Even though we’re only six months into the year, there have already been plenty of standout anime series worth devoting our utmost attention to. From stylish revivals of past series to original works paying homage to daily life and cute animals, there’s been something for everyone scattered throughout each season, albeit among the usual deluge of other properties that litter each release schedule. Of these many series though, these 10 anime stand as the best of the best and should be seen as soon as possible by most any discerning anime fan.
Devilman Crybaby
Best Anime From the First Half of 2018
Set in a world where demons hide just beneath the surface, protagonist Akira Fudo finds himself pulled into the darkness of their world by his old friend Ryo Asuka and becomes possessed by the devil Amon, granting him demonic powers while still maintaining his humanity. Eager to restore peace to his life, he and Ryo join forces to eliminate as many evil demons as they can before chaos takes hold of the people around them.
Violent, explicit and downright gorgeous, the latest revival of Devilman on Netflix was an early hit from 2018 that struck a chord with old and new fans alike. And for good reason: Helmed by the visionary director Masaaki Yuasa and boasting his trademark over-the-top animation style, the show perfectly blends the original content of the classic series with a modern affinity for gore, sex and aesthetic style. It’s something that’s hard to find an equivalent of in today’s anime landscape, and if you’re looking for something that’ll leave an impression, there’s no better option than this.
Megalo Box
Best Anime From the First Half of 2018
Made as part of a 50th-anniversary celebration project for the legendary anime Ashita no Joe, Megalo Box takes the framework of a typical sports anime and drops it into a cyberpunk, ’90s anime setting. The series follows Joe, a no-name underground fighter as he tries to claw his way to the top of the world’s premiere combat sport: Megalo Boxing, a twist on the classic competition where competitors augment their bodies (and their punches) with steam and electric-powered equipment known as gear. There’s one catch though; Joe doesn’t use any gear at all, taking on opponents with only his bare hands and willpower.
Heartfelt and wearing its influences on its sleeve, Megalo Box is as compact and honed a way as any to see what makes the Shonen sports genre as popular as it is across the world. Plus, as the directorial debut of Yō Moriyama, it’s a precursor of what could be some great works to come.
A Place Further Than the Universe
Best Anime From the First Half of 2018
By all accounts, this show appeared to be just another scenario for a bunch of Moe girls to act cute in, this time while on an Antarctic exhibition. 13 episodes later, however, it has proven itself a standard not only for its genre, but for any anime which tries to tell a compelling story.
Starting off as a fun and bubbly story of newfound friends going on an adventure together before growing into a profound tale of loss, acceptance and perseverance, the series finds a way to draw you in and open you up to all of the emotions and sentiment contained within each character’s story arc. It would honestly be a disservice to spoil any of the series’ phenomenal story, so please, go watch this show as soon as possible. You won’t regret it.
Aggretsuko
Best Anime From the First Half of 2018
Aggretsuko is not the kind of series you’d expect to come from Sanrio, the creators of the worldwide sensation (and decidedly wholesome) Hello Kitty. Starring a worn down office worker and metal-loving red panda named Retsuko, the series spends most of its time showing her misadventures in trying and failing to escape the soul-crushing existence of her work life. Whether that means going headlong into a fruitless business venture with her deadbeat friend or getting into a relationship with a guy who makes houseplants seem interesting.
And yet, beneath the nihilistic takes on modern life, the series manages to shine a light on the different struggles even the most vile of people go through on a daily basis. Before you know it, you’ll come to care about the strange cast of characters around Retsuko just as much as you care about her, and you might even find some silver linings in the boring lives they all have to live.
Hinamatsuri
Best Anime From the First Half of 2018
One night, an aspiring yakuza named Yoshifumi Niita finds that a mysterious girl, Hina, has magically teleported her way into his living room, decimating his prized antique vases in the process. While he tries to get rid of her at first, he soon finds himself acting as her stand-in father to make sure she doesn’t cause any more havoc with her powers, and must do his best to juggle his new-found parental responsibilities with his life of crime and excess.
A laugh-out-loud comedy on par with the likes of Gintama, this series revels in subverting viewers’ expectations to the utmost. Where you think there’ll be a heart-warming revelation of spending more time with one’s child, instead there’s a montage of a father bringing a 12-year-old to hostess and strip clubs. Think everyone will learn something about the value of money? Not when a parental figure espouses the benefits of gambling they won’t! And yet, after all of the insanity is done, there’s plenty of moments to make you feel for the main cast in a way few other shows can, and in only 12 episodes no less.
