Top Five Anime From 2015 to Watch in the New Year

2015 proved to be a very packed and overwhelming year for anime viewers. With around 200 titles this year, it gives us all the more reason to look ahead to an optimistic 2016 with old anime titles such as Berserk and D. Gray Man returning, among a plethora of exciting new shows. To celebrate the New Year, here is a list of some of the best anime from 2015 that you can binge watch in 2016.

1. Death Parade

Purgatory never seemed so much fun in Death Parade. Souls of the deceased are brought to an underworld bar called QuinDecim. The character Decim is the gatekeeper between death and reincarnation and pits the souls against each other in games such as darts, bowling, or arcade style fighting tournaments. With the help of his mysterious assistant, his role is to draw out the darkness in people before delivering judgement. Paired with a deceptively catchy opening, Death Parade was one of the spectacles to ring in 2015, with countless mentions in Top 10 and Best of Anime lists. It’s an emotionally jarring, tearful, and bright anime that will definitely leave you satisfied from beginning to end.

2. My Love Story!!

As terribly cliche as the title suggests, this anime is far from it. In fact, My Love Story!! embraces its innocent nature and freshens the genre of the romantic comedy. Takeo Gouda is your regular heart of gold macho man willing to help out his friends whenever he gets the chance. After saving a girl named Rinko from a subway molester, she falls in love with him and Takeo immediately reciprocates those feelings. My Love Story!! has its fair share of cutey couple moments, funny interactions, and laugh-out-loud love triangle hijinks. These elements are what typically make your normal rom-com, but My Love Story!! plays with your expectations and eventually gets its happy ending through its unconventional ways.

3. School Live

Four high school girls and a dog live peaceful, uneventful everyday lives at their school… at least that’s how one of them sees it. In reality, these girls are trapped and forced to survive on daily rations in lieu of an apocalypse outside their school doors. Combining the aspects of a cheery, regular slice-of-life anime series and a bleak zombie survival story, School Live was one of the more unique anime featured this year with a disturbing first episode to hook you in for the rest of the series. You’ll never look at cute girls doing cute things the same way again.

4. One-Punch Man

What can be said about One-Punch Man that hasn’t already been said? One-Punch Man is just that awesome. Chances are you heard of it from a friend or a classmate who’s into anime. Either way, it’s a very entertaining series that needs to be watched. One-Punch Man follows a man named Saitama who can destroy his enemies in literally one punch. The rest that follows is hilarity and deadpan awkward interactions. One-Punch Man plays around with the superhero narrative and satirizes it by giving us a very sympathetic character that doesn’t get annoying with more enemies defeated, but more charming. Definitely give this a prioritized viewing. Saitama’s bald head won’t disappoint you.

5. Blood Blockade Battlefront

Blood Blockade Battlefront features a diverse cast of oddballs, supernatural terrorists, and monsters from a different realm – all situated in a place known as Hellsalem’s Lot (formerly New York City). Leonard Watch travels to the city where he is recruited to join the crime fighting organization Libra and bring order to a chaotic city using Leonard’s mysterious All Seeing Eyes of God ability. Blood Blockade Battlefront is a frenetic, off-the-wall, action-comedy adventure. Almost every episode feels stand alone and offers something unique each time the viewer tunes in. Its characters are weird and charming and adds to the overall tone of the series, right down to its explosive climax.