Anime Year 2025-2026

I’ve decided to make another try at doing weekly Anime Updates for a Year.   

This year will be defined as April 2025 through March 2026.

And weekly is a rough estimate, they probably won’t come out consistently the day of the week, and if I’m slow in having interesting thoughts about any I may take 2 or three weeks. 

To start with I am continuing the Simuldubs of 

Ameku M.D.

Loner Life In Another World

Guild Receptionist

And I’ll be bringing the last 8 episodes of Re:Zero season 3 once all of it has been Dubbed.

As far as Winter 2025 shows I finished before March ended, I may post final thoughts on them separately. 

I’m very unsure what I’ll be watching for Spring.

I’ll be checking in on Detective from time to time but probably not consistently.  The most recent new episodes have been Anime Originals and now it’s returning an old 3 parter from the 500s that I can’t remember at the moment if it’s among the ones I’ve seen. 

Haite Kudashi, Takamine-san is one I’m considering, believe it or not. Shows labeled as Ecchi are often contrary to my tastes, but one bold enough to use that as its main promotional image is worth giving a shot. 

Rock is a Lady’s Modesty I’ll probably give a shot to.

The Shuiji Family Children I’ll give a look to.

Witch Watch and Once Upon A Witch’s Death interest me.

Oh and there’s 300 Slimes season 2

As usual though, my preference for waiting for Dubs means I’ll be behind, and so this series of posts will not actually finish what it’s meant to cover until deep into April 2026.  And also means it’ll be a few weeks before we really get started. 

Shows that have been announced recently I'm hoping will air within this timeframe include.

Fate/Strange Fake

The new Nanoha show

A Certain Darkside Item

A Certain Scientific Railgun season 4.

Rent-a-Girlfriend season 4

Skeleton Knight Season 2

Classroom of The Elite season 4.

The World’s Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat season 2

Spy x Family season 3 is currently scheduled for Fall 2025.

Movies I’m waiting for include the Dubs for Princess Principal Crown Handler part 3 and the most recent Girls Und Panzer Das Finale episode.  The upcoming Madoka Magica Film.  And the new Detective Conan film coming out this month I probably won’t be able to watch till November or December. And maybe even hopefully the next Prisma Illya Movie.

I should also mention that I have stopped using MAL and am now using Anilsit and Anime-Planet.  Both have their advantages and disadvantages, Anime-Planet doesn’t include Hentai so that’s much of why my number is smaller there.  

https://anilist.co/user/KuudereKun888/

https://www.anime-planet.com/users/KuudereKun888 

Magic and “Science” are not actually different in the ToAru Universe

My knowledge of ToAru lore beyond what’s been directly revealed in various Anime is mostly via watching videos on the Aeon of Horus YouTube Channel.  I feel the need to make that clear up front.

I haven’t even seen all of what’s Animated btw, I’ve so far been strictly Dub only with these franchises so all the OVAs and Specials that the Dub has ignored I still haven’t seen.

A detail revealed in the first Arc of A Certain Magical Index that I used to forget about because I generally rewatch later arcs more is when Index reveals that Magick began as Mages trying to mimic what Esper could do.  But if Espers have existed for longer then why are they now so firmly associated with this less than a century old futuristic city-state?  

Well that’s where the Gemstone distinction the Anime has never gotten into comes in. 

Gemstones are the naturally occurring Espers whose powers do not in origin have anything to do with Academy City’s curriculum.  While the term and concept of Gemstones hasn’t been properly explained in the Anime yet two Gemstone Espers have been seen, Aisa Himegami whose ability is called Deep Blood and Sugita the 7th ranked Level 5.

Paradoxically however these Natural Gemstone abilities seem the least Scientific, they seem like the highly magical superpowers someone would have in the Nasuverse.

Academy City’s Espers are the products of an attempt to artificially recreate what the Gemstones are, they are doing the same thing the Mages are just with an aesthetically different method.  

Academy City was, after all, founded by one of the most infamous of Mages.

The core of how Academy City tries to scientifically explain what Espers are draws on the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment, just like many Visual Novels.  That’s why there is all the “personal reality” talk.  But the way Mages' powers work also has a similar mind over matter quality to it, remember the villain in the Deep Blood arc was defeated by his own lack of belief in what he could do.  

The simple fact that Touma’s right hand can cancel out both feels like proof that they aren’t that different.  And that ability is called Imagine Breaker.

Like the Gigalomaniac powers in Chaos;HEad and Chaos;Child both Magic and Esper powers in ToAru seem to have their roots in the Transcendental Idealism of Immanuel Kant.

Academy City produces Espers whose powers seem like SciFi rather Magical abilities because the kinds of minds drawn to and bred by Academy City can only imagine in Scientific sounding terms.

The Remotes Misaki Shoukuhou uses are normal TV remotes, not things specifically designed for her, they are just a tool to help her imagination.  In a way that’s not at all unlike a Magic Wand.

We’ve seen plenty of Magical Abilities that would not at all be hard to imagine as Esper Abilities with only superficially different framing, like Style’s fire elemental powers.

Then there’s how the entire description of what a Level 6 is supposed to be reminds me of the Kwisats Haderach from Dune.

We need more Normie Accessible Anime on the Mainstream Streaming Sites

It bugs me that there isn't exactly a great correlation between which Anime I think are the best potential entry point Anime for people new to Anime and which Anime are on the major not primarily Anime focused Streaming Sites.

This is partly brought on by how there's about to be less Anime on these sites in general.

It was just announced that a bunch of those are leaving Hulu at the end of August.

One of those is Steins;Gate. Now I have described Steins;Gate as the most Normie friendly SciADV show so it being the only one of them on Hulu does make some sense.  But Robotics;Notes is a very close second, and to the right people it's probably the one they'd like most.  For one example I like to describe it as the most Spielbergian Anime.

Of shows on the list of ones about to leave, Rosario + Vampire is the one I definitely raise an eyebrow at for having put on a Mainstream site to begin with.  Even I struggle to get into that show though I do like some of what it does.

Fortunately Spy x Family isn't leaving, that's a show I'd recommend to any Normie who likes Mr & Mrs Smith.

But Hulu's catalog of Anime does include some random Isekai and Harem shows and not always what I consider the best of them.

School Rumble is a show I'm very fond of but is kind of right on the line of how Normie friendly it might be, perhaps it's pretty okay since the earliest episodes are lighter on the Otaku stuff.  Not only is it leaving Hulu but it's not on any other Stremaing site.

Going back to my old thesis about Levels of Normie accessibility, I'd prioritize getting both the A and B level shows on these sites if I had any influence on the decision making.  C level ones could be good to throw in. But I wouldn't remove anything already on there, last thing we need now is any show's accessibility decreasing.  But as far as getting more shows on any Streaming Sites I'd save the E and D level shows for CR, HIDIVE and RetroCrush.

But maybe I personally am overthinking this stuff too much.  Maybe a show stuffed to the brim with Fanservice and Otaku Culture meta in-jokes could still win a complete Newbie over simply by being good.  I have after all argued against the idea that Continuity Lock Out really matters.

The thing is a lot of people think Anime is only made up of 2 or 3 kinds of shows and 2 kinds of movies, TV show tie ins and Ghibli, and that OVAs are just for Edgelord violence porn and Hentai.  I want more of the shows that will subvert those assumptions to be easier to find.

Durarara is a great B Level show so I'm glad it's on Hulu.  But I want shows like Noir and Witch Hunter Robin on there too.

Update: Somehow when I first wrote this I missed that Railgun is also among those leaving Hulu at the end of August, yet Index will still be there (only season 1 though).  But that's the opposite of how it should be, as I've explained on this blog before Railgun is the far more normie friendly show of that franchise.

November Update: Code Geass and a bunch more are gone from Hulu too now. 

Update 2025: Durarara and a bunch more is gone form Hulu as well now.

Update September 2025: One thing I failed to clarify is that there is not a 1 to 1 correlation between shows that are well known enough that Normies have heard of them and ones that can be good Normie entry point shows.  

