Animation Revelation's Top 65 Animated Series of All Time

The selection is quite good so far. I would have put Avatar no lower than 20. The way it blends levity and great action and a large handful of excellent themes makes it a very special achievement in my view. And of course, its memorable characters help it out a lot. A whole lot of fans have different favorites for entirely justifiable reasons. If any recent action show is destined to be remembered as a classic, it's Avatar.

Avengers: EMH is a pretty gutsy listing even at 65, though it's been enjoyable so far and a fun showcase of the greater Marvel universe. I would have snuck Young Justice in too given that inclusion. It's younger but not too much so, and the quality has been consistently high. I'd call the writing easily competitive with Avengers too.

I shall also cheer Dexter. I had a good time reliving it on Boomerang a few months back.
 
For once I've seen almost all of the shows on this list. I actually liked the Powerpuff Girls. The characters were likable and funny at times and the fights were pretty good. It was always pretty fun to watch it on Cartoon Network. Batman Beyond was another great series I'd love to watch back in the day on Kids' WB. At first, it felt kind of weird for someone else to be Batman, but it really did help that they gave Terry a pretty tragic backstory and that Bruce still had a significant role throughout the series. Both Return of the Joker and the Epilogue episode from JLU are really great conclusions for the characters and the series. I remember watching Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and laughing so much at it. I think I only saw a little bit of it once it moved to Adult Swim. I've seen Dexter's Lab and while that show can be fun, I didn't think it was that great. Still, it's nice that it gets a mention on this list. As for the list itself, even though I might have changed some of the placings for certain shows, I do like how there's generally more diversity in the shows listed than in most of the other best animated series I've seen before.
 
Megas XLR, Real Ghostbuster, X-Men Evolution, Paranoia Agent and Angry Beavers in Honorable Mentions? Pretty sweet if you ask me. Things can only get better from this point on. I still think that X-Men Evolution was one of the best X-Men cartoons out there. Really like the mythos they implemented in this one.

Megas XLR was just some fun with the robot genre as well. It was really all in good fun and enjoyable. I kind of wished this series had a DVD set more than buying the series digitally.
 
I do agree with you of Young Justice's consistent quality, and to be honest I think its shaping up to be even better than EMH. The problem is that it has only aired 10 episodes so far, and none of us felt that it would be a good idea to rank it when its so early in its run. If it has finished up its first season then you would likely see it here on this list, but as it stands there are too few episodes for us to justify ranking it anywhere, yet. Perhaps if we ever update the list in the future, though, you may very well see it having a place on the list. ;)
 
The list is pretty good so far, I'm glad that Batman Beyond​ ranked pretty high. I think it's an awesome cartoon that often doesn't get recognition because it's not Bruce in the cowl.

Dexter's Lab and Powerpuff Girls are alright, I wouldn't rank them in my top 50 because I think the designs for both are ugly, and the two aren't that funny to me. I'd easily rank Avatar: The Last Airbender above them both, and I'm curious to the reasoning how it's inferior to those two. But to be fair I haven't seen PPG and Dexter in a long while so maybe I'm forgetting things that made them so great.
 
Hey guys, glad to see some response from the list. So far it looks like there's been at least one thing almost everyone can agree on so far, which is good. Can't wait to see how you respond to the rest of the list.

For now, here's the start of the top 50. This is where things slowly start to pick up. What do you think?
 
Great to see Powerpuff Girls in a MUCH more fitting place than number #99-#100 behind such "masterpieces" as Bravestarr, G1, and SilverHawks (Ugh!). It's just such a fantastic and well written show that it deserves a high place on a list of the greatest of the greats. Props to you guys for giving it that much deserved high place. :)

Very glad to see Space Ghost: Coast to Coast so high. Definitely one of my favorite comedy shows and it never ceases to make me laugh.

Also very glad that Dexter's Laboratory got a high ranking. Such a well made and written show deserves a high spot. Plus, I didn't have to listen to people trying to reason how this is so much worse than MASK just because of the more simplistic character designs. XD


Agreed. It was such a breath of fresh air to have a modern lighthearted Batman series after the last few darker ones. It also helped that it was a good, well written, lighthearted modern Batman series. Honestly, while BTAS is regarded as the finest Batman cartoon ever made and I can definitely see the quality and appeal, I actually prefer Brave and the Bold. It's just so much fun to watch and I love the more lighthearted, tongue in cheek humor. Before this show, I didn't really pay much attention to other Batman cartoons or Batman in general, but now, I'm really interested in Batman and DC Comics lore. I guess "my Batman" is the fun one. XD
 
Yeah, that's why it got retooled into Fast Forward at one point, both in an attempt to grab ratings and for the toys.

I'm not much of a fan of Fast Forward but the pre-FF stuff and Turtles Forever is enough for me to consider it prime list material.
 
