Forum - View topicHow much of the top 50 do you feel actually deserve their high rating?
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amarielah
Posts: 178 |
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Personally, I'd rank both FMA series a lot lower than they are, and I seriously love the first series. At the very least, it was easier for me to rationalize its inconsistencies and plot snarls than it was with Brotherhood. Both are just too flawed and derivative to deserve the high ranks they have -- and that goes double for Brotherhood. It's not that I think it's worse than the first series, though I did enjoy it less. It's that I just don't think it's better than the first in any meaningful way. I mean, It has an Idiot Plot as its resolution, which is masked largely by fanfare and an emotionally satisfying payoff. (Which I didn't find very emotionally satisfying, and that may be why I noticed how much it relied on characters acting dumb.) I seriously doubt that either really deserve to be in the top 50. And if they do, they should be towards the bottom, not the top.
Some goes for Gintama. It's one of my personal favorites, but it should be lower on the list if it deserves to be there at all. As a complete work of art, in terms of animation especially, it just doesn't hold up. Of the things I've seen, which admittedly doesn't include the top 2 titles or most of the list -- the only ones I truly think deserve their place in the list are Princess Mononoke and Cowboy Bebop. As both are truly comprehensive works of art, and the latter has been unbelievably influential. And even though I didn't particular like it, I do think the original Evangelion anime should by in there somewhere. Simply by virtue of how much of a game-changer it was. And I would throw in much more of Satoshi Kon's work, which doesn't seem to be represented at all. |
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Riddley
Posts: 536 Location: Ireland |
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Interesting...is being a game-changer always indicative of quality, or is it just that it was bizarre enough to jog some creativeness into some writers/artists heads? I don't know that I would rank anime based on being game-changers alone. I'm personally an advocate of the idea that the greatness of an anime should be judged on it's story's effectiveness in reaching across cultural boundaries and it's art's ability to express across cultural boundaries. For instance, I don't agree that Princess Mononoke is very good at these. In fact I think it fails miserably at this. I'm not the only viewer who was completely lost as to the overall meaning and purpose of the story. Whereas Cowboy Bebop and Bunny Drop, to use as examples, are able to speak to a much wider audience and the artwork specifically sets off the emotions in the story and complement it. |
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Kastel
Posts: 172 Location: Chicago |
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Like the above posters, I haven't watched much either. 400 animes are very little.
I am let down by Monster because it didn't feature Godzilla. Instead, it's about some kind of Japanese doctor who regrets saving a serial murderer. And goes into an epic journey, fighting against Neo-Nazis and the police. The ending is poetic. But it doesn't have even have Mothra. What kind of anime is this trying to be? Judging from the title, I thought Clannad: After Story was a picture drama. But it had actual animation and it made me cry. It deserves the top ranking. I also thought Kids on the Slope was about a bunch of kids learning how to slide down the mountain. But instead, it's about jazz. Not sure what's the fuzz with it. Anime is interesting because I don't know what to expect whenever I watch it. I guess I'll watch a bit more before going back to real life. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1778 Location: South America |
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Some people here said to leave the lists for the professionals, well, there are actually professional anime critics in Japan and in 2010 they voted a top 13 list of the greatest anime films of all time.
Here it is: http://letterboxd.com/sharkbait/list/kinema-junpos-top-ten-anime-films/ Summer Wars is there! Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away are tot there, though since they already have 4 Miyazaki films among the 13, and Spirited Away can be understood as a spiritual sequel to Totoro (a personal film like the former focused on childhood) while Princess Mononoke is obviously a spiritual remake of Nausicaa, putting two more will crowd out the work of other directors. Interesting that Usurei Yatsura 2 was voted the best work of Oshii and not Ghost in the Shell. There is also the top 150 animations of all time from the 2003 Laputa Animation festival, a list produced from the favorite animations lists given by a set of 140 animators interviewed. There were 53 Japanese titles among the top 150, including series, shorts and feature length films: http://nishikataeiga.blogspot.com.br/2010/10/laputas-top-150-japanese-and-world.html According to this list, the greatest anime of all time is Miyazaki's Future Boy Conan (1978) at 6th place: Evangelion and Gundam were also on the list. Comboy Bebop didn't make it, even though it was 5 years old by that time, Spirited Away was only 2 years old and got into the top 30. Out of the 9 major works Miyazaki did up to 2003, 8 got into the top 150 animations of all time list. The one left out was Kiki's Delivery Service. In my opinion Nausicaa is too low on the ANN list, at 34th place, it should be higher and above Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away (though these two also deserve to be on the top 20). In terms of series I watched Mushishi and though it was good but nothing out of this world, Cowboy Bebop is fun, though I have watched only the first few episodes so I can't comment on how great it is. Evangelion is also too low, at ca. 150th place. It should be much higher. I understand why it is low, though, because it is a flawed series full of production problems and it suffers from a bit uneven quality. But I think that despite these problems it deserves a higher placement.
