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ladyloveandjustice · 2 months ago

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My Top 12 Favorite Anime of 2024 (and more)!

We had a lot of good anime in 2024, so here's the list of my top 12 favorites and some bonus great anime as well. If you get tired of clicking the review links, check out my anime overview collection for all of them here.

You can also check out my post about my favorite manga from 2024 here and my favorite books of 2024 here.

These are in no particular order!

Delicious in Dungeon (a.k.a Dungeon Meshi)

Dungeon Meshi is one of my favorite stories period, and easily my top anime of the year. The basic premise is that Laios and his party of adventurers need to travel through a monster-infested dungeon rescue his sister. Rather waste precious time earning money for food, Laios decides they should just eat the monsters they encounter as they travel. But then that simple plot spins off into so much more...

The story combines cooking and adventure animanga expertly. It has some of the most impressive and fascinating worldbuilding I've ever seen, top-tier varied character design and a great plot. It's also funny as hell, and I love its main cast of nuanced eccentric weirdos with all my heart. Even the characters who have five minutes of screen time feel like you could watch a spin-off series about them.

It's not just about food, but the cycle of life and death, about hunger of all kinds, about ecosystems and societies and finding solace in the monstrous...there's a lot simmering under this story!

So, go ahead and eat up! And read my review here for more!

Mayonaka Punch

Canceled YouTuber, Masaki, meets a pathetic lesbian vampire, Live. Live agrees to help Masaki launch a new YouTube channel, but in exchange, Masaki has to let Live suck up all her blood when they reach 100 million subscribers.

This is the kind of stuff I watch anime for. This is what dreams are made of.

Do you support women's wrongs? Are you craving some women who are loveable shitheads? Do you want a great ensemble comedy about five disaster vampires wreaking havoc and a cynical human along for the ride? This show has all that, plus some down bad lesbian vampire shenanigans! But there's also a lot of growth for the main character, and the show has a lot of pathos in how it explores how the internet and its outrage train can do a number on one's mental health.

It's a ton of fun! See my full review here!

Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc.

Being a magical girl is no longer the domain of teenagers, and has evolved into an actual career dominated by adult women. Kana becomes a magical girl for a scrappy start up company, and tries her best to navigate working life.

It's the magical girl story about adult women I've been craving for years! Magical girl media often explores the struggles of adolescence and growing up, and this show takes us to the next step by using magical girls to explore what it’s like to be a young woman entering the working world. The focus is one Kana struggling to grow her confidence and accept support from her workplace, but it also has a lot to say about companies exploiting their workers, prizing efficiency and growth over actually taking care of their customers, and it shows how the world could be better than what it is right now. Check out my review here for more detail!

Girls Band Cry

After being bullied, Nina drops out school and ends up starting a band with four other girls, including the woman whose music saved her at her darkest moment. Nina's determined for the band to stick it to the people who once looked down on them. GBC features some wonderfully messy and entertaining teenage girls, actually incredible CGI animation and great music. Nina, the lead, is allowed to be angry and obnoxious and powered by spite, but the narrative sympathizes with her and loves her spirit, even if she sometimes messes things up. All the girls have rough edges and raw emotion and a great dynamic with each other. They also flip people off a lot.

It was kind of screwed over by streaming, but don't sleep on it! See my review here!

Natsume's Book of Friends (Season 7)

Anime's sweetest boy and his horrible cat (affectionate) are back, and it's time for more yokai adventures! I’ve already talked at length about how this series is special–check out my series review/ Rec post for the series here. I also did an article titled The Courage to Speak: Mental Illness and Recovery in Natsume’s Book of Friends that goes into more in-depth analysis. The story is sweet and charming and sometimes heartwrenching and very important to me.

It's yet another season of lovely, bittersweet yokai tales that tug on your heartstrings, the characters continue to heal and grow in slow but satisfying ways. It just feels so nice watching this series again and letting the love, comfort, and catharsis wash over me. See my review here.

