I had to stretch to get a top 10 this year. I’m ready to admit that. Last year, it was easy – in fact, it was too easy, and I ended up expanding my list to twelve shows basically by necessity. But this year didn’t have quite the top shelf of 2013, and so concessions had to be made. There are certainly a couple notable absences here, with I’m guessing the biggest ones being Kill la Kill, Space Dandy, and maybe Nozaki-kun. The reason for those absences is simple – I didn’t like any of those shows very much. If you’re looking for a general “all the shows that enjoyed positive appraisal among the kinds of people who make a point of appraising shows,” I’m guessing all three of those would be included, but this is my list, and I’m gonna talk about what I wanna. (Incidentally, if you are looking for a list like that, my fellow critics at ANN all contributed their own top five lists to this recent retrospective – and that’s all shows that started in 2014, so even my list over there is pretty different). My list may be a little shorter this year, but it’s still got some real gems, and considering three of the year’s best shows aren’t included simply because they aren’t finished (Shirobako, KimiUso, and Parasyte), I’d say we made off okay. Let’s run it down!
#10. Witch Craft Works
Yeah, starting off with something really silly and ridiculous. This slot could frankly be a number of different shows – Chaika for the spring and fall, JoJo for the spring and summer, etc – but I’ve found this year that it’s pretty important every season give me at least one giddy piece of comfort food, and this year the top comfort food honor goes to Witch Craft Works. It’s frankly a pretty dumb show, and the plot barely makes any sense, but this isn’t a show about the plot. This a show about stupid witches getting repeatedly blown up, about the “generic male MC” constantly flailing around and getting alternately kidnapped and princess-carried by a variety of badass witches, and about fight scenes and comedic direction that are actually far more effective than they have any right to be. This is by the director of Girls und Panzer and Shirobako, and the dude does good work – Witch Craft Works is not a weighty show, but if you’re looking for a good time, you could do a whole lot worse.
When Rage of Bahamut began, it seemed very possible we had another Baccano-caliber action-adventure classic on our hands. Beautiful animation, an engaging world, a lively cast of characters, and a high-speed, contagious sense of fun and invention. Its first five episodes jump from waterwheel duel to zombie attack to giant enemy crab to demon-whale torture dungeon, offering plentiful gifts of action and comedy along the way. Bahamut’s second half unfortunately can’t compare to the opening salvo, as the show gets bogged down in generic fantasy dramatics and loses both its creative edge and top tier production quality, but it’s still a fun, fine show overall, and its stellar ending does some work to make up for those late-season doldrums. Rage of Bahamut is good times all around – perhaps not the Raiders of the Lost Arc of anime, but certainly a strong contender for the Temple of Doom.
#8. Barakamon
There’s a pretty great balance to Barakamon. Fifteen minutes of Yotsuba-lite, soft-and-fluffy slice of life, five minutes of sharp Art Instinct critique. The cast is endearing, the production is excellent, the jokes build naturally out of the characters and the circumstances of their world. Handa is easily one of the best characters of the year, with his young adult trials in creation likely ringing true for anyone who’s spent too much time obsessing over their art. And Naru is basically a concentrated ball of happiness and good times, with her great child actress’s performance and the show’s excellent animation lending her a spirit very few child characters can match. It’s a coming-of-age story set about ten years after most anime end, filled with small insights and lovely friendships. It’s a warm little show.
#7: Samurai Flamenco
“Messy” doesn’t even begin to describe Samurai Flamenco. The show is about half a dozen shows at once – sometimes it’s a grounded modern drama, sometimes it’s a wacky action-comedy, sometimes it’s just a straight-up super sentai show. Sometimes its characters go to space, and that’s okay. The problem with Samurai Flamenco is that to even describe it is kind of to ruin it – it’s a ride you really have to experience for yourself, and all I can say that remains truly consistent throughout the show is its great grasp of character, its clever and self-effacing sense of humor, and its deep love for and belief in heroes. Samurai Flamenco believes in heroes with every bone in its strange, constantly genre-jumping body, and it wants you to believe in them too. The production is frankly a mess at times, and your tolerance for its various wild shifts will depend on your ability to embrace a show being several different shows at once, but the whole of Samurai Flamenco is definitely greater than the sum of its parts.
