Board 8 > Tazzy Ranks 102 User-Nominated Anime with Write-ups: The Top 20

(+) Yeah! (+)

SC definitely has a lot of issues (pacing chief among them), but it has a lot of great parts too. Pet Shop is somehow the greatest action in the series.
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2. Hunter x Hunter (2011)
Koala (1/5)
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/hunterxhunter/images/8/89/Hunter_Exam_Arc.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130619233837

Hunter x Hunter 2011, not to be confused with Hunter x Hunter 1999, is an adaptation of a long-running, still ongoing, and constantly forgotten (Much like this topic) manga from Shounen Jump. Its the story of Gon and his quest to find his father. This quest leads him to taking the brutal Hunter Exam, which begins our tale. HxH is one of the best shows out there, and its almost universally loved for various reasons. Its no wonder, since Madhouse went all out on this adaptation, thwarting many preconceived notions about how long-running shounens need to be handled. It kinda laid the groundwork for so many seasonal shows nowadays, cutting out filler and ratcheting up the pacing, but it did so without taking many breaks. You do get two or three recap episodes thrown in, and the training bits can occasionally go on a bit too long. But start to finish, HxH had me hooked. Its one of the most cleverly written battle-heavy stories, with tons of interesting characters and lore, with a world that doesnt even feel close to having been dented. Its crazy how a show can be 148 episodes long, yet the potential for so much more is easy to see.

I dont really know where to start with HxH. The characters are some of my favorite in any anime. I love Gons whimsical nature, and his complete neutrality in morals makes for some intriguing storytelling, where you get to see the line between heroism and villainy blurred constantly. It makes sense that you can see Hisoka murder innocent people for fun, and then still cheer him on during the Greed Island arc, because thats just in Gons character. Speaking of Hisoka, I love him as a villain, and its a shame he hasnt been utilized to his fullest extent yet. His introduction in the Hunter Exam arc is one of the most perfect villain introductions Ive seen, and the way he completely steals the scene with this demoralizing atmosphere is awesome. Kurapika and Leorio are great too. I wish Kurapika was more prevalent past Yorknew City. It was his actions there that I felt truly showed the potential of Nen as a power. His entire presence in that arc was a blast. Leorio is fun comic relief. I loved how he nearly became the Hunter Chairman because of trolling. Reminds me of America, except Leorio didnt quite make it. My least favorite is actually Killua. Hes cool, but Im not sure I get all the hype. That makes him the substantial favorite. I think this cast works so well because of how the world in HxH works. Theres plenty of evil throughout the plot, but the heroes never truly feel heroic. Most of them do things for their own personal gain, with little inspiration otherwise. It sort of goes back to Gons morally neutral attitude, because we typically see the various villains in a decently positive light by the end. Hell, Meruem is aiming to enslave all of humanity, but hes not loved simply for being a good villain, hes loved because were able to understand him and relate to him in the end.
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Part of what makes the Chimera Ant arc such a masterpiece is how well-written its villains are. I love that you have the three servants who only care about protecting Meruem, yet Meruem is constantly putting himself in danger through experiencing humanity. Theres a really good dynamic between all of them, and that translates into them being brilliant villains. I also loved how youre shown tht the Hunter Chairmen is actually kind of a piece of shit, so you get to see Meruem, the supposed villain whos beginning to understand the preciousness of human life, fight the chairmen, whos image has been slowly deteriorating thanks to a pretty sketchy past. It makes the fight unique in this weird, uncomfortable way, where the fate of humanity rides on the shoulders of a guy whos really hard to cheer for. God, I love the way they set things up in this show.

Unfortunately, all good things must end, and clocking in at 148 episodes, HxH finishes with a lot of potential up in the air. Despite all this, it manages a pretty comforting ending, where Gon finally meets his dad, and gets to spend a bit of quality time. Theres still so much of the world that hasnt been touched, and various plotlines that never saw a resolution, but the manga is still continuing at a pace of one chapter a year or something. I cant imagine Madhouse will bring it back if the story ever finishes, but dammit, Im glad they made it this far at the very least. It truly is a special show.
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1. Wolf Children (2012)
Snake (1/5)
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81Hv7VWqrNL._SL1500_.jpg

When I first watched Wolf Children a few months ago, I was left speechless. Its one of those few pieces of media that really grabbed me on a personal level and held my full attention from start to finish. I still consider this my favorite animated film of all time after being able to sit on my feelings, and its hard for me to express into words just how much I love this film, but dammit, Im going to try.

