The Best Anime of Summer 2024

With summer at an end, the ANN editorial staff is back to break down our picks for the season's best anime. So, if you're looking for some new, recently completed anime to watch, this is the perfect place to start.

Note: the commentary below may include spoilers.

Richard Eisenbeis

Best: MONOGATARI Series: OFF & MONSTER Season

In all honesty, this spot should probably go to Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction. However, as I ranted about how good it was on the spring “best of” list, there's no need for me to repeat it here.

On to MONOGATARI Series: OFF & MONSTER Season, this anime asks the question: Can Monogatari work without its main character? Do the various supporting characters introduced over the course of 100 episodes have what it takes to continue the story on their own? The answer is a simple one: Yes.

One major theme in Monogatari is the idea that you can't (or perhaps shouldn't) save others. Instead, the best you can do is help them save themselves. Only by confronting and overcoming their weaknesses—i.e., the root causes of their supernatural problems—can they begin to move on, grow, and heal. Of course, no one in Monogatari is so one-dimensional as to have only a single problem—and attempting not to fall into old patterns often leads to new problems. Luckily, Araragi's actions have left each connected to the larger supernatural community in the area—meaning that they can get support from each other even if Araragi himself is not around.

So that's largely what we get in this series—various team-ups between the formerly supporting cast. Characters who interacted very little previously are dealing with supernatural threats together. And, as is expected from this series, each arc is a deeper look into at least one of the characters present—their current situations along with how far they've come and how far they've yet to go.

All this is tied together with the excellent art, editing, and direction we're used to at this point when it comes to this series. However, this season even goes a bit further than normal, with some great Gothic horror designs and a fairy tale told entirely through sheet metal cutouts. Truly, Monogatari fans ate well this season.

Runner Up: NieR:Automata Ver 1.1a Part 2

NieR:Automata Ver 1.1a Part 2 is in the runner-up slot instead of the best-of-season slot because, as of writing, the final episode has yet to air, so I'm not sure if the series will be able to stick the landing. This season of the show is all about setting up an opposing narrative through our lead pair.

9S has lost everything he cares about. Aside from his drone partner, he is entirely alone. All that's left in him is rage and the burning desire for revenge. He no longer cares when the machines act in unexpected or peaceful ways; all he wants is to kill them all. His story is a descent into madness where each atrocity committed and secret uncovered pushes him further down his ultimately self-destructive path.

On the other side of the story, we have A2. Her backstory mirrors what is happening to 9S—losing all those she cared about before being left alone with nothing but her vengeance. Yet, after years of existing at rock bottom, she is starting to climb out. She's making new personal connections and overcoming long-standing prejudices. The once kind heart within her is returning to the fore.

A2 is living proof that 9S can recover—that he can live on for more than a single-minded pursuit. The only problem is that his final goal is to kill A2—setting things up for tragedy no matter who wins their impending battle.

All this comes together to create a story contrasting hope and nihilism—where things always seem to get worse, but there are still beautiful moments to be found.

Christopher Farris

Best: MONOGATARI Series: OFF & MONSTER Season

I'm honestly a little surprised. Getting more of a series that's already been juiced for over a decade might have seemed like a wish on a Rainy Devil's paw. Not only did it turn out to be quite nice to see Monogatari again, but returning after all these years has thus far delivered some of its best stories yet. In hindsight, though, it sort of makes sense. The groovy gals of the franchise had long since proven themselves to be whole characters capable of carrying all sorts of ancillary stories on their own. So uncoupling the likes of Nadeko and Ononoki from Koyomi's POV naturally only freed them to rise to even more impressive heights. Yes, I know that ol' Ararararagi just returned in an episode that also saw NisiOisin getting some leftover Cipher Academy nonsense out of his system, but let's focus on the unilateral good stuff that's happened so far this season, eh?

Past experiences will tell you that the best Monogatari arcs usually involve Nadeko somehow. So seeing the silly snake girl's rebound and redemption in Nadeko Draw held a lot of inherent appeal. But this story also served to showcase the surprisingly fresh approach of this resurrected Monogatari. The newly reined direction by Midori Yoshizawa brings things back to ground level and closer to the characters than Akiyuki Simbo's increasingly staged, sterile approach. It's the perfect fit for a plot about Nadeko interrogating her status as a person after so many chapters as a prop or ominous concept. Ononoki's deadpan confidence turns out to be the perfect complement to Nadeko's flailing attempts at saving the day, and the ultimate result is a pair who could probably carry a whole series on their own if Isin was willing to settle down and focus on them. But that, as we know, is not in his way.

That's all without getting into the following storyline, which saw its gorgeous art sort of swerve into a grim fairy tale origin for everyone's favorite donut-obsessed vampire, Shinobu. It's a far-flung parable from the past that coincided neatly with the Kizumonogatari movie arriving in theaters here. Regarding my earlier misgivings about this arc, I am genuinely curious to see how it goes. If nothing else, this season has been good for messy vampire girls.

