Board 8 > Tazzy Ranks 101 User-Nominated Anime with Write-ups

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GranzonEx posted...

avoiding shows because of perceived pedophilia

what was this again?
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pick any anime you've watch or want to watch

does it have cute girls doing cute thing?

avoid at all costs because they are for pedophiles
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GranzonEx posted...

pick any anime you've watch or want to watch

does it have cute girls doing cute thing?

avoid at all costs because they are for pedophiles

did someone actually say this?
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I mean, I'm a fan of Kodomo no Jikan, so that's really not an issue for me <_<
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That quoted post with you (Mac) in it was mostly aimed at Roba. I don't think you (Mac) have any problem with SoL cute girl anime >_> we literally watched Mitsuboshi the past season.

@TexasZea no one actually said it, but it's the general impress I got when I rec anime to people on b8. If you really want more story then ask me again in the elitist topic. Maria and BK and probably Mac have a bit of an idea of the person(s) I'm referring to though.
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GranzonEx posted...

for the record I don't think you have the worst anime opinions here, you genuinely give things a try with an open mind rather than sticking your nose up and avoiding shows because of perceived pedophilia

I'm glad I was at least able to surpass that low standard.
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I sat through Aquarion and Aquarion EVOL

my standards are set very very low
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So I've been up since 3:30 AM and I just recently got settled back at home, and my mind;s not really functioning well right now. Unfortunately this next one is not prewritten and I have a ton to say about it, so I'll wait until I'm not half-asleep tomorrow.

Sorry for the slow updates. Been super busy playing Witcher 3, but I currently have my plate clean these next two days, so I should be able to make good progress.
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64. Naruto (2002)
Zea (4/5)


So I kinda trolled earlier when I mentioned Bleach was the first of the Big Three to fall, suggesting they were all nominated. For whatever reason, I assumed One Piece was nominated, but that isn't the case. It probably would've won because I didn't get far enough in to see the terrors of filler hit it, but that's another story. Naruto, though, is better than Bleach in most ways to me. It still falls prey to some of the same issues in pacing, tropes, and filler, but I enjoy it more. So why is it just slightly above it in the overall list? Well, sit back and enjoy my random thoughts about the story of Naruto, as I break my three paragraph rule for probably the only point in this topic.

Naruto is the story of a young ninja who faces ostracization for the demon spirit housed inside his body. He's also an annoying little prick, but that's really only because it's the only way to keep people from ignoring him. The epic tale spanning years of growth is one of the most iconic stories to come out of the medium. But any story that takes 15 years to finish is going to have it's fair share of weak spots, especially when a continuing plot is what drives the story. Naruto is home to some absolutely phenomenal storytelling and action sequences, but that's subdued on the whole thanks to some.... absolutely atrocious storytelling and action sequences in other parts.

Naruto might be the most important anime for me. It didn't really affect me on a personal level at any point, and the overarching themes are cheesy as hell, but it's what got me into the way anime, especially these long battle shounens, work. Animation was always a great medium to me, I grew up on cartoons, and hell, I'm still into cartoons. But every western animation I watched was always episodic in nature. It works for what they try to accomplish, but it leaves little room for depth, story progression, character growth, etc. While newer shows have managed to find a nice medium between having a ongoing plot and keeping the narrative episodic in a bubble, I don't think such a writing style would've emerged without the popularity boom anime received over the last decade. See, Naruto is 720 episodes long, and is consistently telling an ongoing story. Sure, you occasionally get the one-off filler episode, but even when they stretch filler into arcs, it serves some fake purpose of pushing the plot further, even if it's really, really bad. It's not a show you can simply jump into, because it's important to have an understanding of how the world works, and how the characters interact with one another. A cartoon that did this was so mind-blowing as an elementary school student. It wasn't so much about the quality at the time, but the sheer mass of the world it built. How do you see something with this much potential and not feel some kind of magic?
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Of course, I do think Naruto is a pretty good show in it's early stages. Hell, I enjoy it quite a bit until the end of the Pain Arc. The show is a bit more interesting pre-timeskip, thanks to some excellent characters and world-building. You start off with this small ninja school with all kinds of eccentric kids. Finding out all of their powers was a ton of fun, and it was even better when they began to push the limits of said powers, exploring them in creative ways. My favorite battle from the childhood-era was Shikamaru vs. Temari in the Chuunin Exam. It's an incredibly slow-paced battle where Shikamaru is on a time limit, thanks to his shadow-controlling power being effectively useless without the sunlight. On top of this, he's also completely outmatched in power. Every attack he uses is thwarted, and it feels like a losing battle, but it's revealed at the end that he was playing 3D chess, and his plan was executed perfectly, as he positioned Temari next to a hole created by Naruto from the previous match, and ran his shadow through it to take control of Temari. Of course, being the brooding coolboy he is, he then forfeits because doing all that work is so bothersome. It is one of the show's greatest moments, and the fact that I remember this much about it from when I was 13 is a pretty huge testament to it's quality.