The thing about Avatar... and we like Avatar (otherwise we wouldn't have ranked it)... is that we feel it has too many little quibbles that add up to diminishing enjoyment of it to us. The overuse of filler, overpowered and Mary Sue characters, the derailment that was the finale of season 2 until almost halfway into 3, and there are a few plot threads that come along too far in (meteor sword) or don't really lead to anything (bloodbending) that kind of hold it back a bit.

While it is a great show with a lot of heart and originality to it, we just didn't think it was quite as good as the action series we ranked over it.

But it was always going to be in the top 50, even when we started making the list.
 
I think I watched every show in this batch religiously, except for Beast Wars, I never really caught that one. Might give it a shot later. I do agree that the Critic is more like an early version of Family Guy, and it does have that sense of humor that does bring me back for more. As for TMNT 2K3, at least this getting that rank probably throws out the 80's TMNT from making the list. :P But really, I always enjoyed the 2K3 TMNT more than the 80's. Shame 2K3 got screwed around a little bit. I felt like it could have went another season or two before the whole Fast Forward stuff came in.
 
Two in row where I watched everything on this list.

PPG- Another one of my favorite CN Originals. Loved it until around after the movie.

Batman Beyond- I did like the legacy character angle in this one and a nice refreshing take on the Batman Mythos.

SGC2C- I loved how this show was more about the antics of Space Ghost, Zorak, and Moltar than being a talk show. It's moments like those that make me laugh more.

Dexter's Lab- Still a funny show to this day, until one-button Dexter came along.

Lupin III- One of my favorite anime series out there. You never knew what Lupin's next heist would be like, and the adventures were pretty sweet as well. Really love the dynamic between Lupin and Zenigata. Also, thanks for the nod to CoC, it's one of Miyazaki's best works.
 
To be honest, I'm not really a fan of the majority of Miyazaki's films. Stuff like Spirited Away just bores me to tears. Castle of Cagliostro is on a completely different level; I can watch it over and over and never get bored.:D
 
I have to be honest, though my friends were into it, I never got too big into Beast Wars when I was a kid (or Reboot for that matter).

I'm actually surprised to hear TMNT 2K3 did so poorly in the ratings. I remember the show lasting for a good few years and getting plenty of home video and video game releases.

I loved The Critic. It's dated, but it still makes me laugh when I catch it on today. Glad to see it on the list.
 
I can agree to that for the most part. While I do love Spirited Away, I rank Castle of Cagliostro above it, as CoC is just one fun film and manages to capture the charm of Lupin series while being toned downed compared to the other Lupin III stuff. It's one of the reasons as to why whenever a favorite Miyazaki Film thread pops up, I say Castle of Cagliostro.
 
this is probably the best "professional" list of the best animated shows I've seen so far. i'm curious though, how much more adult swim shows (or adult swim-esque shows) should i expect to show up?
 
I believe that there was also a concept for the turtles to be stuck with their younger selves for something after FF, which was changed in favor of Back to the Sewer. I didn't like Fast Forward that much myself and while I thought that Back to the Sewer was a nice improvement, I'm kind of glad that they stopped it there since I don't think that 4Kids knew quite what to do with the show anymore. It probably didn't help that they couldn't afford to make another season and the merchandise, for at least the toys, weren't selling that well. Plus, Turtles Forever served as a terrific finale. I thought that TMNT 2k3 did pretty decent in ratings, or at least decent for a block on 4Kids, and I do recall that FF, as well as possibly Back to the Sewer did quite well in ratings. I have seen most of the episodes for that series and it is really good. I enjoyed watching it. The action was great, the characters were well developed and there were some really good twists in the storyline. I'm glad to see that it made a place on the list.

The only other shows on the past two updates I've seen are Superman the Animated Series, X-Men Evolution and Angry Beavers. I really liked watching Superman the Animated Series, as well as the New Batman Adventures, back in the day on Kids' WB afternoon lineup, a good couple of years before I got into Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! It was fun show to watch after school. As for Angry Beavers, I haven't really seen the show in years and it wasn't one of my favorite Nicktoons to begin with. But from what I remember, it was pretty decent. X-Men Evolution was a pretty good show. I didn't mind the high school aspect that much, but I think that the show got much better once the mutant secret got out and the characters had to deal with more conflicts. I'm not sure if it's my favorite X-Men series since I did really enjoy Wolverine and the X-Men, even though it does obviously put more focus on Wolverine's character while Evolution does at least try to focus on most of the main characters. Though, it does help that Evolution had more time to develop its characters and actually have a pretty well done finale while Wolverine was stuck with one season. I'd probably need to rewatch both series to see how I felt about them now. Even so, X-Men Evolution was a fairly enjoyable show and it did have some surprising twists in the storyline too.
 
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