For his prize, the winner of this year’s Top 10 contest, Darrel, asked me to do a top five anime episodes of 2024 list. Darrel, thanks for your patience. Not as easy task and I wanted to wait until I could set aside some time to really consider it. As usual I feel as though I’m sure to have forgotten something, but this is what I came up with (in no particular order):

• Natsume Yuujinchou Shichi Episode 11 – As I noted at the time, whenever Natsume Yuujinchou breaks out “Daidaiiro no Toki”, you know things are serious. This was the only Reiko-focused ep of the season, and probably revealed more about her than any that came before. A classic in every respect.
• Karasu wa Aruji o Erabanai Episode 17 – There were some tremendous episodes of Yatagarasu, no question about that. I chose this one, which showed Yukiya sent on a quest by the kind of the underworld, for how thrilling and inventive it is. A great sense of tension pervades it, and it’s just incredibly clever.
• Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu Season 2 Episode 6 – I tend to go by a general rule of not choosing multiples from the same series in an exercise like this one. I certainly could have with BokuYaba (and maybe Karasu too), but if I was going to limit myself to just one, this was the clear choice. Basically there are two main pillars to the series – the romance, and Kyou’s personal growth. “The speech” is the profoundest flowering of BokuYaba as Ichi’s coming-of-age story, and for me the most powerful arc in the series so far.
• Sengoku Youko: Senma Konton-hen Episode 14 – Sengoku Youko is another of those shows that could easily have landed multiple episodes here. It was brutal to choose just one. But in the end I felt I had to go with Episode 14, because the poetry of Mizukami Satoshi’s use of the thousand-armed Kannon is one of the most stunning bits of writing in manga history (and of course, the anime did it justice). It’s so perfect, and profound on so many levels.
• Nige Jouzu no Wakagimi Episode 1 – The Elusive Samurai got a flat-out great adaptation, which means that (again) there were several episodes I could have chosen here. I picked the premiere, partly because it was as great as any of them but also because it had the shock and awe factor of announcing to the world that this adaptation was going to be spectacular. As a pure adaptation – taking a source material and improving it in the transition to anime – this show was the best of 2024.

A few honorable mentions: Kyuujitsu no Warumono-san Episode 12, Boku no Hero Academia Season 7 Episode 19, and Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan – Kyoto Douran Episode 10. And a bunch of eps from the series that made the top five.