Pokemon
Ash, Pikachu, and 25 plus years of the adventure that defined a generation’s childhood. The Indigo League run is comfort viewing royalty: the nostalgia is load bearing, and the show knows it. The honest take: this is not a prestige…
Genre Fantasy
Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
The sequel everyone warned you about, and the honest verdict is more complicated than the memes. Boruto follows Naruto’s son and a new Team 7, and the anime made a choice that defines the experience: most of its run is…
One Piece
The greatest long form story in anime, and after more than 1,100 episodes it is still going. Monkey D. Luffy wants to be King of the Pirates, and the journey to that dream is an ocean sized saga that has…
Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War
The final arc of Bleach, adapted a decade after the original series stopped, and it is staggering how good it looks: movie grade animation, brutal choreography, and a story with actual stakes after years of the original show spinning its…
Naruto: Shippuden
The series that turned Naruto from a popular shonen into a generational one. Shippuden picks up two and a half years later: the kids are older, the stakes are real, and the story builds toward a war that engulfs every…
Dragon Ball Kai
The answer to the question every new fan asks: do I really have to watch 291 episodes of Z? Dragon Ball Kai is the official recut, trimming the original series down to about 159 episodes by removing the filler arcs…
Dragon Ball Super
The official continuation, picking up after Buu with Goku and Vegeta training under gods. Super starts rough: the animation in the first arc wobbles and the retellings of the Battle of Gods and Resurrection F movies are the weakest stretch…
Dragon Ball GT
The black sheep of the family, and the only Dragon Ball series with no Toriyama manga behind it: GT is entirely anime original, which is why fans argue about whether any of it counts. The honest take: the first stretch…
Dragon Ball Z
The show that put anime on the map in the West. Goku is grown, his son Gohan is the audience’s surrogate, and the villains arrive in escalating order of apocalypse: Saiyans, then Frieza, then the androids and Cell, then Majin…
Dragon Ball
Before the energy blasts that could crack a planet, there was a weird little kid with a tail riding a cloud. The original Dragon Ball is Goku’s childhood: a loose, funny adventure series that slowly turns into the greatest tournament…