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Sep 23, 2025
"Every girl is born a princess, some just forget is all"
While whittling away at my Definitive Top 100 Greatest Anime of All Time List, I’ll sometimes watch an anime that I really want to make the list - but unfortunately, just probably won’t.
Princess Jellyfish is an 11 episode anime adaption that came out in 2010, animated by Brain’s Base, and directed by Takahiro Omori, who’s known for directing Natsume’s Book of Friends, Baccano, and Durarara!!.
On the production side of things, there’s a lot to love about Princess Jellyfish - the animation is stunning, the editing packs a lot of comedic punch, but above
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all else the colors are breathtaking. The Color Setter for the series was Ritsuko Utagawa, who’s also done colors for productions like 91 Days, Gintama, and Baccano.
Princess Jellyfish is a story centered around the main character named Tsukimi Kurashita, who lives with 5 other women in a Shared House where No Men are Allowed. Each of the women are Otaku, and each have a very specific hyperfixation. Due to inherent insecurities about themselves, they often do not go out in public, cannot be around those they consider “The Stylish”, and also cannot interact with men.
This comes into play when the main character is introduced to a man named Kuranosuke, who at the time of meeting, was wearing a dress, makeup, and wig, so that Tsukimi was under the impression that he was actually a woman.
This is where the start of the anime’s faults begin - this idea does present the idea of masculinity versus femininity, but it doesn’t ever go any further than just presenting the idea. The series has a lot of strong points, from the art direction, to the voice acting, to the editing, and especially the humor, but where the series falls flat is the lack of consistent and strong themes. Which would be okay if it were a series that didn’t have anything to say - but the issue comes in when this series clearly has a lot to say, but no breathing room with which to say it.
It touched on a few themes that could have been really fascinating, from gender identity, to being comfortable in your own skin, to even sexism and SA, but it never dove any further. It felt like the story wanted to do so much more than it got to do, so everything it was able to do felt frustratingly shallow - including the ending itself, which was incredibly rushed and felt like a large portion of the story leading up to it was cut out.
Absolutely all of these complaints are PROBABLY due to the show not being able to continue adapting the rest of the manga, but this is purely a look at the anime as an anime, and not at the manga and what could have been.
While I love this setting, the characters, the dialogue, the humor - due to the frustratingly lack of strong themes, especially when the premise so eagerly invites those themes at every turn, this will unfortunately not make the cut of the Top 100 Greatest Anime of All Time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 23, 2025
“I was given the gift of being born a girl - so I’m going to give it everything I’ve got.”
Kageki Shojo!! is a 13 episode anime series that adapts the manga of the same name, written by Kumiko Saiki. The adaption was animated by Pine Jam, and directed by Kazuhiro Yoneda, who has also directed works like Gleipnir and Do It Yourself!!.
This anime has phenomenal direction across the board, from the sound design and score, background art, character expression and animation, to the script itself where every ounce of dialogue and character interaction is integral to the overall theme, as well as each character’s
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unique arc.
Kageki Shojo!!’s focus is on the all girl musical theater school that’s based on Japan’s actual musical theater school, Takarazuka. The real-life school was founded in 1913, and is known for how intense and strict they are with their student’s school life and personal life. They even go as far as having their students undergo Military training as a part of their curriculum.
The story itself reflects this real-life scenario in realistically intense ways. It doesn’t attempt to sugar coat what these young girls go through in their path to becoming performers in the larger than life musicals they put on, with each student wanting to be the top performer - of which only 4 students out of the entire school can be.
Taking the punishing experience that the school is, it pairs that with themes of how women are viewed and treated by society as a whole, audiences that will eventually watch them, and specifically by men, as in the case of the main character of the story, Ai.
Ai is an anxious girl who doesn’t like being in public, as she was once a very famous Idol in a group called JPX. In addition to that, though, she very specifically fears men, and her background that gets explored that leads to her hating men ties itself to the grueling experience that is the musical school she now finds herself in, and the overall theme of how women are treated within it even by other women.
On the other side of the story, we have the secondary main character - Sarasa Watanabe. By comparison, Sarasa is brash, fearless, talkative, happy-go-lucky, all almost unbearably so. She’s also incredibly tall, and very sturdy, which often leads to others pointing out how well she would do in the male roles - despite the fact that her goal is to play Lady Oscar in the Rose of Versailles performance. This pairs nicely with the previously established themes, and goes a step further by showing that her background involves growing up in a family with Kabuki performers, and wanting to become one herself - but ultimately being told she would never be able to due to her being a woman.
