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For rules and honorable mentions, check out part 1.


#25 Worst: Hellsing

It’s not that difficult to adapt a long-running manga series into a short anime. The golden rule for doing so is “don’t bite off more than you can chew.” Instead of trying to represent the entire story, just focus on one or two story arcs... The first one, obviously, followed by either the best one or your favorite one. The second attempt of Negima was able to succeed this way, and oh yeah, so did Hellsing ultimate. But the original Hellsing wasn’t nearly as smart... So much material was compressed into it that it kind of hurt to watch it. There was no resolution, for either series itself or for half of the side stories, and more than half of the characters just felt like pointless cameos. It’s low on this list because it had a really good dub, cxontaining the performance that would turn Crispin Freeman into a living legend, and yeah, that’s basically it.


#25 Best: Gurren Lagann

It’s easy for an incredibly stupid anime to fail. And Gurren Lagann is, if nothing else, a stupid series. So why didn’t it fail? Why is it so rightfully beloved? The answer is simple: Gurren Lagann knows how stupid it is, and embraces the everloving crap out of that knowledge. It takes full advantage of it’s dumb plot and bat-s**t crazy animation style in ways that would have made Angel Beats a lot better. With a generous dose of inspiration, energy, and belief in itself, it’s easy to ignore how blatantly brainless all the twists and developments are. It’s low on the list because after one of the most electrifying characters in anime history gets spoiler’d early in the story, Simon is kind of a dull replacement. Also, it’s Gainax, so there’s pretensious bullshit abound... Where Evangelion had pointless religious symbolism, Gurren has pointless genetic symbolism, and yeah, it’s just as stupid.


#24 Worst: Elfen Lied

As I mentioned in my Blood C review, I’m actually a fan of this show, and I don’t think it really deserves all the hate it gets. That said, it does deserve a pretty good chunk of it. The story is dumb, the writing is more often bad than good, half the characters could have died after one episode and not been missed... I’m looking at you, Bando... And it features one of the most contemptible, vile creatures in anime history. You know, Kohta’s cousin what’s-her-incest.. Hell, even without the incest element, having a female love interest be romantically obsessed with someone she hasn’t seen since she was a child is disturbingly sexist on it’s own. There are some good performances, particularly from Luci Christian as Mariko, but for the most part, both dubs are terrible, and the ending sucked. Why is it so low on the list? Well, it is a really fun watch, and the bad animation does get better when it needs to. But most of all, because this anime can make even the harshest of critics bawl their eyes out over and over again. Show me one bad anime with THAT kind of emotional power.


#24 Best: Ghost Hunt

At first glance, there isn’t much about this series that really stands out. But at the same time, you’d have a difficult time finding anything bad or poorly done about it. The characters are all likeable and engaging, although some of them don’t get much in the way of purpiose or development, the art and animation are a step above the norm, and the design of the ghosts... Both from a visual and story standpoint... Are fantastic. The pacing of the series is perfect, and I don’t use that term lightly; The first few story arcs a little tame, a little predictable, and not very stake-ey. But that’s the beauty of this series: Every single story arc just gets better and better. The stakes, creepiy factor, and unpredictability keep rising from case to case, culminating in two of the most intense story arcs in horror anime history. The lack of conclusion and character development might be a turn-off for some, though.


#23 Worst: Vampire Knight

While there are a handful of anime on this side of the list that I actually like... This is the only one I’m actually ashamed of. I became addicted to this show, and for all the wrong reasons. I actually liked seeing the members of this love triangle... Who resemble the cast of Twilight in many ways... Make each other miserable. No, that’s not fair... I actually had hope for Yuki. The story sucked, but seeing her make the decision to start giving Zero her blood is actually pretty touching, and the side characters were kind of fun too. Kaname was an irredeemable douche, but for the most part, at least he was portrayed as such. Then Guilty happened... Yeah. The already shoddy story took a nose dive, the side characters faded into obscurity, and my good will tanked.
Up until then, I was able to ignore how boring and directionless this series was.


#23 Best: Death Note

When Death note was introduced to the world, it was like nothing that we had seen before, taking otaku by storm with an intense psychological game of cat-and-mouse between two highly intriguing young geniuses. They’re both far more complex than their respective fans give them credit for, as both of them paint themselves as the hero of the story, although neither one is particularly interested in heroism. The chemistry between them is explosive, which is good, because endless expository dialogue and ridiculous bouts of melodrama would never be this interesting otherwise. Not only does this series lend itself to hours upon hours upon hours of satisfying analysis and speculation, but with high production values, ingenius music, and an army of interesting side characters, how is it only #23 on this list?
The answer, unfortunately, is the final story arc. I don’t think it’s terrible, it’s certainly adequate, but adequate just isn’t enough to stand up to the beauty that led up to it. Mello and Near are even more of a disappointing replacement than Simon from Gurren Lagann could ever dream of, but it’s still watchable. and yes, it’s hard to deny that this series is, as another reviewer once put it, “skin-crawlingly sexist” from beginning to end.


