Alchemy is governed by the Law of Equivalent Exchange, for something to be obtained, something of equal value must be lost. The Elric Brothers, Edward and Alphonse, unfortunately learn this too late and they end up suffering terribly. Edward loses his left leg, while Alphonse is stripped of his entire physical body. Unwilling to lose his brother, Edward gives up his right arm in order to affix Alphonse’s soul to a suit of armour. Spurred on by the hope of one day returning their bodies to normal, Edward receives a set of metal limbs known as automail and becomes a State Alchemist, dubbed the Fullmetal Alchemist. Three years after the incident, the two of them seek the Philosopher’s Stone, a relic which allows an alchemist to disregard the law of Equivalent Exchange. With several colleagues in the military at their side, the Elric brothers find themselves embroiled in a dark nationwide conspiracy which unravels uncomfortable truths about their country as well as the Philosopher’s Stone itself.

This moment appearing on this list should be of no surprise to anyone. The character responsible for making this scene a possibility at all is generally regarded as one of the most hated anime characters and naturally so – we don’t like people who play mix-and-match with the bodies of their family members and pets! The scene where Nina and Alexander’s chimera form attempts to speak to Edward remains a moment that people do not forget and will probably remain a sore point for anime fans forever.

One night, high school shut-in Natsuki Subaru decides to head over to the nearby convenience store in order to buy a few things, but when he steps out, he finds himself in the market district of a town in an alternate world. Modelled on the fantasy worlds he’s familiar with in the games that he plays, Subaru quickly takes to the hero role he believes he is there to fulfil, but not much longer after his arrival, he is attacked by bandits and subsequently killed. To his surprise, Subaru finds himself back in that same market and he’s attacked by the same bandits, but this time around, he is saved by a white-haired beauty named Satella. Satella is travelling in search of the thief who stole her family insignia, and out of gratitude for her help, Subaru decides to join her in her search. When they finally find the individual responsible, Subaru and Satella are both brutally murdered. Subaru awakens to the same sight: the same market, the same bandits attack him again and yet again Satella comes to his aid as history inexplicably repeats itself.

Before the announcement of the second season of the anime, the series was being remembered as a great isekai series that had us hooked three years ago but didn’t finish what it was trying to say. That was one of the negatives of Re:Zero, the fact that after 26 episodes of seeing Subaru suffer and triumph and fail over and over again, we still come to know no reason for his being there in the first place. We also remain in the dark about the strange discrepancy between his first-first meeting with Emelia and his second first meeting with her. Luckily for us, remaining questions stand to be addressed with the announcement of this second season.

Setting out for another day at the office, Kobayashi opens her apartment door only to be met with the frightening appearance of the head of a dragon! Immediately, the dragon assumes a different form – a cute, busty and energetic young girl dressed just like a maid! She introduces herself as Tooru and it turns out that she and Kobayashi had the night before when a drunk Kobayashi went on a drunken escapade in the mountains. Since Tooru had nowhere to go, Kobayashi offered her home and Tooru had arrived to make good on their agreement, ready to pay back Kobayashi for her kindness through menial labour. Regretful of her drunken actions but feeling too guilty to send the girl away on her own, Kobayashi reluctantly takes Tooru in. Despite her efficiency, Tooru’s housekeeping is confusing and sometimes even horrifying to Kobayashi, sometimes causing more harm than good; the circumstances surrounding Tooru’s presence in the human world are a little bit of a touchy subject and to top it all off, Tooru’s presence attracts a myriad of other mythological beings!

After seeing the warm Kobayashi household, it was very maddening to consider that someone or something would want to ruin such a fun home environment. However, Tooru’s father had a lot to say about his daughter living in the human world with a human, and he fights her in order to bring her back to their world. Tooru’s father’s hatred of human beings and his general contempt around the situation concerning Kobayashi causes his relationship with his daughter to be strained, and his relationship with viewers is… well, that can’t be saved at all!

