Board 8 > Robazoid Ranks 275 Anime and Top 100 Anime Characters (recommend me stuff too)

(+) Yeah! (+)

We're now halfway through the topic. I want to post the ranking so far, even though it's available in the spreadsheet. Thanks again to everyone who has been following along! 213 will come in a little bit.

214- Aggretsuko
215- Servant x Service
216- Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto
217- (Airing Placeholder) The Yakuza's Guide to Babysitting
218- (Airing Placeholder) The Maid I Hired Recently is Mysterious
219- Assassination Classroom
220- Strike Witches
221- Shirobako
222- Hyouka
223- Sound Euphonium
224- Violet Evergarden
225- The Ancient Magus' Bride
226- The Devil is a Part-Timer
227- Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody
228- How Not to Summon a Demon Lord
229- Island
230- Angolmois: Record of Mongol Invasion
-----
231- Heroines Run the Show
232- Release the Spyce
233- (Airing Placeholder) Call of the Night
234- A Sister's All You Need
235- Seven Senses of the Re'Union
236- Holmes of Kyoto
237- Karakuri Circus
238- Angels of Death
239- Brave Witches
240- The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar
241- Lord of Vermilion: The Crimson King
242- The Junji Ito Collection
243- School Babysitters
244- Kumamiko: Girl Meets Bear
245- Record of Grancrest War
246- Adachi and Shimamura
247- Golden Time
248- Taisho Otome Fairy Tale
249- Vampire in the Garden
250- Frankenstein Family
-----
251- Symphogear
252- Citrus
253- Hanebado
254- Darling in the FranXX
255- Kinos Journey -the Beautiful World- the Animated Series
256- Muhyo & Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigtion
257- Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It
258- My Little Monster
259- Maria the Virgin Witch
260- ID-0
-----
261- Beatless (DROPPED)
262- Urahara (DROPPED)
263- Conception (DROPPED)
264- Eden of the East (DROPPED)
265- Banana Fish (DROPPED)
266- Restaurant to Another World (DROPPED)
267- Miss Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles (DROPPED)
268- Sword Gai: The Animation (DROPPED)
269- Inuyashiki: Last Hero (DROPPED)
270- Gantz (DROPPED)

213. Scums Wish
https://myanimelist.net/anime/32949/Kuzu_no_Honkai
Winter 2017 (12 episodes)
My Score: 3/10, MAL Score: 7.17/10
Best Character: Yasuraoka Hanabi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g-MG0JxxbE

Premise: Two high schoolers, Yasuraoka Hanabi and Awaya Mugi, have unrequited crushes for their teachers. The two begin to date, each acting as a substitute for the one the other truly loves.

The Good: Scums Wish is unique, Ill give it that. Its a romance where the characters explicitly love other people and are using each other to fill the void. The story delves into the implications of that arrangement, as well as what it means to be in a relationship with another person in general. I liked Hanabi the most out everyone, she only barely missed my top 100 characters. She was flawed in a lot of ways and rarely made the right decisions, but that felt real for someone her age dealing with the things she was facing. She was also the only character who I felt had a satisfying conclusion.

The Bad: Akane ruined this anime for me. I liked her conceptually, shes a sexually promiscuous woman who gets off on hurting other people. I just hated how her arc progressed and concluded, which is hard to talk about without major spoilers. All Ill say is that everything about Akane is disappointing and not entertaining at all. She dragged everyone else down with her, too, so most of the characters in this anime have a conclusion that makes me angry.

Overall: Scums Wish was an infuriating anime in a lot of ways. By the end I wanted to fix it, to correct the blatant mistakes in its writing and turn an awful ending into a satisfying conclusion. It wouldnt have taken much! While prepping this ranking, Scums Wish was originally down in the 2/10s with the other romances I hated. However, while my lingering feelings towards this are negative, over time Ive come to appreciate it for what it is. At the very least, anything that gets me to think about it that much mustve done something right. Hanabi is also a good character.

