The Best and Worst of Summer 2021, Aug 12-18

Our team of reviewers are following 24 anime series of the Summer 2021 season and readers are rating each episode as the reviews go up. So let's have a look at what ANN readers consider the best (and worst) of the season.

Keep in mind that these rankings are based on how people rated individual episodes of the current season, not on the overall quality or popularity of the series. Only the titles legally streaming in North America and popular enough to be reviewed are being ranked, so the bottom of the list might represent 'watchable' rather than 'bad'. See the notes for further details.

Don't forget to head over to Your Score to rate the episodes you've watched this week

Episode Rankings for the week of August 12-18

Along the actual ranking for this week's episodes, this graph chronicles the change in position from week to week. While some series are stable, others swing wildly in the rankings depending on the strength of each episode. When a series has no episode for a given week, the previous week's episode is used instead as a placeholder. The first episode of each series is considered as part of the first week, even if it really aired during the second week. Click on the numbers to highlight a particular series.

ranking change from week to week (episode numbers as labels; clickable)	prev week change	this week rank	anime series
	4	#1.	Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid S	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	1	#2.	Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun	12 13 14 15 16 17 18
	1	#3.	Kageki Shoujo!!	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	2	#4.	Love Live! Superstar!!	1 2 3 4
	1	#5.	My Hero Academia	103 104 105 106 107
	—	#6.	The Case Study of Vanitas	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	1	#7.	That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime	37 38 39 40 41 42 43
	5	#8.	Tokyo Revengers	13 14 15 16 17 18 19
	2	#9.	The aquatope on white sand	1 2 3 4 5 6
	6	#10.	My Next Life as a Villainess X	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	no ep. this week		Remake Our Life!	1 2 3 4 5 6
	2	#12.	Tsukimichi -Moonlit Fantasy-	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	2	#13.	Sonny Boy	1 2 3 4 5
	—	#14.	I'm Standing on 1,000,000 Lives	13 14 15 16 17 18
	3	#15.	Higurashi: When They Cry – SOTSU	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
	6	#16.	Seirei Gensouki - Spirit Chronicles	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	6	#17.	To Your Eternity	13 14 15 16 17 18
	6	#18.	One Piece	981 982 983 984 985 986 987
	2	#19.	How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	3	#20.	Peach Boy Riverside	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	—	#21.	The Honor Student at Magic High School	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	2	#22.	Battle Game in 5 Seconds	1 2 3 4 5 6
	1	#23.	Detective Is Already Dead	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	5	#24.	Girlfriend, Girlfriend	1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Series Cumulative Ranking as of August 18

Each week's ranking takes into account the scores given to previous weeks' episodes. As we reach closer to the end of the season, each series' rank will start to solidify and we'll get a look at the real winners and losers. Click on the numbers to highlight a particular series.

ranking change from week to week (episode numbers as labels; clickable)	prev week change	this week rank	anime series
	1	#1.	Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid S	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	1	#2.	Love Live! Superstar!!	1 2 3 4
	—	#3.	Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun	12 13 14 15 16 17 18
	—	#4.	Kageki Shoujo!!	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	—	#5.	The Case Study of Vanitas	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	—	#6.	The aquatope on white sand	1 2 3 4 5 6
	2	#7.	My Hero Academia	103 104 105 106 107
	1	#8.	One Piece	981 982 983 984 985 986 987
	—	#9.	That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime	37 38 39 40 41 42 43
	1	#10.	Remake Our Life!	1 2 3 4 5 6
	2	#11.	Sonny Boy	1 2 3 4 5
	1	#12.	To Your Eternity	13 14 15 16 17 18
	1	#13.	Tokyo Revengers	13 14 15 16 17 18 19
	—	#14.	My Next Life as a Villainess X	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	1	#15.	Tsukimichi -Moonlit Fantasy-	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	1	#16.	I'm Standing on 1,000,000 Lives	13 14 15 16 17 18
	2	#17.	Higurashi: When They Cry – SOTSU	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
	1	#18.	Seirei Gensouki - Spirit Chronicles	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	1	#19.	How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	2	#20.	The Honor Student at Magic High School	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	—	#21.	Peach Boy Riverside	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	—	#22.	Detective Is Already Dead	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	—	#23.	Girlfriend, Girlfriend	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	—	#24.	Battle Game in 5 Seconds	1 2 3 4 5 6

Notes

Disclaimer: the rankings are just an average of opinions, published for entertainment and information purposes. ANN makes no claims regarding statistical significance or invulnerability to spam.

The rankings are computed using the Schulze method, with the variation that unrated titles are considered as abstentions instead of lower than the rated titles. This roughly means that if, out of all people who rated both A and B, 60% preferred A, it will be ranked higher than B.

The rankings indicate relative quality (A is preferred to B), not absolute quality (B is good/bad). While the titles are ranked from 'best' to 'worst', sometimes the difference between #1 and #10 can be very thin. So if your favorite is near the bottom of the list, don't take it personally. It doesn't mean it's a bad show, it just means that ANN readers, on average, have preferred the ones above.

If a series has no episode for a given week, we use the rating data for the previous week's episode in order to compute the weekly ranking. This is not officially counted as a position in the ranking (it has no impact on the cumulative ranking), but it makes it easier to compare weeks if they each have the same number of series ranked.

It should be noted that long-running series (and sequels) have an advantage in the sense that only people who like the series are still watching it, and they are likely to give each episode a high rating. But if such a series is going through a low-quality filler arc, the season will get low rankings that are not indicative of the true overall quality of the series.