Analysis

My Top Ten Anime List, a Decade in the Making

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Over a Christmas break in 2013, I binged Attack on Titan and became an anime fan. This often surprises the friends that I’ve made since then because, what with how I talk about this industry and my favorite shows therein, one would think I’ve been this way since I was a kid. My high school pals have been watching Dragonball and Naruto since they were kids, but they would likely call me out as the biggest weeb in the group.

A few years ago, I decided that when 2024 struck, I’d have a list of the top ten anime I have watched in those ten years. And then, New Year’s came and went and I realized I’d completely forgotten to write this. Thankfully, I already had the skeleton of a list ready to go and only had to make a few adjustments. I know I haven’t kept up with this blog as much as I would have liked, but I wasn’t about to miss this occasion.

So without further ado, whether you’re a friend or mutual anime blogger with whom I have been blessed to share this platform, here are the best anime I have ever seen.

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“Bang!” | The Guns of Cowboy Bebop

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Cowboy Bebop‘s cultural influences trace heavily to classic action cinema, be it Hollywood or Hong Kong, western or noir. And though most will remember Bebop for its martial arts and the Bruce Lee stylings that define the leading man, the gunplay in Bebop scratches quite the itch.

It’s not like there haven’t been tons of good gunfights in anime, even in recent years, but they often lose out to melee combat, be it realistic or stylized. There’s something about the gunplay in anime of the 90s and the early 2000s that feels distinct.

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Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop is Fine

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The original title for this review was going to be “The Right Soul For The Wrong Source.” My thinking was that Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop, a 10-episode live-action series from Tomorrow Studios, had an enticing presentation and soul, but ill-fitting for the material it was adapting.

After all, Cowboy Bebop is a certified classic. I can’t really call it a cult classic because if you know anime, you know Bebop. It carries a cultural footprint and critical acclaim in the anime sphere akin to the likes of Breaking Bad or The Soprano’s.

In 24 episodes, Shinichiro Watanabe created an eclectic character study of some of the most lovable, deep, and iconic bounty hunters in fiction. They might suck at their job, but they’re good when it counts. How could anyone adapt this show and NOT come under fire?

And really, why adapt a series like Bebop when it itself is inspired by the cinema of the western and noir genres, with a healthy balance of martial arts for good measure. It’s the same reason that people are boggled by a game like Uncharted getting a movie adaptation. Why make a movie out of a game that’s literally Indiana Jones.

Regardless, I watched the live-action Bebop, even after early reviews damned it early on. I got spoiled on the Ed reveal that EVERYONE knew was coming (more on that later), and my Twitter feed was angry people pulling out the Voldemort tech and not even saying the show’s name.

But something fascinating happened after watching three episodes the day it was released.

I enjoyed it. I was having fun. But why though?

3, 2, 1, LET’S JAM

Saying Nice Things About My Least Favorite Shows

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Irina from I Drink and Watch Anime had a great idea.

Go to your MAL or AniList or Excel, or brain, whatever you use to keep track of your anime. Pick the 5 shows you personally rated the lowest (but still remember) and say something nice about them.

When Anime Fans Hate Anime

And then, Crow from Crow’s World of Anime jumped on the bandwagon and I figured, “why not? This looks fun.”

I mean, sometimes I feel like I’m too positive about shows and don’t write enough negative reviews. What kind of garbage is that?! I shouldn’t look to hate things! And god willing, I do my very best to be optimistic about whatever I’m looking to watch for a review or analysis.

So I’m more than happy to try – however difficult it may be – to find the good in some of my lowest-rated things on MyAnimeList. For many that shared the same score, I had to try to determine which of the 3’s were bad enough to earn their spot on the list. Otherwise, I had to determine if a few of them truly qualified. Like, if it was some low-budget 10-minute ONA on YouTube that I thought was trash, should that be on there over a show or film I spent more time with?

After hopefully not too much overthinking, these are the five worst shows I’ve seen and the best things about them.

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[Context Needed]: 4 Controversial Anime From the Last 4 Years

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The anime community is wide, varied, and growing all the time. Every couple of years a significant tentpole anime comes out that brings in a whole new crop of fans to the medium, whether simply to visit or make a more permanent stay within its bizarre and inviting lodgings.