Some shows are very Niche even among Anime fans not because they are impenetrable but because they haven't been seen by everyone I feel would enjoy them.  Like Noir and Witch Hunter Robin and Rumbling Hearts. 

And some shows you are more likely to heave heard of then others because of their Infamy rather then because they make good first impressions.  I am in fact an apologist for many of the shows I'm thinking of here, they just aren't what I actively recommend as often.

Some more Anime Writers

So there are some Anime Writers I've taken note of now that I don't think I've spotlighted on this Blog before.  For all of them I still haven't seen everything they've written.

Code Geass was for a long time my second favorite Anime, and it still securely has a place in my top 10, and since it's an Anime Original I figured I should take a look at it's writers.

Ichiro Okouchi was probably the head writer of Code Geass, more recently he was the head writer on Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury.  He wrote 5 episodes of RahXephon and 10 episodes of Angelic Layer and Princess Principial.  He also wrote much of Lupin III Part V which seems to be most people's favorite Lupin project of the last decade.  Two things he's written for I haven't watched yet but which are notable are Lupin Zero and Kabenari of The Iron Fortress.

Another notable writer for Code Geass was Hiroyuki Yoshino, he also wrote the Anime for My-Hime and My-Otome, and some of the notable Anime original content for Raildex like the Miracle of The Endymion movie and much of the Febri arc.  He has the Series Composition credit for Izetta: The Last Witch but no individual episodes.  He's written a lot of stuff I still haven't seen yet but might in the future.

Another key writer on Witch From Mercury was Yasuhiro Nakanishi who was also a lead writer on My Love Story with Yamada-Kun at lv999 probably the most underrated RomCom Anime of 2023 and an upcoming Isekai called No Longer Allowed In Another World.  Also Kaguya-Sama Love Is War but I don't know how much Anime Original Content that series even has.

A Certain Raildex Watch Order Post

My recommended watch order is a version of the "simplified chronological order" which is the term other people use for an order like this.

Unlike past posts where I've given my watch order for this franchise I want to really break down and explain my logic more. 

A Certain Scientific Railgun (Season 1)

A Certain Magical Index (Season 1)

A Certain Scientific Railgun S

A Certain Magical Index II

A Certain Scientific Railgun T

A Certain Magical Index III

I have chosen not to include A Certain Scientific Accelerator because I kind of don't recommend it at all.  It's not horrible, a true franchise completionist will probably be able to get something out of it.  But it doesn't appeal to me much.  It's chronological placement is between Index I and II but it aired between Index III and Railgun T.

I also didn't give the movie a placement simply because it's not really canon at all.  I do like the movie a fair bit, but I wouldn't prioritize when to watch it.  Index season 1 has everything you really need to know for it.

In the spirit of this watch order not being strictly chronological, I won't make my arguments in their chronological order either.  I'll start with why each season of Railgun should be watched before it's numerically corresponding season of Index.

Railgun Season 1 simply is a better entry point to this world.  I do recommend skipping episode 2 on your first watch since it's both filler is gives an unfortunate first impression of a certain character.  But other then that season 1 of Railgun is a fantastic fun little SciFi show that only ever seems under whelming in the context of the major heights achieved by it's sequels.

One YouTube video I watched defending the Broadcast order as ideal insinuated that Railgun leaves some things unexplained because it assumes you already watched Index.  But especially as far as their respective season 1s go I really don't see what they're talking about.  Railgun is far better at organically explaining how the Esper stuff and Academy City's technology works, and the Magic stuff isn't relevant to Railgun, not in any need to know way.  

Sometimes I think we Nerds assume anything that can be read as a reference to something you've already seen in the release order can only work that way when the truth is they can often work either way.  

Railgun also simply is the better show by a significant margin, so much so that I can imagine the existence of people who'd like Railgun a lot but not Index at all while I can't imagine the opposite.  The way less Fanservice (by my definition Railgun has no Fanservice but I know some might disagree) the better pacing, the usually more intelligent fight scenes, the fact that it could almost pass as a Shoujo, all give it a broader appeal.  

So while there are reasons the order I listed above is best if you do watch both, if you aren't able to get into Index don't worry, nothing in the Railgun sequels absolutely depends on having seen any of Index, it can all stand on it's own.

But the reason why Railgun S should be watched before Index II even beyond all those above reasons is mainly episodes 6 and 7 (or episodes 30 and 31 of Index as a whole as some sites might number them).  This two parter is Kuroko focused and it will hit harder if you have the increased knowledge of her perspective on the Sisters Arc that Railgun S provides.

The particular reason why it's better to watch Railgun T before Index III isn't even much because of either show's main cast.  Episodes 4-6 of Index III is The Battle Royal arc which in the release order (and even more so for Index onlies) introduces a lot of new characters a good deal of whom die in this same arc.  Now the Anime should have given this arc more then 3 episodes to begin with but even if it had I'd still say it works best with the prior investment in Item, Member and School that Railgun T provides.  (Scavenger isn't in Battle Royal however so you could say you've seen everything relevant by the end of episode 20 of T).

Now some will tell you you the later part of Railgun T requires having seen Accelerator first because of Scavenger but here's the thing, I had seen Accelerator first as it aired and I'd forgotten about Scavenger by the time their Railgun T episodes aired.  Railgun T on it's own makes a perfectly fine introduction to them and for me is entirely what endeared me to them, it refers to them having had a bad experience with Accelerator but it's not difficult to guess what that entailed, we don't need to have seen it just like we never needed to see the Kessel Run.

Now as I said if you do watch both there are benefits to watching at least some of Index before the second and third seasons of Railgun.

The reason Index season 1 should be watched before Railgun S is The Sisters Arc.  This arc is to a large extent the same story told from different POVs.  But it is Touma's POV that presumes the audience will be as uninformed as Touma is, while the S version does have some dramatic irony going on, not so much it can't be followed at all on it's own, but enough that it adds to the experience to have already seen the other version.

The reason to watch Index II before Railgun T is mainly again episodes 6 and 7 since they explain one key aspect of what's going on with Kuroko during the Daihasei Festival.    In fact if you are someone who generally hates Index and is a Railgun fan only these are the only two episodes of Index I'd remotely suggest a Railgun fan can't simply ignore.

There are also a few things that reference the events of Index's Daihasei Festival arc while the reverse never happens.

Thing is the Railgun T Daihasei Festival also via one character references a Railgun story still not animated at all, so there is no avoiding an Anime only feeling like they missed something.  

Sometimes the Second Episode is the Problem that the Three Episode Rule protects against.

Some attempts to deconstruct the Three Episode rule focus mostly on defending the first episodes.

But a main reason I consider it important is how often I consider the exact second episode of a show to be one of it's worst.  Maybe some of you are thinking "well you don't need a Rule to not give up that quickly".  The thing is it's very easy for me to imagine finding a story's initial set up to be the only part of it that's good.   With American LA TV shows it's definitely happened a few times where I found a first episode pretty fun but as soon as they settled into their regular weekly routine I got bored of it.

Now when it comes to Anime where the second episode can give a potentially harmful early impression.  There are fortunately some that are episodic enough where I'm very willing to just recommend skipping the second episode entirely, at least on your first watch.

That is most heavily the case with A Certain Scientific Railgun.  What is so frustrating about the second episode isn't exactly something never in other episodes, but that's the only one where it's the main plot of the episode, and goes further with it then the show ever will again.  And it's not even filler in the Monster of the Week sense, but it fortunately has no actual connection to the Level Upper Arc.

The second episode of the 90s Sailor Moon Anime actually was skipped by the original DiC localization, so we have documented proof that it wasn't actually needed (thing is other episodes DiC skipped were among my favorites).  With Sailor Moon I'm kinda willing to tell people to just watch the 3rd episode first.

But in less episodic shows this goes back to the structural reasons the three episode rule exists.  The firs 3 episodes are often like an extended first act of a movie.  The first and 3rd episodes contain the most vital things that establish the world and initiate the plot.  The second episode can often be mostly necessary but less engaging connective tissue between them.

