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Now it's time to begin with the second half, the Top 50. I had a really hard time arranging them, but this is what I finally got.

If you've been reading this from the first entry (or from the last), I can only hope you're enjoying reading about the top 100. Please understand there's obviously going to be between a lot and a few thing here you won't like. There's a different taste for everyone (and that's fantastic).

Now without further ado, let's go with the top:




50. Soukyuu no Fafner: Dead Aggressor



After watching the series, I have to admit I was quite surprised about how underground this title is for a 2004 series. Ironically, it might be because the animation quality wasn’t that good in the first series, even thought it would grow to become one of the best animated series in 2015 with the Exodus series.

Along with RahXephon (which I haven’t watched), Fafner could be considered a young cousin to Evangelion. It definitely took a lot of elements from Evangelion, though instead of just becoming a copy, it took those elements and used them in its own different way. By this, we’re talking about, first of all, the main plot of the series, where we have some kids who happen to have some affinity to some giant robots forced to fight some giant aliens that have left the whole planet in chaos, and while all of this happen, there’s also some in-fighting between humans. Contrary to Evangelion, Fafner characters start as (mostly) perfect normal children who are put in a position where they have to pilot Fafners to defend their home (pretty much a fortress island that’s almost a paradise inside while the world is almost destroyed). The series takes special importance into the development of these kids and the changes they, and their families, go through after getting to know a bit more of the realities of war. Contrary to a lot of mecha shows, the series is very aware of how wrong it is to send kids to war, and it’s always a point of emphasis. This is not a show about the mechas themselves. It’s always about the characters development and the whole plot progression.

Something that caught my attention was that this series has a lot of characters, and by a lot, I mean it might only be second to Legend of the Galactic Heroes if we consider length of series. And what makes it even most impressive is that the vast majority of those characters actually do play a role in the series, which by the way, is definitely not afraid of killing characters (actually, you can make it a drinking game). This is something that worked really well, especially in a series of this type. While I don’t think it’s bad to focus on just a few characters, the general view Fafner gives with its multiple points of view and development is quite impressive, and helps a lot enriching the plot and letting us see one thing from different points of view. Admittedly, because of the huge amount of characters, and a lot of different terms the series use, it can sometimes be a bit hard to follow, but it’s normally not that difficult.

The pace of the series can be a bit all over the place, sometimes being quite slow, and sometimes pressing the accelerator quite a lot (more commonly on Exodus), but as a whole, I didn’t usually mind this very much (if you hate slow pacing, it might be a bit of a problem at times though).

The series has taken a very long time to be finished, and there’s probably still a little bit left. The first series was from 2004, then immediately came a prequel OVA (meant to be watched afterwards though) in 2005, then we have to jump all the way into 2010 for a movie and then another big leap until 2015 for both Exodus series (though I consider them both as one series). While the first series was great in all the aspects I’ve mentioned so far, I don’t remember the music to be particularly impressive, it was nice but not impressive (except the opening theme, which was great), but then it progressively got better, and in Exodus the soundtrack became quite impressive with different orchestral arranges very well put that helped a lot giving life to different scenes. There’s also the animation, which was pretty simple in 2004, but with the movie in 2010, and even more with Exodus in 2015, it became one of the best animated series I’ve seen to date. While CGI can be heavily criticized, Fafner Exodus knew when and how to use it, working as a fantastic tool for the series (yes, CGI can be great if used well). Of course, sometimes you have to wonder if so much time went between series because they were collecting money for it. That’s the only way to explain the obviously high budget from Exodus.
Another problem with Fafner might be that, while the first series does leave a few things still in the open, the movie that follows, Heaven and Earth, does kind of open the plot with a bit too much force, so to speak. Which doesn’t really help the movie, but admittedly, thanks to that we got Exodus, which might just be the strongest part in the series thanks to a strong combination of characters, plot and technical values (and was easily my favorite 2015 anime. I mean, easily).

