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And we're finally at the last entry with multiple series (each of the top 3 will have an individual release), and that also means going inside the top 5. By the end of this entry, it'll be 96 series I've written... damn, that's a lot.

Hopefully, by the end of this upcoming week, this top will be finished (and maybe even the update).

You could almost call this the retro entry, as two of the titles are actually from the 70s!

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


6. Rose of Versailles




Oh, I hate the artstyle in this series. But well, that's part of the pack when we're talking about a shoujo anime. Anyways, while I might dislike the artstyle, that's far from a reason to stop watching this series, the artstyle is something trivial in comparison to the story, character development, and history elements of this series.

Just like Joe, this is another of my 2015 project of watching old series... and just as Joe, it ended up being a gem.

I don't know if Rose of Versailles is the best shoujo or not. It's definitely my favorite, but that might just be because I feel the shoujo elements are just too secondary in terms of story and characters (they're certainly VERY present in aesthetics). But I can definitely say this is the best anime I've seen in terms if historic elements. Easily.

Rose of Versailles takes place before and during the French Revolution, and while it might not be 100% accurate (starting by the fact that Oscar didn't exist in real life... which is a shame), it's as accurate as it can get. A few details were changed to make the story more interesting, but every event is very well explained and true to history, to the point that I can really call Rose of Versailles a good source to learn a bit about how the French Revolution began, and what happened at the beginning of it (of course, you have to be smart enough to separate fiction from reality, but that's not really difficult if you know Oscar, André and Bernard are ficticious characters).

Oscar François de Jerjeyes, our main character, is one of the best characters I've had the pleasure to watch. She's a girl that's raised like a man and it's treated as such by everyone... well, and she really is like one, and a very GAR guy at that (not by looks, but by attitude). Her development through the series is certainly one of the main topics of it. How we little by little start discovering the girl she is, but without never losing her chivalrous persona. She's a born leader, a very intelligent person, and an extremely loyal vassal (maybe to a fault). In the series, she indirectly influences a lot of the events that lead to the French Revolution (to the best, actually, without Oscar it would've probably been much worse) and while watching the constant decay of monarchy, she grows, learns a bit more about the world (she starts as a noble not really aware of the real state France is in). The way her mentality changes through the series, the way she analyzes all the events of the series is absolutely fantastic.

As a series set in the 17th century, Rose of Versailles gives a heavy critic to a decaying aristocracy, and politics play a huge role in this series, in a way that's certainly like the Empire from Legend of the Galactic Heroes at the beginning of the series (and the Gaidens). This aristocracy is very well shown, using the prime example of Marie Antoinette as a main character of this story, a queen who became a symbol of the fallen monarchy of France. This is quite interesting, because Rose of Versailles actually depicts Marie Antoinette like a really good girl, but sadly, a very naive and stubborn person too, which proves to be completely fatal. The way Marie Antoinette is shown in the series is one of the most interesting themes of the series, which, while it doesn't defend all the mistakes she did, also doesn't try to put her just like the bad gal of the movie.

There's a lot of historic figures in the series, and as a whole, the way they're shown in the series is very faithful to the way they are described in history books, besides small differences. On the other hand, the few ficticious characters add a lot to the story to make it even more interesting. While watching Oscar, I remembered my times learning about the events from the series in history, but of course, this was much more fun (and this comes from a guy who enjoys history).

As I said before, you really can learn a lot with Rose of Versailles, and that's not really something I can say with other historical series. Sure, some series have a few things you can learn, but Rose of Versailles is very detailed about the historical facts, makes them a main point like no other anime has... at least none that I've seen.

5. Ashita no Joe



This 2015, I decided was going to watch a lot of old series that are supposed to be great, and thank god I did, because I'm quickly discovering gems, and Ashita no Joe is definitely one of them. We're talking here about a series that had its pilots made in 1969, a first season made in 1970 and a second season made 10 years after in 1980. Ashita no Joe was actually the oldest anime I had ever seen the moment I watched it (season 1, that is).

When I decided to watch Ashita no Joe, I knew it was going to be a great series. I just don't believe the title could survive so well through so much years just because of some good fights, so I was really expecting Ashita no Joe to become one of my favorite sports series, this was even before watching one episode... I was right, but it was much more. Joe didn't just become my favorite sports series (and there's quite a difference with Ping Pong and Chihaya, which were my favorite sports series before), it became one of my favorite series ever. I was impressed, very impressed with this series. Absolutely amazing experience, outstanding writing, something good enough to become a timeless classic. This could've been made in 1920 being just pictures with the story... I'm pretty sure I'd still enjoy it a lot.

