Welcome to THE THIRD ANNUAL NOSCHOOLSATURDAY ANIME OF THE YEAR AWARD🗣🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥‼️‼️‼️
Not gonna lie... 2025 was kind of a weak year for anime compared to 2024, 2023 and even just Winter of 2026 which was a GENERATIONAL season. So honestly every pick on this list is down a notch from my usual picks in any other given year, which is something bear in mind. Regardless, there were still a decent amount of series I thoroughly enjoyed, but before we see the nominees here are some honorable mentions:
Starting with the 2nd half of Orb: On the Movements of the Earth which ran in 2025. Badeni
is the sole reason for it being here and if I did have a "Character of the Year" category, he might just be the winner. I found the first half of it which ran in 2024 to be more enjoyable than the 2nd half which ran in 2025, but overall it still desrves a mention.
One Piece Log: Fishman Island Saga deserves to be here because of its sheer premise. This was a re-edited and at various points re-animated shortened version of the Fishman Island arc, which got cut down from 57 episodes in the anime to 21 in this special edition. Overall, I enjoyed it and thought it's a great idea considering we were waiting for the actual anime to come back cuz it was catching up to the manga so if this sets a precedent where every time the anime takes a break we get another re-edited season with improved pacing (which Dresssrosa is in DESPERATE need for) I'd be very satisfied. The only things I didn't like was how the pacing felt too fast at the very end of the arc, where it was very noticeable they cut out and sped things up a little too much. Luffy's Red Hawk scene is a prime example of this where it's better in the original version so honestly an extra episode or two for a total of 22 to 23 would have been perfectly paced.
Dr. Stone: Science Future was pretty good. The gang finally made it to the US after years of waiting and there's a lot of cool new characters there.
The Summer Hikaru Died was intriguing throughout with my only problem being the ending, which wasn't even a cliffhanger but rather an obvious (and somewhat awkward) cutoff point to stimulate interest for a season 2.
Sakamoto Days Part 2 was a noticable improvement over season 1. Similarly to Orb, I'm mostly putting it on here because of that badass old geezer Takamura. Love that character!
Demon Slayer Infinity Castle Part 1 deserves to be on here for the animation spectacle alone. I saw in on a 2nd date with an absolute 10/10 so that's how I'll probably remember this movie even though I wasn't really invested in the characters and can almost promise you this will be the weakest out of all Demon Slayer films.
Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill season 2 is on here as an honorable mention instead of a nominee like its previous season. I still enjoyed it and thought the pixie dragon was a good addition to the team, but I prefer season 1 since it had a bigger sense of progression. It's kinda like when you start a new Minecraft world. That first week or two where you're doing all kinds of things is much more fun than the end game when you already have 3 mansions and 10 automated farms.
Record of Ragnarok season 3 was a super easy watch. Nikola Tesla was the most goated character of the season duking it out with Badeni and Takamura for the character of the year spot.
Alright... it's time for the NOMINEES:
Ruri Rocks babyyyyyy! As a huge fan of the Crystal Beast
archetype from Yugioh (and a fan of shiny things in general) I really enjoyed
my time with this one. Learning about gems and minerals while dangling
fanservice in my face might just be what the educational system is missing to make
students actually wanna learn. Shout out to Nagi who is another stand out
character of the year. I liked pretty much every scene she was in. I also
found the dynamic between Ruri and Nagi to be somewhat reminiscent of Frieren and
Fern. There's a decent amout of similarities between the two series to the
point where if you took away the fantasy elements of Frieren and put her and
Fern into the Ruri Rocks verse, they'd fit right in. I even considered getting
the art book with all the setting materials for the anime, but I can only find
it at a super big markup online so if I catch it at a reasonable price I'm
getting it to see all the shiny gems. Don't quote me on this, but I miiiight also have the highest viewed Ruri Rocks video on the internet. It's not like I'm constantly checking the views of Ruri Rocks vids online but the one I made blew up with over 5 mil on IG so if I do happen to hold that record, I'm very proud lol.