Dead Dead Demon's DeDeDeDe Destruction

A giant mothership is hovering over Tokyo. The aliens have done nothing, not even leaving their ship, but Japan and America are already trying to blow that UFO up, and show off who has the best weapons, causing many civilian casualties along the way. Meanwhile, two girls are just trying to living their lives.

This anime goes hard on criticizing the military industrial complex, Japanese nationalism and imperialism, American imperialism, xenophobia, mistreatment of immigrants, rich people, and conspiracy theorists. That means it's often devastating and visceral, but it also follows some fantastic weird girls and their ride-or-die soul bond, as well as other charming, funny teenagers who are just trying to live in a world falling apart around them. You can also look forward to some plot twists that recontextualize everything you know!

You should also see my review for some content warnings and a really important message about episode order if you want more detail, you can read it here.

Senpai is an Otokonoko

Makoto is an "otokonoko" ( a term that means crossdressing boy) and he's figuring out his relationship to gender, and hiding his interests from his mother. A girl named Aoi confesses to him, thinking he's a girl. But he reveals the truth, she's ecstatic about it, much to his shock. Meanwhile, Makoto's best friend Ryuji is also crushing on him...

It's tough to be a queer kid in a world full of rigid gender roles and insidious homophobia, and this anime shows the unfairness of that struggle. But it also shows the joy of finding those who accept and understand you, and of slowly becoming comfortable with who you are. The show knows how to make you really roots for these great kids, and it's really good at tugging the ol' heartstrings. See my review here for more!

A Sign of Affection

The anime follows Yuki, a shy girl who's been deaf since birth, and Itsuomi, a world-traveler and polyglot, fall in love. They both live in very different worlds, but as their romance blooms, they're eager to learn more about each other.

A Sign of Affection is shoujo romance at its sweetest, with soft colors, gentle blushes, tender moments, and plenty of warm fuzzies. The animation is beautiful and the show treats Yuki's perspective with care and delicacy as the story goes on. It also have a great focus on communication and consent in a relationship. Read my review here!

YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

In this world, people have the ability to shapeshift into yatagarasu, the giant three legged ravens from Japanese mythology. Prince Wakamiya, who's next in line for the emperor, is thought to be an incarnation of the powerful "Golden Raven", so the four women chosen as his bride candidates (each who carry the hopes of their respective provinces) compete fiercely for his hand. Yukiya, a canny young boy, has been pulled into being the prince's attendant, and both Yukiya and the women soon find themselves pulled into a deadly web of mysteries and political machinations.

Yatagarasu is a tightly woven tale of political intrigue, featuring lots of palace folk plotting against each other, multiple assassination attempts, spies, fascinating worldbuilding and use of mythology, well executed plot twists, and complex characters. Yukiya is a very likeable little trickster with a heart of gold, and he works well as an audience surrogate who has to keep up with all this weird court drama. In the first half, the story focuses a lot on on women contending with rigid roles and how that leads to both enmity and empathy between them. But disappointingly, most of those characters are dropped or have their roles reduced in the second half of the anime, which is a shame.

Overall, this anime is a story that hooks you with it's story and it's dark, majestic atmosphere and never lets go. It's just plain good, and pretty underrated, so I'd suggest checking it out!

The Apothecary Diaries (Episodes 13-24)

The second half of The Apothecary Diaries was somehow even better than the first half, crafting a compelling ongoing mystery and delving into MaoMao’s backstory. There were quite a few big thrills that made me gasp aloud. MaoMao, the world's best poison-obsessed detective, pulled off some show-stopping feats and she remains an incredible, endearing character. Especially now that we’ve learned she has a killer evil laugh. Check out my review of the first part of The Apothecary Diaries here and slightly more detail on this run of episodes here.

Dandadan

Another one you've probably heard of, it's the story of two kids- Momo, who was abducted by aliens and Okarun, who was cursed by a yokai. Now they have to break Okarun's curese while aliens and yokai are hunting them!

