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 2016, 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 2016, then you definitely need to check out there anime recommendations.
Best Anime of 2016
My Hero Academia
After the sudden appearance of super powers, or “quirks,” now 80 percent of humanity has some kind of power. With some Quirk users turning to crime, it gave rise to super heroes that help the police keep the peace.
Since he was a child, Izuku Midoriya has idolized super heroes, especially the symbol of peace, All Might, but he is devastated to learn that he won’t manifest a Quirk himself. Still, he studies super heroes and is determined to become one.
After a chance encounter with All Might, Midoriya learns that there still may be a chance for him to be a hero after all.
My Hero Academia is one of those anime series that became so wildly popular that it became a series that attracts non-anime fans to the medium. It helps that it is about more Western-style superheroes, but still having that big – and beautifully animated – anime action that you are used to seeing with popular shounen.
Re:Zero
When Subaru Natsuki goes out for a midnight snack run, he suddenly finds himself transported to another world.
As a bewildered teen in a land of swords and magic, he wanders around and ends up attacked by thugs. After being saved by a mysterious woman, he agrees to help her get back something that was stolen.
Unfortunately, it ends in both their deaths.
With his dying breath, he finds that he possesses the power of revival, escaping his death by the repeating the last few hours.
2016 is probably the tipping point for isekai where it went from the occasional treat to now we need to have a minimum of three isekai premiers every season.
So what makes Re:Zero not just different from the rest of isekai, but good enough to be one of the best anime of 2016? Well, it spawned some decent waifu wars, but in actually, it is the psychology that it introduced.
The main power of the main character is to return from death like returning to a save point, but he still accrues all the trauma of death and dying. It takes a toll on him. Furthermore, Re:Zero also allows its main character to be a mix of likable and unlikable. He has distinct flaws and it doesn’t try to sugarcoat them.
Erased
Recently, the detached, struggling manga artist Satoru Fujinuma finds himself going back in time to just minutes before tragedy strikes around him.
He has saved many lives with this power of “Revival,” but when he is wrongly accused of murdering someone close to him, Fujinuma finds himself sent back to his childhood. As he discovers, the recent death in his life is somehow connected the kidnap-murder of three children in the area that is about to happen.
This time, he may be able to use his power to save more than just one life, easing his past regrets in the process.
As with any anime that tells a story from start to finish in one season, Erased is largely forgotten about now. However, it is still an anime that grips to people’s memory.
While a murder mystery about trying to save about-to-be-murdered children is unique and investing, Erased does everything a murder mystery needs to do to be great. It creates a chilling and suspenseful mystery that draws you to the edge of your seat and does fairly well at keeping you guessing who the actual killer is.
Yuri On Ice
After a crushing defeat at the Grand Prix finale, Yuuri Katsuki returns home no longer as Japan’s most promising figure skater. With his window for skating success closing, he assesses his options.
After a video of Yuuri performing a routine by five-time world champion Victor Nikiforov goes viral, he suddenly finds the champion on his doorstep, offering to be Yuuri’s mentor.
An anime about figure skating only really appeals to a certain type of fan, and when Yuri on Ice showed its more shounen ai side it became the topic of divisive debate – is this show gay or not?
Yet, they played it coy and it took awhile before they fully played their hand. They did a nice realistic shounen ai anime that is also completely accessible to sports anime fans.
Bungou Stray Dogs
The orphanage that Atsushi Nakajima has been living at has been recently plagued by a tiger that only he can see. Blaming him for the incident, they kick him out.
Now homeless, he wanders the streets until he meets the eccentric Osamu Dazai and saves him from drowning.
As it turns out, Dazai is a supernatural detective and agrees to help him solve the mystery.
While Bungou Stray Dogs presents itself as a supernatural mystery solver, in truth it is more like a mature version of a shounen action anime. When the agency has a character whose power is the ability to solve mysteries instantly, it doesn’t lead to a compelling mystery narratives.
In truth, think of Bungou Stray Dogs as a city full of problems and an agency that handles them with unique powers. What has made Bungou Stray Dogs so long beloved is the eccentricity of its large cast of characters.
Mob Psycho 100
Kageyama Shigeo, otherwise known as Mob, is a young psychic with a wide range of blossoming abilities. Despite having this incredible power, he just wants to become friends with Tsubomi, a girl in his class.
Due to negative reactions to his psychic abilities in the past, he now tries to keep them in check. In an effort to learn to better control his abilities, Mob becomes the apprentice to Reigen Arataka, who claims to be a psychic, but is actually a con artist that exploits Mob’s very real powers for money.
It is definitely possible to be put off by the acquired taste that is this art style, but you are doing yourself a disservice by skipping Mob Psycho 100 if you like visually stunning action anime.
The fights are nicely original and well animated, but it doesn’t necessarily fall into the fight of the week style that comes with action anime either.
Konosuba
On his way back from buying a new game, Kazuma Satou died a pathetic death.
However, he awakens before the Goddess Aqua who gives him two choices: go to heaven or reincarnate into an actual fantasy world. Naturally, the gamer picks the fantasy world.
Now, Kazuma must deal with defeating an evil demon king, useless party members, and paying living expenses.
Unlike other isekai anime that were good for that they did different from other isekai stories, Konosuba is a good isekai anime because it never took itself too seriously.
While this is as overused as any hook in isekai these days, Konosuba told the standard isekai adventure, but made a huge joke of it. Yet, what keeps Konosuba among the top-tier of isekai still to this day is the wonderfully, comically flawed characters. If they’re not worthless in the most hilarious way, they are scumbags in the most hilarious way.
ReLife
Arata Kaizaki is an unemployed 27-year-old that has thus far been living with the financial support of his parents and part-time jobs. After leaving his first job after only three months, he has not been able to find proper work.
