Ongoing Anime Rankings

Yes, that’s right. I have a complete ranking of every single anime I’ve ever watched (TV series only). Yes, it’s functionally useless. Yes, lots of parts of it are out of date and probably don’t fit with my current impressions of things. Yes, I keep it up because I think it’s a fun thing to have. Please don’t yell at me. (See this post for an explanation of the criteria for each tier.)

  • If you’re a numbers person, my 1-10 rankings can be found on My Anime List account.
  • Bolded titles represent benchmarking shows. In other words, they’re shows that I’m absolutely certain belong at the tops of their respective tiers. They’re the gatekeepers—to move into the a tier higher, the show has to be better than the benchmark.

Tier I: The Best Anime Has to Offer

  1. Blast of Tempest
  2. Toradora!
  3. Chihayafuru
  4. Gurren Lagann
  5. Hunter x Hunter
  6. Revolutionary Girl Utena
  7. The Eccentric Family
  8. Turn A Gundam
  9. Superdimensional Fortress Macross
  10. Monogatari Series: Second Season
  11. Silver Spoon
  12. AKB0048: Next Stage
  13. Hyouka
  14. Kyousougiga
  15. Concrete Revolutio
  16. Princess Tutu
  17. orange
  18. Martian Successor Nadesico
  19. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
  20. The Devil is a Part-Timer!
  21. Land of the Lustrous
  22. Star Driver
  23. Mawaru Penguindram
  24. My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU TOO!
  25. Ping Pong the Animation
  26. Rose of Versailles
  27. Gatchaman Crowds insight
  28. Run with the Wind
  29. Angel Beats!

Tier II: Great Anime

  1. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
  2. Bakemonogatari
  3. AKB0048: First Stage
  4. Eureka 7
  5. Macross Frontier
  6. The Eccentric Family 2
  7. Blood Blockade Battlefront
  8. Akagami no Shirayuki-hime
  9. Soul Eater
  10. Gundam Build Fighters
  11. Saekano Flat
  12. Alice and Zoroku
  13. Zankyou no Terror
  14. Sousou no Frieren
  15. Shoshimin Series
  16. Black★Rock Shooter
  17. Glasslip
  18. Durarara!!
  19. The Woman Called Fujiko Mine
  20. Gunbuster
  21. A Certain Scientific Railgun
  22. Shakugan no Shana
  23. My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU
  24. Golden Time
  25. Hisone to Masotan
  26. Crest of the Stars
  27. Fune wo Amu
  28. Baccano!
  29. Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
  30. Kemurikusa
  31. RahXephon
  32. Crest of the Stars/Banner of the Stars
  33. Violet Evergarden
  34. Death Parade
  35. Mob Psycho 100
  36. Puella Magi Madoka Magica
  37. Fullmetal Alchemist
  38. Akatsuki no Yona
  39. Do It Yourself!!
  40. Sound! Euphonium
  41. Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
  42. Overtake!
  43. Shirobako

