The 2000s is probably my favorite Decade of Anime

I’m not someone who confuses what personally appeals to me the most with what’s objectively the best, and I certainly don’t think modern Anime has fallen off completely.

And you’re probably now expecting me to express self awareness of how Nostalgia driven an opinion like this probably is.  But the thing is very little of the 2000s Anime I'm thinking of I watched at the time, I was late getting fully into Anime relatively speaking, the mid 2010s is when I became an Otaku.

Maybe you can say I saw just enough at the time that I can experience a sort of vicarious Nostalgia from shows that feel Homousian with shows I have actual Nostalgia for.  But what I did see at the time is mostly a few Genres, a huge percentage of what defines 2000s Anime I didn’t even get a sample of.  Plus as expected by my age the 90s is the era I'm generally most Nostalgic for.

Some of the shows I’m considering most important to defining what makes the 2000s special are what I’ve gotten into the most recently, post Pandemic as a person already in their late 30s.  The DotHack Franchise, Nana, White Album, Rumbling Hearts, Comic Party, Burst Angel, Mai Hime and Main Otome, Shattered Angels, Kanon, Shuffle, Tokyo Mew Mew, Elfen Lied, Baccano, a lot of the best Detective Conan content, and non Isekai Fantasy Shows like Scrapped Princess and Sands of Destruction.

The 2000s contain a linging influence of what people love about 90s Anime and the roots of lots of what’s dominated the 2010s and beyond.  But also plenty of shows that feel like they could only have been made in the 00s. 

The Volume of what I’ve seen is more recent, partly because how much Anime gets made increases exponentially, but also because again I started following currently airing Anime in the late 2010s so the disposable flash in the pan shows that don’t “stand the test of time” that appeal to me have been harder for me to miss, I have to seek them out for older eras. 

The thing is I'm not so sure the 00s would be all that over represented if I made a 3x3 or Top Ten list.  I think their specialness to me may be more with having a lot of shows I think about a lot regardless of how I rate them. And yet it’s not all that represented in that Twelve Unintentional Christian Anime list I made either.  Maybe what’s leading me to say this is more an appreciation for its perceived greater variety than actually thinking the shows were on average any better.

My absolute favorite of all time from the 00s, Noir, two of the shows that have hovered around the Number 2 spot are as well, Code Geass and Lucky Star.  My Favorite Pokémon movies are mostly from the 00s as well as what I consider the best era of the TV Anime, the character who is my current Avatar is from a 00s Anime, and so are the shows that I have called the best Christmas Anime and best Horror Anime. And my favorite Gundam series 00.

Maybe I should make a Top 20 of the 2000s.  But I'm not sure I can narrow it down to even 20.

Then there is the mildly controversial question of how to define the 2000s.  Usually Decades as defining Pop Culture is always based on year 0-9 formations because the fact that there is no year 0 at the start of the Gregorian Calendar is pretty irrelevant.  

But in terms of the Vibe Based ways I think of Anime time periods most Anime from 2010 feels more like 00s then the 2010s.  War on Geminar, Legend of The Legendary Heroes, Heartcatch Precure, Cat Planet Cuties, the first seasons of Oreimo and Durarara, Yosuga no Sora, Angel Beats, the Gundam 00 movie, K-On!! and the conclusion of the Diamond and Pearl era of Pokémon.  Most of what defines Modern Anime started in 2011 or 2012.

But do Anime from the year 2000 feel more 90s?  The Pokémon stuff could go either way and Boogiepop Phantom is a spin off of 90s LNs in a very Lain inspired style and a lot of shows on the air that year started in at least 99. So maybe?  

If I start this decade with Winter 2001 then it’s notable that I haven’t completed any TV Anime from that season and only even started Arjuna.

Of course another ambiguity to consider is the many ways in which in the Japanese Mind years kind of actually start with April not January.  And as a Mildly Hebrew Roots Christian I’m also very sympathetic to starting the year with Aviv rather than Winter.  

But then I’d have to consider Madoka Magica spiritually a 2010 Anime and that doesn’t feel right, though perhaps Wandering Son and Is This A Zombie do?