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 2017, 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 2017, then you definitely need to check out there anime recommendations.
Best anime of 2017
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid
Miss Kobayashi is a programmer that lives alone in her apartment. However, one day a giant green dragon ends up on her doorstep and transforms into a women in a maid outfit.
Apparently, Kobayashi had gotten drunk one night and ended up saving this dragon. Now, dragon Tooru intends to repay her debt through housework.
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid is simultaneously as weird as you think and not as weird as you think. It is a delightful comedy about an ever-growing gang of dragons integrating into the human world.
As per fantasy rules, dragons immediately make everything better, like beach episodes, dodge ball, frolicking in the fields, playing video games, and even cooking.
While at first embraced for being a good comedy, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid actually became a lovely and wholesome found family anime too.
Tsuki ga Kirei
For the first time in their third year, Azumi and Mizuno were put in the same class. Initially, they are nothing more than classmates, but continued exposure sees them grow progressively closer.
As the year goes on, the pair and their classmates must come to face themselves as they mature emotionally.
Tsuki ga Kirei looks like a school romance anime like any other. While it is very much a story of new love, it begins to focus more on that feeling we all have when it comes to love – what of the future?
The main character wants to build his future around his love, and that isn’t a tenable way to live. It makes the relationship interestingly complicated, but not in the messy, hurtful way you might think.
Scum’s Wish
To the outside world, Mugi and Hanabi look like the perfect couple, but the truth is that they are only dating each other because they can’t be with the people they actually want to be with.
For Hanabi, it is her childhood friend-turned-homeroom-teacher and for Mugi it is his older tutor that has been teaching him since middle school.
In order to stave off the loneliness, the pair find solace in each other’s arms.
Scum’s Wish is both one of the best anime of 2017 and one of the worst. Unlike usual romantic drama anime where there is at least one innocent character, Scum’s Wish makes every character some form of terrible – much like real people. They do awful things to each other to satisfy their worst emotions and impulses.
If romantic drama anime is for you, and you don’t need anything sugar-coated, Scum’s Wish is the pinnacle.
Made in Abyss
The Abyss is an enormous cave system and the only unexplored place in the world. No one knows how deep it goes, but generations of bold adventurers have descended into it.
In the town at the edge of The Abyss, an orphan named Rico dreams of raiding, as her mother did before her. One day while exploring the murky depths, she meets a boy, who turns out to be a robot, kicking off the start of her epic adventure.
A lot of people look at this show and its child-like design and probably give it a pass. Or worse, go in expecting something cute.
Yet, don’t be fooled by the cute potato people. They use the cuteness of the character designs to disarm you. Made in Abyss is actually one of the more messed up anime series ever made. The longer the series goes on, and the deeper they go into the Abyss, the more moral decay. Some events can be downright traumatizing.
Kakegurui
Hyakkaou Private Academy is an institution for the elite of society with a very special curriculum.
These students are the children of the wealthiest people in the world, but they won’t need athletic prowess or book smarts for a successful life, they will need to know the art of the deal and how to read people.
So instead of traditional classes, this school features a curriculum of rigorous gambling where the winners live like kings and the losers suffer.
However, they haven’t seen anything yet until they meet new student Yumeko Jabami.
While gambling anime isn’t for everyone, Kakegurui draws a large audience in by featuring extreme facial expressions and lightly psychotic characters. It really accents the ugliness that can be brought out by high-risk gambles, and it becomes addicting in and of itself to watch.
Black Clover
After being abandoned at the same church, Asta and Yuno grew up together. Together they also grew up aiming for the same title – The Wizard King, the strongest wizard in the kingdom.
However, it soon became apparent that while Yuno has skill with magic, Asta couldn’t use it at all. This all changed when they were attacked and Asta was given a strange grimoire that granted him the ability to nullify magic.
Black Clover got off to a bit of a bad start because, like any shounen anime, it needed a bit to wind up. While it was winding up, Black Clover was as generic as any shounen battler is, but there wasn’t enough flash and sizzle to make it stand out.
It takes a bit to slip those generic shounen trappings, but once it gets to the big battles and brings out the badass magic, it can really blow you away. If things like Bleach, Naruto, or Fairy Tail were ever your jam, then this is a pretty good next watch.
Little Witch Academia
Although Atsuko is an ordinary girl, she became enamored by witches and magic by a magic show she saw as a kid hosted by a witch named Shiny Chariot.
