Best of Anime:

It’s time again for the best of the year. I’ve heard this was a great year for anime. There were all kinds of deep and serious stories that covered heavy subjects like death, friendship, and trauma. I watched exactly none of them.

For me, this was the year of the cozy show. Our currently reality is…chaotic. After a full day of work and keeping a close eye on current events, the last thing I want to do I spend even more time with serious topics.  This probably makes my “best-of” a little less interesting

It’s also a year with a lot of returning favorites. Most of my “best-of” would come from that list if everyone didn’t already know about them. As good as those returning favorites are, I would rather spend most of my time talking about lesser-known series.

Best Comfort Watch

There are a lot of ways to relax with anime and since my theme for this year was self-care, I wanted to highlight the shows that made me feel good. Even if it was for very different reasons.

Solo Leveling: Yeah, I know, I’ve heard all the critiques. Don’t care. Jin-Woo’s cool, and I could watch him fight monsters and douchebags all day long. This is a total comfort watch because despite the amazing fight scenes and appearance of high stakes, there is only one outcome. Art pretty, brain happy.

Ruri Rocks: Art pretty, brain happy, and I learned something about rocks? I loved this one. Ruri’s enthusiasm and character arc were so soothing to watch. Everyone was likeable, every episode a delight.

Best Fights

Wind Breaker. If Wind Breakercomes out in a year, it’s going to be on this list.

MHA: Vigilantes. MHA: Vigilantes was a needed boost of action. The best part of Vigilantes was watching characters with non-hero-quality quirks learn how to use them in clever and effective ways during fights.

Dan Da Dan. We watched the first three episodes when they came out in theaters and then had to suffer a long wait for the rest of the season.  Watching the frenetic insanity of Evil Eye vs Okarun on a big screen was worth the agony of waiting out the cliffhanger.  

Best Show that Wasn’t What I Expected

mono. Advertised as “moe girls taking pictures”, this comedy by the creator of Yuru Camp was so much more.  The girls learn photography, but they also befriend a mangaka, tackle adventures in travel, and solve a ghost story. It’s a complete slice-of-life story and it’s hilarious.

Best Rewatch

Spy x Family. I will never get sick of Yor kicking the crap out of bad guys.  I also love the new season and getting more background on Twilight and what drives him.  Putting all those pieces together makes rewatching the early episodes more impactful.

The Apothecary Diaries. I did a rewatch of this before the new season. Seeing the complex plot and politics evolve as the relationships do is so satisfying.  It’s a show that breaks my heart and makes me laugh at the same time.

Best Boy

Yu, Dealing with Mikadono Sisters Is a Breeze. My favorite boys are usually of the aura farming variety, but for every Jin-Woo, I need a Yu to balance it out. Yu is not supposed to be good at anything, but he ends up excelling at being human. He cares for the three girls he’s suddenly stuck living with, wanting to heal the broken bonds between them. Yu is both a smooth, charming dreamboat and a floundering, clumsy goof.

Morihito, WitchWatch. On the other hand, Morihito is a monster, literally. He’s an oni trying to protect his childhood friend who’s also a witch.  And she needs a lot of protecting. Morihito is deeply serious and cares a lot about his passions, like denim and stoicism.

But the best boy is Lloyd, from Reincarnated as the 7^th Prince So I’m Taking My Time Perfecting My Magic Ability. Look, this is an unserious series. It’s full of OP magic, fan-service, and questionable relationships. It’s anchored by Lloyd, a failed mage executed and reincarnated into what seems to be the God of Magic, and also, a 10-year-old prince. Lloyd has only one goal: learn all the magic while wearing the smallest shorts possible.  If he weren’t such a good boy, he would be the villain of the piece.   I’m kind of a sucker for stories where the hero is wildly underestimated until… This is one of the best of that hyper-specific subgenre.

Best Girl

This was a competitive year. Overpowered spell caster Monica Everett from The Silent Witch overcame adorable shyness to make friends and foil assassinations. Sophia Riller from The Gorilla God’s Go-to Girl learned to accept her gifts and be who she is, which happens to be an OP monster.

Are you seeing a theme here? This is the year of “women learning it’s ok to be a badass and get what you want”. As themes go, I’m all for that one being more popular.

But for me there is only one best girl, and probably always will be in a year that airs Call of the Night. Sorry ladies, it’s always going to be Nazuna.

She’s a vampire full of mystery and drama. Both older and younger than she seems, Nazuna is learning about relationships and maturing as she does. She’s one of the few characters that gets a full arc, complete with growth and understanding of the world and role she plays in it, without changing who she really is. Which is a drunk chaos gremlin. I have a bit of an advantage here since I’ve read the manga for Call of the Night many times. But watching this character come to life is amazing, always.

