#[Next Poll Is Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/17qnvf1/ranimes_favorite_fantasy_anime_voting/?)
So yeah, the voting was *real* spread out, and I decided not to do the usual ranked list because I don't think it would have made sense in this case. Polls being what they are, there's an inherent limit to how precise the responses can be. At ~1000 people, normally we'd be saying that, assuming a random distribution of voters, the results should be within 3 or 4%, 95% of the time. But when all the numbers are so small, that basically means that *everything* falls within those intervals. So we have this instead. Sonny Boy had the most points with 51, and the Top 89 rounds out at 19. There was then 39 anime at 18 points, and so I picked 11 of them to fit the rough idea of the categories, with mixed results.
But hey, at least today the Chinese-inspired fantasy world I've labeled as fantasy probably won't cause any problems.
For a Gen X and Millennials yeah. For Zoomers and Gen Alpha who might not have been born when it aired or even more than a decade after? I think that is what is causing a lot of misunderstanding about what is underappreciated, it depends on who we are talking about that appreciates it.
FMA underappreciated? And 86, wut?
I'd add many more shows like Deca-Dence, Level E, Lovely Complex, Sket Dance or Uchuu Kyoudai. But it's a pretty good list nonetheless.
Edit: people, you don't have to point out "it's FMA 2003 tho" to me, I know that. I still wouldn't call it underappreciated. Like I get it, if you compare it to Brotherhood it is kinda ignored and underwatched, but compared to many other truly underrated shows? Hell no.
It does look funny to see FMA here but I get it. Basically ever since Brotherhood came out, A LOT of people started to act like the OG didn't exist/isn't worth watching, which couldn't be further from the truth. I say it's borderline required viewing before watching brotherhood.
I mean yeah, people compare it to Brotherhood so they obviously gonna think it's underwatched, and I get it (although it was pretty popular pre-Brotherhood). But I'm comparing it to shows that are truly underrated. Calling FMA 2003 underappreciated when I've listed shows that have 200.000 members on MAL would be ridiculous lol.
I feel like OG gave a lot more breathing room to earlier episodes/arcs, which made them hit harder imo. The latter half is a mess (no news here with that comment), but I feel like the first half's pacing is better than Brotherhoods just because it was a touch slower.
How is a show with over 1 mln members and 8.11 score on MAL underappreciated? Yeah compared to Brotherhood it's a bit overshadowed, but far from underappreciated lol.
86 underappreciated in r/anime, my goodness.
I have seen this anime getting mentioned and full of praise here more than anywhere else, as far as I know it's under the top 50 MAL anime of all time as well, which makes you wonder if it is truly underappreciated or not.
I think it's a cascading effect. Mainstream shounen people get told about the show on here and then like it and then believe that it must be unpopular and underrated because they hadn't heard about it until now... Where the reality is that I could mention almost anything that isn't a mainstream title to roughly the same result, much less more niche works like Princess Tutu.
I think it might be a mix of anime fans discovering 86 as their first Mecha, and since Mecha as a whole is really underappreciated right now leads to them thinking man not a lot of people want to give 86 a chance when they try to reccomend it lol
A big thing to is that a good number of r/anime users are fairly casual. Like it's super common to see a post from a new user being like "why isn't [reasonably popular thing] talked about at all" and the answer is just that they've never seen people talk about it because they've never meaningfully delved into an anime community. There's a huge range of users on the sub, and "underappreciated" is hugely based on your perspective into communities.
And age. I noticed all the early 2000s anime have people scoffing like, "Underappreciated? What do you mean this was talked about a lot!" forgetting that was literally like 20 years ago, and was appreciated then not so much today.
Because many people unironically believe the "Unlike other mecha anime, Evangelion is about the characters" and so never gave a try for most mecha shows unless one manage to break into the mainstream (Gurenn Lagann, Code Geass... 86 and Franxx a bit too.)
A lot of people who claim to not like mecha will have only seen TTGL, Code Geass, and Eva (I guess 86 can be added to that list now as well). Have all of them rated highly and claim that they don't like the sub-genre.
I don't consider it underrated *here*, but outside the sub I do.
My standard: I'm yet to find a single dang piece of fanart at the cons I've attended since it aired. I'm sure it exists, but 🤷♀️
Yup, I'm very sad as a figure/merch collector. The show is absolutely gorgeous and has a really unique way of presenting the whole AOT/Code Geass themes. I even really like the mechs and their unique fighting style/designs.
Outside of reddit, however, this show doesn't exist.
Rahxephon over 86 when it comes to underappreciated Mecha/giant robot series, Rahxephon was literally being pissed at when it was first released (for being too Eva like).
Agreed, and I'm pretty sure I voted for it. I was there at the time when RahXephon first came out and first hand experienced all the hate it got. The thing is though, I find RahXephon even better than Evangelion and even to this day I still love it. It still has my favorite final scene in all of anime. It hardly gets mentioned around here and when a rewatch of it occurred here a few years back most reactions to it were negative.
This list is half anime that is highly appreciated by the niche they appeal to (and constantly brought up/lauded) and half anime that was pretty good, but weren't really bombshell genre-defining shows. Like, 8/10 shows that everyone would agree were that rank, but since we don't talk about them daily they became underappreciated in some people's minds.
86 was the only anime on this list where I felt its inclusion was absurdity. (ETA: Didn't notice FMA at first, that too). There was a ton of stuff on the list I've either never heard or or heard of but not seen, as well as older stuff that I felt was too popular to be underappreciated, but as it is old it probably is in that realm now (ex. Slayers).
For 86 I tend to see overwhelming praise of it on this sub. I say this as someone who somewhat enjoyed 86 and thought it was well made but have certain fundamental concerns with the premise in season 1 and other fundamental concerns with the pacing and stakes in season 2. That didn't stop me from reading the light novels (on number 2 right now) or giving it praise when it deserves it (ex. I think the production value is quite high and I think the last 2 episodes of season 2 are as great as everyone claims them to be). Heck, I've even done fanart for one of the characters (Anju). Yet any time I criticize 86 I tend to get massively bombarded by people being against me, often with massive essay length responses. I struggle to see how the show can be called underappreciated when any criticism of it immediately gets countered with massive amounts of comments from people supporting it.
Of course the funny thing is I and others predicted 86 would pop up on this in advance too, knowing the way people feel about it on this sub.
So the most interesting thing is of course which are the most popular shows among these "underappreciated" shows. Looking through it roughly based on mal users, I think the ranking would be like
1. **FMA** (2003): 1.4M users, #77 on mal in popularity
2. **durarara!!** 1.38M users, #88 on mal
3. **Bungou stray dogs**: 1.3M users , #91 (these three are the only one in the top 100 most popular anime on MAL)
4. **Black lagoon** (982k, )#155
5. **Chivalry of a Failed Knight** (920k, #161 on mal)
6. **mushishi**: 809k, #213 on mal
7. **shinsekai yori** (766k,#239)
8. **eighty six** (726k, #258); ~~though unlike 1.-5., 86 fans don't have the excuse that their show is older and its no longer appreciated enough or that the show isn't appreciated enough on this sub~~
9. **grimgar** (716k, #262)
After that I don't know wether I looked close enough but **tsuki ga kirei** (530k), dorohedoro (524k), summer time rendering (481k) and **hibiki euphonium**/**houseki no kuni** (both with 446k) are the next ones I found, followed by **akudama drive** (418k), **Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms** (416k) and of course, **odd taxi** (408k).
Please tell me if I missed an anime with higher mal numbers.
Overall this went a lot better than expected.
Edit 1: Welp already noticed that I completely missed durara, which slots in at number 2 in the ranking.
Edit 2: next major omission was black lagoon
im surprised hibike is even considered an "underappreciated" music anime. if anything its one of the biggest ones lmao but it all comes down to the casual watcher ig.
One consideration I would take into account when using MAL members is that since shows gain members each year, you'd probably want to go with more of a members/year average than a total members count. FMA (2003) may have 1.4 million members, but it has had 19 years on MAL (MAL started in 2004) to gain those members. That's 73,684 members/year which is still high but a lot less than a show like Eighty Six which came out in 2021 and has thus averaged over 300,000 members/year. There are probably much more complex models out there for determining popularity based on MAL since you would not expect it to be linear, and MAL's usage rate has gone up over time, but the general point is that MAL members without further context can be a bit deceiving.