I also want to acknowledge the early Pokémon Anime here. In that case I really like the second episode but I know not everyone considers it great because of Suede's Pokémon Journey's review of it.  The second episode is to me filled with lots of fun stuff and it's certainly important set up and world building.  But it is indeed not as "tightly" written as episodes 1 and 3.

Light Novels should be adapted as Movies rather then TV Shows more often

I say this as someone who is in general biased for more serialized modes of storytelling and in fact that bias has played a role in why I like Anime so much to begin with.

But the Anime that embody the strengths of serialized story telling are usually Original TV Anime (and some OVAs and ONAs), and Manga adaptations.  And a lot of Visual Novel or Video Game adaptations work being adapted into a more serialized format because their structure is often like something serialized so that the player can be given convenient places to take a break.

LNs however are kind of the Japanese equivalent to YA novels or airport novels except shorter in length, their original narrative structure is usually much more similar to Movies then to a TV Series. And the Light part of term implies it's pretty rare for there to be too much for a single movie. 

My problem with the broadcast order of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is that it butchered the structure of the original LN which actually is a good stand alone work of art on it's own even if it had never gotten sequels.  The chronological first 6 episodes of Haruhi are the adaptation of that LN and I kind of wish someone would just fan edit them into a movie (both a Subbed version and a Dubbed version).

Sword Art Online was actually adapted similarly to Haruhi in this regard except in that case the inserted short stories written later to flesh out the original arc made the Anime more chronological then the source material rather then less.

The fact that some LNs are short story collections is perhaps the counter point to this thesis.  I suppose the short stories could be adapted as OVAs or ONAs.  But some movies are made as collections of shorter stories rather then one feature length story.

We've already seen success in adapting LNs as movies rather then TV shows.  The Live Action Boogiepop and Others movie, the Kara no Kyoukai films, the SAO Progressive movies of which only one I've gotten to see currently.  Aura: Koga Maryuin's Last War which I think is a pretty underrated entry in the Chunibyo genre.  And most successful of all The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya.

But I also think about the niche examples where the serialized format combined with wanting to make a lot of progress in one season has hurt a story structurally.  I'm The Villainess, So I'm Taming The Final Boss rushing to the end of the first novel in only the 4th episode killed my initial enthusiasm for that series.

There are exceptions, Fate/Zero and Fate/Apocrypha are LN adaptations and I don't see how they'd work as a string of movies.  Some LNs do seem to be written from the start with the idea of being adapted into a TV Anime.  However more often then not in Japan the Anime is glorified marketing for the source material not the other way around.  But sometimes whether it gets adapted or not a first novel can seem more like set up for future stories then a satisfying story on it's own.  Maybe it's mostly older LNs this is true for.

The point I'm making is perhaps most proven by the Raildex franchise and the popular discourse around it.  

A Certain Magical Index's first LN was also written to originally stand alone if no sequel was greenlit, that is the plot of the first 6 episodes and they too feel like they could've been a movie.  I enjoy the Index Anime just fine but I'm a notoriously easy person to please, and I can definitely see how every arc that is given only 3 episodes or less (Deep Blood, Tree Remnant, Crystal Fleet, all of season III) could have used more screen time to flesh everything out.

A Certain Scientific Railgun was serialized from it's inception and so the Anime is able to improve upon the Manga in the same way many past Anime based on Manga have from Sailor Moon to DBZ to the original FMA Anime by adding much needed episodic filler episodes and the occasional filler arc that is just as peak fiction as the Manga yet purists hate on them anyway.

Railgun works as a series because the source is also a serial, Index would have been better as movies.

It is true that sometimes even the LNs will split an arc across more then one LN.  SAO started doing this as early as Fairy Dance, and Boogiepop did it back in the 90s with Vs Imaginator, and Index has indeed done it a few times.

So those being adapted as a movie per LN can at first glance be mistaken for those misguided times Hollywood has split the last novel of a YA saga into two movies.  However Across The Spiderverse was pretty universally praised in-spite of ending on a Cliffhanger.  And in the world of Anime we have prior precedent for this with the Nanoha Reflection and Detonation movies being one story split across two films, and then the latest Prisma Illya movie also ended on a cliffhanger.

Maybe 20 years ago the idea of devoting a 20+ novel saga to movies rather then TV would have seemed unthinkable.  But now we live in a post MCU world where Cinema itself can be a little serialized.

Update November 2024: In the slightly over a year since I wrote this I've now finally seen Durarara! and Baccano!

Durarara! works surprisingly well as a TV series, I wouldn't change anything about it or recommend doing anything different if more season of the Anime are made.  It can be another lead counter example to my thesis.

Baccano! also worked very well as a miniseries, but I do think what Baccano! pulled off is likely to only work as a one season gimmick, I'm skeptical a second season could do the same thing with another 4 LNs.  It helped that the Flying Pussyfoot story was a two parter and that they could use Isaac and Miria as the main glue connecting the different stories.

If Baccano! gets more Anime, and I very much want it to, I would suggest just making movies out of as many of them as possible.

Perhaps some of you think too many individual Light Novels are not "Epic" or "Cinematic" enough to warrant a movie.  But I like plenty of small scale low stakes movies, from random Lifetime Original movies I've watched to old movies set in very isolated settings.  Not everything needs to be about the potential end of the world or destruction of an entire city to be film worthy.

Update September 20025: After reading up on what happens in the So I'm A Spider, So What LNs, I'd have the to say the first 5 volumes jumping around between time period would have made them more difficult then usual to work as films.  But that aspect of the story is done going forward and Volumes 6 and 7 which pick up where the Anime leaves off  but only on the earlier part of the time would each make very epic awesome and fairly stand alone movies. 

Railgun T has only one problem

 A Certain Scientific Railgun T is an Anime I'm loving more each time I rewatch it.  Railgun S as a complete work of Art is still the greatest Masterpiece of the Raildex franchise.  But Railgun T being a bit less intense and more episodic is perhaps proving to be more rewatchable for me personally.

The Daihasei Festival Arc was perfect, and most of the Dream Ranker Arc was very fun, lots of cool one offs that expand the universe, and for the most part even what it's main plot winds up being is very interesting.  

But I have one thing against it.

And that problem is a Spoiler so don't read ahead if you don't want to be spoiled.

The fact that the show does in fact declare the Doppleganger to not have a Soul really really bugs me.  And honestly it makes me wonder if anyone even knows what that word even means anymore.

The Soul is not actually something the existence of which is debatable, what's debatable is if it's immortal or not, yet it's clear many writers of modern fiction think it's definition is the thing certain religions say still lives when the Body dies, but it's not.  The Greek word translated Soul is Psyche.  Even the most Hyper-materialist ancient Greeks like the Epicureans did not dispute the Psyche existed, what they argued about was if it's immortal or not.

Anything that has a Psyche has a Soul, anything that has Self Awareness has a Soul.  Most important of all though, only a being with a Soul could ever be suicidal.  A life form running on pure animal instinct or AI programing could never develop a desire to end it's own existence.

The concept of an AI wanting to die but being unable to act on that directly because of it's self preservation programing is an interesting idea for Sci-Fi to explore.  But to then turn around and proclaim that entity doesn't have a Soul is absurd.

And to top it all off the Doppelganger's Psyche even proves to be immortal still existing after it's body dies.  So I honestly am baffled and have no idea what definition of the word Soul this Anime was possibly using.

A Certain Magical Index Deconstructs Meritocracy

During the Index account of the Sisters Arc back in season 1 we are shown how the official propaganda of Academy City is that any Esper could reach Level 5 if they try hard enough.  But in Index III at the end of the plotline with the Item characters it is made clear how only certain people have the potential to be a level 5 and those in charge mostly know who they are.

And this was always heavily implied, by the Sisters Arc itself Misaka was selected for the cloning experiment as a small child long before she was officially known to be a Level 5 yet the implications of that don't ever seem to be something that's occurred to her.  We've also seen that Accelerator and Mental Out were also already singled out to be experimented on as small children.

And now I feel compelled to return once again to The Last Jedi/Sequel Trilogy discourse.  The fact that so many online leftists think it's more Left Wing for anyone to be equally a potential Jedi shows how actually Liberal their mindset still is.

