Top 5 Favorite Anime of All Time?

[Shadow_God_10]

WITHOUT ECCHI:

1. Gintama
2. Re:Creators
3. Serial Experiments Lain
4. Toradora
5. Black Lagoon

#1 is staying, but the other 4 are absolutely shows I'd watch again any time.


WITH ECCHI:

#1. High School DXD (come on...y'all knew this was here)
#2. Date A Live
#3. To LOVE ru
#4. Campione
#5. Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt

I have a SHIT load of honorable mentions: Snow White with the Red Hair, Elfen Lied, Grand Blue (AKA Alcoholism: The Anime), Jormungand, K-ON, Kokoro Connect, Keijo!!!!!!, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, Log Horizon, Lovely Complex, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, Madoka Magica, Spice and Wolf, Overlord, Samurai Champloo, Bunnygirl Senpai, Seitokai Yakuindomo, Steins;Gate, Tsugumomo, Violet Evergarden, Witchblade, Bloom Into You, Saga of Tanya the Evil, B-gata H-kei, and Azumanga Daiou.

All of the honorable mentions here are definitely worth giving a watch as well

[Black_Shield]

Originally Posted by Zyxel

o Black_Shield has an incredibly based list but Akira is overrated IMO. Incredibly ahead of its time and has gorgeous animation but I don't think it holds up (hot take).

why

[XelNya]

Originally Posted by Shadow_God_10

WITHOUT ECCHI:

1. Gintama
2. Re:Creators
3. Serial Experiments Lain
4. Toradora
5. Black Lagoon

#1 is staying, but the other 4 are absolutely shows I'd watch again any time.


WITH ECCHI:

#1. High School DXD (come on...y'all knew this was here)
#2. Date A Live
#3. To LOVE ru
#4. Campione
#5. Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt

I have a SHIT load of honorable mentions: Snow White with the Red Hair, Elfen Lied, Grand Blue (AKA Alcoholism: The Anime), Jormungand, K-ON, Kokoro Connect, Keijo!!!!!!, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, Log Horizon, Lovely Complex, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, Madoka Magica, Spice and Wolf, Overlord, Samurai Champloo, Bunnygirl Senpai, Seitokai Yakuindomo, Steins;Gate, Tsugumomo, Violet Evergarden, Witchblade, Bloom Into You, Saga of Tanya the Evil, B-gata H-kei, and Azumanga Daiou.

All of the honorable mentions here are definitely worth giving a watch as well

You forgot gonna be the twintail

[AutotelicBrown]

My answer now isn't too different from my answer back in 2016 as I haven't even watched that much anime since then.

Actual ordered picks:
1. Usagi Drop
2. Wolf Children

Arbitrary top 3~5:
3. Cardcaptor Sakura
4. Yuyushiki
5. Kino's Journey

Messy list of honorable mentions:
Ashita no Nadja, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Azumanga Daioh, Honey and Clover, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Haibane Renmei, Golden Time, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (+ Disappearance movie), Arakawa Under the Bridge, Texnholyze, Excel Saga, Mushishi, Maria†Holic, Darker than Black, Aria the Animation, Violet Evergarden, Hinamatsuri, 3-gatsu no Lion, Bloom Into You, Killing Bites

Just a few additions in the end and one change compared to the old list but yeah, I'm still bad at ranking things.

[Zyxel]

Originally Posted by Black_Shield

why

for me the plot feels difficult to follow, and I never developed a strong connection to the cast. However I did use Akira as my senior project in Highschool on its themes (primarily how power changes people)

[Black_Shield]

i recommend reading the manga series. it's a banger.

[Wiosna]

I'm not the biggest fan of Akira (the film), but the influence Akira has had on not only Japanese cyberpunk media but cyberpunk in general is massive. Most of your favourite games or films with cyberpunk themes (FF7, MGS, Matrix) were inspired by Akira in some way. For reference, the manga came out the same year as Blade Runner (imo the single-handed most influential cyberpunk media of all time) and the film came out 6 years after at a time when Japanese anime is perceived as not particularly viable for experimental/arthouse film.

It's probably one of the most stylish films ever produced (the underground punk aesthetic that Akira brings in really helps), and there are many things like the iconic bike slide and themes in a late-stage capitalistic context like the struggle of losing one's humanity, finding hope in the super/preternatural and living in a society without a state through camaraderie (though none of these are original to Akira) still referenced today. The themes in particular were particularly novel to a Japanese context. I think there are fair complaints about the themes of the film being a bit shallow and the characters not being very memorable, but given the novelty of the themes at hand (again, 6 years after Blade Runner) I don't think they were ever the point of the film specifically. They seemed more like nomothetic analyses of the kind of society that we could head, barring the part involving a giant psychic baby.

That said, I also blame Akira and Blade Runner for so many half-assed and shallow depictions of late-stage capitalist societies or even societies post-technological singularity, but it's not those films' fault for being launch pads for so many poor derivatives of them.

Originally Posted by Zyxel

As for the list I am most unfamiliar with, Wiosna's list has me in shambles. I don't think I know any of the anime on there. (I will later be coming back to this thread...

All of the anime I chose were anime movies, I don't watch anime series these days because they consume a bit too much time for me. I think I would include Saikano (Saishuu Heiki Kanojo) in my top 5 and Neon Genesis Evangelion in my honorable mentions if I were to include anime series, so it's nothing too obscure.

[jahx]

My top 5 currently (in no particular order because they are all amazing):

1. Berserk (1997)
2. Gintama
3. Steins;Gate
4. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
5. Ergo Proxy

Honorable mentions (also really good and I truly considered adding them to the list)
- Serial Experiments Lain (I like these mysterious psychological type animes)
- Koe no Kadachi (I really felt this anime, because it reminds me of my past)
- Inferno Cop (memeish entry, but it's the first ever anime I ever watched and it truly is something XD)

[Trogdor!!!!]

I don't have a list but Monster is fucking stupid good. I have rewatched it like 3 times and I barely watch shows or movies at all.