Look, it’s more Mushishi. The original show was one of the most beautiful, atmospheric, poignant, and quietly insightful anime we’ve ever received, and the second season ably lives up to its legacy. Mushishi is essentially a series of classic fairy tale fables written for adults, with all the harshness and ambiguity that implies. Its world takes the deep-forest universe implied by works like Princess Mononoke and makes it a fully living place. Its touches of supernatural influence evoke majesty and wonder even as they offer sharp reflections on human stories of loss, obsession, family, and anything else the show chooses for meditation. The music is as carefully chosen as you’d expect from such a master of atmosphere as director Hiroshi Nagahama, and the show is filled with beautiful backgrounds and standout moments of otherworldly beauty. This show could just as easily be number one as number six – it doesn’t personally resonate with me as much as the shows higher on this list, but it’s easily as aesthetically impressive as anything else this year. Mushishi is an instant classic, one of those shows that proves what anime can do.
#5: Sekai Seifuku
Speaking of “what anime can do,” here’s a show where a tiny girl in a skimpy outfit attempts to take over the world by making the entire planet her family. And it’s actually great, goddamnit. Costumes aside, Sekai Seifuku is actually a remarkably sensitive and sharply written show with a very strong sense of identity. The humor really helps – Sekai Seifuku rides a long way on the charmingly surreal jokes of the Zvezda corporation, and one-off episodes like The Time Kate Decided To Kill All Smokers and The Time Zvezda Had To Re-Pollinate Their Reactor are surprisingly biting and poignant respectively. But Sekai Seifuku is also more than that – though it has a couple lesser episodes in its midsection, the show overall builds to some really touching points about the perspective of childhood and the families we choose. Its narrative plotting is sometimes thin and always tinged with absurdity, but its emotional resonance is absolutely solid. Sekai Seifuku is a surprisingly excellent show.
Terror in Resonance inspired some serious grumbling throughout its run, but its base strengths cannot be denied. The show is a beautiful thing – its shot framing, use of lighting, and overall aesthetic are gorgeous, and its fairly naturalistic visual style combined with its incredibly well-chosen shots allow it to look truly “filmic” in a way few anime can match. The soundtrack is equally good, elevating many of Resonance’s highlights from simply arresting to truly iconic. But even though all of this helps, it’s actually for Terror in Resonance’s ideas that I put it this high on the list. Though its narrative was messy in some ways, its reflections on adolescence, modern society, and generational conflict provided a fundamentally stable platform for a story that was really all about the hopeless optimism of teenagers with nothing to lose. Resonance is about being treated as a child, and about the things only children can do, and at its best moments, Resonance makes the ambitions of youth seem like the only thing you can hope for in light of all the evils of the world. Terror in Resonance is a beautiful production selling a beautiful hope.
My essay on Terror in Resonance.
#3: Hanamonogatari
Monogatari just keeps getting better, huh? After a wildly experimental first season, a polished but controversial sequel, and the stopgap of Tsubasa Family, Monogatari Second Season found the show in an absolutely stable groove, offering poignant reflections on identity and truth while weaving circuitous paths through its broad, dynamic cast. Monogatari’s characters are starting to grow up now, and Hanamonogatari is as strong an example of that as anything – Kanbaru’s quest to find out who she is and where she must go is Monogatari at its most clear, most grounded and human. The aesthetics are as pretty and purposeful as ever, the storytelling has never been sharper, and the characters leap off the screen. It’s a coming-of-age story and a love story and a eulogy all in one. Monogatari’s final act is finally coming into view now, and each step on the journey feels like a gift.
Goddamn is Ping Pong good. If the top show on this list weren’t riding on the back of dozens of episodes’ worth of momentum, Ping Pong would be the easy king of the year. Its visual style is both completely wild and perfectly controlled – though Yuasa has sometimes appeared to be experimenting for experimentation’s sake, here, all of his visual genius works in perfect service of the story. The writing stretches and breathes, and the characters are all fully fleshed-out individuals. The story bounces from exciting matches to vivid emotional setpieces, with moments like the episode five montage bringing all the show’s talents together. It’s just all there – Ping Pong is one of those absolutely fully-formed productions, a story about finding joy in competition that’s constantly delighting with new visual tricks or character shifts or gripping turns of fate. Ping Pong isn’t about winning, but the kind of love that brings us to challenge ourselves, and because of that, even when its characters are defeated they are champions. Ping Pong is a basically perfect show, one that will be watched and rewatched for years to come.
It kind of feels like a Return of the King nomination, doesn’t it? “Oh yeah, Hunter x Hunter is ending, better give it a lifetime achievement award for being so dang good all the time.” And honestly, I wouldn’t be against that – it’s true, HxH does deserve a lifetime achievement award. For four years, Hunter x Hunter has consistently dazzled with great pacing, dynamic storytelling, and just generally top-notch adventure fare. Madhouse were handed a stellar manga, and they’ve worked wonders with it.