Dandadan is an anime bursting with absurd action and humor, and it has a boppin’ soundtrack and amazing animation from Science Saru. It’s wildly weird in the best way, and the characters are hilarious lovable losers. It's also the rare example of a battle shonen that actually treats its female lead as an equal to her male partner, in screen time and in battle. I adore Momo with all my heart- she's fun, she's bombastic, she's badass, she's everything.

However, the main problem I have with the show is its pattern of putting Momo in sexual peril. I go into more detail about this and the show in general in my review here.

Train to the End of the World

A story about four girls and a dog traveling across a weird, warped version of Japan to find their missing friend, Train to the End of the World is wild. I absolutely adore bizarre anime about equally bizarre girls, and this delivers. We see the girls encounter a cult with mushrooms growing out of their heads, screaming goatmen and even zombies on their journey. The dynamic between the different characters is great, and the dialogue is snappy. If you appreciate wild and weird zaniness that also has a lot of heart and great friendships, give this show a try. My full review is here.

Bonus Anime- some other stuff you might want to check out!

Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!

Despite an extremely goofy title Cherry Magic quickly became a surprisingly grounded, thoughtful and heartfelt BL romance worth watching. See my full review here.

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!

Rishe has lived seven lives, had lots of adventures, and in every single one of them, she has been killed as result of the world war started by the emperor of a neighboring kingdom. Each time Rishe dies, she's sent back to the moment the crown prince of her own country broke off their engagement (she's actually pretty happy about it). But in her seventh life, the future Emperor sees her, is instantly smitten by how cool she is and proposes to her. Rishe decides she might as well enjoy life chilling in the palace before things inevitably go to hell.

7th Time Loop has a fun conceit, and it features a vivacious, badass heroine who's a joy to watch. Having lived as a commoner in most of her past lives, she's ready to use her smarts to help people--whether it's going undercover to help a maid who's being bullied or addressing illiteracy among the servant girls. Whether she's beating up kidnappers or politically maneuvering, she's learning and growing and kicking ass. While her love interest is a bit too broody for me, I do deeply relate to how Rishe's badassery clearly turns him on. The antagonists and plot are sometimes a bit silly, but it's always a good time. A josei anime about an awesome gal is just what the doctor ordered.

Acro Trip

A silly show about a magical girl fangirl who's recruited to an evil organization by an incompetent villain, Acro Trip is a lot of fun, and I recommend it to any magical girl enjoyer. I also recommend it to anyone who loves pathetic failguys and girls. Our "villain" Chrome is the most hilariously pathetic of them all. You like bad boys? Well this man is literally bad at everything. See my full review here.

Whisper Me a Love Song

I have to give a shoutout to the only textual yuri anime that came out this year--it's production basically completely collapsed, but it's still watchable and the story is a sweet and solid girl band romance. At least consider giving the manga a shot if nothing else! See my review here!

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brucebocchi · 3 months ago

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Ranking 2024 anime, Pt. 4: #20-11

hey, this post is also available on my ko-fi, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i do this for free and am currently between jobs. you can find part 1 of the list here, part 2 here, and part 3 here. thanks!

You know, I'd really planned to keep my re-reviews much shorter but I'm finding it harder to do so when I get into the anime I actually liked. Maybe that's a good thing.

And away we go.

20. Solo Leveling

Portal isekai, sad loser secretly gains crazy powers and instantly becomes a stoic gigachad, menu screens everywhere, entry-level power fantasy. You’ve seen it before. Honestly, Solo Leveling is total slop. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

If you’ve watched a couple isekai, like, ever, you’re not going to find much new here. There’s some interesting enough worldbuilding outside of the dungeon stuff; I did find myself intrigued by the degree to which this preponderance of portals would influence Korean economics and politics, and even moreso that much of the story so far revolves around how those corrupting powers can lead to hunters using dungeons as their own playgrounds for personal gain at others’ expense. There also seems to be a larger malefactor behind all of the menu screens driving protagonist Sung Jinwoo’s growth and titular leveling, so there’s the hook.

