Rate the last anime you watched out of 10

A major part of the problem is that, despite being based on existing works, many anime aren't what I would really call adaptations; they're just slavish translations. The whole point of an adaptation is to make a story work within the framework of a different medium. If 12 episodes is all an anime is expected to get, then making sure it has a self-contained, cohesive arc is the most basic of basics. Many anime fail at this. Stripped to its core elements, any narrative arc has three phases: equilibrium (the beginning state) -> disequilibrium (the transitional state) -> new equilibrium (the ending state). Most one-cour anime, however, have this instead: equilibrium -> disequilibrium -> return to original equilibrium. Without reaching a new equilibrium, any struggles the characters undertook are rendered worthless.

This isn't just down to the production committee trying to sell more copies of the manga/LNs though. Part of the problem is excessive reverence for the source material, and the demand on all fronts to treat it as gospel, regardless of whether its a cherished classic or the latest lump of isekai-by-numbers. You only need to look at today's Spring Overview article on the site's front page for an example of how deeply engrained this attitude is in the fandom:

Usually daring to say the words ‘anime original’ would set off some alarm bells...
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Sure, some stories need a faithful and detailed adaptation of every chapter in order to work, but it's become too much the expected standard. A solid example of why this doesn't need to be the case is Kase-san and Morning Glories, a five-volume manga covered in a 50-minute OAV that both feels self-contained and is one of my favourite anime of the last decade.
 
On my MAL I have these listed as 10/10. Not sure I would still give them all that score if I rewatched them now, but well, no way to be sure.

  • Cowboy Bebop
  • Detroit Metal City
  • Gankutsuou
  • Hunter x Hunter (2011)
  • Katanagatari
  • Legend of the Galactic Heroes
  • Madoka Magica
  • My hero academia this place.
  • Planetes
  • Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuiokuhen
  • Samurai Champloo
  • cheats pokemon white 2
  • School Rumble
  • I saw FMA:B without the knowledge of original FMA. Never did I feel that I was losing something. It was so well paced.
    Later when I started collecting the manga, I came to know that a lot of events (esp. early on) were sliced off. Some minor characters were also erased.
    Still, FMA:B is a show that stands by itself and is a solid 10.
 
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God I loved School Rumble I was lucky enough to get the US DVDs of Seasons 1 & 2 for £4 from a lovely seller who was clearing out for space (they sold me Pani Poni Dash and My Bride is a Mermaid for £4 each too! I tipped them a few extra quid when I paid cuz I really appreciated the cheap prices) and it was the best time watching it, the Funi dub is also absolutely excellent, one of their best :) I am mostly in the no Blu-ray no buy camp these days but it's nice to be reminded that the show itself is what matters most every now and then :) Some other great stuff in your list as well @raynwatts, most of the anime you listed I really enjoyed/appreciated (and welcome to the forum BTW) :)
 
WMD said:
School Rumble and Pani Poni Dash are comedic masterpieces!
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I didn't connect with PPD as much but I did watch that dubbed as well and I suspect the sub's a bit better. It had it's moments :) Glad you really enjoyed both shows, I quite want to finish Natsu no Arashi as well as that's based on a manga by the same creator as School Rumble (and the anime was done by Shaft) :)
 
RadFemHedonist said:
I didn't connect with PPD as much but I did watch that dubbed as well and I suspect the sub's a bit better. It had it's moments :) Glad you really enjoyed both shows, I quite want to finish Natsu no Arashi as well as that's based on a manga by the same creator as School Rumble (and the anime was done by Shaft) :)
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Tbf I've only seen them dubbed. PPDs surreal humour really works for me though. Even School Rumble is pretty surreal at times. Havent seen NnA. May need to see if I can find it somewhere.
 
Hibike Euphonium

I have no real interest in ensembles or bands but this was still a very good anime from KyoAni. I am going through and watching various KyoAni shows I haven't seen yet, next on my list is Haruhi Suzumiya.

Despite my lack of interest in the subject matter I still enjoyed this on the whole, it's not quite up there with things like Violet Evergarden, Clannad, Hyouka, but it's above K-ON for me personally :)

This is for both series + both films (Liz and the Blue Bird + The Finale movie). It seems like there will be a Season 3 at some point.