Runner Up: Mayonaka Punch

Hey, speaking of! P.A. Works delivered another series about anime girls working in an idiosyncratic industry—this time, as YouTubers, so you know they're all several flavors of terrible. They didn't even have to be vampires for them to be disgusting creatures I was guaranteed to latch onto; that was just a bonus. And sure, I could praise this Punch purely for the power of its comedic chops; god knows I could watch Masaki and Live fail their way into the worst relationship status ever all day. But the not-so-secret is that this Mayonaka also packs a dramatic punch. The fourth episode, focusing on Fu, delivers a powerful surprise tearjerker which I described as "the emotional equivalent of walking into a Discovery Zone and getting hit by a bus." From there, the series has been a roller coaster of feelings—some strong, some soft, some good, some bad, but always engaging. I would've checked this series out, regardless. It's got a trashy disaster lesbian vampire voiced by Ai Fairouz, but the fact that it's been such a rewarding part of the season is a pleasant surprise. These girls may suck, but their show does the opposite. Blows? Wait, no—

Rebecca Silverman

Best: The Magical Girl and The Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Archenemies

I had three titles vying for my personal top spot this season, with the other two being YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master and Wonderful Precure!. In fact, I was all but ready to use both of them as a tie. But then, when I really thought about it, I realized that there was one series that made me consistently happy, that I couldn't wait to sit down and watch, and that always left me feeling just a little bit better. That was The Magical Girl and The Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Archenemies, not because it was powerful, deep, or even particularly brilliant. But it has such a fun dynamic at its core, one that may not resolve when it finishes next Tuesday (as of this writing), but still a delightful distillation of tropes.

Our protagonists, magical girl Byakuya and evil henchman Mira, meet during a fight and quickly realize that they have a connection – or at the very least, that Mira desperately wants a connection with Byakuya. I suspect if you'd asked him prior to their encounter whether he had a love-struck bone in his body, he'd have said “no,” and maybe that was true. But he certainly wants love now, and hers specifically. Despite her sexualized costume, Mira is mostly desperate to make sure that Byakuya's okay. He sees her living in poverty with the world's worst mascot character (at least Kyubey was cute), working herself to the bone, and barely eating. Mira's love manifests in his efforts to take care of her…but the occasional well-placed beat-down to the aforementioned awful mascot character doesn't go amiss.

All of the sweetness is balanced out with some excellent humor, such as Byakuya's friend (?), who is also a magical girl with a penchant for dropping f-bombs (her “fuck song” is one of my contenders for best song of the year), the way Mira can't keep lenses in his glasses around Byakuya, and those creepy, creepy angels. It's a quarter-hour of joy that still manages to hold on to a bit of pathos, a genre parody that hits the right spots.

Runner Up: YATAGARASU and Wonderful Precure!

This time, all three of my top series are fairly different, although I suppose generalizations could be made about “animals” and “magical girls.” Still, they're more disparate than not, and nothing shows that like YATAGARASU. The second half definitely suffered from the Olympics jostling its schedule, but despite that, it has maintained a strong storyline, moving out from the workings of the court to the greater world of Yamauchi. After all, the kin'u can't only concern himself with the nobles and their problems, and certainly not when those problems include being eaten by shape-shifting monkeys with a taste for raven flesh. The story is much more of an overt mystery this time, taking care to seed clues while playing on the destabilizing reveal from the first part, using it to cast doubt on any new character who appears too good to be true – or at least too innocent to be real. With the major players all established and ready to have their characters built up and explored more, the story can delve into what people like Yukiya don't know about Yamauchi and what they don't want to believe. As of this writing, there's one episode left, and I'm honestly not sure how it will wrap things up. I'm very much hoping for an announcement of more episodes in the future.

Wonderful Precure!, on the other hand, continues to be a charming mix of classic magical girl antics and a story that's working with some weighty themes. The recent reveal that the big bad is the god of the long-extinct Japanese wolves adds a note of sadness to the story, especially when you consider that both Komugi and Yuki were taken in as strays – humans could have spelled their doom as well, just as easily as they destroyed the wolves. While the Wonderful pair is all-in on the beauty of human/animal relationships, the Nyanderful pair seems a little less certain, in no small part because Mayu suffers from severe anxiety, and even as she's learning to cope better, that doesn't just go away overnight because you make friends. The serious underpinnings help to make this a strong story, and the only thing that could make me happier would be if Satoru and Daifuku got to be Cures as well. Cure Whip deserves a bunny successor.

Lucas DeRuyter

Best: Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!

I would have almost assuredly skipped over Too Many Losing Heroines! if not for this summer's rom-com-focused This Week In Anime column. Anime adapted from light novels has an abysmal hit-to-miss ratio, and a glance at this anime's trailers and synopsis implied another toxically masculine harem series that I find incredibly banal. Instead, Too Many Losing Heroines! is a refreshing exploration of the lives of characters who don't end up with their ideal partner at the end of a coming-of-age romance story and have to figure out their identity, lives, and relationships in the aftermath of this rejection.

