If you're gonna watch ten anime from the last ten years, these are the ten you should watch.

I'm trying to make a list of ten anime series (OVA or TV, not movies) from 2000-2009 that I would consider the must-see shows from that decade.  Not necessarily my favourites, not necessarily even the best, but the ones that, if you're only going to watch ten shows from that period, these are the ones.

So says Pixy, and he's trying to come up with that list. It's an interesting concept, but when I started thinking about it I initially came up blank.

He's approaching it from a bit of a goofy point of view, but it could be an interesting, serious challenge to come up with such a list. The difficult part, of course, is limiting it to ten. (The other difficult part is putting up with all the other people who insist in editing your list instead of creating their own.)

The idea is that this is a survey for people who don't know anything about anime, to give them a broad look at the field. I think the first thing would be to come up with the list of ten categories:

1. Cute girls doing cute things
2. High school romance soap opera
3. Panty fighter. Look, it's a common genre.
4. Fan service harem comedy
5. Huge boobs show. Sad, but needed.
6. Mecha show. There has to be one.
7. Magical Girl
8. Goofy weird-out
9. Gainax Ending
10. It can be pretty awful.
 

1. So you need a "cute girls doing cute things" anime. That was one of Pixy's categories, and Pixy ends up with Azumanga Daioh for that, but it's hardly the only possible choice. Another would be "Ichigo Mashimaro". Or "Sugar, a little Snow Fairy". For that matter, "Lucky Star" would work, too. Or "Hidamari Sketch". Or "GA whatever-it-was". I don't feel confident enough in this category to really make a choice, but I'm not sure AD is really the right one.

2. You need a high-school romance soap opera, and that should probably be "Toradora", though I could be convinced that it should be "Kanon 2006". I haven't seen either of those and this is one of my least favorite genres, so again I'm not competent to judge.

3. On the other hand, I know a lot about panty fighter shows, and in my mind there's no doubt that it ought to be "Samurai Girl Realbout High School".

4. There must be a fan service harem  show, and for this one there's no doubt whatever that the choice is "Hand Maid May". Still, after all this time, the best example of the form.

5. Anime boobs, and the ridiculous size that many of them achieve, is a fact of life in this genre and there needs to be an example of it. That would be "Divergence Eve".

6. Mecha shows. Like it or not (and I generally don't) there needs to be an example of this. I'm not qualified to suggest a title. It can't be "Gasaraki" (it reeked) and it can't be "Gravion" (a terrible example of the form) and it probably shouldn't be "Sakura Wars" (atypical) or "Vandread" (likewise).  Probably it ends up being one of the Gundam titles, and Gundam titles are on my "never watch" list.

7. Magical Girl. In as much as "Realbout High School" can't satisfy this need, I'm tempted to include "Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A's". But it isn't a very good example of the genre. This is yet another category where I'm not really qualified to make a call, because I hate the pure form of this. Absent a better choice, I'll go with "Nanatsuiro Drops", but there's gotta be a better choice out there.

8. Goofy Weirdout. Something like Excel Saga, except not that one because it isn't very good. Pixy ended up with "Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi" and that is probably the best choice. The point is to include a show which demonstrates how strange things can get, and I think I can live with this one.

9. If you're going to learn about anime, you have to learn about Gainax endings. That's why "Cowboy Bebop" should be on the list (even though it's not a Gainax show) -- to demonstrate how a great show can be ruined by its ending.

10. Most of these are "this is (mostly) really good" choices. There needs to be at least one really bad choice, to show that there's crap out there. That's why "Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan" needs to be on the list. It's an example of a tsundere show, which also helps, but the real point of it is to demonstrate that there do exist shows that you will regret having watched.

So my list of ten?

1. Ichigo Mashimaro
2. Toradora
3. Samurai Girl Realbout High School
4. Hand Maid May
5. Divergence Eve
6. Gundam something
7. Nanatsuiro Drops
8. Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi
9. Cowboy Bebop
10. Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan

And you know the hell of it? I only really liked four of those.

Substitutions: I could be convinced to substitute "Zero no Tsukaima" for #7, which gets also gets us a decent example of a tsundere show. I'm just not sure if ZnT counts as mahou shoujo.

But if we did that, then we could put "High School Girls" in for #10 as the show you'd wish you hadn't watched.

UPDATE: Can I get away with using "To Aru Kagaku no Railgun" for the "cute girls doing cute things" category? No? Pity.

UPDATE: Oh, heck. Cowboy Bebop is disqualified because it's not from the last ten years, which is part of the rules of the game. So I go with "Venus versus Virus". And dammit, I am going to use Railgun. Our new list:

1. To Aru Kagaku no Railgun
2. Toradora
3. Samurai Girl Realbout High School
4. Hand Maid May
5. Divergence Eve
6. Gundam something
7. Zero no Tsukaima
8. Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi
9. Venus Versus Virus
10. High School Girls

UPDATE: I think my brain is going. Replace "Venus versus Virus" with "Mahoromatic: Something more Beautiful" as an example of a show which is retroactively ruined by its ending.

"Venus versus Virus" is more of a trainwreck, but the Mahoromatic ending hurts more.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 08:07 PM | Comments (23) | Add Comment
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