BRUH

My favorites are pretty wack, but I do think that I'd recommend these without reservation to anyone who enjoys anime/manga as a whole.

Anime:

Violet Evergarden is still my favorite anime of all time and with the release of the Violet Evergarden Movie it should be considered as complete. It has the most gorgeous visuals of any anime, and while it can miss the mark occasionally with some of its episodes, the best arcs are, in my opinion, the best arcs that I've seen in this medium.

Death Parade asked a lot of difficult questions about the value of life and the human condition. It deals with sensitive and prevalent issues like suicide, adultery, and revenge in a mature and insightful way.

The more I look at my list the more I wonder what it says about both Japan and me that like half of the shows at the top thematically asks the question of life's value and features suicide prominently. That being said, take nothing away from The Monogatari Series, specifically the Hitagi End and Sodachi arcs, which I would say are the best arcs.

Monogatari will take forever to get to the point of what it's trying to say. Characters can spend an entire episode talking seemingly pointlessly at each other. But ultimately, you always know that there is a payoff at the end; there's an unique insight or keen observation about people, about human beings, that it's trying to convey. Sometimes the message might fall flat, or it might seem obvious, but the great moments; the moments that made the series worth watching and rewatching over and over again, quite literally changed my worldview.

If you do plan on watching Monogatari, do be warned that there's a lot of questionable content in the show.


I don't read a whole lot of manga, but I should mention:

Bloom into You is probably the definitive shoujo ai manga that exists and I doubt that anything will be able to topple it, ever.

 

Manga:

Teppu

Female MMA manga through the eyes of someone who's basically a shonen antagonist. Gorgeous art, non-standard MC and it's only 33 chapters long due to mangaka's health problems, but it had a satisfying ended with no cliffhangers.

Aku no Hana (The Flower of Evil)

Well, if your thing is unremarkable young boys so desperate to escape their boring everyday lives that they either attract the most fucked up thing out there (supernatural/mental ilness or usually some combination of both) or actively seek it then Oshimi Shuzo is your guy. This was his first major work and I think still his most acclaimed one. His other major works like Happiness (best vampire manga imo), Inside Mari, Trail of Blood (on-going) and Drifting Net Cafe are all great, too.

Boys on the Run

From the same author as I Am a Hero who draw a lot of hate for how abruptly he finished that manga. Honestly, I didn't hate it that much and it's still the GOAT zombie apocalypse story for me, but I liked Boys on the Run even more. In both cases mediocre MCs stuck with dead-end jobs pick up a not-so-unusual skill that changes their lives. In Boys on the Run it's boxing and since the world is not ending, its a lot less dramatic than I Am a Hero. This is not Hajime no Ippo, an out-of-shape 26 year-old guy who filles vending machines from 9 to 5, lives with his parents and just jerks off to porn in his free time won't become a world champion or anything but it makes him a lot less pathetic and it's a satisfying story to read. Really the character development is something else here. MC is sometimes so pathetic it almost physically hurts, so when he actually shines the experience is so much stronger for the reader. Tbh I haven't actually finished this since the translators were so pissed with where the things were heading near the end they dropped the whole thing and it's only recently we got the last 12 chapters, but for me it's still the best manga I've ever read.

Anime:

Well since most of the stuff I like is already mentioned, I'm just gonna throw Now and Then, Here and There out there. It's a story of your average shonen MC who, while trying to save a girl he just met, accidentally gets kidnapped by the soldiers of the Evil Empire from a dystopic future where Earth is fastly turning into Arrakis from Dune. Mad emperors, child soldiers, women being treated as a cattle for breeding, water being the most precious thing in the world and in the middle of that a 13-14yo Japanese school boy who was just returning home from a kendo practice.

 

In terms of series I have a pretty easy top 4, the fifth is where it gets tricky assuming we rule out feature films (so no Ghibli to steal the list)
Monster
Cowboy Bebop
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Baccano!

Number five probably to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex? Assuming Berserk doesn't count. Also wow, nostalgia from Mx0, gonna have to go reread that now.

 

1. Madoka Magica

Madoka has probably the best, tightest written story out of anything I've watched. Despite being a magical girl scifi/fantasy show, the themes are all about human nature and were presented in a way that I found incredibly compelling. I would call its weaving together of theme and story a masterclass in good writing.

It's dark in a way that never feels pointlessly so. The heart-wrenching moments hit hard. And I'd say this show is thought-provoking in a way that not many pieces of media can match. I've watched Madoka more than ten times and I still feel like I get something new out of it every single time. That as much as anything else earns Madoka Magica an unchallenged place at the top of my favorites list.

Oh, and it doesn't hurt that this show has my favorite soundtrack, full stop.

2. K-On!

It's the perfect slice-of-life. There's no central conflict really, but you do get a nice coming-of-age story as the characters go from beginning high school to graduation. The later parts are genuinely moving, and I think this show is notable for bringing out tears of happiness, which is pretty rare for me.

The characters are really great, especially as they grow over time and their interactions with each other change accordingly.

3. Hibike! Euphionium

Kumiko is my favorite character from anything ever.

The show is a mundane drama but extremely well written, with complex characters and character interactions. There's conflict, but it never feels contrived. There are antagonists, but there are no 'bad guys'.

It all feels very real, and of course, Kumiko carries the show.

 

1. Haikyuu is by far the best Manga I have ever read, from start to finish. It encapsulated everything I love about stories set in that genre and it never lost its spirit, remained fully committed to Volleyball. For example, there was never any romance or weird interpersonal drama. It was purely volleyball and the author expressing his love for the sport through his manga.

