Five Older Series I Enjoyed in 2019

Welcome to another year end list. This one is even harder to put together then my newer movies lists. Limiting myself to five series is incredibly hard, but I wanted to do it to challenge myself. It also allows me to give you guys a select list of anime reviews for newer viewers to look at and read frome. That means that each series review leads to something that I consider the best, right? Not exactly, but these are the ones that I most enjoyed writing. That’s another element that makes this hard for me.

Considering that I am still in the process of watching some anime, I decided that one rule I’m going to give myself is that I needed to have reviewed a series in order for it to count. It being a series I rewatched doesn’t matter as long as I reviewed it. It’s not a limiting rule, but it’s a rule that helps me out quite a bit.

One more gritty detail, this isn’t a top five list. I realize that this is what it could be, but I’m not going to make this harder for myself by doing that. It’s a cop out, but I don’t care. Let’s jump in now.

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Crest/Banner of the Stars
Read my review here!

This is a show that I’ve been waiting to watch for years which means that I’ve added a layer of who knows how high nonsense to this series before even watching it. Yet, the show completely surprised me. It was a little wobbly at first, but I really dug into understanding the Abh empire and Jino and Lafiel’s journey over the course of three seasons. It’s one retro anime that I wish kept going and going. It’s just a wonderful space opera that everyone would like if they tried it I think. I suppose there are some people that wouldn’t be as interested.

Revolutionary Girl Utena
Read my review here!

Another show that I waited a long time to watch and I’m not sure why. With that said, I can’t help but tell you how much I loved watching Utena Tenjou, Anthy Himemiya, and friends upward and downwards journey in this show. Sure, it could be a little episodic and repetitive, but that is an experience that I didn’t mind. Probably because it’s me, right? I love the playing of gender roles, sexuality, and such. There is a lot of good material here. More then enough to bring it over the top.

Kaiba
Read my review here!

This year started, not completed, my larger jump into Masaki Yuasa’s works. I watched this series at the beginning of the year and discovered that I really did love it. It’s yet another series that explores sexuality and gender roles and such, but it instead uses cyborgs, changing bodies in a science fiction adventure kind of show. I really do love the art style of this series because it really fits with the flexibility going on.

Boogiepop Phantom
Read my review? Here!

I really do have a thing for older, puzzle box series from the early 2000’s. This was one that I’ve just recently got the chance to watch and it made me feel all sorts of things. All thanks to Boogiepop and Others in reminding me that this series exists! This is an interesting series that explores high schoolers growing up using them growing super natural abilities as the vocal point for them changing. All lead by Boogiepop, a male presence in a female body, to explore these super natural happenings. Yeah, figuring out what was happening was a fun experience that required a lot of rewatching episodes sometimes. Yahoo!

Martian Successor Nadesico
Read my review here!

Didn’t think I would leave this list without a mecha series, would you? This is my one rewatch on this list and while I’ve always had some strong positive thoughts about this series, I couldn’t help but love it even more this time. Nadesico is a series that is very inline with Evangelion and Rahxephon, both which I reviewed this year, and I can’t help but think that this series is my favorite amongst them. Maybe because it takes those same sorts of tropes and puts it in a old school space opera? Maybe because it’s using an older super robot show as the center of it all? Either way, it just all works. WATCH NADESICO.

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So yeah, those are my top five older series from 2019. You couldn’t believe how hard it was to narrow down this list. It required quite a lot of thought, but this is who I was in 2019. If anything, this should show my tastes and whether or not you would want to follow me further on from this point you know…other then the other lists that will be making an appearance here. The next one drops next Saturday! Keep an eye out for it and my other posts.

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