Been away from anime for awhile? We understand. You go out and have your life, anime will always be waiting for you when you come back. They always come back. If you are finally coming back and stopped watching sometime in or before 2021, here are all the best anime series that you missed and definitely should go back and watch.
If you are looking to watch the best anime of 2021, then you definitely need to check out there anime recommendations.
Best Anime of 2021
Horimiya
Although lauded for being likable and intelligent, Kyouko Hori hides the fact that she has to take care of her brother and the housework because her parents are always working.
Izumi Miyamura, on the other hand, is seen as a brooding, bespectacled otaku. Outside of school, he sports tattoos and nine piercings.
By happenstance, the two outside school personalities of these two classmates meet and they get to know a side of each other they don’t show their peers.
Horimiya is a great taste of modern romance anime where the story isn’t endlessly padded out with misunderstanding, love rivals, and other pointless, frustrating drama. Instead what you get is a low drama romance anime where the relationship progresses quickly.
As the main couple gets together early, it leaves a lot more room to explore side characters – and actually flesh them out as characters – but most importantly, it leaves time to show you the cutest moments that only come after a romance is official.
Tokyo Revengers
For Takemichi Hanagaki, his second year of middle school was when he peaked. He had a small amount of respect as a thug, a loyal group of friends, and even a girlfriend.
Fast forward twelve years later, and he is a single adult that can’t hold down a job. He has even found out that his middle school girlfriend was murdered by the vicious Tokyo Manji Gang.
After an accident, he finds himself back in middle school and discovers that he can travel back and forth in time in order to help change his past and his future.
You can do time travel and you can do gang relationships, but you’d never expect to see them in the same anime series. Tokyo Revengers does both, and actually does both really well.
Tokyo Revengers has the sort of interestingly designed characters you might find in a shounen battler, but the only battling going on here is with fists and small arms. The character interactions and the intrigue, however, are really what keep you tuning in.
Jobless Reincarnation
After being chased out of his NEET nest, a man instinctively saves some teens from an oncoming car and is killed. He is reborn as Rudeus Greyrat, a baby and new first born son of a local knight.
Finding he has great potential for magic, Rudy vows to make the most of his new life even if he is still a perverted otaku on the inside.
Jobless Reincarnation is a stunner with its animation, its world-building, and its magic. It made isekai feel really quite fresh and addicting again, but it does have one near-fatal flaw – its frequent injection of sex into the story.
The main character grows from a baby to a young man, but always retains the mind of a middle-aged shut-in who, gauging by his thoughts about young women, was a lolicon. It makes him acting on his urges, even with girls his own age in his new life, awkward and uncomfortable to the point where it feels criminal.
In truth, I think the older you are watching Jobless Reincarnation, the more uncomfortable the sex in it is for you. The people that love Jobless Reincarnation despite the sex – or even because of it – tend to be teens.
Wonder Egg Priority
After the death of her best and only friend, Ai Ohto became a shut in. One night while on a walk, she is convinced by a mysterious entity to buy an egg.
In a world that only materializes in her dreams, she breaks the egg. This summons a person haunted by fears, regrets, or otherwise some trauma.
There, Ai is tasked with saving them, and by saving them from their trauma, she can perhaps save her friend, too.
To be frank, this is one of those series that was very good in the first half, but didn’t stick the landing at the end. Still, it wasn’t enough of a train wreck to label it an anime not worth watching.
What it did was address a lot of young women’s issues, but wrap it in a package that was still very fun – and very beautiful – to watch.
The Duke of Death and His Maid
After being cursed by a witch as a child, any living thing that the young duke touches will wither and die. Feared by his mother, he is sent to live in a mansion in the woods.
While secluded, he is not entirely alone.
He was accompanied by his aging butler Rob as well as his maid, Alice. Despite not being able to touch him, Alice enjoys teasing the young lord and her lack of fear allows them to grow closer, eventually spurring the duke’s desire to lift his curse.
The absolutely odd choice of bobblehead animation in this series aside, it still remains a very cute lightly supernatural romance. The nice part about it is that it is a teasing sort of romance, but while the main character is teased by his female maid, he is still very upfront with his own affection for her, which is necessary since he can’t touch her.
Vivy: Flourite Eye’s Song
In a theme park ran by AI, there is a lonely stage where the first-ever autonomous humanoid sings in order to fulfill her mission of making everyone happy with her songs.
This AI, named Diva but given the nickname of Vivy by a young fan, has an encounter with an AI named Matsumoto who explains he traveled from 100 years in the future where AI have advanced so much that they rebelled and started exterminating humanity.
Together, he guides her to singularity points on a hundred-year journey in order to change the course of history.
It seems like you have to wait years to get good sci-fi anime, and I guess we’ll be sitting tight for another few years because this was one.
Vivy told a time travel story, technically, in a way only sci-fi can tell it – by using an AI android that doesn’t age. You watch her story and the story of the world unfold over 100 years, split into little segments as time skips forward. It is interesting and a series where you can absolutely see the studio flexing how good they can animate things with proper budget and time.
