The second 10 is always an interesting snapshot of the year just finished.  Both ends of it in fact, because at the top it’s a prime indicator of elite quality, and at the bottom of depth.  This year overall was certainly better at the very top if the leaderboard than the last couple have been, and probably at the top of this list too.  It was a pretty good year in terms of elite series, then – I’d probably take the top two series of both tens over any of the last few anime years.

After that, it’s rougher.  To be honest I had to stretch a bit to get to twenty, though that’s more or less the norm in recent years.  I’d probably take last year’s #18-20 over 2022 despite it being overall a weaker year – though to be fair there are Netflix series I haven’t finished yet which might have factored in, like Romantic Killer and Tiger & Bunny 2 (which to be honest I haven’t even started).  This second ten is definitely top-heavy – I thought 2021’s was too, but even more so this time.  Of course that’s a trade-off I’ll take any time – what’s at the top of these list’s is more crucial than what’s at the bottom.

As such, the “cruelest cut of all” – the 20th spot – wasn’t really all that cruel this year.  When you start to feel like you’re including shows just to make a number, you know the well is running pretty dry.  I’m happy enough to have watched all the series on this list, but in a deeper year the last few aren’t ones I’d have been heartbroken to leave out.  One last note – Please don’t ask me if Isekai Ojisan would have made the list, because I honestly don’t know.  It didn’t finish, so it’s not eligible.

11. Ousama Ranking – This one was indeed cruel.  Yeah, the second half of Ousama Ranking went off the rails pretty badly.  It got pretty damn misguided both in terms of some plot decisions and its worldview.  But all in all, Ranking of Kings certainly looks like a top ten series.  At its best it was truly great – hell, for a while (it was winter, admittedly) I thought it had a serious shot to be in the #1 conversation.  It was the hardest show of 2022 to rank for much the same reason that Fumetsu no Anata e was the hardest of 2021.  On the whole I think Ousama Ranking was the better series, yet it missed out on the top 10 while Fumetsu sneaked in.  That alone tells you that this was a better anime year overall.

12. Aharen-san wa Hakarenai – This was the other show I was talking about when I described how painful the top 10 cutoff was for me this time.  I ended up loving this series a lot – it was one of those anime where my personal affection exceeded the series’ objective quality, probably.  Aharen-san wa Hakarenai was a smart, cheeky, and genuinely hilarious romantic comedy.  It mocked the cliches of the genre with just enough affection to keep it upbeat, and it featured one of the most loveable couples in recent romcom history.  It was good enough to be a top ten series, and in a lot of years it would have been.

13. Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo suru – I’m not especially interested in the cosplay side of fandom, but I still enjoyed Sono Bisque Doll an awful lot.  It was a lovely series to look at, beautifully drawn and directed, and featured a really cute main pairing.  The romance was a slow burn, and always jockeying for the spotlight with the cosplay (and losing a little too often for my tastes), but for the most part the series worked for me and its best was indeed outstanding.  It was unsurprisingly a huge success, and already has a second season confirmed.

14. Koukyuu no Karasu – Raven of the Inner Palace was definitely #14 with a bullet.  It finished on a really high note, its final episodes some of the best of its entire run, and stands as one of the best light novel adaptations in the past several years.  It was a bit clumsy in execution and the pacing was all over the map, but the major building blocks like world-building and character development were so strong that it succeeded anyway.

15. Ryman’s Club – A sneaky good little sports anime, this one.  I appreciate that it took on a slice of the sports pie – corporate sports – that anime hasn’t really tackled before.  Badminton has seen a bit of anime boom, with two originals in 2022 (Love All Play being the other), and an Ao no Hako adaptation reportedly in development.  There were a few clunker moments in the final arc and the budget seemed a bit minimal at times, but on balance Ryman’s Club was a really grounded and nicely detailed look an interesting side of the sporting world.

16. Vanitas no Carte – Vanitas wasn’t one of Bones’ truly great series, but it was consistently pretty entertaining.  Mochizuki Jun is quite an interesting mangaka, and her series tend to be pretty slow burns – Pandora Hearts was too – and that’s kind of a shame, because so far at least it means anime never finishes them.  Not only did the season end at a frustrating point in the story, but it did so using nearly all the published source material.  As such whether there’s be appetite for it or not (I think it’s pretty borderline) we won’t be seeing a continuation for several years.

17. Yojouhan Time Machine Blues – I don’t have quite the same affection for this franchise as I do Morimi Tomihiko’s other work, and Yojouhan Time Machine Blues isn’t quite on the same level as the parent series.  But that bar is so high Tatami Time Machine Blues still comfortably makes the cut here.  It was interesting seeing this series in the hands of Natsume Shingo after the original was so distinctly Yuasa Masaaki – both are auteur directors but their visual styles are very different.  At six short episodes this was a bit of a snack as opposed to a meal, but there was too much greatness involved for it not to be a winner.

18. Spy x Family – SxF is another pretty tough series to rank, because the delta between its best and worst material is so huge.  I like the stuff it does well – the vintage screwball comedy homages, the Damian plotline, a lot of the school comedy – enough to rank it at the head of the pack of recent commercial kaiju.  It’s a series many manga readers say hasn’t played its best cards yet, so I’ll hold out hope that the second season (there’s a movie coming too) is a step up.

19. Sabikui Bisco – Heh, two LN adaptations made the list this year, so never let it be said I don’t give the medium a chance.  Sabikui Bisco was all over the map, but it had a manic Gainax-style energy I really loved, and it was one of the most visually interesting anime of 2022. In a way it was this year’s  Heion Sedai no Idaten-tachi.

20. Chainsaw Man – Anime’s other blockbuster adaptation of the day, Chainsaw Man certainly delivered its share of memorable moments.  I wish I could say I thought the hype was deserved, but as with most of these series I just don’t see greatness there.  It didn’t help that the adaptation from MAPPA was a bit plain yogurt when boldness and edge would probably have served Fujimoto Tatsuki’s material better.  CSM is another one where many believe the best material hasn’t been adapted yet – we’ll find out soon enough.