And yet, this choice isn’t a lifetime achievement award. Because even though Hunter x Hunter was always good, this year it was even more. As HxH drew towards its end and the epic Chimera Ant arc neared its finale, Hunter x Hunter went far, far beyond “a great adventure story,” and became something truly incredible. Hunter x Hunter’s last great arc moved from war story to spy thriller to Grand Drama of the Human Race, and it’s a massive credit to the storytelling that after all the show had excelled at, it actually felt most natural as a story of what makes us human, of the desires that drags us down and the ambiguous spirit that empowers us. Individualism versus collectivism, love versus loyalty, debt and obsession – Chimera Ant thoughtfully examined a wide range of heavy themes while juggling dozens of characters and a half-dozen individual narratives, and all of it came together into some of the most chilling and touching moments I’ve seen in the medium. Chimera Ant basically broke me, I’m not ashamed to admit – it was tragic and beautiful and almost too good to stand. It’s sad to see Hunter x Hunter go, but it couldn’t have left us a greater parting gift.
Have some dancing witches.
Ping Pong was pure excellence. And you can keep rewatching it, and it just keeps getting better. And that OP. The way Peco walks into the arena as a fully confident dork is such perfectly true body language that you so rarely see in anime, outside of rotoscoping or something. Smile’s understated stride is just as good. And it’s framed by sweeping and rotating camera movements to lend an extra level of dynamism to the atmosphere. I love that shot so much.
Speaking of rotoscoping, would Aku no Hana get an honorary induction into the 2013 Hall of Fame?
Yeah, Aku no Hana would definitely make my 2013 list if I’d watched it in time.
Am I doing something wrong? HxH was so ridiculously slow I started skipping entire episodes as nothing would happen. Why do people like it so much?
Maybe it has something to do with the wealth of interesting psychological conflicts swirling about all out once?
Well, no one is denying it takes a bit of patience. Pacing is a weirdly subjective thing, it either works for you or it doesn’t. But if it does, then well, the story of the last part of HXH is breathtakingly good.
I have trouble calling anything other than the Chimera Ants arc the “best of” anything. The other arcs were OK, but only Chimera Ants was truly standout.
I actually have similar problems with Naruto Shippuden; a lot of it is utter crap, but the Pain arc was very near to perfect.
It would be interesting to see if they have the same impact if watched in isolation of the rest of the series, maybe with a small 1-2 episode, novel introduction added to cover up that you’re started a ton of episodes into a show.
You know, Witch Craft Works was never able to make the jump from “mediocre show with some good moments” to “good show” in my brain.
But some of those moments were pretty darn good. The bit with the tie in the first episode is a strong contender for 2014 Joke of the Year.
Even I’m not sure I’d call it a “good show.” This year didn’t have a whole lot of those – I think only my top seven here would be considered shoe-ins in a year with a bunch of great shows to choose from.
With the exceptions of the ones I haven’t finished yet (I need to finish Hanamonogatri so bad) I agree with this list pretty wholeheartedly! I’m always glad to see Samurai Flamenco get some love, I completely understand why some people may have been turned off after GUILLOTINE GORILLA, but I always looked forward to watching it every week just because I had no idea where we were going next. And Mister Justice exists, so that’s pretty cool.
Hunter x Hunter was probably the show that got to me the most though, and just remembering some of the later Chimera Ant scenes is enough to make me tear up a bit. Even though Togashi is notorious for these Hiatuses, I’m still hopeful that the adventure will continue one day! I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next.
I really do hope we get at least one more full arc out of Hunter x Hunter one day. The story the manga’s just begun seems like it could easily be in the same realm of ambition as Chimera Ant.
I’ve only seen two shows on this list (Terror and Ping Pong) but I agree with your comments. Ping Pong especially, that show was just beautiful. Masaaki Yuasa is a genius.
Yuasa is so good. I really need to go back and watch his earlier shows.
How come Ping Pong is 10 places ahead of Hunter x Hunter on your top 30? I’m guessing that’s soon to change.
He’s considering the entirety of both shows. HxH being a long runner has a few lows that keep it from ranking higher. Ping Pong doesn’t have that issue
Yeah, this.
The margin still doesn’t quite add up. When you consider he’s had nothing but glowing praise for Hunter x Hunter during its run, let alone the “transcendence” of Chimera Ant.
Welp, didn’t see you there Bobduh!
Nvmd.
