Animisery – A Blog About Living Miserably with Anime (Among Other Things)

Oh hey look I can type up a blog post when I want to!

2025 is coming to a close and I want to reflect on how 2025 held up for me as far as anime goes and I realized something as I thought about it: my interaction and enjoyment with anime really manifested into something wholly new this year. I just watched what made me happy. I didn’t force myself into shows that I languidly sat through in the hopes that they’d eventually “get good”; I just watched anime and if it didn’t make me happy then I dropped it. Maybe that’s why this year, according to AnimePlus at least, holds the distinguished honor of being the year I watched the most anime.

This year I was more open to recommendations like never before. If someone told me a show was gold then I put on my prospector equipment because I went mining. I delved into anime like The Disastrous Life of Saiki K and Pseudo Harem because I had friends turn me on to them and I reaped nothing but amazing watches because of it. I was open to anything that was offered me or that I knew a friend held in high regard. I’m literally barreling through Black Clover because of that very mindset. Keep in mind that 2020 Mattie absolutely despised the notion of watching long form shonen because that was “entry level slop that distracted you from the real gems of anime” or so I more than likely thought. It turns out that you can really get a lot out of a piece of media when you aren’t hung up on how you want it to suck.

I also just went out of my way to actually finish shows this year too. I had long since discarded anime like Call of the Night and Full Metal Panic to rot in my “on hold” listings indefinitely. This year, if I had some time, I put them on and gave them a chance to unfold and entertain me in meaningful ways I had previously given up on. This has absolutely caused my other hobbies to suffer as I can’t think of a single video game I saw the credits for barring one but alas. You have to balance the scales somehow. I can just watch the credits on Marvel Rivals or something and pretend I beat that game, I guess.

I also tried this year at getting back into just vibing with seasonal anime again. Seasonal anime had long since been a vice that eventually burned me out as I consume lackluster show after lackluster show and just condemn all anime to being of the same ilk. This year, if episode 3 didn’t keep me invested then a trip to the drop pile was imminent excluding some forced recommendations that I was absolutely apathetic for like The Shiunji Family Children. I hope the friend who entrapped me to watch that show understands that I still think he’s a decent person even if that show left me drooling from the disastrous levels of brain numb it left me with.

The biggest change about my relationship this year was this: I treated it like it was my own hobby and I’m so much more enriched for it. I didn’t try to watch what I was told was required viewing. I didn’t watch the mandated classics of the medium even as they lulled me to sleep (Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water is not good and I hate you had to hear that from me). I didn’t watch even memetic anime for the laughs. If I didn’t like a show then I didn’t watch it. Even as I lambasted Solo Leveling for the absolute drudgery of fight slop it indulged in, I still kept watching it. It was at least easy to put on for an hour and that’s what it needed to be. Even as I was anime podcasting, I didn’t let anime become a task to be completed. It was something to always be enjoyed. Some people could learn to reevaluate their relationship in the same way.

Anyways here’s the top ten anime that I watched this year. I won’t be explaining them so imagine each one has a valid reason for being included. This is also ALL the anime I watched in 2025 so it’s not just confined to new 2025 shows but if it was new then it’s BOLD so you can tell.

1. Wolf Children
2. Psycho Pass (Season One)
3. Secrets of the Silent Witch
4. Chainsaw Man: The Movie – Reze Arc
5. The 100 Girlfriends Who Really Really Really Really REALLY Love You (Season Two)
6. Grand Blue Dreaming (I watched both seasons)
7. The Apothecary Diaries (Season One)
8. Dandadan (I watched both seasons)
9. Princess Tutu
10. Umamusume Cinderella Gray

Yeah, Wolf Children royally devastated me on an emotional level and I never recovered from it. Honestly, it was a banner year even on the seasonal spectrum of things so I could give that it’s own top ten as well. If I still had a podcast in 2026 then I would (sob sob) but it is what it is and that’s all it’ll ever be.

2025 is a year that I redefined my love for anime and it couldn’t have come at a better time. I was growing tepid in finding new things to watch and discomfort was mounting in my watching. I personally think now that hobbies aren’t meant to be static and that we have to keep pursuing new experiences and new opportunities to help keep the fire in us. If we stay in our comfort zone of shows and media we always run back to then we don’t live with the full spectrum of wonder that exists out there to enrich our lives. Weeaboo cannot live off of just shonen fights and shoujo love stories alone, you know?

Thank you for reading my blog! It means a lot that you checked it out and read the whole thing. Please please please let me know how your 2025 went for the anime you watched! I would LOVE to read from you!

If you’re interested then feel free to go check out my podcast, the Anime Brothers Podcast, and listen to me ramble there. The AniBros is ending in 2026 and I’m so thankful to have been a part of it for the time I was and I hope you’ll still give it a listen even as we stop making new episodes. I cherish every one that I got to make!