As we have mentioned repeatedly in the past, anime seem to experience another golden era, with the titles of quality coming one after the other. The combination of manga adaptations, which remain the most dominant source of anime, with the original scripts (ONA) and the novel adaptations highlight the fact, since the industry seem to have no lack of stories and subsequently content, of quality. Furthemore, the isekai genre, which is the most dominant at the moments seems to present one great title after the other while one of the latest trend, that of the homage/parody of the classic elements of anime has also become prevalent, highlighting the smartness and otaku-ness of their creators.
Without further ado, here are the best anime of 2024, in reverse order, in a list that includes titles whose season or the whole series ended in 2024. The order could definitely be different particulalry close to the top, since all the titles there are excellent.
25. Sand Land (Toshihisa Yokoshima, Kamikaze Douga, Studio Anima, Sunrise)
Although the premise of the series is rather playful, with the coloring and the characters’ big heads, and follows the ‘rules’ of action RPGs, nevertheless, there is much context here for the viewer that takes a closer look. In that fashion, the political comments about fundamentalist regimes and how they rule by hoarding resources, raising prices on the basic goods, and spreading lies through the government propaganda machine, which usually ends up demonizing immigrants (see demons here) and neighboring countries, is actually quite prevalent here. It actually also appears in the second part, with the use of fake news by Muniel in order to convince the public of his lies being equally indicative. The difficulty of disproving these lies, and also for the public to realize what they believed as truth is actually a lie, cement this approach, adding to the overall context of the story.
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24. The Grimm Variations (Collective, Wit Studio)
In general, it is easy to say that the creators succeeded in reinvigorating the stories, although not to the same level, something that also applies to the quality of each episode, as is usually the case in omnibuses. There are times, however, that they seem to try too hard to make the stories more adult-themed, in an effort to entertain a different audience, while the supernatural elements do not always work. Some episodes, however, particularly “Cinderella”, “The Elves and the Shoemaker” and “The Town Musicians of Bremen” definitely stand out, even if for various reasons.
23. Go! Go! Loser Ranger! (Keiichi Sato, Yostar Pictures)
In a heroes-versus-monsters story, the natural inclination is to root for the heroes, but the wily and amoral Red Keeper is hardly the cleanest of heroes. Love him or hate him, he helps makes the series a gripping study of evil: from the issue of the perils of the misuse of social media, we move on to that of the fight against the immorality of power. Dragon keepers are charismatic leaders who rise as protectors of the world and maintain the structure of their organization by creating a public enemy, manipulate the masses through the media, exploit the discontent of the audience that feels threatened and react by justifying their actions and recognizing their authority. (Antony Danese)
22. Negative Positive Angler (Yutaka Uemura, Studio Mother)
Yutaka Uemura and scriptwriter Tomohiro Suzuki do a number of very interesting things here. For starters, by introducing the concept of fishing and the inclusion of a group of misfits, they take the focus away from Tsunehiro’s illness, thus avoiding creating a tear-jerker where melodrama would be the main ingredient through and through. At the same time, that they do not ‘undermine’ the issues the protagonist faces, but allow them to loom over the story along with the ones the rest of the characters face, in another great choice in the series.
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21. Delicious in Dungeon (Yoshihiro Miyajima, Studio Trigger)
Also of note is how the creators of the series have implemented the fantasy/dungeon world in order to make a number of comments regarding society and human nature, with the fact that we see characters from all the spectrum of humanity enriching the context even more. This aspect is intensified by the fact that the story also focuses on alternative groups on occasion, adding to the diversity of characters found throughout here.
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