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Notes -
Anime recommendation thread:
(My interest in Gurren Lagann improved significantly when one of the most annoying characters in the show died.)
My own subjective rankings:
Made in Abyss- 10/10
If you plotted "child suffering" on the x-axis and "visual beauty" on the y-axis, Made in Abyss would occupy the upper-right quadrant where angels fear to tread. The show operates on the principle that the human brain can only process so much cognitive dissonance before it either shuts down or ascends to a higher plane of aesthetic appreciation. Each frame looks like it was painted by a Renaissance master who'd just discovered mescaline and child endangerment laws.
One could argue the series functions as a case study in the Dunning-Kruger effect as applied to spelunking; the characters' confidence in their ability to survive the Abyss is inversely proportional to their understanding of its true nature. The soundtrack, by Kevin Penkin, is not merely an accompaniment but an essential component of the world-building. I have it saved to Spotify and I listen to it regularly.
Madoka Magika: 10/10.
I seem to have a thing for the psychological torment of small children, in this case a bunch of magical girls who make regrettable decisions by signing up for that lifestyle. You will never hate a cute little kitty cat more in your life.
Shaft's decision to animate this as if it were directed by someone having a particularly artistic psychotic break was the correct one. The show functions as a deconstruction of the magical girl genre in the same way that a wood chipper functions as a deconstruction of trees.
The central tragedy unfolds from a series of Faustian bargains made by adolescent girls under conditions of extreme emotional distress and information asymmetry. The catalyst for these regrettable decisions, a feline-like creature named Kyubey, is a chillingly perfect depiction of a paperclip-maximizing artificial intelligence or a utility monster; it is a perfectly rational agent whose value system is simply orthogonal to human flourishing.
Do not expect to leave the show feeling happy. But you will leave satisfied.
One Punch Man: 10/10
I must provide a strong qualification here: this rating applies exclusively to the first season. The series subsequently suffers a catastrophic decline in quality, falling off a narrative cliff from which it has yet to recover. But that initial season is a sublime achievement in parody. It succeeds not by merely mocking shonen tropes, but by exploring the philosophical endpoint of shonen power progression: the existential ennui of absolute, unchallengeable strength. The protagonist, Saitama, has solved the problem of physical conflict so completely that he is left with a terminal case of goal-contentment dysphoria. Once away you have punched away all the problems susceptible to punches, what are you going to do about those that are left?
The humor is derived from the constant category error of applying godlike power to mundane problems. The superlative animation and soundtrack are merely the icing on a conceptually brilliant cake. You must truly understand and love a genre to mock it so beautifully.
Attack on Titan- 9.5/10.
AoT succeeds primarily because it takes its premise seriously and follows the logical implications wherever they lead. The mystery-box structure works because the mysteries have actual answers that recontextualize everything you've seen before. This is mystery writing done right - not arbitrary confusion, but genuine information management. The show's treatment of warfare deserves particular praise. Unlike most anime where combat is individualistic spectacle, AoT understands that military effectiveness comes from coordination, logistics, and tactical innovation. The development of anti-titan combat techniques feels like watching a tech tree progression in real time.
Overall, a remarkably well-executed epic that largely succeeds despite occasional pacing issues and certain grating secondary characters. Its primary virtue lies in its consistent portrayal of characters as agentic, rational actors within the horrifying constraints of their environment. The world of AoT is a high-stakes, low-information war game, and the characters, for the most part, behave accordingly, making sensible, calculated decisions under immense pressure. The periods of narrative slowness are forgivable as they represent the necessary lulls for strategic planning and information gathering that make the subsequent kinetic, high-casualty engagements so impactful.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: 8/10.
A wet dream for the aspiring pseudo-intellectual. NGE is an exercise in what can only be described as symbolism-as-a-service; it drapes a veneer of Gnostic and Kabbalistic mysticism over a standard Kaiju narrative to feign a profundity it never earns.
The plot’s coherence degrades exponentially with applied thought. The protagonist, Shinji Ikari, is a case study in clinical depression and crippling anxiety (and also a little bitch), and I'm left with the distinct impression that the entire plot could have been averted if NERV had employed a single competent staff psychiatrist with a prescription pad for SSRIs. And yet, for all its narrative failings, the show is compulsively watchable. The action sequences are iconic, a few characters possess genuine depth, and the entire production is a triumph of aesthetic and mood. My inability to "understand" it is, I now suspect, a diagnostic indicator that there is, in fact, nothing of substance to be understood.
