Had no idea Kill a Kill was going to go as hard as it did by the ending arc.

Just one of those shows that starts strong and gets better with every passing episode.

Apocalypse Hotel from last season.

A bit of a depressing start but pivots hard into 'thinking' comedy and philosophy. It's got your over the top anime characters but the overall situation demands the thinking parts of your brain to activate.

Made in Abyss. It sounded cool, I knew it had its issues, but holy shit the worldbuilding is top-tier.

I watched I'm in Love with the Villainess fully expecting trash, only to think "wait wtf I'm actually invested why is this good?"

I don't know that I would call Madoka a pleasant surprise. Actually in that vein Gushing over Magical Girls was pleasant.

Laid-Back Camp.

It surprised me because I was waiting for a Madoka Magica moment and...welll....never happened. My whole family loves the series.

Bocchi the Rock!

I don't know who decided that a 4koma should get some of the most inventive and expressive animation of this decade, but they're a fucking genius.

I only learned about it from seeing a webm of the Blender scene, and I thought "ok, this is kinda hilarious, I gotta give this a shot." I was watching happily until episode 5, when I thought "wait, are they gonna play the whole song? They are aren't they. Wait a minute, this song fucking rules." And every single episode after that was banger after banger. One hilarious bit, stylish animation cut, and kickass song, one after another.

As an aside, I watched My Dress-Up Darling season 1 before Bocchi, and watching season 2 now, and you can tell how much Bocchi the Rock influenced Cloverworks. Season 1 had good animation, but it was fairly standard. Season 2 they've been much more experimental and it has been a joy to see it all.

https://myanimelist.net/anime/52619/Jidou_Hanbaiki_ni_Umarekawatta_Ore_wa_Meikyuu_wo_Samayou

This vending machine anime was the biggest suprise of my life.

I did not know anything about to your eternity and was really blown away by how much I liked it. I also found cells at work as being surprisingly good considering how little kiddish it appeared.

https://myanimelist.net/anime/32951/Rokudenashi_Majutsu_Koushi_to_Akashic_Records/

Went surprisingly technical for its magic system

I've seen plenty of great shows over the years but the most surprisingly great one would easily be Gundam Build Fighters. Since it's a show about kids building plastic models and using sci-fi magic to fight them against each other I expected it to be little more than a soulless ad for Gunpla. What I found was an earnestly-written ode to the greatness of Gundam with some of the most charming characters I've ever seen. It actually ended up tying with Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin as my favorite Gundam show which is completely insane given how low my expectations were going in. I almost didn't watch it.

My Dress Up Darling. There is no other anime that fills me with joy so much as that series does. I loved the manga too.

Probably Murai In Love

Pretty much all other anime in my top 10 / favourites and rest of my 10/10s either

• received high ratings, or
• have significant number of people talking about how good they are

While it was airing, Murai In Love's rating did not even reach 60% on AniList.

Also, hardly anyone is singing its praises. Honestly, I have forgotten what got me to check it out in the first place.

But its slapstick comedy aligns perfectly with my sense of humour and got me to laugh one of the hardest while watching a show.

FLCL: I thought it was Evangellion like.

Mushishi. All the pretty Japanese forest scenes. It felt like a nature doco meets x-files.

BanG Dream It's MyGO. I've played the mobile game since around 2019 and have also seen the three original seasons before MyGO had come out. So I was familiar with the franchise, and while I enjoyed the 3 seasons, MyGO is way better! I was expecting more of the same, so I was pleasantly surprised.

The reason I'm not saying Ave Mujica as well is because, after MyGO, my expectations were raised, so Ave Mujica wasn't a pleasant surprise, but rather, simply pleasant. It was no longer a surprise.

Also, to a lesser degree, this year's Zenshuu was more fun that I expected.

Some of my favorite shows of the last few seasons have been unexpected. Off the top of my head right now the two I’m thinking of are Apocalypse Hotel and Snack Basue. I’ll maybe add some more later when I have time to look at my list to remind me.

Takopi Original Sin. short. But powerful

Taxi Driver. Pretty low stakes as far as anime goes, several mundane stories intertwined over a murder mystery that's being hushed, but they are shown in a very compelling manner.

Well, I think it's probably edeon

Asobi Asobase, iykyk

The Dangers in my Heart. Went in for a time waster. Ended up rooting for those crazy kids.