Every year sees a lot of anime releases on DVD and Blu-ray and it can get pretty overwhelming when you really think about how much is out there. In looking back at 2013, I wanted to do a straightforward top ten list but I just couldn’t narrow it down that much. It was hard just paring it down to fifteen releases and even there we did a slight bit of cheating if only because a couple of releases were spread across multiple volumes. We tried to make sure that the majority of the releases here are new and not rescues, but some rescues truly are some of the best things of 2013. So, without further ado, here’s what topped our list of the best anime DVD/BD releases in terms of content for 2013 in alphabetical order.
Accel World
With only the first half of the series out, it’s still one of the stronger and more intriguing video game world kinds of series out there. These have grown in popularity in the last few years as a number of have been adapted, but with this based on the light novels by the man behind Sword Art Online, and technically very loosely connected, Accel World gained a bit more attention. The show is one that really did a fantastic job of introducing some interesting characters and some less than standard ones with the lead character of Haru that it was easy to connect with and curious to see what the real truths are behind it. Visually, a lot of it is a kind of dark and worn down virtual world, but it was balanced by some stunningly beautiful character artwork at times and one of the best series of promotional images when the series kicked off. Getting this series on Blu-ray definitely made for a winning moment.
Akira: 25th Anniversary Edition
I’m admittedly always wary of putting this film on a list because it’s been on so many lists, but rewatching it recently with an audience fresh to it reminded me just how much of an impact it can make. I’ve seen the movie on a regular basis for nearly the twenty-five years its been out and I thoroughly loved the high quality release we got from the worldwide debut on Blu-ray a few years ago. With this edition largely mirroring it, it was easy to just sink into the world again, the meaning of it all and seeing more nuance to it the older I get and with the different experiences I have along the way. It’s also a movie that I think really is bolstered by having read the manga itself since that adds more to the overall understanding and themes. Akira may not be timeless when you get down to it in another twenty-five years, but it still holds up incredibly well here and reminds me of why it’s such an important movie for what it did at the time. When you compare this to what American movies were doing in animation form at the time, it’s hard to not see the differences.
Another: Complete Collection
This series totally surprised me when I first watched it in simulcast form and I was even more in love with it when I returned to it in marathon form on Blu-ray. With a mystery of supernatural origins as the spine of it, we got a great series focusing on exclusion that high school characters are experiencing in order to stave off death. It gets a lot darker and very grisly as it goes along as we see some of them coming together and then the class as a whole trying to figure out how to salvage the situation so that they don’t all die. Based on the novel of the same name, the adaptation sticks relatively close to it but goes its own way and it does so beautifully. The visual design of it definitely does a lot right and it doesn’t pull any punches, either with the gore of it that’s important or the way it builds the tension beautifully as you know nearly anyone can be killed at any time. It may make it hard to really invest in someone, but you invest in the story as a whole because of it.
BLOOD-C: Complete Collection
I had a lot of problems with this series during the simulcast run simply because it wasn’t what I expected. After a few different but connected interpretations of the Saya character, Blood-C went in its own direction and gave us a show that was very split personality with what it was doing with our lead character. But as it progressed, it came together and opened up into its own really strong piece that connected to the movie in a great way. It’s part of the ultra violence that we really don’t get all that often anymore, something that populated anime more in the 80’s and 90’s with OVAs and feature films, and it drew it together with a good story once you saw how it all came together. It was just hard to get to that point for a lot of different reasons. When I rewatched it in this form, knowing part of the trick of it all, I was a lot more interested in it and it definitely came together beautifully, making me a much stronger fan of it than I was during the week to week simulcast of the series.
