Anime of the Decade - Part 1: A Confusion of Lists

Saturday, 09 January 2010 00:00 Paolo Chikiamco

Image source: Base Naruto and Bleach images were sourced from their respective encyclopedia pages on the Anime News Network

With not just the year but also the decade having drawn to a close, I decided that it would be interesting to survey a few anime hubs in order to discover whether or not there was any consensus with regard to the best anime shows from 2000-2009.

Consensus on the Internet? I hear you scoff, but it seemed possible. I remember occasions—such as when the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was first released—when the Internet (or rather, the small slice of it I frequent) was united in nigh-universal acclaim.

This time? Not so universal. In fact I had to abandon any pretense of constructing an aggregate “List of Lists” since not only did the choices of fans vary wildly, but so did the methodologies they used—for instance, a few list-makers focused solely on anime series, while others included movies and/or OAV/OVA’s.

Another surprise was that many of the most frequently mentioned anime shows in the lists just did not reflect my perception of the general popularity of the shows as judged by the size of their fandoms or the sales of their merchandise. While I’m well aware that the popularity of an anime is not necessarily related to the quality of the anime, it’s difficult to believe that a rabid fan of, say, Bleach, would not include it in his/her top ten list, whatever he/she may think of its objective merits.

And yet, of all the lists I perused, the big guns of anime such as Naruto and the aforementioned Bleach are only rarely brought up. Of course, it’s possible that since these shows are still ongoing they were excluded from certain lists… but still, their almost total absence is surprising. Perhaps the advocates of the big franchises are simply not list-making types? (Or maybe in their eyes the question of “best anime” is already settled and not subject for debate?)

Here are a few other shows that made surprisingly rare appearances (if any) on the best-of lists: Inu-Yasha, Shakugan no Shana, Samurai Champloo, Gundam Seed, Gundam 00, xxxHolic, Nodame Cantabile, Claymore. Shows such as Full Metal Panic!, Lucky Star, Eureka 7 and Toradora! fared better, but not to the degree I would have expected.

Yet while a universal consensus is not in the cards, my survey did reveal that certain shows made the lists much more frequently than others. As I’ve said, I doubt that these can be considered the most popular shows of the last decade, and it’s hard to say these are the “best” shows given that the list-makers didn’t use the same criteria, nor watch the same shows… but the fact that, despite the wildly varying tastes of the list-makers, these seven shows were consistently (though not universally) deemed worthy of accolades is itself an achievement. I’ll be calling these series (including OVAs but excluding movies) simply the Most Acclaimed Anime Shows of the last decade (as opposed to the "Best" or "Most Popular").

But first, in Part 2 we'll take a look at a few “honorable mentions”, shows that were frequently mentioned in the lists, though not so often so as to make the top seven.

Sources: (with thanks to the aggregate list at Kitsune's Thoughts):