I was enormously impressed by Princess Mononoke. Easily ranks among the most powerful emotional experiences I ever had watching a screen for two hours (if not THE most powerful). And yes, the plot is a bit complicated, it requires a bit more intellectual engagement than Miyazaki's other films, which work on a much more on a subconscious visceral level (such as Totoro and Spirited Away). Overall, I think that the ANN's top anime list is competent in separating the good from the bad. It is not a good list, however, if you want to separate the good from the great, that sort of thing is much harder and depends much more on individual tastes. A work or art that touches someone deeply may not work as deeply for another person. So it is impossible to make a list that most people will agree on. [EDIT: No need to double-post. Just use the Edit button. -TK] |
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larinon
Posts: 992 Location: Midland, TX |
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As I've stated in various threads over the years, I don't think that the Top 50 list accurately portrays our favorite titles as good as we might hope. My main points of contention are sequels. Case in point: Clannad After Story. Almost no one is going to watch that series if they did not first enjoy Clannad. Thus we have an audience for After Story that has already been self-selected to enjoy the characters and universe and then rating the sequel. It's no wonder that it ranks as high as it does when it already has a ready-made fandom from the first season which itself is highly rated.
Please note that I bear no ill will to Clannad and its fans, I count myself among them. I just feel that it represents a good example of what I'm talking about. So keeping that in mind, I perused the Top 100 list and started crossing off the ones that were sequels, including subsequent seasons and movies that required familiarity with previous material. I ran into a few roadblocks that I marked with an asterisk, but here is the list I came up with: I thought Eva 2.0 may not belong on this list not because it's an alternate retelling of the original but because it's a sequel of Eva 1.0. This then confused my judgment of the 2nd Gurren Lagann movie, so I left it alone. Plus, I can absolutely agree with Eva 2.0 personally, because unlike most of 1.0 it was such a surprising and interesting departure from the original series. I felt like it stood on its own. I also debated whether to remove the Haruhi movie from the list as well. I did leave FMA:B on there since it's sort of an alternate retelling that starts mostly from scratch. Does this list look any more reasonable than the original 50? I think it ends up looking much more representative. |
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marie-antoinette
Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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I definitely like the looks of larinon's list better than the one we have. There's still a few I personally wouldn't rank as high but I think all and all this one is better.
Though I could be biased since NANA is my personal favourite anime and now it's made the list along with a few other titles that I really enjoy |
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st_owly
Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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That certainly seems like a more representative list. One query though: You have Gintama' on the list. The ' indicates it's the second series. Did you mean to include it or did you mean for that to be the original Gintama series?
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Ignatz
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Or... larinon just screwed up!
I bet he just didn't notice the apostrophe. |
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larinon
Posts: 992 Location: Midland, TX |
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Yeah, I completely overlooked that apostrophe. I did add a couple extra shows at the bottom in case some would have thought it better to remove a couple, but I totally missed that it was not the original Gintama.
Well, next one on the list after Ouran is Eva 1.0. |
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Riddley
Posts: 536 Location: Ireland |
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It's definitely a better list, but I think FM:B and Eva should not appear on it specifically because in the case of FM:B people watched it either because they hated the first or because they wanted to see the differences.
