Excellence in animation can be difficult to define. To some extent, it's about craftsmanship, but it's also about style. The best animation combines facets of these traits in a way that combines seamlessly with a story. While some art is sketchy and some is precise, amazing animation should enhance a story rather than distract from it.

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Fantastic anime action films showcase how fluid animation and cutting direction can truly tell a story to its fullest, which is where Redline and Fate/Zero come to mind. But for those arthouse anime, "quality" animation is more about capturing an atmosphere and never losing the essential sense of identity that makes a series unique. These series don't have fight scenes, but they are works of art all the same.

10 Mushishi Is Atmosphere Personified

Mushishi ginko smoking forest

Mushishi quite simply did not have the budget that modern anime have, but what it lacks in fluidity it certainly makes up for in artistry. The animation of Mushishi is simple and consistent, and most importantly serves to immerse viewers in an unusual setting. Watching Mushishi is like getting lost in a forest, all green and gray, dark and dull even as the story is incredibly inventive. There are no bombastic moments, but every scene is necessary. If good animation is animation that traps an audience in a specific environment, Mushishi hasn't yet met its match.

9 Nagi No Asukara Is Blue & Beautiful

tsumugu smiling water droplets

Too many viewers dismissed Nagi No Asukara when it first aired because the series seemed to play into moe and netorare romance tropes. But a story about merfolk-children integrating into society on the shore is inherently compelling. Nagi No Asukara has garnered more attention over the years, thanks in no small part to its animation.

Animated primarily by P.A. Works, a studio known for quietly crafting masterpieces like Uchouten Kazoku and Angel BeatsNagi No Asukara has phenomenal visual appeal. Yes, the characters are nice to look at, but more than anything the environments are stunning. Never has the sea been realized with such care. The attention to detail, the careful use of lighting beneath the water, the grit of a fishing boat, and the sun on the shore all feel tangible enough to touch.

8 The Tatami Galaxy Established Masaaki Yuasa, But Eizouken Reaffirmed Him

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken

Yuasa has embraced and encouraged animators to take risks and animate with more whimsy. The artists working under Masaaki Yuasa's direction are given an opportunity to play, and the result is several projects that quite simply don't feel like anything else.

In the case of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! the show serves as a perfect vessel to try out new kinds of animation. This is a series about aspiring mangaka who transport themselves into the worlds they create, and the audience and animators are just thrilled to be invited along on the ride.

7 Haikyuu Is The Pinnacle Of Sports Anime Excellence

Haikyuu volleyball hit

Before Haikyuu!! came along, dozens of other series laid the groundwork for how a sports anime should be structured. Haikyuu!! doesn't deviate much from this structure, but it certainly perfects it.  The matches are riveting, perfectly balancing slow-mo moments, super-deformed action shots, and imaginative allegorical cutaways. Never has high school volleyball felt more suspenseful.

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But the best aspects of Haikyuu!! often happen off the court, and it's here that Production I.G. truly flexes. Mundane moments of school life are animated to perfection. The characters' personalities are highlighted by body language, facial expressions, and the antics they get up to in the background while coaches talk in the foreground. Thanks to the constant attention given to every character, this series comes to life.

6 Violet Evergarden Savors Every Moment

violet evergarden in the forest

Kyoto Animation's reputation for delivering stunning animation has long since been established, but the studio truly elevated their work even further with Violet Evergarden. And while there is violence in Violet's past, this is a show about internal struggles rather than external fights.

Every frame is illustrated with finesse. The details in a character's clothing, the nuance in a facial expression, and the shine on a water droplet all have been given specific attention. As Violet learns to appreciate the world anew over the course of the story, so does the audience. How could they not, when the world, even at its ugliest, is presented so gorgeously?

5 Paprika Is Surrealism At Its Finest

paprika sleeping lady shedding her face

The loss of Satoshi Kon truly punctured the anime industry. Kon's works are quite simply unlike anything else, surreal, dark, and introspective. Paprika can be seen as a summation of Kon's achievements, a motion picture that uses animation as a vessel for exploring a psychiatrist's journey into the psyches of her patients.

Animated by Madhouse, the film successfully blurs the line between dreams and reality, pushing animation to the limits of its capabilities. Fifteen years later, nothing looks like Paprika, and it's likely nothing ever will.

4 Your Name Knows Precisely When To Withdraw

Characters from Your Name.

Your Name was a record-breaking success of a feature film, coming second only to Spirited Away as the highest-grossing domestic film in Japanese history.

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Director Makoto Shinkai is no stranger to success, but as an auteur, he is continuously working to elevate his work.  While Your Name isn't as hyper-detailed as Garden of Words, for instance, it perfectly balances story elements with animation without feeling overwrought. It takes great skill to know what aspects of a frame to pay attention to, and Shinkai is masterful at striking that balance. The animation is beautiful, but it never supersedes the beauty of the story.

3 Ping-Pong Challenges The Beauty Standards Of Anime

Swinging the ping pong paddle during a match in Ping Pong The Animation

There are times when fans confuse "pretty art" with solid animation, but aesthetics are very much in the eye of the beholder. In an industry so powered by merchandising, it can be difficult for artists to branch away from typical, "attractive" designs for fear of losing an audience. This is why outsiders accuse anime characters of all looking the same even if fans don't interpret anime that way.

And so groundbreaking works like Ping-Pong: The Animation are all the more effective. Ostensibly strange but frenetic in its style and thought-provoking in its substance, Ping-Pong feels more raw and real than any other sports anime. The characters seem to have fallen out of a storyboard notebook and the art feels sketchy even as it's executed with precision. Ping-Pong foregoes traditional standards of beauty to deliver a project that is so much more evocative for it.

2 The Tale Of Princess Kaguya Is Unmatched

Anime The Princess Kaguya Stands Among The Blossoms

Few Ghibli films showcase violence, though war has often featured as a plot point. Choosing a single Ghibli film to celebrate is like picking a ruby among rubies, and it may feel like blasphemy to showcase a film that wasn't directed by Miyazaki.

Even so, The Tale of Princess Kaguya, directed by Isao Takahata, represents a landmark achievement in animation. Combining fluid animation with simplistic, traditional art, the film's art style perfectly underscores a story as ancient as it is evocative. Based on a traditional folktale, Princess Kaguya is beautiful in every sense of the word. The film remains the most expensive Japanese film ever made, and every penny of that budget shows in every frame of this masterpiece.

1 Garden Of Words Looks Better Than Reality

Anime The Garden of Words

Animated with unparalleled care by Shinkai's usual studio of choice, CoMix Wave Films, Garden of Words is a deliberate attempt to animate a story through the lens of motifs: the Japanese concept of love as it relates to loneliness, rain, and shoes. Rain has never been so painstakingly realized on screen, and every frame of water in the film is breathtaking. Shinkai wanted to highlight the tacit beauty of everyday life in Shinjuku. In The Garden of Words, the mundane becomes magical.

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