Exodus is divided in two seasons, probably because that’s just the way modern anime is working, because there’s no ending in season 2, and season one just continues like if it was an “episode 14”. But still, the seasons do help a bit by dividing to parts of the series. Because of this, Exodus S1 works more as a build-up for everything that happens in the last few episodes of the season and everything in season 2. Like I’ve said before, animation is on another level, being able to perfectly compete with ufotable’s works, and who knows, maybe even beat them (except in character design, as Fafner’s characters are obviously done by the guy who did the character designs from Gundam SEED). Exodus also does use the technology it has and gives us more battles than the original series, and while I’m not really a fan of mechas themselves (as a general rule, not specifically from Fafner), I have to admit battle in Fafner looked gorgeous, sounded gorgeous and sometimes even had some insert-songs by angela (who, by the way, did every opening) that sounded just beautiful. Her singing is simply fantastic.

Now we just have to wait until April and see what the Fafner team is going to announce. I imagine it will be a movie or some OVAs, as the series still have some things left to be resolved, but probably not enough for a whole series.


49. Haibane Renmei



What a nice, relaxing story Haibane Renmei was.

I honestly didn't expect much going into the series, but I ended up enjoying it like few others. The characters, setting and atmosphere were all memorable, and little by little, the story began getting wings and flying up high (you're getting the pun, right?)

What exactly are these girls? Its like they were angels, but not quite. Rakka, our main character, certainly doesn't know, and a lot of mysteries of this new life of her come. She's really beginning a new life and learning how to grasp it... the good and the bad.

This is, by no means, a story about cute angels or anything of the sort; it is a story full of symbolism, an allegory about what growth is.

Haibane Renmei really is a unique anime, as I can't really say I've seen something very similar, but it's not an abstract anime, or anything of the sort (which my description might make it sound like), Haibane Renmei is actually a pretty direct anime that is just full of little subtleties, but it's a pretty easy, entertaining watch, that just ends up giving you much more than your average anime.


48. Mobile Suit Gundam (UC)



When talking about anime classics, one of the first names to come up, if not the first, will always be Gundam.

The incredibly famous robot franchise created by Tomino has inspired a lot of modern and now-not-so-modern anime. While its not the first mecha anime, it is the first one that dwelved into the "real robots" genre, where mechas are not all-mighty indestructible machines, but just another weapon for war.

While of course the mecha is an important part of the story, Gundam is much more than that. It's a story about war, the development of characters forced to joined the war, and the development of a great rivalry between the main character, Rey Amuro, and the antagonist, Char Aznable. It's not a story about good vs bad, and just a story about two sides at war, mainly told from one side.

While I haven't watched the original series, the movies felt very complete by themselves, and I didn't feel I was lacking anything vital that the series might have given me (maybe a few small things).

I'm not really a fan of mechas as super robots, and I haven't liked a few Gundam series (Seed and Wing), but I decided to go with this as I wanted to explore the Universal Calendar world, which is the most extense and the better regarded. This was definitely the best Gundam stuff I've seen so far (and I did enjoy 00), and I'll soon be going into the rest of this universe.

Best thing about the series was Char Aznable, the antagonist. He was a really interesting character, extremely intelligent, talented and well developed, easily my favorite from this movie trilogy, though not because the main cast were bad, I actually liked Rey Amuro's development.

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam get to a whole new level. Character development is much bigger in this one, and is much better with Tomino killing characters like there's no tomorrow. We get to see some characters from the prequel, but now as adults and much more mature, and while the new characters starts very annoying, they have some very big development (this is specially true for Kamille, the main character). It takes time, and the series is slow to start, but by the end, I could easily say it surpassed the prequel.

While I feared the newtype thing would not be too good, it's much better explored in this movie, and it actually didn't work that bad. Overall quality clearly improved and the OST was so much better.