Ashita no Joe is, well, a story about Joe. While this might sound (and is) totally obvious, I'm saying this because this is about Joe the person, not just the boxer. I'm not sure I can say I've seen a character as well written as Joe, there's certainly a few that can compete (Reinhard von Lohengramm, Yang Wenli and Oscar François de Jarjeyes are the only ones that actually comes to mind). Joe's development is just beyond fantastic. This is a character that starts from the lowest possible point in life, he's got nothing, he's a jerk, he's society scum, but little by little events and characters will lead him to grow up, and keep growing up through the series. To give an idea, there isn't a single match of boxing through the first 20 episodes or so, and an official fight takes even more to take place. The process of Joe becoming a boxer is something huge in this series, and the way the people he finds in the road help build what Joe finally becomes.

Joe, from the very beginning, is a pretty strong fellow, but thanks to old man Danpei, a man who casually saw Joe fighting and saw an inmense boxing potential. Danpei becomes completely obsessed with making Joe a boxer. Their relationship probably really starts when Danpei beats Joe in a fight using boxing skills (this was actually helping the cops, which sends Joe to prison, which Danpei thought was the best so he could reform). From this point on, Joe and Danpei's relationship will develop to something that goes beyond coach and pupil, and something much closer to father and son. Danpei's seiyuu makes such a great job here, you can feel Danpei's emotion each time he shouts "Joe!".

Rikiishi is another character that's absolutely key in Joe's development. Meeting this man in prison is what finally gives Joe a goal in life. It's what makes Joe finally get to love boxing. Rikiishi is the first man that shows real respect for Joe. They become rivals, and at the same time, they become the best of friends. This is not showed by the two hanging with each other, it's that pure respect as rivals, that desire to compete with each other what makes them such good friends in a way that goes beyond words. It's something they just know. This relationship will change Joe forever, and will prove to be a key through the whole series.

Just like Rikiishi, through his path, Joe will meet a few other rivals that will make his flame burn red-hot. That's what makes Joe, Joe. He's a passionte man who once he sets a goal, nothing, and I mean it when I say nothing, will stop him to try his best to get to it. While Joe develops a lot through the series, you can definitely see that he never stops being who he is from the very start, which makes the character development that much better.

This might be a drama before a sports series, because the series might dwelve much more into some dramatic situations Joe has to go through, even more than the fights by themselves. The relationship between the characters are all very well forged. From the more important characters like Rikiishi and Danpei, to some little less important characters like Yohko and the kids (well, Yohko does become much more important afterwards... and no, this is never a romantic series).

The first season was made in 1970, so yes, animation can be bad at times and you can definitely see the limitations that there were at the time, but overall, I didn't think it affected much the story, and even with said limitations, the fights managed to be quite good. The OST was a bit limited, there were just a few themes that were reused a lot, but at least they were pretty good.

Through the first few episodes, I was starting to doubt season 2, as it had quite a long recap of season 1, which was probably fine considering it was made 10 years after, but as someone who watched it immediately afterwards, it was obviously a bit repetitive, even if said recap was done with much better animation (it's impressive how things changed from 1970 to 1980) and a much more varied OST (outstanding OST by the way). But this was just through the first episodes. When the last arc of season 1 came in season 2, I was instantly hooked and never let the series go until I finished. The final arc from season 1 was not a recap, it was actually much more detailed, and it was just so much better, and the series kept going from there, and by the end, I had to admit that not only season 2 managed to keep up with season 1, but thanks to one of the most memorable endings I've ever seen, it managed to even surpass season 1.

GAR? Manliness? In the anime industry, those things were probably born here. Joe is all about that, and it's actually the best of its kind. It's just impressive, to a point it's really hard to describe. What this series did so many years ago is something that I've yet to see any other series achieve. It's definitely a timeless classic. The flame of this series burn at its fullest through the whole run, to finally become white ash at the very end. Ashita no Joe was really amazing in every aspect.

4. Detective Conan



Detective Conan is not just a nostalgia anime for me. It's my childhood, it's my adolescence and now it's part of my adulthood. Every series comes and goes. I eventually watched everything about Dragon Ball, I began watching One Piece already in my adolescence, but Conan has been there since I began watching anime in the 90s, and in 2015, it's still there, and through all those years, it has managed to keep itself really interesting for me. It's been almost 20 years since I began watching, and they've been great.

Detective Conan has a lot of elements, but it is true that is a series that is much better aimed to certain fans, in specific, those that are mystery fans, and even more those that love crime fiction. I happen to be one of those (yes, Conan is a big reason why love crime fiction, but Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle also have something to do with it). When talking about crime fiction, there is no anime better than Detective Conan, there just isn't.

Because of this, I rarely recommend Conan. It's too long (I'm the first who would probably never begin watching it out of a recommendation), it's slow and it's not for everyone. If someone is legitimately interest (and an interest born from themselves), then yes, by all means, watch it. If not, actually don't bother.

I've always have a lot of respect for Gosho Aoyama (author), because, honestly, I don't think it's easy to write so many cases. While there is a certain formula, it requires quite a lot of creativity, and most of his cases manages to have said creativity, and always include the little details that actually makes resolving the cases completely by the time Conan starts his deduction. This is what got me to love the series. I always a appreciate when a series encourages me to think, and Conan certainly does that (well, in most cases at least). The cases are well thought, very well presented, and eventually very well executed, sometimes even presenting a short story that can be pretty interesting and/or tragic.

