Anime That Stuck With Me in 2025 - What Were Yours? (Patreon)

TL;DR: I finally sat down and listed the top 3 anime from 2025 that stood out to me.

Happy New Year! Hope you all had a great Christmas.

I went back to the UK for the holidays, and my escape back to the US turned into an anime episode of its own: delayed trains, rare snow, grounded flights, and a narrow escape from Manchester before everything shut down. I was in the air mere hours before the country shut down!

Unfortunately, the Type A flu still made it onboard. I’ve been mostly unconscious for a couple of days, but I’m finally on the mend and wanted to write something properly.

Anyway, while I was half-delirious and sweating through strange dreams, I kept thinking about anime I’d watched over the past year. So here’s a quick, personal roundup of the anime I enjoyed most from 2025. Not a complete “best of everything” list,  just the ones that left an impression.

Apocalypse Hotel — 8/10

A surprise hit for me.

A very chill, very comfy anime about a robot maid keeping a hotel running long after humanity is gone.

It conveys decades - even centuries passing with a quiet effectiveness. At times it reminded me of Gunbuster in the way that time passes.

A standalone anime original (rare these days), and mercifully not another isekai.

Funny, sad, and unexpectedly touching.

Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle — 7.5/10

A $20M-budget spectacle with extremely polished animation.

I’m still not a huge fan of 3D in 2D anime, but there’s no way this film could exist without it, the environments are massive and the camera never stops moving.

Mostly a series of fights, with little character development, but honestly, that puts it right in line with classic Dragon Ball movies, so I didn’t mind.

Some very nice shading on top of all the technical flash.

Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc — 7/10

Another big-budget movie with great animation.

More standalone than Demon Slayer, though that means many regular characters barely appear.

Still manages a bittersweet love story within its runtime.

Awful title, though. “Reze Arc” is painfully dull — if this were 1994 and it were called “Team Chainsaw vs. the Legendary Blood Devil” or a name like FATAL FURY: THE MOTION PICTURE, I’d be buying a ticket instantly.

Your turn: Even if it’s just one title, recommend what anime, show or movie from 2025 stuck with you the most in the comments.I’m especially interested in anything I might’ve missed out on! I’m still rewatching Severance season 1, so I can finally watch season 2! Though, as always, I despise "mystery box" storywriting and I'm very concerned that there may actually be no answers to any of the mysteries set up so far... NO SPOILERS PLEASE THOUGH....!The curse of modern streaming shows. And all entirely the fault of LOST for starting this nonsense trend. I did watch the new Predator film and though my eyes glazed over whenever the CGI game cutscene action was happening, I didn't actually dislike it anywhere near as much as I thought I would! I even warmed to the main character. Though I still have no idea why they insist on completely changing the look of the Predators, their armor, weapons etc.

-Paul