The 10 Best Anime In 2022
The 10 Best Anime In 2022
Over the past few years, anime has quickly grown in popularity from being the most specialized of specialized genres. Weeb Paste staff members, editors, and writers voted on the list below, and our top two choices definitely speak to that. On the one hand, you have an eagerly awaited series that diehard fans have been anticipating and devouring week by week, yet it isn’t the most approachable (necessarily) for those wishing to dip a toe into anime. As a result, a kinder show that is not only adored by regular anime fans but also a simple entry point for those looking to start their anime journey, took the very top spot in our poll by a wide margin. In any case, it simply makes us happy watching it.
But the list that follows is interwoven with the tale of anime in 2022. Both Hulu and Netflix are hosting more anime series in addition to commissioning them, a trend that was previously limited to streaming services like Funimation (RIP) and Crunchyroll. In the past, it has been a divisive style that has had some difficulty gaining traction, but now that there is more of it than ever before and it is easier to access, even average people are beginning to take an interest in it. Shock!!
10. Birdie Wing Golf Girls’ Story
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Although a golf-themed anime may not sound all that interesting, let me assure you that Birdie Wing Golf Girls’ Story is incredible. Eve is a golf shark who makes a living playing illegal golf games. She plays golf in a straightforward manner, pushing herself through the course. Even though she doesn’t play professionally, she lacks an older counterpart. The greatest hurdle for Eve will come when she encounters the prodigy Aoi Amawashi, whose mastery of the game of golf. Eve is involved in the mafia in addition to her rivalry with Aoi, and in the world of Birdie Wing, disputes are handled on the golf course. Many of the players portrayed have unique skills, such as lightning shots or pheromones that confound players, this is not your average round of golf. Birdie Wing isn’t concerned in teaching you the difference between an eagle and a birdie; it’s rather interested in showing you an extreme version of golf. Birdie Wing excels at this total rubbish.
9. My Dress-Up Darling
Wakana Gojo is keen to carry on his grandfather’s legacy of handcrafting exquisite hina dolls. However, his strange passion has made him an outcast among his classmates. Gojo is convinced to assist Marin Kitagawa with her passion of cosplaying as her favorite characters after a fortuitous encounter. The costume designs are of popular characters from Kitagawa’s eroge games, which means they are far more risqué than Gojo is used to. This frequently results in uncomfortable circumstances between the two young people. My Little Dress-Up Darling has its share of gratuitous fanservice, but the heart of the story—two people who fall in love while pursuing hobbies they enjoy—is so genuine that even audiences who don’t like T&A can appreciate it.
8. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 6: Stone Ocean
The next installment in the legendary action story, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean, is as deliciously insane as ever. This time, we follow Jolyne, a young lady imprisoned for a crime she did not commit, as she attempts to pull out a jailbreak while also saving her father’s life. In many respects, it delivers on what we’ve come to expect from this series, with elaborate confrontations between dramatically posturing supermodels wielding confusing abilities and being named after well-known musical acts. Their head-scratching heroics remain as vivid as ever, and despite some obvious drops in animation quality compared to earlier episodes, its difficult puzzle fights remain ludicrous and wonderfully enjoyable. Where else can you see ghostly creatures fighting zombie alligators, meteorite-wielding jail guards, and optic illusion-manipulating babies? For a reason, JoJo is one of the most frequently quoted works in all of anime and manga; its extravagant style and eccentricities are archetypal camp.
Furthermore, one of this installment’s strongest points is its heroine, who is perhaps the best protagonist the franchise has seen thus far. Her drive to save her father in the face of insurmountable odds, as well as her exceptional skill to punch people in the face, make her impossible not to cheer for. While it is primarily simply outrageous fun, it still manages to express that few things are scarier than the American criminal justice system (and also the state of Florida).