The Melancholy of Haruhi
Suzuki MotorsportsSuzumiya: 8/10An elegant thought experiment executed with surprising sincerity. The premise: a being functionally equivalent to God has reincarnated as a Japanese high school girl, and the universe's continued existence is contingent upon her not experiencing boredom. We have all seen Pascal's Wager; meet Pascal's Entertainer. The protagonist, Kyon, is effectively the world’s sole, overworked AI safety researcher, tasked with aligning a god-like entity's utility function away from the existential risk of ennui. The show is played remarkably straight and is better for it. I think I watched around 8 episodes, so there's plenty left. It remains in my queue, pending sufficient activation energy to complete.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood : Closer to 8 than it is to 7
A show that frustrated me. Too tropey, too many characters being retarded. I find it hard to articulate my dissatisfaction in a satisfactory way.
FMAB represents everything that's simultaneously right and wrong with shounen storytelling. The worldbuilding is genuinely excellent: alchemy as magic system with consistent rules and costs, political intrigue that feels like actual statecraft, character motivations that make sense within their contexts.
But the show consistently undermines itself with genre conventions that feel obligatory rather than organic. The power of friendship speeches, the reluctance to actually kill major characters, the way complex moral situations get resolved through superior firepower, it all feels like the show is checking boxes rather than exploring the implications of its own premise.
The homunculi work brilliantly as antagonists because they represent genuine philosophical positions (pride, wrath, envy as ways of engaging with the world), but the final confrontations devolve into standard boss fights rather than ideological reckonings.
Chainsaw Man: 7.5/10
Chainsaw Man operates in the uncanny valley between genuine artistic ambition and adolescent power fantasy fulfillment. It's a show that simultaneously wants to be a profound meditation on trauma, exploitation, and the commodification of human suffering, while also being a series where the protagonist's primary motivation is touching boobs (me too buddy, me too...). This tonal schizophrenia should be fatal, yet somehow the series maintains enough coherence to be genuinely engaging.
The genius of Fujimoto's conception lies in recognizing that most shonen protagonists are essentially feral children who've been weaponized by adult institutions, then having the audacity to actually say this out loud. Denji isn't noble or pure-hearted; he's a walking collection of base desires who's been systematically deprived of every basic human need except survival. The Public Safety Devil Hunters don't disguise their exploitation behind rhetoric about heroism or duty; they openly treat their operatives as expendable resources in a cost-benefit analysis against apocalyptic threats.
The action sequences deserve particular praise for their kinetic brutality. Unlike the choreographed dance of most anime combat, fights in Chainsaw Man feel genuinely dangerous and unpredictable. Characters don't trade blows in neat exchanges; they attempt to murder each other with the frantic desperation of cornered animals. The animation captures this beautifully, particularly in moments where Denji's chainsaw form moves with the mechanical violence of actual industrial equipment rather than the fluid grace of typical anime transformations.
What elevates the series beyond competent ultraviolence is its commitment to the psychological consequences of its premise. Characters don't bounce back from trauma with shonen resilience; they carry their damage forward, making increasingly destructive decisions as survival mechanisms. The devil contracts function as externalized representations of psychological damage, with characters literally trading pieces of themselves for the power to keep functioning in an hostile environment.
The series' treatment of sexuality deserves analysis beyond the surface-level horniness. Denji's obsession with physical intimacy isn't played purely for comedy; it's the desperate reaching of someone who's never experienced basic human affection toward the only form of connection he can conceptualize. The fact that this is consistently used to manipulate him creates an uncomfortable but effective commentary on how vulnerability becomes a vector for exploitation. (I wish Makima-san would groom me . I'm weak for mommy GFs, even if they probably intend to ritually sacrifice me later)
Where the series falters is in its occasional retreat into conventional anime bullshit. Certain episodes devolve into standard monster-of-the-week format, losing the psychological intensity that makes the series compelling. Some supporting characters exist primarily as trope fulfillment rather than genuine personalities, though the core cast maintains enough complexity to carry the narrative weight.
The ending of season one represents the series operating at peak efficiency. Without spoiling specifics, it manages to deliver genuine emotional catharsis while completely recontextualizing everything that came before. It's the rare anime climax that feels like both a natural culmination of established themes and a complete surprise, demonstrating that the series' apparent chaos was actually precisely controlled narrative architecture.
Best enjoyed with the frontal lobe mildly disinhibited or disengaged, but not because the series lacks intelligence, rather, because its intelligence is often buried under layers of deliberate crudeness that require a certain receptivity to appreciate. It's junk food that occasionally achieves the status of art, which is more than most anime can claim.
