World Anime Day
It is April 15th!!!! All anime fans know what day this is! Let’s talk about the Greatest Anime that has ever come out!!….Well my favorite anime. TBH, these are my top 5 favorite anime. I may include other people, but….IDK. I need to have consent. Especially in this day and age. Well either way this should be interesting. But first, a little good Kokugastu Background:
National Anime Day (well, World Anime Day now) was first started in 1975 in Tokyo, Japan. The first convention was held and welcomed a whooping 700 participants. Over time these conventions grew and grew into the world-wide cons that we love today. The very first anime ever made was back in the early 1900s and around 1960s, the wide-eyed look was made popular by creator Osamu Tezuka. Want to read more? click here. Curious about the history? click here.
Please leave a comment and let us know what your Favorite Anime of all time is. We will dive into my favorite series. I will not include Stand-alone films, ie. Studio Ghibli, as they deserve an awesome list all their own. Without delay, let’s ZONE in on it.
1. Inuyasha
This anime defined the anime community for most 80’s and 90’s babies in America. Toonami was hot and popular in the late 90’s and still going strong today with Adult Swim. For many people, Inuyasha was the beginning of anime love and fandom. Never will we forget iconic characters like Inuyasha, Sesshomaru, Kagome and many more. This was personally the very first anime that I ever finished from beginning to end and that is what makes this #1 on my list. I’m not as into Yashahime as much, but not that it’s bad, but because Inuyasha is so much of a ledge and high hill, it is very hard to top that.
2. Yu Yu Hakusho
This is my all time favorite anime. I am almost 30 and although I have seen a great many anime, none have topped this one for me. There are so many great elements for this anime, in fact we did a podcast on it. Bundling it up in a 1hr 30min episode will still never do justice for me. I could go on for hours. The story elements, the wonderful characters that you will never forget are simply amazing. Now honestly, there are many plot holes in this anime, yes. The story was never intended to be as long as it was, but it is a wonderful story that keeps on giving. Yusuke is an amazing character that just grows with his journey, going from being a badass that kicks everyone’s ass to a full on hero that saves the world over and over. This amazing journey is awesome to experience again and again.
3. Digimon
I will argue all day every day that Digimon is better than Pokémon. The characters actually get older (yes Ash I’m coming for you). The monsters are actually creative and not just household objects that somehow came to life. The story can actually be followed with its history and lore and not a mesh-pool of random things to keep the franchise going. Your monsters are partners with you and not slaves in captivity that you decide to throw away when you’re finished with them being slaves or trap them in a digital computer forever (Digimon are sentient code. They were always digital. Pokémon are living creatures that you forced into code). The only draw-back is you get one monster vs enslavi-*ahem* -sorry, I mean catchin ‘em all. Plus the movies are underrated God-sent films of joy, sadness, justice and love. If you have not seen the multi-part story films, Digimon Tri, I highly recommend it.
4. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
This was difficult to put at either 3 or 4, but as I have not fully read all of Jojo, but I have seen all of the anime. I began my Jojo adventure only a year ago. When I first heard of this, I thought it was a very flamboyant show about men in tight-ass clothes saying Jojo over and over again. And although the anime is very much that, it is also so much more. It is packed with so much amazingness, when you watch the franchise, it will literally have you making everything a Jojo reference. Want to know more? check out our podcast. We are currently breaking down all the parts of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and just finished Part 3 not that long ago, Part 4 coming soon. My adventure with this series is beyond wonderful. I’m only upset that Hamon/Ripple seemed to die with Joseph and will probably never return again. Although it would be beyond awesome to see if Kars returned before the whole….nevermind. Manga fans know what I mean.
5. Dragon Ball
Alright ranking #5 was hard. It was between DragonBall, DragonBall Z and Yu-Gi-Oh. I know, that’s very random, but hear me out here….or rather read my words? Whatever, just let me explain. DragonBall Z is beyond iconic, and honestly will never be outplayed in my heart, except the original. The original DragonBall was what started the whole series. It was solely based on Martial Arts and all the super cool moves that we saw were based on knowing yourself and building your skills to godly levels. The moves like the Kamehameha, Multi-form, hell even flying was all considered a Martial Art. Aside from awesome fight scenes, it was all about the beams and ki-blasts in “Z.” The martial arts died out and is only coming back now with Super. Yu-Gi-Oh is a great series, but honestly, it’s a better card game than an anime. The anime has fallen off significantly and is rarely mentioned outside of Yugi’s and Yami’s hair in video games and cosplay, after Part 2 with Jaiden, it fell hard. Love the game, but the anime just isn’t there anymore. DragonBall has not fallen in the anime community. One of the few things that DB die-hard fans and the rest of the anime community can seem to agree upon, at least in my experience, is that the OG Dragonball was a great show and still recommended to be watched to this day, Kid Goku’s (not GT) adventure growing up, meeting Krillin, Yajarobi, Yamcha (When he was still a relevant character), Bulma, Chi-Chi and more for the first time cannot be experienced any other way. It’s a story worth telling over and over again and one that will never die out.
Ok. There are obviously tons more anime that I love and even the mods and admins over at Zealots of Nerd Entertainment love as well. Maybe they will write their own blogs of their favorite lists, but until then here are a few honorable mentions:
Pokémon (blah)
Beyblade
Bakugan
Tenchi Muyo
Blood and Blood-C
Fullmetal Alchemist (#9)
Ghost in the Shell
Mobile Suit Gundam
Much more of course….
Zoids
Yu-Gi-Oh (#8)
DragonBall Z
Rurouni Kenshin (Strangely Jojo knocked this off my #3 or 4. #6)
Cowboy Bebop (#7)
Trigun
Zatch Bell
Ronin Warrios
Metabots
Obviously the list goes on and on. As you can see I also added my #6-9 on here as well with #10 being Dr. Stone. The reason I have some of these ranked low is enjoyment throughout a person’s age. Cowboy Bebop and Rurouni Kenshin are great shows for people of older variety who can fully grasp the in depth story, but the ones listed above, aside from Jojo tbh, can be enjoyed by adults and children alike. Also again, this list includes series and not stand-alone films. They deserve a list all their own. Want more anime content? join our Facebook Anime Group to share and discuss more.
With that. I thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoyed it. With love to you all remember that you are awesome and no matter what obstacles come your way, you can do it as long as you believe in yourself. Stay nerdy our friends, great things are coming. This has been Kokugatsu with the Zealots of Nerd Entertainment and with that, we are ZONEing out.
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