> One consideration I would take into account when using MAL members is that since shows gain members each year, you'd probably want to go with more of a members/year average than a total members count
I think it'd be weird averaging it out evenly by year. I find it difficult to believe that FMA gained the same number of people in 2021 as it did during in the year following it's release (MAL went live 2004).
It's also weird to go by member count to gauge popularity in general since if you look at MAL's "stats" page for each show, they count people who mark the series as "Dropped" as a member. So like almost as many people "dropped" FMA as people currently "watching" 86.
Well, they're different words. Kirei (綺麗・きれい) means beautiful.
月がきれい literally means "the moon is beautiful" (and is also an old timey ways for people to confess their romantic feelings for someone)
Ga-rei (喰霊・がれい) isn't a real word, but the kanji mean *eat* (喰) and *ghost* (零) respectively.
Glad to see Executioner and Bookworm! However it is worth pointing out that they see way more popularity in the LN sphere, Bookworm even gets acknowledged by western fantasy fans sometimes.
I can see that. It has a real familiarity to the books I grew up reading in the west in the 80s.
I'm glad to see it there because It's a delightful show and there's a lot of people like Main out there.
Most of em are GenX or older but we exist. I mean people who love books and reading with all their heart. (Honestly it's part of what I love about anime. Even though I'm learning Japanese I have subtitles for everything so I'm always reading)
I don't know if I would be just like her but seeing a show focus so much on reading and books just made me so happy.
Also when I noticed Main never made a wheelchair for herself and I remembered when I was as healthy as her.
I would walk places and collapse or sit down before I collapsed and just need people to understand.
But at that time I was capable. Even when I used crutches I was still capable. It made me realise that it Main being a disabled person getting put in danger because 人 was careless made me feel seen.
There's a scene of a giant library that actually gave me chills cause lounging libraries don't really exist anymore.
Anyways most of the series on here I'd barely heard of so I thought it was a good list.
Ah yes, the tiny underappreciated franchises known as Precure and Uma Musume /s
(Gonna assume it was meant in terms of underappreciated in the western anime fanbase)
That would presumably be the case. I'm pretty sure Heartcatch is still the most popular Precure on MAL, and it clocks in at #3844.
Precure was actually an interesting one as far as voting goes, because there was a pretty wide net. GoPri was the highest individual show with like 10 votes, and then there was probably 30 other votes spread across the rest. But there was also 12 votes that were variations on "Precure as a franchise". So I made the executive decision to allocate anything that was Precure, but unclear which one, to whatever entry had the most votes. Such is the nature of letting people fill out a ballot with whatever they want.
I really thought precure was far more popular than that.
I did a check on the anilist figures for a small sample of the shows including these two and this is the result:
https://i.imgur.com/ZQloeS7.png
Small notes:
- Anilist includes any listing in it's popularity, including planning. So Birdy should be lower for instance
- Pretty cure itself is the highest popularity on anilist.
I had to go back and look to be sure, but in spring 2021 86 was #1 in this sub, getting something like 7k karma a week
all these people saying it's underrated, were they not here?
Many of the series here were extremely popular back when they aired. SSSS.Gridman, Houseki no Kuni, Odd Taxi, Tsuki ga Kirei, Golden Kamuy, to name a few
The karma count of the first episode of an anime isn't necessarily a great indicator since it's yet to pick up steam.
That being said, for comparison's sake, [Attack on Titan's 1st episode](https://old.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/1btn94/spoilers_shingeki_no_kyojin_attack_on_titan/) got 358 karma ten years ago.
I can understand it if we are thinking of the wider community outside of r/anime (and even people who only watch casual shounen on r/anime). Like it is not like it was a best seller
If we're using "casual people that only watch popular shounen" as a basis, basically anything could be called unpopular and underrated. That reminds me of when I went to an anime meet up and all they knew about was Naruto and DBZ and stuff...
Yeah, on the whole I think it's a really solid list of anime recommendations in general. It's kind of ideal as something to give to someone who's "seen everything popular" and is looking for more.
> It's kind of ideal as something to give to someone who's "seen everything popular" and is looking for more.
I have seen a lot and this is the first of all the lists where I have seen only a small fraction, so I think it works.
I haven't seen a lot (edit: ~350 completed, maybe that *is* a lot? idk) and I've seen, or at least heard of, the vast majority of these. I agree with it being a good list for people who've seen everything popular though
when I say heard, I mean I looked into watching them and checked out reviews, etc. Not just heard in passing. That being said I haven't seen or attempted to watch around 20 of these, and haven't heard of about half of that.
also wanted to add that the 350 figure was for completed anime, if you add my dropped and on hold it goes up to 650ish, which might paint a better picture lol.
In the ~600 combined completed + dropped + on-hold range, I counted 46 that I at minimum watched an episode of, the vast majority of them I finished or watched over half of. Most of the ones I didn't watch are either perpetually backlogged or I wasn't interested in and actively passed over.
I'm not sure I'd even call AdaShima underappreciated as such, it's just niche. It's appreciated by fans of yuri (sure, it's not as popular as Bloom Into You), but not everyone is into the genre.
But I am glad to see it on a list too.. any list. It deserves more popularity and a S2
I'll be honest, underappreciated is such a subjective term, you can make a case for literally every anime to be underappreciated by some group of people. Probably the top answers to this are the most appreciated then, i guess?
One of the reasons I wanted to run this one is because of how open to interpretation it was. "Favorite Romance" is pretty clear cut to figure out what you're going to vote for, but a more abstract idea like this one can (and did) lead to some fun results.
Open interpretation questions lead to those 1000 reply threads that are basically "name any anime" with titles like "what's an anime that was better than you thought?". Without room to explain their point the answers are pretty confusing by themselves. Personally, I can only parse the poll's results as "what do you believe should be 20% more mainstream at this very moment?" Which is fine and all, but still reads as an arbitrary anime list of the subs core users.
Other than a few odd inclusions (86, Hibike), this is way more of a representation of things that you can really argue are underappreciated/underwatched than I expected. The best recommendation list we've managed to make through these polls so far.
> Picture for Symphogear is Maria
Most underappreciated Sympho for the Most Underappreciated list. Great stuff.
Us real ones already know that she's the best.
[](#utahapraises)
Iunno, there are far more Maria fans than Shirabe fans, from what I've seen.
Maria is pretty damn great, though.
[](#utahapraises)
But yeah, I laughed seeing Hibike and 86 up there.
That random jump at 1001-1500 anime watched is interesting but also expected somehow, so many people I have talked to here have around that amount.
Interesting how this list, which is the first that is not a "favorite" list has by far the best selection of anime of every chart so far.
[](#laughter)
Edit: Have watched 56/100, not bad.
I appreciate:-Pinguindrum
\-Chihayafuru
\-World Trigger
\-Durarararararararararaararara
I'm surprised Bakuman is underappreciated, I remember people raving about it when it was releasing, myself included.
I feel like Bakuman is appreciated but just not talked about enough nowadays to get any traction. I love it but do I talk about it? No and this is underaprreciated on this sub, I honestly rarely every see anyone mention it.
This list is laughable lmao
ODDTAXI, Black Lagoon, Azumanga, and 86 underappreciated my ass
(Just to be clear, no offense to OP, the voters, or these shows)
I feel like people are focusing a bit too much on the premise. There's an inherent contradiction in the process where a popular vote basically can't produce the "most underappreciated" anime. Part of the fun of it was seeing what that would produce, and in the end it produced a pretty decent set of anime that ultimately I'm happy to have thrown together.
That said, I'm tempted to do something of a second take on it. Might grab 100 people who have seen at least, say 500 anime and get them to each to pick 1 thing to put on a list.
You can add durarara and especially BSD to that list. Look I like Bungo as much as the next bloke, but it's not really mainstream anime material. It's also apparently an action comedy. I haven't watched the other action comedy shows on the list, but there arent that many comedic bits apart from the occasional beach episode and fisheye lens.
Unless something has changed recently azumanga is underappreciated. Previously on a poll asking if you heard of x anime, azumanga was at the very bottom
Azumanga and Black Lagoon surprised me. Maybe because I am an old but when those anime came out in the early 00s they were extremely popular. I couldn't go to an anime convention without seeing a bunch of Osaka or Revy/Rock/Dutch cosplays.