Beyond being novel, the premise of Too Many Losing Heroines! speaks to how I try to view romantic relationships. Generally, I feel like people and media put far too much emphasis on whether a relationship succeeds or not. A lot of people and art assume that if a relationship ends, it isn't worthwhile or that the bad parts outweigh the good and make it a negative net experience. I think this is a pretty reductive view of romantic relationships that come to an end — or, in Too Many Losing Heroine's case, fail to begin fully — and there's still a lot to learn from, and appreciate in a failed relationship. Too Many Losing Heroines! understands that a person can grow as much, if not more, from a flop of a relationship than a successful one, and I've gotten so much joy in seeing these characters figure themselves out after being rejected by the people they're pining after.

A big part of that enjoyment comes from the simultaneously cozy and uncomfortable visuals of Too Many Losing Heroines!. The character animations are some of the best I've ever seen, and they are also surprisingly subtle. If you're reading this, chances are you've seen the scene from the opening episode where the protagonist, Kazuhiko, catches Yanami taking a down bad sip from her newly unavailable crush's drink in the middle of a cafe. The combination of brilliant timing and top-notch character expressions made me laugh harder at this scene than any other I saw this season, and that quality of animation holds true throughout the entire season. The handful of raunchier scenes are also wonderfully and purposefully uncomfortable and furthers the feeling of these characters wanting emotional and physical intimacy but having minimal experience in either of those dynamics.

I also love that this anime takes place in a rural community instead of within a generic cityscape like most other rom-coms from this season. As I write this Best-Of entry, I'm on a plane coming back from visiting my family in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin and was reminded of how cozy small-town communities can be, but also the sense of melancholy that hangs over them. Too Many Losing Heroines! perfectly conveys the comfort inherent to this kind of small town but also the depressing reality that, unless our titular heroines leave this place and move on with their lives, their high school rejections might actually define who they are to everyone they'll ever know. I was only home for five days, and three different people talked to me about people my brother and I dated in high school. I don't even want to imagine how much that now decade-old drama would affect my life if I still lived there!

Speaking of those heroines, though, each of them is a perfect girl-fails, and I want to protect them all. Yanami is a hilarious little gremlin who struggles to learn from her non-starter of a relationship with her childhood friend as she has too high of an opinion of herself and transforms into a ball of rage whenever she tries to process the experience. Lemon is seemingly the most confident and unaffected of the heroines but has a heartwarming arc where she acknowledges that she was using her crush as a crutch and resolves to become a more complete person without him guiding her. While Komari remains bookish and shy through everything I've seen of the show so far, she begins to develop as a writer following her romantic rejection, and I'm always going to root for a blossoming wordsmith.

My only major complaint in Too Many Losing Heroines! is that Kazuhiko is a relatively passive protagonist, and it would have been nice to get a better sense of his interiority and aspirations, but he still works fairly well as a rom-com savvy audience surrogate. In a summer season filled with more quiet successes than big hits, Too Many Losing Heroines! was the little bit of joy that I was the most excited to return to week after week, and I cannot recommend it enough.

Runner Up: Senpai is an Otokonoko

Senpai is an Otokonoko would be my top anime of the season if the animation were just a little more fleshed out. While I think it uses its limited animation style super effectively, Too Many Losing Heroines! feels like a more developed project on the whole. That being said, Senpai is an Otokonoko hit me where I live! This cast of lovable, dorky, baby queers fills my heart with joy and an “I've been there” sympathy with their every exchange.

Countless moments resonate with my own experiences of living and dating as a queer person. From being unsure of how to present in new situations and company to feeling anxiety over how sustainable these relationships are to trying to unlearn heteronormative expectations for relationships, Senpai is an Otokonoko has it all! Each of the three leads tackles their own issues and finds their own joy in their particular version of the queer experience, and I'm delighted to see them learn the same lessons that I spent much of my teenage and young adult years figuring out. 
The apparent universality of being a young queer person is also surprising and endearing. While the terminology and exact expressions might differ, Senpai is an Otokonoko reminded me that the underlying experience of being a queer person is pretty similar regardless of a person's nationality or background. While it's disappointing that queer kids in Japan seem to struggle to find acceptance or fit into society in a way that's similar to my own life in the U.S., there's also a solidarity here that I find beautiful and inspiring. In its own humble way, Senpai is an Otokonoko is a beautiful and inspiring show that I also recommend you check out!

Kennedy

Best: The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses Season 2

There is an art to being generic. It can be done in an artful way where it loops around and becomes charming, hilarious, and entertaining again. Like season 1, season 2 of Café Terrace achieves this with all the grace and aplomb of a big titty anime girl slipping on a banana peel and landing on top of the protagonist (which, for those of you wondering: yes. That not only actually happens, but it happens in the first episode of season 2). If you go into it with the right mindset, Café Terrace is an incredibly entertaining anime—easily one of the funniest we've had this year, in my opinion.

