It seems like writing yearly rankings (Top 10 of 2008) and series reviews is a big part of a lot of anime blogs, so expect those to start coming out as I continue working on the site. But if you the reader and I have extremely different tastes, then how much would my reviews really help you? So I thought it’d be good to write up an initial series of my own personal overall and then by-genre rankings for people to gauge how much our views have in common.

Here are my Top 10 Favorite Anime series:

10. Naruto / Bleach / Flame of Recca.
Let me start by prefacing that the Recca anime ended awfully – they skipped/changed a bunch of things during the last round of the tournament (so many tournaments in fighting anime) and then ended the series there, which was like only the halfway point of the manga. But hey, Naruto and Bleach anime aren’t perfect either – I still can’t forgive the Naruto series for that year or so of awful fillers, while Bleach fillers were at least relatively watchable. Anyway, I finished the Recca series as manga and currently only read the manga forms of Naruto and Bleach, and of the three, I couldn’t decide which deserved to be by itself in the 10 spot. I thought the Sasuke Retrieval arc of Naruto was alot better than the Soul Society arc of Bleach until Aizen dropped the hugest plot twist of the series, and even though the Hueco Mundo arc in Bleach as been good, Shippuuden has definitely had its moments, albeit in between some really slow and useless chapters (Tobi’s convo with Sasuke about Itachi was interesting until they drew it out for like a month and a half). And Recca is just a really solid fighting series with what turns into a very awesome overall plot to tie everything together.

9. Gungrave
Gungrave is kinda like two series put into one. The first half is a huge flashback about how Brandon Heat and his friend rise up through the yakuza/crime syndicate that they join, and then the second half is about how he’s resurrected as Beyond the Grave (not a really a spoiler, you’ll understand after the first episode) to get revenge on the people that betrayed and killed him. The second half was action packed, but not nearly as good as the first half, and I really feel there should be more like this in the yakuza/mafia genre. Think something like all the backstory behind Spike Speigel from Cowboy Bebop, and you’ll get an idea of what the first half of Gungrave is like. (Speaking of which, Cowboy Bebop prolly deserved a place on this Top 10, but I first watched the series in English dub, which I generally don’t care for)

8. Getbackers


One of the few instances where I started by reading the series at a Barnes & Noble one day and continued to buy and read the US distributed volumes. I really believe that the success of a action/fighting series is based on how interesting its characters are and how novel their fighting techniques are, then on how good the story is. Even though Ginji is basically a lightning element user, some of the ways he uses it during the series is more unique than simply blasting the opponent with electricity or charging limbs for melee fighting. And while Ban’s Evil Eye is basically genjitsu, the ways he tricks his opponents is interesting, and the one minute and three times daily limitations keep it from being too cheap of a hallucination technique. The series has finished publication in Japan, but I’m currently only up to Tokyopop’s most recent release of volume 25 (of 39). Its also important to note that the series is illustrated by Rando Ayamine, so it wasn’t surprising why I really liked the animation style because…

7. The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi
Probably one of the most notable titles of 2006, I’m happy to have watched it while it was still coming out before it reached the near epidemic popularity its enjoyed more recently. The show is hilarious with even its eccentricities in good taste, and Haruhi is definitely one of my favorite characters all-time (and I’m typically not a big fan of tsundere characters). “Hare Hare Yukai” is one of the most iconic anime ED themes in recent pop culture, and “God knows…” is one of the best insert songs I can think of. I’ll be a little honest though – I only liked “Hare Hare Yukai” the first 100 times I’ve seen it. That said, I’m trying to temper expectations while I wait as anxiously as anyone else for the second season. BTW, Aya Hirano, the seiyu for Haruhi and the main vocalist for a lot of the show’s songs, followed up this breakout role with roles as Misa Amane in Deathnote and as Konata Izumi in Lucky Star.

