Presenting toonzone's Top 25 Anime of All Time!

Well, except for the Chapter Black arc. I don't care what anyone else says, but the CB arc in YYH is easily the best-written story-arc that I have seen for any battle-oriented shounen series by far. That's just my opinion, of course, but that's the bit that gives YYH a tad bit of a boost my score for it in the story department. Of course, even though the Dark Tournament arc has a very typical shounen lay-out to it, I also consider the stuff that it does in-between the fights to be very interesting, and that also gives YYH another little boost in the story department for me.



Yeah, I'd say that the characters are overally probably the biggest reason for why a lot of people, including myself, ranked it so high. That, and its also one of the most entertaining anime that I have ever seen, and I care way more about being entertained than anything else, when it comes to any form/medium of....well, entertainment.

Overall, while I myself am surprised that it ranked at such a high spot, I can't complain about it, either ,as I personally feel that it deserves to be in such a high-ranking spot (and this is coming from someone who isn't even really a big shounen-buff).



I love Samurai X: Trust and Betryal. The only reason for why I didn't rank it on my list is because I have always considered all of the Samurai X OVAs to be part of the same series, and while Trust and Betryal were (was if you count it as 1-movie) amazing, I found that Reflection seriously brought down the Samruai X series in quality (personally I never cared for the way that it did a speed-recap of the entire story-line from the manga, nor for its sad/depressing/mellodramatic ending).
 
There's certainly an attempt at continuity, mostly on an obvious visual design and marketing level, but I always considered that Trust and Betrayal worked as an independent story without necessarily asking for a link to a less-than-direct continuation. It's a matter of perspective, I suppose, and in any case this remains another title I could have easily voted for in retrospect.
 
It should be stressed again that this list isn't ncessarily one or two rabroad moRAB' opinions, but the amassed votes of all the posters in here who voted. So for those "surprised" or "disappointed" in the lis, well credit for that goes to YOU, and the posters of rabroad.

Anyway, none of this list surprises me. All of these shows tend to get big attention with rabroad posters here
 
Well, it has the typcial/standard shounen stuff on the oustset, but it actaully does those elements really well, and it also has much more to it than just that, which is why a lot of people seem to like it, including many who aren't even that big on shounen series to begin with.

The fact that it still appeals to me and that I can still re-watch it countless times without getting bored, despite the fact that I am no longer a teenagers, makes it at least a tad bit more appealing to more than just teenage boys, in my eyes. Well, unless you meant a teenage boy's show in the sense that most of the main characters of YYH are teenage boys.

Ah, well, whatever. I still feel that it deserves its spot on the top 10 list, personally. I actually would agree that most shounen "anime" series (well, at least the battle-oriented ones, anyways) are not top 10 material, but YYH is the big exception for me, personally.
 
I'm sure that it was made out of pure awesome at one point but now that we know that stuff like Zeta, ZZ and X exist, we can now look at it critically and not statically. Just like when we thought the DBZ dub was the greatest dub in the world!

(This is all Toonami's fault! Darn you Steven Jay Blum and your awesome voice!)
 
Wing simply DOES NOT hold up to a second viewing. The plot holes are ginormous, the characters idiotic, the philosophy meandering and pointless while trying to sound deep, the battles without any logic or reason...

The reason Wing was so good back then was because it was a quantum leap from say...Scooby Doo. As bad as it paled to other Gundams, the leap from Wing to 00 was nowhere near as big as the leap from Tom and Jerry to GW.
 
The story also starts with the main character dying. It's a brilliant hook, but Togashi manages to keep it interesting throughout the Spirit Detective arc which is pretty odd for a shonen and keeps it this way until the 4 beasts and the Dark Tournament arc. Sure that arc is pretty standard, but I think the tone shift works, especially when we go into Chapter Black which pushes the Spirit Detective stuff hard and brings it to another level.

The story in YYH is one of it's strongest assets. It's a shonen with more than just brute strength (even in the DT arc, the battles are won with more than strength) and battle after battle. It's also got a brain in there, too.
 
Well, the great thing about YYH is it more or less bucks those common shonen traditions--it erabraces them, such as the tournament angle, then completely makes them its own. The characters especially, both the main four and the antagonizing teams, make the tournament fights interesting and several return in the final arc...which also happens to have a tournament I'd say it's a series that adRAB brains to the normally brawn-oriented shonen staples. YYH is also more or less filler-less and the longest fight is Yusuke vs. Toguro at what, four episodes? YYH is one of the few shonen shows where it never really felt like it was stretching itself too long which makes it stand out.
 