The Faraway Paladin
Born into a new world, Will awakens as a baby that has been taken in by three undead guardians of a long-dead city.
As he is raised, he is taught magic and swordsmanship, but also learns of the world that surrounds him. A world that was once ravaged by a powerful warrior that the three undead guardians only just managed to seal away.
As they are bound to that city, they can’t say for sure what became of the world or humanity after their death and undeath, but they prepare young Will for when he will eventually have to venture out into the world.
The Faraway Paladin is honestly my kind of isekai. The main character only brings up that he is from a different world a few times and he spends much of his life fully living and being raised in his present fantasy land.
It does a fantastic job of world-building and creating a number of unique gods, the worship of which helps shape the world. It even intrigues you as to the state of the world by having the character’s caretakers closed off from it and having not even a bit knowledge as to what happened after a great calamity. It means no big exposition dumps and the character has to learn all on his own.
To Your Eternity
One day, an entity, for reasons unknown, threw an orb to Earth. With no emotion or identity, the orb is meant to gather sensations and is able to take the shape of things it encounters as it learns.
For many years, it was a rock, and then it became moss, and when a wolf took its last breath near it, it became the wolf. After wandering for some time, it met a boy. After a long struggle, the boy, too, took his last breath.
With human form, now the orb sets off on his never-ending journey where he will meet many new people and have many new experiences.
It is kind of rare to find an anime that you can really call unique, but To your Eternity is unique in almost every way – story, characters, setting, and general lack of rehashed tropes.
The best way to describe it is a story of being human, I guess? The main character can take the shape of beings that he grew a bond with but have died. Unfortunately, that is actually a really good set up for an emotional story as well.
The Case Study of Vanitas
Scorned by his vampire peers for being born under a blue moon, it is said that the vampire Vanitas created a powerful grimoire known as the Book of Vanitas that would bring retribution to all crimson moon vampires.
On his way to Paris, Noe is searching for this fabled book. While traveling aboard an airship, he is saved from a vampire attack by an eccentric man that claims to posses the Book of Vanitas and uses it to cure the attacking vampire that was driven rabid by a progressing event afflicting vampires called the Charlatan’s Parade.
Steampunk vampires? Steampunk vampires.
This series was particularly refreshing because it does use vampires in its story, but doesn’t use them in the traditional and beat-to-death way.
Its story is even interesting in that it isn’t the standard invitation for increasingly difficult fights, but rather pursues a nice mystery instead.
My Senpai is Annoying
At a trading company, junior salesperson Futaba Igarashi has flourished under the guidance of her senpai, Harumi Takeda.
However, while he teases her about her short stature, Igarashi has come to admire Takeda for his reliability in the workplace as their relationship continues to develop.
This series is a treat in two ways. First, it follows adult characters, and second, it is one of those romance anime that is rewarding without actually being a romance.
It is essentially just watching two people play flirty romantic chicken with each other in a surprisingly non-frustrating way.
Redo of Healer
As a boy, Keyaru awakened the power of a Hero. His specialty was healing. However, by using these powers, he experienced the trauma of the injured person as well. It eventually drove him insane, but he was forced to use his powers anyway.
After enduring torture and abuse by his fellow heroes for years, Keyaru formed a plan to get his vengeance. He was able to turn back time and restart his life with all his previous memories.
Thus his vengeance began.
Maybe this isn’t a good anime worth watching, but it is an anime worth watching just to know the depths of degeneracy because it is now quite notorious.
Redo of Healer is a lot of revenge porn, and when I say revenge porn, I mean revenge porn. Violence heavily juxtaposed with sex so graphic it merits censored/uncensored versions. It is a staple for edgelords and people who don’t realize that the internet has like, a lot of free porn already.
Sk8 the Infinity
High school student Reki Kyan is passionate about skateboarding and board-making. While he works part-time in a board shop after school, his real interest is the underground race that happens at night.
S is a competitive skateboard race where participants are encouraged to win at all costs. Unfortunately for Reki, his most recent race came in at a loss.
The next day at school he meets new transfer student Langa Hasegawa who was a snowboarder when he lived in Canada. After a series of events that led both of them to an S race, Reki discovers that, despite having no experience on a skateboard, Langa’s experience snowboarding is unexpectedly useful in an S race.
There’s not much in the way of anime about skating, though this makes up its own racing sport done on skateboards instead.
However, it is not the rarity of the sport alone that made this series special, it is perhaps the best bro-ship of 2021 that made it special.
The sport often brings people in, but it is the main character chemistry and interesting side character design that keeps people watching.
86
For years, the Republic of San Magnolia has been at war with the Giadian Empire. They were constantly plagued by their hordes of unmanned drones until the government created an unmanned solution of their own, finally able to wage their war without casualties.
However, that is not quite the truth. The “unmanned” combat weapons are actually used by those of the 86th sector of the Republic, but they are not considered even human.
This is the tale of both Shin, an 86er and battle commander, and Lena, their sympathetic handler who remotely commands the detachment from inside the city.
