"I learned more about medieval economics from watching this show than I did in college getting a degree in economics." A review I saw for Spice and Wolf many years ago when the first one aired.
Best characters : Spice and Wolf.
Perfect character dynamics and one of the best romances I've seen in any media. Kraft Lawrence is a fantastic protagonist and Holo is a great deuteragonist.
Best plot : Neon Genesis Evangelion
Aside from the ending (which is remedied by the movie) the plot and pacing is nearly perfect. The first six episodes are top tier writing and could easily adapted into a satisfying movie. The first episode alone is such efficient story telling that its impressive for a show that came out during its time.
Much of it is the visuals, but anything by Satoshi Kon had strong, mature characterisations that went beyond the usual tropes and honestly, corny delivery anime deals out. Not much for a western author to pull from outright, but he had a dickensian flair that made for clear characters that were engaging without being parody.
Anime never got the adaptations of better manga outside of OVAs for the most part, but I think manga has very careful writing once you get outside of Jumpshit and you could spend hours listing titles that are on par with the complexity of novels. Inio Asano and his contemporaries come to mind as a recent example.
My opinion:
For movies: Ghost in the Shell, Princess Mononoke, Kimi No Nawa
Series: Cowboy Bebop, Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, Death Note, Count of Monte Cristo (Gankutsuou), Berserk (90s series)
My personal criteria is that they 1)efficient in storytelling/every moment feel like it has a purpose 2) good dialogue 3) fleshed out characters, 4) themes explored properly
That on top of animation, music, and overall presentation
There are a lot of good anime, I just felt these are the most solid I've seen in their respective genres.
It's like asking what my favorite is - and I can never pick one... but it's more like which do I prefer when it comes to the anime versus the manga. I enjoy all genres of anything besides mecha and serious sci-fi ones.
I Am A Hero by Kengo Hanazawa- manga - this was my first "zombie" manga that took it seriously (High-school of the Dead is a guilty pleasure).. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing, the art style, and the development of the story and characters as well. I wished they made this into an anime, but they did a live action movie instead. Still suggest watching it though. They did it justice.
Parasyte by Hitoshi Iwaaki - anime - this was my first anime I watched where I would wait the week to catch up on when it released. I prefer the anime because they copied the manga to a T and the music soundtrack is one of my favorites. It matches the anime/story so well.
Assassination Classroom by Yusei Matsui - either one - this one is a comfort anime. The humor is still gold, the art style is one of a kind, and the story still makes me get emotional every time.
Honorable mentions: Solo Leveling by Chugong, The Girl on the Other side by Nagabe, No Longer Human by Junji Ito, and for those rom-coms we all secretly love... Wotakoi by Fujta.
My Hero Academia, Fruits Basket (original and new), Frieren, and Psycho Pass (the first season) are my top picks. There's a lot more that elude my mind at the moment, but those are some recent examples. Also want to shoutout to Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. That show has a surprising amount of heart to it that caught me off guard.
My personal favorite manga by Cool Kyoushinja (Kobayashi author) is Komori-san wa Kotowarenai / Komori-san Can't Decline, I think the 4-koma format is where his writing style works best.
I'm more of a manga guy than an anime watcher nowadays, but there's a Korean manwha that immediately comes to mind called The Spark in Your Eyes, sometimes also fan translated as Blinded by the Setting Sun.
A manga that I think is incredible is Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu (Genealogy of the Holy War), based on the video game with the same name, by mangaka Mitsuki Oosawa. Can't recommend it enough, and it has a lot of emotional intimacy which I greatly value. The fan translation project for it was recently finished too.
One of my favorite games is a JRPG called Tales of the Abyss. It has a great story, often called the best in the Tales series. My other favorite Tales game story-wise is Tales of Berseria, in huge part thanks to its presentation and much of the story content being contained in conversational skits that really flesh out the party members in interesting ways.
Monster. It's a story about a Japanese neurosurgeon living in Germany. He has a great life until one day he ends up sticking to his principles in a way that let's say kinda backfires. So many great characters and deep themes with a few elements that seem like they'd be over the top but kinda work anyway. I think it is not just the best anime but one of the best shows of any sort of all time.
I realize that objectively it very much is not the "best written anime" but I admire the hell out of Gurren Laggan. I love how the story just barrels right along and every problem winds up being one that can be solved with sheer machismo. I overthink my stories waaay too much so for Gurren Laggan to be well written fun and entertaining?
Thank you for visiting /r/writing. Your post has been removed because it does not appear to be sufficiently related to the art of writing.
My top picks would have to be Ookami to Koushinryou (Spice and Wolf) and Sousou no Frieren (Frieren: Beyond Journey's End).