The story is obviously slow (you don't exactly get to 800 episodes by being rushed), but as slow as it is, it is a really good story, and each time the story actually progresses, is quite an event. They're usually incredible episodes, with some of the best action I've seen in anime. Not fights in this case, but things more proper to a secret agent, things you would see in a James Bond movie, like shootings, persecutions, or things like stopping a terrorist attack, disabling bombs, whatever; but all of this comes with the mystery incentive, of course, little by little watching the bigger secrets reveal, secret identities, etc. There is a lot.

And speaking of that, Detective Conan has probably my favorite single episodes in anime. By that, I mean some of the specials, which happen to be episodes that may get to be of even 2 hours and 30 minutes (by clock) -Yes, besides being extremely long, a lot of episodes last from 1 hour to 2:30-. Those episodes tend to be packed with a lot of action, a lot of mysteries are resolved, and of course, new mysteries are born.

I'm actually not that big of a fan of the romance factor of the series. I can only think that if I were Ran, I would've forgot about Shinichi long time ago, and if we consider it as if not that many time has passed (the time that has transcurred is something not even Gosho knows), then she sure is exaggerated. But that said, she is a likeable character, she's far from useless and it's not that stupid (certainly not as Aoko from Magic Kaito). There's a lot of very likeable characters in the series, likeable enough to become quite an event when there's an episode with them in it. Characters like Kaito Kid, Heiji Hattori, the FBI crew or Ai Haibara. You just know an episode is going to be good when one of them gets a main role (and of course, the Black Organization).

Besides the main series, Conan is pretty famous for its movies, and with good reason. While they tend to lack a bit of the usual mystery, they're always action loaded with some really great scenes, and while some movies are clearly better than others, in 18 movies I've seen, they've yet to fail to deliver.

Conan, for me, it's also an anime that makes me aware about how has time passed, how things change little by little, and how sometimes I doesn't realize that change until I look back (and a long way back). This can be seen through how the animation and even artstyle has changed through the years, something I didn't even noticed while watching the series, but then you look back, and a 2015 episode looks so much different from a 1997 one. But that's not all, it's the series itself, how the cases and everything in the series changes. In the first years of the series, no one had a cellphone (of course not, they were not really used in real life at the time, and this is not science fiction), and Conan actually used a telephone cabine to call Ran, who answered with one of those phones you had to rotate the numbers. The cars were different, there was a case about a floppy disk, etc. Little by little cassettes became cds, cds became mp3 and mp3 became phones and phones became smartphones. Through Conan you can actually see how has the world evolve since the 90s, you realize we've changed quite a lot. More than you would realize in your daily life. It's there, it's right there.

I remember, at first, sneaking without my mom noticing (well, at least I thought she didn't at the time D=) to watch Conan, which aired just at the time I was supposed to go to sleep, and eventually my mom extended my curfew so that I could "legally" watch Conan. Now I don't even live in the same country as my parents, I earn money and study, I can drive and a lot of Conan characters are younger than me (at first, I was actually the same age as Conan I believe), but even so, I still enjoy Conan the exact same way I did so many years ago.

I've always been a fan of classical music, and Conan also has a big role in that. There's this episode about a serial killer who used Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata as motif (one of the first cases), and from that, I began loving that sonata, and to this day, I still do. And there's a lot of this kind of stories for me with Conan.

While Conan may not be my favorite series today, it's the one that means the most to me, the one I can associate more great memories to and the one I will always most fondly remember.




We're done for the day. Now there's only 3 series remaining. My top 3, which are probably the only series that I knew from the very beginning of my idea of making a top 100 that they would be there, and in the order they will be. The three series remaining are probably pretty predictable to anyone who knows me even a little bit, but anyways, my plan here really isn't to surprise anyone.

Next entry will only cover the #3. Good thing about it, is that because of that it'll most likely be done tomorrow. I did think about putting the three in one post, but then again, I really wanted to dedicate a whole spot at least to them.

Like I said in the previous entry, immediately after finishing the top (I assume every anime I need completed will be finished by then), I'll post one or two updates with the new inclusions and maybe some changes in the order of some of the series that are already in the top (I say one or two because there will be A LOT of new series in the ranking).

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).

History:
23/3/2015 03:43: Entry created
23/3/2015 3:47: Added a paragraph for Mushishi and fixed the Steins;Gate image
23/3/2015 3:53: Added link to previous entry
23/3/2015: 4:09: Added El.Psy.Congroo
25/3/2015 4:42: Added link to next entry
02/4/2015 3:51:
- Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2199 and Steins;Gate taken out
- Ashita no Joe and Rose of Versailles added
08/6/2015 4:42:
- Moved Ashita no Joe from #6 to #5 and Rose of Versailles from #5 to #6
- Mushishi taken out.
- Detective Conan added.
26/7/2016 23:47: Fixed Ashita no Joe image.

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