212. Tada Never Falls in Love
https://myanimelist.net/anime/36470/Tada-kun_wa_Koi_wo_Shinai
Spring 2018 (13 episodes)
My Score: 3/10, MAL Score: 7.57/10
Best Character: Nyanko Big

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvv9Cm9fyCY

Premise: Tada Mitsuyoshi meets Teresa Wagner, a foreign transfer student who joins him in the photography club. Tada never cared about romance before, but perhaps thats about to change.

The Good: The cat, Nyanko Big, was easily the highlight of this even though he never did much. I like cats. Ill also admit, while Im about to complain that a lot of stuff in this was mediocre or pointless, nothing in Tada Never Falls in Love really bothered me. Most bad romance anime finds a way to make me angry, so managing to simply remain boring is a feat!

The Bad: Tada Never Falls in Love is exceedingly boring. The romance is one of the most standard ones Ive ever seen, to the point that even a moderately savvy viewer could predict what happens almost beat-for-beat. It starts with a typical meet-cute and remains a flatline from there. It mightve helped if the story took more time to develop it, but most of Tada Never Falls in Love is spent on the side characters. Each of them is also boring in their own way, and none of their comedic moments ever landed.

Overall: Tada Never Falls in Love is a standard romance story told in the most boring ways imaginable. Add in a cast of pointless side characters who eat up most of the runtime, and the result is an anime that I barely remember watching at all.

I remember barely anything about it. It got a lot of hype (from me) because of the team behind it, but it was utterly boring, with a totally garbage cast and awful comedy. It's unbelievable that its mal score is so high, since I've never run into anyone who likes it.

(Another series I haven't finished, my apologies. There will only be twelve more in the ranking that I haven't completely finished, and most of those have just had new stuff come out since I watched it and I haven't gotten around to them yet)

211. Kaguya-sama: Love is War
https://myanimelist.net/anime/37999/Kaguya-sama_wa_Kokurasetai__Tensai-tachi_no_Renai_Zunousen
Winter 2019 (12 episodes), Spring 2020 (0/12 episodes, unfinished), Spring 2022 (0/13 episodes, unfinished)
My Score: 3/10, MAL Score: 8.41/10 S1, 8.65/10 S2, 9.13/10 S3
Best Character: Hayasaka Ai

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9Pb412Bloc

Premise: Student council president Shirogane Miyuki and vice president Shinomiya Kaguya are in love. Both are too proud to confess, however, and they instead scheme to get the other to admit it first.

The Good: I've only seen the first season, and I'd believe anyone who says Kaguya-sama gets better. The third season has over a 9 on MAL, that's crazy! I'll get back to it someday, but the first season didn't have a lot that I loved. Occasionally the premise was used to set up funny scenarios. My favorite was when they were playing a word game and everyone had their own complex motivations for trying to win or intentionally lose. Kaguyas servant Ai was my favorite character, but I didnt mind the main duo either. The other two in the student council werent my favorites but they were inoffensive.

The Bad: As early as the first episode I was afraid the idea would become stale, and it did. My reaction to their dilemma was mostly just admit you like each other you dumb kids, which I know is a fundamental misunderstanding of the premise. It just wasnt for me, I guess. I also didnt like how the drama at the end of the first season was driven entirely by Kaguyas father being an abusive jerk.

Overall: I know a lot of people really love Kaguya-sama, but I didnt get much out of it. There are already so many anime rom-coms where the characters never progress in their relationship. I seek out ones where they get together before the very end just for how rare it is. I'll continue Kaguya-sama someday, but for now I dont want to put up with 25 more episodes of these two characters dancing around each other.

COMING UP TOMORROW:
210: This anime is quitting its job to play video games.
209: This anime is too much of a nerd for anyone to date it.
208: This anime hurt its leg and can't run anymore.

I thought Kaguya was answer, but figured "nah, surely not THE GREATEST ANIME OF ALL TIME (according to MAL)."

I absolutely love Kaguya, but if you don't like them dancing around confessing their love then it dropping this low makes sense. The first season is more episodic as well, they start doing longer arcs in season 2 I believe.

Hayasaka is indeed best girl.

