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 Yes, lots of parts of it are out of date and probably don’t fit with my current impressions of things.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
- Blast of Tempest
- Toradora!
- Chihayafuru
- Gurren Lagann
- Hunter x Hunter
- Revolutionary Girl Utena
- The Eccentric Family
- Turn A Gundam
- Superdimensional Fortress Macross
- Monogatari Series: Second Season
- Silver Spoon
- AKB0048: Next Stage
- Hyouka
- Kyousougiga
- Concrete Revolutio
- Princess Tutu
- orange
- Martian Successor Nadesico
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
- The Devil is a Part-Timer!
- Land of the Lustrous
- Star Driver
- Mawaru Penguindram
- My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU TOO!
- Ping Pong the Animation
- Rose of Versailles
- Gatchaman Crowds insight
- Run with the Wind
- Angel Beats!
Tier II: Great Anime
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
- Bakemonogatari
- AKB0048: First Stage
- Eureka 7
- Macross Frontier
- The Eccentric Family 2
- Blood Blockade Battlefront
- Shirobako
- Akagami no Shirayuki-hime
- Soul Eater
- Gundam Build Fighters
- Saekano Flat
- Alice and Zoroku
- Zankyou no Terror
- Black★Rock Shooter
- Glasslip
- Durarara!!
- The Woman Called Fujiko Mine
- Gunbuster
- A Certain Scientific Railgun
- Shakugan no Shana
- My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU
- Golden Time
- Hisone to Masotan
- Fune wo Amu
- Baccano!
- Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
- Kemurikusa
- RahXephon
- Violet Evergarden
- Death Parade
- Mob Psycho 100
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica
- Fullmetal Alchemist
- Akatsuki no Yona
- Do It Yourself!!
- Sound! Euphonium
- Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
Tier III: Good Shows Worth Watching
A Section: Toying with Being Great
- World Conquest: Zvezda Plot
- Diebuster
- Gatchaman Crowds
- Deca-Dence
- The Idolm@ster
- Heartcatch Precure!
- Akagami no Shirayuki-hime S2
- Yofukashi no Uta
- Planet With
- Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?
- Macross Delta
- Scorching Ping Pong Girls
- Overman King Gainer
- Love Lab
- Bocchi the Rock!
- Birdy the Mighty Decode
- Classroom Crisis
- Fate/Apocrypha
- Gimgar of Fantasy and Ash
- Witchcraft Works
- Scrapped Princess
- Gosick
- Non Non Biyori
- Love Live!
- SSSS GRIDMAN
- Working!!
- The World God Only Knows
- Barakamon
- Spice & Wolf
- Gundam Reconguista in G
- Yuki Yuna is a Hero
- Garo
- Gao Gai Gar
- New Game!
- Sword Art Online
- Sword Art Online: Alicization
- Steins;Gate
- Noragami
- I Can’t Understand What My Husband is Saying
- Tonari no Seki-kun
- Nagi no Asukara
- Gingitsune: Messenger Fox of the Gods
- One Week Friends
- Your Lie in April
- Yozakura Quartet: Hana no Uta
- This Art Club Has a Problem!
- Yama no Susume
- Just Because!
- Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars
- Bungo Stray Dogs
- Lycoris Recoil
- Brand New Animal
- Patlabor: The Early Days
- A.I.C.O. Incarnation
- Tsukigakirei
- Kuroko’s Basketball
- Healer Girls
- Comic Girls
- Sugar Apple Fairy Tale
- Jujutsu Kaisen
- Saki
- Knight’s & Magic
- Konosuba
- Arpeggio of Blue Steel
- Sirius the Jaeger
- Princess Principal
- Hitsugi no Chaika
- Nisemonogatari
- Kiznaiver
- Ouran High School Host Club
- My Hero Academia
- In/Spectre
- The World is Still Beautiful
- Love Live! 2
- Mayoiga
- Nisekoi
- Aquarion EVOL
- Yurucamp
- Flying Witch
- selector infected WIXOSS
- Sword Art Online II
- Flip Flappers
- Attack on Titan
- Tari Tari
- Un-Go
- Durarara!! x2
- Kill la Kill
- Tokyo Ravens
- Log Horizon 2
- Log Horizon
- Nichijou
- Assassination Classroom
- Full Metal Panic
- Amagi Brilliant Park
- Kuromukuro
- Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet
- Guilty Crown
- Servant x Service
- Medaka Box
- Kotoura-san
- Yozakura Quartet
- Humanity Has Declined
- Mekaku City Actors
- Free! Eternal Summer
- Free! Dive to the Future
- Gakkou Gurashi
- Yesterday wo Utatte
- Love Live! Sunshine
B Section: Fun & Games
- Kill Me Baby
- Haiyore! Nyarko-San
- Girls und Panzer
- Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere
- Gamers!
