5 – Toradora

A cute anime about two classmates who form an accidental friendship. Ryuji freaks everyone out because of how intense he looks, and Tiaga is tiny but makes up for it by being fierce. Will this unlikely duo be able to find happiness in their life or will fate conspire against them? This anime is just cute and a feel good anime that is not super new, but definitely worth checking out. The story is predictable but in a good way and the two main characters are just extremely enjoyable.

4 – Fire Force

Fire Force is more of a standard anime, I would say, in a lot of ways, but it’s still a lot of fun. Spontaneous human combustion is a thing, and when people combust they turn into monsters. There is a special series of Fire Forces who deal with these fires, and these people tend to have powers as well. Fire Force 8, where Shinra, the main character, ends up, is a bit different than the rest. While all of them fight fires and investigate the phenomena of spontaneous human combustion, Fire Force 8 has been tasked with investigating the other Fire Forces in hopes of finding out what secrets they might be hiding.

3 – Fruits Basket

Now, this one isn’t one that I purely watched in 2020. But there was a new season, and Fruits Basket has been climbing up my anime rankings. This is another feel good anime, or at least a peaceful feeling anime. It isn’t about the over the top action, instead it’s about the Chinese Zodiac animals and how they work in the real world, and about Tohru Honda who finds out their secret and it is taken into their family. I think that this anime just gets better as it goes and as the world that they are creating, which is basically just the normal world, grows and is fleshed out. The characters are very likeable and it just works.

2 – Food Wars!

And now we’re back to an anime that is just completely goofy. Food Wars! is about food, and being the best and most creative chef possible. Soma transfers into the most prestigious culinary school in Japan where food wars happens, and he doesn’t make himself any friends by saying that he’ll end up at the top of the class. Much absurdity ensues from there as this school has a weird student hierarchy, even odder personalities and teachers, plus multiple tests and challenges focused on getting people to fail out of the school. I really enjoy this one even with all of the fan service in it.

1 – Sword Art Online – Alicization Part 1

Finally, the best thing I watched thus far this year, and I’m sure that I’ve missed some anime along the way, is Sword Art Online Alicization. There is more of it out, but it’s not on Funimation yet. This continues the world and story that was created throughout the first two seasons of Sword Art Online and through the movie. It still focuses around the same characters, but the twist on what is happening is really good. I think that it successfully takes what could feel like a premise where they are just stretching it out for its popularity and sticks with a really good story. Sword Art Online I think when I do a Top 10 Anime overall list sometime next year will have creeped even closer to the top of that list, it is just consistently good.

What are some of the best anime that you’ve watched this year? I can think of two, A Wise Man’s Grandchild and Gun Gale Online (the SAO spinoff) that I wouldn’t consider that good that I’ve watched, but it’s been a long year and I don’t remember them all.

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Soma has worked with his dad at their little family diner his whole life. People love his dad’s food and his cooking as well and his dad is always pushing him to be better. Than one day Soma’s dad just leaves to go help a friend with his restaurant and tells Soma to transfer in and go study at Engestu Teahouse Culinary Academy, a top and fancy school in Japan. The problem for Soma is that he’s a transfer student and everyone else has come up through the ranks, so will his humble cooking background help him or get him into trouble?

Obviously, it’s going to get him into trouble, this is a completely absurd anime after all. He comes in with a brash and confident attitude not knowing what he doesn’t know. But that is kind of the charm of the show, it’s about Soma, who is an amazing cook but who will work harder than anyone else just to improve. He won’t let something stop him, he’ll instead spend the time and effort and be able to think on his feet better than everyone else. It’s an anime, so that’s not really a spoiler for it, it’s how most anime stories go. It’s how it makes its twists and turns work well and how they can have Soma struggle but also not just overcome everything instantly after he’s struggled.

The rest of the characters help make the show as well. You have a wide variety of students that are definitely stereotypes of what you’d expect to find in a very fancy school. It has a nice ensemble cast for it with Soma obviously being the lead, but there being a good number of other characters who fill in around him. Now, it does take on a slightly harem anime feel to it, but compared to a lot of anime that delve into that genre, this one doesn’t spend nearly as much time on that, and you have a much better diversity of male and female characters.

Now that I have mentioned that, I would be remiss to not mention that this anime has a lot of fan service. The whole idea of the food is that it’s so tasty and intriguing that it brings one to ecstasy which is shown in a lot of fan service. Now, again not just the female characters but the male characters as well. It does however, focus more on the female characters and there is more fan service from the female characters beyond that as well. I don’t appreciate the level that it is taken to at points, there is always a scene or two per episode, sometimes more, and they can just drag on a little bit, but I don’t feel like it ruins the anime, it eventually becomes something you gloss over while watching it.

Instead, I think this show stands more on the premise of it. The story is actually enjoyable, and it is interesting to see battles surrounding food which are almost edited like the style of Dragon Ball Z at times where a battle can take two episodes (or more), and in here you get that as well with intense cooking competitions. So it’s interesting to see the same trope that is fairly common for anime used in such a different way. And the arcs are good and interesting. You get to see character growth from a lot of characters, not just the main ones, and new characters are added in good ways to help drive the main story forward and the main character forward. Plus there is a lot of interesting and tasty looking food.

Overall, this anime isn’t going to be for everyone. I found it a ton of fun through two seasons, which is how much is up on Netflix right now. And the dub is very good for the anime. But there is a lot of fan service, and that will not be for everyone, and for good reason. I think that there’s a good enough show for me to get around it, but that is something that is on the edge for me. The food is fun and the whole show is very interesting. So if you’re an anime fan, it’s one to checkout, not a good jumping in point though.

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