Colorful: The Motion Picture
One of the things I absolutely love about new anime features that get released here is that unlike TV shows that I likely saw through simulcast, viewing them is a first-time venture and that discovery of the new is really delightful. Particularly since a good majority of fans are in the same boat as only a small number import and a huge number don’t deal with streaming fansubs of it. Colorful is a lavish looking film from Sunrise based on the novel by Eto Mori that deals with people and who they really are inside, the truth inside us that arely gets free for others to see. Working through a story of death and the meaning of life, it takes its time to get to the point but brings us such a purposeful approach with beautiful stories of the characters wrapped in striking animation and a real sense of atmosphere that you can completely forget that you’re watching and simply become involved instead. It’s one of those movies that’s difficult to watch often but one that you know you really must return to in order to truly feel something.
Fate/Zero LE Blu-ray Box Set I & II
While I liked Fate/Stay Night overall, it wasn’t a title that stuck with me over the years since it always felt like so much was missing. Which it was. With Fate/Zero, which I saw as a simulcast, we get a huge amount of complicated back story, characters and connections that are drawn out in a fascinating and beautiful way. Richly animated, the series brings a simple concept out but takes it into some really intriguing areas because of the heroes of the past that are used, the quirks that come into play as the competition for the grail is explored and the foundations laid for the other series that came out first. The series is one that that I’d love to see adapted into a live action series on HBO or something with a budget. The core of it has universal appeal and the location can easily be taken anywhere. I feel that way about few series overall but this one has just been hugely impressive since I first saw it and I love revisiting it.
Gatchaman (TV & OVA): Complete Collection
After ADV Films released this series several years ago in some lavish box sets with beautiful Alex Ross artwork, I figured I’d not see the series again anytime soon considering its age and the sheer volume of the show. So I was definitely surprised when Sentai Filmworks brought the show back and then added the 1993 OVA series to it. And then brought it all out in a single collection on both Blu-ray and DVD. The series definitely makes out great with the high definition presentation considering the source materials and having all of this in one tight package for such an amazing price overall really is mindblowing when you remember that fifteen years ago, we were just starting to get away from two episodes per VHS releases. Per language. This series offers up so much material and so much fun as it explores the science ninja team and their adventures that running through it again after so many years was an absolute treat, one that I can’t help but to continually recommend to others in order to bolster their anime history knowledge.
Guilty Crown
I really hate the term guilty pleasure, but Guilty Crown really does comes close in a lot of ways. The series, which felt like it was an improv program that was coming up with each episode every week rather than with a larger story, was one that I was hugely anticipating for 2013. I loved the unpredictability of it during its simulcast run because I had no idea where it was going to go or how it was going to mess with the characters. The home video release got a pretty lavish limited edition for it and marathoning the show was an absolute blast. It plays to some of the bigger themes of 90’s anime with what it does and it has an absolute blast even as it kills off characters and puts them in increasingly difficult situations that add strain and danger as it goes on. Beautifully animated with a lot of polish by people who grew up on some of the more influential shows of the late 80’s and early 90’s, it harkens back while being wholly its own work.
Kokoro Connect
Shows about high school students are a dime a dozen. Shows about high school students with science fiction angles are a dime a dozen as well. Shows about high school students who talk about masturbation? A true rarity. Kokoro Connect takes a simple science fiction premise of a strange and unknown being that plays with a core group of people in different ways like it’s a Twilight Zone episode as we see how they handle the stress and pressure and reveal things about themselves. But it’s not all safe and sanitized as we get body swapping between genders that focuses on the real issues of it, the discovery of what makes other people tick and more. There’s also the whole sex aspect that’s covered in surprising ways that leads to some relationships slowly forming. Kokoro Connect was a true delight to watch because it took what could have been entirely bland and predictable and put some real danger to it as well as revealing a whole lot about how people think and some of the secrets we all keep.
Mysterious Girlfriend X: Complete Collection
A series about a girl whose drool can have mysterious powers? Yeah, that’ll go over well. And like any number of anime or manga properties with quirky premises, it does just that. Mysterious Girlfriend X, which its old school style character designs that come across beautifully with modern animation, we get a teenage romance that really does work all of that in as our two leads grow together through her drool, something that does have a mysterious power. The show is one I missed in simulcast form but got to check out in marathon form and I really, really liked it a lot. It’s cute, quirky and has its own sense of self that really allows it to just enjoy what it’s doing. It’s an unusual concept to be sure, but that’s something that’s often needed in a sea of mediocrity.
