Gather ’round for a flock of faves!
Did you miss out on Part 1? Fear not! You can click here for the bottom half of the Top 10, including honorable mentions. Or, if you’re ready to check out the cream of the crop, hit the jump and read on for more.
top 10
The Josei’s Top 10 Anime of 2018: Part 1 (Honorable Mentions & #6-10)
Bringing a little color to the end of the year.
Is it just me, or was 2018 kind of a down year for anime? Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by the avalanche of quality we’ve gotten over the past 2-3 years, but while I’m usually agonizing over what I’ll have to drop from a list, this year I was agonizing over what I was going to put on it at all. I’d worry that my sense of whimsy was fading, but I’ve spent literal months rolling around in the Twitch Pokemon marathon, so that can’t be it…
Whatever the case, the weird year resulted in me having two Top 10 lists with relatively little overlap: one was of shows that I knew in my head were good but had left me cold, and one of shows that I knew weren’t as technically sharp but I sure did care about them. I wrote up the first list… and then threw it in a fire and published the second one instead. So, please enjoy the Top 10 Shows That Made Your Stressed-Out Blogger Feel Things.
The Josei’s Top 10 Anime of 2017: Part 2 (#1-5)
One last hug to the year’s favorites.
Did you miss out on Part 1? Fear not! You can click here for the bottom half of the Top 10, including honorable mentions. Or, if you’re ready to check out the cream of the crop, hit the jump and read on for more.
The Josei’s Top 10 Anime of 2017: Part 1 (Honorable Mentions & #6-10)
Time to write some love letters to the shiny gems sitting atop this garbage year!
Given that 2017 lasted about thirty normal years (I’m pretty sure I’m eligible for senior citizen discounts now), perhaps it’s no wonder that we were able to cram so many great anime into it. As with 2016, I’ve decided to throw even the veneer of objectivity out the window and just talk to you about some shows I really loved or think are worthy of highlighting.
This also means a metric ton of “Honorable Mentions” so I could give some love to the shows that just barely missed the cut. Top 10, Top 15… listen, time is clearly an illusion, so why can’t yearly rankings be?
The Josei’s Top 10 Anime of 2016: Part 2 (#1-5)
This year’s Top Five is so strong, it’s actually a Top Six.
Did you miss out on Part 1? Fear not! You can click here for the year in review and the bottom half of the Top 10, including honorable mentions. Or, if you’re ready to check out the cream of the crop, you can hit the jump and read on for more.
The Josei’s Top 10 Anime of 2016: Part 1 (Honorable Mentions & #7-10)
Think of them as delicious s’mores roasting on this fire of a year!
We can pretty much all agree that 2016 was, er, not the greatest. But there were a few bright spots, at least, and one of them was definitely the anime. Each season had its standout hits and surprise treasures, filled with compelling characters, stylish animation, striking cinematography, and stories that ran the gamut from clever silliness to sincere enthusiasm to gripping tension to wrenching drama. I watched about 30 shows to completion (yeah, that scares me, too) and would recommend almost all of them to someone, depending on what kind of genres they enjoyed.
Problem is, this makes it nigh impossible to pick just 10 series to highlight as The Best Of The Best. How can I bear to ignore this hidden gem or snub that enjoyable blockbuster? The answer, it turns out, is to just straight-up abandon any pretense of critical distance. Or any modicum of Serious Blogger Professionalism whatsoever, really. That’s why this list has a whole slew of Honorable Mentions before even getting to the Top 10, and why the Top 10 is really just “the 10 shows I liked the best.”
It’s also why there is no #6. Instead, my Top 5 will have 6 shows in it. My blog, my rules, suckas!
The Josei’s Top 10 Anime of 2015: Part 2 (#1-5)
One last hurrah for the best and brightest of 2015.
Did you miss out on Part 1? Fear not! You can click here for the year in review and the bottom half of the Top 10, including honorable mentions. Or, if you’re ready to check out the cream of the crop, you can hit the jump and read on for more.
The Josei’s Top 10 Anime of 2015: Part 1 (#6-10)
Ringing in the new year with a loving look back at the old.
Glancing Upstream
This was my kinda year, both in terms of the types of shows and the way they were executed. Lots of bleeding cool action, entertaining fantasy, charming shoujo, and some ambitious projects from both up-and-coming and seasoned directors/writers made the year not just a fun one, but at times downright stunning.
While there were still plenty of bad or just forgettable titles floating around this year, the industry as a whole seems a lot more financially comfortable than it used to be (thanks in part to international simulcasts), which has led to studios not only releasing more titles, but taking greater risks with some of them, too. Not to say that niche passion projects like Maria the Virgin Witch or animation-fests like One Punch Man would never have seen the light of day in past seasons, but with greater economic stability, big-name studios like Production I.G. and Madhouse (and my darling BONES, who would have positively dominated this list if I’d allowed split-cours) can produce these titles with a little less reticence than they might have in the past. And that’s always a good thing.
Beyond that, two things really stand out after putting this list together: First, that the year was front-loaded like nobody’s business, as half these titles aired during the winter; and two, that it featured a lot of smart, character-driven series, and some particularly well-written female protagonists, which is a huge bonus for me. All-in-all I had me a very good 2015, and am excited to talk about some of its standouts.
The Josei’s Top 10 Anime of 2014: Part 2 (#1-5)
Panning the anime stream to bring you the year’s shiniest gold nuggets.
Did you miss out on Part 1? Fear not! You can click here for the year in review and the bottom half of the Top 10, including honorable mention(s). Or, if you’re ready to check out the cream of the crop, you can hit that jump and read on for more.
The Rankings
As a reminder, all shows that ended in 2014 are eligible for this list, including sequels, even if they began their run in 2013 or earlier. Ongoing series (like Parasyte or Aldnoah.Zero) will be eligible in 2015.
So here we go, my picks for the best shows of the year! Drums rolled? Fingers crossed? Angry comments about the series I didn’t include typed and at the ready? Perfect. Let’s do this thing.
The Josei’s Top 10 Anime of 2014: Part 1 (#6-10)
Because no anime blog is complete without a proper Top 10 list.
Glancing Upstream
I’ve seen some people calling this a weak year for anime, but I’m not sure it’s that so much as it’s just a very top-heavy year—the upper tier was a massive cut above the pack, making the rest of the shows seem a little lackluster in comparison. It also featured some disappointing adaptations and originals, and any time you get excited for a series and it doesn’t live up to those expectations, it can make the whole year feel weaker. Fortunately, off-the-radar “sleeper” series had a very good year, particularly when it came to comedies and sports shows, and a few strong sequels and long-running series helped give 2014 a much-needed boost in terms of quality.
The Josei Next Door 