Now, I know it's kind of a trend for Tomino to give weird names to it's characters, but what the fuck was he thinking when he named that-character-that-is-totally-not-Char-Aznable the name "Quattro Bajeena"... I mean.... you know what, I think I don't want to know what was he thinking.

Gundam ZZ is defintely a step back for the franchise. This series might actually be the father (or is it mother?) of the so bad it's good mecha series like Cross Ange and Valvrave, series that don't really take themselves seriously, which makes them fun (well, Valvrave actually tries and miserably fails to do it in it's second season). Problem here is that this is a direct sequel of Zeta, so as a viewer, you're not really looking for that kind of thing when you go into ZZ, which makes it quite a disappointment, and for me it was almost an ordeal to keep watching through the first half.

The second half of ZZ is much, much better though, as things start getting more serious, and the plot becomes something much more worthy of the prequels. But of course, waiting 23 episodes (aprox) for that isn't really great, specially in a 47 episodes series.

Char's Counterattack, which comes next, could almost work as a conclusion by itself. While I'm not a fan of the conclusion, the movie is very entertaining, has some really impressive action (and it's very rare for me to be impressed with action in mecha series, as I usually don't like it very much) and OST.

It was really nice going back to Rey Amuro and Char Aznable, which I still think are the best characters from the series, and the whole plot was overall pretty good.

Then comes War in the Pocket (chronologically situated a little bit after the very first series), which is, so far, definitely my favorite thing from this franchise. Good enough to make it's position in the ranking skyrocket.

War in the Pocket is a series that really explores the term of "real robots", as the mechas are really shown as weapons, it's perfectly shown the destruction a fight between them can cause in a city, and we're presented with the point of view of a simple colony and a simple Zeon pilot, not the ace pilots and leaders from each side. This is a fantastic war story, with some great character development, and some fantastic war drama. Truly a piece of art in the franchise.

After that I went with Stardust Memory (chronologically situated between the original series and Zeta), which looked fantastic, the art was extremely detailed and the animation was outstanding, but even so, it was probably one of the the weakest entriy of UC, and that is because the plot and character were not really good. Besides not being really entertaining, there were some plot twists that really didn’t make much sense at all, and more importantly, the main couple was quite inconsistent and pretty annoying. A real shame as I’m a fan of Ryo Horikawa, the seiyuu of the main character. This does help though for understanding how the Titans (main antagonists from Zeta) were created.

The 08th MS Team (chronologically situated more or less contemporary to the original series) was a fantastic entry. While sometimes had some pacing issues (the original plan was to make a bigger series from it, but the director died halfway through the project), the story is pretty entertaining, having more of a guerilla setting, focused on a small team. The series gives a lot of focus to the tactics used by the team in the different operations, and besides that, has a focus on the romance between the main character (who’s from the Federation) and an enemy pilot (from Zeon). Characters are really likeable, and the series has quite a satisfying ending. Definitely one of the best entries of UC.

After that comes IGLOO (chronologically contemporary to the original series), which is a 3D movie instead of the classical 2D, which I didn’t quite dislike, but neither specially liked it. I think I prefer the original 2D though. That said, while the idea of focusing the story from the point of view of the engineers was something I loved, they really didn’t do such a good job, as the story was pretty boring, the characters very forgettable, and it became quite ridiculous in IGLOO 2 with the “Shinigami”, which was very out of place in the Gundam universe. As a whole, IGLOO is the weakest entry of Gundam UC.

Finally came Unicorn (chronologically situated 3 years after Char’s Counterattack), which gives a fantastic finish to Gundam (Early) UC. The animation here is absolutely fantastic and the story was quite engaging. I really wasn’t particularly fond of the main characters and his motives, and I didn’t really liked Mineva here either, but other than that, I have no complains with this series. Watching Char 2.0 (aka Full Frontal) was awesome, and I quickly went through the seven OVAs (which I’m glad I began watching when it was already completed). It was really nice seeing some old characters again, though I did miss some that didn’t make an appearance.

