I feel like the article is extremely subjective, so I figured it’d be more fun to post your own top 10 good/bads.
I’ll start with mine.
- Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle
- Dark Gathering
- Ya Boy Kongming!
- Great Pretender
- Summertime Rendering
- Miss Shachiku and the Little Baby Ghost
- Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater
- Uncle from Another World
- Digimon Adventures (2020)
- Muteking the Dancing Hero
I tried thinking of anime that I’d suggest to friends who are already fairly active watchers, but for some reason or another had them slip through the cracks.
Ikuta no kita - underratted because it’s avan-garde and my experience watching it was great. 6.39 vs my 9/10
As I have watched a bit more avan-gerde films like “mad god” and “Tetsuo: the iron man” I would not grade it the same.
Is ODDTAXI underrated? If so, then that definitely. It’s just quality all the way through.
And Estab-Life: Great Escape. Yeah - it’s sort of contrived, but it has so much heart and tells a satisfying story. And Equa is wonderful.
Is **ODDTAXI** underrated?
IMO it is rated.
It’s got a good rating, which it deserves. Perhaps it is underwatched though.
That was more my impression, but I don’t follow ratings or reviews much, so wasn’t sure. I just know that I rarely see it discussed, but pretty much universally positively when it is.
I trawled through AniList for the 2020’s and here are some I enjoyed that I don’t seem to see people mention very much. Ten in no particular order:
- Brave Bang Bravern! - ridiculously fun show. Takes the piss out of every other mecha show that comes before it.
- Bofuri (and season 2) - a VRMMO-type show that never takes itself seriously with some really cute moments
- I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level - A “slow-life” isekai filled with cute characters that just struck the perfectly relaxing mood for me. Season 2 coming next year.
- Love After World Domination - A cute romcom between the red ranger and one of the evil organization’s leaders. I will always lament the early cancellation of this manga, but the anime was great as well.
- Campfire Cooking in Another World with my Absurd Skill - Just a fun, laid-back isekai about cooking with zero stakes (and a really fun OP).
- Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon - Most people dismissed this show based on the title, but for those that actually watched it, it was surprisingly good. Not amazing…but definitely fits the underrated moniker.
- Endo and Kobayashi Live! - A villainess series that is just full of fluffy romance. If you like tsunderes, then this is right up your alley.
- Chillin’ in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers - A series that starts with a painfully generic episode 1 before revealing in episode 2 that the actual genre of the show is romance instead of any kind of power fantasy with no harems allowed. A lot of people dropped it after just the first episode.
- TSUKIMICHI -Moonlit Fantasy- (and season 2) - Not sure how underrated this is, but I really enjoyed it, even as a source reader. I feel like this series has a small but dedicated fan base in the West.
- Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero - This is a very silly fantasy show about a hero that has let himself go in retirement. As the show goes, it builds to some real touching, emotional stuff, but you just need to get through some fan service on the way there. Way better than I thought it was going to be.
Not sure if its underrated but Vivy -Fluorite Eye’s Song- was one that I didn’t hear a whole lot of buzz about but is one of my favorites in the last few years!
considering it’s on three different peoples suggested so far, I daresay it’s likely worth a watch.
Based on the difference between average score and my rating on AniList, some of my favourite underrated anime of 2020s are (sorted from largest to smallest delta):
number title year average score my rating delta 1 Cells at Work!! Season 2 2021 7.2 10 2.8 2 BELLE 2021 7.3 10 2.7 3 BOFURI: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense. 2020 7.4 10 2.6 4 Gushing Over Magical Girls 2024 7.4 10 2.6 5 Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! 2024 7.4 10 2.6 6 The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You 2023 7.7 10 2.3 7 Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Season 1 2022 7.8 10 2.2 8 Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Season 2 2023 7.8 10 2.2 9 The Demon Girl Next Door Season 2 2022 7.8 10 2.2 10 TERMINATOR ZERO 2024 7.1 9 1.9 From what I observed, the higher the rating for a show, the more likely I am to like it (and give it a high score)
Not sure how to take popularity into account. How do we judge if a show is underwatched anyway?
Bofuri is a good answer. That show was such goofy fun. Also, I am not surprised to see 100GF there. So many people will write off shows just for having a harem tag. So, when a show comes along that is the harem-iest of harems, they don’t even give it a chance.
So far it’s been the following:
- Bang Brave Bang Bravern - Big gay robots. Hilarious show.
- Skip and Loafer - Succeeds more than any anime I’ve seen at making the characters feel like people.
- Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken - Fun story about making anime.
- Vivy -Fluorite Eye’s Song- - The only “robots rebel against humanity” anime I’ve ever liked.
- ODDTAXI - An excellent story about a guy who gets wrapped up in some shady dealings he’d rather avoid.
There’s been some other great stuff too of course but I wouldn’t say that anything else I’ve seen that’s been released since 2020 has been
overratedunderrated.As for worst it’s gonna be hard to beat The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - Northern War and Ex-Arm.
Bravern is top of my list as well. Hell, Mother’s Basement made a whole video about how everybody slept on Bravern despite how much ass it kicked.
I’ve only seen oddtaxi from your list. I look forward to checking out the others.
As for worst… I have one in mind but the name escapes me at this very moment. Oh right. Gibiate.
As for worst… I have one in mind but the name escapes me at this very moment. Oh right. Gibiate.
Oh, $DEITY, that thing was such a train wreck! I watched it to the end thinking that it couldn’t possibly get any worse.
It did.
It was one I watched all the way through to see if they ever managed to even it out… They didn’t. The pacing was terrible, the plot was worse, and the animation was somehow even worse than that. I think most ps1 games had smoother animations for their 3d models.
Easily Bocchi the Rock. All of its hype is during or after it aired.
- The Angel next door spoils me rotten
- The Dangers in my Heart
- Akebis Sailor Uniform
- Vivy
I did not expect to love VTuber Legend as much as I have this season. I only vaugley knew about Hololive culture beforehand, but I still loved (and will love for the next couple weeks) every joke that’s come out of that show.
I generally watch the first episode of every new anime (and have been since the beginning of 2020)… The Vtuber one didn’t especially catch me in that time, but it’s not the first to slip through the cracks. I’ll give it another go.
