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

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Your timing for reading that arc couldn't have been more perfect.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Also, that reminds me, Desenitized is the only one of the three of us who made this list who hasn't read AnJ yet. You should really get on that shit. No excuses.

Oh, and in case anyone was turned off by too many unrecognizable series in the early portions of our list, I'm fairly certain that most people on this board have read or watched at least 8 of our top 10 entries, so there are really no excuses there.

Of course, part of the point of the list was also to expose some people to maybe trying out some new series that they hadn't seen before....because, you know, it never hurts to try something new....well, at least not anything that we would recommend, anyways.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Though if you want to expose people to trying out some new shows, it wouldn't hurt to do something like an "Anime from the Past 4 Years That Don't Suck" thing.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

True, but modern anime is more the department of you, Foggle, and Dalek. I haven't kept up with enough new shows. I'm more experienced with older stuff, in general, which understandably is off-putting to a lot of people, so I never really expected anyone to gain interest. Even so, I choose to write about what interests me personally, hence why I would do a list of this nature, even if almost no one cared to read it.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Though if you want to expose people to trying out some new shows, it wouldn't hurt to do something like an "Anime from the Past 4 Years That Don't Suck" thing.

I could probably make a list of that nature with manga. Though, I might narrow it down to shonen manga, since there's much more quality seinin currently-running series that I'm aware of but haven't gotten to than shonen ones.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Part 4 is up!

[LumRanmaYasha]

I wrote the majority of the entries in this part! The Maison Ikkoku entry is also the longest write-up in the entire list! Yay, me!

I just noticed that the picture used for Munich is in fact actually from Ruenheim. I dunno if Spark wants to change that or not. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I noticed that as well, beforehand actually, but I forgot to bring it up to Desensitized. I temporarily replaced it with another picture from that arc, but if he wants to give me a new picture to use, I'd be happy to re-replace it.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Also...Monster isn't streaming on FUNimation.com. So that should probably be removed too. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, now that I think about it, Desensitized also put that for HXH. Where did you get that information from? FUNi doesn't even have the rights to HXH, and upon checking, they aren't streaming it.

[Avaitor]

The write-ups for this section are just fantastic! Although I'm only familiar with Munich, you guys have made each of these sound totally appealing.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Thanks, though CX and Desen deserve most of the credit for this portion. For the record, I've only seen 2 of these entries, myself. I have a lot to catch-up on.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Thanks, Avaitor.  I wrote most of the write-ups in this part, so I'm glad to hear that they've come across well.

[Foggle]

Good work again today. Due to personal bias, I find anything from One Piece ranking higher than anything from Monster somewhat questionable, but all three of ya did a fine job articulating your points, as usual.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

While I love Monster way more as a series, that particular OP arc deserves its dues. It's iconic for a reason, and while I doubt that it would appeal to everyone on this board, it's still unquestionably one of the best story arcs in its genre for the reasons that I explained in the write-up.

Also, keep in mind that sometimes we ranked certain arcs lower than we normally would when there were better arcs directly relative to the same genre. In this case, that OP arc was one of the best in the battle shounen genre. With Monster, Munich is a great arc, but relative to other seinen psychological thrillers, there are even better ones still, a bit more than there are for OP. I would recommend waiting until you see the top 10 before judging whether you disagree with our reasoning or not. As said in the very first part, it's a opinionated list at its core, though, so I don't expect anyone to completely agree with all of it.