Board 8 > What are your personal top 10 anime in order

(+) Yeah! (+)

Mine is very very mainstream since I don't really watch animes that are cult classics and obscure

01. One Piece (Luffy)
02. Attack on Titan (Levi)
03. Demon Slayer (Muzan)
04. Naruto (Itachi)
05. Death Note (Light)
06. Bleach (Ulqiourra)
07. Dragon Ball Z (Vegeta)
08. Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood (Roy Mustang)
09. Yu Yu Hakusho (Hiei)
10. Hunter x Hunter (Kurapika)

1. Cowboy Bebop
2. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
3. One Piece
4. Gurren Lagann
5. Mob Psycho 100
6. Samurai Champloo
7. Hunter x Hunter
8. Kill la Kill
9. Vision of Escaflowne
10. Demon Slayer

so basic

Gonna have to do subseries for this to be meaningful

1. Saint Seiya (Shiryu / Deathmask / Saga)
2. Dragon Ball
3. Captain Tsubasa
4. Dragon Ball Z
5. Death Note
6. Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas
7. Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold
8. Rurouini Kenshin
9. Neon Genesis Evangelion
10. Mobile Suit Gundam

I do need to watch more anime, but I doubt anything budges Saint Seiya anyway.

I like how you can tell which posters are deeper into anime depending on what their list looks like. You basically have two types; First, the lists which contain all of the universally agreed on best material out of the set of series which are encouraged by any anime and non-anime fan to watch. Then, you have the lists that basically contain mostly (or all) series that you would only see if you went out of your way to introduce yourself to series in your own free time, outside of that set.

There's a bit of middle ground between the two since anime is becoming more mainstream over time and the identity of this set is changing each year. Someone who follows airing anime every season, but only watches the top discussed shows, is going to have a different list than someone who doesn't even follow every airing season of anime but watches a wide range of obscure material released over the course of the last few decades.

I'm not saying that if you don't watch every anime released every season, or scour the archives of years past looking for the most hidden gems, that you're not a true anime fan. Just noticing that the more and varied materials a person has seen, the larger number of titles they have to draw from when constructing their list. And the lists generally seem to reflect this trend.

Anyway I'm not too good with hard A>B statements so making a top list is always tough for me, but I took some anime from the ones that I've scored 10/10 and tried to make some sense out of it.

First three are almost certainly in the top 3, and are probably in this order:
Gunbuster : Great story, pacing, voice acting, and characters. Might be the one true masterpiece of anime. Noriko best.
Aku no Hana : Super underrated anime. I love the anime and manga for different reasons, but some people who are too attached to the manga can't enjoy the anime. Nakamura best.
Nichijou : One of the most creative and comprehensive comedy series I've ever seen, anime or otherwise. An already strong source material was elevated to legendary status by good directing and quality. Not sure who is best here, too many great and funny characters.

The rest are all probably in my top 10 but in no particular order. They don't compare particularly well as a 1:1 against each other in most cases.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun : Probably second to only Tsurezure children in how well done and non-formulaic the romance is. But this show is better overall and does benefit from focusing on a centralized cast of ensemble characters, so it actually makes the top 10 list. Not sure who is best here. Seo maybe?

Haikyuu : The ideal of what every sports series should try to be. And, indeed, this is one of those shows that you have to stress is so amazing that ANYONE should be able to enjoy it. Even if you have no interest in volleyball, you would love Haikyuu and its characters. No best character. To even give a top 10 characters in haikyuu would be a topic of its own.

Attack on Titan : This is the one show you could reasonably find on any list from a casual watcher to someone who has seen over 200 anime. The level of quality that goes into Isayama's writing is so amazing that this show is appreciated by just about any type of anime fan or indeed any fan of just storytelling in general. All that being said, it's my personal opinion that the manga is better. Though the anime is still good enough to be in my top 10, so that's not to say it's bad or anything. Best character varies depending on the point in the story.

Kids on the Slope : This is the one I can honestly say I'm not sure is actually in my top 10, but it might technically make the cut just depending on how much I want to include repeats of other stuff, and would likely lose its spot as I see more anime that could potentially push it down the list. It's still very good in its right, has some amazing moments, but doesn't grab me like everything else on this list.