Even putting aside the few interesting parts of the otherwise boilerplate story, Solo Leveling both looks and sounds pretty darn good. The soundtrack is laden with Hiroyuki Sawano’s trademark build-ups and drops, and though the character art and dungeon designs aren’t always the most eye-catching (early on it did look like A-1 Pictures was going to default to “fuck it, we’re making money anyway” mode), the action animation goes absolutely bonkers in its best moments.

The second season is already up and running, and although I can barely remember anyone’s name outside of the protagonist (maybe that’s on me, I consume very little Korean media and am not great at retaining Korean names), I’m in this for the long haul. Great turn-your-brain-off action schlock.

19. Wind Breaker

At this point you could put a sign that says “DELINQUENT WITH A HEART OF GOLD” underneath a box-and-stick trap and I’d walk right in. I am not immune to your Josukes Higashikata, your Ryujis Sakamoto, what have you. The angry and violent type who will nevertheless stick up for what’s right and remain fiercely loyal to those they care about. Wind Breaker is rife with characters who fit that archetype, but it’s not exactly a delinquent anime so much as it’s a Dudes anime. More specifically, a Dudes Rock anime.

Yes, Wind Breaker’s ensemble cast is almost entirely Dudes, and they do indeed Rock. Protagonist Haruka is a self-inflicted outcast, and his tsundere ass does not appreciate all the positive attention he’s receiving after proving himself in street combat prior to his transfer to an all-delinquents high school. Nevertheless, he wants to fight his way to the top of his new environment, and if that means sticking up for the little guy along the way, all the better.

I love that Wind Breaker’s overarching messages of self-improvement and helping the weak without expecting a reward are basically anathema for the base power fantasies that largely come from light novels over the past decade and change, but even moreso that Haruka, loner that he is, keeps having to learn that he’s not going to get anywhere without surrounding himself with the right people and relying on their support. Battle shonen are usually pretty blatant with this stuff, but to see it spelled out so clearly in a series like this just hits right.

Wind Breaker looks terrific at just about every step, too. Every single thing I’ve seen from CloverWorks from the past few years has been a bop, which makes it that much more maddening that this is the studio that bungled the Persona 5 anime and supposedly botched The Promised Neverland in its second season. I get that not everything works out as planned sometimes but I find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop sometimes. I’m glad it’s been smooth so far, at least. Some pacing issues and a weird place to end the show, but I know for a fact I'll be there when this comes back in spring.

18. Laid-Back Camp, season 3

I am not immune to the Cute Girls Doing Cute Things genre, and when all is said and done I think Yuru Camp could very well stand alone at the top. A show this directly responsible for the uptick in camping culture and countryside tourism in Japan clearly holds some sway over pop culture, and it’s clearly deserved.

Returning to the present day after the 2022 film gave us a look at the Outdoor Club in adulthood, Yuru Camp’s third season gives us exactly what we wanted: More of the same. We largely focus on the solo expeditions of Rin, Nadeshiko, and the latter’s hometown friend Ayano as they trek to their collective meetup spot, and as the seasons change we get the entire gang together for some springtime hanami. It’s cute, it’s funny, it’s whimsical, it’s Yuru Camp. You know what you’re getting into at this point.

With studio Eightbit taking over the series in its third season, Yuru Camp still largely looks the same, and wonderfully so, but it can be a bit off at times: CGI vehicles look far more distractingly out-of-place, and for as gorgeous as the background art was in the first two seasons and movie, it can come across as a bit more uncanny this time out. I don’t know whether some of the shots of sakura branches were traced or run through some kind of AI post-processing from archival photos, and I hate to speculate on that, but given that this is the same studio that bafflingly under-animates the money printer that is Blue Lock, I can’t exactly put it past them.