Tier III: Good Shows Worth Watching

A Section: Toying with Being Great

  1. World Conquest: Zvezda Plot
  2. Diebuster
  3. Gatchaman Crowds
  4. The Idolm@ster
  5. Heartcatch Precure!
  6. Akagami no Shirayuki-hime S2
  7. Yofukashi no Uta
  8. Too Many Losing Heroines!
  9. SSSS Dynazenon
  10. Planet With
  11. Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?
  12. Macross Delta
  13. Scorching Ping Pong Girls
  14. Overman King Gainer
  15. Love Lab
  16. Bocchi the Rock!
  17. Birdy the Mighty Decode
  18. Classroom Crisis
  19. Fate/Apocrypha
  20. Gimgar of Fantasy and Ash
  21. Witchcraft Works
  22. Scrapped Princess
  23. Gosick
  24. Non Non Biyori
  25. Love Live!
  26. SSSS GRIDMAN
  27. Working!!
  28. The World God Only Knows
  29. Barakamon
  30. Spice & Wolf
  31. Gundam Reconguista in G
  32. Deca-Dence
  33. Yuki Yuna is a Hero
  34. Garo
  35. New Game!
  36. Sword Art Online
  37. Sword Art Online: Alicization
  38. Skip and Loafer
  39. Steins;Gate
  40. Noragami
  41. I Can’t Understand What My Husband is Saying
  42. Tonari no Seki-kun
  43. Nagi no Asukara
  44. Gingitsune: Messenger Fox of the Gods
  45. One Week Friends
  46. Your Lie in April
  47. Yozakura Quartet: Hana no Uta
  48. This Art Club Has a Problem!
  49. Yama no Susume
  50. Just Because!
  51. Kuroko’s Basketball
  52. Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars
  53. Bungo Stray Dogs
  54. Lycoris Recoil
  55. Sugar Apple Fairy Tale
  56. My Love Story with Yamada at Level 9999
  57. Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai (Munto TV)
  58. Gao Gai Gar
  59. Brand New Animal
  60. Patlabor: The Early Days
  61. A.I.C.O. Incarnation
  62. Tsukigakirei
  63. Healer Girls
  64. Comic Girls
  65. Jujutsu Kaisen
  66. Saki
  67. Knight’s & Magic
  68. Konosuba
  69. Arpeggio of Blue Steel
  70. Sirius the Jaeger
  71. Princess Principal
  72. Hitsugi no Chaika
  73. Nisemonogatari
  74. Kiznaiver
  75. Ouran High School Host Club
  76. My Hero Academia
  77. In/Spectre
  78. The World is Still Beautiful
  79. Love Live! 2
  80. Mayoiga
  81. Nisekoi
  82. Aquarion EVOL
  83. Yurucamp
  84. Flying Witch
  85. selector infected WIXOSS
  86. Sword Art Online II
  87. Flip Flappers
  88. Attack on Titan
  89. Tari Tari
  90. Un-Go
  91. Durarara!! x2
  92. Kill la Kill
  93. Tokyo Ravens
  94. Log Horizon 2
  95. Log Horizon
  96. Nichijou
  97. Assassination Classroom
  98. Full Metal Panic
  99. Amagi Brilliant Park
  100. Kuromukuro
  101. Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet
  102. Guilty Crown
  103. Servant x Service
  104. Medaka Box
  105. Kotoura-san
  106. Yozakura Quartet
  107. Humanity Has Declined
  108. Mekaku City Actors
  109. Free! Eternal Summer
  110. Free! Dive to the Future
  111. Gakkou Gurashi
  112. Yesterday wo Utatte
  113. Love Live! Sunshine

B Section: Fun & Games

  1. Kill Me Baby
  2. Haiyore! Nyarko-San
  3. Girls und Panzer
  4. Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere
  5. Gamers!
  6. Hinamatsuri
  7. G Gundam
  8. Saekano
  9. Fairy Tail
  10. Kaguya-sama
  11. Spy x Family
  12. Level E
  13. Miss Monochrome
  14. Show by Rock!!
  15. Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches
  16. Hanayamata
  17. Captain Earth
  18. Engaged to the Unidentified
  19. Parallel World Pharmacy
  20. The Devil is a Part-Time!!
  21. Space Patrol Luluco
  22. Hitsugi no Chaika -Avenging Battle-
  23. Comet Lucifer
  24. Kiniro Mosaic
  25. Sansha Sanyou
  26. FLCL
  27. Haikyuu!!
  28. Dog Days
  29. GRANBELM
  30. Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online
  31. Granblue Fantasy
  32. Mahoutsukai Precure
  33. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
  34. One Punch Man
  35. Sunday Without God
  36. Wake Up, Girls!
  37. The 100 Girlsfriends Who Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You
  38. Inou Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de
  39. Free! Iwatobi Swim Club
  40. D. Gray Man
  41. Blue Lock
  42. BEASTARS
  43. Dream Eater Merry
  44. The Ambition of Oda Nobuna
  45. Is the Order a Rabbit?
  46. KanColle
  47. Rolling☆Girls
  48. Haikyuu!! S2
  49. Yuri!!! on Ice
  50. K
  51. Kaze no Stigma
  52. Asteroid in Love
  53. [C] Control
  54. ERASED
  55. Hamatora
  56. Beyond the Boundary
  57. Lostorage conflated WIXOSS
  58. Problem Children are Coming from Another World, Aren’t They?