Steins Gate: 7.5/10
The most frustrating anime I've ever watched. So close to greatness. A lot of nothing ever happens, and a waste of what might have been excellent worldbuilding potential. If I ever hear another "tuturuu," I'll stab a bitch. I warn you, the show will ramp up tension over and over again, and rarely justify it.
Steins;Gate has one of the best premises in sci-fi - time travel that follows consistent rules and has meaningful consequences (but completely wastes it on pacing that would make a DMV clerk impatient). It also betrays its own commitment to internal consistency, the plot eventually hinges entirely on whatever mechanism running the timeline being actually malevolent.
The first half consists almost entirely of setup that could have been accomplished in three episodes, followed by a rushed resolution that doesn't adequately explore the implications of its own concepts.
Mob Psycho 100: 7.5/10
In a nutshell: One Punch Man, but worse. Still manages to be above average, but maybe I'm grading on a curve here.
Mob Psycho 100 represents ONE's attempt to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle success of One Punch Man, but with the satirical edge sanded down into something resembling a generic coming-of-age narrative with psychic powers stapled on top. Where Saitama's overwhelming strength generated genuine philosophical comedy through existential ennui, Mob's god-tier psychic abilities are merely a vehicle for tediously earnest lessons about "being yourself" and "friendship is magic" - the kind of treacly moral messaging that wouldn't be out of place in a Saturday morning cartoon.
The series markets itself as a psychological character study, but scratch the surface and you'll find the same tired anime formula: awkward protagonist learns self-confidence through the power of believing in himself and having friends who believe in him. Mob's "journey" isn't particularly sophisticated - it's bog-standard therapy speak wrapped in supernatural window dressing. The show treats basic social skills development as if it were profound character growth, when really it's just watching a 14-year-old learn to make eye contact.
Studio Bones' animation style oscillates between genuinely creative psychic sequences and the kind of deliberately ugly character designs that mistake "stylistic choice" for "artistic vision." Yes, the psychic battles look impressive, but they're essentially expensive distractions from a story that lacks the conceptual sophistication to justify its runtime. The visual flourishes feel like compensation for narrative thinness rather than organic extensions of the storytelling.
Reigen, the series' most acclaimed character, is fundamentally a conman who's stumbled into an accidentally functional mentorship role. The show wants us to find this charming, but it's essentially watching an adult manipulate a psychologically vulnerable child for personal profit while occasionally dispensing fortune-cookie wisdom. That this relationship is treated as heartwarming rather than concerning says more about anime's comfort with questionable power dynamics than it does about compelling character writing. The fact that Reigen's exploitation "works out" only redeems him to a certain extent.
The series suffers from the same structural problems that plague most slice-of-life anime masquerading as action shows: it doesn't know what it wants to be. Episodes oscillate between mundane school comedy, supernatural battle sequences, and heavy-handed moral lessons without achieving coherence in any category. The cult storylines, praised by some as sophisticated social commentary, are actually fairly surface-level examinations of charismatic manipulation that any undergraduate psychology student could deconstruct. They're not profound; they're obvious.
Most damning is the series' fundamental dishonesty about its own premise. Despite positioning itself as a meditation on the dangers of unchecked power, Mob never faces genuine consequences for his abilities. The show consistently pulls its punches, ensuring that his psychic outbursts never result in permanent damage or loss of life. This safety net renders the entire "dangerous power" concept toothless - it's hard to take the moral complexity seriously when the universe conspires to prevent any actual moral complexity from occurring.
What we're left with is competently executed mediocrity that benefits from lowered expectations. It's One Punch Man without the wit, insight, or satirical precision that made the original compelling. The 7.5 rating is more a reflection of anime's generally dismal quality standards than any particular merit of Mob Psycho 100 itself. It's the kind of show that feels profound when you're 16 and vaguely embarrassing when you're old enough to recognize therapy-speak platitudes dressed up as wisdom.
Elfen Lied: 5/10
Elfen Lied represents everything wrong with edgy anime from the early 2000s. It mistakes graphic content for meaningful content and confuses shock value with emotional depth. The premise (evolutionary superior beings emerging to replace humanity) has potential, but the execution prioritizes gore and fan service over coherent storytelling (and I like gore and am a fan of being serviced). I gave up on it 3 episodes in, and would need a very large bribe to give it another go.
Demon Slayer: 5/10
A case study in how far superlative production values can carry a work with an empty core. The animation, courtesy of Ufotable, is undeniably god-tier. However, this aesthetic brilliance is a crutch for a story populated by a protagonist whose head contains little more than noble intentions and air. It is high-production narrative slurry. Slop, but served in a pretty box. I gave up on it a few episodes in, and see no reason to continue.