Production quibbles aside, I can’t really complain about more Yuru Camp. It’s a bit lighter on plot than previous seasons, but this is a series that was light on plot to begin with. We get to spend time with these goofs, learn about camping and the Japanese countryside, and then maybe go touch grass ourselves. That’s a good message for a Cute Girls Doing Cute Things series to have: Go do your own cute things.

17. NieR: Automata Ver. 1.1a, part 2

The second half of this adaptation was going to be the metric by which fans of the 2017 action-RPG judged the whole work. The first half in 2023, covering the game’s A and B routes, was a solid if troubled production that did a good job of covering the narrative and action, even implementing surprising easter eggs from NieR Replicant along the way. Sloppy CGI integration in early episodes and a COVID-induced delay hampered things, though, so there were some nerves about the show’s return.

Any fears were quickly allayed once the second half of the series began, covering the real meat of the story in routes C-E. Ver. 1.1a immediately looked exceptional, with expressive character animation and fluid action sequences. Real pathos was instilled into the route’s early tragedies. Most welcome of all was the serious work put into expanding A2’s character and role in the story (as well as her backside). It felt like she’d gotten the short end of the stick narratively in the game, so it felt right to spend more time with her, tie her story in the present back to the past that was hinted at in the Resistance flashbacks, and just get to see her be a tsundere a couple times. I’m gonna have to go back and rewatch the whole series dubbed because I just know Cherami Leigh crushed it.

I’m of two minds about Ver. 1.1a as a whole: On one hand, this is just about as good an adaptation of the game as we probably could have gotten. On the other, a big part of what makes the NieR games’ narratives work so well comes from the fact that they could pretty much only be told through the framework of a video game. While Ver. 1.1a does a perfectly fine job of delivering the game’s narrative and providing its own take on the game’s extremely video-game-y ending, much of what makes NieR’s tragedies so impactful is the player’s agency (and occasional lack thereof) in these matters.

Nothing can replace actually playing NieR: Automata as a means of experiencing its story, but Ver. 1.1a is a darn good companion piece, and one that may even hint at the future of the Drakengard/NieR franchise. Now if only Yoko Taro would focus on something other than gacha games and death game anime for two seconds…

16. Train to the End of the World

The writer/director duo behind Squid Girl came back to give us one of the best and most bizarre original anime this year. Train to the End of the World is overtly and unapologetically weird, and that’s the way I like ‘em.

This weird and wonderful trek across a warped and wildly varied landscape dazzles the eyes and rots the brain in unexpected ways, but it’s a stellar character comedy through and through. Shuumatsu Train’s oddball protagonists are goofy, galaxy-brained, and sometimes flat-out mean in ways that only teenage girls can be. The dialogue is expertly written and some of the punchiest I’ve ever seen in anime. The girls bicker, mess with strangers, and engage in the kinds of inane conversations you only have when you’re the most bored you’ve ever been in your life.

While rarely laugh-out-loud funny, Train to the End of the World is intrinsically hilarious. The sheer absurdity on display is the kind that leaves you just shaking your head in disbelief. One episode they’re playing House of the Dead to get out of a real-life zombie situation, and in another they’re acting out their favorite fictional anime that you, the viewer, are just expected to know about already. It’s a stupid show in the smartest ways; a classical Homerian epic with ruminations on the future, but also one where the girls threaten to wipe out a Lilliputian colony by peeing on it. It’s both eschatological and scatological. With the recent discourse over modern adaptations and interpretations of The Odyssey, this anime might as well be the nuclear option.

Train to the End of the World was a standout in a strong spring season, but it didn’t shake out super high in a long and darn good year of anime. That’s fine and all, but I really hope it ends up attaining the cult hit status it seemed destined for.

15. Mayonaka Punch

This one had been distant on my radar for a couple of weeks after it premiered, but as soon as I found out it was a P.A. Works original, I picked it up immediately. Any original series by the studio that gave us Akiba Maid War’s glorious gut-wrenching insanity (as well as last year’s exceptional Skip and Loafer adaptation) is going to get my attention, and although Mayonaka Punch doesn’t quite reach the same highs as Akiba Maid War, it does try to match the latter’s most madcap moments.