The time of mecha war drama anime have all but past now, gone with the heyday of mecha in general. However, before you compare 86 to Gundam and its penchant for melodrama, you should know that this series remains rather grounded and mature with its brutal and melancholic war tale.
There is not enough praise that I can heap on the shoulders of 86. It has well animated action, interesting characters, and most memorably, gut-punching ways to kill those characters for maximum emotional impact.
Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro
After an encounter in the library where she teased him about his manga, Naoto Hachijouji is relentlessly teased by a younger first year girl named Nagatoro.
She takes every opportunity to toy with him and leave him embarrassed, but over time, he has found a friendship was built between them.
Teasing romance anime can be a hard sell for some because the lines between flirty teasing and criminal bullying differ from person-to-person. And this series, it definitely approaches that line at some moments.
Odd Taxi
Blunt walrus Hiroshi Odokawa drives a taxi for a living, which has caused him to get to know his various eccentric customers.
One day, his simple life is turned upside down when a missing person case is tracked by the police back to him.
Now a person of interest to both cops and yakuza, he becomes increasingly entangled in this complicated case.
This was the hidden gem of 2021, which means that some YouTubers hyped it and it is now the hip watch to have in your back pocket to pull out to look cool to other nerds on the internet. But who watches anime to be cool, right?
The real reason to watch this series is the depth of the mystery and the characters hidden underneath cute animal facades. It is a murder mystery anime, and does the one thing all really good murder mystery anime must do – be clever. The mystery itself has some clever moments, but far more impressive is the cleverness used in the storytelling.
The Saint’s Power is Omnipotent
Sei, a young office worker, is summoned to a new world. However, the people who summoned her to banish dark magic from the world only meant to summon one person they would call Saint. Instead, they summoned two, and Sei discovers that they actually like the other girl better.
Not really caring about that, she ends up making potions at a research institute using her newfound magic. Unfortunately, while she is unexpectedly talented at her work and happy doing it, she begins to think that she is indeed the Saint.
Isekai can be a worn out genre since there are so many of them now. However, The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent feels different from the rest because it is more of a shoujo anime rather than one aimed at a more male-oriented wish fulfillment.
That said, this is still an isekai anime. The female main character is unintentionally heroic by just being a nice person, this kindness gathers her a main romance and a sort of reverse harem of admirers, and then she discovers she may actually be THE destined hero.
Sonny Boy
One normal day during summer vacation, the school and the 36 students inside began to drift into another dimension. Once there, many of the students begin to develop supernatural powers.
At first, the school is surrounded by blackness, but their world soon changes, and as they drift, they find their new realities bound by certain rules.
Psychologically trippy mindfuck anime isn’t made much these days. I imagine because they are both hard to write well and not particularly profitable. However, Sonny Boy gives it a solid try.
This is one of those anime series you won’t understand until the end, but even then, it is also open to interpretation as to what actually happened.
Komi-san Can’t Communicate
It is the first day for incoming freshmen at the prestigious Itan Private High School. For Hitohito Tadano, he considers himself lucky to get in and angles to not make waves during his high school career.
However, he finds himself sitting next to the beautiful, beloved, yet cold and silent Shouko Komi, immediately earning the ire of his classmates.
After a series of events leads to him being left alone with her, he discovers that she is not cold, but suffers from extreme social anxiety that prevents her from speaking. After a long conversation through writing, he wants to help her reach her goal of making 100 friends.
When one of your primary characters is a mute, most anime lean harder on the other cast members. However, Komi-san Can’t Communicate leans on a large cast, but also employs some new visual comedy techniques so not every joke needs to be laid out in dialogue.
This is a series that enjoys its odd characters, and uses them well for comedy without going too above reality in the school setting. However, if you are hoping for a romance, best dig in because on that front, well, it takes awhile.
Ranking of Kings
In this world, kings are ranked based on their power, skill, and how they treat their subjects.
Bojji is the first son and heir of powerful 7th ranking king, Bosse. However, while Bojji is good-natured, he is often mocked as a fool because he is cannot speak and they believe him to be deaf.
While not physically strong either, Bojji has a strength of heart that earns the affection and loyalty of many he crosses paths with, including his most recent friend, a jaded shadow creature who swears to always have Bojji’s back as he tries to become the best future king he can be.
One glance at this, and I’d understand if you gave it a pass. It looks like a show for kids, and kind of has the same plot as a fairy tale – at first.
However, nothing ever goes the generic fairy tale way. When you have been conditioned to expect evil stepmothers, it zags and gives you a woman who grew to love him just as much as her blood-related son. When you think the knights will heroically overcome evil, they get terribly maimed and slaughtered.
Ranking of Kings is for those want something unique, cute, or just kind of uplifting. It has its moments of surprising darkness, but is all-around an inspiring tale. It’s a hard anime to sell to people that enjoy depth of story, but that depth of story is in there under the cute veneer.
Do you have more anime from 2021 that you enjoyed? Let fans know in the comments section below.