Kageki Shojo!! excels at just about everything it offers, and it offers a lot. Even though it carries a lot of heavy themes, it does so with an adoration for the craft regardless, and it doesn’t ever dwell in the negativity of it all - it’s still a bright and positive story, which can often be a fine line to toe without making light of the situations. The plot itself, though, is not just a vehicle for themes - every character is so well developed and full of life, and each one of them are vying to be the absolute best performer in the school.
While the ending definitely left more to be desired for, ending right at the moment things were going to take the plunge into the cast’s acting journey - it’s still a satisfying, concise story; one in which of all of its themes were deeply explored, all of its main character’s were studied, and all of their arcs were wrapped genuinely.
With breathtaking cinematography, wonderfully exciting and interesting characters throughout its massive cast, its true to life reflections of actual Japanese performances and schools, its many references to iconic and influential Shojo manga, and of course the deeply intense themes that tackle subjects like femininity versus masculinity, sexism, self confidence, and more - Kageki Shojo!! undoubtedly lands itself a spot as a contender for my Definitive Top 100 Greatest Anime of All Time List.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 23, 2025
“So…how far should we go this time?”
Michiko and Hatchin is a 22 episode series that came out in 2008 - it was produced by Manglobe, who had previously done Samurai Champloo and Ergo Proxy, and was directed by Sayo Yamamoto, who prior to this had been an episode director on a few things including both Samurai Champloo and Ergo Proxy, but Michiko and Hatchin was her first overall series director work - though she would go on to helm such projects as Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine and Yuri On Ice.
Michiko and Hatchin is an adrenaline ride that manages to be
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a blend of Cowboy Bebop, Thelma and Louise, and City of God. It centers around a rude, foul mouthed escaped convict named Michiko rescuing her long-lost daughter, Hatchin, from an abusive foster family. The two then go on a journey across a country inspired by South America to find Hatchin’s birth father who supposedly died many years prior.
It’s a mostly episodic story with a new set of characters and circumstances in each place they stop, which all boil over into one another, leading them from one place to the next. It’s chock full of social and pop-culture references (I even spotted a reference to A Trip to the Moon!), while being a riveting emotional exploration of the basically found-family story between the two main characters.
The writer for the anime was Takashi Ujita, who is otherwise only known for Japanese live action scripts - which likely accounts for the film-buff references and inspiration for the series. The animation director was Hiroshi Shimizu, who has also worked on productions like The Girl Who Leapt through Time and Sword of the Stranger, which you can ABSOLUTELY see bleed into all of the character animations and sweeping camera movements throughout Michiko and Hatchin.
All in all, this anime is a rollercoaster of an adventure that showcases a part of the world not often shown in anime, while telling a poignant story of a mother and daughter discovering themselves through their hastily built relationship. It can be breathtaking in moments, relentless in its pacing in others, and laugh out loud crazy in yet more. The only things that the series could stand to use are more emotional beats between the titular character sprinkled through their journey, and a…slightly altered ending. It’s a definite contender, but solely because of those two missing ingredients, I’m unsure at this point if it’ll make it on the Top 100 Anime of All Time List. I’ll revisit as the list builds!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 23, 2025
“Maybe life just really means something that has an end to it, yknow?”
I’m back with another contender for my Top 100 Greatest Anime of All Time List -
Girls’ Last Tour is a 2017 anime adaption that was animated by White Fox, a studio known for anime productions such as Steins Gate, Re:Zero, and Goblin Slayer. The director, Takaharu Ozaki, hasn’t done a lot of directing work outside of a few episodes of different anime, including an episode of Grimgar, but they did go onto be the series director for Goblin Slayer, and worked previously as a cinematographer on projects like Texnolyze and Beck.
Girls’ Last
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Tour is a wholesome anime about two girls just aimlessly traversing a war torn world laced with an incredible sense of dark humor, juxtaposing the two main characters’ personalities, with Yuri’s unabashed innocence and positivity and Chi’s incredible dead pan reactions.
The two girls are among the few humans remaining on earth, and the story finds them exploring the ruins of human civilization as they search for supplies and food. Along the way, their days consists of them talking about all aspects of life, from what food used to taste like and what humans used to do for fun, to big questions the relativity of the passage of time and what it means to be alive.