I know that at a glance, Café Terrace looks like the umpteenth generic ecchi harem, and that's because—well, yes, that's exactly what it is. It does have its unironic merits, too, of course. It's very refreshing to see an ecchi harem not set in a high school, a protagonist who's not dense—in fact; the girls aren't shy to tell him at all how much they like him—he's just more interested in getting his business off the ground than actively pursuing romance, and an incredibly charming main cast overall. But the main thing that makes Café Terrace so incredibly fun to watch is how it's constantly leaning—no, diving headfirst without a helmet—into an onslaught of ecchi and harem cliches in ways that are so over-the-top that you can't help but be hyper-aware of it and laugh. Even now, I honestly don't know if this was done intentionally for the sake of comedy or if it really is just this aggressively corny. But either way, this was still, by far, the show I had the most fun watching this season.

Runner Up: The second half of YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

Much has already been said here on ANN about YATAGARASU. Very, very, very, very much. So I'll keep this brief: YATAGARASU is worth the hype. The second half, in particular, has taken a considerably darker turn by focusing on the mystery surrounding the bloodthirsty monkeys that have suddenly appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. And while many of what I'd still consider to be this anime's most memorable moments took place in the first half, the slow burn (which felt slower still thanks to all of its Olympics-related delays) of the second half's story has delivered a much more striking and cohesive drama overall.

I think that the aforementioned slow burn is a big part of why I've felt more invested in the second half of YATAGARASU's story overall. In the first half, we learned more about this show's world as it relates to the protagonists, but now that we're learning more about the world around them, it really helps to put everything that we learned in the first half into context. All in all, it makes it much easier to get immersed in the story, and it's easily been one of the season's highlights for me. It's been said millions of times here, but it is shocking that not more people are watching this show. But so far, anecdotally, everyone I know who's seen this show has fallen in love with it—myself included.

Jairus Taylor

Best: Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction

“What if aliens invaded Earth and people…just mostly kept on as usual?” While this isn't the first story to ponder this particular question, it's definitely the one that provides the frankest answer, and that answer is pretty harrowing. The show uses this scenario as a window to delve into some of humanity's worst tendencies, from quickly othering anything we don't understand to the ways those in power can quickly throw everyone else under the bus in order to protect their own interests and, of course, our ability to willingly ignore warning signs even when everything is burning around us.

While I'm usually not into stories operating under this level of nihilism, the show manages to make this work by giving you a pair of leads you genuinely want to root for in the form of Ouran and Kadode, a couple of seemingly ordinary teenage girls who are both revealed to have quite a bit going on beneath the surface. They are surrounded by a massive ensemble of characters ranging from goofy and likable to callous and cruel while managing to make all of them come off like real people (which is further aided by some consistently rock-solid vocal performances across the entire English dub). The show does a great job of drawing you into each of their lives, and making you want to see most of them get out okay, even when you know that they're all almost certainly doomed to destruction. It's not the most uplifting story, but it is a powerful one. It's not just the best show of this season; it's an easy contender for the best anime of the year.

Runner Up: YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

While I've enjoyed my share of court dramas, they've never really been my particular cup of tea, so I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed this one. Its setting of a world inhabited by birds with the ability to take on human form ended up being a lot more fascinating than I expected, and the show does a great job of gradually drawing you into the mysteries surrounding it. The writing is pretty effective at giving just enough information to keep you coming back every episode and keeping a lot of its cards to its chest.

I was a little worried about how well the show would be able to keep that going when the story shifted from a battle for the throne to crime rings involving giant killer monkeys, but it managed to maintain the same level of intrigue throughout its runtime. Not only that, but it's also managed to answer many of its mysteries in a way that slowly changes our perception of how this show's world operates. It also does a great job of continually rewarding the audience for paying attention.

The strong dynamic between the leads aids all of this, as Yukiya is a local lord's son turned court attendant whose sole desire is to stay as far away from court politics as he possibly can, while the prince he's dragged into serving tends to willing put himself on the ground floor in order to deal with problems. It's fun watching them bounce off of each other. It's not a show I expected to like this much, but it's been pretty compelling from beginning to end, and if you're in the market for palace dramas and mysteries, it's hard to do much better than this one.

Steve Jones

Best: YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

Truth be told, Yatagarasu should have been one of my picks for last season's favorites. There was tough competition then, however, and I figured I could defer awarding its laurels until its second half had finished airing. So that's what I'm doing now. Taken as a whole, this tale of imperial intrigue in a magically secluded nest of raven people is the year's finest narrative achievement to date. The characters are rich and plentiful, the plotting is twisty and sophisticated, and the momentum never lets up once it gets going. To be clear, it's a slow burn at first, but that's not a bad thing either. Some stories take their time because they have nowhere to go. A story like Yatagarasu takes its time because it knows exactly where it wants to go, and moreover, it knows precisely what sleight-of-hand tricks to use on the audience.

