adventure made this nothing short of a masterpiece. If you didn't watch it while it was airing, please do not let the episode count intimidate you. I can't really find the right words to describe it, but it is quite the experience. If you watch nothing else from this year, please watch Hunter x Hunter.
What were your favorite titles from this last year?
Images from Crunchyroll.com and Hulu.com. This post is also available at OASG.
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