Ask John: What Are the Best TV Anime of the Decade?

Question:
Like many of your readers, I have really enjoyed reading your answers to the year review-type questions, and have found them tremendously helpful in deciding what shows to check out. Now that we are well into the space year 2010, I would be very interested to know what you personally consider to be the very best anime of the last decade.

Answer:
Lists of quality entertainment are always subjective at least to the extent that they’ll never attain universal agreement, especially lists compiled from a singular perspective, whether it be a single person or a small organization with a singular perspective. I believe that I’m somewhat qualified to create a list of this decade’s best television anime because I’ve both watched episodes of nearly all of the TV anime from the past decade, and my educational background has included training in distinguishing between subjective personal appeal and objective cinematic, artistic, and literary quality. However, regardless of how objective I try to be, my list of the decade’s best anime will be subjective and should be taken as a guide for personal exploration and discovery rather than a definitive scale for personal comparison or measure. I define “best” as a summation of uniqueness (which is not exactly the same as “originality”), affectiveness, consistency, and technical merit. I also want to mention that as this list appears prior to the fall 2010 Japanese TV season, it excludes the final season of titles from this decade from consideration. By coincidence rather than design, my list consists of ten titles, although they don’t represent one from each year of the past decade. I’m also excluding the 2006 series Flag which keeps company with these other titles but is necessarily excluded because it was a web broadcast series, not a television broadcast series.

Creator and director Shouji Kawamori’s 2001 Chikyu Shoujo Arjuna receives a fair bit of criticism for its overt ecological and moralistic themes. However, the fact is that there’s absolutely no other anime series like it. Particularly back in 2001 the show was strikingly beautifully designed and animated, and still today it holds up as an intriguing, challenging, thought-provoking story that consciously undermines the tropes of the magical girl and sci-fi adventure genres to emphasize its thematic and theological point. The very fact that the show’s narrative approach creates so much division among viewers is testament to its provocative power. This is a show which every anime fan should watch just to see how an anime can be revolutionary in respects other than just technical influence.

2001’s Noir also receives a lot of criticism directed toward its slow-build story, but this hybrid of Japanese and French new wave cinema only accurately reflects its inspirations. While Koichi Mashimo’s original girls-with-guns story may now seem cliché, it only seems that way because we forget that the moral conflicts, stylized action, and gothic, Gregorian score are anime concepts which Noir largely pioneered. Noir has compelling characters and character relationships, uniquely stylized action, and a musical score that’s unlike anything that came before it. Contemporary viewers can easily dismiss the show now, but an unbiased approach to it reveals that it remains not just the progenitor but also the suprior example of noirish gunplay action television anime.

The Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex television series utilized theatrical quality art design, animation quality, and narrative complexity in a TV format. Simply doing that doesn’t necessarily seem deserving of special recognition, but in truth that situation rarely occurs. The Ghost in the Shell television series is wickedly intelligent and dynamically realized. Buying position onto a list of best television anime may seem crass, but it’s also undeniably effective. The exceptionally high production values of every aspect of the Ghost in the Shell television series demand respect and recognition as one of the decade’s superlative instances of anime made for television broadcast.

Creator and director Satoshi Kon’s only television series, 2004’s Mousou Dairinin, is another title that earns commendation by virtue of its uniqueness and excellence. There’s no other anime quite like Paranoia Agent. While that alone doesn’t deserve high regard, that combined with the exceptional quality of the show does make it stand out as one of the decade’s best TV anime. Mousou Dairinin is a complex, challenging work that deftly merges a disparate variety of genres and elements into a cohesive whole. There are many anime that mix genres but not nearly as many that do so successfully. Mousou Dairinin is a series that revels in exploiting the cinematic and narrative potential only possible in anime.

Although not especially intellectually challenging, 2005’s Mushishi is one of the decade’s most affecting shows, in both narrative and cinematic aspects. Mushishi manages to artistically establish such a complete and engrossing mythology that the viewer is immediately unable to distinguish a distinction between the show’s depiction of fictional reality and pure invention. The frequently heartbreaking stories within Mushishi are heartbreaking because the show is able to create an exceptional degree of empathy for its characters within a very brief amount of time. In effect, the show is immediately and completely captivating and engrossing. It’s also one of the very best animated TV programs of the decade. The fluidity and detail of physical motion within the series is exceptional and among the very best that Japanese animation has ever produced.

There have been countless romantic comedies in anime form but few as charming, engrossing, and mature as 2005’s Honey & Clover. The show’s immediately striking visual palate is unique and disarming, allowing the show to perfectly merge exaggerated and hilarious humor with complex and nuanced believable human behavior and psychology. An exceptional musical score further enhances the show’s absolutely charming and affecting depiction of the warmth, tenderness, and tentative unease of young adulthood.

2007’s Denno Coil depicts a strikingly unique vision of the day after tomorrow that’s simultaneously completely fantastic and completely believable. But the show consistently stays mindful to never allow its sci-fi and adventure aspects to overshadow character personality and development. Denno Coil represents the smart, enthralling 80’s kids’ adventure genre brought into the 2000’s, complete with modern complexity, danger, conflict, and emotional interaction. The show’s visual dynamism reflects the pinnacle of creativity that viewers expect from anime while the narrative represents the complexity, nuance, and intelligence that we wish for from the best anime.

In the same way that Mushishi comprehensively created an original mythology based in historical Japan, 2007’s Seirei no Moribito created a complete and completely believable alternate world mythology – an entire other world with its own history, culture, life, and religion. Furthermore, building from his experience directing the Ghost in the Shell television anime, Seirei no Moribito director Kenji Kamiyama infused the TV show with striking theatrical visual scope. This is high fantasy on par with the best that world literature has ever created. The massive scale and scope of the show is carefully and effectively grounded with complex, nuanced, supremely human characters, complex and rational situational and moral conflicts, and some of the most fluid and impressively choreographed animated action ever seen.

Gainax has broken ground repeatedly, with 1987’s Honneamise no Tsubasa, 1990’s Fushigi no Umi no Nadia, 1995’s Shin Seiki Evangelion, and within this decade with 2007’s Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. The series isn’t especially original. In fact, that’s precisely what makes Gurren Lagann so striking and powerful. As Evangelion did in the 90s, Gurren Lagann builds upon well known tropes, paying homage to tradition while exploding it to its utmost conceivable incarnation. Gurren Lagann is pure vitality. It’s the dynamic creativity and energy of anime turned up to eleven. The show’s giddy, goofy exuberance is, if not engaging, than at least undeniably impactful. There is no viewer that won’t have a strong reaction to Gurren Lagann, and the mere ability to generate such a profound response is a rare trait for any anime.

2008’s Kaiba also used anime traditions as a foundation for expansion into groundbreaking new territory. Kaiba specifically merged the pudgy, simple character design style of Osamu Tezuka and vintage anime like Uchuu Ace with the design aesthetic of progressive European underground comics to subtly show the tremendous narrative power and potential inherent in anime. Even a show that looks ostensibly like a decades old children’s anime has the capacity to be a provocative, intellectually challenging pontification on the natural evolution of human class division, wealth stratification, and instinctive obsession with the intangible characteristics that define humanity.