What is Anime Canon?

Anime Canon is my exploration of the essential works of anime — those shows, shorts and movies that show the medium at its best.

The term "canon" is often used by anime fans to refer to those episodes that are drawn directly from the manga source of an adaptation, to distinguish those episodes as different from (and, implicitly, better than) the so-called "filler" episodes that are not found in the source. This is not what I mean by "canon".

I'm using "canon" here in its broader sense:

📖

canon, n. a collection or list of sacred books accepted as genuine ("the biblical canon"); the works of a particular author or artist that are recognized as genuine ("the Shakespeare canon"); the list of works considered to be permanently established as being of the highest quality ("Hopkins was firmly established in the canon of English poetry").

While the concept of a literary canon is not without its problems (most significantly the exclusion of marginal voices), nevertheless it is useful to consider which works of art are of the highest quality, or have had the most significant artistic or cultural impact, or provide the cultural touchstones that inform subsequent works.

The main motivation for this project is that, while I have been watching anime regularly for many years now, I often feel that I have missed certain important works, or that I need to revisit and refresh my experience with others — whether to reconsider my original opinion, or because I now have some broader context to allow a better appreciation.

To the extent that I feel I need to fill gaps in my viewing, I am guided by books like Essential Anime, as well as the recommendations of the anime community. To the extent that I am going back to watch an old favourite to see how it holds up… well, some of those may not be part of the established canon — but maybe they should be!

At this stage, I don't have a checklist of works I'm intending to tackle, but if you have any suggestions, please feel free to let me know!

Robert

My other anime project is Anime Stairs.

Colophon

Anime Canon is powered by Ghost, using the Casper theme with a few minor CSS tweaks. It uses a colour-shifted version of this pink glittery backdrop image by Bookdragon. The Sailor Moon homage logo was created with the Shardee font by Bright Ideas.