However, after a night of drinking with his friends, he meets a mysterious man that offers a drunk Arata a pill that will turn him 17 again so that he can redo a year of his youth, all expenses paid.
Will Arata find what he needs to live a happy life after one year in high school again?
You got regrets? Who doesn’t. It comes with being older. ReLife is about both addressing and overwriting regrets. After all, regret only means your mind sees an opportunity to learn from what it is focusing on so it doesn’t happen again.
While regrets are relatable as a topic, ReLife presents addressing them in a very cute package.
Drifters
While forming the rear guard for his uncle’s escape, Toyohisa Shimazu manages to mortally wound Ii Naomasa, but is critically wounded himself in the process.
While trying to limp back home, he finds himself transported from the field to a hallway lined with doors. There a mysterious man sends him spiraling into another world.
Dragged into the forest by two young elves, Toyohisa is patched up by two others from the Land of the Rising Sun that turn out to be Yoichi Suketaka Nasu and Oda Nobunaga.
From there, Toyohisa and his fellow historical figures, named “drifters” must save (or conquer) their new world.
Created by the same author of Hellsing, people had certain expectations of Drifters and it absolutely fills them. However, instead of vicious vampires and crazy priests, Drifters is filled with absolutely psychotic versions of historical characters.
Joan of Arc became a insane pyromaniac in this new world after being burned, Nobunaga Oda remains a warlord despite not wanting to be in a leadership position, and there’s Hitler because of course there is. Essentially, it tosses all these historical characters in and they wage glorious war.
Sweetness and Lightning
After the death of his wife, high school math teacher Kouhei Inuzuka is left to care for his young daughter, Tsumugi. He does his best, but his busy schedule and poor culinary skills limit them to eating convenience store food separately.
One day, his daughter expresses an interest to eat together after talking to one of his students in the park, Kotori, who deeply enjoys food. He rushes over to the restaurant owned by the student’s mother, but she is not there.
While Kotori tries her best to cook for them, her skills are lacking. However, together, Inuzuka-sensei, Tsumugi, and Kotori learn to expand their cooking skills.
There is a lot to love in Sweetness and Lightning if you are a fan of more wholesome slice of life. Sweetness and Lightning bases its plot around a relatable desire of a somewhat struggling single father who wants to learn to cook meals for his daughter.
It is actually probably one of the best parenting anime you can watch. Anime tends to idealizes parenting when it acknowledges it, but Sweetness and Lightning doesn’t shy away from some of the less cute, harder moments of being a parent. As a side note, ti also presents real recipes in an approachable way, so it is a great food anime too.
Dagashi Kashi
Kokonotsu Shikada has aspirations of becoming a manga artist, but his father wants him to take over their prestigious rural sweets shop that has been in the family for nine generations.
Kokonotsu continually refuses until one day the eccentric Hotaru Shidare breezes into town and wants to make his father work for her family’s sweets corporation. Kokonotsu’s father agrees, but only if Hotaru can convince Kokonotsu to take over the shop.
So begins Kokonotsu’s days of listening to Hotaru laud the history and value of beloved Japanese treats.
Candy! No, really. Dagashi Kashi an anime about candy, making candy, and eating candy – Well, and other Japanese snacks too.
What makes Dagashi Kashi one of the best anime of 2016 is that it is surprisingly educational about Japanese treats, but in between espousing the history and casual joy of eating those treats, it is building similarly to a romantic comedy. The combination is like eating chocolate and potato chips – a weird mix, but actually really good.
March Comes in Like a Lion
Rei Kiriyama recently started to live alone in his last year of high school. He is able to financial support himself as a professional Shogi player, but while he officially became a pro in middle school, he is collapsing under the pressure to succeed.
Burdened with his own problems, Rei has found solace among a kind family of three sisters, the Kawamotos. The oldest, Akari, likes to take in strays and Rei is the latest.
While he feels conflicted about spending time with them, they provide the accepting affection that he has gotten nowhere else.
Shogi is definitely not enticing a big crowd, but what made people fall in love with March Comes in Like a Lion is everything else.
The main character is severely depressed because his talent for shogi has caused extreme isolation from most everyone he ever cared about. Shogi contributes to a plot in a major way, but you definitely watch this show for the character stories and development. It is truly an excellent exploration of chronic depression in anime.
Flip Flappers
Paprika and Cocona hold the keys to open the door where they can meet from their different times in a dimension called Pure Illusion.
In this dimension, they search for the Shard of Mimi which is said to grant any wish. However, finding it will not be easy.
Do you see the synopsis that I wrote above there? It is, in my humble opinion, absolutely worthless. I’ve yet to see a synopsis of Flip Flappers that explains what you are watching in any cohesive form that actually makes sense. It is just a difficult surreal anime experience to explain, and that’s why it will remain underrated and so good.
However, Flip Flappers is the kind of trip that does make perfect sense at the end, but you can’t spoil that for people either. If you like surreal imagery and Alice in Wonderland-style story, Flip Flappers runs wild in the colorful land of imagination.
Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto
Sophisticated, suave, and handsome, Sakamoto is perfect in every way.
Unfortunately, his sheer perfection provokes everyone from his peers to his teachers to try to trip him up, but they just can’t manage it. However, they just might learn something about themselves along the way.
Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto is just pure comedy and has a lot of meme-worthy visuals. As Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto really is just a comedy anime, and the quality of comedy is highly subjective, there isn’t much that can be said.
It is just the right levels of “anime weird” without seeming wildly eccentric, and its not a comedy that you regret watching.
What did you think was the best anime of 2016? Let fans know in the comments section below.
Its Papika not Paprika