I will say that I find the first part (episodes 1 through 13) to be a bit stronger than the second. I think the series's complexity and ambition shined brightest when juggling the crown prince's machinations against the subtler court politics of his prospective consorts. It had everything: fight scenes in seedy criminal districts, a high-stakes melodrama about kimono weaving, 5D chess succession politics, and more. While this second part has had a narrower focus, it's been no less propulsive. The central conflict has also grown much weirder yet no less confident, and that's a great combination.

The adaptation additionally deserves specific acclaim for how strong it is. Takumo Norita's character designs are both distinct and distinctive. I swoon a little every time the show zooms in on the crown prince's purple eyelashes. Yukiko Yamamuro's episodic plotting is spectacular, leaving the audience salivating with cliffhanger after cliffhanger. And, perhaps most importantly, Yoshiaki Kyougoku's direction ties everything together into one gorgeous package. It's a shame he couldn't return for the third season of Laid-Back Camp, but I can hardly complain when his talents elevate great source material into one of this year's finest anime. It's really as simple as this: if you enjoy the art of storytelling, you owe it to yourself to watch Yatagarasu.

Runner Up: Mayonaka Punch

As an avowed fan of quirky anime about quirky vampires, Mayonaka Punch could not have been an easier sell for me. Three months ago, this was my top choice for the most anticipated show from this season. I know what I like. However, I believe Mayonaka Punch has lived up to the promise of its premise. As a comedy about aspiring YouTubers, it strikes a nice balance between its understanding of the algorithm-driven hustle and its raking of satirical claws all over that scene. To put it bluntly, it's a hilarious show, and especially so if you're familiar with the gruntwork that goes into the perpetual chase for virality. It's also surprisingly earnest. The strongest episode tells a quotidian tragedy in a beautifully straightforward manner, and on top of that, it's about yuri pining sparked by shared mixtapes. That's cinema.

For the most part, though, Mayonaka Punch dukes it out in the realm of lesbian slapstick, and it throws quite a few haymakers at that. Leading lady Masaki is refreshingly unlikable; she's literally a canceled e-celeb, and I love how the show engages with her faults and aspirations. Live the lesbian vampire is an electric bundle of gay gremlin antics, and she sports one of the best character designs of the year. The rest of the main cast are similarly eclectic and possess great chemistry with each other, both on and off camera. Mayonaka Punch is unapologetically goofy, and while not quite as ambitious as last season's Train to the End of the World, it keeps the torch of original screwball comedies shining brightly.

And just to hedge my bets, MONOGATARI Series: OFF & MONSTER Season is right up there with my two aforementioned favorites. It's incredible how the franchise keeps getting better and better. I think it will continue into next season, so I will hopefully be able to highlight it properly there (like I've done with Yatagarasu this season). But in case it doesn't, I'm mentioning it here. We NisiOisin faithful have been eating quite well.

Nicholas Dupree

Best: Mayonaka Punch

It was a hard call for a favorite, if only because so many shows this season excelled in different forms. I was severely tempted to put My Hero Academia's latest season here for how many crowd-pleasing highs it hit, but ultimately decided to highlight lower profile titles. MayoPan just ended up winning out for how well it tackles the topic of the internet better than any other show I've seen. Plenty of series can capture aspects of online life and personae, but this is the first where it's felt like they had a holistic approach to what living online is like: the structural hangups that can catch people off-guard, different ways fandoms can intermix and turn toxic, to just the ubiquity of every single person having potential access to your identity in ways you haven't even thought about, let alone consented to.

At the same time, it's so straightforward that you might miss all that among the manic characters and zany comedy. Even if you've so much as glanced at a YouTube video, the ridiculous antic of these bloodsucking doofuses has the kind of classic anime charm to hang with the best of 'em. It's got a wide range, moving from slapstick to sentimental with ease, and the cast's simple archetypes worth perfectly in harmony. The staff even went so far as to host individual mini-episodes on the official YouTube channel to show what MayoPan's own catalog of videos is like, and they're funnier than some seasons of anime. It's a show that is perfect for the moment and absolutely worth a like, share, and subscribe.

Runner Up: Senpai is an Otokonoko

Otokonoko is, ironically, a much more conventional kind of character drama, at least in its structure. It's a quiet and gentle show that, while modest in its aesthetic, excels at capturing the myriad emotions of its cast and treating them with the nuance and complexity they're due. Whether it's delicately sifting through Makoto's journey for gender identity, Ryuji outgrowing his own internalized homophobia, or finding a definition of “love” that makes sense for Saki, it's constantly trying to articulate to its cast and audience the importance of finding a way that works for you. At the same time, it emphasizes that this is a journey where the characters can screw up and hurt themselves or others, insisting on giving them the grace to make those mistakes without ever begrudging them. It's a warm, compelling, infinitely lovable story of kids growing into their true selves, and I can't recommend it enough.

