Interest Stacks

These anime are the standouts. They opt not for the worst of tropes but instead utilize classic conventions of storytelling to portray a gritty story. When I say gritty, I mean that the story grounds itself in either our or its own sense of reality. Eye-rollingly convenient power reveals are hard to come by here. Among them, intrusive fanservice is also quite uncommon. These are stories that take their plot, characters, and world seriously.

This stack is primarily made to encapsulate a specific vibe I often seek in anime but is difficult to describe. Let me know if there's something you think belongs on this list.