Well, I’ve got a much larger and probably somewhat more interesting year-end list coming up soon, but I figured I’d kick things off with a list of all the anime I watched this past year, ordered from best to worst. Although I’d like to make little comments on each one, I’ll skip that and just list them out. Enjoy!
1. Usagi Drop
2. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
3. Toradora!
4. Macross Plus
5. Kimagure Orange Road: I Want to Return to That Day
6. Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica
7. Kiki’s Delivery Service
8. Mushishi
9. Say “I Love You”
10. Princess Mononoke
11. My Neighbor Totoro
12. Cowboy Bebop
13. My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU
14. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (2006)
15. Mushishi Zoku Shou
16. Kare Kano
17. Kimagure Orange Road + OVAs
18. Time of Eve
19. Macross Zero
20. Kokoro Connect + OVAs
21. The Super Dimension Fortress Macross
22. Kimagure Orange Road: Summer’s Beginning
23. Kill la Kill
24. Video Girl Ai
25. Chobits
26. Ah! My Goddess! (1993 OVAs)
27. Eden of the East
28. Eden of the East Movie I: The King of Eden
29. The Children Who Chase Lost Voices
30. Howl’s Moving Castle
31. The Vision of Escaflowne
32. Dual Parallel! Trouble Adventures
33. Macross Frontier
34. Eden of the East Movie II: Paradise Lost
35. Please Teacher
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Is Cowboy Bebop placed where it is because you found it disappointing, or because you especially loved everything else that placed above it? Definitely not saying that it has to automatically be in everyone’s top 5 or anything like that. I wish I could watch it again for the first time without any expectations and see what I really think of it.
I haven’t seen Toradora (or about half the stuff on your list) but I know this blogger has been writing about it a lot these days.
http://reallifeanime.wordpress.com/
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Simply, everything that comes before Cowboy Bebop on that list, I like better. Really, everything through 25 is stuff I legitimately enjoyed. A few on the entries in my Top 10 hit me in a really personal way (Usagi Drop, Toradora!, KOR: I Want To Return To That Day, Mushishi) for various reasons, others were just really badass and awesome (Nausicaa, Macross Plus, Princess Mononoke). Cowboy Bebop had a lot of hype built up around it, and it lived up to it for the most part, but…I don’t know, it’s not that it was lacking anything, it just didn’t wow me the way everything that came before it did. I feel like the expectations going in had a lot to do with that. I’m not sure what I was expecting. It was a cool show, but maybe having been exposed to it in AMVs and other avenues so much before watching it lessened its impact. Still, I’d rate it an 8/10, but it wouldn’t crack any sort of Top 10 of All Time for me or anything. I don’t think.
As for Toradora!, it’s…really great. I may just have a soft spot for it because watching it was what got me started on my non-stop anime watching spree this year, but I think it’s a really fantastic romance. I haven’t seen a better high school romance since I started seriously watching anime. The characters are more realistic than in other, similar series, and the way various relationships develop throughout the anime is fascinating. I really recommend it.
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