Leftists are Materialists, we acknowledge that some people do have innate natural advantages to being able to be successful that most people don't have.  We are the opposite of Nazis in that we reject that those with innate advantages should actually be considered more valuable. (And Nazis are also wrong to think they directly correlate to things like "Race")  But to deny the innate advantages exist ultimately serves the interest of Conservatives, it lets them convince themselves those already with power must be the ones who earned it.

Meritocracy is the justifying ideology of Capitalism.

The Raildex Anime are better social commentary then any Dystopic Science Fiction precisely because they are avoiding the usual Aesthetics of Dystopia. It's world is different from the real world but about the same in how Free or not Free it's society is.

Update May 31st 2024: I recently watched all of Durarara!! and it has a similar them especially with the character of Shizuo Heiwajima who because of his naturally strength and rage is unbeatable in a fight even though he's had no training, multiple far more trained fighters consistently lose.  

Interestingly that's another Light Novel series that also started in 2004.

Daihasei Festival chronological watch order

I have constructed what I think is the closest thing possible to a Chronological viewing order of the Daihasei Festival episodes of A Certain Magical Index II and A Certain Scientific Railgun T.

For Index II ,two numbers each are listed since some websites number them by number of Index II specifically but others by of Index as a whole.

Railgun T Episode 1

Index II Episode 8/32

Railgun T Episodes 2&3

Index II Episodes 9-13/33-37

Railgun T Episodes 4-15

The consistency of the Raildex Anime are pretty amazing, almsot exactly a decade separates when these two Daihasei Festival Arcs were animated and yet jumping back and forth between them doesn't feel jarring at all.

It makes all the more jarring how much not like the other shows the Accelerator Anime looks.  I wonder if that show will have it's own Daihasei Festival Arc if it lasts long enough?

[Update: It didn't take me long to regret this order, lots of things won't line up.  Strict Chronological viewing isn't my actual recommended watch order for Raildex anyway.]

Superman Anime

It's interesting that there has been, at least officially sanctioned by DC/WB, only attempts at doing Batman as an Anime, not Superman as of yet.  Because in my opinion Superman suits Anime far better.

Part of it is of course WB increasingly only having faith in Batman in any context.  But there is also how many Normies still associate Anime first and foremost with Edgy 90s OVAs, so that association has people thinking Batman would be more suited to Anime. But the thing is that type of Anime is too edgy even for Batman, they were Japan's manifestation of the same Zeitgeist that resulted in the "90s Anti-Hero" and the Attitude Era of Pro Wrestling.  I don't think Anime has ever been asked to handle a Dark Vigilante who doesn't Kill, outside of the two Batman cartoons that are supposed to count as Anime but were still written mainly by normal American Superhero writers.

For Superman however, it seems to be Japanese Superhero writers who don't see the problem with making someone like Superman relatable, from Kamen Rider Fourze to multiple Magical Girls and Isekai protagonists.  Anime is filled with Heroes who are more Superman then Superman.

And that comes in part from Anime being influenced by Superman.  The Fleischer Superman shorts were among the inspirations on the OG himself Osamu Tezuka, Project Ako was basically a Superman fan film, it's not a coincidence that Tetsuou wears a Red Cape in Akira or that Prince Ashitaka has the exact same color scheme in Princess Mononoke, and I detect some specifically Donner Film influence on Sailor Moon R.

I also think you'd be surprised how easy it would be to actually set a take on Superman in Japan.  There is a Japanese surname very close to Kent, Kenta, and then whatever equivalent Japanese name you give to Smallville place it in Kansai rather then Kansas.

But I'd want it to be truly the Japanese doing it, not like War of the Rohirrim which has a celebrated Anime director but the writers are still standard WB Fantasy Writers.  

Ya know what, I nominate Katsuyuki Sumisawa to write the Screenplay, he was my favorite 90s Sailor Moon writer and amazingly he's the only one still working, he also wrote for Macross 7, Gundam Wing Gundam The Origin, Dragonball Z and Cutey Honey Flash, each of those works brings valuable and relevant experience to the Superman table, but Macross 7 is perhaps the most important, the Main Character of that show is basically Superman with a Guitar.

So yeah this post is in part a follow up to my last post about how I'm into Anime for the writing more so then the Artstyle. But Artstyle is important, and I do also have some thoughts on how a Superman Anime should look.

One of the Things that helped define Richard Donner's Superman film was how he made it almost like three separate films in one, using very different styles for Krypton, Smallville and Metropolis.  And well Anime can do that even more explicitly.  I'm thinking maybe even actually have three different directors with only the Screenwriter unifying all three portions.

The Krypton portion should have an Artstyle reminiscent of a classic Leiji Matsumoto based Anime, or Osamu Dezaki's adaptation of Space Adventure Cobra.

For Smallville I was first thinking Makoto Shinkai, but the rural small town themes in his movies are usually about someone wanting to leave, Clark leaves to become Superman not because he feels stifled.  I'm actually not all that intimately familiar with Anime set in Japanese rural small towns.  So I'm gonna need help with what to recommend here.  

And then Metropolis should look like a Raildex or SciADV based Anime, those shows are good at turning Tokyo into a bright almsot futuristic Metropolis, (while Kara no Kyoukai and Boogiepop turn Tokyo into a Gotham).

In the Raildex franchise, Touma Kamijou is another example of an Anime hero who's core is basically Superman if Japanese.  Meanwhile Mikoto Misaka is the closest thing Anime has to a Batman [I forgot to consider Detecive Conan here], she is a bit more retribution focused when she sets her sights on a villain, but still isn't a killer.

I know some people actually think the SciADV games and their Anime are very dark, but I don't see it.  Red Bard calls Robotics;Notes "SciADV at it's happiest", but the number of named important present narrative characters who die and stay dead is equal to Chaos;Child, one, and greater then Steins'Gate or Chaos;Head.  Now that death in Chaos;Child is contextually much darker and the only thing in a SciADV show I'd never want to see in a Superman Anime, but that's it, it only gets that dark once.  SciADV at it's darkest is still no where near Zack Snyder and Snyder is no where near Fate/Zero.

And there are plenty of Superman stories that have dark stuff in them that are liked by the same people who hate on Zach Snyder's Superman, they just don't want Superman himself to be dark.

A Guide to Anime Films

I'm into Anime in large part for the serialized content, however films have been both more "respectable" and more profitable for most of modern history, on both sides of the Pacific and in terms of both Live Action and Animation.  That means theatrically released Anime films frequently have more budget to work with, and less time constraints placed on their production, which allows certain technical advantages. So for many newcomers movies may be where they want to start.

Again as a consequence of my watching Anime mainly for the serieses and sagas, most of the films I have seen are in some way tied to a series.  Of Anime movies that simply are stand alone (or were until they got a sequel), I've seen a handful of Miyazaki films, two non Miyazaki Ghibili films, Akira, Barefoot Gen, Project A-Ko, Metropolis, Kara no Kyoukai, Maquia, A Silent Voice, Your Name and Weathering With You, Vampire Hunter D, a couple mostly now forgotten Fantasy films from around 2010, and one that's basically a more serious take on the premise of Chunibyo, and some more obscure ones slipping my mind right now.

However Anime films that are tied to TV shows come in many forms in terms of how accessible they potentially could be to someone not already into that series and capable of standing on their own.

A note, Anime database websites like MyAnimeList define "Movies" based on how they are released not runtime, so theatrical shorts are classified as movies but feature length OVAs and TV Specials are not.  My mind still prefers to define a movie mostly by runtime and if it wasn't in theaters just call it a TV movie or Direct to Video movie.

First you have the franchises that are largely negative continuity or flexible continuity or at least highly episodic and long running enough to begin with that I generally think the actual first TV episode is almsot the worst first impression because of the early instalment weirdness.  So for these shows one of their ambiguously canonical films probably is the best way to introduce it's cast of characters to someone new.  These are shows like Lupin The Third, Pokémon, 90s Sailor Moon, PreCure and Detective Conan aka Case Closed.  