And yet for as diverse as anime’s following may be as, you know, a medium, people are quick to resort to mob mentality and pretend as if the community can be divided evenly into two halves, or worse, that the “other” is so minuscule as to not even really be worth mentioning.

But if that were all that was needed to be said, I wouldn’t just be oversimplifying anime discourse. In all likelihood, I’d be oversimplifying humanity. No, anime is no stranger to controversy. Just as frequently as a new tentpole anime comes out to bring in new people, some shows kick all kinds of hornet nests.

[TRIGGER WARNING: The following post contains analysis of sexual assaults and other topics related to sexual violence depicted or hinted at in the shows that will be discussed.]

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Watching Anime As A Feminist

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It’s Women’s History Month and since yesterday at the time of posting was International Women’s Day, I figured I’d write a little something for the occasion that’s been on my mind for a while.

I get the impression that there is an idea shared among some anime watchers. That feminism – and particularly being a feminist – clashes with being an anime fan. But why? Is it the boobs? It’s the boobs, isn’t it? I mean, it would make sense. After all, sexualization is one of the elements of anime that – for better or worse – comes to mind first when describing it as a medium. We all seem to get it.

So naturally, some people don’t like anime for those reasons. And just as naturally, there are defenders of anime who will draw a fine line between those pesky feminists and all the “real” anime watchers out there. The two groups seem contradictory to one another. How on earth can a feminist be a true anime fan?! Well, joking aside, I am here to reveal to you the truth of watching anime as a feminist.

And the truth is, it ain’t that different from watching anime normally…

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My 5 Favorite Anime Endings

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It’s the end of 2020… nearly. For December, I’m taking another hiatus to do some fiction writing. While I wouldn’t call it a grand finale, given how rough the year has been for many, it’s still worth celebrating that it is still ending. To celebrate, why not shout out the stories that know how to conclude the best.

Glass Reflections on YouTube often has said that “the ending is paramount” and despite my disagreements with him, I can’t disagree with him on that one. The ending of a story can make or break it. The conclusion of SAO: Ordinal Scale made the plodding narrative leading up to it all worth it. On the flip side, the last five minutes of Black Butler II ruined an otherwise exciting season in retrospect.

So here are a few of my favorite endings that left on a high note, redeeming lesser qualities or acting as the culmination of greater ones. They made me cry, they made me giggle uncontrollably, or they left me without the will to speak.

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Pondering Attack on Titan’s Final Season

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At the end of the much-acclaimed third season’s final credits, a fourth and surprisingly final season of Attack on Titan was announced to be greenlit.

We went from waiting years for a second season to getting subsequent sequels at a reasonable pace to the point that now I’m a little shocked that the end of both the manga and anime are syncing up accordingly. However, long-time fans became concerned as soon as it was suggested that Studio WIT would NOT be animating it.

In the wake of the world burning down, we were blessed with quite a climactic trailer for the final season. And the editors wasted no time telling us who would be helming it.

Studio MAPPA.

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Bungo Stray Dogs: A Novel Portrait of Good & Evil

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How does one sanction evil?

The end goal of any traditional story of good versus evil is to battle to a point at which good has triumphed and evil has been defeated. The setting returns to or discovers a comparably peaceful status. From there, it can be assumed that peace will persist for as long as it can after the curtain has closed.

But what happens when a story paints that perpetual conflict between good and evil not as a disturbance or ongoing plague, but as the goal? Furthermore, what if a story progressively affirms it to be preferable to another, worse turn of events. While it may not be clear at first, Bungo Stray Dogs is the very thesis of this notion.

On the surface, this show is about the conflict between the simply named Armed Detective Agency and the Port Mafia, set in modern-day Yokohama, Japan. Every main character is named after and based on a popular author or poet, each possessing supernatural abilities based on their works.

Beyond the first season, the story evolves slowly into something far grander in such a way you might not notice it. It’s the kind of stylish show that could be unfairly criticized as lacking, narratively. My purpose in writing this is to parse the purpose of a story that I consider to be the very essence of character-driven storytelling.

[Spoilers for Bungo Stray Dogs Seasons 1-3 Ahead]

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