Now the only thing left would be Origins (chronologically situated 11 years before the original series), which is currently airing as I write this.


47. Kara no Kyoukai



When talking about a combination of action, mystery and supernatural, there're not many things that can top Kara no Kyoukai, which, just like Fate/Zero, was done by the great Ufotable, which means the animation quality here is top notch and so is the OST, which I consider one of the better works of Yuki Kajiura.

Kara no Kyoukai is kind of like a puzzle. The movies are not in chronological order, and you have to watch everything to make sense out of everything (and you have to pay attention, or you might get lost). This, while confusing at first, ended up being quite an entertaining experience, and made you go a little bit deeper into the plot.

Every movie was great by their own also, and while some were clearly superior to others, every movie was very enjoyable. Out of all, my favorite is probably the fifth one, Mujen Rasen, with the seventh, Satsujin Kousatsu (part 2), was a close second (it's no coincidence that these two were the longest ones).

Shiki is an excellent, and very likeable character with an incredible amount of development (which is specially interesting to watch with the chronological disorder). While Kokutou was more or less a constant character, Shiki changed a lot through the series... a whole lot.

While there is a good fair of action in this series, what plays the most important role here are the dialogues of the characters, be it for their personal relationship, for giving some kind of speech or resolving the mysteries found in the series.


46. Sakamichi no Apollon



Shinichiro Watanabe and Yoko Kanno would like to welcome everyone back to the 60s.

Sakamichi no Apollon is a teenage romance, which is something we've seen a lot... a real lot... a whole lot... stop with the stupid brats already! That said, Sakamichi no Apollon managed to create its own uniqueness, it managed to create characters that are not just your typical trope character. They're actually far from it. They're much more believable characters thanks to a great script and some really outstanding voice acting.

The first and most important element that sets Sakamichi no Apollon apart from other anime is the music. It's no news that Yoko Kanno and Watanabe love jazz, as we could see in the famous Cowboy Bebop, and this time, they dedicated a series to it. I said it already in the Cowboy Bebop entry: I love jazz, so the thing of me and this series was bound for success (and it ended up doing even better than my expectations). When talking about the performances, while sometimes I wanted more, what we did have was flawless, and probably the best I've seen. Rotoscoping really helped a lot making the performances really fluid, and they by themselves said a lot in the series. It wasn't just some music service, they helped deepening character relations and were very successful at showing characters feelings.

The 60s setting is something I've yet to see in an anime. While not being a series about the setting, it is very well employed, and characters act in a way proper to the correspondant year. With some great animation, Sakamichi no Apollon captures really well the essences of those years, and of course, jazz was in a huge era at the time. There's this minor scene with no relevance to the story, were a character is dressed in black to mourn a John Coltrane who had just passed away. That's just one of the small detailes you can find throughout the series, that while seemingly unimportant, they actually add a lot to the sorrounding of the series, to the feeling it wants to create and to creating the world, which is something quite important even in an anime without an ounce of fantasy, such as this one.

Characters are far from perfect, but again, it feels like a much more realistic portrayal, and while having a lot of twists and turns, some drama here and there, their development is something quite amusing. From the romantic relationship to, most importantly, the friendship between the two main characters.

Finally the series gave us a very good conclusion. An ending that's far from your everyday ending of the series of this sort, and one that let me very content. The final performance of the series was something really memorable for me.


45. Aria



So, I can actually like a series that’s kind of a Cute Girls Doing Cute Things? Well, Aria is certainly much more than any series of that kind, but I guess it can still qualify, and I definitely liked it… a lot.

The first thing there is to like about Aria, is this wonderful setting in Not-Venezia… I mean, Neo-Venezia. I’ve been to Venezia, and the series captured a lot of the charms of the city, and actually made them even better (I’ll have to be honest here… I didn’t really like my gondola ride and thought the gondolier -who wasn’t a cute girl- sang pretty bad). Venezia is a beautiful city, and there’s a lot to watch there, and through the whole series, you pretty much get a tour through every nook and cranny of (Neo-)Venezia. This was a huge pro for me, as I had some pretty nice memories from this trip… like when I told my dad “When we get back home, I’m going to grab a knife in the night, and I’m going to kill you!” to which he answered “Then why not kill me now?” and I responded “Are you crazy!? If I kill you know, how I am going to get back home?”… I was 7 years old.

