Anime Top 31-40:

Without further ado, it's time to introduce the new squad of anime heroes to the viewing public:

31.  Da Capo
32.  Galaxy Angel
33.  Ef
34.  Air
35.  Evangelion
36.  Battle Athletes
37.  Basilisk
38.  Working!
39. Ranma 1/2
40.  Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu

The criteria for these choices were simple:  They make you laugh, they make you cry, they have beautiful visuals, beautiful music, memorable lines/scenes, or all of the above.  The most important thing is to be moved by the art.  Any direction is fine, so long as you've moved somewhere by the end.

So much can be said about Da Capo, because it's such a long and successful series.  The art gets progressively better every iteration.  The music was simply extraordinary by the end.  And the tears never stop flowing no matter what season it is.  Love and magical cherry trees just don't mix very well.

On the other hand, Galaxy Angel is an equally long series that does nothing but gags.  Even so, they're just too funny to ignore.  No matter how hard you try, you'll fall in love with the Angel squad, and just how human they are, full of frailties and evil desires, but somehow overcoming them all to do good in the world and for each other anyway.

Ef is a series of 'what if?' questions that leave you thinking as hard as you can.  The couples who overcome their obstacles are an inspiration.  Some of the artistry is just exquisite, like the sole and only black and white anime episode ever done, as far as I know.  Some lines are unforgettable.  Do you have precious memories you want to protect?

Air has incredible music and scenery.  But the only important part of Air is a tiny, 2 episode sequence near the end, told in feudal era Japan.  In such a brief moment, we are forced to laugh, cry, and fall in love.  The emotional density is just neutron star level.  The only more emotional short story (black hole level) is Planetarian, The Dream of A Little Planet.  (A visual novel never made into an anime by Key, that is the saddest story ever told.  A requiem for a world gone terribly wrong, and the human race that destroyed it.).

Evangelion shouldn't need an introduction.  It is the series that reinvented anime.  Full of philosophical discourse, beautiful music, memorable imagery, and complex characters, Evangelion kept you thinking, and kept you guessing, long after every episode was done.  The new Rebuild of Evangelion movies are probably the best looking, most detailed, fastest moving animation ever constructed.

Battle Athletes combines the most excellent parts in its OAV, and a longer more thorough version in the TV series.  Both have amazing scenes.  Lahrri's version of beauty, that the most beautiful things on Earth are simply more impressive world records, has a startling clarity to it.  Meanwhile, Kris Kristofer's alternative vision of beauty, where working hard enough transports you into a new world of light where 'everything is clear,' proves the world isn't just made of numbers.  In the TV series, our protagonist has a best friend who is a better athlete than her and sure to make it to the olympics (the equivalent in this world), but due to her friendship tries hard to train and improve the main character to do her best as well.  When our hero, Kanzaki Akari, starts to overtake her best friend's track scores, the best friend suddenly realizes she's raised a monster that is going to keep her out of the olympics she trained her whole life for.  The incredibly delicate situation Kanzaki's friend finds herself in, being the agent of her own undoing, and losing to her own best friend, is a scene found nowhere else, to my knowledge, in any story anywhere.

Basilisk is another version of Romeo and Juliet.  When two ninja clans try to marry their clan leaders off to erase their differences, a war intervenes and the ninjas start killing each other off.  Will love for their betrothed, or loyalty to their clan, overcome in our heroes?  In the end love won, but in the most tragic manner possible, which just leaves you devastated.  If Sora no Woto wasn't a good enough morality tale for why war should not happen, Basilisk is just as good an example.  People who are generally good, who have friends, lovers, families, are suddenly killing each other without regard for their value as human beings or the loved ones left behind.  It's sheer madness.  It should not happen.  It must not happen anymore.

Working! is a simple, silly story about a group of misfits making their living in the daily grind.  The amount of humor that can be found in their interactions, and their quirks, and their love triangles, just seems to multiply every episode.  It isn't just funny though.  The main character works hard to help the most interesting girl in the story, Inami, and she grows to love him for it.  The simple beauty of karma is so rewarding.  Just think, if you're nice to someone, if you help them, if you protect them, they'll fall in love with you.  Gratitude is an amazing payment, it can pay for virtually anything.  It's worth more than a mountain of gold.

Ranma 1/2 has three things going for it -- a unique, and amazing, art style -- wonderful humor -- and a lovable cast of characters.  The anime suffers from its constant diverting from the source manga, but the first three seasons or so, plus the OAV's, are mainly the 'real deal.'  The fact that through all the fights and all the arguments, it's clear Ryouga and Ranma really are friends, that Ranma and Akane really do love each other, and so on, makes you cherish scenes that otherwise would fall flat.

Baka to Test came out around the same time as Working!, and has much the same feel.  It's short, hilarious, and full of karma.  A boy who barely gets to eat anything but 1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 a cup ramen, who fails all his tests, and is physically beaten to an inch of his life daily, still enjoys an enviable position in life, with good, true friends who look out for him, and two girls in love with him (though of course both are too shy to admit it.)  The best part about it is, like in Working!, he earned the affection of his peers, because he also would do anything for them, and has stood up for, helped, and protected them again and again over the years.  That's the kind of lasting bond you love to see, and it shows just how trivial the little things are, when the big things are working out.  Friends, lovers, and a feeling of pride in yourself -- who needs plentiful food, fancy degrees, luxurious furniture?  Humor with a point.  That's what makes this show great.

And just think, every series I listed above these 10 are even better.  I could praise them even more than I've praised these.  The quality of anime is as deep as it is tall.

As always, I'll look at the age of these series.  Working and Baka to Test are brand new, having come out just earlier this year.  Evangelion is both old and new, since it keeps remaking itself.  Ef is only a year old or so.  The others are pretty old, even twenty years old.  What you are seeing here are the series that used to be the very best, being forced down by better series that have been streaming in ever since this vanguard introduced the art form.  The 'down but not out' crowd.  We can expect to see more Working, Baka to Test, Evangelion, and Da Capo in the future.  The rest are probably over for good.  If only Ranma were remade with modern technology, and allowed to follow the actual manga storyline at a sharp pace, like Dragonball Kai has done. . .*sigh*  Well, it would receive a much better score than '39'.