The show is filled with these awesome moments, and, not so surprisingly, the Chuunin Exam is actually where a lot of these big moments pop up. How can you forget the introduction of Orochimaru? Gaara? Seriously, few things are as intense as Gaara walking right past Naruto and Shikamaru right after murdering a few dudes. The show does such a brilliant job foreshadowing it's villains. That's why I loved Pain as well. Our first significant introduction to Pain is killing Jiraiya with ease. That's a significant bar to set for a villain, and it makes Pain feel like a true threat. It's actually the last time the series actually manages to do this for me, mainly because the end of that arc is what I like to consider THE DEATH OF NARUTO.

So the Pain Arc, whatever it's actually called is incredible. Pain is introduced in such a powerful fashion, and that carries over to his attack on Konoha. The dude singlehandedly fights an army of ninja, and has a relatively easy go of destroying the place as Naruto receives sage training. Like, he literally kills multiple great ninja. It almost felt like a purging of the cast, but it was effective, because after Jiraiya, nobody felt safe. He was supposed to be Hokage instead of Tsunade, after all. When Naruto finally encounters Pain on the battlefield, it's this incredibly powerful, personal moment. Naruto's growth as a character and a warrior feels complete to me, and seeing him fight this great evil that has proven to be unimaginably powerful was truly epic. This SHOULD HAVE been the finale, rather than forcing the plot to keep going with Sasuke bullshit and the convoluted Kyuubi stuff. The fight spans many episodes and the intensity is always there. Even the part with all the experimental animation that everyone hates because they're lame is fucking outstanding. It is simply one of the greatest fights in the medium. But Naruto is popular, and there were plans in place to go on afterwards, so it ends with Naruto becoming bros with Pain, and all the Pokemon cry and bring everyone back to life.
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After that, the story goes downhill, and it's super depressing to watch it happen. I think I quit after the Sasuke/Danzou fight or the Sasuke/Killer Bee fight. I don't remember which came last, but those are the last ones I remember watching. Both have no intensity because they spend the entire time kicking Sasuke's ass only for some plot armor to kick in and ruin the fun. I did read the manga in full, and it still never hits that stride. I thought Tobi's reveal was cool, but it turns into a story where you have giant demons and spirits fighting each other amidst wanton destruction, and I really miss those fights where Shikamaru spent an hour trying to get Temari to move over slightly. I don't want to harp too much on the negatives of Naruto, since they're always there, even from the beginning, but the end of the Pain arc is where they take full reign.

So yeah, I love Naruto, but I also hate Naruto. I've never actually given a complete thought about the series, and this was a great opportunity to do so, so thanks, Zea! And whether you love or hate the story, I think we can all agree that best girl won.
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I still have no idea why Narutos timeskip bored me when everything else before was really good to me

Not necessarily anime pacing issue since I tried the manga but both didnt work for me
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Great writeup, I didn't actually experience Naruto until I was 18 but it was the first ever manga series I read. I was just getting into anime and I was interested in Naruto but I opted for the manga because of the length. Anyway, I have a lot of nostalgia for it, especially pre timeskip. Like ange, I was never into anything post timeskip as I was pre but I didn't think it actually got bad until after the Pain arc.