Sailor Moon R: The Promise of The Rose is all of the core appeal of Sailor Moon concentrated into a well paced easy to follow but highly emotionally dense film.  For Pokémon the Third movie Spell of The Unown is the very best, but ironically one of the few that does something which might be a problem for a viewer who hadn't followed the show up to that point, but maybe not, I think Pokémon fans reading this can guess what I'm talking about without me needing to spoil it.  The first two Pokémon films are perhaps in different ways trying too hard to be "cinematic".  The other Pokémon movies I'd rank as above average are Heroes Latios and Latias, Destiny Deoxys, Ranger Temple of The Sea, The Power of Us and Secrets of The Jungle, but most are perfectly good at what they're meant to be.

Detective Conan/Case Closed is the franchise I have been most obsessed with recently, and so in part thinking about it's movies was what inspired me to write this.  Every movie is in part designed to work for newcomers while also doing something special for fans, that's why at the beginning there is always a brief summery of the show's premise.  But some I consider more recommended for this purpose then others.  The actual first movie The Time Bombed Skyscraper could work well enough with it's cold open basically being how an average episode ends.  The third movie The Last Wizard of The Century is probably the best of them (that seems to happen a lot with Anime, it's like the opposite of how Hollywood franchises are perceived).  Movie 4 Captured In Her Eyes is interesting in how it's cold open is actually a flashback to before what happens in the premise summery segment making it perhaps by default the most chorological movie.  Of the three movies that feature the show's Arc villains, movie 5 Countdown To Heaven is the best executed in how it utilizes them given that they're not allowed to change the status quo, and also of all the movies I've seen the best for getting to know Haibara Ai (called Vi Graythorn in the Funimation Dub). Movies 7-18 do not have Dubs yet and so I've only seen four, of those movie 8 Magician of The Silver Sky is the most interesting, it breaks from the usual formula in a way that allows it to recreate the vibes of the tv show better then any of the others, and it's simpler plot makes it easier to watch Subbed.  

Movies 19-23 are currently the only movies easy to watch legally in English, Subbed or Dubbed, with all of the BangZoom releases purchasable and rentable on Amazon Prime, while prior movies either were never officially released over here or were only via now long discontinued localizations.  These movies and some of the ones preceding them are often criticized by longtime fans for being too much like over the top modern American Superhero movies and thus allegedly less intelligently written then the first 9 or so.  I can't entirely say I disagree since I don't feel like recommending any of those as much as the early ones I just listed, but I do enjoy all of them just fine and I didn't list all of the first 9, their basic appeal is still the same in my view, they've changed similarly to how the show has changed, but the movies were always a good deal more action oriented then the show.  Zero The Enforcer is the only one I can even come close to saying I dislike.

A second type of Anime tie in movie is a kind some less episodic shows have, that may start out feeling as stand alone as the above mentioned movies, but during the last act there will be an increasing amount of plot relevant fan service only followers of the show will get.  There are two main examples that come to mind, A Certain Magical Index: The Miracle of The Endymion, and Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale.  I enjoy both movies, Endymion I give a 10/10, but watch the series first, actually for Endymion there's kind of two series you need to have followed.  However for people becoming fans of those shows know that they are like the above movies in how they won't actually effect the status quo of the show and rarely if at all be acknowledged.

The third type are movies that are sequels or continuations, or sometimes even specifically the Ending, or a Coda to the show's ending.  Type 2 films have a chance of being satisfying to a non TV show viewer because by the time the stuff they won't get factors in they might have gotten invested enough to just roll with it. But Type 3 are explicitly not stand alone works on any level. Char's Counterattack,  The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, End of Evangelion, The Conqueror of Shambala are probably the biggest examples, I also like the Gundam 00 movie and Code Geass R3 Lelouch of The Resurrection, and most recently we had the Sailor Moon Eternal movies which picked up where Sailor Moon Crystal season 3 left off.  Maybe some of these can overcome their continuity lock out issues simply by being good, but being good on it's own is not the barrier breaker some people want to think it is.

Type four would be Recap movies, these are basically a chunk of a series, ranging anywhere from 8 episodes to 25, trimmed down and reedited into a film length, some may try to do a whole show in one but most go for 2 or a trilogy.  There may be some genuinely newly animated material in a few select scenes or as a framing device.  These almsot always fail to be satisfying movies on their own, or even give the fans interested in that concept what they want.  The only definitive exception is the Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 Trilogy which were longer then most and in a unique situation.  I have seen some people speak highly of Macross Do you Remember Love but I haven't watched that one yet.

Type 4b is when the story of a show is fully remade as a movie, or the source material re-adapted, A lot of the movies that fit this category I haven't seen yet even when they exist for a show I like, but the Rebuild of Evangelion films are the most notorious.  The Sailor Moon Eternal films actually also fit this category in relation to Sailor Moon SuperS and the first 6 episodes of Sailor Stars from the 90s Anime.  In the re-adaptation case sometimes the movie version came before the series, but usually the movie still winds up feeling like it should be the less definitive Anime version like with Clamp's X.  Detective Conan/Case Closed Episode "One" The Great Detective Turned Small is basically a remake in the show's modern style of the first episode and a half of the series, but it also starts a little earlier and then ends a bit like a Recap episode.

I wanted to say those 4 categories covered everything, however Crossovers like Lupin The Third vs Detective Conan or the PreCure Allstars films are difficult to categorize, they are often structurally similar to Type 1 but it's hard to imagine seeing any appeal to watching a Crossover movie if you aren't already a fan of any of the parties involved.

And then there is the very unique case of Adolescence of Utena.  At face value it is Type 4b, the fan theorizing that it's actually a sequel on some cosmic time loopy metanarrative level also exists for the Rebuild films but for those films that theory doesn't effect what you think they mean nearly as much.  But beyond all of that is how the Utena movie is even more abstract in it's Symbolism then the TV show titled Revolutionary Girl Utena, to the point where you really need to have seen the show to have any hope of deciphering what's going on in the movie, and even for those of us who have seen it it isn't easy.

Normie Friendly/Otaku Oriented Anime levels

This post is a revision of sorts of a post I made almost a year ago.  I'm no longer naming each level after a Fate/ show mostly because some have names to long to make a good short hand.  But I will still list at least one Fate/ show first for each level because it's status as I think the only franchise to exist on every level makes it useful to help understand what I'm talking about.  I've also changed my mind on where to place a few shows, even since the update I added to that post.

I also want to have at least one Magical Girl show on each level, since I presented a thesis in June of last year that the Magical Girl genre is the most important Genre in all of Anime.  That genre existing on every level should also back up that thesis.

This is not a quality rankings list, all of the Anime being mentioned are either ones I personally like at least in part, or ones too popular within the community to not mention.  They all come recommend by someone, this is just one measuring stick of how broad their appeal is.

There will be some popular shows I won't mention largely because I haven't seen enough of them yet to have any idea where they'd fit.  I'm hoping people who have seen them can read this post can offer me their own theories on where they'd fit.

A Level:  Shows with no real Otaku elements at all, or if they do have some they are in a way you'd have to already be an Otaku to notice.

Trixie The Golden Witch once said her problem with most "entry point Anime" recommendations are that people just list shows that have broader appeal because of how they aren't like what Anime is normally like.  Shows on this level are what she was referring to.  

You might at first think this would be just a list of the most well known Anime, and indeed almost everything so well known you don't have to be an Anime person to already know of them are here.  But there is also niche stuff, some shows I often feel like I'm the only person who still cares about them at all.

And Otakuness is just one measuring stick of how broad something's appeal can be.  Some stuff here might not appeal to you for reasons that have nothing to do with that but simply what their Genre/Style is.  It also includes stuff that is weird and experimental in their own unique way.  Also some stuff might be more impenetrable for Western audiences because of mainstream Japanese culture rather then Anime Culture (contrary to some jokes people make most of Japan finds Otaku stuff just as weird as Americans do).

Basically if you watch one of these and don't like it, don't blame it on Otaku, it was something else that turned you off.

