while it is generally a poor idea to objectify what one may have to say about a particular work based off of their score, i will say one great advantage of actually using the full 1-10 rating system unlike the average user of this site is that it allows you to be much more expressive in your superficial assessment of a show. Like if you hated a show and gave it a 7/10, what the hell is that actually saying on its own about your degree of disdain, and how does that even begin to signify you actually disliked it?
...
maybe im just a nasty person
10= i connected with this on a personal level
9= nearly flawless
8= typically has an issue that holds it back
7= overall great, though it has some small problems
6= things I dislike but mostly good
5= good cancels out bad; right in the middle//m i d
4= has qualities that i like, but more bad than good imo
3= mostly pretty bad but has some sort of outstanding redeeming quality(s)
2= almost entirely terrible
1= i personally despise it
unrated= need to rewatch it bc idfk i thought abt it too much
10 and 1 are almost always subjective scores, so i decided to treat them as such here. Typically, every time i score something as a 1, it eventually becomes a 2 as i forget what made me despise it so much. As such, you can think of a 2 as a pseudo 1, and a 9 as a pseudo 10. Also, my favourites do not in any way reflect score-they merely are the shows i enjoy watching more than any other.
-Only one character per series. Honorable mentions are as follows:
--Deishuu Kaiki, from the monogatari series. Everyone who has seen it already knows how fascinating this guy is, so instead I'll just quickly mention that he was competing with my by and far favourite anime character, and would've taken the spot on my list very easily otherwise.
--Meme Oshino, from the monogatari series. In the kizumonogatari light novel, at least when I read it, I thought he was the funniest character of all time. I love how needlessly and excessively sarcastic he is, with an often shitty attitude to match. I'm replacing his pick on my favorites list with senjougahara as of 2026 though, and the only reason she wasn't there before is because she kinda becomes overall much more boring after her arc resolves in nisemonogatari, but that doesn't stop her from having been the GOAT when she was at her peak. She's also been my pfp for years, I used to own a body pillow of her, and I now have a figure of her, and I've done that for no other anime character and probably never will because only senjougahara can be my spirit animal lol.
--Misato Katsuragi and Shinji Ikari. Evangelion has the closest thing to what I'd consider a flawless cast in anime, with every member having a justifiable reason to take the winning spot. Misato and Shinji, though, would be my picks for the best (other than Gendou, obviously). While eva integrates a very diverse set of genres into its plot, at its core, it's a story about depressed people, and this pair carries that theme to the end. They are worse than fucking terrible for each other, and make each others' lives significantly more stressful, but stick together through thick and thin throughout the entire story when nobody else does. If there's one thing these two can always rely on, it's seeing the most negative aspects of themselves in their counterpart. The hate the last 2 episodes of the anime as they completely sell out its thoughtful and subtle use of characterisation the entire anime faithfully committed to, but we can ignore them as they're low-budget non-canonical fodder anyways.
I just had the realization that anime is the only form of media that I actively score. Like, I don't have an imdb account, I used to score music but don't care to anymore, and I also fell out of bothering with goodreads and never scored video games despite those being the form of media I have probably consumed the most. Why is this? I reckon it's because of the nature of watching/consuming anime in the west. Every legal anime streaming service had pretty much always been pretty bad, meanwhile anime might be the form of media that has the best pirating services period. Additionally, anime for the longest time was a weirdo hobby so there isn't as many people to talk about it with (IRL), especially when you were a kid like me growing up with extremely few to 0 friends. The result? MAL became the goto place for me to get new anime recommendations, over shitty sites like funimation, and naturally you just get into scoring things. Compare to quality legal services like steam or netflix that effectively recommend good shit always and forever, reducing the need to go to a site that has actual scoring systems to find quality content. Now I'm stuck scoring anime and not other pieces of media lmao.
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