Now, she has aspires to be a witch, taking the first step by joining a renowned academy for witches called Luna Nova Academy.
Although she faces hardship as a first generation witch and fan of Shiny Chariot, whom many consider a fraud, she and her two friends do their best each new day.
In several ways, Little Witch Academia is like Harry Potter meets Cute Girls Doing Cute Things anime. It has the same European-style magic world and is about being a new student at a school.
Like a good amalgamation should, Little Witch Academia combines a plot about a building intrigue in the magic world with all the flash and energy that Studio Trigger can bring to bear.
Saga of Tanya The Evil
Once one of Japan’s most shrewd salarymen, after being pushed in front of a train to his death by a scorned ex-employee, a man is reborn as an adorable orphan girl after pissing off a mysterious being that calls himself God.
While the female form and affinity for magic are not a punishment, being born in a world in the midst of a brutal World War is.
Now, Tanya uses her calculating mind from her past life and magnificent magical abilities to spread terror on the front lines of the war, becoming one of the most dangerous people in the imperial army.
This is all in effort to earn a promotion that will see her safely back to a life of comfort on the back lines, showing up the God that put her in this world for humbling.
Isekai anime has its fans, but a good chunk of people don’t love how happy and focused on wish fulfillment isekai is. Saga of Tanya the Evil is the isekai for people that would rather see a psychopath sent to a new world and be a malicious child soldier.
That said, while it is for people sick of how similar all isekai anime is to each other, Saga of Tanya the Evil is actually a fantastic series in its own right. It has magnificent moments of action and watching a little girl cruelly plot the end of many human lives is more fun than you would think.
The Ancient Magus’ Bride
After being abandoned by her family, Chise Hatori is a 16-year-old teenager without hope.
In order to not have to worry about herself, she sells herself to slavers, only to be purchased by Magus Elias Ainsworth.
There, she is told she will become his apprentice and, in the future, his bride. Together, they work to build a relationship and work to control her own magus powers that will eventually result in her early death.
Obviously, The Ancient Magus’ Bride was set up to be a romance. However, what you got was actually not often romantic, but incredibly deep.
Often much of the focus in The Ancient Magus’ Bride was exploring the magical world around the characters. It is an incredibly detailed world and there is lots of dark magic within it. While it does become a romance, it is also a pretty complicated one, but the bitterness helps it grow sweet eventually.
Recovery of an MMO Junkie
Morioka Moriko has had enough of being an overworked corporate slave, so she decided to retire herself to the NEET lifestyle. While at home, yearning for the previous connections she once made in online gaming, she starts up a new MMO. There, she creates her character, the handsome Hayashi.
However, in her newbie struggles she meets a Lily, another character willing to help her and they begin to grow closer to each other. At the same time, in real life, Moriko also has a shocking encounter with a handsome corporate employee.
What is probably most endearing thing about this show is that it shines a light on a lot of awkward and relatable things about being a kind of a nerdy, introverted person – particularly a woman.
If you have ever been really into MMOs at any point, you will definitely adore this cute little rom-com.
Land of the Lustrous
In this world, Gems inhabit the ruins of a world.
Taking on certain characteristics, gems are assigned roles depending on their hardness. The hardest among them fight the Lunarians, aliens that seek to shatter them to decorate their own bodies.
Phosphophyllite, or Phos, is young and fragile, but wants desperately to help the war effort of her fellow gems.
Some may be put off by the unique animation in Land of the Lustrous, but there is a surprising amount of depth under the surface here.
Furthermore, it is actually a lot darker and less generic than you expect going in. It becomes a wonderful meditation about how much of yourself you can give away before you are no longer yourself.
Tsurezure Children
Tsurezure Children depicts the many different scenarios of young love.
From the relationship between the student council president and a rebel girl to a boy so crippled by his own lack of self-confidence that he can’t accept that a girl confessed to him.
You follow their triumphs and failures throughout the relationships of half a dozen young couples.
If you enjoy romance anime, then Tsurezure Children is aimed at giving it to you wholesale. Unlike normal romance anime that focuses on the whole relationship – even the unhappy bits – Tsurezure Children focuses on half a dozen couples and only shows you the cute moments.
You know the ones. The flirting, the seducing, the awkward attempt at kissing – one ones that make your heart squeeze. The ones you watch romance anime for to feel good.
What did you think was the best anime of 2017? Let fans know in the comments section below.