I don’t have a better pitch than “Canceled YouTuber starts up a new channel with a house full of lesbian vampires,” nor do I really need one. Mayonaka Punch’s comedy largely revolves around the personality clash between the disaffected, avoidant Masaki and the pushy, hyperactive Live (who definitely wants Masaki for more than just her blood), but the whole cast is a riot. Throwing in a baby day trader, a taciturn fujoshi, and a big-titty pachinko fiend are just the right spices to make this a particularly tasty stew.

Chaos naturally ensues, and watching these women try to channel it into a successful YouTube channel is an easy recipe for comedy. Everyone has terrific chemistry and I was rapt with attention every time we got to learn more about each of these vampire girls’ history. What came as a huge surprise, though, was how potent some of the emotional hits ended up, even when it involved characters outside of the main pairing. The fact that the biggest one came in just the fourth episode was a masterstroke; I was already on board for the comedy but just like that I was fully invested in a character other than the one who wants to suck the protagonist dry. I’m not rephrasing that.

This one absolutely deserves to be a cult classic, and the door is left open just maddeningly enough at the end that I can only pray for more. Mayonaka Punch is a boatload of fun and deserves way more attention than it’s gotten. You can change that. Right now. Watch this show.

Prior to writing this, Fairouz Ai (Live’s voice actress and a huge presence in a handful of the shows I’ve already discussed) announced that she would be taking a hiatus from VA work following a PTSD diagnosis. I wish her all of the time, recovery, and support she needs.

14. Urusei Yatsura (2022), season 2

The opening salvo in the ongoing Rumiko Takahashi revival (weird thing to say about a mangaka who’s still alive and working, I know) returned this year for the second half of its “all-stars” run, marathoning us through retellings of the classic manga’s greatest hits, the oddest of its many oddballs, and its spectacular, heartfelt conclusion. More Lum is always a good thing.

I’ve written plenty about Urusei Yatsura’s remake following each cour except the first, and I don’t have much more to add at this point. It’s a classic for a reason and it laid the foundations for dozens of jokes, tropes, and standards that are fundamental to comedy in anime to this day. Even when some of the jokes may come off as trite or tropey, it’s easy to see just how and why it made Takahashi so successful. The exaggerated slice-of-life hijinks, outsized slapstick, and time-and-space surrealness are just as much of a treat as the deep, eclectic cast. And to top it all off, here’s Ataru and Lum being a couple of freaks who deserve each other.

Even though the 46-episode run certainly feels truncated compared to the 191 episodes, six films, and ten OVAs that came before it, David Production did a fine job of putting a modern touch on such a classic work and highlighting its strengths. And even though most of the run was an abridged run through the greatest hits, I’m really glad the studio made sure to dedicate the last few episodes to the manga’s final arc, bringing Lum and Ataru together in a beautiful and (briefly) satisfying climax.

And even for as satisfying as that ending was, it was nearly overshadowed by…

13. Ranma ½ (2024)

…the revival of Takahashi’s biggest hit.

Yes, right on the heels of the ending of the remake of her landmark romcom classic, came the announcement that her even BIGGER landmark romcom classic was also getting a remake. Ranma ½ is one of the hallmarks of 90s anime writ large, working late-80s Japan’s fascination with Chinese martial arts (partially due to Dragon Ball’s success) into a romantic-comedy framework that also accidentally served as the genesis of the harem genre. I’d somehow never actually engaged with Ranma prior to the remake, so I was happy to get in on a new ground floor and I was immediately sold.