All of this takes place in that aforementioned ruined civilization - a setting that’s desolate and grimy. The landscape has layers of after layer of buildings falling apart, one on top of the other, in monumentally puzzling arrays. In doing this, it’s showing us that very passage of time - of civilizations trying, and failing, to build and rebuild one after the other. Throughout all of this, there are different landmarks and cultural artifacts that the two main characters try to piece together with their limited knowledge of what life used to be like. The gorgeously detailed, grim backdrop is mixed wonderfully with some of the most cleverly written and hilariously dark dialogue the medium has ever had.
Girls’ Last Tour, in essence, is about finding joy in the smallest of details in life, about not taking things for granted no matter how unimportant they might seem at first. It’s about the importance of learning our history and keeping it alive for generations. It’s about how communication and community and learning about one another keeps us feeling fulfilled and less lonely. It’s a story all about perseverance in the face of finality.
With these beautiful themes and episodic storytelling told through two girls going about their mundane journey that lends itself to the conclusion in one of the most breathtaking sequences I’ve experienced, paired with two of the most endearing and hilarious characters I’ve ever had the pleasure of getting to know over the course of 13 episodes, Girls’ Last Tour absolutely solidifies itself as a contender for the Top 100 Greatest Anime of All Time.
“Memories fade, so we write them down.”
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 23, 2025
Time of Eve
“Are you enjoying the Time of EVE?”
I’m here again with a (possible) contender for my Definitive Top 100 Greatest Anime of All Time List.
This one is an interesting one, because I first saw this anime way back when it released and I was first digging deeper into anime I found interesting outside of the typical classics and Shonen, and I wanted to rewatch it to see if it held up to that nostalgic view. So, let’s see if it did!
Time of Eve is a a 6 episode ONA that was released in 2008 and was directed by Yasuhiro Yoshiura, who had previously
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directed short films like Aquatics and Pale Cocoon, and would go on to direct the film Patema Inverted.
This anime explores the idea of the Laws of Robotics, first conceived by Isaac Asimov (The author of books like I, Robot and Foundation). When the main character’s Android starts to go off the beaten path, he gets curious and follows that path - stumbling into a cafe where the main rule is “No discrimination between humans and robots”, and he realizes that an android he had just seen outside no longer has his signifying ring, and that any one of the patrons inside the cafe could be a robot without his knowledge.
The line between human and android gets murkier and murkier as the series progresses, causing the main character to rethink everything he thought he knew about not just robots, but humanity as a whole. The blurred line makes the anime a hard pill to swallow at times, as the main character is still conflicted on his feelings towards robots having freedom and acting on their own, so seeing the ways in which he expresses that conflict can be difficult.
On the production side of things, the character designs, lighting, and color, are all reminiscent of Oshii’s work - which absolutely tracks as far as the story goes, what with both Time of Eve and Ghost in the Shell dealing with similar themes. The camera movement itself, and the style of dialogue and plot are far more reminiscent of Shinkai’s earlier works, like The Place Promised in Our Early Days.
While plot of the show does explore the ideas of the Laws of Robotics in really interesting ways, the theme is a barely veiled metaphor for racism/sexism. That idea could have been dug into a little bit deeper than what the anime managed to do, though in fairness it only had 6 episodes with which to do so - and it did offer a really playful spin on perception, since the characters that went to the cafe had no visual indicator as to who was robot and who was human. When using that storytelling technique, they were able to showcase how easily words could be misconstrued to fit your own bias, when in reality the opposite was actually happening. Towards the end, it even manages to toy with the idea of public perception being twisted by bias media with specific agendas, which was arguably some of the more interesting ideas that didn’t have enough time to be fleshed out.
The runtime is the cause of the few faults in this anime - all of what was able to be showcases was done wonderfully, from the animation and camera work, to the music and sound design, and more. The themes and plot, while engrossing on paper, just did not have enough runtime to truly encompass all of what it had to offer, which is just a testament to how strong of a premise it really was.
Despite the runtime of the OVA ultimately being a detriment, Time of Eve manages to be a sturdy showing with wonderful characters that feel fully alive, interesting takes on the Laws of Robotics and human perception, and loads of genuine emotion to back it all up. While it might end up falling a little lower on the list just due to that frustrating shortness, it absolutely deserves to be a contender for the Top 100 Greatest Anime of All Time List.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 23, 2025
“Time isn’t something you lose. It changes constantly and adds layers to your life.”