I think almost half of my 9/10 and above shows have dropped in your 3/10s alone! Kaguya is definitely one where if you don't like the premise, I can see the difficulty getting into the show despite the quality. It really leans on the base idea at the beginning, and possibly even more when it turns plot-focused and tries to deconstruct the concept a little later on. I'm really interested to know what your highest ranked shows are considering the quality I've seen drop early!

The Kaguya anime kinda sucks compared to the manga so that's a fair ranking

Sheep007 posted...

I think almost half of my 9/10 and above shows have dropped in your 3/10s alone!

I'm guessing most people would rank some of my favorites pretty low too! One anime in my top five has a mid-6 score on MAL, for example. Hopefully I'll be able to convey why I like them when we finally do reach my favorites.

Anyway, I've been cutting so many beloved anime lately that I made a meme from one of my favoritest animes of all, The Simpsons.

https://imgur.com/a/0ffxdSv

Sheep007 posted...

I think almost half of my 9/10 and above shows have dropped in your 3/10s alone! Kaguya is definitely one where if you don't like the premise, I can see the difficulty getting into the show despite the quality. It really leans on the base idea at the beginning, and possibly even more when it turns plot-focused and tries to deconstruct the concept a little later on. I'm really interested to know what your highest ranked shows are considering the quality I've seen drop early!

this basically

Sad to see Kaguya here, probably my absolute favourite. I do agree it could get repetitive if youre not into the premise at first, but the character interactions beside the main pair is also great and they did try to change things up a bit at the end of season 1, so the rest of the seasons are definitely worth watching.

Actually Ill just go ahead and use the recommendation for Kaguya S2 and S3, unless you really dont want to get back to it at the moment.

handsomeboy2012 posted...

Sad to see Kaguya here, probably my absolute favourite. I do agree it could get repetitive if youre not into the premise at first, but the character interactions beside the main pair is also great and they did try to change things up a bit at the end of season 1, so the rest of the seasons are definitely worth watching.

Actually Ill just go ahead and use the recommendation for Kaguya S2 and S3, unless you really dont want to get back to it at the moment.

Anything that I'm ranking that I haven't finished is something I intend to get back to someday (though in the case of these lower ranked ones, it might be a long time). I almost certainly wouldn't get back to Kaguya before this ranking was over, so if you want to use your recommendation to speed that up, that's fine by me!

210. Recovery of an MMO Junkie
https://myanimelist.net/anime/36038/Net-juu_no_Susume
Fall 2017 (11 episodes) plus 1 OVA
My Score: 3/10, MAL Score: 7.56/10
Best Character: Morioka Moriko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzwMuSnKQgg

Premise: Morioka Moriko has quit her job to play MMOs instead. She becomes friends with another player in the game, unaware that they are the handsome man she recently met in real life.

The Good: I liked that Recovery of an MMO Junkie showed how friendships could form online. Moriko was a fun character too. Im jealous of her for living the dream of quitting her job and spending all her time playing video games.

The Bad: A lot of Recovery of an MMO Junkie is based on contrived coincidences. I can forgive the first one, that the player Moriko meets in the game is coincidentally the guy she ran into in real life. There wouldnt be much of a story without that one. There are even more coincidences past that, though, and it soon reached the point where I couldnt take it seriously anymore. I also never felt much of a connection to the romance. It ran into the problem where adult characters act like blushing preteens whenever theyre around the opposite sex. Beyond that, most of the characters other than Moriko were boring.

Overall: Recovery of an MMO Junkie started as a fine romcom. There were just way too many coincidences for me to look past, and most of the characters were ultimately forgettable. MMO Junkie slowly lost the good feelings I had for it the more I watched. Not a bad anime, it just didnt do enough things that appealed to me, I suppose.

Mobilezoid posted...

208: This anime hurt its leg and can't run anymore.