6. Ichigo 100%
My friend introduced me to this manga and I was really surprised at how quickly I went through it. For romance series, especially ecchi harem types, I typically wade through it, enjoy it if its funny, then forget about it when its done, but somehow for Ichigo 100%, which seriously only has a small harem of three contenders, I really took the story and characters to heart. Even before I finished it, my friend and I were already arguing over who the main character should/would end up with (I was in favor of Nishino, but later kicked myself when I found out Noto Mamiko, my favorite seiyu, did the voice for Toujou in the anime). I should also note that the anime and OAVs don’t come close to finishing the story like the manga does, and the series is a Shonen Jump comic, if anyone cares in terms of series popularity or intended target audience. Ichigo 100% also features one of the most ridiculous confession scenes in all the anime/manga I’ve ever seen near the beginning of the series. I’d be impressed if it ever worked in real life.


5. Detective Conan


Into the top 5, this series has been around for forever (Wiki says 1994), and even though I heard rumors that it was getting ready to end about a year ago, it just keeps on rolling. I haven’t been keeping up with the most recent releases, but I am pretty proud to have gone through 627 of the 664 chapters. Every 50 chapters or so, a major story arc with the Black Organization occurs to progress the overall plot, but the large majority of the series deals with individual cases usually lasting between 3-5 chapters. And despite some repetitiveness, especially in the same formula of intro chapter -> investigation chapters -> deduction chapter, a lot of the murders and how Conan solves them are pretty ingenius. I think I like being impressed by how clever a lot of the things are (while others can be just really far-fetched) and thats what keeps me reading even after the hundreds of chapters. The rotation of recurring side-characters also gives the series a sense of continuity, even when its mired in a long span of episodic cases without much overall plot movement. And as Conan says, “There is only one truth”, and that truth is that if I didn’t really like this series, I wouldn’t have devoted some much effort into reading it all these years. It is pretty ridiculous though how they manage to run into so many murder cases (even when theyre on vacation). And also that people like Ran still haven’t figured out that Conan is Shinichi.

4. Slam Dunk
Another old school series (started 1990! and ended 1996) that I ended up watching during college after seeing it on TV during a vacation in Hong Kong a while ago. The anime ends before the Nationals tournament though, replacing it with a not very good “all star” pickup game with players from other schools that they beat in the series. I reread the manga version with the continuation to the series end, and it did not disappoint. Sakuragi is one of my favorite all time characters with the same goofy but zealous “otoko spirit” (I just made up that phrase, otoko means ‘man’ or ‘manly’) as some of my other favorite characters (maybe you can guess the some of the next few series with that). As hilarious as the series is, I found it to be also very motivational. Sakuragi initially joins the basketball team to impress a girl and practices to beat his rival, but he later realizes that he’s come to love basketball, and his determination makes his triumphs motivational and his failures heartbreaking. I remember watching this series freshmen year, and because the matches last around 6-8 episodes, I ended up being late to or missing a lot of classes that week (you shouldn’t skip class) because I just couldn’t leave until I saw how they ended. I was really satisfied with the series ending too, and that’s really important to me (Recca and Ichigo 100% both also had really great endings).

3. Code Geass
Let me just say that I know there are people out there who don’t really like this show and think its overrated. If there were an equivalent for ‘narutard’ or ‘harutard’ for geass fans, they’d probably be flaming people with it. But I also know that a lot of people really like this show, and I’m of the mind that this is one of the best shows I’ve seen in my anime experience. Yea, people say “its gundam seed 2” and there were a lot of similarities, but I’ve been impressed with a lot of the other mechs in the show after lancelot (the guren in season 2 is awesome). And yea, other people make comparisons to Deathnote, but I personally hated Light after a while (I feel like there’s a point when he becomes less “I’m going to outsmart and trap you” and more “I’ve become so twisted with power that I don’t really care what other important things I lose.”) Lelouch remains a tragic hero for me even after the last few episodes, and that makes a huge difference in my opinion. The show also manages a fine mix of comedy, fan service, and drama that separates it from shows with similar genres like Gundam and Deathnote. Heck, go ahead and even call it a harem, as there used to be no clearcut frontrunner between C.C., Kallen, and Shirley for Lelouch’s affections, assuming he doesn’t have the same kind of ending as Light. Overall, there haven’t been many series around that make me shiver with anticipation before and after every episode quite like geass does (I honestly couldnt fall asleep a couple months ago after watching a certain episode at around 2am just after the fansub had been released). And if Code Geass can end well in the next few episodes, it easily deserves its spot in the top 3 of my list after I enjoyed watching it so much.