Fate/Zero, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Pokémon, Lupin The Third, Miyazaki/Ghibli films, Noir, Witch Hunter Robin, Madlax, Vampire Hunter D, Cardcaptor Sakura, Angelic Layer, Pretty Cure, Little Witch Academia, Detective Conan/Case Closed, Cowboy Bebop, Romeo x Juliet, Monster, Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 Trilogy, Mobile Suit Gundam 0080 War in The Pocket, Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt, Macross/Robotech, Attack On Titan, Legend of The Galactic Heroes(either version), Serial Experiments Lain, Revolutionary Girl Utena, The Rose of Versailles, Princess Tutu.

B Level: The True Anime Gateway Drugs.

Shows on this level are the answer to the problem Trixie mentioned.  Everything here I think is mostly just as potentially appealing to Normies as the A Level stuff, just as much of a good choice to potentially be someone's very first Anime, but still has a noticeable Otaku character to them, these are shows I consider ideal for easing someone into those Otaku tropes.  A few of these shows were among the first I watched, then I returned to them years later and realized how much distinctly Otaku stuff I'd been exposed to long before I knew the terms for them.

The only people who'd be turned off by the Otakuness of these shows are not Normies really but Anti-Otaku, that's my term for people who watch a lot of Anime in-spite of Otaku values rather then because of them.  

There are problematic elements in some of these shows, but problematic in a way that bothers me no less now then they would have before I got used to it.

Fate/Stay Night adaptations (the best of which is UFOTable's Unlimited Blade Works), A Certain Scientific Railgun, Code Geass, Death Note, Sword Art Online, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Steins;Gate, Robotics;Notes, Pretear, Neon Genesis Evangelion, SSSS.Gridman, Tenchi Universe, Magical Girl Pretty Sammy TV Anime., Higurashi When They Cry (the original 2006 show and Kai), Boogiepop and Others, Kanon, Clannad, To Heart, Citrus, Azumanga Daioh.

C Level: The Center of the Normie-Otaku Spectrum.

Anime on this level could be enjoyable to a person who's still a Normie if they've gotten somewhat used to Anime via shows in the above levels.  And maybe even rarely could work as someone's very first if they're the right kind of Normie, if they already have at least an element of the Otaku mind set.  Christians who believe in Universal Salvation would be one example.  But in those cases you still need to know the right show to recommend.

For the last 15 years or so, this level is about the Average of where most Anime winds up falling.  Which makes it a pretty significant percentage of the total Anime that exists.

Fate/Apocrypha, A Certain Magical Index, Occultic;Nine, Yuki Yuna Is A Hero, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Selector Infected Wixoss and Selector Spread Wixoss, Daybreak Illusion, Darling In The FranXX, Re:Zero, Tenchi Muyo Ryuohki, Magical Girl Pretty Sammy OVAs, War On Geminar, That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime, Rebuild of Evangelion films, Umineko When They Cry, Mawaru Penguindrum, Strawberry Panic, So I'm a Spider, So What, Nerima Daikon Brothers, Eden of The East.

D Level: Highly Otaku Oriented.

This level is for shows that someone still considering themselves a Normie could enjoy, but definably not as their first.  But it's also possible at least some shows on this level can still be in some ways respected by some of the Normies who can't get past their Otaku elements.  For Otaku however this level contains many of the shows that we would cite as a manifesto.

Carnival Phantasm, Lucky Star, Yuru Yuri, No Game No Life, In Another World With My Smartphone, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, School Days, Chaos;HEad, Chaos;Child, YU-NO: The Girl Who Chants Love At The Bound of This World, Excel Saga, Higurashi OVAs, Shattered Angels.

E Level: The Point of No Return, once you like one of these you can't claim to be normal anymore.  

Before I had literally only one show I listed here, and I was hard pressed to think of any others that aren't just plain Hentai.  And I don't want to simply say "and Hentai" because believe it or not some Hentai I do place on other levels, though I'm choosing not to name any for this post, I'll save that for a potential future project.  But after putting some thought into it, I think I do have some now.  But also I think most Otaku content on this level just doesn't have an Anime incarnation yet, the other mediums associated with Otaku culture like Visual Novels, Light Novels, Manga and Anime Style Video Games is where the really out there stuff originates.

Fate/Khalied Liner Prisma Illya, Engaged to The Unidentified, School Days: Magical Heart Koroko-Chan, Eromanga-Sensei, A Sister's All You Need.

Update: I quickly started to question putting A Sister's All You Need on the E Level, this is a show I'd recently re-watched a bunch of before 2021 ended.  The character of Miyako is clearly meant to serve as an audience surrogate for any Normie who winds up watching the show.  So in that context it clearly wants to have at least some Normie accessibility, the question is does it succeed?

Raildex Watch Order Again

I feel like giving another Update on my recommended Raildex watch order, which is strictly neither the chorological order or the broadcast order.

But first I've talked about how I like Railgun the most, I do enjoy Index and even Accelerator, but I can imagine there being some people who'll only be able to find Railgun watchable.  I've also said that I recommend newcomers on your first watch of Railgun to skip episode 2.

But it has occurred to me to recommend to people who might give up on Index early on, that between watching Railgun S (the Second season) and Railgun T (the third season) there are two episodes of Index season 2 that are very specifically about Railgun stuff that did not get an equivalent depiction on Railgun proper.  Those are episodes 6 and 7 of Index II (30 and 31 of the series as a whole), the Tree Remnant Arc.

Alright so here is my new updated recommended watch order.

A Certain Scientific Railgun (season 1)

A Certain Magical Index (season 1)

A Certain Scientific Railgun S

A Certain Scientific Accelerator (season 1)

A Certain Magical Index The Movie: The Miracle of The Endymion

A Certain Magical Index II

A Certain Scientific Railgun T

A Certain Magical Index III

Noir may no longer be my favorite Anime

Make no mistake it remains very important to me.  It remains my favorite of a number of Sub categories you can fit it into.  And probably remains in my opinion the most perfectly executed Anime of all time.

But in terms of my current relationship with Anime, with how I like to talk about Anime, it's not very representative of what my overall tastes in Anime are.  It became one of the first Anime to catch my interest back when I was much more of an Edgelord then I am now.

Still I do not consider it in conflict with my current Otaku Values, the ending is a happy one, it's perhaps as optimistic as a show with it's starting premise could be.  But when I'm using Anime references to explain my Evangelical Universalist Theology, as analogies for how I view The Gospel, Noir is of little use.

You may think "that's unfair, so what if Number 1 doesn't represent the whole, shouldn't it's uniqueness be why it stands out?"

And that's where I have to mention how it isn't as rewatchable to me as it used to be.  When it was literally the only Anime besides Saturday Morning kids shows I'd watched at all I could binge the entire show on a daily basis.  Now I have too many interests for any single show to take up that much of my time.  But when I do feel compelled to re-watch something even though I'd already seen it fairly recently, it is something much more inline with my general Otaku Values.

Perhaps A Certain Scientific Railgun is a good candidate, it's something that since I first watched it I've seen on average more then once a year, it touches on many different aspects of what I like about Anime, and yet is fairly Normie friendly, one I like to recommend to people as a potential entry point (though with the caveat of skipping the second episode of season 1 on the first watch through).

On the other hand, I have come to feel that Fate/Kaleid Liner Prsima Illya is the Most Anime.

Railgun T raises the Bar for Intelligent Anime Fight scenes

For the small minority of people who've only seen Index and never bothered with the Spin Off, from the beginning the fight scenes are much different on Railgun.  

The male led Toaru shows are very Shounen in their approach to action.  Touma wins by somehow getting his super special punch in, and Accelerator just proves himself to be ridiculously OP even when the antagonist claims to have neutralized his OPness.

Now even Railgun still sometimes needs to have Misaka simply overpower the bad guy so we don’t forget she’s a Level 5, but a lot of that is in the show’s Cold Open episodes, where it can be quite satisfying to see some random goons have no idea who they're dealing with till it's too late.

But even in season 1 Railgun has scenes like when Kuroko has to take on one villain in an abandoned building.  Episode 2 I advise new fans to skip on their first viewing because I worry about the bad first impression it gives of Kuroko, this episode is the one that proves there is more to her then clingy Lesbian with boundary issues.  And then Railgun S has Shinobu’s awesome introduction and later the really intense showdown between Misaka and ITEM.  