Tier IV: Probably Not Worth Your Time

A Section: Net Gain=0

  1. Absolute Duo
  2. Tanaka-kun is Always Listless
  3. Slow Start
  4. Nobunagun
  5. The Great Pretender
  6. Silver Will Argevollen
  7. K: Return of Kings
  8. Buddy Complex
  9. RWBY
  10. Black Bullet
  11. A Certain Magical Index
  12. Galilei Donna
  13. Stella Women’s Academy, High School Division Class C3
  14. selector spread WIXOSS
  15. Nisekoi S2
  16. Metallic Rouge
  17. Reign of the Seven Spellblades
  18. Akame ga Kill
  19. Aldnoah.Zero
  20. Polyphonica
  21. Aria the Scarlet Ammo
  22. Brighter than the Dawning Blue
  23. Seitokai Yakuindomo
  24. My Mental Choices are Completely Interfering with My School Romantic Comedy
  25. Outbreak Company
  26. GATE

B Section: More Negatives than Positives

  1. Hand Shakers
  2. White Album 2
  3. Junketsu no Maria
  4. Neo Angelique
  5. Strike the Blood
  6. Charlotte
  7. GATE S2
  8. Engage Kiss
  9. Magical Warfare
  10. Wizard Barristers
  11. Senyu
  12. No Game No Life
  13. Infinite Stratos
  14. FLCL
  15. Fate/Zero
  16. Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East
  17. Pupa

15 thoughts on “Ongoing Anime Rankings”

  1. I’m really liking this ranking page.
    Appreciating the addition of Ping Pong to Tier I.

    Although I’m curious if you rated Fate/Zero considering it as a stand-alone show.
    Definitely hard to place in an upper tier but with familiarity about Fate Stay Night, it’s a pretty decent show.

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    • Here’s the ask.fm answer I’ve linked in the past on F/Z: http://ask.fm/iblessall/answer/116051852197

      Related: 1 rankings are for shows that I feel offer the least valuable experience. So, for F/Z, I felt the hopelessness of the ending kind of counteracted everything else liked about the show. I also have a lot of the same problems with its writing that other critics have noted (sometimes ponderous dialogue, too many people doing too many things all at once, etc.). It’s also been almost two years since I first watched it, so I don’t have much of a clear memory of it anymore.

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      • I apologize in advance, I mean no disrespect nor am I trying to denounce your opinion. If it comes off like that, I’m sorry. I’m simply interested in your response.

        Would you not agree sometimes it is the journey that is more important than the destination? To denounce F/Z as having no valuable experience or redeeming quality seems a tad bit harsh. Purely as a very improbable hypothetical scenario, if an anime fan who was interested in but had not yet watched F/Z had, by chance, read your blog, your placement, and your declaration that F/Z is essentially a waste of time and because of this, said anime fan does not watch F/Z for the rest of his life, would you not say, to any extent at all, that he/she may have missed out?

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        • No worries! You’re raising some good points here!

          Sometimes, I suppose? That depends on the quality of the journey. I guess, ending aside, I didn’t think the journey that was Fate/Zero was all that impressive. Sure, there were some cool action scenes, but all the ideological conflicts and arguments that occurs over the course of the show (some of which are good, some of which are unreasonably ponderous) are essentially rendered invalid by the ending.