- Hinamatsuri
- G Gundam
- Saekano
- Fairy Tail
- Kaguya-sama
- Spy x Family
- Level E
- Miss Monochrome
- Show by Rock!!
- Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches
- Hanayamata
- Captain Earth
- Engaged to the Unidentified
- Parallel World Pharmacy
- The Devil is a Part-Time!!
- Space Patrol Luluco
- Hitsugi no Chaika -Avenging Battle-
- Comet Lucifer
- Kiniro Mosaic
- Sansha Sanyou
- FLCL
- Haikyuu!!
- Dog Days
- GRANBELM
- Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online
- Granblue Fantasy
- Mahoutsukai Precure
- That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
- One Punch Man
- Sunday Without God
- Wake Up, Girls!
- Inou Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de
- Free! Iwatobi Swim Club
- D. Gray Man
- Blue Lock
- BEASTARS
- Dream Eater Merry
- The Ambition of Oda Nobuna
- Is the Order a Rabbit?
- KanColle
- Rolling☆Girls
- Haikyuu!! S2
- Yuri!!! on Ice
- K
- Kaze no Stigma
- Asteroid in Love
- [C] Control
- ERASED
- Hamatora
- Beyond the Boundary
- Lostorage conflated WIXOSS
- Problem Children are Coming from Another World, Aren’t They?
- Akame ga Kill
Tier IV: Probably Not Worth Your Time
A Section: Net Gain=0
- Absolute Duo
- Tanaka-kun is Always Listless
- Slow Start
- Nobunagun
- The Great Pretender
- Silver Will Argevollen
- K: Return of Kings
- Buddy Complex
- RWBY
- Black Bullet
- A Certain Magical Index
- Galilei Donna
- Stella Women’s Academy, High School Division Class C3
- selector spread WIXOSS
- Nisekoi S2
- Aldnoah.Zero
- Polyphonica
- Aria the Scarlet Ammo
- Brighter than the Dawning Blue
- Seitokai Yakuindomo
- My Mental Choices are Completely Interfering with My School Romantic Comedy
- Outbreak Company
- GATE
B Section: More Negatives than Positives
- Hand Shakers
- White Album 2
- Junketsu no Maria
- Neo Angelique
- Strike the Blood
- Charlotte
- GATE S2
- Engage Kiss
- Magical Warfare
- Wizard Barristers
- Senyu
- No Game No Life
- Infinite Stratos
- FLCL
- Fate/Zero
- Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East
- Pupa
Mage in a Barrel 
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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Oh yeah, Ping Pong totally deserves to be there. I actually rearranged my rankings system a bit for Ping Pong because I wanted it in the top tier and my previous system wasn’t allowing that to happen.
And yes, F/Z is rated as a stand alone. I actually wrote about why I rated it the way I did very recently on ask.fm: http://ask.fm/iblessall/answer/116051852197
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Interesting ranking.
I’m curious, what negatives did you find with Fate/Zero? I was surprised to find it so low on the list.
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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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Very good list but quite surprising to see that DEATH NOTE wasn’t in any tier?
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He hasn’t watched it I think.
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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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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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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’m very curious, what was your gripe with Charlotte?
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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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