This happened to a horse in Fanfare of Adolescence, though it was less "can't run anymore" and more....well, you know. While I don't think Roba's seen that particular horse anime, it makes me wonder if any of the girls from Uma Musume got a similar injury.

its probably just After the Rain

Isn't that the one with the older man x highschool girl psuedo-relationship

mmo junkie sounds interesting, at least as a concept

SeabassDebeste posted...

mmo junkie sounds interesting, at least as a concept

It's very good imo. Fun show

yea I agree about the coincidences piling up a bit too much but still enjoyed it a lot. moriko alone made it worth

I definitely remember most people liking MMO Junkie more than me. I wouldn't even call it bad despite my ranking. This part of the ranking is just what I call 'meh romances', they don't do anything really wrong but there are just more tropes in romances and romcoms that are likely to annoy me unless they're done in certain ways. A typical romance just inherently scores lower with me than a typical cute girls doing cute things anime, for instance. When a romance does things in a way I like, though, it's magical! That's why I keep trying them out even though I wind up not liking most of them.

209. Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku
https://myanimelist.net/anime/35968/Wotaku_ni_Koi_wa_Muzukashii
Spring 2018 (11 episodes)
My Score: 3/10, MAL Score: 7.95/10
Best Character: Nifuji Hirotaka

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjHqfhOcK_0

Premise: Two otakus, Momose Narumi and Nifuji Hirotaka, are childhood friends who work together. Since they both have poor luck at dating, they decide itd be easiest to date each other.

The Good: As romcoms go, Wotakoi gets a few things right. I like that the main couple gets together very early on rather than blushing around each other for the whole season. I liked all four major characters, they worked well in any combination. I also give it props for not falling into any dumb melodrama like a lot of romcoms do. It was mostly a gag anime.

The Bad: Wotakoi still fell into some romcom pitfalls, which were less forgivable given the ages of the characters. I can accept excessive shyness and the inability to so much as hold hands from inexperienced schoolkids. From adults, it just feels pathetic. Narumi and Hirotaka get together early on and then they basically stop progressing for the rest of the season. A lot of the jokes fell flat for me too, especially later in the season. I vividly remember one several minutes long scene that focused on them sitting on a couch while they badly narrated a game of Smash Bros.

Overall: In Hirotakas apartment, I noticed that he had not one, but two figures of Kobeni from Engaged to the Unidentified! That instantly confirmed he has good taste. It also made me jealous because there are no figures of Kobeni in real life. I know because Ive looked and I wouldve bought them if they existed. Noticing that was the best part of Wotakoi by far, I mean what a relatively obscure anime/manga to reference and it just so happened to be one I love. Other than that, Wotakoi was mostly a typical romcom with more of a focus on comedy than romance, and sadly a lot of the comedy just wasn't funny.

208. After the Rain
https://myanimelist.net/anime/34984/Koi_wa_Ameagari_no_You_ni
Winter 2018 (12 episodes)
My Score: 3/10, MAL Score: 7.50/10
Best Character: Tachibana Akira

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8otMlNcdNU

Premise: Tachibana Akira, a track star who cant run anymore after a leg injury, gets a part-time job at a caf. There she develops feelings for Kondou Masami, her middle-aged manager.

The Good: I liked the art style, and there were a few poignant moments. Tachibana and Kondou both have dreams that seem long gone, and it was nice to explore that theme. Individually, I liked both of them well enough.

The Bad: After the Rain quickly splits into two completely different stories with only a tenuous connection. Tachibana and Kondou both progress in their personal arcs, but it never felt like they were driving each other along. I didnt necessarily want a full-blown schoolgirl/older guy romance, but their interactions couldve still been a catalyst for change in each other. Instead, it never felt like they interacted much at all. It made the narrative feel disjointed. An anime that focused on one of them, cutting the other entirely, wouldve worked better for me. I also remember feeling that the season ended at an odd point where it didn't conclude anything.

Overall: After the Rain had a few nice things to say about following your dreams. I just felt that the two main characters didn't connect much in the story. Their arcs were entirely separate, which meant that neither got enough focus and the whole thing felt incomplete.

COMING UP TOMORROW:
207: This anime was murdered by a mysterious serial killer.
206: This anime was swallowed whole and dissolved by stomach acid.
205: This anime has merged with a demon.

I read the first few chapters of the Wotakoi manga and didn't like that, though that was partly due to the weird paneling.

