Everyone has their own “golden age” for anime. This is a series of years, a single year, or even a single season of anime where everything that came out was just an absolute banger. It is something that doesn’t – or rather can’t – happen all the time. However, you will never forget the series from that era. While we can argue about the “one true golden age” of anime until the cows come home, I will always maintain that there can be several. Here are are few “golden ages” of anime that brought some absolute gems.
Best Anime Golden Ages
1998
This is the year that gave birth to some of those “all-time favorite series” of some fans. Spring, in particular, gave up the goods with Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Initial D, Yugioh, and Cardcaptor Sakura. The rest of the year was only slightly less impressive with series like Outlaw Star, Serial Experiments Lain, His and Her Circumstances, Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040, and Sorcerer Stabber Orphen being particular highlights.
2003 – 2006
In the early 2000’s, more anime than ever was coming west in a more official (and profitable) way. It made it so creators could make more, and more importantly, take bigger risks with the stories they wanted to tell. There was no particular trend at the time to chase, and it created some of the more original anime series in the overall zeitgeist of anime.
Notable examples include:
- Kino’s Journey
- Full Metal Alchemist
- Paranoia Agent
- Samurai Champloo
- Monster
- Eureka Seven
- Mushishi
- Ouran High School Host Club
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
- Gintama
And literally so many more.
Fall 2013
The nice thing about anime is that as it goes on and studios learn how to use the newer technology better, the animation quality will only get better. However, if I had to pick a singular season where the sheer art of anime – not the plot, pacing, directing, or anything else – was at an all-time high, I would pick Fall of 2013. I was tempted to just pick Winter 2018 and just put Violet Evergarden, but much of the other series in the season brought the average down.
Anyhow, Fall 2013 had your standard stunners like Beyond the Boundary, Magi, and A Lull in the Sea, but it also had series like Kill la Kill and Kyousou Giga that showed the world that flash and fluidity are a perfect match. There is also the honorable mention of Non Non Biyori that, as well as being a quality slice of life show, also had absolutely gorgeous environmental visuals.
2015 – 2016
I wanted to highlight a special golden age specifically for isekai anime because we have so many isekai now and just as many seem so low effort. If I had to pick, it would probably be 2015 through 2016 because it had shows like Overlord, Konosuba, and Re:Zero that were still doing isekai with a moderate amount of effort put into it. However, as I was looking through, there were a lot of modern great series in this time period too like Assassination Classroom, Food Wars, Charlotte, Gate, Shimoneta, One Punch Man, and Erased. So it wasn’t just a good time for isekai.
2019-2020
Too soon to call this a golden age? Oh, almost assuredly, but it does feel like one of those points of singularity in anime that we will remember in a few years. A lot of the long-ish running series from the middle of the decade are ending, and a lot of promising new series are starting. Most notably, you have Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen. You have Dr. Stone, The Rising of the Shield Hero, Beastars, Fire Force and Kaguya-Sama: Love is War, all that are promising and already through (or about to start) their second seasons. There are also solid under-rated singular season series with self-contained stories like Astra Lost in Space, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, Appare-Ranman, and O Maidens in Your Savage Season. There is also The Promised Neverland if it can pull itself around later after that season two.
This is me really just talking about good anime seasons, but what do I know, really? Not a god damned thing. Golden ages in anime are all purely opinion. You have opinions? Head to the comments section below and tell me about your personal anime golden age.