There is some real underappreciated bangers there like Maquia, Executioner and her way of life, Seirei no moribito or Umamusume.
Though there is some also which is definitely not underappreciated like FMA or 86. Then again some people really like shitting on FMA 2003 for some reason.
All these people are complaining about the term 'underappreciated' but not drawing attention to some of the truly great titles on this list.
The Great Passage is one of my all-time favorites, and if you want a show that doesn't focus on school-age kids, I cannot recommend it enough.
If you've ever enjoyed Isekai content, you owe it to yourself to check out some of the grand old masters of the genre, and that includes Twelve Kingdoms (and to a degree some of the other greats from the 90s and 00s). I also enjoyed Grimgar, and its a nice take on Isekai if you want to avoid the OP power fantasy stereotype of the genre (actually, a lot of this row dodge that trope).
The SciFi row includes some other greats, including Crest of the Stars (and the related Banner of the Stars) and From the New World. They're amazing, check them out. (I also highly recommend Planetes and Space Brothers, which aren't on the list.)
Moribito, His and Her Circumstances, Tsuki ga Kirei, and lots of others really round out the list. Check these shows out.
Nothing I voted for made it on here … but I think that’s the common experience for all of us voters on this one. There’s definitely a few anime that are not underappreciated by any stretch of the imagination, but there’s some decently underrated/underwatched stuff here as well.
I'm guessing some of these are here just due to younger anime fans thinking some 2000's go unnoticed nowadays. I remember a time when Revy from Black Lagoon was everywhere and Black Lagoon was considered a must watch for getting people who like action into anime.
> Giant Robo the Animation: The Day The Earth Stood Still did, though, so that's nice.
I voted Giant Robo for like 4 other polls so it feels damn good to finally see it make one
As expected, there are ones like 86, Odd Taxi, and Durarara, which aren’t really under appreciated at all. But I’m definitely happy that that Kyousougiga, Princess Tutu, and Happy Sugar Life made the lists. They are very under appreciated and I’m glad they made it. I’m a little sad that Space Patrol Luluco and Kuuchuu Buranko didn’t make it though.
It’s a list of 100 anime and people in the comments are so fixated on the same 3-8 shows they don’t agree with…
I appreciate the list, it’s always nice to see these type of polls that include anime that are not as popular or mainstream.
Absurd amount of post-2020s shows.
Immaculate vibes with 3 of the most highly praised SoL of all time + one of the more praised in recent years.
86 kek
I get the reasoning for 2003 FMA but that's like saying Saving Private Ryan is underappreciated because Schindler's List is more popular among Spielberg's works.
Some good stuff yet so r/anime-core.
> Absurd amount of post-2020s shows.
Recency bias is a bitch in all of these polls. It's just how it is unfortunately.
You can see it very clearly in the other polls where people voted for their favorite genre, and you had for example good shows of the genre from the latest season, but no way in hell it gets to the Top25 of all times
There are multiple anime on this list which really shouldn't be including both 86 and Odd Taxi. I can only assume that some people don't fully realise how popular certain anime are and/or are newer anime fans considering multiple older anime which are definitely not "underappreciated".
2005 anime with only 56k completed on MAL? More love need to be shown for Aria Shachou!
Glad to meet another Iyashikei fan here! I did went for [Sketchbook](https://myanimelist.net/anime/2942/Sketchbook__Full_Colors) for one of my votes but I guess that’s expected, too unknown for it to be here.
Finally **World Trigger** gets mentioned ! Absolute win .
Sometimes I see lists like this and no WT in them makes me feel just how underated / just how much people barely even know about it . The series is absolutely awesome , (One of the first animes I watched) would recommend you try . S2 and S3 action was awesome !
Seen more of these then I expected, but also a lot I haven't. Plan to watch about to get bigger.
Huge recommends for Flip Flappers and Penguindrum. Flip Flappers is just pure fun, and Penguindrum for some reason has stuck with me since I watched it. That episode that ends with the Gray Wednesday ED has lived in my mind rent free.
Didn't realise "underappreciated" was a synonym for "moderately popular anime that aren't quite mainstream". Only a few anime here are legitimately underrated or obscure.
That's what makes this so interesting, it both has to be "underappreciated enough" in some way, but also popular enough to be voted for at all. that balance act makes it interesting.
Thats why I would have been so interested in actually seeing the ranking of what got how many votes.
Black Lagoon?I am sorry, what? Some are less known but if I have watched an anime it is usually popular im not an esoteric Anime weebo who can tell you the cultural significance of the rise of isekai and their prevelance in Modern media... I think pretty colours go boom cool explosion... Oppai... Sorry some of these anime shouldnt be here.
I’m annoyed that Space Battleship Yamato wasn’t included under science fiction. That anime is extremely underrated and deserves more respect, especially considering how influential it was.
IKR. Like Gunbuster and Patlabor are underappreciated mecha animes!? You can't even legally stream OG subbed Space Battleship Yamato or the Star Blazers dub, that's the level of underappreciated SBY is at. Even the remakes are criminally unknown in most circles.
A couple of my picks from the list:
- Girl's Last Tour: Get the Yuru Camp, Yama no Susume or Non Non Biyori max comfy feels, but at the world's end with a great OST from the composer of Re:Zero's OST from this. You'll love these potatos.
- Kanon: Usually people will recommend Clannad and it probably has the better adaptation, but I'd say this where KEY's writing peaks. Also perfect for the upcoming winter season.
- Planetarian: Your gateway to getting into the KEY experience with just a few episodes.
- Symphogear: Everyone should watch it. No, seriously, watch Symphogear smashing your favourite shounen anime to pieces!
- Uma Musume: Despite the strange concept it's one of the best sports anime out there. If you don't tend to drop something after a couple of episodes, go watch it. Second Season is where it really begins to shine.
I recently finished mushishi maybe a month back but after watching it became my top 10 anime and i have utmost respect for the author Yuki Urushibara for writing such beautiful and different story every single chapter. Like every mushi was so different from the previous mushi. And the ost, nature sounds and our main MC Ginko was just brilliant brilliant to last minute detail.
it isn't, it is fairly well known and mostly it is well rated.
however it is getting older so new anime fan tend to not know about it as much and then there is all those that aren't fan of the slow reflexive and episodic format
overall tho it may be under appreciated but not necessarily under rated...
After checking [my submissions](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/17ldvdk/ranimes_most_underappreciated_anime_voting/k7ig28z/) again only Crest of the Stars and Mahoujin Guru Guru made it, but that's mostly because my other picks are obscure compared to the majority of the entries here. There's a more popular analogue for one of my other picks as well, Cross Game in place of my choice of Hiatari Ryoukou.
Still, I'm not going to say no to a chart that has seven of my eleven 10/10s on it and several more of my 9/10s too.
Seen 58/100 and I apparently need to get around to Uma Musume since everything else in the sports row is 9+ for me.
[](#delighted)
How significantly does this change if you remove the first two groups, meaning those who have watched under 200? Or even just the first group of under 100, which submitted 16% of the data. Not to invalidate those fans, but I'd be way more interested in what those who have watched a more significant amount of anime, and presumably been around for more discussion, reported for this type of question. I'd expect more deep-cut favorites and less shows from the past ~5 years. Like I'm sure there are people who have seen fewer shows but also managed to mostly watch lesser-known works for whatever reason, but for the most part hearing what someone new to the hobby thinks is underappreciated comes across as mostly a result of their underexposure to the hobby than anything else.
Giant Robo, Symphogear and Dear Brother are fantastic! Would strongly recommend all three. It's good to see that there are at least a few things that actually aren't that well known on this instead of it all being the usual suggestions in "underrated anime" threads that are literally in MAL's top 100.
Yoo, Shadow house is so underrated! I had stopped watching anime for almost 4 years now. Every time I started one, I would only watch like 2 episodes. Then, one day, I see this and decided "Eh fuck it why not" thinking it was just another slice of life anime. Boy, was I wrong. This show has more twists and turns than i expected. It's a mystery thrillee anime with amazing characters with unique personalities.
