Evangelion

One way I value anime series is through brevity. The longer a series, the less likely it will be good. Conversely, the shorter, the more likely it will be excellent. This anime falls into the short, but excellent category.

A total of 26 episodes (plus a movie), Evangelion is a futuristic mecha anime about a fourteen year old boy who must pilot a robot to defeat space invaders while dealing with his own issues of self-esteem and depression. Reading over that summary, that is not what the anime is about. The sum of its parts creates a different feel than what the first sentence implies. Some scenes in the anime are so utterly and logically existential, it's impossible not to be drawn into this pathetic boy and his perceived inadequacy. His statements on derived meaning in life, plus plentiful Christian allusions, paint a bleak and moving picture. The character changes and develops throughout the series before coming to a final conclusion that draws all the alien attacks together into a confusion but cohesive whole. Each of the characters acts as a case study into certain psychological archetypes and how people deal with an existential reality. Without a doubt, this is not only one of the best animes ever, this is one of the greatest televised programs in existence.