2. School Rumble


I’ve based the #2 ranking going to School Rumble because its one of the few shows that I regularly rewatch/reread and find its just as entertaining the sixth time through as it was the first time. Its also great when you can just randomly pick an episode to watch, think ‘oh, its this episode, sweet’, then laugh and smile during the next twenty minutes. Aside from the trainwreck that was the last 2-3 chapters of the manga (and I know Kobayahi prolly just wrapped it up as fast as possible so he could switch to publication to something non-weekly with School Rumble Z) I’ve generally loved this series. Harima Kenji and some of the misunderstandings he gets into is just hilarious, and the series easily transitions between scenes of simple slapstick/comedy to more dramatic/meaningful scenes without losing the overall lightness that defines the series. I wish I understood Japanese better to fully comprehend some of the puns the series uses. A lot of criticisms with the first season was that there was no plot development, but I disagree – you can definitely see the relationships between Harima and Tenma/Yakumo/Eri and between Tenma and Karasuma change throughout the series, and SR is a completely different beast than other true ‘no overall plot’ comedies like Lucky Star or Minami-ke (or Azumanga, so I’ve heard). A lot of the issue is that SR doesn’t really hit full stride until some of the relations outside of the Harima-Tenma-Karasuma connection is established a couple of episodes into the series. The second season, admittedly, isn’t quite as good as the first, but its still has plenty of great moments – it only got a little stale for me towards the late middle/end (I forget) when they throw in one or two anime-only episodes. The second of the two episode third season OAV was just released the other day, and I can’t wait to watch it, but its a shame they didn’t give san-gakki the full 26 episode treatment – I’d suggest turning to the manga after season two. I could go on and on about the various, well defined side characters and all my favorite SR moments, but I’ll just finish up with saying that Yakumo is prolly my all-time favorite female character.

1. GTO
I mentioned before that Getbackers was illustrated by Rando Ayamine. That was huge because Ayamine started by working as an assistant under Tohru Fujisawa, the creator of GTO and my favorite mangaka. In addition to GTO, I’ve seen Tokko, read Rose Hip Rose and Bad Company, and am still working on Rose Hip Zero and Shonai Junai Gumi, the prequel to GTO that Fujisawa first wrote. Onizuka is awesome, period. While Sakuragi of Slam Dunk is a ‘goofy’ hilarious and SR’s Harima is a ‘baka/misunderstandings’ hilarious, Onizuka’s is more of a ‘lewd and outrageous’ hilarious. He passionately stands for his ideals, and as the Great Teacher, uses his own unorthodox methods of fixing his troubled class of students, which is the premise behind the series and is almost always motivational/inspiring. The series does have its ecchi moments, but its not the mind-numbing fan service you get in some harem-romance anime. Again, the anime version has its problems of ending in the middle of the manga, and I personally read the manga before the anime, but in rewatching it recently, you do get a lot of laughs from watching Onizuka in action, even if the animation looks pretty old (1999 old). I’m a really big fan of Fujisawa’s drawing style, and everyone out there should do themselves a favor by checking out the first volume of Rose Hip Zero at their local bookstore. Its a recent work that really exemplifies his style of character models and action cinematography in a more modern sense. And as a side note, I wanted to point out that Atsushi Okubo, the mangaka behind Soul Eater, a 2008 anime possibly worth checking out, used to be an assistant to Rando Ayamine, making him Fujisawa’s disciple’s disciple, but Okubo’s animation style is significantly different from Ayamine and Fujisawa.