Tojima Wants to be a Kamen Rider is a WILD WILD WILD series. There are few shows which reach that upper echelon of bizarre nonsense. Jojo is one of em of course, Baki is another and the king is obviously Bobobo. That being said, Tojima Wants to be a Kamen Rider is getting pretty close to joining them up there. This is a show about passion and that's the reason why it feels so authentic despite the bullshit happening on screen. My best friend from when I was a kid had a dream and that dream was to be Spiderman... now imagine you actually hold onto that dream and refuse to give up on it until you're in your forties... that is Tojima. A Kamen Rider SUPERFAN who got hooked on the franchise as a kid and spent his free time punching trees in the forest for decades in preperation to become the real Kamen Rider. Now imagine he meets 3 others who are equally devoted and dedicated to the franchise as him and who all start larping as their favorite Kamen Rider verse characters. Except they're not larping... they are genuinely so passionate (and delusional) that they quite literally become those characters. That's not even all of it. The cherry on top is that it turns out the Kamen Rider verse is REAL and there are actual monsters from the series attacking people and trying to take over the world so it's up to those grown ass, passionate, delusional larpers to save humanity. Absolute cinema 🖐😎🤚
One Piece Egghead arc is another nominee which I'm lowkey surprising myself with since I'm not a huge fan of the arc itself. There are a lot of cool stuff and a lot of lame stuff in the arc and I think it suffers from the usual reused structure except since it was the latest arc in the anime, it's kiiiiinda starting to get old. The characters go to a new place, it's fun at the beginning until a darker truth is revealed and all of the sudden there's a long drawn out and chaotic battle with a countdown timer element to simulate high stakes. This is a formula that Oda loves to reuse since it worked so well so many times, but the middle of those arc usually suffer from bad pacing and unnecesaarily drawn out segments. That being said, Egghead in 2025 is a nominee for a reason and that reason is Kizaru vs Luffy quite possibly being my favorite fight in the series. I do NOT watch One Piece for the fights. If we're talking Big 3, One Piece has easily the weakest battles lineup, HOWEVER Luffy vs Kizaru was genuinely amazing. Up until then every time we've seen Kizaru he was chilling out and holding back and even though he was also not going all out in this fight, the increased effort from going up against Gear 5 Luffy was noticable and much appreacited. That battle was just a super entertaining time, but on top of that we saw that crazy conclusion where the 5 elders finally show up and square up, which was a very strong finish.
Finally, we got Solo Leveling season 2. I got a lot of mixed opinions and I'll lay em all out here. Right off the bat this is the highest score I've given to any anime of 2025 on MAL which is an 8/10. So automatically you'd think it's basically guaranteed to be my anime of the year right? I thought so too and that's always been the case in the past, but then I realized... I don't remember SHIT from this show. I can't tell you the name of a SINGLE CHARACTER! The most accurate way I can describe Solo Leveling is as anime junk food. I had a blast watching it and that next episode button was the easiest to press out of every show in 2025, but once I finished it I almost instantly forgot all about it. The only plot points I even remember are the main character clearing some sort of hellish dungeon in the beginning and fighting the big ant at the end. It had almost 0 staying power in my mind, but it was a strong momentary jolt of stimulation and I can safely say it was a level above season 1.
Now that we're all done with the nominees... the ANIME OF THE YEAR 2025 IS...
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Tojima Wants to be a Kamen Rider! This show is just way to passionate for me not to recognize it as the genuine article. On top of all the praise I’ve given it before, the fanservice is also S tier. Tackle is such a cool and badass character. She has the biggest, fakest looking tits I’ve ever seen and at the same time she soloed the entire main cast by herself. I’m already looking forward to getting a figure of her. The other characters also have their own stories which end up being intertwined with the grander linear narrative in one way or another, which is always appreciated. The action is surprisingly emotional, the plot is wacky, the characters feel real and the fanservice is magnificent. I have no doubt I’ll remember various parts of this series for years to come and I’m waiting for season 2 with excitement! For those reasons, this is my Anime of the Year!
BUT WE’RE NOT DONE YET! I decided I might as well do the "Character of the Year" category since I've already talked about it and I figured it’d be a fitting way to celebrate the 3rd Annual NoSchoolSaturday Anime Awards. Here are the 6 nominees: Badeni, Takamura, Nagi, Tackle, Nikola Tesla and Kizaru.
And the winner is… yeah it had to be Takamura. I would have honestly given it to Badeni, but I checked the episode release dates and it turns out the last episode he was in actually released at the end of December 2024 so technically even though he was part of Orb which ran into 2025, he himself didn’t appear in 2025. So instead… aura farming geezer goes brrrr!
Thanks for reading and lemme know YOUR top picks in the comments! 💪😎
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