The characters were all rich and diverse and the author never depicted them as anything more than high school kids playing a hobby. Instead, he displayed the difference between someone doing something as a hobby and as a calling.

If sports anime/manga doesn't put you off. Do yourself the biggest favor and read/watch this one.

2. Kengan Ashura is also the best fighting tournament manga out there and it ends in a bittersweet way.

3. Monster, the first anime to show me that the medium could be so much more than fancy animations, bombastic action, or hyper-reality. It was a masterpiece from start to finish.

 

1. Baccano. I love everything about it, from the character interactions to the music to the overarching plots themselves as well as the world building.

2. Yu Yu Hakusho: Pretty much the same as the above. Pretty much peak shounen anime for me. Also both this and the above dub are great.

3. Ghost in the Shell. More so season 1 than season 2 but both are still great. Some of the movies I'm less keen on however.

4. The original Mobile Suit Gundam, subbed. A show that while the animation hasn't aged great the show itself is fine. Quality is to the point that the only bad episode is really just an above average one in between some great ones.

5. G Gundam. Because the creators were just having fun with the concept of Giant Robot Martial Arts Tournament as a series... also the various nation's gundams are hilarious to the point I'm not really sure what's my favorite.

Honorable Mentions: Gundam X, personal favorite but marred by executive meddling. Code Geass, because we finally get Char as the protagonist and the entire Getter Robo and Mazinger franchises for being solid but never really being able to make it into the top 5... and because without Mazinger Z we wouldn't have the piloted robot genre like now and Getter Robo pioneering the combining robot, you're welcome Power Rangers.

 

That warning is actually necessary lol, it was the first thing I thought of when reading your list. Like, I love Monogatari, but it is decidedly not what I would ship around unquestioned to someone getting started. Questionable is a rather tame description of some of the scenes.

 

Fullmetal Alchemist (2003 and Brotherhood), Baccano, Black Lagoon, Darker than Black (season 1), Avatar: the Last Airbender, Samurai Champloo, Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night: UBW all have my recommendations. In fact, they are the anime that I'd go to if I wanted to suggest something to get people into anime. They've all got high-quality characters and stories, very few "bad" moments, and they lack the problematic issues that some anime have that can turn people off of the genre in general (excessive fanservice, heavy reliance on an understanding of Japanese culture, high schools, character archetypes like tsunderes, dragging the story out to pad run time, etc.). They've also all got good dubs, which helps get people who are unused to subtitles to get into anime.

There are others that I'd recommend to people more familiar with anime: Kekkaishi (the manga) had a concept that I loved, Gurren Lagann was a fun ride (I showed it to a friend and he ended up staying overnight so that we could finish the series), Clannad and its sequel tugged at the heartstrings, and so on.

 

I'm happy to see so many other appreciators of Baccano here.

 

Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, Ghost in the Shell and Black Lagoon would be my contenders in regards to complete anime. I prefer action oriented anime so while I am aware that there are some solid drama and horror series out there they never really managed to capture my interest and honestly as my selection probably suggests the time when I watched and enjoyed a lot of anime or manga is well in the past partially because the rise of isekai and gamer-style anime and manga really soured me on the genre.

And in regards to manga I have the issue that I have a hard time liking shorter works while at the same time detesting the issues that come with longer serialized works so there is really no complete manga that springs to me mind that I would wholeheartedly recommend to people.

 

The problem is, a lot of the questionable stuff actually exists for a reason. There's actually a lot of analysis on the Monogatari subreddit devoted to those scenes, and very rarely is the fanservice there just because.

I think the best example would be the scene from Tsukimonogatari where he's holding up Yotsugi's skirt while she's trying to tell him to sacrifice her for his sisters and Kanbaru. Without writing an essay, I'll say that it's one of the more questionable scenes in the show, but I don't think that it could've happened any other way.

 

@Vira
Blinks twice.

 

There are several things that spring to mind. I can't recall the exact specifics, it has been a while since I watched the series, but I remember that the meetings between Hachikuji and Araragi weirded me the fuck out at first. Also, the toothbrush scene with his sister, 'nough said. Not saying these things don't have their place, but it's definitely not introductory material. The same way that I like Made in Abyss but wouldn't watch it on a train ride or with a first-time future anime enjoyer.

 

I binged Teppu.

It was a great read.

Wish there was more. The author set up so many interesting matches.

But I am satisfied with the ending.

Recommended as one of my top 50 manga of all time

 

You aren't wrong by any means, I just get kind of upset that the biggest knock on the show is its themes rather than what theyre actually there for.

 

totally agree with you

 

Recently, I saw Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba season 1 on netflix. It's really good. The manga version is already complete, If you want to read it instead of watching anime.

The best thing about it is animation. It has one of best animation I have ever seen in anime. The story is not bad(it can be good if you are new to the genre). Try it. 26 episodes. Really enjoyable.

Trailer for season 1,

 

Kimetsu no Yaiba is great. Recently re-watched that with a friend. However, no amount of payoff and brief awesomeness can justify Zenitsu. JFC, he's rating high on my list of most annoying characters of all time. It's actually incredible how much I learned to despise his appearances.

 

Damn no one’s mentioned code geass yet? Granted the art/animation style, especially by today’s standards, is atrocious. But the sheer badassery of the MC, overall plot/twists, and an absolutely perfect endings gotta make it the best anime I’ve ever seen, hell maybe even the best show I’ve seen in general.

 

NOBODY TELL THEM ABOUT SEASON 2