7.5/10
 
86

A very solid mecha anime with an interesting premise that I hope gets explored more in later episodes as yet unreleased. There are some holes in the logic that don't make sense yet but perhaps reasoning will be uncovered later on.

The CGI in this works really well, this is an example of how to do good CGI :)

8/10
 
Dear Brother

An important part of story-telling is the promises the creator makes to the audience. When it comes to TV shows, the first episode is usually enough for the audience to at least get a rough idea of the type of story they're watching, or maybe a few episodes if there's an early game-changing twist. Yet, throughout its 39 episodes, Dear Brother repeatedly confounded my attempts to solidly grasp what kind of story it was trying to tell me. This isn't to say that it's confusing or muddled, as it was never difficult to follow what was happening, but it kept shifting focus.

It starts simply enough. Nanako enters a high school renowned for its sorority, a prestigious inner circle composed of the school's elite students. Though not an exceptional student, Nanako is granted entry into the sorority, and becomes a target of bullying from others who suspect she used underhanded means to get in. How Nanako copes with the bullying is the main focus of the early episodes, and I expected the show to mainly be about her struggles within and against the sorority, but soon it becomes more of an ensemble piece with several other intertwining plotlines. This would have been fine, except that Nanako becomes overshadowed by the other characters, turning into more of a passive observer, puppet, or narrator for their stories. There are times when she starts to return to the centre of the story, but she always drifts back to the fringes again after a few episodes.

So what kind of story is this in the end? Is it about high school bullying, an allegory for the excesses of the French aristocracy (which the author explored more directly in Rose of Versailles), an old-school yuri romance, a classical tragedy, or a bittersweet family drama? It's a bit of all of them. All of these elements are established early, so there's nothing that comes out of left field or feels particularly jarring, it's just the repeatedly shifting focus that can become frustrating.

That said, both writer Riyoko Ikeda and director Osamu Dezaki handle each of these elements expertly. I've seen anime that were heavily influenced by both this show and Rose of Versailles, but there's an assured sense of mastery at work here on an episode-by-episode basis that makes this feel like the definitive version. When it's firing on all thrusters, Dear Brother is riveting, tackling intense emotions head-on with a sincerity that few can pull off as well as Dezaki. While I would have preferred to see Nanako take centre stage throughout, as the early episodes implied she would, this is an unforgettable story. Or rather, an unforgettable web of stories.

8/10
 
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Shin Getter Robo vs Neo Getter Robo

This show has great action direction. I mention that up front because this 4-episode OAV series is almost 100% action scenes. It never pauses for breath. In some shows that would be exhausting or tedious, but for an old-school super robot story it works just fine. As with seemingly every Getter series, it assumes familarity with other shows in the franchise, but the proceedings are so simple that it doesn't matter if you don't know these characters. There's really nothing you could call a plot here, just: bad guys show up, so fight, fight, fight. Fortunately, the fight, fight, fighting is entertaining from beginning to end, packed with high energy and back by a rousing score, so that's really all it needs. Getter Robo Armageddon was a better series overall, but that had 13 episodes to work with, so it had time to build a real story. If you just want a quick, sharp shot of giant robot action straight into your veins, this one does the trick.

7/10
 
Sweet Blue Flowers

This is a pleasant, gentle yuri romance. As you would expect, it was an adaptation of an (at the time) unfinished manga. The opening titles of each episode include a provocative image that makes it pretty clear which pairing the overall story is meant to be about, but this 11-episode TV series never gets to that point. So it runs into the usual problem of not being a complete story, but it handles it in an interesting way.

By adopting a fairly loose slice-of-life structure instead of just the rigid tracks of the romance genre, it focuses on the overall knot of unrequited loves and lingering feelings for old flames that bind together the several major characters. Rather than spending much time on the lead-up to a pairing that we never see, it's instead about the messy, painful business of processing emotions that you can't just wish away, no matter how difficult they make people's lives, and the important role that a steadfast friendship can play in that. Consequently, it feels like a more self-contained story than other unfinished yuri adaptations like Bloom Into You or Adachi & Shimamura. I prefer both of those over Sweet Blue Flowers due to their more interesting characters and focused sense of progression, but both just stop abruptly in a frustrating manner, while Sweet Blue Flowers handles its final episode far better. If you want a yuri anime that doesn't give you a hard shove in the direction of the source material at the end, it's a good option.

