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Henry Rodger Beck's avatar

Appreciate you putting this list together, Seb. Brings back memories.

I would say that with the longrunner-manga adaptations, if you wanna try them at all, you're probably better off reading the original comic. At least for the ones that ran weekly like Naruto, rather than seasonally like My Hero Academia. It's just not worth the time commitment otherwise, even if you skip all the filler sections. Especially not with how easy it is nowadays to access stuff that doesn't shamelessly waste your time.

I hope someday time-dialation technology is developed. It'd be nice to actually have time for everything. Even the stuff I don't like.

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Henry Rodger Beck's avatar

I would also like to say as an addendum that Yu Yu Hakusho is something of an exception to my rule on longrunner weekly-series adaptations. It's not the perfect series, especially the last arc, but it did a better version of Naruto before Naruto itself; and for all the faults of the ending, it at least had the decency to end before it really went off the rails, and you don't feel like you've wasted your time for having committed yourself to it.

You should watch it this year.

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Oranon's avatar

quite rare to see someone who has also watched shinsekai yori and kaiba. I remember watching those in high school... its over

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Oldman's avatar

First time I see someone classify Shinsekai yori as the goat anime ( or the potential to be), but it feels good to meet someone sharing my opinion.

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rasko's avatar

good selection of anime, some picks are a bit dubious though. I would hope that nobody unironically has Mirai Nikki as their favorite anime

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Sebastian Jensen's avatar

Some may, as degenerate as it is.

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rasko's avatar

are you still open to playing vns? very hard to recommend usually because of the time investment and pacing issues. edit (should have read the other replies)

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Sebastian Jensen's avatar

>are you still open to playing vns?

Yes.

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Carl McNulty's avatar

Top 80 most must watch anime? How about top 80 must apply jobs? Of the 20 or so I've seen on this list most were bad, I only agreement with Death Note's placement but not if number one is NGE.

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Sebastian Jensen's avatar

>Most were bad

What is your idea of good anime?

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Carl McNulty's avatar

Of the ones I agree with you on, but not necessarily their placement: Death Note, Perfect Blue, Paprika, Spirited Away (although not my favorite Ghibli movie), and Dragon Ball. However, I disagree with 10 others even being on a must watch list, most prominently NGE. Conceptionally something that is well written, animated, directed, interesting characters, upright protagonists, and other simple objectives. Subjectively something I enjoy. Objective top 3: In This Corner of the World, Death Note, and Ghost Stories Dub.

Also Tiger and Bunny Season 1 is top 10 if you like superheroes. Railgun S is good but the rest is eh.

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Koji Tadokoro's avatar

I noticed that:

>no kirara

>no CGDCT

>no idols

I guess our tastes are fairly divergent, half of my top 10 aren't in any of your 3 lists

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Magus7a's avatar

On your maybe list, the only one that I've seen that definitely shouldn't be on the list is scientific railgun. Very few people's favorite, and very much of its time. I did enjoy it, but it's a top 200 at best. Surprised to see no mention of Black Lagoon on any of the lists.

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Sebastian Jensen's avatar

> Black Lagoon

It's not bad by any means, but I couldn't get into it.

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D. Luscinius's avatar

Good list, though surprised by some of the comments (I loved Madoka Magica). I took exception to some of the comments on excluded titles like Nausicaa and Kaguya-sama! I agree on Bleach being excluded, even with the gorgeous TYBW seasons. For the ones you haven’t watched yet: Frieren is definitely in, Konosuba (in my opinion) can be skipped. I love Yu Yu Hakusho and Trigun but don’t necessarily think they need to make the cut.

