Today, there are so many good anime out there that a certain selection process has to take place for any viewer. Part of making the most of your anime experience naturally involves whittling down the selections into a small smorgasbord of choices and not wasting your time with things that, well, don’t seem all that great. While there are some true bucket list anime out there that everybody should watch, there are also a lot of picks that, for one reason or another, won’t make the cut for many viewers, often unfairly.
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Let this list be a measure against judging books by their covers. The ten anime below are ones which you could easily assume wouldn’t be your thing as you scroll past them on your streaming service of choice. But they’re very good, and if you give them a chance, you’re going to love them.
1) The Ancient Magus’ Bride
The Ancient Magus’ Bride is a very surprising anime, especially if you weren’t around for its hype in the late 2010s. The series was released to loud fanfare, but since then, it’s faded into the background. In it, an orphaned teenage girl is auctioned off to a mysterious supernatural being who provides her passage to a landscape blending the fantastical with the mundane. It’s an easy series to pass by, if only because a synopsis and a few genre tags can’t capture the magic happening within. In this way, it draws a parallel to today’s smash hit Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End: it’s nearly impossible to encapsulate what makes it special with just text and a trailer, so it’s hard to find on your own without a direct recommendation.
Consider this a direct recommendation. Handled by Wit Studio and Studio Kafka (a subsidiary of Twin Engine), The Ancient Magus’ Bride has some serious talent behind it, and it shows throughout in its sterling production, direction, and sound design. Depending on who you ask, a ton of different genre designations could apply to Magus’ Bride: it’s tinged with urban fantasy, dark fantasy, psychological, romance, and even slice-of-life elements. It performs an effortless balancing act between darkness and levity, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find other anime like it.
2) Bocchi the Rock!
Bocchi the Rock! finds kinship as a more contemporary alternative to K-On!, and both would repel viewers for similar reasons. Bocchi the Rock! is about the anxious introvert Hitoro Goto (later nicknamed Bocchi), a skilled guitarist who is recruited for Nijika Ijichi’s newly-formed Kessoku Band. Although the premise of the show seems to make it just another music-slanted “cute girls doing cute things” series, Bocchi the Rock! has some serious heart behind it.
Even if music and/or slice-of-life cutesy anime aren’t your thing, you should give it a try. There’s a reason it wins so many people over—many reasons, to be accurate. A lot of fans resonate with Bocchi’s awkwardness and sense of alienation specifically, and its depiction of anxiety has been lauded. Its music is killer, its characters are lovable, its comedy is legitimately surprising, and its writing is all-around solid. Like K-On! long before it, Bocchi! has some X factor that can turn even the most iron-hearted fans to the kawaii side.
3) Akiba Maid War
It’s obvious right off the bat why a lot of people wouldn’t feel particularly drawn into Akiba Maid War. However, it’s easily one of the most surprising entries on this entire list. Maybe it’ll help you ease into it to realize it’s based on a pun: “maid” and “underworld” are pronounced exactly the same in Japanese. From there, the premise of this show can easily be built out: an underworld of yakuza-esque maids vying for dominance in Akihabara.
So, yeah, it’s built around a simple comic recipe (though with a heavy helping of action on top), but Akiba Maid Wars is thoroughly enjoyable. It’s engaging with great characters who compel you to laughter, and it’s surprisingly thoughtful with fantastic character development. Comedy anime can be amazing with pretty simple formulas and storytelling, but Akiba Maid Wars stands out for the impression it leaves. It attracts you and leaves you emotionally entangled by its bloody messes and bloodier maids.
4) The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World
At first, The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World feels like a series built around a gimmick. That’s not the wrong impression to have, either. But there’s a big difference here. Usually, being built around a gimmick implies that once the gimmick’s novelty wears off, there isn’t much left to sustain the work built around it. For Red Ranger, though, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
At its heart, Red Ranger is absolutely a parody of shows like Power Rangers (or more accurately its Japanese equivalent, Super Sentai)—but it’s as much a love letter to the sentai and tokusatsu genres as anything else. Around its funny premise, where the Red Ranger is transported into a more traditional fantasy isekai setting, Red Ranger builds up a bounty of relationships alongside a surprising depth to its world-building. If you have a soft spot whatsoever for the campy television action of our collective youth, you’ll be glad you gave Red Ranger a try.
5) ReLIFE
ReLIFE has already received our seal of approval through our (very cool, unprecedented) list of staff picks, and for good reason. ReLIFE doesn’t give any clues as to its quality. Its plot—a guy is given a pill that lets him return to age 17 and get a do-over—seems overly seasoned with saccharine reminiscence, and its characters don’t seem like stand-outs from a distance, either. But ReLIFE is definitely a “don’t judge a book by its cover” story.
At the core of ReLIFE is one central meditation: the concept of a do-over. It doesn’t treat it lightly, either. ReLIFE isn’t an escapist fantasy about a person who, if just given the chance, would be able to correct all of their past mistakes and lead a much better life; nor could ReLIFE ever be called a masochistic tale about the incarnation of pure failure in a world of happy, perfectly functioning people. ReLIFE unpacks, with emotional dexterity and a dash of beguiling storytelling, the very reason we’re so obsessed with do-overs to begin with—and what they would really mean for us, assuming we ever got the chance.