7. Mob Psycho 100 III
Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama is an undeniably gifted psychic. Unfortunately, that’s about all he has going on in terms of talents. Mob Psycho 100 is a trippy combination of coming-of-age cliches and Ghost Adventures, featuring Mob and his false mentor Reigen as they tackle otherworldly problems in Seasoning City. The animation, by Bones (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, My Hero Academia), maintains film-quality action moments and a hallucinogenic, technicolor look throughout, but what really sets it apart is its apparently forgotten hero. Mob begins as an ordinary young man who simply wishes to be normal. His determination to enjoy every day to the fullest is contagious, and by the conclusion, he’s amassed a large group of confidants and associates. Mob Psycho 100’s wackiness will draw you in, but its moments of emotional clarity will have you going back for more.
6. Made in Abyss: The Golden City of the Scorching Sun
“Longing seizes individuals more forcefully and deeply than poison or sickness. Once it has you, there is no getting out… A life without yearning is more dreadful to explorers than death itself.”
These lines, which reveal the actual nature of the adventurer, are taken from Episode 12 of the anime Made in Abyss. Those who desire to explore the unknown, experience the unseen, and disclose the invisible are driven by an insatiable need. It is true of heroic epics dating back to Homer’s Odyssey, and it is also true of Made in Abyss by Akihito Tsukushi.
Any good exploration yarn will succeed in creating a mysterious world into which the viewer, like the hero, is drawn. Made in Abyss creates a world that leaves an immediate impression. Despite what the charming character designs would lead you to believe, the anime thoroughly deserves its TV-MA rating. Made in Abyss does not shy away from the scary landscapes and periods of insanity that one would anticipate from a Lovecraft novel. The realm of the Abyss is brutal to our characters, pushing them to make impossible decisions and putting them in continual peril. Learning the mysteries of the Abyss and putting together the fragmented information is costly.
Simply simply, Made in Abyss is a program you should see. Nothing like it exists in anime. It’s an engrossing journey into the unknown that delivers emotional gut punches with pinpoint accuracy.
5. Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury
As a newcomer to the Gundam franchise, I was taken aback by how much the newest installment blew me away. While I’m a sucker for stories involving big robots in general, what’s made the program so successful so far is its ability to balance political intrigue and coming-of-age school drama. We follow Suletta Mercury, a 17-year-old transfer student who ends up at a corporate elite academy. Social influence and corporate assets are gambled in duels waged with mobile suits, war and industrial robots. Much of the series’ appeal stems from its protagonist, Suletta, a loving nerd whose lack of social skills is more than compensated for by her benevolence, fearlessness, and skill in kicking the heck out of privileged kids while piloting her Gundam Aerial. After becoming betrothed to Miorine, the daughter of the guy who runs a business that practically rules the galaxy, the two team together to battle this formidable force.
So far, it has created a well-rendered world in which labor is abused by callous militaristic corporations, executives plot to murder each other, and tensions simmer between those who live in poverty on Earth and those who colonized the stars. Its center ensemble is fantastic, full of personalities ready to perhaps challenge the present bleak status quo as Suletta accumulates an increasing number of followers by mistake. Based on the length of previous Gundam programs, it will most certainly continue for another 39 episodes next year, but if it can maintain its balance of capitalist criticisms, LGBT romance, and spectacular mecha duels, it will be one to remember.
4. Ranking of Kings
Have you ever seen a protagonist that is so real that it improves the entire story? That is King Ranking. The story revolves around Bojji, a deaf child prince. As he is tormented by his half-brother and humiliated by his subjects, he specializes at defense tactics rather than offensive, and his innocence makes many around him skeptical of his future ascension. Following the death of Bojji’s father, King Bosse, the court resolves to crown Bojji’s younger half-brother Prince Daida instead. Bojji then determines to become a worthy king in order to claim his rightful throne, and embarks on a quest to gather experience and become stronger, but while he is gone from the country, a mysterious power seizes control.
