Top 10 Anime Endings That Actually Landed

Anime is full of great shows with bad endings, unfinished endings, or no ending at all. That makes the ones that finish properly worth celebrating. Spoilers ahead for everything listed.

The rankings

1. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Every character gets a resolution, the theme pays off, and the final photo montage is the happiest ending in shonen.
2. Cowboy Bebop. Spike walks into the Red Dragon knowing how it ends. See you, space cowboy.
3. Code Geass. Lelouch’s Zero Requiem is the most audacious finale in the medium and it works.
4. Steins;Gate. Earns its happy ending through the most painful loop in the show.
5. Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Madoka rewrites the universe. Twelve episodes, no wasted frames.
6. Vinland Saga Season 1. Ends on the true beginning of the story, and that restraint is the point.
7. Attack on Titan. Divisive, but it commits fully to its argument and closes every thread.
8. Your Lie in April. The letter. Nothing more needs saying.
9. Mob Psycho 100. Mob confronting himself in the final episode is the perfect close to a story about self acceptance.
10. Anohana. Ten episodes of buildup for one scene of everyone finally crying together, and it earns it.

The near misses

Death Note ends well but sags in its second half. Neon Genesis Evangelion has two endings and both are still argued about, which is its own kind of success.

My take: Brotherhood is number one because it is the ending every long shonen dreams of and almost none get. Bebop is number two because I still cannot watch it without going quiet.