Also hated the After the Rain anime.

A few things:

First, I have family visiting for the next week. I've done enough write-ups in advance that it shouldn't matter, but if I'm going to miss a day at all in this ranking, this is when it'll happen. I also won't have time to watch anything, but early September is when I plan to watch a bunch of recommended stuff.

Second, Sunday is when we finally reach the first character in my top 100 characters! I just want to check in with people about spoilers. As I mentioned in the first post, I want character write-ups to have spoilers (otherwise it'd be a hundred write-ups with generic "I liked this character's arc" statements). I personally don't like reading massive blocks of black spoiler tags, so I'll just do an old fashioned "SPOILERS FOR SERIES" at the top and hope that's good.

Much like show write-ups have OPs or EDs, I want to include videos at the top of character write-ups too. Lots of them won't have anything good on YouTube, but I'll use what I can find. I'd also like to use the most impactful ones, like if a character dies and I can find a video of it I'd want to use that. For me, only the first video link on a page has a preview expanded by default. The rest are minimized with a little plus icon to expand them, but I don't know if there's a site setting that shows them all. I don't want anyone accidentally seeing "MAIN CHARACTER DIES OMG" video titles with a still image of them getting stabbed, or something. The video for the character this Sunday isn't that spoiler-y so it might be a good test run. Maybe I should use the black spoiler tag just on the video links, though? I dunno, I'm just looking for opinions on how I can have videos while minimizing the chances of spoiling anyone who doesn't want to see them.

Doing these character write-ups might be a terrible idea. There are lots of anime where I may very well be the only person here who has seen them, and literally no one will read or comment on a character write-up for it. I don't care, though. I went to the trouble of figuring out my top 100 anime characters, and I want to talk about them all!

Lots of shows I watched and didn't care for. I guess I enjoyed MMO Junkie but I wouldn't really say it was great or anything.

After the Rain had some really cool technical aspects to it but the writing wasn't great and the subject matter was pretty uncomfortable.

Kaguya is great though. Sounds like you might like s2/s3 more but it's hard to say.

Robazoid posted...

Anything that I'm ranking that I haven't finished is something I intend to get back to someday (though in the case of these lower ranked ones, it might be a long time). I almost certainly wouldn't get back to Kaguya before this ranking was over, so if you want to use your recommendation to speed that up, that's fine by me!

Cool, Ill use my recommendation for that then

207. B: The Beginning
https://myanimelist.net/anime/32827/B__The_Beginning
Winter 2018 (12 episodes), Winter 2021 (0/6 episodes, unfinished)
My Score: 3/10, MAL Score: 7.21/10 S1, 6.18/10 S2
Best Character: Hoshina Lily

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JosoJVDxyg0

Premise: Keith Flick, a brilliant detective who is still recovering from a personal loss, is brought in to solve a series of murders by the mysterious vigilante known only as Killer B.

The Good: The early parts of the detective plotline were intriguing. I also liked Lily quite a bit, she was a lot of fun as the overactive sidekick to Keiths quieter brilliance.

The Bad: B: The Beginning is two completely different stories only tenuously connected by the fact that Keith is involved in each of them. Theres a detective plot, and then theres another far more supernatural plot. With only the tiniest of edits, you could get rid of either one of these stories and lose absolutely nothing in the other. In fact, if either half of the story was given more time to breathe, it would probably be greatly improved. Instead, B: The Beginning is about Keith bouncing between different plotlines while the viewer waits for it all to come together. It never does, and because of that neither plot amounts to much in the end.

Overall: B: The Beginning tried to cover two unrelated stories and only managed to feel disjointed. Of the two, Id have preferred if it stuck more to the detective side, because Keith and Lily worked well in that genre. The supernatural side, by comparison, never made a whole lot of sense. Theres a mini second season I havent watched yet, but it has a really bad MAL score so Im not in any rush to see it.

finally something we can agree on. I don't even think i made it through 3 episodes of B: The Beginning. I felt like it was so uninteresting and uninspired for something that billed itself as a psychological thriller

The first couple episodes are by far the best so you're lucky you got out early. The show is terrible

206. Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan
https://myanimelist.net/anime/36884/Hisone_to_Maso-tan
Spring 2018 (12 episodes)
My Score: 3/10, MAL Score: 7.32/10
Best Character: Amakasu Hisone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnVCGLh8ZW4

Premise: Amakasu Hisone joins the Japanese air force hoping to find a purpose in life. Then it turns out shes the only one compatible with Masotan, a dragon who swallows its pilot.