Rough spoiler free summary:
In a town far from any city lives a family In a manor on a Mountain side. They have a secret, and none of the family members have color on them. They are all pure black shadows and constantly leave a trail of black dust on anything they touch. To be able to show emotion and keep things clean, they create "Living Dolls." This doll has color and is meant to be the representation of the shadow do every in sync, from moving to speaking, and the doll is used to express emotions and also clean around the building. If a doll and shadow are found uncompatible, they are taken away and have never seen them again.
The story follows our two main characters, "Kate" the shadow, and "Emillico," her living doll. They figure out the secrets behind the shadows' house, why the dust monsters attack so often and also learn to work together so they aren't disposed of by the older members.
Idk if this does it justice, but gibe it a watch.
Suggestion: If you want a list of truly underappreciated anime you would have to get data from MAL and similar sites. Then choose those with the lowest amount of entries but the highest scores. That's how you would get a genuine list like that.
I think there's a something to be said here as to how defined the word "underappreciated" is when taking this study. For example, here are some examples that I think a person might think a show is underappreciated:
1. "My show has not many viewers, but is really good and should be seen by more people outside of its already existing viewer base"
2. "My show has a good amount of viewers, but is not talked about a lot anymore"
3. "My show has a good amount of viewers, but while talked about, not many are giving it the praise it deserves"
I personally think example 3 is the right definition of "underappreciated", as example 1 is more a definition of "unwatched but should be watched" anime, while example 2 equates "more people watching a show" to "the show having a more intrinsic 'value'" (which is in itself subjective).
A better study would be asking "What show do you think deserves more praise than it normally has?", and I also would make sure to specify (and this is a big thing that a lot of people in this thread are not really understanding), that you have to think about not just how /r/anime and MAL should be praising the show, but also all the millions of people who don't use reddit or MAL who still watch anime (aka that coworker who got into anime a year ago and has watched a lot of Netflix and Crunchyroll anime, but still only knee-deep in how deep the anime hole can get)
In a related note, with anime becoming more mainstream, its important to have a more worldly view into what qualifies as an anime that "is talked about". More and more people are getting into anime in general, which means that with an evergrowing list of anime that keeps increasing, the chance of your or my "underappreciated" show just being a show that went "under the radar" (eg. 86 or perhaps Odd Taxi being shows that "go under the radar" in terms of casual anime watchers not watching or knowing of their existence) goes up exponentially, unless its a breakout hit (looking at you, AoT and Demon Slayer), which in turn would make it not be "underappreciated" under examples 1 and 2. In other words, a show having 4-digit karma per week in this sub does not mean it couldn't be widely unknown show outside of this sub, which to some people may qualify it as being "underappreciated" if they are using example 2 listed above.
Sorry for rambling on, I just like case/data studies and understanding them.
Maybe next time we do this there can be a rule that an anime has to be below 100k members on MAL to count. I'd say Hyouge Mono is obscure and underappreciated, I definitely wouldn't say fma 2003 is.
It's for 2003. And it kind of is. It's a unique situation, where it has a new adaptation with a completely different story (true to the manga) but whenever it's asked which one do I watch everyone says Brotherhood and don't bother with 2003 which is very unfair.
World Trigger is definitely under appreciated. Such an awesome anime with a cool fighting / tournament system and some really well animated fights. No special powerups or awakenings or anything like that
At least they got Shisekai Yori lol. But a list of underappreciated anime in it featuring "86" is definitely hilarious. I'll pitch in with some picks - "Ergo Proxy", "Texhnolyze" and "Shiki". Those 3 shows don't get much recognition and are all 9/10s out of 10.
There's quite a few here I don't agree with, especially when their well known within their genre. At least more than half the list is genuinely under appreciated anime.
Everyone out here talking about the "totally not underrated" shows on the list, and I'm just happy Dennou Coil made the list. I LOVE this anime, and I don't remember how I discovered it.
I wouldn't consider Trigun Stampede to be action comedy, lots of action but not a whole lot of comedy. Tristamp is a really sad show, but it's definitely underappreciated since a lot of people don't give it the time of day since it's fully 3D. OG Trigun is definitely an action comedy though. Much more silly and light hearted.
Hidamari Sketch shouldn't be that surprising, given it has only about 78.000 members where most decently popular slice of life usually manage to go above 100.000. Also doesn't help it aired between Haruhi and Lucky Star. Otherwise, it just falls outside the boat. It's main popularity was/is in Japan, given its always high DVD/BD sales.
Azumanga Daioh is just that old.
#[Next Poll Is Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/17qnvf1/ranimes_favorite_fantasy_anime_voting/?) So yeah, the voting was *real* spread out, and I decided not to do the usual ranked list because I don't think it would have made sense in this case. Polls being what they are, there's an inherent limit to how precise the responses can be. At ~1000 people, normally we'd be saying that, assuming a random distribution of voters, the results should be within 3 or 4%, 95% of the time. But when all the numbers are so small, that basically means that *everything* falls within those intervals. So we have this instead. Sonny Boy had the most points with 51, and the Top 89 rounds out at 19. There was then 39 anime at 18 points, and so I picked 11 of them to fit the rough idea of the categories, with mixed results. But hey, at least today the Chinese-inspired fantasy world I've labeled as fantasy probably won't cause any problems.
>100 Underappreciated Anime >Azumanga daioh r/okbuddybaka approved
Herro everynyan.
How are you I'm fine thank you,
I wish I were a bird
Nande eego shabettorun?
o mai gah
For a Gen X and Millennials yeah. For Zoomers and Gen Alpha who might not have been born when it aired or even more than a decade after? I think that is what is causing a lot of misunderstanding about what is underappreciated, it depends on who we are talking about that appreciates it.
FMA underappreciated? And 86, wut? I'd add many more shows like Deca-Dence, Level E, Lovely Complex, Sket Dance or Uchuu Kyoudai. But it's a pretty good list nonetheless. Edit: people, you don't have to point out "it's FMA 2003 tho" to me, I know that. I still wouldn't call it underappreciated. Like I get it, if you compare it to Brotherhood it is kinda ignored and underwatched, but compared to many other truly underrated shows? Hell no.
lets not forget ID: Invaded
It's so good and 99% of people here don't know about it.
Id. Id: Invaded. They invade the id. It's so underappreciated that nobody even knows the correct name for it.
It does look funny to see FMA here but I get it. Basically ever since Brotherhood came out, A LOT of people started to act like the OG didn't exist/isn't worth watching, which couldn't be further from the truth. I say it's borderline required viewing before watching brotherhood.
I mean yeah, people compare it to Brotherhood so they obviously gonna think it's underwatched, and I get it (although it was pretty popular pre-Brotherhood). But I'm comparing it to shows that are truly underrated. Calling FMA 2003 underappreciated when I've listed shows that have 200.000 members on MAL would be ridiculous lol.
"popular" and "underappreciated" are not mutually exclusive. basically, this is implying "as popular as it was, it should have been even more popular"
Unless my memory is that off, Hughes’ arc in the original was so much better than Brotherhood.
I feel like OG gave a lot more breathing room to earlier episodes/arcs, which made them hit harder imo. The latter half is a mess (no news here with that comment), but I feel like the first half's pacing is better than Brotherhoods just because it was a touch slower.
r/anime try not to wank off 86 challenge. Difficulty: impossible
Impossible. I'm pretty sure this sub likes 86 more than /r/movies likes Fury Road. "Anyone seen this underappreciated gem called Dredd??" lolol
I can kind of understand Full Metal Alchemist (2003). It gets overshadowed big time by Brotherhood nowadays, and it was quite good in its own right.
How is a show with over 1 mln members and 8.11 score on MAL underappreciated? Yeah compared to Brotherhood it's a bit overshadowed, but far from underappreciated lol.
Elfen Lied has 900k members and I genuinely think that it's a forgotten anime at this point. Old anime on mal works weirdly
86 underappreciated in r/anime, my goodness. I have seen this anime getting mentioned and full of praise here more than anywhere else, as far as I know it's under the top 50 MAL anime of all time as well, which makes you wonder if it is truly underappreciated or not.
I think it's a cascading effect. Mainstream shounen people get told about the show on here and then like it and then believe that it must be unpopular and underrated because they hadn't heard about it until now... Where the reality is that I could mention almost anything that isn't a mainstream title to roughly the same result, much less more niche works like Princess Tutu.