Wolf Children is the story of a woman who falls in love with a werewolf and starts a family with him. However, due to an unfortunate accident, the werewolf dies, and the woman, Hana, must now raise her two half-human/half-wolf children. Its a touching story about the hardships of being a single parent, as well as a coming-of-age story for both of the children. We get to see them from childhood to adolescence, as they ultimately must decide whether to live their lives as humans or wolves. Thats the gist of everything here. I find all three of the main characters to be compelling in their own special ways. Ame goes from being a meek, kinda annoying kid to an independent wolf whos calling in life is to guard the creatures of the mountain. Yuki starts out as this hilarious brat, but as she begins to realize how much shed rather live as a human, she becomes more weary and fragile. Its a neat 180 for the both of them, because it shows how much theyve grown since childhood. And, of course, theres Hana, who is among my favorite characters in the medium! She doesnt really get a ton of development personality-wise, but thats fine. Throughout the film, shes strong, capable, and caring, always putting both of her children on her back. Soon after the father dies, we see just how much trouble raising immature children leading secret double lives can be. But the theme of the film seems to be that theres always a light at the end of the tunnel, and that theres always a positive way to deal with your problems. When the government starts harassing her for legal reasons, she ends up moving to the countryside. When grocery trips become way too long and arduous, she starts growing her own crops. It kinda brushes over the whole part where shes just blowing through her savings, but WHO CARES?

As the film progresses, Hana learns when to rely on others and when to take things into her own hands. While she tries her best to pick up farming, it isnt until her old ass neighbor sees her drive and decides to help that she becomes proficient, and I loved the little twist where Yuki was actually driving away pests, giving them a successful harvest. When Ame has his awakening, she has no idea how to teach him the world of wolves, but thankfully, a fox from the forest is willing to pass lessons on. All this time, we see Hanas undying love for the children as her driving force, and even after everythings said and done, she still has her own feelings of guilt. The scene near the end in the typhoon is one of the most crushing things to watch for me. The viewers know that Ame is safe, and perfectly capable on his own, but Hana cant convince herself of this, essentially risking her life to find him. The very end of the scene where Hana looks back at her son whos just saved her and asks, What have I taught you? coupled with her revelation moments later is phenomenal. In just a few moments, we see her go from a mother who feels inept, to a mother that discovers that everything she did was worthwhile, and that she most certainly did not fail. Its one of those scenes that gets me on an emotional level. Pure brilliance.
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Suffice to say, I loved the writing for Wolf Children above anything else, but you have some incredible visuals and music on top of that. The scene where theyre running through the snowbound woods has some of the most impressive animation and inspiring music in the film. Honestly, on the whole, the soundtrack here might be my favorite in any anime. A lot of it is situational, yes, but its all perfect. And thats really the best way I can describe the film as a whole. Perfect. I dont think something has to be purely objectively without flaw to be viewed as such either. Wolf Children just hits me in a way few other pieces of media can. And for that, Ill gladly call it the perfect anime.
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Final List:
1. Wolf Children
2. Hunter x Hunter (2011)
3. JoJos Bizzare Adventure
4. Baccano!
5. Avatar: The Last Airbender
6. AnoHana
7. School Rumble
8. One Punch Man
9. Your Name
10. Penguindrum
11. Welcome to the NHK!
12. Attack on Titan
13. Scums Wish
14. Sayonara Zesubou Sensei
15. One Outs
16. Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun
17. ERASED
18. Daily Lives of High School Boys
19. Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
20. My Love Story!!
21. Code Geass
22. ReLIFE
23. Furiko
24. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
25. TTGL
26. The Seven Deadly Sins
27. The World God Only Knows
28. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
29. Seto no Hanayome
30. Tsurezure Children
31. Death Note
32. Toradora!
33. Summer Wars
34. Assassination Classroom
35. Aria
36. Hajime no Ippo
37. Pokemon: The First Movie
38. SKET Dance
39. Redline
40. Wandering Son
41. Death Parade
42. Squid Girl
43. Akira
44. Pokemon
45. Kurokos Basketball
46. FLCL
47. My Hero Academia
48. Shomin Sample
49. Steins;Gate
50. Kinos Journey
51. Angel Beats!
52. 91 Days
53. Persona 4
54. Pokemon: The Origin
55. Fullmetal Alchemist
56. Love Lab
57. Higurashi
58. Made in Abyss
59. Durarara!!
60. Spirited Away
61. Orange
62. Clannad
63. Ace Attorney
64. WataMote
65. Naruto
66. Monogatari
67. Highschool DxD
68. Elfen Lied
69. Digimon Adventure
70. Bleach
71. Dragon Ball Z
72. Love, Chuunibyou, and & Other Delusions
73. Air
74. ef ~A Tale of Memories~
75. Hanasaku Iroha
76. Nichijou
77. Rurouni Kenshin
78. Kara no Kyoukai
79. Madoka Magica
80. Planetarian
81. Fate/stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works
82. Highschool of the Dead
83. Free!
84. Inu x Boku SS
85. Dream Eater Merry
86. Yu-Gi-Oh!
87. Spice & Wolf
88. The Diary of Tortov Roddle
89. Kakegurui
90. Another
91. Honey & Clover
92. Koi Kaze
93. Konohana Kitan
94. Sankarea
95. Zodiac War
96. Rozen Maiden
97. Little Busters!
98. Madobe Nanami's Homemade Windows 7 PC Cheerleading Commercial!!
99. Mars of Destruction
100. Yosuga no Sora
101. Mayoiga
102. School Days
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Last place and first place in two separate projects, incredible! Haven't seen much anime but Wolf Children was definitely one of the ones I enjoyed a lot.
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so who won
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I know it's not me