Apocalypse Hotel is a 12 episode anime series that was released in 2025 and was animated by CygamesPictutes, a company known for their mobile games and anime adaptions based on those mobile games, though this one was an original story. The series was directed by Kana Shundo, who had previously only directed a single episode of Princess Connect! Re: Dive.
The series is about a hotel ran by a few robot employees after humanity leaves Earth due to the air becoming toxic to primates - their goal is to keep the hotel running
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until humanity, and especially their hotel’s owner, returns. As decades, and eventually centuries, begin to pass, it seems less and less likely that humanity will ever make the voyage back to Earth.
Though at first the robots idly tend to their daily tasks of keeping the hotel running without any guests, they soon start to receive one after another of extraterrestrial visitors staying at their hotel.
The anime had an incredibly strong first episode, juxtaposing the hotel’s introductions and core values with the fate of humanity as the first waves of the toxicity spread, showing some strong resemblances to the real world experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. From there, though, the premise began to fizzle out. While it was often fun and even endearing to see the different alien species visit the hotel, it felt as though the story and the characters within were always just on the cusp of strong ideas and themes without ever really touching them.
Towards the middle of the 12 episode run, the episodic formula became a hindrance to the plot as elements began to feel shoehorned in, and emotional beats failed to land as they never felt earned; character arcs would see their conclusions without ever really beginning. The penultimate episode of the series would end up being the best of the run, packing a lot of emotional weight into a near silent episode, just showing the remains of humanity on an abandoned Earth through the eyes of a robot still struggling to learn how to feel empathy for others. If that emotional weight was able to be genuinely felt through the rest of the series, then Apocalypse Hotel would have been much better off.
As it stands, while Apocalypse Hotel had a really refreshing premise with a really strong opening and closing, everything in between bogged that strong premise down, resulting in a sometimes fun, but often lacking story. In terms of the list I’m creating for the Definitive Top 100 Anime of All Time List, it may not be a contender, and if it ends up on the list would have to be low 90s.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Aug 25, 2025
“You’ll never cross the sea on such delicate wings.”
I’m back yet AGAIN with another contender for my Top 100 Greatest Anime of All Time List.
Ping Pong: The Animation was released in 2014 by Tatsunoko Production, and was directed by Masaaki Yuasa - a singular visionary director who has had such creative works as Mind Game, The Tatami Galaxy, Devilman Crybaby, and that one episode of Adventure Time that’s burned into your subconscious.
This experimental anime forgoes any conventional framing or on-model reasonability whatsoever, instead choosing to place emphasis on the emotionality of the scene. It does not hold your hand when it comes to
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the sport itself - it refuses to slow down any moment of the game to explain the technicalities of it, what’s happening during a match, or even how the game itself works, instead it poses the argument that what’s more important is how each character is feeling during those matches, even going as far as using abstract imagery to showcase how a player VIEWS their opponent, in much the same way that the production refuses to be beholden to any technical constraints.
Ping Pong is a story about a group of kids obsessed with the competitive world of Ping Pong, and the all consuming dedication it takes to succeed in the sport. It of course dives into the nature of what it means to succeed, and the fact that you absolutely have to do it for yourself otherwise you will not be all in, but it also toys with the debate of whether you can get by on raw talent, or if you can only succeed if you work yourself to the bone - or rather, is raw talent a factor at all, or is it solely the hard work that makes you “talented” to begin with? How far are you willing to go to become the best at what you do? After all, Blood Tastes Like Iron.
In addition to that, at its core, Ping Pong is the story of two boys, childhood friends, whose friendship stretches and contracts over the course of the series. It’s about how each of them come to the sport, and life as a whole, with two very different attitudes and mindsets, and how each of them find that camaraderie in one another despite those differences.
Ping Pong: The Animation is a series that places the feeling of the story and individual scenes above all else, taking priority over any form of structure, in much the same way that the characters within the story have to take their passion for the sport. Even going so far as not showing the points of the final match throughout that match - because that’s not ever what was important to the characters or the series. Instead, that final match was the culmination of all of the feelings that lead to that point. The love of the game itself, not the specifics of the game.
