Archive for Uncategorized

The Five Anime that Defined My Decade

Tuesday, December 31st, 2019

It’s fair to say that the past decade has been a little light on the Anime Almanac front. I burned out on the blog mid-way through 2010 and then life hit me hard when I lost my job at the start of 2011. But I bounced back, and ultimately ended the decade married, at the top of my professional career, and raising my first child.

While anime was not at the forefront of my decade, it still kept a very steady hum in the background. I kept my Crunchyroll subscription active the entire time, and eventually joined Funimation Now and (reluctantly) HI-DIVE. My wife and I would somewhat regularly attend anime cons. And since the birth of our son, we reserve all of our baby sitter time to go to see one-night-only anime Fathom events.

I would also tweet every few months, usually to make some kind of dumb joke or point out some fantastic Engrish. In 2016, I started noting my top 10 anime of the year. At first just one list at the end of the year, and then one thread that I update after every season. It was a good way to keep myself updated on the latest series while also reaching out for recommendations on what I was missing.

Here are the lists for those four years.

I guess you could technically go through those lists and create a top anime of the decade list as I have seen so many other do, but frankly, I miss a lot of my favorite series the first go around and only get see them in the year or so after they were released.

That is why I decided to take some time to think about the decade as a whole and call out some specific titles and clearly defined the decade for me.

(more…)