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Vittu Perkele's avatar

I've watched 23 of these. Still feel like a bit of an anime beginner but it feels good to know I've at least seen some of the good shit

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Hera's avatar

Really livin up to your name buddy. I haven’t watched as much as you so maybe I’m not as jaded but Nausica being mid is a little crazy idk I like basically all of Miyazakis films. The fact you didn't even mention "Howl's moving castle" directly is frankly a real head-scratcher to me. porko rosso is one of my all time favs.

berserk also sucks as an anime imo. you need to read it to "get" it. put your grasses on

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Sebastian Jensen's avatar

>Howl's moving castle

It's a good movie. I had it in the top 60 at one point, but decided against it because I thought that most Miyazaki fans would have PM or SA as their favourite. Will include an explanation.

>berserk also sucks as an anime imo

Bad animation in a fighting anime is a bit of a downer, but the rest of the anime is straight fire.

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aeghnn's avatar

Curious choice of framing for 'must watch'. Popularity isn't unimportant but, 'amongst whom'? Here overweighted. 'must be passingly familiar with and have seen at least a 1m clip of on youtube' would be more accurate.

From your list of not watched - Ping Pong, Mononoke, and Nadia seem to best fit your taste. Nadia especially given your ranking of NGE, Gwern has some interesting thoughts on the two.

t. high-ranking weeb and knower of things

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Sebastian Jensen's avatar

>Popularity isn't unimportant but, 'amongst whom'?

I did intentionally write the list out with the tastes of other people in mind. Otherwise Texh would be #2 instead of #21.

>'must be passingly familiar with and have seen at least a 1m clip of on youtube' would be more accurate.

As in, as a criteria for inclusion into the list or the list of series I hadn't watched but thought be good?

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aeghnn's avatar

>I did intentionally write the list out with the tastes of other people in mind. Otherwise Texh would be #2 instead of #21

Yes but it isn't exactly clear what other people - your potential 999 other selves, your expected readership sphere - not the general public obviously as then where are sailor moon or precure, but still perhaps overly broad.

As a separate thought, these days the best thing to do for those new to the medium might be to pick 5-10 well-regarded but otherwise maximally different anime, write extended reviews of what they liked and didn't like, and then feed them into some sota llm for recs. Curious what the hit rate would be for all time favorites.

>As in...

The former. No one needs to sit through 100+ episodes of shounenslop to decide they don't like it, though i suppose watching 1 episode and dropping the rest forevermore counts as 'watch'.

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Daniel's avatar

Happy to see Steins;Gate marked so high, have you ever gone through the movie (which I would highly recommend) or Steins;Gate 0 (not as good as everything else)? Currently trying to get myself through the VNs currently

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Sebastian Jensen's avatar

Watched movie + sp ep several times, like them as much as the main series.

WIll read VN when I forget about the anime again (so in like 5 years)

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Blue Vir's avatar

No Sakamoto Desu Ga? Maybe I'm misremembering how good it was

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Sebastian Jensen's avatar

Never heard of it. Sounds good, may watch later.

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Garreth Byrne's avatar

Impressed but surprised you put One Piece so high. The anime is kind of awful in its original form. The sped up versions, like One Pace, are much much better. But somehow its about more than the action on the screen, the world building is really incredible and the "something deeply hidden since the foundation of the earth" storyline kept me watching. The manga is truly eilte tier though imo.

Also LMAOOO at watching like 100 animes.

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Sebastian Jensen's avatar

Too low or too high?

I am at 229 right now.

https://myanimelist.net/profile/Scandalous21

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Mako's avatar

Scandalous21🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️👨‍❤️‍👨

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Garreth Byrne's avatar

Scandalously high for FMAB, DN, OP normie like myself. Do intend to watch NGE and Princess Mononoke though.

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Sebastian Jensen's avatar

Also One Pace sounds like a cool project. Might just watch that instead of continuing from C800.

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Henry Rodger Beck's avatar

The manga itself's worth your time, too. Oda's underserved by the practical demands of animating such a lengthy project. As was Miura in his own adaptations. He deserves Fleischeresque craftsmanship. His lines and ink absolutely pop off the page.

There's also a number of moments that had to be toned down for the broadcast. It's worth getting to see those, too.

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