As the youngest daughter of the Tendo Dojo, Akane Tendo is put in a predicament when her father betrothes her (at her sisters’ urging) to his friend’s son, Ranma Saotome. Though both are skilled fighters and a good match in that regard, Akane is a bit of a hothead and doesn’t much care for boys, so she’s not a fan of this arrangement, but it’s made all the more bizarre by the fact that Ranma is also a girl sometimes. Thanks to a bizarre accident in China, Ranma turns into a girl when soaked with cold water and back into a boy when hit with hot water. Shenanigans ensue as Ranma and Akane’s contentious relationship hits innumerable peaks and valleys, all the while fighting off an ever-growing menagerie of powerful, fight-happy suitors gunning for the hands and lips of Akane and both versions of Ranma.

MAPPA of all studios being the one to re-adapt Ranma came as a surprise, and you probably could’ve convinced me David Production took over this Takahashi adaptation as well. Ranma’s remake adopts several of the same visual flairs you’d see in Urusei Yatsura, including the Ben Day dots, color inversions, and manga-style onscreen onomatopoeias. On the other hand, while most of the moment-to-moment character animation is pretty much what you’d expect from any given anime, several of the action sequences are very well-animated to MAPPA’s typically high standard. I just hope the animators weren’t getting the Chainsaw Man or Jujutsu Kaisen treatment.

Ranma ½ is as hilarious as ever, but it can get a little wonky thematically when it comes to gender politics, boundaries, and expectations, as I’d been made aware before ever engaging with the work. I also knew from the Urusei Yatsura remake that this was basically Takahashi’s wheelhouse, as there are a couple of pretty genderbendy characters in there as well. Several of the male antagonists in Ranma are more than a little pushy when it comes to women who catch their eye, and a lot of the humor around Ranma’s gender swaps revolves around how their male socialization affects the lack of modesty with which they present their female form (more on that later). People who are much better versed in gender matters than myself, both academically and personally, can speak on the positives and negatives of these things much better than I can, and it’s too early in the series for me to really make a judgment call. I do think it’s odd, though, that even with the central romance, Akane doesn’t seem to remotely entertain the thought of getting involved with Ranma’s female side, and unfortunately I don’t really see that ever happening. So far, all of these things just come across as flat-out silly and more of a product of its time than anything nefarious.

The original Ranma ½ adaptation remains a seminal work for a solid generation and a half of anime fans, so of course a remake was going to be met with some criticism. Some didn’t appreciate the more muted color palette compared to the late 80s/early 90s Studio Deen version, and while it’s certainly missing some of the flair of the hand-painted backgrounds and saturated lighting effects the medium has missed since that era, I personally like the softer hues; I find them a lot more reminiscent of Rumiko Takahashi’s own colorations for her art outside of the manga. It’s not as technicolor as the Urusei Yatsura remake, but I think that actually helps set the new Ranma apart rather than riding the former’s coattails.

The main difference people seem to be complaining about, however, has more to do with boobs. Takahashi has never been shy about including nudity in her manga, and in an era where uncensored bazongas were perfectly fine to publish in boys’ manga magazines, she was typically more matter-of-fact about the female form instead of pursuing titillation. As such, a story like Ranma’s, in which its title character is typically blase about presenting their female incarnation modestly, had a lot to work with on that front, and the original anime played along.

Not so with the MAPPA version. Nipples are conspicuously missing in scenes that legitimately do call for nudity, and an ass crack appears to be missing from an early scene as well. Personally, I don’t mind the Barbie doll treatment, and as I’d been reading the manga as the anime’s story progressed, I didn't find all that much missing in the transition from page to screen. Weebs tend to convince themselves they’re the most oppressed people on earth, so of course there were cries of censorship, which is a claim I don’t really care to entertain. These are different times, broadcast regulations in Japan are almost certainly different from what they were 35 years ago, and Netflix and/or MAPPA likely didn’t see the need for it. Could be any of those things. I’m not losing sleep over it.

And with that, I’m done talking about Rumiko Takahashi (for now). I’m grateful for everything related to her work, even tangentially, that came out this year, and my life is richer for it. I’m glad to have gotten into her work in earnest this year, and I can say with all conviction (hot take incoming) that she’s one of the greatest mangaka ever. I look forward to diving further into even more of her work.

