Animes worth watching before you die: a personal list of overlooked gems

I have watched a lot of anime over the years, and every so often a series sneaks up on me and refuses to leave. This list is built from those. They are not the most famous, and they are not all my favorites. They are titles I keep coming back to in conversation, and they all have one thing in common: a story that earns its ending. If you are looking for something a little different from the usual top-ten, you are in the right place.

I have left out the obvious ones on purpose. You already know One Piece, Naruto and Dragon Ball. This list leans into the series that get less attention outside Japan: clever thrillers, slow-burn dramas, and a couple of comedies that hit harder than they should. Call it my personal list, because it is.

Steins;Gate

One of the cleverest anime I have ever watched. It mixes time travel, deadpan comedy, real suspense and a cast of characters you actually care about. Set in 2010 in Akihabara, it follows a group of friends who accidentally turn a microwave into a device that sends text messages to the past. The leader of the group, Okabe Rintarou, ends up tangled with an organization called SERN while trying to protect his friends and, eventually, the future of humanity.

I will not spoil any of the turns, but stick with it through Episode 13 even if the first stretch feels slow. The first half is setup, and it pays off enormously. By the time the final episode lands, the show has a real shot at cracking your all-time list.

Code Geass

A famous one, but famous for a reason. Packed with action and suspense, and the kind of plot that keeps you clicking next episode at 3 a.m. I burned through all 50 episodes in two days, and it walked straight onto my favorites list.

Yes, the animation style divides people, and yes, there is some mecha. None of that matters once the story gets going.

The premise: a super-intelligent young man named Lelouch, unhappy with the world he lives in (Japan is occupied by an empire called Britannia), ends up with the power to give any person one absolute command. He uses it to start a one-man war against Britannia, and the result is one of the most spectacular political thrillers in the medium.

Detective Conan

In Japan, Detective Conan has been a long-running institution for decades, regularly appearing in the top weekly rankings alongside One Piece. In the West it flies under the radar, which is a shame.

It looks old, sometimes clichéd, and on the surface it can read as a kids' show. It is none of those things. I have watched well over 700 episodes and all 20+ movies with my family, and I am still finding new cases that surprise me.

Think of it as a procedural in the spirit of CSI. The main character, Edogawa Conan, is a child on the outside, but he is actually the teenager Kudo Shinichi, shrunk by a drug forced on him by a criminal syndicate. He lives under a false identity and solves cases all over Japan with the help of his uncle, the bumbling private detective Mouri.

Oreimo

Based on a light novel series and running for two seasons, this one sounds stranger on paper than it plays on screen.

The setup: Kyousuke Kousaka is an ordinary high schooler who has a tense relationship with his younger sister. One day he discovers that his sister is an otaku with a serious eroge habit, and from there the two drift into each other's lives in a way neither expected. Friendships, misunderstandings and a lot of awkward late-night conversations follow.

Despite the premise, the show is not ecchi. It plays as a comedy with a surprisingly emotional center.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

One of the best anime I have ever seen. Ignore the dated character designs and the premise that sounds like every other giant-robot show, because this one breaks every cliché it touches. The fights are absolutely unrealistic, and the story has a habit of making grown adults cry at 2 a.m. without warning.

Twenty-five episodes. Simon is a boy who has lived his whole life underground. His older friend Kamina dreams of the surface and pulls Simon into the sun with him. They stumble into a war with giant robots, and what starts as a simple adventure turns into one of the most sincere pieces of storytelling in the genre.

Uchuu Kyoudai (Space Brothers)

Big in Japan, easy to miss in the West. It is not the most popular anime in the West, but it deserves a wider audience.

The premise is grounded and quietly addictive. Mutta is an adult man who has just lost his job, and on a whim he applies to become an astronaut. From there the show becomes a character study about second chances, sibling rivalry and the unglamorous work of actually getting to space. You will laugh at it. You will also, with no warning, find yourself welling up at a scene about a training exercise.

Clannad

A comedy, a romance, and a quiet little engine of life lessons that will absolutely steal a few hours of sleep from you. Adapted from a visual novel, the anime centers on the main heroine, Nagisa.

The show has two seasons, Clannad and Clannad After Story. The story begins when Tomoya runs into Nagisa Furukawa, a soft-spoken girl a year ahead of him who had to repeat a year after a long illness. Her dream is to revive the school's drama club, and with nothing better to do, Tomoya decides to help. Along the way he meets several other girls, gets drawn into their problems, and slowly starts to grow up. What happens after that is the reason the show has the reputation it does.

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun

Looks simple, hits harder than expected. Two seasons in, plus the Index parent series it spun off from. Railgun takes place in Academy City, a city-state where 80 percent of the population are students, technology runs ahead of the rest of the world, and the curriculum is psychic powers. The show follows Misaka Mikoto, a level 5 esper, the highest rank in the city.

Kiseijuu (Parasyte)

It first aired in 2014, based on a manga from the late 1980s and 1990s. The premise: Izumi Shinichi is an ordinary high schooler until a parasite tries to take over his brain. It only manages to seize his right hand, so the two are stuck coexisting. From there, the show becomes a tense, often gory story about a teenager learning to live with something inhuman inside him while the rest of the country is being hunted by parasites disguised as humans.

The show is seinen, aimed at an adult audience, and it has one of the most interesting protagonist dynamics in the genre.

Nana

A mature shoujo anime with a realistic streak. At its core it is a friendship story between two young women who happen to share the same first name, both of them stumbling through romances, jobs and bad decisions in Tokyo. The official synopsis:

Komatsu Nana moves to Tokyo to follow her boyfriend Shouji and chase the life she has always wanted. On the train she meets Nana Osaki, the vocalist of a punk rock band called Blast, who is also heading to Tokyo to make it as a musician. The two of them end up sharing an apartment, and the rest of the show is what happens when those two very different dreams collide.

Honorable Mentions

I could have doubled this list without breaking a sweat. To keep it from running away, here are ten more anime worth your time, in no particular order. None of them have a write-up above, but every one of them is a solid bet for a weekend.

• Zero no Tsukaima
• Toradora
• Fullmetal Alchemist
• Bakuman
• Tokyo Magnitude 8.0
• Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu
• Seto no Hanayome
• Kokoro Connect
• I's Pure
• Golden Time

If you watched something on this list and want to argue with me about whether it belongs there, that is half the point. Drop a comment with your own pick, and tell me why I am wrong about it.