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Anime Underrated Anime

Ohhh! There's a TON of anime out there that are so underrated and deserve more love than they get! I've been keeping track of a bunch of them! Here's a few I can name off the top of my head so far:

1. Fancy Lala - Don't let its cutesy-poo title and premise fool you. This anime is actually a very nice, wholesome, heartwarming tale of a young girl using her newfound magical items to become a model/singer and learn the ups and downs of adulthood in the process. It's not very well known because it aired right alongside CardCaptor Sakura at the time this came out (1998). This is my favorite magical girl anime of all time because it never talks down to its audience and never takes an overly saccharine approach to the subjects it tackles, such as divorce, adulthood, juggling school life alongside a budding career, and so on. It's also my favorite idol anime ever, and considering those tend to be rather low quality, I highly recommend you check this one out.

2. Shounen Maid - Again, this show's premise is very misleading, and I don't blame you if you thought this was going to be gross fetishistic hentai pedobait. Rest assured, having seen this twice, it's actually a heartwarming, wholesome drama about a boy who loses his mother and is adopted by his eccentric uncle and learning to adjust to his new home...but he's also a super OCD neat freak and said uncle really sucks at cleaning up after himself, and only puts Chihiro in the maid uniform for funsies. It can also be really funny at times and manages to avoid a lot of the cliches that are typical of this kind of show. But I recommend you watch the English dub, as some of the Japanese voice acting can be...questionable or downright unlistenable.

3. The Dog of Flanders (Movie) - Seriously, I love this movie to bits! It's my gold standard not just for anime movies, anime in general, but for movies as well! It's sad, heartwrenching, funny, sweet, and beautifully well done! Sadly, the DVDs are long out of print and super hard to find. Thankfully, someone uploaded the dub on YouTube so you can still find it easily. I'm praying that someone licenses this and gives it a Blu-Ray release in the future (Yoohoo, Discotek!! Get on it already!!). But if you want to watch something that's genuinely good that encompasses what animation can truly achieve when done right, make this the one you watch!

4. Astra: Lost in Space - Based on the manga by Sket Dance creator Kenta Shinohara, it's about nine kids who find themselves thrown into deep space when a space camping trip goes horribly wrong, and they need to find a way back home while figuring out just why this happened. It's fun and funny, though rather tropey and stupid at times. It's a fun little sci-fi mystery adventure for anyone wanting to scratch that itch. I do recommend checking out the manga too, because the anime changes some things and leaves out important plot details that really accentuate the later plot revelations.

I'll add more later on, when I'm not short on time.
 
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Never seen this thread 'til now:oops:

I'd say most sports anime that isn't Haikyuu, Free, Yuri on Ice, and Slam Dunk are generally underrated, especially since the genre doesn't always do that well in the west. For my own list though then I'd go with:

2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Club (especially since it constantly gets compared to HQ)
ALL OUT!
Blue Literature Series
Cestvs: The Roman Fighter
Dog Days (at least currently, I think there was some buzz around it's release)
Hakuoki (anime adaptations)
Touken Ranbu (anime adaptations)
Kuroko's Basketball (mainly in the US anime fanbase)
Happy Happy Clover
Kemono Jihen
Loveless
No.6 (don't really see people mention it anymore)
Seraph of the End (dedicated fanbase, but once again rarely see any mention of it)
Pandora Hearts (anime version at least, as it diverges from the manga; but I liked both and don't see too much talk/praise of the anime)
Prince of Stride: Alternative (anime adaptation)
Romeo x Juliet
Samurai Flamenco
Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi
Casshern (both original and Sins)
Strawberry Panic (again not much mention of it anymore)
The Betrayal Knows My Name
Diabolik Lovers (anime adaptations)
Yes, No, or Maybe? (movie just released last year, but really not much talk about it)

And just any light BL series not mentioned in the list, and I'd add male idol anime as well since I mostly see hype and talk about girl idol series.
 
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Oh gosh, there's a lot of good stuff out there that deserves wider recognition. But to avoid being here all day I'll keep to only a few of my favourites.