The Good: I enjoyed Dragon Pilot a lot the first time I watched it. It was absurd in a lot of great ways, starting with the concept of people piloting dragons disguised as airplanes from inside of their guts. Hisone is fun too, she has no filter and always says whats on her mind. Her friendly bluntness led to a lot of great jokes.

The Bad: I rewatched this in preparation for this ranking, and Dragon Pilot did not hold up to a second viewing. The first time through it was fun wondering what craziness would happen next. Even with only hazy memories on rewatch, the magic was gone. The overall theme is confused. As soon as this goes from being about finding a purpose to being about love, Dragon Pilot falls apart and never recovers. Hisones arc also didnt feel earned, a lot of things worked out just because she wanted them to. I still considered putting her in my top 100 characters because she is fun, and itd be nice to have a spoiler section to complain about some things. The bad parts with her outweighed the good by the end, though, so she doesnt deserve a spot.

Overall: Years ago, Dragon Pilot made it onto a list I made of fifteen anime from 2018 that I recommended people watch. It still might be worth it for a first-time viewer, but its zaniness doesnt have much substance and I found a lot of flaws when I rewatched it.

Yeah, Hisone has its charming parts, but it has a loooot of lameness.

This write-up doesn't feel very good, but I don't have a whole lot of time to work on it. I guess it's hard to put into words how little of an opinion I have about this anime. I feel like the Futurama neutrality meme, "I have no strong feelings one way or the other."

205. Devilman Crybaby
https://myanimelist.net/anime/35120/Devilman__Crybaby
Winter 2018 (10 episodes)
My Score: 3/10, MAL Score: 7.77/10
Best Character: Kuroda Miki

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM5mnH7JrJE

Premise: Fudou Akira, always weak and overly emotional, unwittingly merges with a demon. Now extremely powerful, he fights to resist a newfound darker side to his personality.

The Good: Devilman Crybaby is certainly unique. Im not sure Ive ever seen anything else quite like this animation and art style. The story also accomplished what it set out to do, both in terms of plot and themes. It went to some interesting places. As for characters, Kuroda Miki is the only one whose arc really sticks out in my memory, but everyone was fine.

The Bad: The whole time that I was watching this, I felt no strong emotions, either positive or negative. I dont want anyone to take that statement too strongly, though, because Devilman Crybaby hit the emotional beats it set out to. It didnt do anything I can point to as wrong. Other than a few parts in Kuroda Mikis story, however, nothing about it appealed to me. Its rare for me to consume a piece of fiction and have almost no opinions at all, but thats what happened.

Overall: Were at another dividing line in this ranking. I am completely neutral on Devilman Crybaby. The bad outweighed the good for anything below it, and vice versa for anything above it. It didnt appeal to me, but Id still recommend this for anyone who thinks they might like it. The best word to describe it really is unique, its just unfortunate that this brand of unique didnt do anything for me.

COMING UP TOMORROW:
204: This anime is getting sent to the void.
C33: This character doesnt want to play these games anymore.
203: Im bringing this anime into the real world.

(Since no one commented on potential spoiler worries, I'll just spoiler-tag the video with the character write-up, make it clear it's a video link behind the spoiler, and we'll see how it goes)

honestly, i never would've expected devilman crybaby to be neutral for anybody. at least for the main story, it seemed pretty love or hate

out of curiosity does it cause any formatting issues to simply hide everything behind a spoiler bar?

I just think it looks ugly and hurts my eyes to read 300 words when they're all behind spoiler tags. Maybe I'm alone on that though, I can change how I do things after today if people would prefer the whole thing tagged.

