I’ve been through a lot over the past year, and it’s just now occurred to me that we’re about to enter a new decade (well, depending on how you count your years… due to work-related reasons I’m more inclined to start a new set of 10 things on a “1,” but I suppose that’s pedantic and also completely beside the point). This decade has definitely been an interesting one for anime series and movies. At the beginning of the decade the industry was still in the process of shoveling itself out from beneath the the remains of its busted economic bubble and because of it there were a few years where there just weren’t as many series being released. That’s not to say that there weren’t still some very good and memorable ones, but there were few enough that a decently-motivated person could catch all of the year’s stand-out series without investing a lot of extra time.
Nowadays we’re comparatively inundated by anime (at last count this year we were somewhere around 150 anime series, and that number doesn’t include films, ONA series, or OVAs… yowzers!). I’m continually both thrilled and frustrated by the fact that, as much as I would like to watch every better-than-average anime series that comes around, it’s almost impossible for me to do so without sacrificing something else in my life. Still, I’ve seen a lot of anime over the past 10 years, and looking over lists of the various series and films has been a good reminder of how much good the industry has been able to accomplish with its storytelling, even while sometimes struggling financially and in areas related to the treatment of its workers. Like many other bloggers, I think it might be fun to look back on some of my favorites over the years, as we prepare to plunge forward into a new decade.
Rather than attempt to pick the “best” series from each year, I’ve decided to just go with my favorites – the ones that left an impact on me, which I still think about years later. I’ll stick with series I actually watched to completion (so honestly, there may be an update later on for the 2019 entries since I’m partway through a lot of the ones I’m watching from the second half of the year). I’m also staying away from sequels, though there were definitely some good ones; I feel like it broadens the field too much to include later entries in anime series I already enjoyed. Movies may also get their own post at a later time. My husband may be playing along at some point too, so we can compare and contrast our tastes!
With that in mind, let’s warp all the way back to 2010. I was 27-28 years old, and just starting to feel like a “real” adult. I’d started blogging a couple of years before that, and (judging by the list of past showings from anime club) was dropping this newfound knowledge on my otaku peers and arrogantly assumed that I was some kind of expert on current anime. I even has aspirations to go “pro,” or at least as pro as freelance anime journalism can get – of course, at some point I chose my day job over my hobby, but I still enjoy sharing my anime thoughts at an amateur level. It took me until much later to settle into the knowledge that opinions aren’t absolutes, and that “good” and “bad” in the anime world is as unique a feeling as there are people to feel it… but it still feels good when your friends decide they want to see what the hell you’re talking about when raving about some new anime series or another! I’m still friends with a lot of the people I knew from that era, and I bet they might have a few things to say about my “passion” for certain anime during that time period, ha!
Favorite Series
This will probably come across as a no-brainer for most people who know me more intimately than just in passing. It was a few years prior that I was introduced to Masaaki Yuasa through Kaiba, his original sci-fi romance series that really blew the lid off of what I thought anime storytelling was capable of. I was then luckily aware enough about him to anticipate his directorial follow-up a couple of years later. The series follows a first-year college student on his quest to lead the perfect student life and get the girl, though his ideas about how to achieve this are as ill-formed an immature as he is at the outset. After each ill-fated couple of years, he meets a fortune teller who attempts to give him advice, and when he doesn’t take it, he’s sent back to relive those years again (and hopefully learn his lesson!).
The show is a combination of all the wonderful traits anime has the potential to express, including visual creativity, beautiful idiosyncratic animation styles, humor, tension, and catharsis. I’ve re-watched it several times over the past years, including a re-watch in anime club some months back, and what strikes me is how invaluable second, third, and more subsequent viewings are. There are little Easter-eggs and passing background references that become apparent on a second glance. The show also touches on the sort of feelings I think many of us feel at some point – that we should be doing something with our lives and yet don’t always have the tools to know what the most effective path forward is. Yuasa’s interpretation handles this emotional challenge with good humor and the sort of vulgarity that he’s low-key known for and for which I appreciate him even more.
This series was caught in a frustrating limbo for a long time, but now that more anime fans have started to discover and appreciate Yuasa’s work through high-profile hits like Devilman Crybaby and The Night is Short, Walk on Girl, I think it’s a great time to revisit this modern classic.
You can watch the series in full on Funimation , and catch the first couple of episodes on YouTube.
I don’t have any other writing specifically on the series, but you can check out my review of The Night is Short, Walk on, Girl, a spiritual sequel of sorts, here.