Nerima Daikon Brothers: One of the extremely rare instances of an anime musical. A spoof of the American "Blues Brothers" movie and a hilarious comedy all around. Also one of the rare instances where I would argue the ENG dub is superior to the original.
Gungrave: It saddens me that "Baccano" is what people think of when you say Mafia Anime when this goes completely unseen. Gungrave is super emotional with some cool action. That ending made me cry like a baby.
Angolmois: If you enjoyed the video game "Ghost of Tsushima" then I would suggest checking this out. Whereas Tsushima depicted the fallout of the Mongol occupation of Tsushima, Angolmois covers the buildup and the invasion itself and so kinda works as a prequel as it literally ends on the same day as the Tsushima video game begins.
Aura Battler Dunbine: What does a Japanese high schooler, fairies and giant robots all have in common? They all appeared in Tomino's mind when he took a year off of Gundam to make Dunbine. I know that the Isekai genre gets a lot of crap these days but I still recommend checking out the (literal) O.G from the early eighties. I was so used to the clichés of modern Isekai that there were a lot of twists and turns here that I didn't expect.
Giovanni's Island: Not too much to say about this one other than it is extremely gut wrenching. The cute cover lied to me as I thought it would a silly children's movie, not the Soviet version of "The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas".
 
Sheep said:
Only knew a few people who watched/read this and it makes me sad
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Add me to this list! It’s no secret I’ve definitely mentioned Jun Mochizuki’s works around this forum as being a core inspiration for both my art and designs (to this day, I STILL cosplay the Will of the Abyss…) God the aesthetics of that series are everything to me!
 
I agree that most sports animes get kinda overshadowed; Number24 was great but I don't think it's ever getting a second season.
 
Groove Adventure Rave. This was made by the same person who created Fairy Tail. However, the anime stopped before the actual end, which I'm still miffed about ><
 
I don't watch that much anime but I do have one that is quite underrated for only being Japanese (and about a Utaite group)

But anyways...

Days of UraShimaSakataSen - Its a anime about the group UraShimaSakataSen, and it was just funny and made me laugh a lot. Definitely underrated as heck and I love it so much.
 
You know maybe this is a very broad brush but I would honestly say that, with exceptions, any anime that are old (90s and earlier) and not shonen are pretty underrated and not talked about.

I'm only saying this because there's just so many anime fans who only watch and talk about shonen series, especially battle shonen, from the 2010s onwards. I ain't trying to gatekeep or whatever, if that's what they enjoy, that's what they enjoy, but it's a big reason why I don't participate in the general anime fandom and more gravitate towards my own niche subfandms within it.

Like I said, there are certainly exceptions to what I'm saying, but there are tons of absolute great anime that you rarely see anyone talking about just because they're old or not shonen. (And I'm talking about shows that are fully available in English, whether officially or via fansubs)

When's the last time you saw someone talk about Oniisama e... (also known by it's English title of Dear Brother)? That is an absolute masterpiece directed by the late and great Osamu Dezaki that you can literally watch for free (in the US) on Tubi TV or buy on BD and yet you never see people talking about it just because it's an older series (it's from 1991) and it's a shoujo drama, not exactly full of action like a lot of people want out of their anime.

(Also I just need to point out that the original manga has a whole two pages talking about love and happiness and how it doesn't matter if it's another girl who's in love with you because gender doesn't matter, what matters is how you respond to someone else's love and also this manga is from the mid-1970s too like goddamn)
 
Dragon Quest Dai 2020.

Phenomenal anime that if I’m being honest, rivals (at least to me) shows like Naruto or Black Clover with it’s storytelling, world-building, plot twists, and an ending that I honestly didn’t see coming but still loved.

And yes I may be exaggerating with the comparisons (especially since I’m a huge BC fan) , but I just love this show so much, especially since it helped me a lot during 2022, which I consider one of my worst years emotionally besides this year.

Plus it’s what gave us the Gigastrash technique in most Dragon Quest games! That alone is enough for it to be iconic!
 
My pick will always always be bobobo-bo bobo-bo

framefinity! said:
Dragon Quest Dai 2020.

Phenomenal anime that if I’m being honest, rivals (at least to me) shows like Naruto or Black Clover with it’s storytelling, world-building, plot twists, and an ending that I honestly didn’t see coming but still loved.

