AR Feature Talkback: The Top 30 Greatest Story Arcs in Anime and Manga

[Avaitor]

Wait, when has Trigun been considered the lesser of the Space Western Trilogy? I thought only the Outlaw Star diehards considered it to be superior.

But hey, I'm familiar with all of these but Slam Dunk. Great stuff!

[LumRanmaYasha]

Thanks again for the comments!

I personally haven't seen many people consider Trigun the lesser of the three either, but it is true that considering it the lesser of Bebop is a fairly common opinion. I'd say that both Bebop and Trigun are about equally popular though, and even Outlaw Star is fondly remembered by the vocal nostalgic Toonami fanbase.

[VLordGTZ]

Great job, guys!  I really need to get around to reading Slam Dunk and Berserk sometime.  Also, I loved your write-ups for Maison Ikkoku and Stone Ocean in the previous part, CX. 

[LumRanmaYasha]

Thanks, Vlord!  Do give SD and Berserk a shot sometime. They're both pretty darn great.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Thanks for the comments, guys. Slam Dunk really is an underrated masterpiece. In particular, Inoue Takehiko is a master of great character development. All 3 of his major manga series are available from Viz Media in English, and I highly recommend all of them, though I haven't read Vagabond in quite some time, and I have a lot of catching up to do with that one.

As for the Sannoh arc, I felt that it was such a legendary match that it really deserved a high spot on our list. It's also just so great because it is the perfect conclusion to each character's arc. Kuroko no Basket, another very popular WSJ manga about Basketball recently just concluded, and it's weaknesses were perfectly exemplified in its final game where, when it should have been as intense and emotional as the final part of a Slam Dunk, ended up falling flat in its attempt at feeling big, and instead came off as both completely over-the-top ridiculous and incredibly underwhelming at the same time, which obviously is not a good combination of qualities to have.

That said, I suspect that the more controversial entry will be our Dragon Ball selection, especially since it's ranked higher than the most iconic arc from the series, but if anyone cares to question our opinion on that, I would personally be more than happy to defend it as best as I can.

As for Gundam, RSC was a no-brainer for me, but since I have no real knowledge of the rest of the series outside of G Gundam and Gundam Wing, I'm not sure if the hardcore Gundam crowd would agree with that opinion. That said, from what I can gather, most fans seem to consider this arc one of the best. That and Unicorn seem to be the most popular from what I can tell, actually. That said, I couldn't understand Unicorn's plot if my life depended on it, so I picked this arc for being way more accessible.

[Avaitor]

My favorite Gundam story is probably Char's Counterattack, but 0080 is the most deserving of a spot here, so you chose well!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Part 6 is up!

With that, we now have our full top 30 posted. However, don't forget that tomorrow I will post up our honorable mentions, so if there's an arc that you like which didn't make the list, there's still a chance that you will see a brief write-up for it in our honorable mentions section. Also, please feel free to ask us about our justifications for anything we included or did not include on the list, as well as how we ranked these entries if you find those questionable. We'd be glad to answer any questions about that at this point.

Also, I sincerely hope that anyone who bothered reading it enjoyed the list. I was well aware that most people on this board don't care about this stuff that much, but me, CX, and Spark wrote it anyways just because we personally feel really passionately about it, so it was still well worth writing just to express our opinions. It was a ton of hard work, but personally I really enjoyed writing and discussing these arcs with the both of you guys.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I hope you guys like the list! It was a lot of fun to construct! All that's left is our honorable mentions!

Wait, when has Trigun been considered the lesser of the Space Western Trilogy? I thought only the Outlaw Star diehards considered it to be superior.

But hey, I'm familiar with all of these but Slam Dunk. Great stuff!

Anime reviewers from a few years ago would claimed there was an "obvious hierarchy" to them, but I don't agree with them. They might all be action shows with sci-fi space-western settings, but that's where the similarities end. None of them attempt the same thing.

[Avaitor]

WHAT ONLY #3 WHAT

Although to be fair, against Monster, it makes sense. I really need to find the time to keep up with AnJ, though. I just keep on getting busier, that I end up pausing it for a while.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I would've placed it even higher, myself, but I conceded to let Monster go ahead of it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Part 7 is up!

And with our Honorable Mentions posted up, our list is now complete. Like before, let us know if you feel we left anything big off and failed to mention it in this section of our write-up.

Otherwise, I'll take the general silence as everyone being so blown away by how amazing our list is that they were left speechless. Either that or nobody really cares, but clearly it must be the former, because we (most me, though) are just that awesome.

[LumRanmaYasha]

E-K, the title section for the Buddha arcs is wrong. It should be "Devadatta/Forest of Uruvela & Prince Ajasattu." When I wrote the section before I mistook Forest of Uruvela and Deer Park as being part of the same arc, and then later I was re-reading some of the series at the library and noticed that it's actually Devadatta and Forest of Uruvela that are part of the same arc, and Deer Park is a different one entirely. I went back and rewrote that entry, but it seems that somehow the title for that section wasn't altered to reflect the change in the arc represented. 

This list was a whole lot of fun to write. I'm glad to have been able to write about some of these series and these arcs that really mean a lot to me, and it was a lot of fun. Even if not a whole lot of people read it, the fact that there were people who did, we highlighted some stand out and underrated series/arcs that many people might not have heard of/experienced, and created the best list of this sort for anime/manga story arcs out there, is all the satisfaction I need.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

E-K, the title section for the Buddha arcs is wrong. It should be "Devadatta/Forest of Uruvela & Prince Ajasattu." When I wrote the section before I mistook Forest of Uruvela and Deer Park as being part of the same arc, and then later I was re-reading some of the series at the library and noticed that it's actually Devadatta and Forest of Uruvela that are part of the same arc, and Deer Park is a different one entirely. I went back and rewrote that entry, but it seems that somehow the title for that section wasn't altered to reflect the change in the arc represented. 

Alright, I'll fix it a little later.

This list was a whole lot of fun to write. I'm glad to have been able to write about some of these series and these arcs that really mean a lot to me, and it was a lot of fun. Even if not a whole lot of people read it, the fact that there were people who did, we highlighted some stand out and underrated series/arcs that many people might not have heard of/experienced, and created the best list of this sort for anime/manga story arcs out there, is all the satisfaction I need.

Yeah, basically this. I just had fun writing it, and reading the entries that you guys wrote. I love a good story arc, and I love to discuss it with others who share the same enthusiasm.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Taking a look back at this, I'm still really pleased with how this list turned out. About the only entry that I would personally change is Kill La Kill, which I still feel is relatively too recent to properly judge whether it will hold up or not.

At any rate, I'm glad that we made this list. I was inspired by seeing so many diverse lists of this nature for Western comic book story-lines, but was utterly disappointed to see that the manga equivalent it boiled down to whatever Weekly Shonen Jump series were popular. I think that it was interesting to highlight a varied array of different works from Japan in our list, with the one binding theme in all of them simply being that they are composed of high-quality writing in terms of plot and character development.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Yeah, I still think the list is ace too. There is nothing I think shouldn't still be in there, but I do think that, if we made the list now instead of back in August, I would have really pushed for a Buddha arc, a Vagabond arc, and a Revolutionary Girl Utena arc to be represented, and maybe put up a few others into consideration too.

I will also say that, even though I have now read SBR, I would still keep Stone Ocean as the representative JoJo's arc, ftr. While I do slightly like SBR more (emphasis on slightly) Stone Ocean is easily more representative of the best qualities of the series and it's legacy as a whole (and it's no less well-written than SBR too).