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 2019, 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 2019, then you definitely need to check out there anime recommendations.
Best Anime of 2019
Dr. Stone
After years of unspoken feelings, Taiju Ooki is about to confess to his crush. However, at that moment, a bright green light engulfs humanity, and suddenly everyone is turned to stone.
Thousands of years later, exactly the right series of events lines up in nature and leads to teenage genius and best friend of Taiju, Senku Ishigami, to be cured.
After using the cure on Taiju, the pair set out to jump-start civilization and save humanity by speeding through all the most useful inventions of human history.
Dr. Stone grabbed people with the power of science and made a show where you were less interested in any fighting and more interesting in watching the main character invent things.
When the world starts at zero, it is awesome to watch the characters make huge leaps in technology all without the glory of the internet or even written knowledge.
Demon Slayer
After the death of his father, Tanjirou has taken up the role of the man of the home, supporting his mother and five siblings. However, after selling charcoal in town, he returns to tragedy.
All his family was brutally slaughtered, save for one of his sisters. Unfortunately, she has been attacked by a demon and mingled their blood, turning her into a demon as well.
However, she still shows signs of humanity, thrusting Tanjirou onto a quest to find a way to change his sister back and preserve what is left of his family.
Demon Slayer is a shounen action anime darling, replacing the concluded base Naruto, rapidly fading Dragon Ball, and near-ending Bleach. It is the kind of wildly popular shounen battler that gets so popular that even non-anime fans know it.
While it is most memorable for its very creative characters and occasionally stunning animation, it is otherwise a pretty standard shounen battler.
Dororo
In order to become indomitable on the battlefield, a samurai lord barters his son’s organs away to 48 demons and then abandons him.
However, his son doesn’t die. Instead, a medicine man saves him with primitive, but lethal prosthetics that allow him to hunt down the demons and regain his organs for an eventual battle with his father.
Dororo is a remake of a much older anime, but it did everything a remake needs to do, and it did it right.
It updated the character designs, brought the might of modern animation, but kept the actually quite dark and devastating story story fully intact. Most people never knew such brutal darkness was lurking behind that potato-people art style from the 70’s, but now people will remember Dororo forever.
The Rising of the Shield Hero
The stories tell of four heroes summoned from another world – the sword, spear, bow, and shield heroes who will prevent calamity. With darkness bearing down on them, the Kingdom of Melromarc summons these heroes from modern day Japan.
For otaku Naofumi Iwatani, unfortunately he is labeled the shield hero, the weakest of the group. Worse yet, betrayal sees him labeled as a criminal and outcasted.
With hatred and vengeance consuming him, he sets forth to grow strong.
While anime is literally being drowned in new, samey isekai, you occasionally get a few that you can tell will be real powerhouses. The Rising of the Shield Hero was that immediately.
This series set itself apart from the usually cheerful mass of isekai by starting with a pretty infuriating betrayal. It turned the bright-eyed hero into a revenge-fueled ball of bitterness – it was pretty great.
Astra Lost in Space
Each year, the students of Caird High School are placed in groups for Planet Camp. When group B5 land at their camp site, they are engulfed by a mysterious sphere of light that transports them into the middle of space, 5,000 light years away from home.
After discovering an old space ship, they begin their very long journey home.
Astra Lost in Space is one of those series that you can really get into and promptly forget. Not because it was average, but because it actually had told a full and complete story in one season.
This nice, self-contained story started out with an interesting premise and an even more intriguing mystery. It told its tale and had the bravery to give itself a satisfying ending. If you liked the non-anime TV show Lost in Space, this is pretty much that, but with teens instead of a family.
Fire Force
A phenomenon has started overtaking mankind – one where people spontaneously combust and turn into destructive fire demons called Infernals.
To fight these demons, special fire forces were established full of those with dedication and powers to control fire.
This is the story of Fire Force 8 and their newest recruit – Shinra, who aims to become a hero and discover the truth behind the Infernals.
While having the unfortunate lot of starting right around the KyoAni arson attack when people were very distracted, Fire Force still managed to shine.
It had all the quirks that people expected from the series creator who also made Soul Eater, but brought with it a refreshing new plot about a world threatened to be consumed by fire.
The fire animation and the sound used for the flames (the most underappreciated part) really carry this series to greatness.
Beastars
This is a world of anthropomorphic animals where carnivores and herbivores live side by side with each other.
At Cherryton Academy, young wolf Legoshi is a member of the drama club. While he is often called menacing due to his appearance, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.
However, when one herbivore classmate is killed and devoured, Legoshi finds himself as the primary suspect.
Anytime you have an anime that isn’t Sanrio about anthropomorphic characters, it is called furry-bait. While Beastars has a not-small amount of sexuality in it, you would be doing yourself a disservice if you passed it up.
Beastars tells a dark and increasingly gripping story about murder and unhappy intrigue building in the animal world.
