Top 10 Ero Anime of 2008

• 2007 Top 10
• 2006 Top 10

2008 was a mixed bag. While there were a few titles that were as good—if not better—as anything from prior years, there was also a lot of dreck.

In ascending order of greatness, here’s this year’s list. The numbers in the parentheses are the episodes that came out in 2008.

10. Warau Kangofu (#2)
Yonekura Kengo’s manga made the transition to anime fairly intact. While the ideas behind the stories were great, the execution was at best fair.

9. Aniyome wa Ijippari (#1 #2)
Aniyome featured excellent production quality, and only the dullness of the themes prevented it from finishing higher. Fans of this series would be well served by checking out Saiyuki.

8. Shishunki Shoujo (#1 #2)
This series came so close to being a grimdark rape fantasy (an idea explored by its spiritual successor) but heroism wins out in the end and the tension ends up sputtering out. Even so, the girls are cute and the sex is hot.

7. Ai no Katachi (#1 #2)
This was pretty much the go-to series for exhibitionism and voyeurism. Mayu’s transformation from chaste schoolgirl to curious nympho should’ve been the focus, but large chunks of the show ended up focusing on other girls who aren’t anywhere near as interesting.

6. Stringendo & Accelerando–Ultimatum Sera (#1 #2 #3)
This continuation of Accelerando features more messy blowjobs, highly detailed panties, and schoolgirls with close-to-perfect zettai ryouiki ratios. Unfortunately the animation quality began to dip towards the end, but not enough to keep this show from being worthy.

5. Ikusa Otome Suvia (#1 #2)
If you ignore every girl aside from Suvia and Freya, this series was actually very good. Suvia avoids the trend for extreme bondage that characterizes a lot of recent fetish anime. Probably the best tentacle/monstersex series of 2008.

4. Grope (#1 #2)
Grope continues in the tradition of shows like True Blue and Hitou Meguri, where familiar nice guys watch helplessly as their girlfriends get seduced. There’s hardly a dull or misdirected moment, which is ultimately what separates it from the rest of the ranking.

3. Sora no Iro, Mizu no Iro (#2)
It took over a year, but the followup to the first Soramizu episode was at worst mildly disappointing. The production quality remains the best on this list and the attention to detail is still top rate.

2. Houkago 2 (#2)
The more I rewatched this the more I ended up preferring it to the first episode. The cuckold gets more screentime and interacts more, adding some flavor to already well animated sex scenes.

1. Renketsu Houshiki (#1 #2 #3)
Even though the second episode had some dull scenes and the huge heads and unnaturally narrow waists are not exactly indicative of great character design, this show struck a raw nerve. Whether it was the twenty minutes of uninterrupted incestuous sex or the mindblowing trap threesome or the gangbang with total strangers, Renketsu Houshiki got as close as it could get to extreme without crossing over into grotesque.