Not All Anime Are 10/10, But These 7 Have Earned It

Anime is expanding like never before and becoming even more popular globally. Some data analytics companies claim that more than half of Gen Z Americans watch anime, although these reports are still preliminary.

Nonetheless, it’s easy to notice that series like Solo Leveling and Demon Slayer are widespread among young audiences. If this trend continues, anime will soon shed its status as a niche and become mainstream entertainment. But which anime would deserve a 10/10 rating? While this answer will vary from person to person, let’s delve into some series that truly deserve some recognition.

Dragon Ball Z (and the Dragon Ball series)

A Timeless Classic Anime That Won the World

Dragon Ball Z might not be the best series when it comes to plot, but it deserves to be among the best anime of all time because it has become a huge influence on the industry. Furthermore, many things that people consider flaws in the animation were byproducts of what was possible to do at the time, with the budget and the technology available.

Therefore, despite having a lot of issues, Dragon Ball Z deserves to be considered a 10/10 anime. It delivers a great story with good animation (given the circumstances), and it has helped to establish many classic shonen anime tropes and techniques.

Ashita no Joe/Tomorrow’s Joe

One of the Most Influential Shonen Manga

Ashita no Joe, or Tomorrow’s Joe, is a case similar to Dragon Ball Z. It’s an old series that might look stiff for those used to watching anime produced after the 2010s. However, the anime industry wouldn’t be the same without this series. Ashita no Joe holds a huge importance in creating and establishing tropes, narrative patterns, and animation techniques of the manga and anime mediums, especially when it comes to shonen manga and action anime. Even recent anime still reference this series sometimes.

For instance, animation techniques like the “cross counter” were first used in this anime. At the time Ashita no Joe was still serialized, it had a huge impact on Japanese society, influencing renowned authors like Yukio Mishima.

Chainsaw Man, Because New Anime Can Be Great

A Cinematic Approach to TV Anime

Chainsaw Man still has some way to go, but the first season is already one of the best anime ever produced. The direction combines a great plot with amazing action scenes and some cinematic perspective, as if the director wanted to deliver a cinema experience in a TV anime. Some complain that the anime could follow a little less traditional approach and be more creative when experimenting.

While these points are valid, Chainsaw Man definitely delivered one of the best anime out there, especially because the traditional approach suits well with the atmosphere created in the first season.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

The “Dark” Magical Girl Anime That Changed Everything

Madoka Magica may look at first like a cute series about innocent girls, but it has become one of the most popular magical girl anime from the 2000s on. It might still not be as popular as Sailor Moon, but it played a key role in expanding mahou shoujo anime to a broader audience, including people who were not very familiar with Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura. The animation is solid, with a great plot and an iconic soundtrack. Despite its cute looks, Madoka Magica deals with lots of “darker” themes, and the series grows more and more gloomy as the story advances.

While Madoka Magica was not the first magic girl anime to include a darker tone and more mature approach, it was the first dark magic girl anime that many people, especially those who are mostly used to shonen anime, have watched. Because of this, the series is often credited for things it didn’t actually do (like “subverting magic girl tropes”). Nonetheless, Madoka Magica has such a well-played plot in a well-built universe with fantastic animation that it deserves to be recognized as one of the best anime out there.

One of the First Successful Anime Remakes

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood has become a timeless classic, and for a long time it was the highest-rated anime on MyAnimeList. Fullmetal Alchemist is already pretty good, but fans were disappointed by how much it diverged from the original source. Brotherhood was perhaps the first example of a successful remake series created with the purpose of faithfully adapting the original manga.

While there are many who prefer the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime, regardless of how different it is from the manga, Brotherhood is something else. It features great animation (considering what was possible at the time), great action, an on-point soundtrack, and an amazing plot. It deserves to be considered one of the best anime of all time.

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom

A Trendsetter for a New Genre of Anime

My Next Life as a Villainess, also known as HameFura, is perhaps one of the most underrated anime to be released recently. It started a trend of isekai villainess anime due to its huge success, and at the same time, it plays with many tropes of typical romance anime.

As with most “villainess series,” the main character one day reincarnates into the villainess of an otome game, Catarina Claes, and tries desperately to avoid her fate of imminent death. However, to do that, Catarina must be much less arrogant than she usually is. The thing is that her newfound charismatic and good personality makes everyone around her fall in love with her, leading to quite funny scenes.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon

A Classic that Changed Magical Girl Anime Forever

In a sense, Sailor Moon reinvented the magical girl genre. The mahou shoujo genre was something completely different before this series came out, with plots typically unrelated to a girl or a group of girls fighting against evil villains. And just like Dragon Ball Z, it was one of the first anime to reach a global audience. While there were many anime that made their way into other countries in the 1970s and 1980s, few got the same recognition as Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball.

Given the resources available at the time, Sailor Moon also features great animation, with directors that made their names internationally with the anime adaptation. Therefore, the series must also be recognized for its importance and contributions to the anime media.