The older one gets, the more difficult and tedious life tends to become for them. In fact, life gets way harder before it gets easy; and Retsuko, the red panda office worker, understands this more than anyone else. It is for this reason that it is important to find ways to cope – Retsuko copes with her workplace and overall frustrations through death metal karaoke. Appearing cute and cuddly in the office, Aggressive Retsuko is a completely different beast in the karaoke booth!

This anime itself is not a moment that instils us with intense feelings of anger or wrath; in fact, this anime tends to have the opposite effect. However, the protagonist Retsuko, and her daily difficulties and the way she turns to music to ease off is highly relatable. In fact, it wouldn’t be all that great to drop a full list of anime sins, misfortunes and fails without inserting something perfectly suited to dealing with the negative feelings that arise from simply being. Aggretsuko understands this quite well.

Kiriyama Rei is one of the few elites in the shogi world due to his professional status, which he achieved in middle school. He faces an incredible amount of pressure from the people around him as a result of his status, and his adoptive family is no different. Seeking to leave a tense home situation, Rei moves into an apartment in Tokyo. 17 and living on his own, Rei takes poor care of himself and his reclusive personality does very little to help him socially. However, soon after his arrival in Tokyo, he meets Kawamoto Akari, Hinata and Momo, three sisters living with their grandfather who runs a traditional Japanese sweet shop. The eldest sister, Akari, takes an interest in Rei and seeks to combat his loneliness and improve his way of life. Coping with a difficult past of their own, the Kawamoto sisters become like family to Rei, a bond he has never had in his life. Struggling with the physical demands of his shogi career and his difficult past, Rei must learn how to deal with other people in order to understand himself.

Fans of 3-gatsu no Lion will speak at length about the warmth of the Kawamoto sisters, particularly that of the middle sister, Hina. Being one of the sweetest characters in the show, Hina’s character experiences immense turmoil as she experiences intense bullying at middle school as a result of showing support towards a friend who was being bullied. The situation eats away at her once-cheerful soul and she becomes somewhat withdrawn for a while, inciting intense worry from Rei. Seeing a kindness and brightness like Hina’s being treated cruelly brings up some intense emotions indeed.

Makabe Masamune used to be an overweight little boy who wasn’t too popular with the girls his age. He was even rejected by a beautiful rich girl named Adagaki Aki, who nicknamed him “Piggy” because he was overweight. Devastated, Masamune put hard work into his appearance, which is now of a handsome high schooler suffering from a bit of a narcissistic streak. Masamune is determined to exact revenge on Aki by making her fall in love with him and ultimately reject her. He realises he has transferred into Aki’s school and decides to start on his plan; however, Aki has a reputation of being the school’s “Brutal Princess” for the way she handles people who confess their feelings for her. Masamune’s first attempt fails and when he finds a strange letter addressing him by his old nickname, his plan stands to fail horribly.

After an intense and angst-filled eleven episodes, in which a confession between Masamune and Aki occurs, the final episode set to resolve most of the questions posed by the series just doesn’t do that at all. Instead, we’re taken to karaoke with the characters for an entire episode in which no one dares mention the elephant in the room – the elephant that is the certain confirmation that someone has feelings for a certain someone else. Ultimately, the finale is just filler and after all of that, it feels just a little lacking in completeness or closure, which is quite irritating.

Set in Edo Japan, Yasuri Shichika is a swordsman who practises a unique “swordless” style which uses the user’s very body as the blade. He is the Seventh Head of the Kyotouryuu school, living quietly with his sister Nanami. Then Togame, the strategist, sent by the Shogunate to retrieve twelve unique swords called the “Deviant Blades”, asks Shichika to help her in her mission. He accepts, interested by Togame herself, setting out on a dangerous adventure where they will encounter formidable swordsmen and elites who seek the power of the blades themselves.