Kevin Cormack

Best: Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction

Tragically ignored by the general anime-watching public, this 18-episode adaptation of renowned manga creator Inio Asano's second-longest work (after Goodnight Punpun) debuted halfway through last season with a dark, weird Episode 0 that was tonally disconnected from the main plot of the show to follow. Not only had most seasonal anime watchers already settled on their smorgasbord of seasonal shows by the time it started, but controversial subtitling issues marred it, so it struggled to retain what small audience numbers gave it a curious look.

Even without these screwups, Dead Dead Demon's is something of a hard sell. Initially released as movie duology in Japan, for international streaming it was split up into episodes with an all-new epilogue (which is what Episode 0 partially comprises), and other new material spliced into the main body of the story. Asano is renowned for his cynical worldview, reflected in his manga, which is filled with dark and difficult subject matter. While Dead Dead Demon's may arguably be his most mainstream-adjacent work, it still exudes a deep cynicism about selfish human nature, plus the role of the government and military in normalizing atrocity.

Dead Dead Demon's is certainly not a “feelgood” anime, especially in its second half as events tumble out of control and almost every episode features at least one “holy shit” moment of brutal violence, senseless murder, or individual rights violation. I preferred watching this as part of a Friday evening concentrated misery double-bill with NieR:Automata Ver 1.1a because how better to end a busy work week than with profound existential despair? I realise I'm probably not selling the experience, but there's nothing to say that all anime, nor indeed all art, necessarily be “fun” or “comforting”. Asano's skilled eye for capturing convincing human frailty through his large cast of flawed, often ugly, but somehow lovable characters drives the viewer's primal need to know what happens next.

Asano's central duo, Ouran and Kadode, start as typical little kids but grow up in the literal shadow of uncertainty as a massive, silent, alien spacecraft hovers indifferently over their home. That they're forced to enter adolescence and then eventually early adulthood in a fractured society teetering on the brink of collapse leads them to compartmentalize – they try to live their average, unremarkable, messy human lives while doing their best to remain unaffected by the escalating madness that pervades the backdrop of their world. The brutal tonal disconnect between the girls' seemingly unimportant, banal lives and the increasingly desperate struggle between various confused, violent factions makes for a show that's disturbingly compelling. We know doom is inevitable, but we take comfort in the friendships between the characters and hope that – somehow – everything will turn out okay for them. Kadode and Ouran, and their weird little group of friends, will remain long in my memory as some of the most well-realized, complex, relatable, sometimes even hateful, characters in the history of anime. Although I appreciate the little rays of hope and positivity Asano sprinkles throughout the series like sugar frosting on a radioactive apocalypse cake, I think it was better for this to be released as episodes. I can't imagine how bingeing this whole thing as two movies would have traumatized my mental health.

Runner Up: YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

Although only seven episodes of this incredibly detailed and compelling pseudo-historical fantasy drama streamed this season, I only caught up on Yatagarasu's twenty episodes total via an almighty binge over the past couple of weeks. What a fantastic, intricate, and mysterious story filled with fascinating characters in a beautifully realized world. If you liked The Apothecary Diaries, do yourself a favor and watch Yatagarasu.

Caitlin Moore

Best: Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!

Don't worry, girls of Makeine! You're all winners in my heart! This was a seasonal dark horse for me, a series I had barely considered watching when putting together the list of shows I anticipated for the season. Yet somehow, it has wormed its way into my heart enough to beat out the ones I had been looking forward to for months. It had a bit of a rough start, and I nearly dropped it after the scene with Nukumizu and Lemon in the PE shed.

What can I say, other than that I love mess? And if you want mess, look no further than Anna Yanami, the alpha heroine loser among losers. She's self-centered and short-sighted, kind when it counts, but otherwise, she is far too focused on her needs and thoughts to be considerate. Nukumizu may be the main character, but Anna shoves him bodily out of the way in terms of compelling protagonists. She's trying to work through her shit while constantly haunted by hints at how the relationship between her best friend and her childhood crush has been progressing, and you know those two are doing the horizontal tango by the series midpoint. She's just like me fr fr, with copious quantities of blue hair included.

It's not just Anna that makes the series, of course. The ensemble chemistry of the cast of teenagers fumbling through heartbreak is off the charts. With a scintillating script, detailed character acting, and a razor-sharp sense of humor, any combination of the primary and secondary cast is guaranteed to be entertaining. I laughed out loud at least once an episode, often from surprise at new dynamics that come out with different character groupings. In shows about one male character who helps a passel of girls, usually the boy is the least engaging of the lot, but I found myself getting attached to Nukumizu and how he's grown in his ability to not just develop friendships, but understand that yes, people do like him and consider him their friend! It's just so gosh-darn heartwarming.