          As for people missing out by not watching it, you’re right. Not watching F/Z would involved missing out on that particular media experience. But it’s no different than any other choice between shows. Every time I choose to watch one show, I’m making a choice not to watch another show and “missing out” on the show I choose not to watch. So, it’s not as if not watching F/Z leaves a vacuum in the person’s life, but an opening for them to watch something else. Without accounting for personal tastes, F/Z’s ranking is simply a recommendation to watch something else, something I consider to be of superior value, instead.

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          • I’ve always thought of the nihilistic ending of F/Z as characteristic of it having elements of Greek tragedy. Kiritsugu and Saber act as the tragic protagonists who, throughout the show, struggle to overcome their fatal flaws and change their sad fate. However, unlike a Greek tragedy, not every character completely succumbs to their inevitable end. In the aftermath of the Grail War, Kiritsugu, despite his dream of saving the world having (literally) gone up in flames, desperately searches for any sign of life he could save among the burning rubble of Fuyuki City. In the end, for all the crimes he committed, for all the lives he sacrificed in his belief that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, he was given the life of a single, dying boy. And yet he cherishes that life and gives thanks for having been given that life even though it was in exchange for countless others, an action that was the antithesis of Kiritsugu’s original belief. This final development of Kiritsugu’s character and the ideals he embodied really made the series feel more more like hopeful nihilism rather than a pointless tragedy.

            However I do agree with you that some key ideological themes like the idea of Chivalry in war and that of an ideal kingship were rendered invalid with the ending. I also won’t deny that a great deal of my love for the show comes from my inner shounen enjoying the gargantuan-budget action sequences. At the same time though, I thought F/Z, despite its seemingly bleak ending, did have more going for it than just its high-budget action but you do bring up a good point of subjective value and some anime fans value different things differently than others in an anime. (I also apologize for my wall of text on an anime you don’t care for but I just wanted to see if i could convince you to perhaps give F/Z another shot :P)

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  4. I should have taken a picture of my face when I saw The Devil Is A Part Timer on the top-tier list – the face of ‘holy moly this is mentioned on the internet so unjustly infrequently that I’ve forgotten about the show myself’.

    Must. Rewatch.

    Good to also see GATE in the ‘fun and games’ section. It’s the most fun I’ve had in anime while not taking something seriously. Really looking forward to the second half airing next season.

    The only thing I’d place very differently is Haruhi, but maybe I need to revisit it one day. It left a poor impression in my infancy of anime-watching, but that might have been because of the ridiculously high standards I got from Toradora and Angel Beats!.

    Have to say, this kind of ranking system is much more useful and enjoyable than MAL’s numerical system. I could never pin a number on an anime I like, but I can easily bunch it with a number of shows I feel are of similar quality. Doing so also promotes much better discussion, from my experience, than what you often get with the numbers.

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  5. Wait. There’s a Christian aniblogger who hasn’t yet seen Haibane Renmei? This… this is actually exciting!

    Trust me on this one. That show will change your life.

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  6. Where’s Concrete Revolutio and Shouwa Genroku? Are you excluding split-cour shows from the list or something? It seems not, as you have separate rankings for both seasons of GATE. It just seems weird to exclude these two, especially since you rated both pretty damn highly. (In fact the former is your favorite show of last year, on a critical scale that is)

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    • This is a good question, and the reason I’ll make up here (it’s more likely that I just forgot to rank them when I finished because I was busying yakking about them on Twitter) is that I considered both of them to be somewhat incomplete as stories at their halfway points. How strong their respective second cours are will have a big impact on my feelings on them as a whole, thus I’ll wait to rank them until they have truly shown me everything they have.

      Special shows get special treatment, you might say (GATE is certainly not such a show ^_^).

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    • I wouldn’t say it was a gripe so much as I just generally didn’t find the show super effective. I liked the OP a whole lot and was fond of some of the characters, but the story just felt wayyyy too scattershot to really grab me.

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