Aria was far from a perfect series for me, but it got better and better as it progressed, even if it was mostly an episodic series. The first season had a lot of episodes that were a bit of the hit-or-miss kind, and while the majority was a hit, there were about four misses, which is not something to ignore in a 12 episodes series. Still, the hits overruled the misses, as good episodes were relaxing, watching these girls interacting was rather nice and served a bit to disconnect from the real world. Second season started quite weak actually, but the second half was fantastic. It was in Natural’s second half were you really taking notice about how our main characters were developing little by little. The series began focusing on the characters much more, and that made wonders for the series. The big problem this series had were the damn cats, starting with President Aria. They were there to give a touch of cuteness, which only hurts the series, and a sense of mystique, that mostly didn’t work (I do think the homage to Galactic Railroad was fine… but that’s pretty much it). When the series got away from the cats, it’s really when it shined the most.

And then there’s Origination, the final season. Now this took the series to a whole new level. It was by far the best season, and by itself, one of the best things I’ve seen in terms of slice of life and coming of age. Origination took everything Animation and Natural slowly built, and used it to develop the final part of the three young undine’s growth, working as a fantastic finale for the series. To be honest, when I saw this so highly rated, I always expected (before watching anything of Aria) Origination to move from a bit from the simple slice of life, and maybe introduce some drama or something… but I was wrong, Origination kept itself very faithful to the tone of the series. It did the same things, only that it did it so much better.

It is no exaggeration to call Aria’s conclusion one of the best conclusions I’ve seen in anime. And even while being that good, I’m still really expecting Aria the Avvenire, just because I want to see more of Akari, Alice and Aika, now as grown and experienced Undines.

Spoilers about the ending ahead:


I didn’t watch Aria for many years because everything in it was telling me “you’re not gonna like it”, it looked like the typical series I find rather boring. “Don’t judge a book by its cover”… I want to add to that “or by its synopsis”… At least I finally did watch it.

Oh, and I wonder why the author decided to give every single character in the series a name that begins with A. Now this is a real mystery.


44. Initial D



Initial D, in pretty much every sense, is as simple as a series can get. There is character development, but just on a really simple line, while it's a seinen, the plot is as simple as an average shounen, but in this case, that simplicity makes wonders. Initial D is not a series that's supposed to make you think or anything of the sort, and that’s just fine, because the series shines in that simplicity, it’s perfect at just being the very definition of “awesome”, it really makes you want to grab your car and go racing and drifting to some mountain path or wherever (note: don’t do it).

Again, everything is simple, but it’s perfectly executed, and the series never intends to be more than what it is. Characters are really likeable (well, maybe except the girls and Takumi’s best friend, Itsuki) and the races are really exciting. Even with the limitations of technology at that time, they were really well done. There’s a lot of detail in the roads and in the car movements, and to make this possible, they used CGI, which wasn’t even that developed when the first series came. Still, even if you can clearly see how the series changes from old animation to CGI, you actually appreciate the CGI as it has a reason to be there, it really does make the races a lot better, even if it doesn’t look as good as the animation (while it may not “look” better, it makes it “flow" infinitely better).

The series mainly follows the formula of presenting us the new Takumi opponent, a few episodes of character interaction, and then a couple of episodes for the race, where the series is always at its best. While pretty much everything in this series is simple, there is one exception, and that’s everything about cars. There’s a lot of details that were clearly well researched everything about the tractions, the weight, motors, how make an ideal curve, long etc. Even more, the drifting was recorded from a famous Japanese drifter (whose name I don’t remember).