Runner Up: The Elusive Samurai

Tokiyuki is such a sweet kid, I think I'd adore him even if The Elusive Samurai were a total mess. He's a child who really acts like a child, combining his grief and anger at his family being taken from him with curiosity and playfulness. His talent for evading rather than punching really hard or swinging a sword – two things he's decidedly not good at – is an unusual twist on the typical battle shonen formula, especially when we've had loads of nice protagonists in the last decade. Even the heat of battle, squared up against some of the scariest adults Kamakura-era Japan has to offer, is like play to him, and what is more joyful to witness than play? Add to that an ensemble of similarly determined, playful, grieving children, and you have a real winning cast.

It's a stunning show overall, and I hope it's representative of a trend of studios being willing to step away from shot-for-panel remakes of the manga and more toward some real direction. It takes savvy camera work and storyboarding to make Tokiyuki's abscondences work in motion, and The Elusive Samurai turns them into some of the tightest, most kinetic action sequences of the season. Well, when it's hand-drawn, that is. The 3D CG animation is quite ugly and stiff compared to the two-dimensional stuff, which is spectacular to almost make up for it.

James Beckett

Best: Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction

If I think too hard about how underseen and underappreciated Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction seems to be this season, I will be consumed with a potent mix of fury and despair. At the same time, I'm not surprised that D^8 is getting slept on so hard because that tends to happen to weird, introspective, difficult-to-categorize passion projects like this one. The same thing happened to the original NieR game before its remake and the better-than-the-original Blade Runner 2049, not to mention the all-time great anime masterpiece that is Heybot!. Eventually, though, people will realize the masterpieces they let pass them by, and we OG fans will be able to sit high atop our perch of Good Taste Having and laugh at the poor fools for being so behind the times.

Make no mistake, too: Dead Dead Demons &Etc. is a full-blown masterpiece. I was not familiar with author Inio Asano's original manga, but I have been consistently floored by the work that director Tomoyuki Kurokawa, screenwriter Reiko Yoshida, and the crew at Production +h. have done in capturing the melancholy, darkly funny, and deeply strange apocalypse that the characters of this story find themselves wrapped up in. Kadode and Ouran are two of the most well-realized young women I've encountered in a work of recent science fiction, but the anime hardly ever misses a beat with any of its characters, regardless of how significant they are to the world-ending stakes of the big-picture plot.

Like Madoka Magica before it, Dead Dead Demon's has managed to use the trappings of genre fiction and anime tropes as a framework for a painfully human story about coping with the usual (and unusual) traumas of growing up in a world that can throw the weirdest goddamned shit at you on a day to day basis and then ask you to pretend that you can go on with life like everything is normal. The best art functions as both a mirror and a portal, a vessel through which you can see your own reflection even as you are experiencing the world through the voice and perspective of a person completely unlike yourself. Dead Dead Demon's has accomplished that feat over and over again throughout its run without so much as breaking a sweat. It's one of the easiest picks I've had for the best anime of the season in a long time…

The Other Best Anime of Summer 2024: YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

…except for the fact that Yatagarasu is so unspeakably good that I spent literal hours trying to decide whether it or Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction would get my number one spot for the season. In the end, I decided to go rogue and decide that I wouldn't even try to choose a favorite among these two. They're both the best anime of the summer season and if you want to fight me about it, I'd be happy to introduce you to my good friend, the Common Raven. He's smart as hell, he can hold a grudge for a lifetime, and he will teach his friends and family to peck out your eyes on sight for daring to besmirch the good name of the one anime that finally gets Shitty Bird-Person representation right.

In all seriousness, though, ask anyone who has followed me on social media, checked out the ANN Aftershow podcast, or had the misfortune of being trapped in close proximity to me while waiting in line at the grocery store or DMV: I am physically incapable of shutting up about how much I love Yatagarasu (aka Bird Show, if you're in the know). Is Dead Dead Demon's the more sophisticated, thematically complex, and viscerally emotional anime between the series? Sure, why not? But Yatagarasu has a Slutty Bird Prince with an adorable and endlessly put-upon Good Boy Bird Assistant who goes around solving mysteries of Bird Palace Intrigue, Bird Murder Schemes, and Bird Whatever-You-Call-Getting-Drugged-And-Devoured-By-A-Race-Of-Abominable-Underground-Monsters. It's like if Sherlock Holmes was written by a badass Japanese woman instead of a weird British coward who was too afraid to make his protagonist into a sexy raven bishōnen. Thankfully, as proof that there can indeed be justice in this cruel world, we got a 20-episode anime that married all of that sweet, sweet Toxic Bird-Person Drama with impeccable world-building, expert pacing, and a whole lot of gorgeous period-fantasy set and costume design. Watch Yatagarasu right now, or else I will forever blame you, the person reading this article, if we are denied a second season of this wonderful anime.

MrAJCosplay

Best: Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!