This is how I planned to handle character write-ups. We won't get too many in the bottom half, but they're all over the place in my top 100 so if you have any suggestions about formatting or how to better hide spoilers without being hard to read, please let me know!

204. Death Parade
https://myanimelist.net/anime/28223/Death_Parade
Winter 2015 (12 episodes)
My Score: 3/10, MAL Score: 8.16/10
Best Character: Kurokami no Onna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca5Tf5BDSYI

Premise: When two people die at the same time, their souls are judged in the afterlife. Arbiters force them to play high-stakes games, with one soul reincarnating while the other is cast into the void.

The Good: I love the OP video, its like every ounce of the animes fun is concentrated there. Also, congratulations to Death Parade for being the lowest-ranked anime to have someone in my top 100 characters! Ill talk more about Kurokami no Onna in her write-up below, which will contain significant spoilers.

The Bad: When I read the premise, I hoped Death Parade would be an introspective anime about helping the recently deceased come to terms with their fate. Instead, it reveled in being meanspirited and bleak, forcing people into torturous situations for the explicit purpose of breaking them down. All of this is ostensibly to expose the truth of their souls, but I have philosophical problems with the whole idea of judging people this way. I dont believe people are inherently good or evil, for starters, but if they are I question whether an intense game of darts is the best way to filter them. It all felt so simplistic, like a childs idea of morality. You got angry fastest after being hurt, therefore you are evil. Since I wasnt getting anything out of the philosophical angle, Death Parade was basically torture porn.

Overall: Death Parade was largely an episodic series, and a few of the stories they told werent bad. However, most of them had confused morals and simplistic themes. I refuse to accept that this judgment system could last more than a day before collapsing under the weight of its flaws. Without Kurokami no Onna, this anime would've ranked a whole lot lower.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/2/5/AABz_zAADlkl.png

CHARACTER: Kurokami no Onna (Death Parade)
https://myanimelist.net/character/82037/Kurokami_no_Onna
Voiced by: Seto Asami
TOP 100 RANK: 33rd

SPOILERS FOR DEATH PARADE

VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBNseHHJAoA

Since character write-ups contain spoilers, Im going to drop the awkward Kurokami no Onna right away and just call her Chiyuki. I mentioned in my Death Parade write-up that Id hoped the show would be about helping people come to terms with their death. Thats what Chiyukis arc was, and it was great.

She spends most of the show calling out the flaws in the judgment system. If you put people in extreme situations theyll react in extreme ways, whod have thought? It doesnt necessarily say anything about their souls. Even a murderer couldve been a good person if they were born into radically different circumstances, which presumably reincarnation would provide. Chiyuki said a lot of the things I was thinking, which endeared her to me early on. Its dumb that Death Parade wasted so much time figuring out the obvious, but thats not Chiyukis fault.

As for her arc, I loved everything about it. The slow reveal that she was a dead human too, the life she led, the reason she committed suicide, the impact it had on the people left behind, it was all hauntingly realistic and really resonated with me. Decim dealt with her the way he shouldve been handling everyone. He helped her accept what happened and move on to whatever comes next. The scene of Chiyuki ice-skating that I linked to above is a beautiful example of visual storytelling. It tells pretty much her whole life, right up to the moment that changed it forever.

The fact that the writers handled Chiyukis arc so well annoys me, because it showed they were aware of the flaws in the judgments. They were capable of doing something like this, but they still went for grimy torture porn instead. Chiyuki is a shining beacon of amazing in an otherwise bad anime.

Robazoid posted...

When I read the premise, I hoped Death Parade would be an introspective anime about helping the recently deceased come to terms with their fate. Instead, it reveled in being meanspirited and bleak, forcing people into torturous situations for the explicit purpose of breaking them down.

For the record I think this is an incorrect characterization of Death Parade. I think it's an episodic series where the tone varies significantly from episode to episode, and how it does so is largely reflectively of the characters featured in that episode moreso than anything. Some episodes feel mean-spirited though and those do tend to be the weaker ones.

I admit my memories of Death Parade are mostly focused on Kurokami, but I recall most of the episodes being really ugly. Some less so than others, but I didn't like any of them at the time.

