Looking back at 2025 anime: a top 10 of sorts
Thinking back on what stood out last year. Not a lot, but there's still a couple of shows I think are worth writing about.
Shows I loved
DIGIMON BEATBREAK was my first encounter with the series. I didn't expect much going in, but two things stood out.
The first is how the setting shows empathy with those who do not fit into social norms. It's set in a world where everyone relies on little egg-shaped AI assistants called sapotamas that fully dictate their lives. Those who fit in are rewarded and can live in luxurious utopias. Those who deviate are chastised by their sapotamas and shunned by society. Deviate even further and your "flaws" manifest themselves as a digital monster, branding you as an outcast from society. It's wrapped up in a kid-friendly package, but it's clearly part critique of today's society and part an empathetic look of navigating it when you don't fit in. It touches on rehabilitative justice, academic pressure, embracing what makes you different, and finding strength in others like you. It's never particularly deep, but it is omnipresent and it's far more than I'd expect from what's fundamentally a kid's show about fantasy monsters battling each other.
It's also thoroughly well-made. The team at Toho has such a solid grasp of episodic storytelling and does a fantastic job of balancing the formulaic nature of weekly monster battles with a constant drip-feed of world-building and character development. It's all backed up by an animation production that's far better than expected for a show that's going to air for around 50 episodes. Anime with progressive social messages, unfortunately, rarely come bundled with outstanding production values and it's nice to see a show breaking that mold.
There's a moment in Rock is a Lady’s Modesty that makes caught me off guard. The story follows Lilisa, a student at a prestigious girls' school for refined ladies, but she just wants to rock out on guitar - an entirely unladylike pursuit. It's fairly standard yuri/Girl's band anime stuff, but it goes hard with the premise. It's so high energy: from the performances, to the foul mouthed profanity, to the over-the-top sexual metaphors. It's cathartic and thoroughly entertaining and truly display the joys of breaking away from suffocating social norms.
But the moment that stood out comes near the end, when Lilisa confides in one of the schools most elite graduates: someone who represents everything she's striving to become. She tells her that playing guitar is fine, but only if she represses her urges to really enjoy it and does so "in moderation". There's the obvious, direct meaning, but it also rings as a clear commentary on the current state yuri genre and the way the industry seems to permit lesbian relations only up to a certain point. In moderation. Only as long as it's not explicit and adheres to established genre norms. It shows that there's something far more poignant hiding behind the show's foul-mouthed energy.
With You and the Rain has wonderful message hiding behind lackluster production values. It's centered around Fuji, an adult woman who doesn't exactly fit into the norm. She lives alone, doesn't have much interest in romance or following a traditional career path, and is content with living life at her own pace. It's the kind of lifestyle with few positive depictions in anime and it forms the core of the show's message: celebrating that different people find happiness in different things, even when those things may seem outside the norm.
One episode perfectly encapsulates this: the show's "beach episode". A long-time anime cliche that primarily exists for service or as a lighthearted distraction from the main plot. The anime industry knows it's what people want to see: sexual attraction and fun with friends, but this doesn't fit everyone. The episode opens with a flashback to high school, with Fuji's friends inviting her to the beach. She refuses, not quite comfortable with the idea. In the present, she goes to the beach alone, lies in the shade, reads a book, has some drinks, and has a fabulous time enjoying life by herself. I've been that exact person and know both exactly how lovely such a thing is and how negatively people can react to it simply because it's not the usual way of doing things.
That's the fundamental message behind the entire show. Acknowledging that different people experience the world differently. That the default doesn't fit everyone. It's not explicitly about neurodiversity, but I think it largely touches on the same goal. This desire for a world that celebrates, not mocks, those that are different.
The author of a popular camping manga returns with more local tourism in Yamanashi. It first seemed like just Laid-back camp with a different coat of paint but it turns out to stand really well by itself. Laid-back camp is a slow, meditative story that that often delves into the appeal of solo travel and the difference of experiencing things by yourself vs. experiencing them with others. Mono quickly states it has no such ambitions: it simply wants to depict local attractions and make people interested in visiting them. It's a neat, almost meta contrast to Laid-back camp. The former presents travel and solo camping as an engrossing, life-changing experience. The latter is about visiting places for no particular reason. Just because it's fun. It's more carefree, more upbeat and more inconsequential. There's even a very meta episode where the author self-insert visits locations featured in Laid-back camp so that he can write a manga showcasing them. It's an obvious re-tread of Laid-back camp, but the difference in tone makes for a completely different experience.
People may find this a bit pointless: there's no story, no character progression, no real meaning to the show aside from the author going "I think this place is cool and I want to share it with the world", but I there's value to that as well. Yamanashi is largely unknown to people outside Japan and this stories like this can act both as an unusual travel guide for those lucky enough to visit, or as a sort-of virtual tourism for those who cannot. Other shows I enjoyed
Other shows I liked
See You Tomorrow at the Food Court has similarly low ambitions. Lower, even. Set in a single location, showcasing small conversations between two protagonists.
And yet, it shows that anything can be entertaining as long as it gets the basics right. It takes place in a single food court, but that food court is lovingly represented, with tons of lifelike details and a charming authenticity. It only has two characters, but they are both entertaining and their interactions are a lot of fun. There's no real story, but the topics themselves are interesting and unusual: gacha games, fanfiction, youtubers, and a variety of small daily frustrations. Things that exist in real life but are rarely shown in anime.
Lord of Mysteries is a good example of why taking inspiration from outside your niche is important. It's a standard isekai setup, with our protagonist finding himself transported to another world with magic powers, joining up with other magic users and going out on various quests and missions. There's dozens of that same story adapted every year and it's clear most only take inspiration from other isekai stories, being nearly indistinguishable apart from one or two gimmicks. There's some gothic horror, some SCP-like magical artifacts, and a slightly different take on worldbuilding that I assume takes inspiration from other Chinese web novels: a mega-complicated progression system, for example.
Unfortunately, the adaptation seems determined to rush a source material that clearly wasn't meant to be rushed. Together with Crunchyroll's continued failures to properly translate Chinese shows it makes the story hard to follow and robs some of the key moments of the impact they were probably meant to have.
Milky☆Subway isn't anything incredible, but It's an entertaining series of shorts that's worth a quick watch. It has some neat 3d animation, snappy comedic dialogue and is a nice example of a small passion project made largely by one person. Something that rarely exists in anime.
With how much of the industry is just giant corporations churning out massive amounts of underwhelming adaptations in chase of infinite growth, it's nice to see an occasional project like this. Shows I was mixed on
Mixed feelings
The team at Science Saru is unreasonably good at making anime. For anyone interested primarily in animation production their shows are practically always a must watch.
Sanda isn't the best material they've worked with, but it's at least trying to say things about adolescence and gender. Unfortunately, it seems unwilling to fully dive into any of them, jumping between different plot points and constantly interjecting with buff-Santa action sequences that I don't particularly care for.
The real highlight for me was the relationship between Fuyumura and Ono. I would have loved a story that just focused on that, but Sanda is clearly not that kind of show.
Parts of Apocalypse Hotel are really good. One or two episodes in particular completely nail the end-of-the-world introspection that I love from shows like this.
But then a lot of it just falls flat. I don't think it strikes a good balance between the wacky and the introspective. The humor largely did not work for me and the individual episodes felt like they failed to make a cohesive whole. I'll remember a couple of episodes fondly and likely quickly forget the rest.
A lighthearted comedy that's, at times, genuinely touching, with unambiguous lesbian representation that's marred by far too many moments of uncomfortable fanservice. There's absolutely an audience that would love this kind of thing but I ended up walking away with mixed feelings.