Shoujo Kakumei Utena

The Animation Kobe (アニメーション神戸) was an event established by Kobe in 1996 to promote anime and other visual media. The Animation Kobe Awards (アニメーション神戸賞) were given annually until 2015 by Kobe and the Organizing Committee to creators and creations.

The TV animations broadcast in Japan from September of the previous year to August of the event year, excluding rebroadcasts, become candidates. The candidates are selected not only from Japan but also from other countries. However, the committee sees more importance in a point of view promoting young creators of Japan.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Critics & Connoisseurs was a club that was founded in 2008 and ended club activities on the 31st of 2022.

The goal of the club was to come up with a list of highly recommended quality shows that are exemplary either within its genre or universally. An anime needed a 70% approval rate in our voting to get on the relation list. The following anime are all part of said list.

You can see the club page here:
https://myanimelist.net/clubs.php?cid=2913

Anime Relation List Part 1: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/324
Manga Relation List: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/334

Yuri anime are been popular and booming. The main plot of these series are the relationship between the girls. Today I decided to create an Interest Stack containing some of the most interesting series in this genre.


PS: I will update the stack in the next couple of days with more series and some comments.

(The list only contains anime which I've been watching or completed. It would be updated constantly. Also, the commentaries would focus on the female characters. Plus my English vocab is lacking, sorry for that if you see "strong" or "unique" so many times...)

Over years, anime and manga have been introducing more and more strong and unique female characters, either as main protagonists/antagonists or as important supporting characters. I hope that with this list, everyone could know, appreciate and love these powerful female characters, regardless of what gender they are.

a.k.a. Anime with hot dominant women (if you insist)

If you've ever seen an anime and thought, "Wow, this anime has really good background art", and "Wow, this episode preview at the end looks amazing!" chances are it was made by Shichiro Kobayashi. An icon of Japanese animation, Kobayashi has had a fruitful career spanning over thirty years as the art director for several iconic shows. While known generally for his vibrant and highly detailed palettes, Kobayashi brought the animation technique known as "postcard memories" or "harmonies" to life alongside director and innovator Osamu Dezaki and character designer Akio Sugino, which are cels of animation superimposed with gouache to give off a lasting image.

Kobayashi's influence defined anime background art, and his output has been replicated by other art directors since—his own studio, Kobayashi Production, consists of students and proteges alike that have equally contributed to formative works in anime.

The following list is a selection of shows that contains Kobayashi's most notable and prettiest backgrounds, and I highly encourage you to check them out.

Documentary on Kobayashi: https://youtu.be/V1tiKOsCz2M
Kobayashi Production's credits: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/company.php?id=1460

The best Shoujo anime that aired before 2005

▁ ▂ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ █ 𝓑𝓵𝓪𝓬𝓴 ✦ 𝓑𝓻𝓸𝔀𝓷 𝓲𝓷 𝓐𝓷𝓲𝓶𝓮 ⟨⟨ 𝔉𝔦𝔯𝔰𝔱 𝔈𝔡𝔦𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 ⟩⟩ █ ▇ ▆ ▅ ▄ ▂ ▁

✯
✯ 𝖘𝖊𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖉 𝖊𝖉𝖎𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 → https://myanimelist.net/stacks/9172
✯
✯ 𝖒𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖆 𝖊𝖉𝖎𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 → https://myanimelist.net/stacks/13935
✯

This is a collection of series to see if you're searching for a female lead you will be able to cheer for as more as possible. Her main goal will not be romance.

Every animated media that has been made has the idea to tell a story and to express a feeling on the watcher. But then, there are some series which has a particular way to evocate their sentiments and they use different tools to do that. Thought provoking writing, displaying the characters' internal monologues, their struggles and fears, using particular cinematographic angles and by blending contrasting styles of animation, coloring and highly symbolical and metaphorical imagery - these are some of the many hallmarks signifying the said animation has psychological themes, and that it is avant-garde in it's approach. This method of expression is not limited to any genre, as well.

I do realize that animation like this may not be for everyone, but I firmly believe in it's artistic merits and integrity. Media like this allows us to peek into the human psyche and probably our own too, and it provides us with often interesting viewpoints of our world, even if fractured through the prism of the animated fiction. Shows like that also likes to ask us questions without answers, to give us moral dilemmas without solid conclusion or in summary, to provoke us to think.

The shows that were picked follow a pattern - the ones which are more straightforward, less abstract and easier to get into will be first and the more complex and obscure the works will be at the end.

Shows that Masami Okui has sung in, has been credited in, or is plainfully obvious that it's her. (ex: Akazukin Chacha)

List of anime featuring at least one LGBT+ character that aren't BL or GL. I try to only put those that are either confirmed canon (in story or by the author) or so explicitly implied that there's little to none other interpretation.

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>>> SOME NOTES:

- Not all of these are "perfect" representations. Some more controversial portrayals have a warning in the comments.

- (Recent update) Edited the list so that characters who's sexuality is more "up for debate" are now written down as MLM/WLW instead of the mouthful Gay/Bi/Pan (which I'd forget to write in some places anyway)

- All nonbinary people are transgender. If a character is described as nonbinary instead of trans it's just to specify that that's what the anime more heavily points at.

- For the "not BL/GL" rule I went with whatever the anime is tagged as on MAL (though some of these I believe should've been tagged when they're not...). List might change as MAL keeps editing stuff.

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Please note that some of these I either haven't seen at all (look at the ratings to tell which ones they are) or watched long ago and don't remember well, so don't expect this to be 100% accurate.

--- Includes suggestions from AnnaSartin, Zuclyn, eblf2013, DigiCat, Mione48, RetroHead_ and gareki8

List of Original Anime Series' (not including sequels/specials/movies)
Original Anime are anime without source material

Based on the popular magical girl inphographic guide https://i.imgur.com/vFQ3vaZ.jpeg with notes attached to each entry

This is split into 2 Categories:
B. (starts with Utena) I've only seen Madoka Magica and I want to learn more about the genre, but idk if I'm ready for kids' shows.
If at the end you're ready to explore the mahou shoujo genre in full force, jump to Category A.

A. (starts with Precure) I like cute stuff and the magical girls aesthetic, and I can actually handle stuff aimed at little girls.
If at the end this isn't enough for you, congrats, you're into mahou shoujo and you should start doing your own research.

Classic 20th-century series and films that most old-school otaku have heard of and many older fans will cite as the reason they became a life-long weeb in the first place. Some have gotten sequels or modern reboots, while others have been relegated to the past and stand alone as fondly-remembered products of their time. If you want to take a journey through anime history, these shows are the place to start!

Additional info as requested by MAL staff:

Definition of classic: "A work of art of recognized and established value."

Criteria for this list: Were popular or well-known at some point during the 20th century, or were based on well-known source material of the time.

Series that emphasise the presentation of struggle and dramatic event(s) through culminating the portrayal of the experience to that point visually or by some other means.

Wacky and Trippy Anime