Death Parade was passable when it was a single episode amateur project

not as a full-blown TV series

sounds like a fascinating concept, but i feel warned off of this for sure

Oh man, think that's the first show on this list I've actually seen and it's one of my all-time favorites. A lot of the reasons for that are, admittedly, largely personal in nature but I do feel compelled to point out that this

I refuse to accept that this judgment system could last more than a day before collapsing under the weight of its flaws.

is kind of part of the point. It becomes increasingly obvious throughout the series how bad the system is, to the point that the whole reason the actual plot even happened is because one of the characters realized it's terrible and started taking steps to try and make it at least a little better.

NBIceman posted...

is kind of part of the point. It becomes increasingly obvious throughout the series how bad the system is, to the point that the whole reason the actual plot even happened is because one of the characters realized it's terrible and started taking steps to try and make it at least a little better.

I agree that was the point, I guess I just found the conclusion kind of obvious so I couldn't give the story credit for eventually reaching it. I know Death Parade was a favorite for a lot of people, though! My main problem with it came down to philosophy and ethics, but I can see it being someone else's favorite for much the same reasons.

203. Re:Creators
https://myanimelist.net/anime/34561/Re_Creators
Spring 2017 (22 episodes)
My Score: 3/10, MAL Score: 7.55/10
Best Character: Chikujouin Magane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGDFBqTZ_LY

Premise: Fictional characters are appearing in the real world to wreak havoc with their powers. High schooler Mizushino Souta teams up with anime heroine Selesia Upitiria to end the chaos.

The Good: I like the reverse-isekai concept, and Re:Creators explores it to the fullest. There are government taskforces, they start bringing in the authors of the fictional characters for support, all of that is great. Some of the fictional characters are awesome, too. Megane is my favorite for her unique powers and aesthetic.

The Bad: For all the cool things Re:Creators did, it also had a few elements that really annoyed me. Several of the fictional characters are easily manipulated morons. Thats partly justified by the characters acting out personalities from in-universe source material, but Id have preferred if they were all a bit more intelligent. Several conflicts happen because they refuse to say anything or listen to each other. There was also one villain who handled powers in a way that I hated, always pulling some new ability that was never mentioned before out of their ass.

Overall: Re:Creators had nice production values, a unique premise explored to the fullest, and several interesting characters. It also had a few elements that turned me off on it. When I was writing the good section of this write-up, I felt like I should like this anime more than I do. Then I thought of a scene where several of my biggest writing pet peeves were hit within a five-minute period, and I remembered why I didnt like it. I came extremely close to dropping this after episode nine, but in the end Im glad I finished it even if it isnt one of my favorites.

COMING UP TOMORROW:
202: This anime will now haunt the ranking until someone finds all the hidden clues.
201: I refuse to believe that this anime is a goddess.

Man, at some point I made a list of "top 25 shows from the 2010's" and all 3 of the last entries were on it. To be fair, both Death Parade and Re:Creators were in the 21-25 slots and would have since been taken off due to watching more shows since making the list, but still.

Re:Creators was a fun show, though I remember liking the first half much more than the second half. The magical girl character was my favorite.

Re:Creators rules. One of my favorite shows, though there's a few episodes after the halfway point that're overly talky. Magane and Altair are amazing characters.

Magane and Altair were also great, yes. I loved a lot of characters from that show tbh.

There's a reason it ranked above Devilman "true neutral" Crybaby, even if only barely! Re:Creators had a lot going for it, just also a few things that really bugged me about the writing

It turned out no one really cared to guess on these from the first page, and hey I don't blame you. Since we've finally had a character drop, though, I'll update this because I still think they're fun stats.

-The ratio of males and females in my top 100 characters (example, 51:49 would be 51 guys, 49 girls)
Currently: 0:1
-The five lowest ranked anime with a character in my top 100
5: Death Parade, 204th (Kurokami no Onna)

Another fun stat: Kurokami no Onna is voiced by Seto Asami, who voices a total of four characters in my top 100!

hey mac and i guessed ratios