50 Anime Favorites: What Japanese Fans Voted For

Lists of the best anime often look comforting because their first few names are so familiar. Then a list like this arrives, puts Tiger & Bunny above everything else, and reminds us that an audience can love a completely different set of shows without being wrong.

This is not a final verdict on anime history. It is a snapshot of a particular Japanese fan vote from 2017, and that is exactly what makes it worth reading. The surprises tell us as much as the obvious classics do.

What this list measures

The results come from NHK's Best Anime 100, part of its Nippon Anime 100 project. The online vote ran from January 8 to March 31, 2017 and covered nearly 10,000 anime entries from across the medium's history.

That context matters. A fan poll is not a measurement of television audience, sales, critical consensus, or a timeless scorecard. It records what the participating voters wanted to celebrate at that moment. Sequels, films, and separate seasons appear as separate entries because that is how the ballot results were published.

The first 50 entries in NHK's Best Anime 100

Why the result still feels surprising

The first six places are a useful warning against treating any one list as a universal canon. Tiger & Bunny occupies three of them, while Love Live! appears three times in the top ten. Both franchises had devoted Japanese audiences, and the ballot preserved that enthusiasm instead of flattening it into a small collection of internationally familiar titles.

The rest of the table moves easily between eras and forms. Mobile Suit Gundam, Space Battleship Yamato, and Future Boy Conan sit beside newer series such as Haikyu!!, Psycho-Pass, and Joker Game. Films and follow-up seasons also remain visible, which gives the list a different rhythm from rankings that allow only one entry per franchise.

How to read a fan-voted anime list

The most rewarding way to use a list like this is as a route into tastes you may not share yet. A title's place does not prove that it will be your favorite, but it can point toward a genre, generation, or fan community that made it matter. If you know only the familiar names, try one of the older works or a franchise that looks out of place beside your usual picks.

That is the charm of a historical vote: it keeps the arguments alive. A single table can put giant robots, school idols, magical girls, space opera, sports drama, and a quiet club anime in the same conversation—and none of them has to win forever.