I still think I'll probably watch through the anime at some point if I ever hit the point of running out of anime I'm interested in.
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First got into Naruto in high school. Friend brought the first issue of US Shounen Jump to school and I asked to borrow it. It was magical moment that night when I found out about the world of manga. Back before scanlating was popular they had people doing really rough edits to raw manga and posting them on random MSN Groups. Those were some nostalgic days. I think I read from the chuunin exam well into the Kimimaro arc on one of those MSN Groups before more popular manga sites popped up.
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Naruto 30 spaces too high
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I enjoyed it until after the pain arc like zea prettymuch
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63. WataMote (2013)
Roba (3/5)


Few shows manage to accomplish everything they set out to do. WataMote is one of them. It's a show about the daily life of Tomoko, a girl who suffers from severe social anxiety, which leads to some of the most uncomfortable scenes I've ever witnessed.

Everything Tomoko does is done with the intention of becoming more popular, or seeming cooler than she actually is. In reality, she's a dim, reclusive, mean-spirited girl who you still want to see come out on top at some point. And when it seems something good is about to happen to her, she fudges it at the last second by being extremely weird, or she just doesn't notice kindness shown toward her. It's a bit of a miserable show, to be honest, but it works well. If a character is meant to be mocked for their misfortune, it's only really ever funny when they bring it upon themselves. There's nothing fun about watching someone go through misery just because they're unlucky. But Tomoko isn't just out of touch and shitty, she's all that through her own volition, and that's why it can be funny to see her lose over and over and over again. She isn't really a likable character, she's an extreme edition of a typical anime-watching nerd, meant to be somewhat relateable, but not to the extent where anything is actually hitting close to home. This is a comedy, after all.

I think it ended in a good spot too. I don't think I could watch much more than 13 episodes of the show, and it made sure to stick to it's guns, never delving into anything other than psychological torture porn. Some people might be disappointed that Tomoko never gets a win, but I think that's fine. The show was never meant to be uplifting. It's definitely not for everyone, and there are way funnier shows out there, but WataMote does do some pretty cool things.
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the only thing I remember from Watamote was the first episode when they made a Parasyte reference and then a bunch of other manga references I didn't understand so I didn't watch more of it
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The anime is incredibly incomplete, so I can't really recommend it myself. I've been following the manga and really liking where it's gone.

EDIT: Though I guess it's complete in a way, it's just not telling the same story.
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Watamote is my favorite so I'll say a few things about it too. Tomoko is taken to a comedic, over-the-top extreme (which accounts for a lot of her less-than-stellar qualities that you mentioned), but I still relate to her a lot because she's such an accurate representation of social anxiety, something I also struggled with at that age (and still do to a lesser extent). Like, her inner thoughts and private actions were usually absurd, but when viewed from the outside this is all that anyone ever saw of her:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4srPBTz1XQ" data-time="

That may as well have been me trying to order something in high school, and a lot of other realistic moments in the anime could've been lifted straight from my life too. Tomoko feels like everyone is always watching her when, in reality, she's barely noticed by anyone. She spectacularly flubs the few chances at social interaction that she gets but even those barely leave a lasting impression. There was a sequence about her finding a quiet, out of the way place to eat lunch, and that was exactly what I did to survive my school years. The anime had a lot of moments like that, between the craziness.

Basically, I agree with what most people say about Watamote. Tomoko is a miserable person and she absolutely inflicts it on herself. That was never where I found the comedy, though, because to me that was just an excellent character study that nailed its representation of something I'm personally familiar with. The comedy of her thoughts and actions was great too, but the social anxiety was what elevates it to being my favorite.
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62. Ace Attorney (2016)
handsomeboy (5/5)


I love the original AA trilogy, though AJ kinda stifled my interest in the series and I havent played past that. The anime only covers the first two games, so I was pretty excited for it. And while it doesnt deliver the level of quality seen in the games, I do think it gets a bit too much hate.