Patlabor The Mobile Police TV
Out of print for awhile, the return of Patlabor this year has been a real treat since we’re getting solid sized collections of the original TV series and we’re getting the remastered high definition versions at that. Patlabor has long been the overlooked series because of its origin time frame and how the years have moved past the futuristic aspect of it, but it’s a great little show about how such things could really happen and be dealt with it. With a great creative team behind it, it uses the approach of dealing with situations realistically while having a good bit of fun with it as well. Though the releases had some issues and quirks to them, the show itself is one that really continues to stand up well, if looked at the context in which it was made. As we’ve seen it grow through the movies over the years it’s entirely adaptable and we’ll see more of that in the new live action film. But revisiting this set and getting it so nicely done with the video quality makes it like a new experience.
Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise
This movie continues to rank as my all time favorite movie and with its release once again this year, following the pricey Bandai Visual USA release several years ago, I got to experience it with people who hadn’t seen it before and take it in through their eyes. Nuanced, detailed and full of smaller stories amid a massive amount of world building, what we get here is something about a world going through a cultural and technological shift and is about to break into a new realm. With it being produced in the late 80’s by a young team of dreamers from Gainax that in a lot of ways were figuring it all out for themselves, it’s a work that stands the test of time beautifully and leaves you seeing new things every time you watch it. For fans of actual space travel and the mechanics involved, the detail here is fascinating as we see a mirror held up to the 1960’s in an alternate world.
Sword Art Online Limited Edition Box Sets
After marathoning the first half of the series and then watching the simulcast, revisiting Sword Art Online is a real treat that left me really wanting more of it. The show is one that hit all the right notes for me with virtual world gaming, having done my stint for several years as a game designer of a text based online game in the 90’s when you had to dialup to get into the game. Beautifully animated, fun characters that crossed a few years worth of time with the story and the actual threat of real world death, Sword Art Online works through a fun story with the two main arcs here and made me fall in love with Asuna and really get behind Kirito and what he brought to the table with his issues as well as working through things with his sister. The series is one that just ticked off numerous boxes on my list of things I wanted out of a show like this. Like Fate/Zero, it was one of my most anticipated releases of the year.
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0: Complete Collection
If ever there was an awkward series to have a few years before an actual event happened, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 definitely fits the bill. Coming into this several years after its initial release, the show is one that gives us the event itself but that’s not the real story. Like any good drama, it’s about surviving it and the after effects of it as we see a couple of kids trying to make their way home and the people that help them along the way. Though it’s fairly sanitized overall, it’s the kind of series that definitely makes for a good drama to watch as we see the way that it’s less about the massive destruction and event itself but how people pull together and work towards helping everyone find their way and finding help. The small character stories that come from it are quite engaging and the uncertainty of what the characters will find when they finally do reach their home is what makes you keep watching. Every new little twist and turn is nicely done as it fits in with the way there’s such a ripple effect from one event to the next and the fallout of it all.
tsuritama: Complete Collection
A show about fishing. With aliens. And ducks. Tsuritama is one of those shows that wowed me first with its weird concept and beautiful animation and sense of color design and then kept me watching because of the characters and the actual story itself. And the fishing. And the ducks. While it has a kind of lazy approach to getting to the point, it’s filled with the character connections that are formed and the bonds of fishing, which brings together a very different group of characters with vastly different life experiences. With little focus on girls here overall, which can be off-putting to some, we get some solid boys bonding material here that goes big and wide with the science fiction side – and silly as well which helps to tie it all together well. A true hidden gem for many.
2013 saw some really great releases, but my three favorites did not make your list.
Tiger and Bunny
Rose of Verseilles
Wolf Children
That’s cause it’s not your list.