This is not a series that will manage to surprise you with the results, as you pretty much know who’ll win every time, but still, that doesn’t take anything from the process. Even if you know the end-result, you want to see how it happens, what kind of twists and turns will there be, and how will Takumi manage to get ahead of his opponent.

I haven’t seen every racing anime out there (in fact, I think I’ve only seen Redline and Mach GoGoGo besides this, at the time I’m writing this), but I have a hard time imagining anything surpassing Initial D in terms of racing. The excitement this series creates, in part thanks to how detailed the races are, in part because it’s fun listening to the characters thoughts through the race, and of course, thanks to a fantastic OST, is something that I have a hard time imagining something able to replicate it.


43. Flanders no Inu



Putting Flanders in this ranking might be one of the most difficult decisions I’ve made in my top 100. The series is far from perfect and it takes quite a lot to really take off, so a part of me didn’t even want to put it in my top 100. But then there’s the other part. Flanders no Inu finally managed to leave an everlasting impression in me, which made me even think to put it at a better position than this one. It takes a lot to take off, but when it does take off, it’s definitely worth the wait. Flanders no Inu is one of the most famous dramas in Japan, and with good reason. This is a series that actually increased a lot the visits to Belgium from japanese tourists. There’s actually a statue in honor to Nello and Patrasche that has japanese text for all the japanese tourist that go visit Hoboken (a small town were Nello’s small town probably was) and Antwerp. A Dog of Flanders, once a best-seller, was mostly forgotten even in Belgium until the 80s, but since it found its way to Japan it quickly became a classic there. People really cared about Nello and Patrasche, it’s pretty much serious talk when talking about Flanders no Inu.

Like I said before, the series starts slow, though little by little characters get more developed, and then the final 10 episodes or so are a piece of art in the anime world. While at times it can be a bit boring before that, by the end, I had this series in my head, I was sad it was finished and definitely became one of the most memorable series in my head, with one of the most impressive endings I’ve seen.

So, let’s talk about that ending:

Heavy spoilers from Flanders no Inu:


It’s funny how different cultures are. Flanders no Inu would never be considered a “children’s story” in this side of the world, that’s not the kind of story people here want to tell their children, but japanese do like to tell these kind of stories to their children, which is a bit of an example that examples we give our children is different than the ones they give.


42. Terra e...



Can't say this was much of a surprise, as I honestly expected something pretty good, but the good thing is it definitely delivered to my expectations. Terra e, also known as Towards the Terra, was a great series. A great story that was very well told.

First thing, I love the setting of this story. A world were humans abandoned Earth because it was no longer an habitable planet (of course, because of humans) and went to colonize planets. So far, this is a pretty common setting for space operas. It gets a little bit better when we learn that the way human lives is really controlled by one computer, and people live in some kind of utopia (which of course, we'll eventually learn that, in fact, it's just superficial). While none of this concepts is something really new, the combination of them makes a pretty interesting setting, specially when you add the fact that some humans are actually developing some psychic powers. This humans are called Mus, and humanity desperately tries to eliminate them. So far, some of them managed to escape, and they sometimes manage to save newly born ones (Shin, our main character, being an example) and right now they live in hiding, and could almost be considered aliens.

The story is told from both the human point of view (with Keith Anyan as main character) and from the Mus side (with Jomy as main character), but this is not like Legend of the Galactic Heroes, for example, where the series doesn't really have a good and evil guy, in this case, Keith is clearly put in an antagonic position with Jomy being more of a good guy but that said, the story does evolve into something were nobody is really evil per se.

Character development is probably the biggest strength of the series, as this is pretty much about how both Jomy and Keith development. How they both eventually become leaders and rivals, and maybe even more (no no, I don't mean love. This is no yaoi!). But it's not only those two, the series really manages to create a big cast of characters and give relative importance to each of them, something that's not easy to pull with just 24 episodes, but that they actually managed to do very well. A lot of years pass through the span of 24 episodes, and it was really interesting see each character grow.