But the third season has outdone itself in this area.  Railgun S is still the best season overall, but failing to top S is nothing to be ashamed of, I’m seriously considering letting Railgun S dethrone Noir.  Railgun T is in my opinion the Anime of the Year for 2020 and in my top 20 of the last decade.

Now I know most people who care about voting in the best Anime Fight Scene category for the Crunchyroll Anime Awards probably aren’t looking for what I’m looking for, they just want fast paced fist pumping action.  I can enjoy those kinds of fight scenes when I’m into the story around it, as I usually am for Raildex shows.  But if I’m going to praise something specifically as a fight scene, I want tactics, I want some level of actually needing to outthink your opponent.

A Certain Scientific Railgun T first gives us a taste of what it’s up to with the Daihasei Festival itself, the three legged race and the glorified Dodgeball game are both a lot of fun to watch.

Then comes episode 6 and all of the sudden two of the most peripheral characters of the show are our main protagonists for the week, and it’s awesome, instantly a best fight scene in all of Anime contender.  Where else but in Anime does that kind of thing happen?

Then we enter the last act of the Arc and we have two intense chess matches going on at once contrasted with Touma doing his thing.

The second part of the season is the Dream Ranker Arc, the Dream Ranker arc is a lot of fun, I’d perhaps have preferred it as the first half of a season rather then as an ending.  But as a follow up to the three preceding epic sagas it’s kind of like Star Trek IV The Journey Home giving us something more fun after an intensely melodramatic trilogy.  A modern Satyr play.

In the fight scene department we first get the two part episode about Frenda randomly befriending Saten, where the fight is mostly in part 2 but you do need the context.  Frenda has to outwit a sniper and there is a moment that I may in the future use as a case study in why voice over narration is good actually.

Then we get into the Arc proper where the show manages to endear us to Scavenger and we get to see Misaka herself have an interesting battle for the first time this season.

Top 20 Anime of the Decade that ended with 2020

Naturally this decade also begins with 2011.  This list will also only be TV Anime or ONAs and OVAs serialized enough to be watched like a TV Anime.  No movies or one offs.

I already made a post listing a top 17 of the 2010s, and more recently an attempt to list my favorite of every year of this decade.  Between those two posts I’ve said all I have to say for now on Anime films of this decade, but my rankings for serieses are always evolving.

My honourable mentions are still Attack On Titan and Sword Art Online as the major mainstream Anime of the decade I enjoyed them and they played a role in my journey.  But I liked and even loved a lot of stuff during this decade not mentioned in this post.

20. Symphogear

Watch it.

19. YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at The Bound of This World

An underrated recent show that is a great adaptation of one of the earliest major Visual Novels.  And it held up on my re-watch.

18. Doki Doki Pretty Cure (Glitter Force Doki Doki)

I’m going back to calling this the best PreCure of the Decade and perhaps my favorite Pretty Cure series period.

17. Lupin III Part V (Blue Jacket season 2)

A great way to bring Lupin more firmly into the 21st Century.  And I liked it’s original characters.

16. SSSS.Gridman

Fun show, great homage to old Tokustatsu stuff, and has two of the best villains of the decade.  Plus another great Anime that unintentionally works as an allegory for The Gospel.

15. Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine

Probably the most important Feminist Anime we’ve had since Utena, and has a great Retro Neo-Noir style to it as well.

14. Sailor Moon Crystal

All three seasons go here, I was hard on them at first but they are a satisfying reboot for Manga fans.

13. School Live!

One of my top five Horror Anime and absolutely number one Zombie Anime.

12. Citrus

Best Yuri genre show of the decade, and it keeps proving it’s rewatchability.

11. Engaged To The Unidentified

My first Slice of Life show, and perhaps my first truly Otaku show too.  It’s fun still holds up even now that I’ve seen more.

10. Puella Magi Madoka Magica

A perfectly satisfying 12 episode saga.

9.  No Game No Life

Best Isekai, with world building that makes me really want it to get that season 2.

8.  Yuru Yuri

Best Cute Girls Doing Cute Things show of the decade, 3 seasons of fun and some OVAs.

7.  Mawaru Penguindrum

The most rewatchable Ikuhara show for me personally, and it also has lots of themes I could comment on.

6.  Yuki Yuna Is A Hero

Both seasons go together here.  Yes I do honestly think this show ultimately surpassed Madoka based on my personal investment in the characters.

5.  A Certain Scientific Railgun T

Anime of The Year of 2020 which doesn’t mean much given the options that year.  But it's also a not at all disappointing follow up to it's phenomenal prior seasons.

4.  Steins;Gate

My favorite SciFi Anime and favorite piece of Time Travel fiction in any medium.  Also I’ve used it as an unintentional allegory for The Gospel.

3.  UFO Table Fate/ Anime

Might be unfair to put all of these together,  But they are great adaptations of great source material.

2.  Robotics;Notes

A perfect love letter to the Mecha Genre, a great Reconstruction, and a scene near the climax that even on rewatch still makes me cry.

1.  A Certain Scientific Railgun S

Railgun as a whole is in my view the gold Standard for any Anime that wants to be like a Superhero franchise.  And this season is a perfect follow up to it’s great start.  It’s moving and intense and with a great message.  It’s the embodiment of what Anime means to me.  It may in time be able to become my favorite Anime period, surpassing certain classics as it becomes a classic.

More then half the Anime I've completed is from the last Decade

 The decade that begins with 2011 and ends with 2020.

The reason for that has to do with how while I’ve had some interest in Anime since the 90s my truly diving into it started in the middle of that decade, and then a couple years later I started following currently airing seasonal Anime.

Last time I made a post observing this I assumed that this decade best fits my Anime tastes, 2011 did set a lot of our current trends.  But once I went about trying to create a 3x3 I realized how much my top tier favorites do tend to be older.

It might be that a lot of the most recent stuff I’ve seen just needs to stand the test of time more and could improve upon my revisiting it in the future.  Currently the Anime of this decade I consider 3x3 worthy is stuff from early in it and/or connected to older franchises.  But I do think Your Name, A Silent Voice and Weathering With You are all among the best stand alone Anime Films ever made.

Looking at Anime history from the standpoint of the end of 2020, there are ways in which the 2000s almost seem like a giant transitional period from 90s Anime to modern Anime.  But it’s that very quality that makes a lot of it’s stuff seem like the most unique Anime ever made, for better and for worse Kannazuki No Miko and Nanoha both feel like they could only be products of that decade.

But that’s largely the current perspective talking.  I think a lot of 2010s Anime will be better appreciated when revisiting with the benefit of hindsight.  I’m certain eventually 2020s Anime discourse will include a lot of waxing Nostalgic about the Isekai craze.

I’m back to having seen more of 2017 then any other single year, 2018 had pulled ahead at one point, I’m not sure what I recently watched from 2017 to change that.  I’ve completed 39 from 2017, 31 from 2018 and 28 from 2019.  That’s based on their start dates of course, some shows are included that started late in one of those years and continued into the next.  Somehow 2013 is currently tied with 2018.  And there is still stuff from 2017 I want to watch or finish eventually.  2020 has produced less than other years, meaning it still will even once I’ve completed everything on my currently Watching list spend a little while as the only year of this decade I’ve completed less than 20 from.  For 2010 I’ve completed only 12, so there is a big drop off immediately once we go earlier.

I need to digest the end of this Decade a bit more before I make another attempt to rank my favorites from it.  But for now I wish you all a very Happy New Year.

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I’ve decided to make a list of my favorite Anime from each year of the 2011-2020 Decade.  The more recent a year is, the more possible it is that I'll change how I rank Anime from that year in the future even if I don’t increase the sample size I’ve seen of it.

I’m going to list a Movie and a Series for each year.  By “Series” I mean TV Anime as well as OVAs, ONAs or serialized films with enough episodes to work like a TV Anime.  For movies I’ll probably only count Theatrically released films with at least a full 60 minute runtime.  But maybe I’ll consider counting some TV movies or feature length OVAs if they feel cinematic enough.