Best Couple

Chisato and Takina, Lycoris Recoil: Friends are Thieves of Time

Look, this is a couple-heavy year. We have almost-couples: Gojo and Marin, Ranma and Akane. And we have real couples: Melphiera  and Rogier, Sophia and Louis, and Nazuna and Ko.

But if we are judging couples on their chemistry, ability to communicate and work together, and overall cute factor, there is only one clear winner. The adorable John Wick-alikes Chisato and Takina from Café LycoReco in Lycoris Recoil.  Takina’s serious nature is the perfect balance to Chisato’s infectious joy. Both, however, are incredibly skilled at their job, although Takina is more of a heavy hitter to Chisato’s tactician.

While we didn’t get a true season, this series of shorts was enough to put them on the list. Man, they’re cute.

Best Harem

The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You

Not only does Rentaro really, really love his many girlfriends, they love him, and they also love each other, sometimes almost as much as they love Rentaro. It’s a weirdly wholesome, over-the-top comedy that highlights everything that makes harem comedies great and terrible at the same time.  The huge cast makes sure that, so far, it hasn’t become the very thing that it’s parodying.

Best of Horror

And now it’s time for the good stuff.  I know I say this every year, but 2025 was a great year for horror.  

Best Final Person

Bill Shelburn, The Monkey. Everyone dies, that’s life. Let’s go dancing. Bill spends the whole movie trying to fight against a force he doesn’t understand and cannot hope to contain. Only at the end does he realize that he must accept his new role as caretaker of The Monkey to keep it from being used for even greater evil. His big lesson is that Death is inevitable, life is about how we handle it.  I get this character, and movie, so much. Especially his deadpan reactions and how he slowly accepted both joy and suffering into his life.

Best Killer

I really wanted to put M3gan on here, but I don’t think she killed anyone in M3gan 2.0. Since it’s a redemption movie for her, I’m having a hard time justifying that choice.

The killers in Heart Eyes may not have had the strongest motivation, but they did have style. I really dug that mask.

My favorite killer this year might be a controversial choice, but she definitely killed people, one of them in the most brutal and perfectly foreshadowed way. Iris from Companion didn’t start out wanting to murder, but a bad relationship will make you do some crazy things. She’s justified in her occasionally violent actions, but that doesn’t make the people less dead.  

Best Twist

Mutilator 2. It’s a meta sequel about the cast and crew of the original film! The whole movie is a twist on sequels and legacy movies. I loved the concept, plot, and seeing these actors lampooning their younger selves. It’s low budget in the best way and a total labor of love.

Best Worst Movie

Werewolves. Werewolves is a study in the ludicrous. From the backstory, to the plot and the oh-so-questionable science, everything about this movie strains credibility, and I enjoyed every minute of it. At least I enjoyed reacting to every minute of it. Frank Grillo is appropriately serious, and the werewolves look better than they have any right to. It’s a bad movie but it’s not the worst werewolf movie I saw this year.

Best Creature

This was not a strong year for creatures. We had werewolves with mange, a clearly rubber-suited gil-woman, and a pretty passible giant shark. Even V/H/S failed to wow me with creature effects this year. Now, I am behind on a couple of movies that I think, despite their overall quality, would be strong contenders here.

If I keep mentioning Sinners I’m pretty sure people will get sick of it, but I think it deserves some mention for making an interesting vampire that was both traditional and new.

At the end of the day, I’m going to go with the Xenomorph from Alien: Romulus. Is it cheating? A little bit, but Xenomorphs are amazing, and I love them. (And yes, Alien: Romulus came out in 2024, but remember that disclaimer at the start?)

Biggest Surprise

Wolf Man. This was the bad kind of surprise. I’m still mad about how not-a-werewolf movie Wolf Man ended up being.

They Call Her Death. This was a delightfully good surprise. I loved this movie from start to finish and raved about it to everyone who made the mistake of asking if I had seen anything good lately. “Spooky Cowboy” is 100% my aesthetic, and “Spooky ‘70s Cowboy” is the best version of that.

Most Fun

This was the year of horror comedy.  Heart Eyes was great, and The Monkey was fantastic. On the gentler side, Clown in a Cornfield gave us good entry-level horror and I really dug the enthusiasm of Hell of a Summer.

Final Destination: Bloodlines may have been the best time I had in a theater. I was way overhyped for this movie, and it honestly delivered a full experience. I laughed, I cried, and on the way to my car I totally checked for random danger.

Best Movie

It’s Sinners. I love this movie so much. I could tell you more about why, but you should just watch it instead.

Final Thoughts

I’me fairly optimistic heading in to 2026. Not just about movies but about life in general. While there isn’t any one thing in general I’m looking forward to, It’s been a good year thanks for sharing it with me.