Vinland Saga
Ravaging every land they touch, Vikings have become renowned for their thirst and talent for violence. Thorfinn, a son of a great Viking warrior, spends his childhood on the battlefield in order to reap his vengeance on his father’s murderer. A man who murdered his family in front of him, plucked him from his home, and now commands him in a band of warriors.
Vikings! Anime doesn’t have such a love for vikings, but Vinland Saga represents the age so well that it will be just fine being the only viking anime you ever need.
Due to the mature story it is setting up, Vinland Saga actually makes side characters shine in the first season more than the one-note main character, but boy does it make up for it in the second season. It goes from violent viking warfare to existentialism and perhaps the most realistic path to peace ever shown in a redemption arc.
O Maidens in Your Savage Season
The girls of the literature club have recently been reading sexually charged pieces of literature. This combined with a newfound interest in adult relationships sends each member spiraling off into the world of sex and intimate relations.
Anime has literally no shortage of anime about the adolescent urges of young men in puberty, but like in most media, the horniness of teenage women is covered up. O Maidens in Your Savage Season lifts the veil in the best way.
The series shows that yes, girls can be perverts and have feelings about sex, too. It is essentially watching a bunch of young girls navigate puberty and make their first of many relationships, even if some of them are kind of unhealthy. Youth is all about learning from mistakes and pain, and O Maidens in Your Savage Season seems to know that very well.
The Promised Neverland
Grace Fields House is a home for orphans. However, even though they have no blood families, they are all one big family. That is, until the age of twelve when they are adopted out.
The kids also know that they are not allowed outside the fenced yard, but one day, two children break that rule. They then discover that the children who are “adopted” are actually subjected to something much darker.
You know, a great way to make a successful anime is to start it off with a really intriguing mystery that hooks the audience good and deep. The Promised Neverland, combining young children juxtaposed with a horrific potential fate, presents many mysteries.
You watch, excitedly gripping the edge of your seat, to discover answer. You know the best part, though? It is pretty adept at answering the questions too. Not all mystery series can boast that.
Kaguya-sama: Love is War
Considered a genius, Miyuki Shirogane leads the student council in his prestigious school. Alongside his beautiful and wealthy vice president, Kaguya Shinomiya, the two are regarded as the perfect couple despite no romantic relationship.
The truth is, however, they both have feelings for each other, but neither can confess.
This is the battle of two people trying to get the other to confess first!
There are a lot of romance anime out there where two people struggle to confess, but none of them are like this one.
Instead of a confession blocked by meekness and insecurity, Kaguya-sama: Love is War is about viewing confessing your feelings in an ultra-competitive world as a weakness. Now, that sounds actually kind of bleak, but rest assured that this romantic comedy doesn’t forget the side-splitting comedy or the heart-pounding romance.
It also has dramatic arcs that are surprising and not unwelcome as well.
My Roommate is a Cat
Subaru is a novelist, and not very good with people. He’s been alone since his parent’s death, but one day while praying at their grave, a cat comes and eats his offering.
Deciding to take it home, he now is shouldered with a cat, and this stray is shouldered with caring for a human who can barely care for himself.
Most anime seasons come with a chill slice of life or iyashikei anime that you watch, enjoy, and then soon forget. This was the chill anime of 2019.
It is about a guy and his cat, each thinking they are taking care of each other. You see the guy’s point of view where he grows past an old trauma with the help of the cat, and you see the cat’s point of view where she takes care of the guy like she used to take care of her siblings.
Domestic Girlfriend
Natsuo is in love with his teacher Hina. In order to try and forget his feelings, he goes to a mixer and meets a girl named Rui.
Oddly enough, she asks him to do her a favor – to have sex with her. He does so, but soon he is faced with a unique problem. His father has remarried and he now has two new stepsisters that he knows too well – Rui and Hina.
Domestic Girlfriend is literally like watching a car crash happen. You can’t look away from it and you know it is going to end up in tears.
Two girls, cute in their own ways, love the same guy that is now their step brother. It is an anime that isn’t afraid to bring the sex element into the show because they realize that it makes things so much more complex compared to just lewd hand-holding.
The Quintessential Quintuplets
As his family is in some serious debt, Fuutaro Uesugi is a serious penny pincher. However, his great grades have landed him a higher than normal paying tutor job.
The problem is that his five wards, all sisters, are dumb as door nails and think he is a complete idiot.
However, to get his pay, he has to think of a way to get these five unique girls to study and learn.
The Quintessential Quintuplets looks like your standard generic harem anime, and in some ways it is, but it isn’t afraid to take a sledgehammer to some tropes.
The best part of the series is it dangles a wedding in front of you, but it really keeps which sister playing the bride a mystery. There is no one obvious main girl in this romance, even if you think there is, and that is so refreshing.
What did you think was the best anime of 2019? Let fans know in the comments section below.