Kimi to Boku : If there's one hipster pick on my list, this is definitely it. It's also the biggest financial flop on the list, and isn't particularly even loved by any type of cult following. The studio had already produced or been contracted for two seasons, and after the first season completely bombed and sold essentially nothing, they actually went through with making the second season anyway. I'm really grateful for that because every episode of this show is fantastic, and it gets even better in the second season. Kaname is the best character.

Mobile Suit Gundam Movies 1-3 : Didn't want to list these as three separate entries but I legitimately still love this movie trilogy and think it compares favorably against any other mecha that I have seen. This is the only one of my top mecha series which was NOT influenced by Ideon -- although it was made by the same creator of Ideon so that's worth noting. I actually think Amuro is probably the best character, since he is essential to conveying the themes of this story.

Futari wa Pretty Cure(?) : To be honest it's probably more accurate to say that at least one Pretty Cure series is somewhere in my top 10 list, but it's getting difficult at this point to tell you which PreCure series would be my favorite. The original one still holds a really special place in my nostalgia zone, but it's tough to deny that some of the later entries were able to utilize the higher quality of modern anime production to produce some amazing works. I don't even know if I can still definitely say "Honoka and Nagisa are the best" anymore and that... is probably a good thing! It means that a show that I loved was able to produce a legacy that actually meets my expectations.

Kinda amusing that I said less about my top 3 than anything else, but I think when I started the list I was thinking I didn't want to make this post into a whole thing. And then by the end, it turned into one...

There are also many honorable mentions. So many of my 9/10 series have moments that I've enjoyed just as much or more than the material from my 10/10 series, but maybe contained some elements that I didn't like as much. Not to mention the 10/10 series I couldn't fit onto this list. And then there's stuff like Ideon which I massively enjoyed, and is an influence on pretty much every one of my favorite mecha series that came after it, but is a little too dated, slow paced, and drawn out to truly be considered a 10/10 show or even close. Evangelion also deserves an honorable mention as a franchise that I love but is split up between so many different works of varying appeal and quality that I couldn't figure out how to fit it onto this list.

I almost included Nozaki-kun and ReLIFE, but the manga went way beyond the anime for Nozaki-kun and the manga is just way better with ReLIFE because too much stuff gets cut, especially in the final arc. Both animes were good enough to get me to seek out the mangas though.

Tsuredure Children needs another season to finish out the material, too. That would be awesome.

Yeah an additional season would benefit some of these specific series a lot, and I could see tsurezure children and nozaki-kun being the type that would both be improved by having the anime extended -- similar to how kimi to boku gets better in the second season.

That being said I've "only" seen 270~ anime, and some of these are movies, repeat entries, or very short series... so the top end of my list isn't TOO competitive. It's really only the top three and the Gundam trilogy that are definitive for me. While that number does seem high, if you compare me to any group of dedicated anime watchers, my 270 is usually the lowest of anyone in the group.

There's a lot of stuff that could be at the top, but let's go with...

1. Kamichu! (Yurie)
2. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (Shion/Rika)
3. Sasami-san@Ganbaranai (Sasami)
4. Monogatari Series (Senjougahara)
5. Gurren Lagann (Kamina)
6. Kara No Kyoukai (Shiki)
7. Code Geass (Lelouch)
8. Attack on Titan (Eren?)
9. Baccano! (Claire)
10. Aria (Akira)

Something like that. This definitely isn't in order, but oh well.

1.) Legend of the Galactic Heroes (Yang Wenli)
2.) G Gundam (Master Asia)
3.) Cowboy Bebop (Spike Spiegel)
4.) Yu Yu Hakusho (Yusuke Urameshi)
5.) Ghost Stories (...I guess Momoko?)
6.) Cromartie High School (hard to say. Maybe Yutaka Takenouchi but definitely had to look that name up.)
7.) FullMetal Alchemist Brotherhood (Scar)
8.) Digimon Tamers (Guilmon)
9.) Monster (I guess Johan?)
10.) Inferno Cop (INFERNO COP)