Episode 146 of Hunter X Hunter had me all teary eyed when Killua apologizes to Alluka/Something for being mean to her and finally says they are two-sides of the same coin and will protect them always. I really enjoyed that he was so very brotherly to Alluka/Something despite all of Illumi efforts.
I hope the series picks up again once the manga continues on its new arc, its very remiscent of the Gourmet World in Toriko…where “Human World” is different and apart from the bigger, wider world. Interesting.
Yeah, the new arc looks to have a lot of potential. We may be waiting a while, though.
For me there are three types of things you can like in a story. Characters, world and fun. You seem to be strictly a character-loving person which is why you generally don’t enjoy comedies (Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun) nor appreciate stories as much when their main strength is the world instead of the characters (Shinsekai Yori, Log Horizon, …). Quite a shame since there’s more to storytelling than just characters.
I’m going to use your criteria for shows that’ve ended in 2014 since I don’t feel comfortable judging shows that haven’t finished yet. My top 10 would be something like:
#1 Hunter x Hunter
#2 Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
#3 Ping Pong
#4 Nagi no Asukara
#5 Sekai Seifuku
#6 Shingeki no Bahamut
#7 Sidonia no Kishi
#8 Samurai Flamenco
#9 Wake Up, Girls!
#10 Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii
Your system seems pretty limited. Where do underlying themes fall into this system? What about narrative itself – the actual plot? Or aesthetics beyond just the writing? And what about different senses of humor – I actually think I’m fine with comedy, but am not a fan of many of the standard styles of jokes used in anime specifically.
I also think proposing “worldbuilding” as one of the pillars of storytelling demonstrates a very fantasy-focused approach to media – though worldbuilding is often highly prized in that genre, it barely exists in many others.
I have to disagree with what you say about worldbuilding, Bob. Keeping a consistent setting is important for any work of fiction. Good writers draw the reader into the setting and immerse them in a fictional world, regardless of whether it’s fantastical or not. You’re probably thinking more of “lore-building”, which is admittedly prized more heavily in fantasy fiction, often to an unnecessary degree, I agree.
It’s almost hard to remember Sekai Seifuku aired this year. In fact, in some ways, just after it ended, it was hard to believe it just aired. It was so different, and honestly, flew under the radar. Even Kyousougiga and Ping Pong, that weren’t widely popular, seem to have generated much more discussion. I will disagree with you about the show having “one-off episodes”, as those two episodes were both referenced in and influenced the rest of the material (smokers) and had closely touched on the show’s main theme (repollination, which also kept recurring in terms of plot). What a weird show, and such a shame it’s sort of disappeared. Hopefully some end of year lists will help it.
The reaction the smoking episode had in Japan (like 50% gave it 1/5 for that episode, and massive drop-rate) didn’t help.
I wouldn’t have chosen for you to pick Witchcraft Works into the list, but seeing it didn’t surprise me at all. I only watched the first episode, but I have an easy time imagining it was more entertaining than Stardust Crusaders 😛
And yes, it’s been said many times before, but after seeing your enjoyment of Barakamon, and other similar shows last year, that Gin no Saji didn’t work for you saddens me. I do hope you’ll indeed check the manga some day, though I don’t know how it is, and yes, I quite liked the gags in the show, and they were quite plentiful, so I could see why it’d be a hardship.
I do not know if you had ever mentioned why you chose to do this, but if you had not, why did you choose to post this on December 30? Why not instead refrain for a time and at least have a viewing of Tsukimonogatari first?
Because I didn’t know when I’d have time – Monogatari arcs take me a while to get through. If Tsuki’s great, I’ll just include it on next year’s list.
I’m really looking forward to your eventual review of Tsukimonogatari—really curious to see whether you like it or not. I couldn’t get into the prior Monogatari’s until I found your reviews on Reddit; they convinced me to look at the fan-service a bit more critically. And having read them, I really enjoyed everything Monogatari — up until Tsuki. Tsuki felt, to me, like it betrayed some of the series earlier depth.
Anyway, yeah — looking forward to your eventual review of it! Thanks for all your great anime analysis.
Just here to remind myself I’ve seen none of this.
I’m planning on watching the top 7 eventually though.
Updates:
I am nearing Chimera Ant.
Ping Pong is one of my favorite shows of all time.
Hanamonogatari is one of the best arcs.
I saw Terror ep 1 and plan on watching the rest after Eden of the East.
Zvezda is soon.
Mushishi’s good but I think I need to rewatch it when I’m in a calmer mindset.
Flamenco is beautiful.
So four complete, two I’m getting there, and there’s only one /great/ show on this list I haven’t seen. Though the other three also look interesting.