Eva is the same. So for the purposes of this list and the reasons for omitting sequels, I think they need to be omitted. The movies I think should be separated into another list. To be fair, I have always been surprised they weren't. So for in my opinion the list should go like this: # title 1 Steins;Gate (TV) 2 Rurouni Kenshin: Trust & Betrayal (OAV) 3 Cowboy Bebop (TV) 4 anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day (TV) 5 Death Note (TV) 6 Mushi-Shi (TV) 7 Legend of the Galactic Heroes (OAV) 8 Bunny Drop (TV) 9 Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion (TV) 10 Monster (TV) 11 Cross Game (TV) 12 Nodame Cantabile (TV) 13 Fullmetal Alchemist (TV) 14 Fighting Spirit (TV) 15 Gurren Lagann (TV) 16 Baccano! (TV) 17 Mononoke (TV) 18 Kanon (TV 2/2006) 19 Eve no Jikan (ONA) 20 Kino's Journey (TV) 21 Great Teacher Onizuka (TV) 22 Kids on the Slope (TV) 23 (The) Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (TV) 24 Clannad (TV) 25 Kaleido Star (TV) 26 Angel Beats! (TV) 27 Puella Magi Madoka Magica (TV) 28 Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo (TV) 30 Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora (TV) 31 Mobile Suit Gundam UC (OAV) 32 ef: a tale of memories (TV) 33 Planetes (TV) 34 Chihayafuru (TV) 35 (The) Beast Player Erin (TV) 36 NANA (TV) 37 Ouran High School Host Club (TV) 38 Moribito - Guardian of the Spirit (TV) 39 Welcome to the NHK (TV) 40 Samurai Champloo (TV) 41 Maria Watches Over Us (TV) 42 Honey and Clover (TV) 43 Romeo × Juliet (TV) 44 Aria the Origination (TV) 45 Major (TV) 46 Touch (TV) 47 Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (TV) 48 Toradora! (TV) 49 Hellsing Ultimate (OAV) 50 Katanagatari (TV) Last edited by Riddley on Thu Apr 25, 2013 4:57 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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larinon
Posts: 992 Location: Midland, TX |
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It's a good point that grouping movies and series together is sometimes an unfair or imperfect comparison. The Top 50 Series like you have and the Top 50 (or even 25) movies would be interesting lists to have available.
For everyone, we should keep in mind that what we have right now in our Top lists is what can be done automatically by the programmers. To keep that up to date manually or even adding in additional database elements to allow more diverse or separate sorting like we're suggesting is probably a daunting task. Also I want to point out to new readers visiting this thread that we're not making our own Top 50 lists, and certainly we're not re-ordering anything. We're just adding qualifiers (movies vs. series, originals vs sequels) that we think will help improve the lists. This is by no means an invitation to start adding your own top 50 list. But if you do have a suggestion that you think is interesting or helpful by all means jump in on this. |
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Riddley
Posts: 536 Location: Ireland |
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Yeah, good point. Don't want anyone coming in and starting to put their own lists. I only omitted the two I disagreed with as well as the movies from the top 100 list in the encyclopedia to make my point. Also, it's not that daunting of a task to setup alternative lists for Movies and Sequels, it's just whether or not they want to put in the time. And whether or not it fits with their over arching agenda with the site. Personally speaking I think separating them sits within that theme of the site and provides a much more interesting, helpful, and honest comparison of media within anime than the list currently does. |
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Knoepfchen
Posts: 698 |
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Separating shows from movies is a very good idea, as is omitting sequels. Since there are already different lists (with different rating systems) available on ANN, maybe it could be interesting to include a list such as the last one posted?
