The best anime from 2005-2024, as judged by 5channelers. Full chart

before crunchyroll reformulated their awards show with sony’s blessing, before anitrendz incited weekly flame wars over best girls as a facebook page, and still before newtype ran their own popular vote awards in print, 2ch was taking the pulse of the median anime fan. back in 2001, that would not have been as outlandish a claim as you might consider it to be today, now that revenues abroad have begun to eclipse the domestic market and two thirds of japanese teens say they know nothing about BBSes. while it would be a decade and change before a credit card leak uncloaked politicians, jim watkins rechristened it as 5ch, and an anti-matome rebellion nearly forced the extinction of the outlet keeping it relevant, all of these events have been convenient excuses for a more reasoned truth: no sane person can find 2ch usable, at least not without browser programs and link rewriting extensions. the format is obsolete the way newsgroups are to anyone, generously, under 40. as online access diversified with smartphones, 2ch bled its honest normies to more accessible alternatives, and the userbase left behind was, even more than it may have been initially, a reduction of the old, the obstinate, and the hard-headed.

5ch’s approach, compared to the glamour of more modern anime awards, is unorthodox. it is unconcerned with modern conveniences like using a google sheets form for submissions, and voting, almost as a point of pride, is still performed entirely on threads themselves, relying primarily on poster IDs and a userbase vigilant of sock puppets to counter ballot stuffing. while chatGPT has made it easier than ever to chew mush into letterboxd review mash, ballots have also long required voters to provide a comment for each of their ranked choices. submissions open on christmas day and span only to new year’s eve, leaving little opportunity for anyone but those glued to a workstation, hoshino ruri inclusive, to participate. these protections together affirm a sort of security by obscurity that has maintained the integrity of the process, and it is too obtuse, too far off the convenient path, and too interrogating to be called on for brigading off-site. through anime’s growth phase, away from broadcast timeshifts to on-demand streaming, it has echoed from the site’s broader relevance, and now lingers with a citizenship that is adrift from what could be considered a median watcher. it should be proud to say it still exists at all, unlike the driftwood of the many saimoe spinoffs it has outlived.

it’s not necessary to have been a 5ch regular to feel like an old man while scrubbing over these yearly results, granted you were also old and unusual enough to be following seasonals elsewhere in the heyday of speedsubs. unlike other year end-rankings with shortlist nominations, or genre categories that encourage pity voting, 5ch uses a points-based system that bubbles up greater trends. for one, this is a majority of moe otaku, and while I will never argue that milky holmes doesn’t deserve to walk around with a crown on its head, it is surprising to see the heavy hitters it lords over. for western watchers from 2010, this can look slightly alien, during a time when moe was still more tepidly received by our oldheads. tari tari, I presume, took performance enhancers to end up with a silver medal in 2012. lucky star did not make the podium in 2007, only because it was displaced by minami-ke and seto no hanayome. with others like locodol and space pirates that hover around the top 10, or gdgd fairies that earns ranking at all right above un-go, this is a disconnect to audiences writ large that would have already been observable when taking the temperature for the year on 4chan or animesuki, and again today when sizing up MAL scores and users. 2ch at its cultural zenith was still a reflection of a specific enthusiast space, and while it did better represent the conversation coupled to oricon sales, when that was destiny, it has never encompassed it totally.

these early years of results do still feel somewhat rooted in a global commons, even though the exceptions are littered (see if you can spot where this particular show lands in 2006). the way regional audiences have been diverging in the last decade, roughly, does come into focus when you begin to stare longer at this chart. hensala, pleased as I am to see my adopted daughter crack the top 10 this year, would certainly not register anywhere on a ranking less local. what is more especially striking, however, is the magnified appetite for the original, the shows not cushioned as adaptations of manga or novels, that feel like they are being graded here almost on a favorable curve. for as much as PA works and NUT appear rewarded for carrying this torch, deca-dence (#8 in 2020), akiba maid war (#4 in 2022), mayopan (#15 in 2024), and negaposi (#19 in 2024) lack similar acclaim as judged by overseas MAL and anilist stats, ostensibly catalog sites for the enthusiast, and would be unlikely to enter these rankings if polling these userbases. some of this can be attributed to an unequal licensing that often passes over gambling on the uncertainty of originals, including what managed to be 2024’s fan favorite ー odd taxi, too, was considered even as much of a longshot domestically ー but this divide between the traditionalist late-night otaku and emerging audiences does feel a particularly bad omen for the original as it continues to entrench and anime becomes a global domain. by no means can this mark the original as dead, but it certainly places it under threat more than ever at the crossroads of overworked labor and market pressure.

the bubble has already burst once before. after the number of TV anime rose to an all-time high in 2006, premieres and revenues slumped in the years after, making an already risk-averse production process even less likely to take on originals. adaptations and sequels are, of course, preferable to the conglomerate fat cats of most committees. they’re advertisements for a guaranteed sales boost to their source material, and they’re far easier to rush through the pipeline with established materials and teams. only under pressures of a global recession would TV tokyo consolidate their anime departments and take a swing at producing originals, an impressive nerve for having commanded the majority of their non-broadcast revenues so far by turning around adaptations. anime no chikara, an originals project in partnership with aniplex, was born under these conditions, and pushed three original shows to broadcast in 2010, with sora no woto, occult academy, and night raid.

anime no chikara was not a success. both disc sales and critical reception did not meet any generous target. one year in, the project was quietly retired, and it has probably faded from memory for most as a sub-brand. as aniplex tells of it, whatever lessons were learned from these failures became the secret sauce that allowed madoka and anohana to soar far higher in 2011. along with standouts like ikuhara’s penguindrum, this ended up being an especially fruitful year for originals, and this regrowth phase for anime following 3/11 is often considered an inflection into its modern era. this alone would still be too neat of an interpretation, as anohana’s success on noitamina during this period is surrounded by just as many of aniplex’s originals with variable success. fractale is worse than a joke. tsuritama sold well enough considering, but not enough to earn much mention today outside of its then seasonal watchers. guilty crown won the middle ground. [C], while not under aniplex custody, is most recalled as a shindanmaker. even if aniplex doesn’t want to say it outright, noitamina as a broadcasting slot, now crawling with sequels, does plenty to focus one of these unspoken lessons: originals can, and often do, land big. the stinkers, though, flop even harder, and that is the result that shuts the door on promotions or reduces resources for the projects that come after.

sora no woto, a post-apocalyptic treatise on routine in the face of overwhelming adversity, was anime no chikara’s first show and probably the one that most doomed it. on this 5ch chart it escapes mention, only falling into the extended rankings for the year at #37. on 4chan, where BBS culture developed not strictly in parallel to the east, is is, instead, an institution. every year beyond its original broadcast, fans have gathered to enjoy it as a simulwatch, just a tick into each new year. it is a common sunrise, a tradition carried forward for people to reminisce and remember the speculah, or to be roped into experiencing for the first time while the same jokes are trotted out. the sales numbers and the forced comparisons to houkago tea time are, by now, footnotes. with enough time to heal, it has found redemption in an enclave of the obstinate and hard-headed that exercise a periodic loyalty to it, unconcerned with how the winds have blown the original far away from anime no chikara. we’ve no less days to sing praises for it than when we’ve first begun.

Screenshot from Sora no Woto episode 3 of Kanata playing a trumpet with her eyes closed
♫ 大島 ミチル - Amazing Grace