An odd year for anime, 2024. To my mind, few truly outstanding shows, but quite a few that were "really quite good". So breaking from the alphabetical structure of previous lists, two tiers here: the essentials of the year and some great stuff you might well enjoy if you vibe with what they're doing.

A quick note for folks new to anime who might want to check some of these out: all of this, bar Dungeon Meshi (which is on Netflix) is on Crunchyroll. Most is available in either subtitled Japanese or dubbed in English. Grab a free trial sub to Crunchyroll & binge a couple of these; a standard 12 ep cour is only about 4 hours of viewing.

Top tier:

The Apothecary Diaries

The continuation of this court drama slash mystery slash comedy is just as strong as its first cour. The animation is gorgeous, the chemistry between the leads, Jinshi and Maomao, is great, and it hits both comedic and emotional beats really well. If the mystery elements lack a little sharpness, they still function well enough to move the plot and character development forward. The support cast is fantastic too, from the other servants in the Palace, to Maomao's courtesan family, to Jinshi's long (long) suffering assistant, Gaoshun. Just wholly a delight.

Dungeon Meshi (Delicious in Dungeon)

Mashing together a food anime with a dungeon crawler shouldn't work but my god it does. Some surprising depth in places, but mostly just a perfectly executed romp. Distinctive art style (replicating the work of the original mangaka well), excellent jokes, great, sparky character work and a building mystery behind the nature of the dungeon. Given what's left of the manga, I'd expect this to be finished with a second season of the same length as the first but don't wait, dive in now!

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Does more interesting stuff with the nature of interpersonal connection when you're immortal than pretty much anything else I've read or watched. Frieren, an elf who will live thousands of years, was the mage in the adventuring party which defeated the Demon King. The party breaks up, agrees to meet again years later, at which point everyone except Frieren is exceptionally old and/or dying. This is where the show starts, and the question it explores, as Frieren journeys with the proteges of her old friends, is what that 10 years of journeying together meant to someone with a lifespan like Frieren's. At turns elegaic and funny, while still giving us kinetic, impressive fight scenes, this show is much, much better than it needs to be be. I was repeatedly surprised at its resonant emotional beats, and I suspect you will be too.

Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

The same sort of court drama setting as The Apothecary Diaries, but that is where the similarity begins and ends. Yatagarasu is an absolute masterpiece of showing just enough, and withholding just enough, that you're strung along by the plot without ever quite understanding anyone's motivations or intentions. That's the position our most frequent point of view character, Yukiya, is in, and it's our experience of the plot as well. When the reveals of the core mysteries come they make sense, they're earned, and they are genuine "holy shit" moments. This is all supported by excellent character work and a distinctive art style. Come to Yatagarasu on its own terms & there's a decent chance it ends up one of your favourite bits of TV of the year.

Really good:

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life

This mashes together two very zeitgeisty tropes in japanese pop media; time loops and villainess stories. The premise is that an initially villanous character lives the years leading up to her demise seven times, trying something different to live & survive each time. In the seventh loop, she ends up engaged to the apparently sociopathic ruler who was, directly or indirectly, responsible for her demise in each of the previous loops. High concept combined premise, executed far better than I've seen in most iterations of either trope done in a standalone context. The sociopathic prince is less sociopathic than perhaps first appears, our lead has 6 different sets of previous experience to draw on in trying to avoid disaster, and of course there's a setup for a broody bad boy romance. Surprised myself with how much I enjoyed this.

Brave Bang Bravern!

We start with what looks like a 'real robots' anime; military fighting a losing battle against an alien invasion with giant, piloted robots with wheels, manoevring jets, projectile weapons etc. And into that crashes a robot from another subgenre: dayglo colours, swinging a burning sword, playing his own theme music as he fights... and super super gay and in love with his pilot. A hugely affectionate poking at the tropes of the genre, funny but never mean, this was an out of nowhere massive pile of very silly fun.

Dandadan

An absolute romp. Otaku dude who doesn't believe in ghosts gets possessed by one, girl who doesn't believe in aliens gets abducted by them, they team up & fight paranormal shenanigans. Stunning, distinctive art direction, laugh out loud funny, great fight scenes. In truth this'd be in the top tier if it didn't go just a bit too often to sexual assault jokes (ha ha alien anal probe - I'll add none are ever actually successful, but still) and end on a horrendous cliffhanger. A second season has been confirmed, though, so that cliffhanger will be resolved next year.

Negative Positive Angler

This was not on my radar at all but it was great. Sure, it's a fishing slice of life, but it's not JUST about fishing (gasp, metaphors!). Guy whose life really, really didn't go how he intended after highschool is depressed after a distressing medical diagnosis, drops (literally) into the lives of a bunch of fishing obsessives who all work at the same convenience store. He learns to fish & learns to engage with life, and that's the show, really. Light and fun most of the way through, with spots of real emotional resonance and darkness as points of contrast. Great stuff.

Tonari no Yokai-san

Alternate version of Japan where Yokai (spirits) live with and alongside people. This premise is used to explore a really wide range of emotional territory - family, identity, belonging, purpose - in the framework of a generally relaxed slice of life anime. What elevates this is the undercurrent of the uncanny - sometimes outright menace - that flows underneath the passive surface. Impressive, subtle storytelling, and bonus points for the just matter of fact-ly bisexual old man side character. The ending is a little rushed and tonally jarring, thus this isn't in my top tier, but still easily one of the best things I've watched this year.

The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic

Like 7th time loop, a pleasingly different take on a well-established subgenre; in this case the isekai. Our lead character and two of his classmates are magicked to another world to fight demons, the lead being brought along by accident. Turns out he has facility for healing magic, and uses that to become an insanley fit buff guy as well as a healer (what's training to failure when you can constantly heal your damaged muscles?). What stands out is that this doesn't dive right down into the extreme power fantasy edgelord douche pool that isekai often do; it's mostly just decent people trying their best, with solid gags and fight choreography. Neither is there aggressive male gaze character design on all the female characters (if anything, the camera lingers on the men). The plot and character work is solid, and I hope there's a second season; sometimes what you want is well done, guilt free escapism.