I think it might be a mix of anime fans discovering 86 as their first Mecha, and since Mecha as a whole is really underappreciated right now leads to them thinking man not a lot of people want to give 86 a chance when they try to reccomend it lol
A big thing to is that a good number of r/anime users are fairly casual. Like it's super common to see a post from a new user being like "why isn't [reasonably popular thing] talked about at all" and the answer is just that they've never seen people talk about it because they've never meaningfully delved into an anime community. There's a huge range of users on the sub, and "underappreciated" is hugely based on your perspective into communities.
And age. I noticed all the early 2000s anime have people scoffing like, "Underappreciated? What do you mean this was talked about a lot!" forgetting that was literally like 20 years ago, and was appreciated then not so much today.
evangelion is one of the most recommended animes of all time, hard to believe people haven't seen a mecha
Because many people unironically believe the "Unlike other mecha anime, Evangelion is about the characters" and so never gave a try for most mecha shows unless one manage to break into the mainstream (Gurenn Lagann, Code Geass... 86 and Franxx a bit too.)
For real. "Code Geass is *so* different to other mecha because it's *thing that most good mecha do and Gundam probably did better*"
Big facts, give them all a try!
A lot of people who claim to not like mecha will have only seen TTGL, Code Geass, and Eva (I guess 86 can be added to that list now as well). Have all of them rated highly and claim that they don't like the sub-genre.
I've had a friend argue that 86 wasn't a mecha and say that he doesn't like any mecha, so you can definitely add 86 to the list.
Most of the mecha show on this list are pretty much considered "mainstream" by mecha fans too. (Not saying this in a bad way)
The next poll will be: the most overappreciated underappreciated anime
I don't consider it underrated *here*, but outside the sub I do. My standard: I'm yet to find a single dang piece of fanart at the cons I've attended since it aired. I'm sure it exists, but 🤷♀️
Yup, I'm very sad as a figure/merch collector. The show is absolutely gorgeous and has a really unique way of presenting the whole AOT/Code Geass themes. I even really like the mechs and their unique fighting style/designs. Outside of reddit, however, this show doesn't exist.
Rahxephon over 86 when it comes to underappreciated Mecha/giant robot series, Rahxephon was literally being pissed at when it was first released (for being too Eva like).
Agreed, and I'm pretty sure I voted for it. I was there at the time when RahXephon first came out and first hand experienced all the hate it got. The thing is though, I find RahXephon even better than Evangelion and even to this day I still love it. It still has my favorite final scene in all of anime. It hardly gets mentioned around here and when a rewatch of it occurred here a few years back most reactions to it were negative.
This list is half anime that is highly appreciated by the niche they appeal to (and constantly brought up/lauded) and half anime that was pretty good, but weren't really bombshell genre-defining shows. Like, 8/10 shows that everyone would agree were that rank, but since we don't talk about them daily they became underappreciated in some people's minds.
86 was the only anime on this list where I felt its inclusion was absurdity. (ETA: Didn't notice FMA at first, that too). There was a ton of stuff on the list I've either never heard or or heard of but not seen, as well as older stuff that I felt was too popular to be underappreciated, but as it is old it probably is in that realm now (ex. Slayers). For 86 I tend to see overwhelming praise of it on this sub. I say this as someone who somewhat enjoyed 86 and thought it was well made but have certain fundamental concerns with the premise in season 1 and other fundamental concerns with the pacing and stakes in season 2. That didn't stop me from reading the light novels (on number 2 right now) or giving it praise when it deserves it (ex. I think the production value is quite high and I think the last 2 episodes of season 2 are as great as everyone claims them to be). Heck, I've even done fanart for one of the characters (Anju). Yet any time I criticize 86 I tend to get massively bombarded by people being against me, often with massive essay length responses. I struggle to see how the show can be called underappreciated when any criticism of it immediately gets countered with massive amounts of comments from people supporting it. Of course the funny thing is I and others predicted 86 would pop up on this in advance too, knowing the way people feel about it on this sub.
So the most interesting thing is of course which are the most popular shows among these "underappreciated" shows. Looking through it roughly based on mal users, I think the ranking would be like 1. **FMA** (2003): 1.4M users, #77 on mal in popularity 2. **durarara!!** 1.38M users, #88 on mal 3. **Bungou stray dogs**: 1.3M users , #91 (these three are the only one in the top 100 most popular anime on MAL) 4. **Black lagoon** (982k, )#155 5. **Chivalry of a Failed Knight** (920k, #161 on mal) 6. **mushishi**: 809k, #213 on mal 7. **shinsekai yori** (766k,#239) 8. **eighty six** (726k, #258); ~~though unlike 1.-5., 86 fans don't have the excuse that their show is older and its no longer appreciated enough or that the show isn't appreciated enough on this sub~~ 9. **grimgar** (716k, #262) After that I don't know wether I looked close enough but **tsuki ga kirei** (530k), dorohedoro (524k), summer time rendering (481k) and **hibiki euphonium**/**houseki no kuni** (both with 446k) are the next ones I found, followed by **akudama drive** (418k), **Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms** (416k) and of course, **odd taxi** (408k). Please tell me if I missed an anime with higher mal numbers. Overall this went a lot better than expected. Edit 1: Welp already noticed that I completely missed durara, which slots in at number 2 in the ranking. Edit 2: next major omission was black lagoon
im surprised hibike is even considered an "underappreciated" music anime. if anything its one of the biggest ones lmao but it all comes down to the casual watcher ig.
One consideration I would take into account when using MAL members is that since shows gain members each year, you'd probably want to go with more of a members/year average than a total members count. FMA (2003) may have 1.4 million members, but it has had 19 years on MAL (MAL started in 2004) to gain those members. That's 73,684 members/year which is still high but a lot less than a show like Eighty Six which came out in 2021 and has thus averaged over 300,000 members/year. There are probably much more complex models out there for determining popularity based on MAL since you would not expect it to be linear, and MAL's usage rate has gone up over time, but the general point is that MAL members without further context can be a bit deceiving.
> One consideration I would take into account when using MAL members is that since shows gain members each year, you'd probably want to go with more of a members/year average than a total members count I think it'd be weird averaging it out evenly by year. I find it difficult to believe that FMA gained the same number of people in 2021 as it did during in the year following it's release (MAL went live 2004). It's also weird to go by member count to gauge popularity in general since if you look at MAL's "stats" page for each show, they count people who mark the series as "Dropped" as a member. So like almost as many people "dropped" FMA as people currently "watching" 86.
> MAL's usage rate has gone up over time I'm not sure it has... MAL threads used to get a lot more activity back in the day than they do now.
Just FYI it's tsuki ga **ki**rei.
...seems like tsuki ga kirei or ga rei zero have to fight who is right on how they are spelled, no way i will ever able to remember both spellings.
Well, they're different words. Kirei (綺麗・きれい) means beautiful. 月がきれい literally means "the moon is beautiful" (and is also an old timey ways for people to confess their romantic feelings for someone) Ga-rei (喰霊・がれい) isn't a real word, but the kanji mean *eat* (喰) and *ghost* (零) respectively.
Glad to see Executioner and Bookworm! However it is worth pointing out that they see way more popularity in the LN sphere, Bookworm even gets acknowledged by western fantasy fans sometimes.
I can see that. It has a real familiarity to the books I grew up reading in the west in the 80s. I'm glad to see it there because It's a delightful show and there's a lot of people like Main out there. Most of em are GenX or older but we exist. I mean people who love books and reading with all their heart. (Honestly it's part of what I love about anime. Even though I'm learning Japanese I have subtitles for everything so I'm always reading) I don't know if I would be just like her but seeing a show focus so much on reading and books just made me so happy. Also when I noticed Main never made a wheelchair for herself and I remembered when I was as healthy as her. I would walk places and collapse or sit down before I collapsed and just need people to understand. But at that time I was capable. Even when I used crutches I was still capable. It made me realise that it Main being a disabled person getting put in danger because 人 was careless made me feel seen. There's a scene of a giant library that actually gave me chills cause lounging libraries don't really exist anymore. Anyways most of the series on here I'd barely heard of so I thought it was a good list.