#22 Worst: Venus Versus Virus

I don’t have a lot to say about this series, because it’s not a particularly memorable series. It’s incompetent, but not infuriating. It’s boring, but not entirely snooze-worthy. It’s generic and derivative, but... Um... Yeah, it’s generic and derivative. Seriously, the only thing separating this color-by-numbers “Cute girls fighting demons” show from others in it’s genre is the fact that the demons are called “viruses.” This could have been a passable show, if the dialogue wasn’t so terrible... When it’s not spewing awkward one liners at us, it’s trying to drown us in the main characters’ angsty, emo, uber-repetive exposition voice overs.
Instead of going on to describe a series in further detail when you’re probably not going to bother with it in the first place, let me share with you a quote that the main character and I were both saying multiple times, nearly every episode.
“I never wanted this... Why is this happening to me?”


#22 Best: Azumanga Daioh!

Here you have it: One of the most influential anime series of the naughties, and the grandpappy of all modern slice of life schoolgirl shows... But we can forgive it for that, because while the animation and humor of this classic have become more or less dated, it’s charm and relentless innocence never will.
It may not be the first of the slice-of-fluff genre, but it’s certainly the best. It focuses on mood, humor, and character interactions without ever reaching into exploitative or pervy territory... Okay, there are a few pervy characters, but they’re played entirely for laughs. Azumanga Daioh doesn’t care about having attractive or moe-centric characters, it cares about having real, relatable characters, and succeeds at it better than most. And did I mention the subtle, mood-crafting music?
As I said before, while the story may be timeless, the humor is somewhat dated, even by japanese standards... And not very accessible to american audiences. The translated manga does a good job dealing with this issue, but the otherwise great english dub doesn’t. And unfortunately, it fares best with older audiences looking for a source of nostalgia towards their own school life than it does with actual students who would otherwise be able to appreciate the PG humor.
And... It doesn’t always do a very good job of covering up it’s minimal animation budget.


#21 Worst: Adventures of Tweeny Witches

I really wanted to like this series. I really did. The animation was bad, I loved the unique art style, as it looked like a sharp and sketchy blend of eastern and western styles. The accuracy of the character designs also intrigued me, and I really found the three titular characters to have a very impressive dynamic as they bounced indeals off of each other and hunted for clever, Burton-esque fairies. Then the plot happened, and my god, it just got worse and worse every episode. Overly complicated at times, overly predictable at times, and the animation quality hit so many low points that it very well may have ousted Saiyuki from it’s throne as the most poorly animated anime I’ve ever seen. There are twists in the story... Especially with the identity of the witch traitor... That feel very much like a stroke of Shyamalan. With such an interesting set-up, and a tried-and-true premise that’s normally hard to mess up, the actual execution was a huge let-down... But at least I have the OVA episodes to show me what a fantastic slice-of-life series this could have been.


#21 Best: Fruits Basket

Is there any show more pleasant than Furuba? Yes, but not very many. It exudes a warm, welcoming atmosphere, mostly through it’s Saintly-to-a-fault main character, Tohru Honda. She represents the very idea of selflessness and unconditional love, and yet is too lacking in skills to be considered a Mary-Sue. This tone works exceedingly well when juxtaposed against the increasingly dark and complex backgrounds and situations that the people she meets come from. They all take to her differently, and in turn, they all effect her differently, which could be considered one of the greatest attributes of the series... If it wasn’t for the humor. If there’s even a slight chance that a series about 13 people who turn into the animals of the Chinese Zodiac whenever hugged by a member of the opposite sex could avoid being funny, Fruits Basket is unaware of it. It delivers on the laughs, as well as on the heart strings to an even more merciless degree.
And yet, the animation quality and art style are about as bad as are about as bland and low budget as they can afford to be without being unbearable, and the lack of resolution or explanation really hurts it in the end. It doesn’t stand up very well against the manga, which normally wouldn’t bother me, except... well... If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean.

Next time, we’ll break into the top twenty!

As I mentioned in part 1, the decade in question is 2001-2010.

If I got something wrong about the history of the show's production, then I apologize.

Says the person who didn't do enough research (IE, part one of this list) to know what decade I was talking about.

When I decide to pick this list back up again, I'll do a little more research about the production histories of my entries, rather than just judging them on objective quality, okay?

Let me guess, you think Brotherhood should have made the list?

In any case, I'm aware of the fact that some of my favorite shows are garbage. Ghost Stories just BARELY escaped the bad list by missing the cut-off. And of course, some of the shows slated to appear on the good list are shows I don't particularly care for.

For a second there, I thought you said Mushishi. That's how close you came to making me rage.

Yeah... It's slated for part three. Which I may get to when the two reviews I'm currently working on are completed.

Do you have an MAL?

In the mean time, if you're interested, heres mine.

No, but it's going to be on there. It's in the bottom ten, but trust me, there's worse out there.