Leaderboard:
Eerieka - 90
Roba - 92
Leonhart - 103
handsomeboy - 112
Koala - 115
SeabassDebeste - 120
TRE - 132

Congrats to Eerieka! You can PM me what game you'd like from Steam (Preferably nothing above $40, since I'm not all that rich. :/)

Anyway, I had a lot of fun with this list, even if it did take a bit long to get through it all. I wasn't expecting to hit more than 60, much less 102. I know some of the write-ups ended up being pretty awful, but I did the best I could while also preventing burnout, and even still, the burnout did hit a few times >_>

Hope everyone liked reading my thoughts. There's a few shows I would've like to talk about, but, unfortunately, I don't see myself doing an undertaking such as this again anytime soon. Thanks for participating though. I'm glad I made this thing, and I had a lot of fun with it.
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I actually based the top half of my guesses off of a top 10 anime list you posted a few months ago, which I'd saved. Now that I think about it, I really should have realized movies wouldn't be included in that list and put them near the middle of my guesses just to be safe. Ah well, having insider information like that felt like cheating anyway.

Anyway, it was fun following along with this! So far I've watched Love Lab and Wandering Son because of this ranking and they were both enjoyable. I'll probably save this list too and try to watch more stuff from it someday!
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i highly suspect there are spoilers in the hxh writeup so i'm not reading it :/
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SeabassDebeste posted...

i highly suspect there are spoilers in the hxh writeup so i'm not reading it :/

Oh, yeah, this is probably a good idea :/

Mobilezoid posted...

Anyway, it was fun following along with this! So far I've watched Love Lab and Wandering Son because of this ranking and they were both enjoyable. I'll probably save this list too and try to watch more stuff from it someday!

Awesome, glad I helped you find stuff you ended up enjoying!
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man you cheated and you still didn't win
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LeonhartFour posted...

man you cheated and you still didn't win

I knew this would happen when the anime at 10th on the old list went out at 21st on this ranking, meaning there were significant changes, but I still used the information that I had
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at least AxemRedRanger cheated and won on my list
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hisoka, and kurapika especially, get a good bit more spotlight in events in the manga that follow where the anime ended. of course you have to decipher togashi's hieroglyphic drawings
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LeonhartFour posted...

at least AxemRedRanger cheated and won on my list

It's true!
I am the best at cheating.
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Wolf Children's pretty good, but I hated Ame.
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