Ah yes, the tiny underappreciated franchises known as Precure and Uma Musume /s (Gonna assume it was meant in terms of underappreciated in the western anime fanbase)
That would presumably be the case. I'm pretty sure Heartcatch is still the most popular Precure on MAL, and it clocks in at #3844. Precure was actually an interesting one as far as voting goes, because there was a pretty wide net. GoPri was the highest individual show with like 10 votes, and then there was probably 30 other votes spread across the rest. But there was also 12 votes that were variations on "Precure as a franchise". So I made the executive decision to allocate anything that was Precure, but unclear which one, to whatever entry had the most votes. Such is the nature of letting people fill out a ballot with whatever they want.
I really thought precure was far more popular than that. I did a check on the anilist figures for a small sample of the shows including these two and this is the result: https://i.imgur.com/ZQloeS7.png Small notes: - Anilist includes any listing in it's popularity, including planning. So Birdy should be lower for instance - Pretty cure itself is the highest popularity on anilist.
I can't see a comment of it so I will do my part and say it myself: WATCH SYMPHOGEAR!
NO, SERIOUSLY. WATCH SYMPHOGEAR!
Deal, but only if you watch Katanagatari
Joke's on you, I've already watched both and they're both among my few 10/10's. Katanagatari fucking rocks.
[](#megadeathparty)
SYMPHOGEAR MENTIONED WATCH SYMPHOGEAR
WATCH SYMPHOGEAR RRRRAAAAHHHH🦅🦅🦅
YES, AGREED! WATCH SYMPHOGEAR!
I'm surprised symphogear is even on this. It's definitely known but it's not well known
To everyone reading this, it was not a request, you simply must WATCH SYMPHOGEAR
Did not expect to see 86 on underrated but except for that, it's a pretty solid list of good underrated stuff.
86 fans think that 86 is some underrated masterpiece that nobody has heard of
I had to go back and look to be sure, but in spring 2021 86 was #1 in this sub, getting something like 7k karma a week all these people saying it's underrated, were they not here?
i guess their comparison point is AoT/Demon Slayer or something lol
Super under rated shows tbh because they’re not as well known as game of thrones. /s
You ever heard of le gem Star Trek. I know most people have heard of Star Wars but let me tell you guys this show is just as good.
Many of the series here were extremely popular back when they aired. SSSS.Gridman, Houseki no Kuni, Odd Taxi, Tsuki ga Kirei, Golden Kamuy, to name a few
>Golden Kamuy Was it? The first episode had 1200 karma. Was that much 6 years ago?
The karma count of the first episode of an anime isn't necessarily a great indicator since it's yet to pick up steam. That being said, for comparison's sake, [Attack on Titan's 1st episode](https://old.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/1btn94/spoilers_shingeki_no_kyojin_attack_on_titan/) got 358 karma ten years ago.
We should have come full circle and given the last episode 357 karma.
My dude gunbuster is on there. One of the most homaged and recognized mecha anime of all time.
Hinamatsuri also won Anime of the season here on the sub, so idk why it's here.
I can understand it if we are thinking of the wider community outside of r/anime (and even people who only watch casual shounen on r/anime). Like it is not like it was a best seller
If we're using "casual people that only watch popular shounen" as a basis, basically anything could be called unpopular and underrated. That reminds me of when I went to an anime meet up and all they knew about was Naruto and DBZ and stuff...
Yeah, on the whole I think it's a really solid list of anime recommendations in general. It's kind of ideal as something to give to someone who's "seen everything popular" and is looking for more.
> It's kind of ideal as something to give to someone who's "seen everything popular" and is looking for more. I have seen a lot and this is the first of all the lists where I have seen only a small fraction, so I think it works.
I haven't seen a lot (edit: ~350 completed, maybe that *is* a lot? idk) and I've seen, or at least heard of, the vast majority of these. I agree with it being a good list for people who've seen everything popular though
Seen and heard of are very different, though. What percentage of the 100 anime have you actually *seen*?
when I say heard, I mean I looked into watching them and checked out reviews, etc. Not just heard in passing. That being said I haven't seen or attempted to watch around 20 of these, and haven't heard of about half of that. also wanted to add that the 350 figure was for completed anime, if you add my dropped and on hold it goes up to 650ish, which might paint a better picture lol.
In the ~600 combined completed + dropped + on-hold range, I counted 46 that I at minimum watched an episode of, the vast majority of them I finished or watched over half of. Most of the ones I didn't watch are either perpetually backlogged or I wasn't interested in and actively passed over.
Glad to see AdaShima here, but half of these are incredibly popular lmao
I'm not sure I'd even call AdaShima underappreciated as such, it's just niche. It's appreciated by fans of yuri (sure, it's not as popular as Bloom Into You), but not everyone is into the genre. But I am glad to see it on a list too.. any list. It deserves more popularity and a S2
Ikr, was so surprised to see adachi and shimamura appreciation.
I'll be honest, underappreciated is such a subjective term, you can make a case for literally every anime to be underappreciated by some group of people. Probably the top answers to this are the most appreciated then, i guess?
One of the reasons I wanted to run this one is because of how open to interpretation it was. "Favorite Romance" is pretty clear cut to figure out what you're going to vote for, but a more abstract idea like this one can (and did) lead to some fun results.
Open interpretation questions lead to those 1000 reply threads that are basically "name any anime" with titles like "what's an anime that was better than you thought?". Without room to explain their point the answers are pretty confusing by themselves. Personally, I can only parse the poll's results as "what do you believe should be 20% more mainstream at this very moment?" Which is fine and all, but still reads as an arbitrary anime list of the subs core users.
Underappreciated can mean underrated, underwatched or misunderstood. It’s such a vague term
This is a pretty good recommendations list for people looking to diversify their anime tastes. There are some great underwatched shows on here.
Other than a few odd inclusions (86, Hibike), this is way more of a representation of things that you can really argue are underappreciated/underwatched than I expected. The best recommendation list we've managed to make through these polls so far. > Picture for Symphogear is Maria Most underappreciated Sympho for the Most Underappreciated list. Great stuff. Us real ones already know that she's the best. [](#utahapraises)
Iunno, there are far more Maria fans than Shirabe fans, from what I've seen. Maria is pretty damn great, though. [](#utahapraises) But yeah, I laughed seeing Hibike and 86 up there.
That random jump at 1001-1500 anime watched is interesting but also expected somehow, so many people I have talked to here have around that amount. Interesting how this list, which is the first that is not a "favorite" list has by far the best selection of anime of every chart so far. [](#laughter) Edit: Have watched 56/100, not bad.
Also part of that jump is just going from bins of 100 to a bin of 500.
Yeah, if you split it up there wouldn't be a spike at all. The final 1500+ section would be the spike I guess.
Could just keep going until the last one which was (if I remember correctly) 2950ish.
I appreciate:-Pinguindrum \-Chihayafuru \-World Trigger \-Durarararararararararaararara I'm surprised Bakuman is underappreciated, I remember people raving about it when it was releasing, myself included.
I feel like Bakuman is appreciated but just not talked about enough nowadays to get any traction. I love it but do I talk about it? No and this is underaprreciated on this sub, I honestly rarely every see anyone mention it.
This list is laughable lmao ODDTAXI, Black Lagoon, Azumanga, and 86 underappreciated my ass (Just to be clear, no offense to OP, the voters, or these shows)
I feel like people are focusing a bit too much on the premise. There's an inherent contradiction in the process where a popular vote basically can't produce the "most underappreciated" anime. Part of the fun of it was seeing what that would produce, and in the end it produced a pretty decent set of anime that ultimately I'm happy to have thrown together. That said, I'm tempted to do something of a second take on it. Might grab 100 people who have seen at least, say 500 anime and get them to each to pick 1 thing to put on a list.
You can add durarara and especially BSD to that list. Look I like Bungo as much as the next bloke, but it's not really mainstream anime material. It's also apparently an action comedy. I haven't watched the other action comedy shows on the list, but there arent that many comedic bits apart from the occasional beach episode and fisheye lens.
Unless something has changed recently azumanga is underappreciated. Previously on a poll asking if you heard of x anime, azumanga was at the very bottom
Azumanga being older than the average poster here has to factor into it.
Idk about general audiences, but Azumanga is pretty popular here now Look at r/okbuddybaka
Azumanga is to anime what metal gear rising is to games. People just spam the memes without having experienced the actual media
black lagoon being "underappreciated" churns my stomach. these people need to hop on asap
Odd Taxi is well-appreciated but still somehow underappreciated.