12. The Elusive Samurai

I’d have been perfectly happy if Wind Breaker had been CloverWorks’ only beautifully-animated oddball shonen hit this year, and then they went and outdid themselves the very next season with this one.

The Elusive Samurai is a gorgeous, timeless-looking piece of historical fiction beginning at the very end of the Kamakura period, following the last survivor of the Hojo clan, the young Tokiyuki, as he’s urged by an eccentric priest to lead a pack of freedom fighters and take revenge. Despite coming from a prominent family within the shogunate, Tokiyuki was an impertinent kid and preferred to play hide-and-seek instead of attending any combat training. The priest, Yorishige, receives a vision of the future that predicts that Tokiyuki will fell his family’s usurper not by becoming a powerful warrior, but by doing what he’s already best at: Being a squirrelly little shit.

I just gushed about how good this show looks three months ago, and even now I’m thinking back fondly on how well it blends whimsy with brutality. You can have Yorishige and the kids goofing off and cracking jokes one minute and vibrant crimson beheadings the next. Even little Tokiyuki makes a joyful game out of slicing a bandit’s veins to ribbons later in the season. It feels like a callback to anime films and OVAs of the 80s, with the film grain effect to match. Almost every single thing about this show looks and sounds incredible.

Of course, there’s the CGI. I really don’t like complaining about that sort of thing, but it was such a blatant and unnecessary cost-cutting move that it almost cheapens the rest of the show. Look, I get that horses can be a pain to hand-animate after a while, but having characters’s CGI models speaking while riding on horseback is just enough to take me out of the show, especially when they already look as bizarre as, say, Sadamune. How that passed muster with the rest of the show’s standard is beyond me.

So, maybe I did dock it a spot or two for that, but I see that as a wrinkle that can be ironed out. The Elusive Samurai is absurdly promising, and its debut season is a tremendous statement. Can’t wait for more.

11. Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!

As I made clear last year by putting 100 Girlfriends’ debut season in my top ten for 2023, for as much as I love a good straight-up romance story, I have ample room in my heart for trashy dipshit romcoms as well. Makeine shares that affection and forges its own identity from it, establishing its own throne atop a hill of garbage.

This is not a “yeah it’s good if you can look past the tropes” show. Makeine is firmly on its bullshit, and it is firmly about its bullshit. It’s not nearly as off-the-wall as 100 Girlfriends, few shows are, but it’s well aware of your expectations and leaves you guessing whether you’ll have them expertly subverted or just thrown right back in your face. Even the protagonist, the light novel fanatic Nukumizu, is calling out the tropes as they happen, but it’s been a fun time watching him learn that he’s more than just a wet-blanket LN protagonist. He thinks he’s just along for the ride like any other blank-faced self-insert in these stories, as gets roped into the personal lives of these poor girls and learns that, yes, they are real people and that, yes, he is too.

I could go on and on about Too Many Losing Heroines’ idiosyncrasies and offbeat characters and punchy dialogue, but I did that plenty just a few months ago. Instead, I want to call attention once more to just how freakishly well-made this show is. A-1 Pictures had zero reason to go this hard on a goofy, trashy light novel romcom adaptation, and yet here they were, throwing their A-team at the whole project. Character animations are intricate, background art is sumptuous, lighting effects immaculate, and music on point at all times. The OP is an earworm (and one of a surprising number of ska intros and outros I’ve taken in this year), and having each of the main titular heroines perform her own story-appropriate ED was a masterstroke. Even the visual gags are perfect and allowed to land on their own.

I already cannot wait for more of this. If A-1 has given us all we’re going to get of the Kaguya-sama anime, then I’m as all-in on Makeine as they are. Not the best romcom out there, but easily one of the best-made out there.

#anime reviews #solo leveling #wind breaker #yuru camp #train to the end of the world #mayonaka punch #urusei yatsura #ranma 1/2 #the elusive samurai #makeine

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