Besides that, animation looked pretty good and the OST was impressive. Sometimes I wished this was more of a seinen instead of a shounen, but for a shounen, it's actually a pretty mature series that dwelves a little into politics, and again, has much more development in their characters than the usual shounen.


41. Aoi Bungaku Series



An amazing adaption of some classics of japanese literature. Besides learning a little bit of literature from a different culture, you get to enjoy some amazing short stories.

No Longer Human: For me, this took the psychological genre to a whole new level. A tragic story about a guy and his view on society (and on himself), and how the pressure begins to consume him, and little by little, you could say he's "no longer human". I can certainly understand how this is the most read novel in Japan.

In the Forest, Under Cherries in Full Bloom: This one shows me how love can totally change a person, and not necessarily for good. In this case we get a mountain bandit who's completely in love with a city girl, who ends up pretty much controlling this bandit who does anything she asks him... and this can be taken to an extreme. That said, the series has a weird lighthearted approach. Atmosphere in this arc is completely different from No Longer Human, but does bring its own message well. Very bizarre overall, yet very effective.

Kokoro: Again, the series doesn't fail, and gives us an impressive arc, this one touching jelously and prejudices. What made this arc great was telling this story from the point of view of two characters (first episode one, and second episode the other one). How people can easily misunderstand things, how jelously can bring the worst of us and how some people are not as good (or bad) as we think they are. This series explores some of the most basic things in human behavior.

Run, Melos!: Probably the most acclaimed arc of this anime, and while it's hard for me to choose a favorite, I can definitely understand the praise this arc might get. If you watched Mouryou no Hako, you won't be surprised to know this is from the same director, who really showed to be able to do a lot. Melo looked great, and was very well adapted. We dwelve into a friendship, a possible betrayal, but this time about believing in your friend above all else. This is, again, an amazing story, and visually the best of the whole series.

Kumo no Ito: This was probably the weakest arc, but that said, it was still very good and, in a complete different style, portrayed some great visuals. Now we go into a criminal's mind with no regards for human life. The point of the whole story comes at the ending, when this criminal, because of his awful attitude, ends up blowing his one chance to repent his sins and go to Heaven instead of going to Hell. His sins weight too much for a spider's thread.

Jigoku Hen: We get the same setting as Kumo no Ito, but a darker story, that I personally liked more. Madness, that might be what describes this story. A story about a painter that needs inspiration to draw hell itself for the king. In search for said inspiration, things really go wrong beyond repair, but he does end up drawing is painting.

Madhouse is usually a very solid studio, but really outdid themselves with this series, which was amazing in pretty much every aspect.

I watched this quite some time ago, and I have to admit that, now that I'm remembering the series, I find myself asking: Should I have ranked this higher? I think I should right now, but I don't want rearrange things right now, so maybe after I finish the Top 100, and I make my first edit this will likely go higher. But hey, I personally think that the most important thing about a top 100, while it might sound weird, its not the order they're in, but what's in it, and what my thoughts for the series are. As I've said already numerous times (I believe), I am sure that I would definitely completely change the order of this series if they asked me to rank them again without watching what I already have.

Writing this really helps me to remember some series I watched years ago, and sometimes rethink the value I give them.

Update Nº1 EDIT: And just like I said, Aoi Bungaku Series managed to go quite higher this time, even though there's quite a lot of new content.




With the sixth entry, and already in the second half of the Top, things get really interesting for me... though that means it takes me much more time to write an entry. This one took quite a lot of time, but honestly, I had a lot of fun writing it, specially Aoi Bungaku, which I honestly didn't completely realice how highly I regarded it until I began writing. Is that weird? I don't know, but that's how it is, and I'm sure glad I wrote about it. (now you'll find it in a better position).

Feel free to leave a comment in my profile or in this entry, it would actually be appreciated, as it's always nice to see that someone's reading what you write (at least when you put some effort in it).


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