Ranking of Kings takes situated in a pretty traditional fantasy world (in style and mood), but is beautifully illustrated in watercolor. Its stunning fighting and flowing, freeform take on fantasy channel Jacques Demy’s fanciful realms, and its endearing plot leads to a classic epic journey. Did we mention that Bojji’s most dependable buddy is Kage, a creature who appears to be a wicked black puddle but grows to adore Bojji? Ranking of Kings is unique not just because of the adventure, but also because Bojji is the best boy and is definitely worth following on his epic quest. More than that, it’s a wonderfully compassionate picture of handicap, uplifting yet also confronting in its focused portrayal of Bojji. The show uses sign language recommended by the Tokyo Federation for the Deaf, which is a significant step forward for media—we should be making these important languages more popular, and Ranking of Kings does a lot to achieve that.
3. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a blatantly infantile splatterfest that showcases Trigger’s ability to create memorable graphics that enhances basic genre rhythms through raw, exaggerated animation cuts. While this criminal caper does not deviate from the primary concerns of its series or cyberpunk in general, it manages to achieve a few emotional highs while also looking extremely nice. Perhaps most crucially, its uncontrolled violence provides heart-wrenching turns as it manipulates the destiny of its curiously appealing group. Despite all of the violence, there is a sincerity to these people’ connections that conveys a feeling of melancholy, and it’s difficult not to cheer for this gang.
The burgeoning romance between its central pair, David and Lucy, is given enough texture to feel convincing, making it clear that beneath layers of hard-boiled genre fiction, this is fundamentally a love story that deals out brutal twists with the same grandeur of emotion found in its action sequences. And, to be honest, when it goes all out, it’s difficult to look away from its creative graphics, which combine exaggerated proportions and strong color combinations to create an expanding feeling of spectacle. Edgerunners depicts Night City’s tragedy with crushing melodrama, the kind of stuff a bleary-eyed protagonist in a cyberpunk novel might see on a flickering screen at 3 a.m.
2. Chainsaw Man
Going into the autumn, it’s safe to say that MAPPA’s version of Chainsaw Man was the most anticipated program in a loaded season. As someone who recently consumed the manga (as well as practically everything else published by author Tatsuki Fujimoto) and whose mind was then filled with a chorus of revving chainsaws, I shared that borderline insane level of excitement. Thankfully, this translation has nailed the essence of Fujimoto’s work thus far, giving practically everything fans of the series and newcomers could have wished for. It’s provocative, humorous, and cruel at times, and it’s defined by flawed but usually likable individuals who live in a gloomy alternate-universe ’90s where strong demons known as devils wreak havoc.
Although the highly polished look of studio MAPPA appears to contrast with the scratchy, off-kilter sensibility of its source material, its cinematic embellishments are consistent with the author’s love with movies. More significantly, the flowing character animation helps portray that sensitivity and empathy exist on the verge of tragic tragedy in this world. When the scales tilted in Episode 8, revealing that this is a tragicomedy in which death can strike anybody at any time, MAPPA demonstrated that they had the ability to convey what makes the manga so unique. While this novel isn’t for everyone owing to its protagonist’s juvenile ambitions and a tendency for severe violence, Chainsaw Man is an entirely unique experience.
1. Spy x Family
Spy x Family is an action-comedy that has swiftly swept over the anime world, owing primarily to the endearing antics of one Anya Forger. We follow Loid Forger, an undercover spy in the Cold Conflict-era city of Berlint, who is obliged to create a “fake” family and infiltrate an enemy country’s political circles in order to prevent war. He ends up adopting Anya, an orphan with telekinetic mind-reading powers, and marries Yor, an assassin working for a rival government, at least on paper. While the premise may sound comparable to self-serious prestige TV like The Americans, Spy x Family is a (mainly) light-hearted satire of the nuclear family that is deeply funny, frequently cool, and occasionally moving.
So far, Wit Studio and Cloverworks have gone above and beyond to bring this adaptation to life, and the first season is chock-full of well-executed humor that I’m still giggling about months later. While Loid is technically the protagonist, Anya steals the show as she alternates between being a tiny goblin and a precious bean striving to assist her father in his effort to avert a war. In addition of the numerous errors, it successfully shows a misplaced family who find refuge in one another. Fortunately, the second season displays the series’ capacity to function as both a tight spy thriller and a family comedy. As long as its production does not encounter problems (which is sadly fairly regular considering the situation of labor in the anime business), it will remain a must-see television show.