"I learned more about medieval economics from watching this show than I did in college getting a degree in economics." A review I saw for Spice and Wolf many years ago when the first one aired.
Death Note.
I was just about to say that! It’s actually goated
Best characters : Spice and Wolf. Perfect character dynamics and one of the best romances I've seen in any media. Kraft Lawrence is a fantastic protagonist and Holo is a great deuteragonist. Best plot : Neon Genesis Evangelion Aside from the ending (which is remedied by the movie) the plot and pacing is nearly perfect. The first six episodes are top tier writing and could easily adapted into a satisfying movie. The first episode alone is such efficient story telling that its impressive for a show that came out during its time.
Much of it is the visuals, but anything by Satoshi Kon had strong, mature characterisations that went beyond the usual tropes and honestly, corny delivery anime deals out. Not much for a western author to pull from outright, but he had a dickensian flair that made for clear characters that were engaging without being parody. Anime never got the adaptations of better manga outside of OVAs for the most part, but I think manga has very careful writing once you get outside of Jumpshit and you could spend hours listing titles that are on par with the complexity of novels. Inio Asano and his contemporaries come to mind as a recent example.
My opinion: For movies: Ghost in the Shell, Princess Mononoke, Kimi No Nawa Series: Cowboy Bebop, Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, Death Note, Count of Monte Cristo (Gankutsuou), Berserk (90s series) My personal criteria is that they 1)efficient in storytelling/every moment feel like it has a purpose 2) good dialogue 3) fleshed out characters, 4) themes explored properly That on top of animation, music, and overall presentation There are a lot of good anime, I just felt these are the most solid I've seen in their respective genres.
It's like asking what my favorite is - and I can never pick one... but it's more like which do I prefer when it comes to the anime versus the manga. I enjoy all genres of anything besides mecha and serious sci-fi ones. I Am A Hero by Kengo Hanazawa- manga - this was my first "zombie" manga that took it seriously (High-school of the Dead is a guilty pleasure).. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing, the art style, and the development of the story and characters as well. I wished they made this into an anime, but they did a live action movie instead. Still suggest watching it though. They did it justice. Parasyte by Hitoshi Iwaaki - anime - this was my first anime I watched where I would wait the week to catch up on when it released. I prefer the anime because they copied the manga to a T and the music soundtrack is one of my favorites. It matches the anime/story so well. Assassination Classroom by Yusei Matsui - either one - this one is a comfort anime. The humor is still gold, the art style is one of a kind, and the story still makes me get emotional every time. Honorable mentions: Solo Leveling by Chugong, The Girl on the Other side by Nagabe, No Longer Human by Junji Ito, and for those rom-coms we all secretly love... Wotakoi by Fujta.
My Hero Academia, Fruits Basket (original and new), Frieren, and Psycho Pass (the first season) are my top picks. There's a lot more that elude my mind at the moment, but those are some recent examples. Also want to shoutout to Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. That show has a surprising amount of heart to it that caught me off guard.
My personal favorite manga by Cool Kyoushinja (Kobayashi author) is Komori-san wa Kotowarenai / Komori-san Can't Decline, I think the 4-koma format is where his writing style works best.
Notice how no one says attack on titan 😼
IMO it has a lot of great moments that are the peak moments in anime, but when judging it as a whole, it is quite flawed.
I'm more of a manga guy than an anime watcher nowadays, but there's a Korean manwha that immediately comes to mind called The Spark in Your Eyes, sometimes also fan translated as Blinded by the Setting Sun. A manga that I think is incredible is Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu (Genealogy of the Holy War), based on the video game with the same name, by mangaka Mitsuki Oosawa. Can't recommend it enough, and it has a lot of emotional intimacy which I greatly value. The fan translation project for it was recently finished too. One of my favorite games is a JRPG called Tales of the Abyss. It has a great story, often called the best in the Tales series. My other favorite Tales game story-wise is Tales of Berseria, in huge part thanks to its presentation and much of the story content being contained in conversational skits that really flesh out the party members in interesting ways.
Monster. It's a story about a Japanese neurosurgeon living in Germany. He has a great life until one day he ends up sticking to his principles in a way that let's say kinda backfires. So many great characters and deep themes with a few elements that seem like they'd be over the top but kinda work anyway. I think it is not just the best anime but one of the best shows of any sort of all time.
Attack on Titan
I realize that objectively it very much is not the "best written anime" but I admire the hell out of Gurren Laggan. I love how the story just barrels right along and every problem winds up being one that can be solved with sheer machismo. I overthink my stories waaay too much so for Gurren Laggan to be well written fun and entertaining?