Top Anime of 2000s Breakdown by length

In this part, I want to now turn the attention to the length of the anime in the decade list. The idea is that if my friend is asking me to recommend an anime series and he only want a shorter type series, then I can direct him towards a 13-episode series list and not recommend him something like Monster which, although brillliant, may require too much time invested than he wants.

I’m going to categorize the length into

1). 13-episode series (anything around the region of 10-19 23-minute episodes – Will take you about 5 hours to finish)

2). 26-episode series (anything around  20 to 30 23-minute episodes – Will take you about 10 hours to finish)

3).  Long series (30+ episodes – Will take you a while up to finish…)

4). OAV series (typically all the OAVs, less than 200 minutes running time)

13-episode series

The top 10 here seems to have a pretty good combination of the the thoughtful (Haibane Renmei, Kino’s Journey, Gunslinger Girl), the weird (Paranoia Agent), the action (Black Lagoon, Baccano!) and the comedy (Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei). For any other genre, you can probably insert The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi there:)

26-episode series

SInce there are more 26-episode animes than any other format, the list actually include the top 50 shows. This is a pretty good list. I think that there are lots of genre included in the top ten that people of varying taste can get into.It has comedy (Azumaga Daioh, Lucky Star), Drama (Mushi-shi, Honey and Clover), Sci-fi (Planetes, Dennou Coil), action (GITS: SAC, Samurai Champloo) and mecha (Gurren Lagann). There are also other genres like gangster (Gungrave)  and music (Nodame Cantabile) too if you look out of the top ten.

The only potentially contentious title in this top 10 or so list is Lucky Star. That show really seems to polarize people who watch it. I have not watched it yet so I will stay out of the argument). I’m still glad a few of my all-time favourite animes (Azumanga Daioh, Planetes, Fruits Basket) rank pretty high here. People, I hope you will check some of these out!

PS. will Dennou Coil ever get licensed in the US?

Long series

A much slimmer picking for this list.  There are only really 4 shows standing head and shoulder above others. Monster is a must watch (or read) if you have the time to spare. Full Metal Alchemist, along with Naruto, are probably the most popular show this decade. And Twelve Kingdoms – Best character development ever. I just wish there is more of it!

Also, don’t read too much into this position from 5 to 20, the frequency of votes range from only 1-5. Nevertheless, it does include all the other usual long series staple of the last decade, namely, Death Note, Hikaru no Go, Gundam Seed, Hajime no Ippo, Naruto and Prince of Tennis (One Piece is released in 1999 so it does not count)

OAV series

Lastly, it is the short series category. There are some pretty good ones everyone should check out actually like FLCL (otaku mindwarp) or Voices of the Distant Star (marvel at the ability of this one guy). Plus if you don’t like it, it’s not like you will have spent too much time watching them:)

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Have also done some quick comparison before each category.

1). Despite the shorter format, it seems that less people have seen the top 10/20 of the OAV and 13-episode series than the top 26-episode counterparts. I imagine that 26-episode series are typically more advertised and popular.

2). OAV is pretty way down but this is most likely because Le Petit Cossette is so obscure (taking this out, the average seen ranking is 545).

3). In terms of popularity, 13-epsiode and 26-episode series are more or less equally divided in the top 10-20.

(Note average seen rank is the rank of people who indicated they have seen the show on Anime News Network. This rank is all-time anime).

Planning to do some analysis on the top anime directors and animation studios next!

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