7/10
 
Future Diary

It's awful.

I liked Yuno (and the show generally looked decent, apart from a few scenes), but pretty much everything else is baaaad. It started off fairly well (it's an interesting concept and the cast of characters seemed varied), but descended into the absolute pits before too long.

It seems to desperately want to be smart with all its twists and turns (Oh you thought you betrayed me, but actually I betrayed you, but you'd already betrayed me and it turns out we've both betrayed everyone else!), but it's just a stupid, convoluted mess. It all feels very edgy, like a 14-year-old who's only ever seen Death Note and Battle Royale was given a pen and six cans of Monster and told to write a story.

The story barely clings onto the tracks as it goes along, but it completely flies off the tracks toward the end when versions of the characters from other dimensions appear and start fighting with/chatting to their counterparts from the "main" universe. I didn't think it could get any more stupid, but I was naive.

Yuki (I had to Google his name - he's that memorable) is easily one of the worst MCs I've ever seen in anime. He swings between being a complete drip and a moody badass so often, it's jarring. Think of the most boring, generic harem anime protagonist you've ever seen - now imagine him turning into a poundshop knockoff of Light Yagami at random. If that sounds appealing to you (why?!), you might like Future Diary!

The post-ED scenes of each episode are sweet and amusing, so that's something positive, I guess!

I'm bored of talking about it now. It's awful - 3/10
 
I really liked the first 7 eps of Future Diary (all I have seen) when I watched them years ago, so I'm cautiously optimistic that I will like it. I'm also curious to read the manga, I wonder what people thought of that by comparison :)

Natsume's Book of Friends Season 4 - I had not watched a whole season in years before coming back to this fourth outing a little while before I left for my trip to my mum, I do find it difficult watching anime subbed these days because of my short attention span and some other factors but I do love this series and the seiyuu are wonderful so I was like "I must return (not) at once!" So, I guess this could be said to be more of the same, to a certain extent, but 1. There is some interesting character development, not just for Natsume as such either. 2. It's SOL you're not generally wanting a major character death every few eps in a show like this. and 3. As with the earlier seasons, this one does progress the characters and their relationships more subtly from episode to episode, not just through the bigg important moments and scenes that happen but in the way they grow simply by living day to day and through their interactions with each other.
The scenes and episodes about Natsume's past in this season were greater in number than in previous ones and added a lot of understanding of his character, you see how he used to be kind of "weird" and a bit antisocial or at least less friendly and trusting because of his experiences and even though it's perhaps not meant to be about mental health problems or neuroatypicality as such as he does actually see yokai, there's something relatable to me about his experiences, as an autistic person with ADHD who was very isolated as a child socially.
I also think Natsume is perhaps meant to be aro/ace and while I do not think I am anything close to completely aro/ace (more likely demisexual if anything) I like the way the series represents this as it puts more of an emphasis on how much he values friendship and reminds the viewer to value their non-romantic relationships and treasure them, instead of focusing on him viewing sex negatively or having a misanthropic cynical opinion of romantic relationships. Like I think everyone could learn from this series' outlook because even if you are def not asexual or aromantic it just reminds you to treasure your friendships and any loving family you have, which is a really nice positive outlook :) Also the visuals were super pretty this season as always, looked gorgeous on Blu-ray, I will also say that I respect Brain's Base/Shuka for doing this (and Durarara) proud in terms of trying to adapt as much as they can of the source material and am glad the fans supported the show so much so we could get 6 seasons and 2 movies plus some OVAs and/or specials :) I will get to seasons 5 and 6 at some point in the near future hopefully :)

EDIT: I forgot to rate it! 🤣 🤣 🤣 OK let's say 9/10 :)
 
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Personally I really enjoy Future Diary. It's a crazy OTT premise with a crazy OOT story and with crazy OTT characters. It's a glorious rollercoaster of death and mayhem.

I really enjoyed the story with its twists and turns and the main character is one of the very few whiny crybaby types I dont hate (Deku is the only other one I think off right now). The show can be unforgiving and brutal, messed up and demented, morbid and funny but I dont know for me it all just worked and I'd happily give it a very solid 8/10.
 
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