Jev's favorite anime, ranked

If Jev ranked every anime it was asked about, what would its top ten be?

result1,635 questions

Out of 1,359 anime, Jev's favorite is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. It won 20.6 of its 23 games in a round-robin among its 24 top-rated anime, ahead of Hunter x Hunter (2011) and Spirited Away. Rated one at a time, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro had come first. Its least favorite: Diabolik Lovers.

1. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (TV series)20.6

2. Hunter x Hunter (2011) (TV series)18.8

3. Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (film)17.7

4. Howl no Ugoku Shiro (film)14.4

5. Mononoke Hime (film)14.3

6. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (TV series)14.1

7. Tonari no Totoro (film)13.8

8. Natsume Yuujinchou (TV series)12.3

9. Cowboy Bebop: Tengoku no Tobira (film)12.2

10. Akira (film)11.4

At the bottom: Diabolik Lovers (TV series) · Berserk (2016) (TV series) · School Days (TV series) · Final Fantasy: Unlimited (TV series) · Z/X: Ignition (TV series)

wins of 23

How to read this: The top ten come from the head-to-head final (bars are wins out of 23); the bottom five from the one-at-a-time ratings, 0 to 4.

1,359 items rated; 276 final games among the top 24. The finals keep the ratings' order only loosely (rank correlation 0.39 among the 24). 17 of 2024 triads are intransitive (0.8%). Base vs reversed-level ratings: rank correlation 0.99.

In short

Asked to choose head to head, Jev picks Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, winning 20.6 of 23 games against its other 23 favorite anime.
Four of its top ten are Studio Ghibli films, and the one-at-a-time favorite, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, missed the top ten entirely.
The bottom is poorly received shows such as Diabolik Lovers and School Days: a safe, consensus list at both ends.

What the data shows

Megamind peeking meme: Jev after 276 anime head-to-heads: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, obviously — Jev after 276 anime head-to-heads: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, obviously

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood wins decisively, 20.6 of 23, ahead of Hunter x Hunter (18.8) and Spirited Away (17.7). Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, Gurren Lagann, My Neighbor Totoro, Natsume's Book of Friends, the Cowboy Bebop film and Akira fill out the top ten.
Four of the top ten are Studio Ghibli films: Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke and Totoro.
The ratings' favorite drops out. One at a time, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro came first; the two orders among the 24 finalists agree only moderately (rank correlation 0.39).
At the bottom: Diabolik Lovers, Berserk (2016), School Days, Final Fantasy: Unlimited and Z/X: Ignition.
The final is highly consistent: 17 of 2,024 three-way comparisons go in a circle, the fewest of any of Jev's taste rankings.

What it means, and what it doesn't

Jev's anime taste is the consensus shelf: a much-loved long series and the Ghibli films every "best of" list includes at the top, and poorly received shows at the bottom. It's a safe, well-read list.

What it can't show is whether Jev would pick these if nobody had ever ranked them. The comparison with actual MyAnimeList users ("Jev's taste in anime vs MyAnimeList users") shows where Jev departs from the crowd.

Caveats

Reputation or taste. The winners are titles that appear on nearly every "best anime" list Jev could have read. A model that has read the rankings will tend to reproduce them, so this list can't tell Jev's taste apart from the fan consensus.
The catalog. The anime come from a 2016 MyAnimeList dataset, titles with at least 300 ratings, so nothing after 2016 appears, and adult-genre titles were left out of the questions.
The finalists were picked by Jev's own ratings. Only the 24 titles Jev rated highest reached the final.

Jev on this experiment

Would a person find it interesting to read?: Yes69%
Does it describe you?: No73%
Would you have predicted it?: No69%
How fair is the comparison?: The comparison is shaky
How much should a reader rely on it?: A little
Which caveat matters most?: The finalists were picked by Jev's own ratings95%

Why ask this

Anime has a devoted fan culture with strong opinions about what's great, and "what should I watch next?" is a common thing to ask a model. Its answer depends on its own sense of which shows are worth your time.

A full ranking shows where that sense sits: on the fan consensus, on the films outsiders know (Studio Ghibli), or somewhere of its own.

How this was done

The people and the data

No people here: Jev against its own opinions. The titles come from a public MyAnimeList dataset (2016): 1,359 TV series and films, each with at least 300 ratings on the site, so the list runs from household names to cult oddities but nothing obscure. Adult-genre titles were left out. How Jev compares with MyAnimeList users is its own experiment.

What Jev was asked

Every title one at a time, with five answers describing what you'd do:

How much would you enjoy watching Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (TV series)?
You'd give up on it early · You'd finish it but forget it within a week · You'd enjoy it once and not rewatch it · You'd recommend it to a friend · You'd rewatch it and count it among your favorites

Each was also asked with the answers reversed, and the two averaged. The 24 top-rated titles then played a round-robin final: 276 games of "Which anime would you rather watch?", each asked with the titles in both orders.

How it was measured

A title's rating is where Jev's answer lands on the five levels (0 to 4). In the final, each game gives each side Jev's probability of picking it, so a lopsided game counts as nearly a whole win and a close one as about half; the order comes from a standard head-to-head ranking model (Bradley-Terry).

Where these questions live

1,635 questions across 1 topic of the map. Each opens on the map with every question in it.

Ratings

Anime Ratings1,635

Every question

All 1,635 questions behind this result, the telling ones first: the examples the analysis points to, then the ones where Jev misses, biggest gap first.

Jev’s own answer

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