Other Greats
2010 had its share of other really great anime series, to the extent that it became kind of a chore to narrow down my choices (this trend continues in several other years during the decade). Possibly the closest anything came to being a “runner-up” was Princess Jellyfish, a series that I loved at the time and still love, but about which I now also have some very complicated feelings. I definitely appreciate how it focused on young-adult female otaku; as I get older and older and realize how different my priorities in life have been from my more “normal” peers over the years, some of the observations stand out to me much more than they might have ten years ago. I also feel frustrated by its flippant use of (ultimately fake) sexual assault as a comedic story beat. I suppose with personal growth comes new reflections (or at least I believe there ought to be – I can tell there are a lot of people out there for whom nostalgia rules over all). I still think it’s a series worth watching.
You can watch the series at Funimation.
You can read some of my impressions of the series here.
I’m also still a big cheerleader for Shiki, a series that attempts to portray what might happen if vampires were actually real and infiltrated an isolated mountain town. The show is a tough sell in all respects; the story starts of very slowly and doesn’t really pick up much speed until well into the first half of the show, and the character designs are strikingly strange and to many, insurmountably unappealing. One questions why the townspeople don’t realize what’s happening earlier on, because we, the viewers, with our knowledge of fiction and story tropes, know what’s going on right away. I think what the show does extremely well, though, is demonstrate the horrifying power of mob mentality, as well as illustrate how denial takes hold in the human heart when situations don’t feel quite right. I had the benefit of watching the first half of the series in one sitting when I was catching up on the legal stream of it back in the day, and then waited on pins and needles each week for the next episode. If you’re like me, the ending of the series will have you crying in the shower, but, you know, suffering in the most satisfying way.
You can watch the series at Hulu.
One un-sung classic I always like to point out when I get the opportunity is 2010’s Katanagatari. Author Nisioisin is probably more famous for his Monogatari series and the Studio Shaft anime adaptations that have followed, but his quirky dialog-heavy storytelling style really stands out in this tale of a young woman seeking out several legendary swords, and her male companion who is himself a sword of sorts. The series is a visual treat, not only in its use of color and visual thematic elements to depict its locales and characters, but its production cycle (a 45 minute episode released once a month for an entire year) means that its artistry feels more polished than most. It also pulls off one of the most satisfying story trolls I’ve seen possibly ever – but I’ll leave it to you to find out what I mean by that (you only have to watch about four episodes to figure it out).
Unfortunately the series doesn’t seem to be available in any official capacity any longer, so your options are to either find a friend with the NISA disc release, or to sail the high seas in search of treasure, if you catch my meaning. Luckily, the novels on which the series is based are available (three of four are out now!).
I’m sure many of the other remaining high-profile series from 2010 (I’m thinking of Durarara in particular) have their advocates, so I’d like to mention a couple that maybe aren’t as well-known or well-liked but which I think deserve some attention. The first is Giant Killing, a sports anime focused around a Japanese soccer team. Unlike many sports anime, this one centers on a group of adults playing for a pro team that’s doing so poorly that it’s in danger of losing its standing. A former player who moved on to coaching in Europe is lured back in part by the team’s desperation, and uses his unorthodox perspective and methods to whip the team back into shape. It was honestly probably the first sports anime I ever watched that I really felt enthusiastic about; the genre has since gone on to spawn several anime series I’ve really enjoyed. I think I was drawn to the adult characters with their adult problems, the unusual visual style, and the compact number of episodes (it’s only two-cour). This is another show that had its day in the legally-streaming sun, only to fade into obscurity once its licence expired, but the manga translation is available digitally from Amazon an Comixology, so at least the story survives in English in some format.
The last 2010 series I’d like to mention is Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt, which I feel like is still somewhat in the otaku public consciousness if not a series that many people currently feel compelled to discuss. I think the series was important in a lot of ways, not the least of which was that both it and Gurren Lagann show all the style markers that would once again reveal themselves once the staff members responsible established Studio Trigger. The Western-influenced visual style and blend of animation techniques definitely carried forward into the future for Imaishi and others. Secondly, I just think it’s a good show, and one that has never really gotten the credit that it deserves. It’s vulgar, funny, pop-culture savvy (at least for the time in which it was made), and features a couple of characters who unapologetically like what they like (whether it be sweets for Stocking or sex for Panty). It’s also got an excellent soundtrack that I still listen to on occasion. It is worth mentioning, though, that the humor doesn’t always hit and the mis-steps are even more glaring nowadays (the translation – both sub and dub – uses the occasional homosexual slur, there are some body-shaming jokes, as well as a few other things that haven’t aged well). I still think it’s a unique series worth watching, both for its historical importance as well just the animation craft aspects.
The series is still available from Funimation, which probably means it’s not as unpopular as I believe it to be. Which is fine!
I talk a bit about some of the show’s translation choices here.
I’m already a little bit daunted by this task after writing so much just for one year out of the decade! If you have any anime favorites from 2010, be sure to let me know in the comments!