Part of it probably has to do with the length of time between my playthroughs and my viewing of this show. I felt the classic big cases didnt make the adaptation well, feeling a bit rushed and awkward. But the smaller cases that I didnt remember fully felt really fun to watch. 2-3 in particular was one of the best parts of the show. I mean, that case gets way too much hate as is, but it was so much fun here.

And thats the main thing I enjoy about this show, and the original trilogy in general. I had fun with them! The mystery genre has always been tough for me to get into. I dont get much out of trying to solve the case myself, and prefer to see things unwind, merely enjoying the experience of that. So stories with mystery as their primary focus generally go too slow for me. But Ace Attorney has charming writing and characters, and the stories are usually absurd enough to avoid the pacing issues I have with the genre. And I feel that isnt really lost in the adaptation.
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too high

oh and watamote is good stuff overall
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Ace Attorney anime is pretty good. Far from perfect, but I wasn't expecting perfect.
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I beated the original trilogy the summer before the AA anime aired. It was great hearing remixes of the game music. It wasn't the most amazing anime but I definitely enjoyed seeing the game come to life. Super excited for the next season.

I remember giving the anime a 9/10
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i've seen like the first nine episodes of bleach or so. naruto seemed interesting, but its length absolutely exploded and the source wasn't complete at the time i was interested, so i never wound up getting into it.

watamote sounds kinda interesting, especially at only 13 episodes long

AA was alright.
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I think my problem with Watamote was that the incredible amount of exaggeration they put into Tomoko's character killed any relatability which she might have had for me, and caused her character to veer from endearing to awkward and uncomfortable.
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61. Clannad (2007)
TRE (2/5)


I remember this show being pretty huge on Board 8 when it was airing or sometime soon after it aired. I didnt end up watching it until a few years later. Honestly, it never really managed to hit me the way it did so many others. I watched it pretty soon after AnoHana, which feeled me up pretty hard, and Clannad just didnt manage to hit that hard for me.

Its a highschool romcom with dumb character designs about a delinquent who all of the girls want to bang. It adapts a VN with multiple routes, giving it an almost episodic nature, which feels kinda disjointed in the long-run. I commend them for trying to include as much character development from the source as it can muster, but you end up focusing a lot of time on characters who get phased in and out of the plot once their stories are done, and that just feels weird. Maybe they shouldve treated each route as a separate entity? Those side stories were way better than season one imo.

After Story is what everyone loses their shit over, though. And like I said in the first paragraph, it didnt really hit me, and even annoyed me a bit. The story is certainly more focused and I like how they ended up having a real romance where the characters actually have sex. Things get a bit depressing later on though, and it turns into a story about Tomoya failing to cope with the hand hes been dealt. I really like stories of single parents supporting their children, and I wish Clannad wouldve spent the full season on this, but eh, there are other shows for that. Clannad is good, but Id hazard to call it anything beyond that, personally.
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Approximately 60 spots too low
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AA was disappointing for me. The pacing felt off and it never captured the best moments in the game. I know it's hard to adapt a game but they could have done better.

LeonhartFour posted...

Approximately 60 spots too low

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60. Orange (2016)
Xeybozn (2/5)


The anime community seemed to tear this one apart for reasons that I suppose are understandable. Its about a girl who receives a letter from herself in the future, giving her instructions on what she should do differently to help her friend who dies in high school. Its mostly a romantic drama, and it can be pretty boring at times.

Where this show truly hits, for me, is how it handled depression. A lot of people complained about how unrealistic it was, but its obvious theyve never experienced or been affected by actual depression. Orange handles it in a very realistic, healthy manner. It can be uncomfortable at times, but its great to see Kakerus growth.

However, I think everyone should rightfully trash the big plot twist of how the future characters manage to invent time travel out of nowhere. Like, they just toss letters into the Bermuda Triangle based on something one of the dudes read on Wikipedia. Its the biggest fucking joke because it comes out of nowhere, and near the end of the show on top of everything. I think I wouldve preferred there to be no explanation for it at all. Sure, its lame, but its like the author just forgot to add that into the plot, and just came up with the first thing that popped into their mind. Also the animation takes some hits later on, but the show never really excelled in that department anyway.
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clannad has a lot of bad in it, but the core story is incredible, especially the middle stretch of after story
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I only read the manga for Orange, but the explanation was always almost an afterthought to me. I thought the finale of the series was underwhelming anyways, but not really because of that specifically. (I mean it's dumb obviously, but also not that important to the story I don't think.)