And yes I may be exaggerating with the comparisons (especially since I’m a huge BC fan) , but I just love this show so much, especially since it helped me a lot during 2022, which I consider one of my worst years emotionally besides this year.

Plus it’s what gave us the Gigastrash technique in most Dragon Quest games! That alone is enough for it to be iconic!
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Didn’t expect to see another dai fan here! There’s a good reason in jump force of all games dai was chosen to be alongside industry giants like yugioh, Dragon ball, and death note. The original manga helped codify all the remaining shonen tropes dragon ball didn’t after all, also is one of the few dragon quest media ever to not have akira toriyama do designs, didn’t stop the person Who illustrated it from perfectly capturing toriyama style.
 
"Now and then, here and there" is an old favorite from the 90s. Very dark but the most interesting take on an isekai I have ever seen. The mc basically becomes a child soldier. Sara is probably one of my favorite characters of all time. Many messed up things happen to her but yet she is so strong and keeps fighting.
 
Kuroko's Basketball. Not that it doesn't have a fanbase but it gets massively overshadowed by other sports anime like Haikyuu and Free, and while I enjoyed those too, Kuroko's Basketball blows them out of the water, in my opinion. It's still one of my favorite anime series of all time, my favorite sports anime overall, and certainly the most underrated sports anime I like. (My second favorite sports anime is Yuri on Ice and let's be real, that isn't underrated in any sense of the word lol)

Others I think that are underrated are Snow White with the Red Hair (very cute but I hardly ever see anyone talk about it these days) and Gakuen Alice (this one definitely has a few scenes that did not age well at all and I am super uncomfortable with lol, but aside from that it's really cute and funny and another one I never see anyone talking about).
 
Insanish Danish said:
Kuroko's Basketball. Not that it doesn't have a fanbase but it gets massively overshadowed by other sports anime like Haikyuu and Free, and while I enjoyed those too, Kuroko's Basketball blows them out of the water, in my opinion. It's still one of my favorite anime series of all time, my favorite sports anime overall, and certainly the most underrated sports anime I like. (My second favorite sports anime is Yuri on Ice and let's be real, that isn't underrated in any sense of the word lol)
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Yeah, this is mostly in the case of the western fanbase, especially here in the US. Luckily in Japan, it's pretty big and popular over there, and I think they still have KuroFes over there too; it's why I massively prefer/hang around Japanese fanbases of my favorites over the western ones tbh, they have/know of the good stuff lol. I do think the US fanbase has gotten somewhat bigger after Netflix's dub, but that one is... yeah, not that great. Too bad Kuroko often gets overshadowed or trashed in favor of Slam Dunk though, it's my second favorite sports series with super abilities after Prince of Tennis, and beats out Eyeshield 21 (and sort of tied with Blue Lock, even if the supernatural abilities are just exaggerated metaphors).
 
One of my old favorites immediately comes to mind: Witch Hunter Robin. Even though it received a lot of praise when it first aired on Adult Swim in early 2004, it was quickly overshadowed by other anime that debuted in America later that year.
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun is criminally underrated. Such a wholesome, fun, and exciting anime. It does what MHA does, but better, with better, more diverse characters, more character development, great powers (usually in the form of Bloodline Magic), spot-on humor, the occasional serious moments peppered in for good measures, and a lot of wholesome and wonderful interactions and bonds between the cast. The cast is to die for, as it's not just focused on the "power trio" of Iruma, Asmodeus, and Clara like most shonens are, but by the time Season 2 came around it pretty much became the Misfit Class show. And all the side characters, teachers, and supporting cast have well, diverse, and fleshed-out personalities, natures, and interactions, showing that no character is truly a background character. And any relationships between characters are handled in a very natural and realistic way. The icing on the cake is the animation style and nature of it feels more like an anime that came out in the early 00's just with more modern animation, and that works really well in its favor. The fact that it's gotten 3 seasons with roughly 21 episodes each shows its value as a series, and there's plenty more where that came from. Seriously, it's a great series, having pretty much just the right amount of everything to be satisfying and leaves you feeling happy and refreshed.
 

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