RED PAINTED SEA: Putting all the anime from the 90s 80s and 70s into the Anime Interest Index

For the sake of completion of this Anime Interest Index project, I went ahead and dug up everything from the 90s and earlier, which all fits nicely into this little list.

For anyone unfamiliar with how this works, I look up reviews (from MAL) for a specific show, plug them into a calculator, and then it churns out numbers that give me an impression of how much people liked watching it. The score weighs in both popularity and positive reception. Higher number is better.

I won’t pretend to have anything significant to say about these decades this time, so let’s get on with it!

1980s and earlier

1135 Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu (Legend of the Galactic Heroes)

976 Grave of the Fireflies

882 My Neighbor Totoro

873 Dragon Ball Z

795 Dragon Ball

784 Akira

618 Mobile Suit Gundam

607 Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

599 Castle in the Sky

582 Kiki's Delivery Service

576 Angel's Egg

525 Maison Ikkoku

459 The Rose of Versailles

439 Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket

360 Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro

314 Gunbuster

313 Macross

262 Fist of the North Star

252 Ranma 1/2

190 Ashita no Joe 2

158 Saint Seiya

155 Macross: Do You Remember Love?

153 Ashita no Joe

137 Hadashi no Gen

95 Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam

56 Urusei Yatsura

-124 Belladonna of Sadness

-291 Vampire Hunter D

-331 Youjuu Toshi (Wicked City)

-339 Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ

I ended up merging everything into one for the early anime selection. Only three of these are from the 70s and everything else in this list is from the 80s. Lots of movies and long-running shows appear here. And lots of robots!

1990 to 1994

1077 Yu Yu Hakusho

588 Sailor Moon

488 Porco Rosso

335 Juubee Ninpuuchou (Ninja Scroll)

325 Only Yesterday

249 Slam Dunk

117 Mobile Fighter G Gundam

86 Pom Poko

59 Marmalade Boy

14 Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water

-172 Record of Lodoss War

-201 Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory

-564 Genocyber

-739 Umi ga Kikoeru (The Ocean Waves)

-985 Chika Gentou Gekiga: Shoujo Tsubaki (Midori)

Then we slim the list way down as popular anime releases become more frequent.

1995

873 Ghost in the Shell

854 Golden Boy

733 Whisper of the Heart

601 Neon Genesis Evangelion

402 Fushigi Yuugi

306 Memories

97 Gunsmith Cats

52 Slayers

32 Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

We’ve reached the point where individual years have enough popular highlights to sustain themselves. The contrarianism against NGE ended up weighing its rating down, though its undeniable popularity kept it in the race, at least.

1996

795 Rurouni Kenshin

773 Detective Conan

407 Kodomo no Omocha

313 Tenkuu no Escaflowne

176 Hana yori Dango

105 Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team

96 Angel Densetsu

-603 Dragon Ball GT

No big surprises here (RIP dragon ball)

1997

1298 Kenpuu Denki Berserk

1048 Princess Mononoke

661 Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion

334 Revolutionary Girl Utena

-73 Pokemon

Small group of highlights here.

1998

1729 Cowboy Bebop

1153 Perfect Blue

1095 Trigun

820 Cardcaptor Sakura

795 Initial D First Stage

581 Serial Experiments Lain

429 Seihou Bukyou Outlaw Star

297 Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou (His and Her Circumstances)

184 Pokémon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back

93 Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou

-364 A Kite

Cowboy Bebop manages to get one of the highest scores you’ll ever see! It’s the highest scoring anime prior to 2000. Don’t let that take away from how 1998 managed to score three 1000+ rated anime in one year, which is also impressive.

1999

1228 One Piece

1101 Great Teacher Onizuka

657 Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal

617 Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku (Now and Then, Here and There)

591 Digimon Adventure

498 Hunter x Hunter

176 The Big O

52 Petshop of Horrors

36 Excel Saga

-66 Blue Gender

No big surprise about One Piece scoring highly.

And now for the obligatory Top 30 Most Hyped Anime from Before the Year 2000