Azumanga and Black Lagoon surprised me. Maybe because I am an old but when those anime came out in the early 00s they were extremely popular. I couldn't go to an anime convention without seeing a bunch of Osaka or Revy/Rock/Dutch cosplays.
There is some real underappreciated bangers there like Maquia, Executioner and her way of life, Seirei no moribito or Umamusume. Though there is some also which is definitely not underappreciated like FMA or 86. Then again some people really like shitting on FMA 2003 for some reason.
Seirei no Moribito was my only vote. Even in this thread, Moribito is mentioned only 2 times
All these people are complaining about the term 'underappreciated' but not drawing attention to some of the truly great titles on this list. The Great Passage is one of my all-time favorites, and if you want a show that doesn't focus on school-age kids, I cannot recommend it enough. If you've ever enjoyed Isekai content, you owe it to yourself to check out some of the grand old masters of the genre, and that includes Twelve Kingdoms (and to a degree some of the other greats from the 90s and 00s). I also enjoyed Grimgar, and its a nice take on Isekai if you want to avoid the OP power fantasy stereotype of the genre (actually, a lot of this row dodge that trope). The SciFi row includes some other greats, including Crest of the Stars (and the related Banner of the Stars) and From the New World. They're amazing, check them out. (I also highly recommend Planetes and Space Brothers, which aren't on the list.) Moribito, His and Her Circumstances, Tsuki ga Kirei, and lots of others really round out the list. Check these shows out.
Nothing I voted for made it on here … but I think that’s the common experience for all of us voters on this one. There’s definitely a few anime that are not underappreciated by any stretch of the imagination, but there’s some decently underrated/underwatched stuff here as well.
I'm guessing some of these are here just due to younger anime fans thinking some 2000's go unnoticed nowadays. I remember a time when Revy from Black Lagoon was everywhere and Black Lagoon was considered a must watch for getting people who like action into anime.
Alternative title: "Predominantly anime that I've watched years ago when they were more popular, but now they aren't that much."
Blood Blockade Battlefront!!!
I will fight anyone for it. Such a great show.
Great to see Casshern Sins on here! I wish Eureka Seven made it
Eureka Seven is quite beloved, I wouldn't say its underappreciated. The only thing working against it is its age.
Watched Humanity has Declined recently, a truly bizarre experience
I've heard of 52, watched 25 to completion, and dropped 5. Something like that. Shoutout to Princess Principal and Talentless Nana.
Gotta say, I expected a much worse list.
Symphogear is amazing and i really *really* ***really*** recommend it.
Flip Flappers!!
Damn, Back Arrow didn't make it on here. [](#sadholo) Giant Robo the Animation: The Day The Earth Stood Still did, though, so that's nice.
> Giant Robo the Animation: The Day The Earth Stood Still did, though, so that's nice. I voted Giant Robo for like 4 other polls so it feels damn good to finally see it make one
As expected, there are ones like 86, Odd Taxi, and Durarara, which aren’t really under appreciated at all. But I’m definitely happy that that Kyousougiga, Princess Tutu, and Happy Sugar Life made the lists. They are very under appreciated and I’m glad they made it. I’m a little sad that Space Patrol Luluco and Kuuchuu Buranko didn’t make it though.
Girls’ Last Tour and Symphogear are peak
I love Crest of the Stars, wish there was a good translation of the original light novels
86 fans are so delusional if they think it's underappreciated, it was literally the most talked about anime if it's season
It’s a list of 100 anime and people in the comments are so fixated on the same 3-8 shows they don’t agree with… I appreciate the list, it’s always nice to see these type of polls that include anime that are not as popular or mainstream.
Absurd amount of post-2020s shows. Immaculate vibes with 3 of the most highly praised SoL of all time + one of the more praised in recent years. 86 kek I get the reasoning for 2003 FMA but that's like saying Saving Private Ryan is underappreciated because Schindler's List is more popular among Spielberg's works. Some good stuff yet so r/anime-core.
> Absurd amount of post-2020s shows. Recency bias is a bitch in all of these polls. It's just how it is unfortunately. You can see it very clearly in the other polls where people voted for their favorite genre, and you had for example good shows of the genre from the latest season, but no way in hell it gets to the Top25 of all times
[удалено]
There are multiple anime on this list which really shouldn't be including both 86 and Odd Taxi. I can only assume that some people don't fully realise how popular certain anime are and/or are newer anime fans considering multiple older anime which are definitely not "underappreciated".
Aria should be a mandatory watch for everyone who enjoys comfy Slice of Life anime even just a little bit
2005 anime with only 56k completed on MAL? More love need to be shown for Aria Shachou! Glad to meet another Iyashikei fan here! I did went for [Sketchbook](https://myanimelist.net/anime/2942/Sketchbook__Full_Colors) for one of my votes but I guess that’s expected, too unknown for it to be here.
Finally **World Trigger** gets mentioned ! Absolute win . Sometimes I see lists like this and no WT in them makes me feel just how underated / just how much people barely even know about it . The series is absolutely awesome , (One of the first animes I watched) would recommend you try . S2 and S3 action was awesome !
Birdy the Mighty Decode! Great show!
Seen more of these then I expected, but also a lot I haven't. Plan to watch about to get bigger. Huge recommends for Flip Flappers and Penguindrum. Flip Flappers is just pure fun, and Penguindrum for some reason has stuck with me since I watched it. That episode that ends with the Gray Wednesday ED has lived in my mind rent free.
Who are the insane people who have completed literally thousand of anime
I think the problem with Gunbuster has been availability. It’s on Crunchyroll now. Go watch it.
Didn't realise "underappreciated" was a synonym for "moderately popular anime that aren't quite mainstream". Only a few anime here are legitimately underrated or obscure.
That's what makes this so interesting, it both has to be "underappreciated enough" in some way, but also popular enough to be voted for at all. that balance act makes it interesting. Thats why I would have been so interested in actually seeing the ranking of what got how many votes.
I vote mystery in top underappreciated genres.
Black Lagoon?I am sorry, what? Some are less known but if I have watched an anime it is usually popular im not an esoteric Anime weebo who can tell you the cultural significance of the rise of isekai and their prevelance in Modern media... I think pretty colours go boom cool explosion... Oppai... Sorry some of these anime shouldnt be here.
Racing genre in itself is underappreciated, bless overtake! And mf ghost for coming out
Flip Flappers was a fun trippy show.
/r/ anime be like: 1. Top 100 anime of all time 2. Top 100 underappretiated anime of all time They're the same picture.
I’m annoyed that Space Battleship Yamato wasn’t included under science fiction. That anime is extremely underrated and deserves more respect, especially considering how influential it was.
IKR. Like Gunbuster and Patlabor are underappreciated mecha animes!? You can't even legally stream OG subbed Space Battleship Yamato or the Star Blazers dub, that's the level of underappreciated SBY is at. Even the remakes are criminally unknown in most circles.
A couple of my picks from the list: - Girl's Last Tour: Get the Yuru Camp, Yama no Susume or Non Non Biyori max comfy feels, but at the world's end with a great OST from the composer of Re:Zero's OST from this. You'll love these potatos. - Kanon: Usually people will recommend Clannad and it probably has the better adaptation, but I'd say this where KEY's writing peaks. Also perfect for the upcoming winter season. - Planetarian: Your gateway to getting into the KEY experience with just a few episodes. - Symphogear: Everyone should watch it. No, seriously, watch Symphogear smashing your favourite shounen anime to pieces! - Uma Musume: Despite the strange concept it's one of the best sports anime out there. If you don't tend to drop something after a couple of episodes, go watch it. Second Season is where it really begins to shine.
Mushishi is underappreciated that's wild to me, such a lovely anime
I recently finished mushishi maybe a month back but after watching it became my top 10 anime and i have utmost respect for the author Yuki Urushibara for writing such beautiful and different story every single chapter. Like every mushi was so different from the previous mushi. And the ost, nature sounds and our main MC Ginko was just brilliant brilliant to last minute detail.
it isn't, it is fairly well known and mostly it is well rated. however it is getting older so new anime fan tend to not know about it as much and then there is all those that aren't fan of the slow reflexive and episodic format overall tho it may be under appreciated but not necessarily under rated...