Violet Evergarden
Best Anime From the First Half of 2018
What does it mean to be human, and what does it mean to love?
These are questions that Violet Evergarden seeks to answer, and the journey toward their solutions is one of the most beautiful in all anime. Centered on the titular Violet Evergarden, a war veteran who lost both her arms and the closest thing she ever had to a parent in a recent war, the story follows her adventures across the world as a ghostwriter of letters for a variety of clients.
As a result of her training for the war though, she is closed off from her emotions and unable to connect with others, isolating her from the world in a way that she desperately wants to fix. To that end, she does her best to learn from each new letter she must write, whether that means aiding siblings in coming to terms with the loss of their parents or helping an old man cope with the loss of his daughter. Beautiful, thought-provoking and altogether unforgettable, this is a series that shouldn’t be seen in its entirety as soon as possible.
Golden Kamuy
Best Anime From the First Half of 2018
Golden Kamuy is a strange show. Set in the early twentieth century following the Russo-Japanese war, it starts off as a quest to gather the pieces of a map to a stash of untold amounts of gold; enough to fund an expensive surgery, finance an army or even establish a new country with ease. Sight Sugimoto, a war veteran with a penchant for surviving the impossible, finds himself drawn into this conflict alongside Asirpa, an Ainu hunter searching for the truth of what happened to her father after he discovered this treasure trove.
Along the way, though, things go off the rails in some insane – and highly entertaining – ways. One episode might see them saving a friend from a legendary river fish as big as a Great White Shark; the next, they’ll be trying to find their way out of a murder hotel out of Scooby Doo; and the next, they’ll be matching wits with a legendary hunter on the lookout for the last wolf in Japan. Brimming with variety and always keeping viewers on their toes, it’s one of the most original shows to appear in a while, and one that more than deserves the second season set to release later this year.
FLCL Progressive
Best Anime From the First Half of 2018
Anyone who saw FLCL back when it first aired can tell you how crazy it is that the show received a followup in any form, but they’ll also tell you how great the new iteration in the series has been. Set several years after the events of the first series, the story picks up from the perspective of Hidomi, a teenage girl who believes nothing interesting will ever happen in her life. Shortly after, she discovers that her new teacher, the guitar-wielding Haruko, is locked in battle with other worldly entities that threaten the docile peace of her hometown, and that something locked inside her may be the only way to take them down.
Still as off-the-walls insane as its predecessor, this series bleeds originality and chaos by the buckets-full and is about as “anime” as any series can get. Don’t sleep on this series if you have the chance.
After the Rain
Best Anime From the First Half of 2018
Akira Tachibana is a high school student searching for purpose and a meaning to her life after she injures her leg and has to quit track and field, the one thing she’s always defined herself through. To that end, she begins working at a restaurant and meets Masami Kondo, a former writer and her manager. Much to his dismay, she quickly finds herself attracted to him and seeks to resolve her affections, but what each finds out of this crush has much deeper implications for who they were and who they’ll be.
It’s worth stating outright that no, this isn’t a series with an age-gap couple or anything that’s overtly sexualized. Instead, it’s a thoughtful look at what it means to be young, the feelings we feel at that time and the importance of holding on to the best parts of that even as we move on into bigger and better parts of our life. It’s about letting go of what we think is crucial to our lives to make room for what comes next, and it’s easily something that most anyone can find meaning and empathy in.
My Hero Academia (Season 3)
Best Anime From the First Half of 2018
The third season of the up-and-coming Shonen hit has been the talk of the anime fandom, and for good reason. Whereas the first two seasons felt like stepping stones to bigger and better things for protagonist Izuku Midoriya and his friends, this season has been decidedly cataclysmic in its implications, moving the series forward by major leaps and bounds. Of course, that also means there’s been plenty of everything that makes the series great, whether that means city-leveling confrontations between heroes and villains or epic moments of overcoming the odds by everyone’s favorite green-haired try hard. There are still twelve more episodes to go until the series’ next break, but what’s already been shown is more than enough to make this show worth keeping up with and joining in on its hype train.
What have some of your favorite shows been from this year? Let us know in the comments below, and be sure to check out some of our other anime features such as the top 10 rivalries in anime and our take on why it’s OK that Attack on Titan won’t be the biggest Shonen show of this season.
About the author