The driving themes behind it paired with the breathtakingly experimental animation that bends reality to its whims, exaggerating expressions and movements, while also using framing that feel like manga panels come to life on the screen all form together to make a unique, raw experience that will undoubtedly make the Top 100 Greatest Anime of All Time List.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Aug 15, 2025
“Pay close attention - in space, it’s easy to lose perspective.”
I’m back with another contender for my Definitive Top 100 Anime of All Time List.
Gunbuster is a 6-episode OVA series that came out in 1988 and was Hideaki Anno’s directorial debut. What started as references to Top Gun and Aim for the Ace turned quickly into a time-warping tragedy with references to sci-fi materials such as Blade Runner and The Forever War.
It was also a last ditch effort from the newly founded Gainax studio, as their first commercial work, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise, was a financial failure. They didn’t have
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enough funding to go through with a sequel, and so instead began working on what would become this massively influential OVA.
Gunbuster follows a young pilot named Noriko, who’s the daughter of the late Captain of the intergalactic ship Luxion, and her journey to pilot the giant mech Gunbuster against the alien army that took down the Luxion and threatens humanity. Throughout these six episodes, you see the main character struggle against the odds she faces as a young girl thrust in explicitly into the intergalactic war, and experience severe trauma and anxiety. It dives deep into the effects of space travel, of PTSD, of time dilation - all leading to an endearingly experimental climactic battle that literally took my breath away.
Through this series alone, you can follow the direct trajectory from it to Neon Genesis, to Fooly Cooly, to its sequel Diebuster, to Gurren Lagann, and in the same regard the trajectory between animation studios from Gainax, to Khara, to Trigger - it’s a work of art that stands as both a fascinating piece of anime history, and a fully fledged story with beautiful animation in its own right. It’s a series that’s a worthy contender for the Top 100 Greatest Anime of All Time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Aug 10, 2025
“A painting is created on a space, while jazz is created during a time called a performance. It’s like etching your living self into that place in time.”
I’m back with another contender for my Definitive Top 100 Anime of All Time List - Kids on the Slope.
A gorgeous 12 episode anime directed by Watanabe and animated by Mappa studio (it was actually Mappa’s FIRST production!) though not either of their usual approaches to storytelling - a soft, poignant coming of age story of a group of kids becoming obsessed with jazz music. This marks an even more interesting departure from Watanabe’s usual storytelling,
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as this was also his first directorial role SINCE concluding Samurai Champloo in 2005.
Watanabe has always had a large focus on music in his projects, though up to this point it was always an immersive soundtrack to highlight beats and choreography. In this anime, it’s wholeheartedly the focus - not only is it about kids playing Jazz, Jazz as a genre is used as a vehicle for the themes as the main character, ordinarily a quiet, sheltered, reserved kid, gradually learns to come out of his shell and live more freely.
Something fantastic to note about the production of this anime is that Watanabe initially was pressured to use CGI for the music performances to cut down on time and costs, but Watanabe pushed for hand drawn animation for all of it, using motion capture of real world musicians performing as reference for the animators.
Kids on the Slope is a beautifully realistic portrayal of all of the pains of growing up - From moving around a lot and losing friends, to living in poverty, to the loneliness of living with wealth, to unrequited love and awkward relationships, and even just the struggles of regular friendships and jealousy. With the beautiful dialogue, wonderful animation provided by Mappa, and the great direction by Watanabe, this anime has all the makings of Top 100 Contender.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jul 30, 2025
“Where the hell am I? This isn’t Japan.”
Welcome to another contender for my Top 100 Anime of All Time List: An Isekai from a time before all of the ridiculously titled over-the-top Power Fantasies. It’s 1999, and Akitarô Daichi has yet to direct the 2001 adaption of Fruits Basket - instead, he’s directing Now and Then, Here and There. An anime all about a young boy who’s unwittingly caught in a war between a young girl with a mysterious pendant and a Mad King after being transported to another world.
It’s a dystopian-sci-fi-Isekai anime that takes the terrifying concept of children being forced to fight
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in a war, and cranks it up to 11 as they fight for survival in a desolate world that lacks water, lead by their unhinged Mad King. Which makes sense, since the director also spent time as a camera operator for Grave of the Fireflies - I can see that influence carry over in ways.
It’s a beautiful anime in more ways than one, with all the charms of 1999 technology colliding with all of the themes of growing up in a post-war life in Japan. Sitting at 13 episodes, this is an easy contender for the Top 100 List.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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