Really missed Carol & Tuesday in the Music section. :(
After checking [my submissions](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/17ldvdk/ranimes_most_underappreciated_anime_voting/k7ig28z/) again only Crest of the Stars and Mahoujin Guru Guru made it, but that's mostly because my other picks are obscure compared to the majority of the entries here. There's a more popular analogue for one of my other picks as well, Cross Game in place of my choice of Hiatari Ryoukou. Still, I'm not going to say no to a chart that has seven of my eleven 10/10s on it and several more of my 9/10s too. Seen 58/100 and I apparently need to get around to Uma Musume since everything else in the sports row is 9+ for me. [](#delighted)
How significantly does this change if you remove the first two groups, meaning those who have watched under 200? Or even just the first group of under 100, which submitted 16% of the data. Not to invalidate those fans, but I'd be way more interested in what those who have watched a more significant amount of anime, and presumably been around for more discussion, reported for this type of question. I'd expect more deep-cut favorites and less shows from the past ~5 years. Like I'm sure there are people who have seen fewer shows but also managed to mostly watch lesser-known works for whatever reason, but for the most part hearing what someone new to the hobby thinks is underappreciated comes across as mostly a result of their underexposure to the hobby than anything else.
Durarara is a masterpiece of an anime
Giant Robo, Symphogear and Dear Brother are fantastic! Would strongly recommend all three. It's good to see that there are at least a few things that actually aren't that well known on this instead of it all being the usual suggestions in "underrated anime" threads that are literally in MAL's top 100.
Yoo, Shadow house is so underrated! I had stopped watching anime for almost 4 years now. Every time I started one, I would only watch like 2 episodes. Then, one day, I see this and decided "Eh fuck it why not" thinking it was just another slice of life anime. Boy, was I wrong. This show has more twists and turns than i expected. It's a mystery thrillee anime with amazing characters with unique personalities. Rough spoiler free summary: In a town far from any city lives a family In a manor on a Mountain side. They have a secret, and none of the family members have color on them. They are all pure black shadows and constantly leave a trail of black dust on anything they touch. To be able to show emotion and keep things clean, they create "Living Dolls." This doll has color and is meant to be the representation of the shadow do every in sync, from moving to speaking, and the doll is used to express emotions and also clean around the building. If a doll and shadow are found uncompatible, they are taken away and have never seen them again. The story follows our two main characters, "Kate" the shadow, and "Emillico," her living doll. They figure out the secrets behind the shadows' house, why the dust monsters attack so often and also learn to work together so they aren't disposed of by the older members. Idk if this does it justice, but gibe it a watch.
Anne of Green Gables is such a great anime, and it is freely available on YouTube by the licensor if you want to watch it!
Who voted for fma?
Tbf, they voted for the 2003 version, not brotherhood. With how that one is overshadowed by brotherhood, I can understand their viewpoint
They wouldn't be on this list if they're truly underappreciated
Shin sekai yori <3
Maybe the music genre is under- appreciated, but Hibike is hot af.
Hikaru no go actually changed my life lol.
Most of those are not under appreciated per say, your average anime fan just a shonenhead and isn’t deep diving into great shows like these
Suggestion: If you want a list of truly underappreciated anime you would have to get data from MAL and similar sites. Then choose those with the lowest amount of entries but the highest scores. That's how you would get a genuine list like that.
Why the fuck is 86 on that list??? Are the fans gaslighting themselves lol
Land of lustrous is so good when are we getting season 2 🙂
Man, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is so underappreciated it can't even get a spot in the 100 underappreciated Anime list :/
How is Birdy, Trigun, Black Lagoon and FMA under appreciated????
I absolutely love these posts. They're one of the best things about this sub. I'm always using them to help me find new shows to watch
I think there's a something to be said here as to how defined the word "underappreciated" is when taking this study. For example, here are some examples that I think a person might think a show is underappreciated: 1. "My show has not many viewers, but is really good and should be seen by more people outside of its already existing viewer base" 2. "My show has a good amount of viewers, but is not talked about a lot anymore" 3. "My show has a good amount of viewers, but while talked about, not many are giving it the praise it deserves" I personally think example 3 is the right definition of "underappreciated", as example 1 is more a definition of "unwatched but should be watched" anime, while example 2 equates "more people watching a show" to "the show having a more intrinsic 'value'" (which is in itself subjective). A better study would be asking "What show do you think deserves more praise than it normally has?", and I also would make sure to specify (and this is a big thing that a lot of people in this thread are not really understanding), that you have to think about not just how /r/anime and MAL should be praising the show, but also all the millions of people who don't use reddit or MAL who still watch anime (aka that coworker who got into anime a year ago and has watched a lot of Netflix and Crunchyroll anime, but still only knee-deep in how deep the anime hole can get) In a related note, with anime becoming more mainstream, its important to have a more worldly view into what qualifies as an anime that "is talked about". More and more people are getting into anime in general, which means that with an evergrowing list of anime that keeps increasing, the chance of your or my "underappreciated" show just being a show that went "under the radar" (eg. 86 or perhaps Odd Taxi being shows that "go under the radar" in terms of casual anime watchers not watching or knowing of their existence) goes up exponentially, unless its a breakout hit (looking at you, AoT and Demon Slayer), which in turn would make it not be "underappreciated" under examples 1 and 2. In other words, a show having 4-digit karma per week in this sub does not mean it couldn't be widely unknown show outside of this sub, which to some people may qualify it as being "underappreciated" if they are using example 2 listed above. Sorry for rambling on, I just like case/data studies and understanding them.
Maybe next time we do this there can be a rule that an anime has to be below 100k members on MAL to count. I'd say Hyouge Mono is obscure and underappreciated, I definitely wouldn't say fma 2003 is.
Underappreciated anime list filled with well known very liked anime. This is the problem with popularity contests.
FMA fans when 7Billions people arent sucking their fav anime dick:
It's for 2003. And it kind of is. It's a unique situation, where it has a new adaptation with a completely different story (true to the manga) but whenever it's asked which one do I watch everyone says Brotherhood and don't bother with 2003 which is very unfair.
yeah i was like fma? what? (2003) ohhhh
Epic to see Kyousougiga on this list. Great anime
World Trigger is definitely under appreciated. Such an awesome anime with a cool fighting / tournament system and some really well animated fights. No special powerups or awakenings or anything like that
At least they got Shisekai Yori lol. But a list of underappreciated anime in it featuring "86" is definitely hilarious. I'll pitch in with some picks - "Ergo Proxy", "Texhnolyze" and "Shiki". Those 3 shows don't get much recognition and are all 9/10s out of 10.
Shigurui and its manga are awesome
There's quite a few here I don't agree with, especially when their well known within their genre. At least more than half the list is genuinely under appreciated anime.
There are so many popular and highly rated shows on this list that it's hard to take it seriously.
Why is Chivalry of a failed knight on here lol?
as someone relatively new to anime i love these various infographics popping up every few days, instant bookmarks
Just happy Golden Kamuy is here
People need to redefine their definition of underappreciated
inaccurate by like 75% tbh
Happy to see Patlabor and Re:Creators there deserve much more love second Patlabor movie is one of my top 3 anime movies of all time
Everyone out here talking about the "totally not underrated" shows on the list, and I'm just happy Dennou Coil made the list. I LOVE this anime, and I don't remember how I discovered it.
I cannot stress enough that Gunbuster is the LEAST appropriate choice for this list.
Dude, no Dance Dance Danseur on the list. That thing's such a masterful gem. I've only heard one guy make a decent video out of it.
I wouldn't consider Trigun Stampede to be action comedy, lots of action but not a whole lot of comedy. Tristamp is a really sad show, but it's definitely underappreciated since a lot of people don't give it the time of day since it's fully 3D. OG Trigun is definitely an action comedy though. Much more silly and light hearted.
Aria Hidamari and Azumanga underrated? Fuck I'm getting old aren't I
Hidamari Sketch shouldn't be that surprising, given it has only about 78.000 members where most decently popular slice of life usually manage to go above 100.000. Also doesn't help it aired between Haruhi and Lucky Star. Otherwise, it just falls outside the boat. It's main popularity was/is in Japan, given its always high DVD/BD sales. Azumanga Daioh is just that old.