The general rule is one each per year, but exceptions can be made for ties.

2011

Series: We actually start with a tie, Steins;Gate and Mawaru Penguindrum.

Movies: The K-On movie, it really is a masterpiece.

2012

Series: Robotics;Notes

Movies: Pretty Cure Allstars New Stage: Mirai no Tomodachi

2013

Series: A Certain Scientific Railgun S

Movie: A Certain Magical Index The Movie: The Miracle of The Endymion

2014:

Series: Yuki Yuna Is A Hero

Movie: N/A, there are no movies I even gave a 10 this year

2015

Series: School Live

Movie: Girls Und Panzer Der Film

2016

Series: N/A, Wow, for this year there’s no series I gave a 10.  But season 3 of Sailor Moon Crystal was important to me that year.

Movie: Another tie, A Silent Voice and Your Name

2017:

Series: Technically no definitive 10s here either, but I’m giving it to Fate/Apocrypha

Movie: Similarly I’m giving this one to Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya Movie Sekka no Chikai

2018

Series: Final tie, SSSS.Grdman and Citrus

Movie: Pokémon The Power of Us

2019

Series: YU-NO The Girl Who Chants Love at The Bound of This World

Movie: Weathering With You

2020

Series: A Certain Scientific Railgun T

Movie: High School Fleet Movie, but that’s about the only film of this year I’ve already seen.

Anime 2020 progresses

I’m unsure whether or not even it’s Dub counts as 2020 but I saw Weathering With You on the morning of the 9th and it was pretty good.

Well Our Last Crusade or The Rise of A New World episode 3 suddenly does something I usually wouldn’t expect a show to do till the last three episodes of a season.  It’s bold but then weirdly resolved as quickly as it happened.  Since it’s a Light Novel adaptation it makes we wonder if they decided to rush to the climax of the first book, something that usually takes 4-6 episodes.

HigurashiGou episode 7 was interesting.  From now on I’m gonna try to avoid saying anything Spoilery about Higurashi in these posts.  With episode 2 of the Gou Dub I’m already getting more used to the new voices.  But there are still some things I won’t be able to have full opinions on for a while.

I’m Standing on 1,000,000 Lives or I’m Standing on a Million Lives had an interesting pilot.

Assault Lily Bouquet episode 3 was Gay, really really Gay.

Well I have finally gotten to finish Railgun T and it was pretty awesome, Raildex has quickly become one of my favorite franchises.  I’m gonna rewatch all the Dreamranker episodes sometime soon.

The second episode of Yashahime should have been the first, it takes place before the framing device of the pilot and is a much better introduction to this world for new fans.

The 11/14 Toonami episode of SAO Alicization jumped around a bit but had some good stuff.  And it seems like the other Dubs I was expecting for Saturday and Sunday inexplicably took this weekend off.

I’m currently following 8 Fall 2020 Simuldubs plus SAO on Toonami.  Been awhile since I had that many at once.  Statistically when I have I wound not watching all of them to completion.  But either way it looks like I’ll have some fun to enjoy for the remainder of the year.

The Anime 2020 Tag will probably still be added to in 2021 as I finish shows that started in 2020 and maybe also comment on some movies I couldn’t get to sooner.  In the meantime I’m working on another idea for my next year long Anime watching project.

Follow my Anime viewing in real time at these links..

https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir

https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir 

Also here is the introductory post for this series.

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/anime-2020.html

Update: it turns out Warlords of Sigdrifa episode 2 did become available today after all.  If the other two shows drop in the next Day or so I'll add another update.

The second episode was pretty good, make sure you don't skip the post credit scene.  I'm always amused when an Anime has the MC be a Gaijin reacting to Japanese characters.  It gives us an idea of how Japanese Otaku want to be perceived by the rest of the world.

By The Grace of The Gods episode 3 was okay, but I have a feeling this may be the first show I get bored of.

What are good Entry Point Anime for Western Superhero Comic Book Nerds?

It's kind of surprising to me how much these two fandoms don't overlap.  I tried to make a variation on the Dio meme that was about the Captain Atom/Monarch fiasco and nobody got it.  Plenty of people who are deep into one of those rabbit holes is familiar with the most well known Normie examples of the other, but that's about it.

As someone who's DC fandom is far older then my Anime fandom, and yet has come to now view Anime as what I'm more of a fan of then anything else.  I'm perhaps uniquely qualified to try and identify how to reel others in.

The Anime that are most explicitly made to evoke Western Superhero aesthetics, stuff like One Punch Man and My Hero Academia, actually don't appeal to me.  They're just Battle Shonen (one of my least favorite Anime genres) with more Capes and Masks.

The Magical Girl Warrior Subgenre was influenced by Superhero comics in a very particular way.  If you're of the opinion that Wonder Woman was only great in the Marston era and everything since Denny O'Neil has been a hollow shell, then Sailor Moon or Wedding Peach might be exactly what you've been looking for.  But I know there will be others that won't be able to get into that genre, at least not without being phased into the Bishoujo first.  So my focus today shall be more Seinen.

For me the show that wasn't my first Anime but the one that really felt like a unique and interesting approach to tropes and ideas I was already into from my prior Nerdiness was Code Geass.  There was a thread on IMDB once about comparing Lelouch to Simon Bolivar, I wasn't as familiar with that piece of history as I am now (which is still not a whole lot), but I left a comment on how I liked to compare Lelouch to Alexander The Great and Paul Atredes and Batman and Spiderman and Ozymandias, but there was also overlap with what I loved about the Star Wars Prequels.  Later when I started getting into Paul Feval his John Devil was added to that list.  The show also had Shakespearian qualities in some of it's dialogue exchanges that are more subtle then literal Iambic Pentameter.

But one thing I kept noticing when I rewatched the show earlier this year was how many Anime tropes and clichés it had that I wasn't prepared to recognize as such when I first watched it.  This was my first Absurdly Powerful Student Council, my first School Festival and even my first taste of some of Anime's special kind of degeneracy (wasn't my first sample of Yuri though).  It introduced me to those things but not in doses unbearable for someone who'd prefer not to have them.

Thing about Code Geass is while it was great for me others might need something even less perverted.

Death Note is a show I watched because it's lead was often compared to Lelouch.  The show provides a great Holmes vs Moriarty style battle of wits, for a certain kind of Comic Book Nerd it's exactly what they want.  But I'm more looking for what will appeal to those who's tastes are less dark.

For people like Linkara, I really recommend starting with A Certain Scientific Railgun (but skip the second episode on your first watch) and then the show it spun off from A Certain Magical Index.  Railgun is a Seinen show that could easily pass for Shoujo, and at times I feel like it has an appeal that is very similar to why Teen Titans is my favorite DC franchise yet I can't really explain why.

Railgun is better then Index at least in their Anime versions for a number of reasons.  The main thing that makes it a better entry point for Normies is having none of Index's egregious fanservice, only the most G rated allusions to that aspect of the culture.  

But also during Railgun T especially it proves to be a show where the battles actually put thought into making interesting use of the characters' various powers and abilities.

Once you are into this universe, you probably will want to check out Index and Accelerator eventually, because there are aspects of the universe only those shows can get into.

Update January 2022:  I wish I'd watched some Detective Conan before I wrote this, it's a show I was aware of but it's different then I expected.  Some of the shows above involve dual identified but how they function is a bit different.  There are occasional episodes of Detective Conan where Ran is very much on to Conan being Shinichi, and they way they play out constantly reminded me Lois Lane in the first act of Superman II.

Update Again: Months later and Conan is still holding up, it combines the Teen Drama Superhero antics of Spiderman with the Gadget wielding non leathal Detective antics of Batman.  And in time it develops an interesting cast of recurring villains.  

Also magic Kaito which it spun off from is good too, it's Manga is older but the Anime is newer.

The movies are often more action orientated then the show, and have on average gotten less cleverly written as time as gone on, but I find mostly all of them, even the dumbest Conan film is smarter then any MCU film.

Update August 31st 2024: I also now want to add Durarara! to the list, it has a lot of qualities that remind me of those DC Comics where you just kind of hang out in the DC Universe.