I really liked the first half of the manga though. Both because of what you say about depression, and because I liked the way it presents the present-day MC superimposed with the regrets of her future self.
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59. Spirited Away (2001)
handsomeboy (4/5)


Ive never been all that huge into Ghibli. They have some incredible art and animation, but the stories are always a bit dull to me. Creative, yes, but traditional fantasy isnt really my jam. That being said, Spirited Away is pretty good stuff, all things considered.

Its about a young girl who gets transported to a fantasy world, and must learn to adapt to the new world by working at a bathhouse for strange creature. I dont remember a whole lot about this, as I watched it ages ago and never felt compelled to return to it, but I remember really enjoying the atmosphere. Its pretty calming most of the time, allowing you to absorb the beautiful creations of the legendary Miyazaki.

The art direction and animation really stand out to this day. Ghibli excels making everything they touch look graceful, which contrasts with the pretty ordinary character designs. The attention to detail within the scenery is only rivaled by Makoto Shinkai, and the complexity within motion seen in the characters and monsters is a joy to watch. Certainly hits that magical feel that Ghibli is renowned for. Its also the only anime to win an Oscar, though its become pretty apparent that that means absolutely nothing.
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I really loved the manga for Orange but I agree the plot twist makes no sense and almost ruins the series. At the same time, I was strangely able to just ignore it because it's not that important.

Spirited Away is one of the few Ghibli movies I care about, I've always found most of their work really dull albeit pretty to look at.
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Spirited Away is my favorite Ghibli movie, but I am also a general Ghibli fan
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I like depressing shows but something about Orange was too depressing that I just tuned out towards the end

The first few episodes had me going "holy shit is this really happening" and by the end of it all I was numbed by all the depressing talk to even care about any of it
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Spirited Away approximately 58 spaces too low.
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I dont care for any Ghibli movies Ive watched, Spirited Away included
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58. Durarara!! (2010)
Turnsniper (3/3)


DRRR is a show that I remembered quite fondly as one of my favorite anime ever not all that long ago. Then the sequels came under a new studio, and I realized just how little about the overall scope of the show I cared about. It's really hard to pin where I wanted to put this one, but I utimately threw it at 58, even though it probably needs to be lower.

It's a story set in Ikebukuro, covering a wide cast of characters, each with their own motivations, and how intricately their stories are woven together. It's a bold attempt to create something like this and make it cohesive, and that's ultimately where I think the show's problems come from. By the time you get to the sequels years later, the show feels incomplete, yet satisfying. There are a few loose ends, most notably Celty's head, which is predominantly the main focus of the last 36 episodes, but I felt quite satisfied with the way Omori and Brains Base handled the adaptation. But damn, the newer series was such a drag to sit through. The cast becomes bloated, the story becomes hard to follow, and many of the great characters lose focus as it trends itself toward Celty who, while cool, isn't even in the top 5 of the show's characters for me.

Anyway, with that out of the way, the show still manages to keep a positive image in my eyes thanks to the downright phenomenal opening season, or, more specifically, the first cour. The introduction to Durarara!! is one of the greatest trillers to grace the medium, with tons of mystery and intrigue to excite the viewer, carefully revealing new twists each episode. This all culminates into one of the craziest "endings" to a story arc, as you find out just how much a small consequence of chance can change the lives of thousands. The second half isn't anywhere near as good as far as I recall, but I also don't remember a ton. The best characters in the show were Izaya and Shizuo by far. Their rivalry was always a blast to witness, and it's a shame the new seasons weren't too heavy on it, though that could be the novel's fault.
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I always wondered if seasons 2-4 weren't nearly as good as 1 because of the studio/director change or the books being worse

I assume it's the former
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Fun Fact: The director actually didn't change. Omori and many other staff members of Brains Base founded Shuka, and they somehow got the rights to both Durarara!! and Natsume. So I personally just assume it's the novels.
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oh ok

now that I think about it though, I think I remember hearing they adapted more novels which might have been the problem
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Durarara > Baccano

I'm a pretty big fan of Durarara, even the later seasons. I agree the first cour of S1 is still the highlight, but I also thought there were some pretty great parts in the remainder of S1 and S2. In particular I think the finale of the series was near as good as the show has ever been.