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walw6pK4Alo
Posts: 9322 |
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Movies are a different sort than sequel series. If by some miracle Patlabor 2 wound up on any toplist, it stands alone from Patlabor 1 and the first OVA series, but it's still a sequel. Same with the lines of Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer. But whether or not something absolutely requires you to know the previous installments is a subjective argument, and I'd say the Haruhi movie requires you to know the two TV series. If you want to gain a better idea of how anime ranks once you split series, movies, and OVAs up, look at MAL's toplists. But again, everything is entirely subjective, I don't think the Haruhi movie is that great and yet everyone everywhere fellates the shit out of it. I do think it's overrated. |
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animefanworried
Posts: 126 |
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Code Geass SPOILERS:
So, let’s do this one at a time: spoiler[ -Ninja Maid: So, you mean to tell me a secret operative was actually hiding her identity. Geez, we all know secret operatives walk around in their secret agent outfits all the time. To be fair they did make her a ninja, but considering this show took Earth’s cultures and put them in a world where they are represented as they were more than a century ago but with technology above today’s (thanks to the discovery of Sakuradite), seeing actual shinobi isn’t so out of place. -Jeremiah: When was he ever actually good? He was loyal, that was always his character. He was loyal to Britannia because it was Empress Marianne’s empire, the woman to whom he had sworn his true loyalty. He went after Zero for revenge after his humiliation. And when he found out he was Lelouch, Marianne’s son, he sworn his loyalty to him. He didn’t turn good or evil, he followed his loyalties. He would murder children if Lelouch asked him to, oh wait, he did! You need to actually grasp the characters before you make rash judgements. -The Black Knights’ betrayal: They didn’t simply turn because their enemy presented flimsy evidence. Todo received info from one of his most trusted man as he was dying telling him not to trust Zero. The evidence of Lelouch as a Britannian Prince and Geass was confirmed by Ogi, one of their own, and doubts about Zero existed since he abandoned them during the end of the first Black Rebellion in season 1. They also didn’t simply betray him, they gave him a chance to explain himself in the end and with Kallen supporting him he might well have succeeded, but Nunnally’s apparent demise had driven him to despair and he chose to allow the Black Knights to execute him by confirming all of their claims. As for the evidence, Schneizel discovered Lelouch was Zero and that he had Geass, as well as seeing his Britannian school uniform, could easily tell from which school he came from. It would be easy for Schneizel’s men to look up everyone who’s been into contact with Lelouch or Zero and analyze if they were acting strangely or met with unfortunate circumstances, then blame it on Geass, its not like he needed to check the info himself; it was evidence to convince the Black Knights and nothing more, since he already knew Lelouch had Geass himself. -Shirley’s death: Drama! Realy? The narrative purpose of her death was beyond simple drama. Shirley’s death solidifies her feelings towards Lelouch and their extent in her final moments, it leads to Lelouch’s eventual massacre of the Geass Order and solidifies his convictions (along with many other events throughout the series), which eventually leads to the Zero Requiem. Shirley’s death also solidifies the extent of Rolo’s madness and possessive nature towards Lelouch. And then yes, drama! An important character’s death is dramatic, imagine that. -Lelouch’s parents: It was obvious the Ragnarok Connection had a supernatural purpose from the start, I don’t even see how that one was surprising. Parents are evil? You missed a key theme of the series actually; Nunnally, Schneizel, Charles, Marianne, Lelouch, Suzaku… one of the key themes is that most of their actions are all well intentioned evils. They all wish to bring a utopia and all have different methods of achieving said goal and all committed actions that can easily be considered lunatic or evil. -Going evil: You seem to have a blockage on that one. You said “Watch Lulu’s brother going evil…” You really thought Schneizel went evil there? You missed the attack with a weapon of mass destruction on the Britannian capital, the order to kill Zero even though Suzaku was still with him on the island, the plot to marry the young Empress of the Chinese Federation by force to control the country. He didn’t turn evil, he was so from the start. As for the gattling gun; it has an automated turret that was programmed to shoot Cornelia were she to betray him, which he knew she would, how is it surprising he could also program it to NOT shoot to kill, as indicated when Cornelia confirms her brother purposely let her live. -Cornelia’s knight: He was at the edge of the bomb’s impact when he was caught in a machine that has an ejection system and even so still was blind and crippled. -Nina: She was a genius who built a destructive device of unparalleled power, but you’re problem is that it happened in school. Yes why would she build it in an institution that has material and equipment necessary to do so. So had it been in her basement then that would have been better, so it’s not the equipment or the scientist that matters, it’s where you build it. By the way, due to her lacking the proper material and research team, the device actually didn’t work. She was noticed by Prince Schneizel who gave her a research team and the resources to build a functioning one, which took an additional year. Keep the facts straight at least.] They are certainly mistakes in Code Geass, but you didn’t corner a single one. |
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