6) Shangri-La Frontier
“Great, another Sword Art Online!” would be an appropriate response to hearing about Shangri-La Frontier. What meets the eye is a ridiculous series set in an MMO world, but Shangri-La Frontier is so much more than that. Sure, maybe it seems a bit ridiculous from afar—the protagonist dons a bird head, after all, which is likely a non-starter for many people who prefer their anime more on the serious side. What lurks beneath the typical MMO tropes is an engaging attempt to flip the subgenre on its head.
In a near future where VR games have become the norm and developers have a hard time adapting, many such games earn the moniker of “trash games”: games riddled with bugs stemming from developer error. The protagonist, Rakuro Hizutome (known by his in-game name, Sunraku), loves to track down and play these trash games. Playing a AAA game called Shangri-La Frontier to change things up, he’s surprised to find a major bug that leaves him unable to equip armor. In this strange VR world, Sunraku’s use of his previous experiences playing bad games comes into play in a fun, engaging take on a familiar genre.
7) Tadaima, Okaeri
On the surface, Tadaima, Okaeri very well might not seem like your cup of tea. Technically speaking, it’s a yaoi built around Omegaverse mechanics. If you don’t know what that means, then, basically, in these universes, there are two main classes of people (independent of gender): omegas, who can be impregnated, and alphas, who prey on and impregnate omegas. In Tadaima, Okaeri‘s universe, there are also betas, an in-between category following normative gender/sex expectations. All of these groups also come with social implications: omegas are lowly compared to alphas, for example.
Chalk it up to stereotypes about BL stories, but Tadaima, Okaeri thoroughly bowls over every expectation; it turns out to be an anime with a ton of heart about a loyal alpha, his gentle omega husband, and their adorable son, Hikari. A good analogy for its atmosphere would be the slice-of-life mushiness of Spy x Family‘s cuter moments. Combine that with its deep drama, excellent character development, and the surreal experience of watching a world where the “heterosexual” and “homosexual” binary doesn’t exist, and it’s obvious why Tadaima, Okaeri will be a rewarding watch.
8) Delicious in Dungeon
Delicious in Dungeon (also called by its Japanese name, Dungeon Meshi) is a brilliant little effort by the equally brilliant Studio Trigger, adapted from the manga by Ryoko Kui. It’s about a party of adventurers who have to travel deep into a dungeon to revive a fallen comrade, keeping themselves fed by way of a bunch of scrumptious monsters. It’s ridiculously charming, with a cast of lovable characters, great world-building, and solid writing.
A lot of people are turned off by the idea of cooking anime, and many have cited this as their exact reason for hesitating to watch Delicious in Dungeon. But Studio Trigger has its reputation for a reason, and the anime is injected with its signature over-the-top style. It’s also hard to say without sounding like we’re discrediting cooking anime (we’re not!), but the story has a lot of meat on its bones beyond the simple cooking and fantasy designations. It’s well worth your time, and it’ll rocket into your top 10 if you check it out.
9) Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions
In the late 2000s and early 2010s, quirky romantic comedies were a dime a dozen; the mark Toradora! and the like left on anime is more or less indelible. While there’s an undeniable charm for a lot of people, the simple fact is they’re not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Hence, the problem with Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions (fans call it Chuni or Chunibyo for short): it just doesn’t stick out among the crowd of anime doing similar things, and it doesn’t give any obvious reasons why someone who doesn’t like romcoms should give it a try.
But Chuni is special. It’s a laugh riot with some interesting spoilable moments that, at its heart, is about growing pains and the adolescent quest for identity. Chuni‘s name comes from “chunibyo”, which refers to adolescents who get caught up in personal delusions like having secret powers. Our protagonist, Yuta, is a “recovering chunibyo”, while our love interest, Rikka, is smack-dab in the middle of her chunibyo era. It’s a simple set-up, and it can’t accurately describe just how heartfelt, relatable, and enjoyable this series is. The sweetness is even sopped up by some sobering drama here and there. In the crowd of anime romcoms, Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions is a total standout, and even fans who don’t love the genre will have their heart melted by it.
10) Deca-Dence
Good original anime aren’t necessarily hard to come by; there are countless fantastic original anime out there right now. But the growing volume of great original anime is a pretty recent trend; it used to be that good original anime were outliers. Deca-Dence has a “right anime, wrong time” type situation running against it already—it was released in 2020, at the start of what you could probably call the pandemic-prompted global anime renaissance. That’s compounded by the fact that, naturally, original anime aren’t tied to a franchise that can draw constant attention through tangential releases and announcements.
Deca-Dence slipped through the cracks then, which (as an original anime) naturally means it does today, too. Its story doesn’t do anything particularly standout or eye-catching at a glance, predicated on a familiar sci-fi/action foundation of existential threats and the people who fight them off. But it’s the dynamic between its central characters (Natsume and her mentor Kaburagi) and the stellar execution by Studio Nut (hot in the holster with top-notch talents from Madhouse et al.) that carry it to the next level. It’s colorful, bold, and loaded with a killer ending that makes the already-enjoyable ending all the better.
From start to end, we’ve found a treasure trove of anime that you absolutely have to try. Think you have a suggestion that fits the bill? We’d love if you dropped it in the comments below! Finally, if you’re hungry to keep the binge going, check out our list of top-notch isekai to see the best of an often maligned genre.
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image courtesy of 20th Century Studios -
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Image Courtesy of MAPPA