So after enjoying a beautiful tour of Warring States Japan through an artistic, well-written, well-executed story, you tend to feel close to the characters somewhat. Unfortunately for those who were fans of Togame’s witty quips and eccentric speech patterns were in for sadness, confusion and even anger at the death of the series’ heroine at was the climax of her journey with protagonist Yasuri Shichika. We’ll always miss you, Togame. Sad cheerio.

Saitama is a seemingly unimpressive man who has a unique hobby: he is a hero for fun! Pursuing his childhood dream, Saitama fights against evil relentlessly and over the course of three years, this has caused him to lose all his hair. Currently, Saitama is inconceivably powerful; so powerful that no enemy can beat him in battle. In fact, it takes only one blow from Saitama to end a fight, which brings us to Saitama’s biggest problem – crime-fighting and being a hero no longer have the thrill of battle and now he’s bored! However, when 19-year-old Genos, a cyborg, approaches Saitama hoping to become Saitama’s disciple after seeing what he can do, Saitama’s dreary life gains something interesting as Genos proposes that they join the Hero Association and become certified heroes. Saitama, shocked at the fact that no one knows who he is, agrees, starting off the action-packed journey of a guy who just wanted to be a hero for fun.

After the immense success of the first season of author ONE’s One Punch Man under the animation of Studio Madhouse, fans were practically foaming at the mouth for a second season. The incredible animation, art and character designs that defined the first season were highly anticipated a return for future seasons; however, season 2 was announced to be a J.C. Staff animation, which meant that it would look different from the first season. A greater misfortune is also the fact that Natsume Shingo, the director of One Punch Man at Madhouse, is no longer going to direct the series either, which spells a period of adjustment for fans to the new look and feel of the series. Right now; however, people aren’t too happy.

Seven years after the defeat of Majin Buu and the quelling of the Majin threat, Earth is at peace once again. However, peace is short-lived, and a sleeping evil awakens somewhere in the galaxy: Beerus, the God of Destruction. Spurred on by a prophecy foreseeing his own defeat at the hands of a “Super Saiyan God”, Beerus and his attendant, Whis, search the universe for this being. Soon, they come upon Earth, where they encounter one of the strongest warriors in the universe – Son Goku, and his band of powerful friends.

For purists, if such can exist in a fandom for a phenomenon like the Dragon Ball franchise, touching the long-standing relationship between Frieza, the unfortunate end of the Saiyans and Frieza’s defeat at the hands of Goku, is tantamount to heresy. Well, such is a major exaggeration; however, when Goku asked for Frieza’s assistance in the Tournament of Power, Goku exercised a trait he has had ever since he was a child – turning enemies into allies. The potentially aggravating issue with it being Frieza this time is the fact that Frieza as an entity within this universe is perhaps one of the greatest evils most individuals will ever know. Single-handedly responsible for the extinction of Goku’s home world and entire race, Frieza represents an irredeemable evil; one that had never and will never know repentance, as well as being the one actor whose one decision had consequences that rippled throughout the very fabric of the universe.

Two years after CCG’s raid on Anteiku, the vibe in Tokyo has changed dramatically as Ghouls now take caution as a result of CCG’s influence. CCG’s creation of the special Quinx Squad is perhaps the boost they needed to deal with Tokyo’s Ghoul threat. The Quinx Squad are humans who underwent surgery to obtain Ghoul abilities and as half-human, half-ghoul hybrids, they participate in CCG’s operations to eradicate the Ghouls. Their leader is Sasaki Haise, a half-human, half-ghoul trained by Arima Kishou himself; however, there is more to Sasaki than meets the eye…

To those who read the manga, the third season of Tokyo Ghoul was disappointing for reasons that adaptations tend to be disappointing for. However, the Tokyo Ghoul anime series had divorced itself from the exact manga sequence of events since Root A and certain events that occurred in the manga did not happen or did not happen as they were intended to. Leading to the widespread confusion on the airing of the first episode of season 3 and the resounding question: “Where is Kaneki, and just who is this?”