GATE: 6/10
Not enough curb-stomping of Virgin Magic Wielders by Chad Modern Military Hardware, in a series where that's the core conceit. Massive JSDF fan-wank by a Japanese revanchist.
GATE had one job: show modern military technology absolutely demolishing fantasy armies, and somehow managed to get distracted by harem antics and political messaging. The few scenes that actually deliver on the premise are genuinely satisfying, but they're buried under layers of irrelevant subplot and nationalist wanking.
Tokyo Ghoul: 3/10
I was incredibly high when I binged this series, and I still found nothing that could redeem it. I barely remember anything about the plot except it involved, as the name suggests, man-eating ghouls in Tokyo, and the fact that it gargled donkey balls. I'd say it only warrants mention due to how forgettable it was.
Miscellaneous:
Vinland Saga: Maybe an 8.5/10?
Didn't get very far before I got distracted, but I enjoyed what I saw. On the back burner for now.
What I saw of Vinland Saga suggested a show that takes historical setting seriously while using it to explore themes about violence, revenge, and the possibility of redemption. The animation quality was solid, and the characters seemed to have genuine psychological depth rather than anime archetype substitutions. Also, Vikings are just hella cool.
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Never got past the first episode, something about the faux-British setting set me off. I mean to, at some point, if only so I can appreciate the memes better.
There's probably more I've seen, but I usually didn't finish them, and didn't have very strong feelings when I did. Will add in later.
Vinland Saga: Suggest finishing, partly because the anime does something I've rarely ever seen: after the first season is a (fun) orgy of violence and revenge and action, the second season is the opposite: character development, slow plot, and a message about how violence is bad.
My own suggestions/mini review list, loosely sorted in order of appeal to non-anime types, or people who have only watched one or two. Of course, it's always subjective. I don't quite agree that "anime is just a medium" because its highly-controlled production pipeline and limited set of studios creates some definite commonalities, but it's true there's a wide variety of genres.
Violet Evergarden, 9/10
THIS is really an excellent first or early anime. A woman used essentially as a special-ops child soldier is now a little older, and while the war continues, she decides to take up an unusual vocation: a typist in an era where few people know how to write (I guess), she also assists in helping people organize their thoughts to write letters. Often, these letters are emotionally charged, or offer some major catharsis; thus the show's episodes are organized roughly with a major letter per episode. Parallel to this, we should mention that the main character, the eponymous Violet Evergarden, has lost both of her arms, replaced with mechanical ones, which mirrors her emotional state, still dull and robotic from her war experiences. So we slowly get to see her open up over the course of the series. Sad and emotional at times, hopeful in others, this one is highly memorable and at times honestly you often forget it's an anime at all. Finished, a season and a movie or two.
Apothecary Diaries, 9/10
This show is great. A nice mix of mystery, cool setting, and like the previous, much fewer anime tropes than your usual fare, this one stands out. A fairly level-headed girl but with a strange obsession with poisons, raised as an apothecary by her adopted father (read: herbal-medicine doctor for the poor, in this case often a brothel) is kidnapped into a loosely-Chinese imperial palace as a servant there. And not the cool, plot kidnapping version either, she's literally just nabbed off the street and sold and has to come to terms with her new life. Which she does, and she's pretty smart and a good investigator even though it really isn't her interest, and she gets pulled into harem politics to some extent as first a food taster, and then other adventures especially for a powerful eunuch within the palace. Ongoing story with two seasons, but with some good closure.
Frieren: At Journey's End, 10/10
Now, I'm not sure whether this score, which reflects my anime of the decade designation, translates to the general public, but it's very enjoyable. A fantasy series that explores the idea of what a long-lived elf's life is actually like! Lord of the Rings plays a bit with this idea in a way, but doesn't fully commit and it's spun differently. There, the elves are kind of tired of life, but here, we ask the question: what might Legolas be feeling, going on an adventure with some others, when he knows that they are going to die and leave him behind again? LotR dodges this a bit by both killing much of the cast, and Gimli is also of a similar long life, but Frieren tackles this a bit more explicitly. She once went on a save-the-world trip, but as the mage of the party. Living for at least a thousand years however, she doesn't fully appreciate the impact this trip had on her, and experiences regret for not emotionally engaging more after her friends pass away. She uses this as impetus to start another journey back north again to the demon lands, retracing the save-the-world steps with a new group of people who grow on her. The world-building is great, the storytelling is on point, the vibes are excellent, it's just a great watch. Ongoing, one season completed.
Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, 9/10
This one earns a rare distinction for carrying with it a strong piece of advice: try the first episode or two subbed and dubbed. A humor-first series, this one takes place in a super-elite high school, where the two highest-performing students (one old money, and one a scholarship student), on the student council together, are trying to get each other to admit a crush on the other. They play all sorts of mental gymnastics to make this work. The humor largely comes from the commentary/narrator, but the sub and dub both approach it differently (and the dub actually localizes many of the jokes, so they are funny but in a different way). The sub leans a bit more dry-humor, irony-focused, while the dub plays up the conflicts as being outrageous. At any rate, this one is just good fun and although the series starts out as a bit more like a series of connected skits, it eventually transitions a little more into a proper show with character arcs and plot and all that good stuff. Finished, three seasons, epilogue movie to come.
I don't really know how the below actually stack up but I felt like tossing them in too.
Angel Beats!, 8.5/10
Admittedly it has been a while since I watched this one, but it's good. Some nice emotional catharsis, but I don't know how much I can say without spoiling things too much. A guy wakes up all of the sudden in a sort of alternate-reality school, with a confusing 'war' between a group of kids within the school and the school student body president, who is a bit of a robot, with the drone-like other students as bystanders. Despite the presence of guns, this is a low-violence affair where the war is mostly a series of, well, pranks more or less? Despite the sort of confusing set-up, you get some good character moments, and this one is a tear-jerker at times.
Dandadan, 8.5/10
Visual flair. Panache. Dialing stuff up to 11. This anime is now in its second season and is ridiculous but fun. You probably only need to see a few minutes to get an idea about what this one's about, but for text purposes the classic hook is that a high schooler who believes in ghosts teams up with one who believes in aliens, and they're both right! He has his balls stolen by a spirit, and aliens try to kidnap her, and then they have some adventures trying to resolve that.
Code Geass, 8.5/10
This is kind of like the Ender's Game of anime in a way? The main character lives as a privileged elite in a dystopian Japan ruled by a world monarchy-autocracy, but decides to join a local Japanese rebellion. He's very much a 5D chess type of guy, takes on an alter-ego, and did I mention there's mechs for some reason? Most of the show is him outsmarting people, because in a similar kind of "hook" to the oft-recommended Death Note (which I personally don't like), he has the ability to brainwash-command anyone to do anything... but only once, ever, in their life. Which he obviously wants to keep a secret, but has to also be smart about using due to its one-time-use nature. Two seasons.
I appreciate the detailed reviews!
Of the anime you note, I've sampled Frieren, Violet Evergarden and Dungeon Meshi. By which I mean I watched maybe 30 minutes of each before getting distracted and not finding the impetus to continue. That says more about me than it does about the show, and I'm open to giving them a proper go.
In the case of VG, is the movie a 1:1 reprise of the show? The former is what I had half-heartedly begun.
The VG movie (actually I lied there are actually two but one is more a side-story) is actually more of an epilogue of sorts, so I'd strongly recommend watching or trying the series first instead. IIRC the show starts to truly get going by the third episode (and if you're the impatient type you could honestly start there and be OK), but the most memorable and highest rated ones are a little back-loaded in the season.
I've tried a few episodes of Dungeon Meshi but it didn't really hook me, so I can't speak to the praise there.
However, with Frieren I'd say two episodes is the minimum to get a proper feel (concludes a bit of a mini-arc), although the story (such as it is) doesn't properly take shape until the fourth episode and we don't meet the last major companion travelling with Frieren until the fifth, so although I'd still consider it excellent it is very much a slow burn, contemplative kind of show. With that said, it makes the smaller pieces of action even more memorable, but they are still sparse. Somewhat famously, in episode seven or so, we find out that although the show doesn't have an actual big bad (the major plot after all is that she already helped save the world) there are still a few demons out and about that didn't get defeated along with their leader. These demons are worse than irredeemable (in fact they pretend to have emotions and feelings to disguise their true identity as pure predators of humanity) which at least in anime terms is a bit of a trope reversal.
None of that is to say that a certain minimum is required for most shows, but you know how it is, "will I like this" is a tricky question to answer anime or no. One of the only anime where I'd consider it truly mandatory is My Star (Oshi no Ko) where the first episode is a full hour or so on purpose, knowing that you need the full time for it to make sense (also a fun show, about the dark side of the entertainment/movie industry, saying more is a spoiler) because of said major spoiler that changes the course of the show entirely occurring at the end of it. I think Madoka Magica is classically the other, where episode 3 or so has a major twist, but I haven't seen it myself so I couldn't say.
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