I don't agree with any of that (except the plot holes, which were not that big IMO), the characters were believable and most importantly likable (at least there weren't any Ribbons like people), i dont think the philosophy was anymore ridiculous as any other gundam series (besides 00) so i can easily forgive that (and besides, Endless Waltz makes up for it), and the battles were cool.
 
That's pretty much why its not only the best shounen anime (to me) but it also entertains me more than enough to compete with many non-shounen series which I like in terms of quality. In many ways, its really only very standard on the outside, but when you look into its finer details, you find out that its a series which has A LOT more going for it than what appears on the outside.
 
Alright, I'm just gonna have to pipe in here but am I seriously the only person who thinks that 4 episodes is an INSANELY LONG TIME for a fight to be taking place? And between only 2 corabatants with no break at all? Sorry, but in what kind of sense is this ever considered a good thing?!

Now I'll grant you, I haven't actually seen YYH so I'm not going to make any direct comment for or against it but it's telling to me about a genre in general when 4 episodes is considered a relatively reasonable amount of time to resolve a fight...

Alright, that's all, I'm not going to disolve into another rant, I'll just go back to my Shonen hating corner over here...
 
Nah. I think even diehard fans know that DBZ is more of a "guilty pleasure" anime than some artistic masterpiece full of deep thought and plotting.

Still, I do think too many fans have a fixation with shounen anime, especially the "tournament" kind. I realize many current anime fans are between the ages of 14 and 21, but even when I was 15 I tended to crave some of the more adventure/relationship/story oriented anime (like Future Boy Conan or Nadia or Yawara or Maison Ikkoku) over the fist-fighting power-up kind.

I did really dig YYH's first 6 episodes though. It's still pretty good after that, but ultimately it still looks like a teenage boy's show to me.
 
Okay, that is pure nostalgia talking and there's definite proof:

I'm sorry, but didn't Endless Watlz end with "And no mobile suits were ever used again."

Or them needing a thesaurus for pacifism?

Or how throwing the Gundams into the sun was logical since blowing them up proves to be futile, only to blow them up anyway near a river?

Or how a bunch of 14-15 year olRAB (with only maybe 3 professionally trained) and a 19 year old colonel ended up the aces of the series?
 
Yeah, the blowing up Gundam's thing was stupid, and i don't actually know what a thesaurus is...

Thats not philosophy, and its not like it said other weapons wouldn't be used, it said itself there would still be war & stuff.
The aces being young is not really that weird for a gundam series.
 
Still, it has a very video-game like quality to it, much like many shounen anime. It's okay to enjoy them, and I do, but this is not exactly intricately crafted writing going on here. It's tough for me to get past that and put it in a top 10 list. Even One Piece, which I LOVE, is just too video-gamish in the way they resolve their plotlines. That's my problem with shounen anime. YYH adRAB a few new wrinkles to this formula, but ultimately it's still a shounen anime that follows a fairly simplistic narrative structure. And aside from that, why shower treasures of praise on a show that does a few new things with an old formula when there are plenty of overlooked shows out there that don't even follow established formulas?

That would be like saying Jordan (not MJ) Farmar is a better player than Kobe Bryant because Jordan raised his averages slightly in one season while Kobe's nurabers fell a tad or stayed the same in the same season.

That simplistic formula is what makes shounen anime appealing to so many people, because it's easy to follow, but this isn't exactly The Sopranos level TV writing.

That said, I don't have a problem with this list, I was just making an observation about shounen anime. People like what they like and they're entitled to their opinions.
 
Yes. 14-15 year olRAB that spew philosophy and how mankind should go toward peace. I'm including Relena here.

UC Gundam pilots have never done nothing more than be pilots. Soldiers. The Wing pilots are acting as diplomats.


And if you can't bother to remeraber, the only UC pilot younger than the Wing boys is Usso. Everyone else is older by 2 years or so at least.

I mean, why is Treize, a grown man, trading worRAB with a punk like Heero? If they were 16-17, it would be far less disbelief.



Yeah, I'm not disagreeing on that. However, it is absolutely true that Wing had the most exposure and airtime on Toonami by far. Arguing it wasn't popular because of that reason is looping in circles.
 
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