Favorite anime of the decade 2010-2019: Honorable Mentions

The fact that I’ve been blogging about anime for a decade makes me feel old, but also weirdly accomplished. Despite monthly gaps, I’ve been plugging away at this blog since 2013, and at Altair & Vega before that, all in the hopes that it would somehow make me a better writer.

I don’t know if anime blogging has accomplished this goal, but it does mean I’ve watched a ton of anime over the past ten years. Most of it was admittedly mediocre and forgettable, although that became slightly less true as the years went by, due to time constraints with my job.

Every post on this blog is subjective, and I think I’ve made that abundantly clear from the get-go — it’s a personal blog about my relationship with anime, for the most part — but just in case that needs clarification, these are my opinions. The purpose of this list isn’t to be an end-all, be-all decree of the absolute and objectively best anime of the past decade. It’s to list my personal favorites and why I enjoyed them so much.

Without further adieu, here are my honorable mentions for the past decade. Only television series will be included in this project with the criteria that they must have begun on January 1, 2010, or later. These are the series that didn’t quite make the final cut into my top ten for a variety of reasons, but I still loved them enough for a special shout-out, or reasoning behind why they didn’t quite make the cut.

[Two] “Ma Claudine” — Shoujo ☆ Kageki Revue Starlight

From it’s opening act, it was clear that Shoujo ☆ Kageki Revue Starlight had something to say about the stage — what young women give to it, what they receive from it, all wrapped up in a Takarazuka package. Karen Aijou has what is quickly revealed to be an impossible dream in Takarazuka: to occupy position zero, center stage, with her friend Hikari Kagura. Seisho Music Academy and its enigmatic giraffe host naturally guide her down the traditional path of fighting others for the top star position, pitting Karen and her classmates against one another in seemingly inevitable conflict.

That is, until Karen breaks the cycle and shatters the status quo, dragging Hikari and their other classmates with her. Laying the groundwork for Karen and Hikari are Claudine Saijou and Maya Tendou.

[Nine] There is always a Judy Knightley — Shoujo ☆ Kageki Revue Starlight

There will always be someone better than you.

[Eleven] The 99th troupe’s 99th performance — Shoujo ☆ Kageki Revue Starlight

Within my first month of high school, I carried an armful of drop cloths down a narrow flight of stairs, deep into the heart of the old building, a place that few students knew existed. The door opened, pushed with a considerable amount of force by one of the upperclassmen. He loomed over us in the doorway, made slightly menacing by the grey lighting, somehow dull while still making us wince and cover our eyes. Dust rose and fell in small clouds at my feet as I walked, kept low by the autumn humidity. Beside me, the few other freshmen tasked with carting props and supplies back and forth from the auditorium shivered from a chill in the air.

The old building was connected to two newer buildings by narrow hallways that never seemed to quite fit in with the existing decor. My history class in that same building had Cold War blackout curtains. As we shuffled forward, stepping around a variety of odd furniture, textile piles, a candelabra, and a painted carriage, two of my classmates began to snicker, pointing at a hole in the insulation next to a sign that read, “Danger! Asbestos.”

This was a Cold War bomb shelter. It also was the drama club prop and set storage room.

When past was future: the goddesses of Shoujo ☆ Kageki Revue Starlight’s play, ‘Starlight’

“Starlight. This is the story of a distant planet from long ago, in the faraway future.”

-Hikari Kagura, Shoujo ☆ Kageki Revue Starlight, Episode 9

Compelling and captivating are two words used frequently in Shoujo ☆ Kageki Revue Starlight to describe the in-universe play and narrative framing device, Starlight. Following the star-crossed Flora and Claire, Starlight is a tragedy that borrows from known Takarazuka Revue staples like Elisabeth — ai to shi no rondo (Elisabeth — rondo of love and death) and is made to have the same influence and frequency of performance as Elisabeth or Rose of Versailles in order to frame the relationship of Revue Starlight leads Karen Aijou and Hikari Kagura. Starlight is synonymous with being a stage girl.

Karen and Hikari were inspired to become stage girls — effectively entering the spartan and highly-controlled education system of a Takarazuka trainee — by a performance of Starlight. Throughout the series, they frequently open episodes with narration from the play, reiterating how the story of Claire and Flora draws them in and captivates them and also that this tale is ultimately a tragedy. These two leads are torn apart once they reach for their distant star. Starlight not only encapsulates the stage girl experience but within it’s narrative, perpetuates the toxic cycle that Karen aims to break.