Best characters imo are Mikado, Masaomi, Celty, and Izaya. I also liked the Russian girl that was new in season 2 quite a bit.
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I basically agree, Durarara remained good to great even through the end. It's true the cast got pretty huge, but even the new characters were pretty fun and interesting.

Surprisingly, Anri turned out to be one of my favorites, which I would never have expected early on in the show. Her storyline was quite interesting.
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I don't think the later seasons are any worse than the first season, unless you're separating the first half of S1.

Vorona was definitely awesome.

S4 having Anri do nothing was the worst thing about it.
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I love Celty and Shizuo, but I couldn't get into the second season and the cast was too big imo. It had been too long since the first one and I barely remembered the crazy plot. I may get into the light novels again one day though.
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Yeah, the plot became a bit hard to follow in S2 with all those bad guys having so many factions and goals, but in the end it wasn't that far from the greatness of S1, so it's still one of my favorite shows.

Btw, I should have 5 noms, not 3.
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57. Made in Abyss (2017)
FL81 (3/5)


Made in Abyss was a difficult show to watch. Not because I found the dark themes it tackled to be too uncomfortable, but because I thought the writing kinda sucked when it came down to it. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I really enjoyed MiA from a world-building standpoint. It's about a civilization that has been built around a massive chasm which holds all sorts of valuable relics and dangerous creatures Not much is known about this place beyond the dangers it holds in the way of wildlife, as well as an unexplained "curse" inflicted on explorers when they return, the degree of severity dependent on how far down they traveled. A whimsical, childish girl meets a robot boy, and the two go on a quest to scale the abyss, despite being totally unprepared for the adventure that awaits them.

The best part about the show is, no doubt, the world itself. Not only was there a significant amount of effort into bringing the environments to life, but it was accompanied by a beautiful score, great animation, and a deep lore. The plot doesn't reveal too much about the history of the abyss. You get bits and pieces out of a few characters met along the way, and the final episode does give us a small amount of insight, proceeding to raise more questions than it really answers. I'm quite excited to see the next season, as this was really just a big prologue. I feel like the next season has the potential to be an all-time great, but it could also backfire and suck. The writer seems to have a clear vision and passion, so I'm pretty confident in the former.

My main issue, however, was how poorly it went about making the world feel dangerous. Don't get me wrong, there's some scary shit that happens. But there's usually some sort of deus ex machina lying in wait just before true disaster strikes. It got really frustrating when we see the characters suffer fro these rough situations, then fail to get out of them on their own. I made a bigger rant about it after the show finished, but I was a bit more ticked off soon after the show ended. The biggest kicker is how these events don't even change Riko as a character. I mean, you would think that after suffering something as traumatic as she does in episode 10, there would be some kind of psychological damage. But it doesn't appear that way, she's still overconfident and positive. Maybe she's actually hiding it and we'll see in the next season if there was damage? I dunno, it's not exactly the first near-death experience she goes through, and it got tiresome to see her remain static. Episode 13 was a damn masterpiece because it showed the irreversible physical and psychological damage the abyss can cause. It was the first time in the show where I actually felt disturbed, because I finally saw what this world and this story is capable of when it's not just feigning danger as a way to push the plot forward.

#endrant I like the show, but it kinda annoys me, sorry.
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I really like Made in Abyss but it is primarily because of the unique setting and great worldbuilding. I don't dislike the characters or anything, they're just a bit underwhelming by comparison. Really looking forward to an eventual S2.
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