2021 Anime Tier List

2021 Anime at a Glance

In today’s article, I’m going to be running through “all” the anime that started and finished airing in 2021 that I watched. There are a couple of things missing, and some others added you might not think count. But, I’ll explain those choices when I get to them.

Also, I previously wrote articles on the Top 5 Anime of 2021 (outdated) and the Worst 5 Anime of 2021 that go into more detail regarding the best and worst anime of the year. This article is more of a general overview of the year.

Something you may notice about this tier list is that it’s skewed towards higher scores. There are many more 7s and 6s than 4s and 3s. That’s not because I tend to score things higher (mostly). It’s more due to the fact that I primarily select anime to watch that I think I’ll enjoy.

I could easily even out my scores by watching more anime I know are going to be bad. But I don’t like watching bad anime that much.

Oh, and the farther left an anime is within a tier, the higher-rated it is. So the leftmost anime is the best of the tier and the rightmost is the worst. I don’t always do that with tier lists, but I did this time.

10 – Masterpiece

One of the first things to catch your eye when looking at my tier list is that I have no anime from 2021 rated at 10/10. There was one anime that came close, which I’ll mention in the 9/10 section. But I just didn’t feel like I could give it a 10.

9 – Great

The three anime I rated 9/10 are Pui Pui Molcar, Mushoku Tensei Part 2, and Sonny Boy. Pui Pui Molcar is the one I considered rating at 10/10. But, all of these anime, including Molcar, didn’t rise to meet the threshold for “Masterpieces.”

8 – Very Good

There were five anime I rated 8/10 in 2021. These are Mushoku Tensei Part 1, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S, Magia Record 2nd Season, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train Arc, and To Your Eternity.

To Your Eternity has been bumped out of my top 5 anime of 2021 since I watched more anime from the year between the time I wrote my top 5 article and now. I also included the Mugen Train Arc as a 2021 anime because I watched the TV version, not the movie version.

Also, although I watched Mini Dragon, the short-form series that accompanied Dragon Maid S, I haven’t included it on this tier list because of how little content it had.

7 – Good

Nine anime were rated 7/10 in 2021. They are Fruits Basket: The Final Season, Non Non Biyori Nonstop, Horimiya, Laid-Back Camp Season 2, Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song, Nomad: Megalo Box 2, Attack on Titan: Final Season, Re:ZERO: Season 2 Part 2, and Wonder Egg Priority.

Attack on Titan: Final Season technically began airing in 2020. But that’s just because it was 16 episodes. It’s still considered a winter 2021 season anime, so I’ve chosen to include it.

Additionally, while I did watch the Wonder Egg Priority Special, I haven’t included it as a separate entry on this list. Instead, I’ve placed Wonder Egg Priority at the bottom of this tier to show that the special does bring the series as a whole down.

6 – Fine

My 6/10 tier has 15 anime, so I’ll split them up into three groups of five. The top five anime of this tier are Pretty Boy Detective Club, My Hero Academia Season 5, Higurashi – Sotsu, Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, and My Senpai is Annoying.

You may say my Nisioisin and Shaft bias is showing, But I stand by Pretty Boy Detective Club being the best 6/10 anime. And although I complain about MHA a lot, I do still think it’s usually fun to watch.

The next five anime in the tier are Love Live! Superstar!!, The Aquatope on White Sand, Super Cub, Slime 300, and Heaven’s Design Team. There’s not much to say about these anime; they were all enjoyable.

Higehiro, How Not To Summon a Demon Lord Ω, both parts of TenSura Season 2, and Cells at Work! CODE BLACK round out the bottom of the tier. I gave both Tensura Season 2 parts the same rating, but I do think Part 2 was better than Part 1.

5 – Average

11 anime were ranked 5/10 in 2021. The first half of these are Ganbare Douki-chan, Mieruko-chan, Yuki Yuna: The Great Mankai Chapter, and both Let’s Make a Mug Too Season 2 and Let’s Make a Mug Too. Yes, I wrote Let’s Make a Mug Too Season 2 first because it’s better than Season 1.

The remaining six anime in the Average category are Azur Lane: Slow Ahead!, Cells at Work!!, SSSS.Dynazenon, Dr. Stone: Stone Wars, Kemono Jihen, and Last Dungeon Boonies. I think these six are significantly worse than the previous five anime of the tier, but not enough to be in the 4/10 tier.

4 – Bad

I only rated three anime at 4/10 in 2021. The “Bad” anime are My Next Life as a Villainess X, The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated!, and The Promised Neverland Season 2.

My Next Life as a Villainess is just one of those anime I don’t understand the hype around. Jahy is extremely boring, but not exactly bad aside from that. And I think we all know why The Promised Neverland is down here despite how good the first season was.

3 – Very Bad

The four anime in the “Very Bad” tier are Redo of Healer, So I’m a Spider, So What?, Deep Insanity: The Lost Child, and Log Horizon: Destruction of the Round Table. I know a lot of people are going to say So I’m a Spider, So What? is good. But it’s not. The anime is very bad.

Also, although I have Redo of Healer down in the 3/10 category, I think it’s more like a 6 or 7/10 as far as entertainment is concerned. That’s probably the bad anime I had the most fun watching in 2021 because of how absurd everything about it was.

2 – Horrible

The Seven Deadly Sins: Dragon’s Judgement and Otherside Picnic are the 2/10 anime from 2021. 7DS: Dragon’s Judgement was an improvement over the previous season, but I’m still glad it’s over. Otherside Picnic had some good ideas but was very poorly executed.

1 – Appalling

The worst two anime of 2021 are Ex-Arm and Osamake. On this tier list, I put Ex-Arm above Osamake. But in my article on the worst anime of the year, I had their positions swapped. I think these are both so terrible that either one could be the worst of the worst.

Conclusion

I know there are multiple anime placements on this tier list that you don’t agree with. So let me know what they are in the comments.

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