I'm a fan of simple, character-driven stories. I don't need an overly complicated setting or a bunch of interpersonal politics. Just give me a room of likable characters bouncing off of each other, and I could write a whole thesis paper. The characters in Makeine represent different reliable facets of humanity using a rather interesting premise for a slice-of-life series. What happens to those childhood friends that don't win the guy over? At first, I thought this was going to be a big meta-gag series where we slowly see a bunch of failed heroines lose their minds over their predictable failed romances. While it starts out like that, the series eventually evolves into a thoughtful character piece about coming to terms with changed feelings, the loss of relationships, the listlessness of adolescence, and what it means to truly be a friend. If anything, I am shocked that a show so heavily focused on romance ended up being a thoughtful introspection on friendship itself.

Much of this centers on the main character Kazuhiko, who starts as a cowardly wallflower who shows more excitement in drinking water from the particular fountain at a specific time of day. He is forced to hear about what all of these other girls are going through, and he gets dragged into situations. He does step up as a main character throughout the series. He learns to listen when necessary, offers advice when needed, and knows when to step back so that the girls themselves can process the complicated feelings they are experiencing. In a typical romantic comedy, we never really focus on the people who get dumped or the relationships that change during adolescence.

It is a complex and impressionable time for people, and Makeine treats failure with a sense of respect that I don't think a lot of other anime series do. It also helps that the series is gorgeous, with spectacular directing, spot-on comedy, and subtle moments of character acting. I love all these goofballs and am very proud of their progress at the end. You know what they say: there's more to learn from failure than success.

Runner Up: Oshi no Ko Season 2

I am so glad I watched the first season of Oshi no Ko after the hype died down because removing myself from the online discussions allowed me to really appreciate the kind of unique story that it was. The show has supernatural elements that act as the foundation for its central conceit, with two characters getting reincarnated as the twin children of the idol that they valued so deeply in their past lives. I never thought the show would go in the direction of a murder mystery, yet by the time the show had revealed its hand, I was hooked. The juicy drama, the dark character introspection, and the peek behind the curtain at the terrible underbelly of the entertainment industry all had my eyes glued to my screen.

Season two picks up right from where season one left off, but it's even better, in my opinion. The sharp, witty characters and the tight writing are all still there now, with the premise of a specific production being used to drive the story. We are accompanied by some spectacular animation and storyboarding that elevates the material to new heights. Season two seems to be about blurring the line between what happens on stage and behind the scenes. We get more insight into the production from an actor's perspective, we have tensions building between characters as they try to sort out their feelings about present situations, and we get literal splashes of color that wash away the lines between fiction and reality. Season two continues to solidify Oshi no Ko as probably one of my favorite shows of the past two years, and I really hope that future installments don't ruin that incredibly positive impression in any way.

Lynzee Loveridge

Best: YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

I almost always contribute last to these features for timing reasons (this job keeps me pretty busy) and content (do I have anything to say that wasn't already said?). In the latter case, I'm going to take a different angle regarding Yatagarasu, one of my favorite shows so far this year. I was immensely surprised at the number of editorial critics that included Yatagarasu in their picks because, as some of them mentioned, I've seen very little online discussion about the series even though I've been yelling about it on a podcast for close to half of a year.

What makes Yatagarasu work so well and likely what shot it to the top of a lot of critics' watchlists is the impeccable writing. Yatagarasu pulls off what a lot of animes aim for but fail to succeed at. Its world-building and character interactions are honed down to pure, lean storytelling. There is never a moment wasted in the entirety of the show; every exchange or piece of historical context is important, but Yatagarasu never weighs its audience down with long-winded info-dumps or over-complicated magic systems. Information is parceled at an expertly digestible pace, keeping it from being overwhelming to track the pieces in play.

Yatagarasu's drama usually adheres to "fair-play" rules, something I've sorely missed from other mystery-flavored anime where it's difficult to form a coherent theory while watching, but the mastermind detective is able to figure it out because they have information that isn't shared with the audience or can deduce three steps down the line because they're supernaturally gifted in some way. I find those sorts of mysteries unsatisfying, and usually, the writing feels contrived, like the author just made something up at the end to make the pieces make sense. Yatagarasu doesn't do that, but it also isn't so easy that you'll have it all figured out hours before the denouement. It's the most engaging anime I've watched in months, and I can't recommend it enough.

Runner-Up: Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction

Can someone let me ask Inio Asano how he writes girls so well? Dead Dead Demon's could take the award for best of the year for multiple reasons. It has a distinct (see Asano's other work) worldview, is tightly paced, has one of the best-written character relationships this season, and also looks fantastic from beginning to end. It's deeply cynical about humanity and politics, but I want to make sure readers know that the cynicism doesn't extend to its primary cast. The girls are quirky, but not in an "anime" way, and it's their interactions with one another that keep Dead Dead Demon's from veering into something joyless.

James and I have talked at length on the podcast about how the show captures a specific post-disaster feeling, the kind of disaster that completely upends one's adolescence and perception of the world. The intensity might be too much for some, but I've enjoyed my entire journey with Dead Dead Demon's.