The 10 Best Anime TV Shows of All Time: ‘Cowboy Bebop,’ ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion,’ and More

10. ‘Sailor Moon’ (1992-1997)

Running for 200 episodes, nobody would ever call ‘Sailor Moon’ the most consistent anime ever made. There’s a lot of filler with a lot of inconsistent animation in the first and most iconic adaptation of Naoko Takeuchi’s manga. But none of that matters because, the adventures of Usagi Tsukino (voiced brilliantly by the iconic Kotono Mitsuishi) and her team of Sailor Scouts against the forces of evil is perfect Saturday morning comfort food, a blast of unapologetically girly wish-fulfillment that combines kickass action with heartfelt, earnest storytelling. The secret to its success is that Usagi never gets too perfect a hero: She’s always recognizable as the crybaby introduced in the pilot episode, even as the five seasons see her evolve from an immature middle schooler into a compassionate and strong young woman. Watching that progression is an utter treat, between the show’s delightful villains, great music, and thoughtful look at female friendships and ahead-of-its-time approach to queerness and sexuality. 

9. ‘Ouran High School Host Club’ (2006)

Arguably the funniest comedy anime ever made, ‘Ouran High School Host Club’ updates the gender farce formula of a William Shakespeare play for the cutthroat world of Japanese private schools. In the elite titular academy, Haruhi Fujioka is a boyish, handsome young woman who breaks a priceless vase belonging to the school’s Host Club, a group of six male students who entertain their female classmates with food, parties, and flirtation. Mistaken for a man, Haruhi joins the club to pay off the debt, and balances hiding her true gender from the student body with the growing romantic feelings she develops for overly dramatic and dumb but kindhearted club leader Tamaki. The central romance is satisfying, but ‘Ouran High School Host Club’ truly shines in the interplay between the various club members, and in its winking, smart use of parody. It’s the type of show that will gleefully mock a romantic comedy cliché before happily indulging in it.  

8. ‘Trigun’ (1998)

It’s not as iconic or as popular in the West as that other space western that premiered in 1998, but ‘Trigun’ is a stylish classic. Based on Yasuhiro Nightow’s manga (but featuring an original finale after Nightow’s series was canceled), it follows the spiky-haired and red-cloaked outlaw Vash the Stampede, who has an absolutely massive bounty on his head and causes a lot of property destruction but is a pacifist at heart. Following his adventures through the planet of No Man’s Land, ‘Trigun’ begins as comedic and zany before effortlessly dipping into darker waters as Vash’s past is revealed. The plot is admittedly a bit convoluted to understand, but at its core ‘Trigun’ is a heartfelt and moving story of redemption and second chances.  

7. ‘The Vision of Escaflowne’ (1996)

Difficult to track down now, ‘The Vision of Escaflowne’ is a series that paved the way for many major talents in the anime industry: It came from ‘Macross’ creator Shoji Kawamori, was written by Ryota Yamaguchi of ‘One Piece’ fame, and featured contributions by anime visionaries such as Shinichiro Watanabe and Hiroshi Osaka. The craftsmanship shows. The story of a teenage girl pulled into an alternate world where two warring countries command mystical mechs to do battle, it’s a story that you’ve seen a hundred times before. But its mix of robots and fantasy is exquisitely rendered with perfect pacing and stunningly rendered animation that makes the familiar indelible all the same.  

6. ‘Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood’ (2009-2010)

There are a lot of popular Shonen anime, or series marketed towards younger boys: ‘Dragon Ball Z,’ ‘Naruto,’ ‘Bleach,’ ‘One Piece,’ to name just a few. None can hold a candle to Hiromu Arakawa’s manga ‘Fullmetal Alchemist,’ a stone-cold classic that ran from 2001 to 2010. Set in the country of Amestris, where alchemy grants practitioners incredible power, the series filters a civil war story through the quest of brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric to find the Philosopher’s Stone and restore the young Alphonse’s body after a tragic childhood incident. Put simply, ‘Fullmetal Alchemist’ has everything you want from a fantasy series of its nature: A huge ensemble of wildly compelling characters, expertly rendered fight sequences, thorough worldbuilding, tight pacing, and a mature story about loss, war, and ethics that never casts its conflicts in black and white. Through it all, the brotherly bond between Ed and Alphonse proves a rock solid core, providing anime with one of its most touching relationships. The first anime adaptation of the manga, which aired from 2003 to 2004, diverged signficantly from the source material and featured a completely different ending storyline. It’s well worth a watch, but the more accurate ‘Brotherhood’ is altogether the better and more cohesive viewing experience.

5. ‘Cowboy Bebop’ (1998-1999)

Possibly the most beloved and popular anime of all time among western fans, ‘Cowboy Bebop’s’ crossover appeal is obvious when you watch it. Shinichirō Watanabe’s breakout work combines science fiction trappings, Western storytelling, martial arts choreography, loads of film references ranging from ‘Pierrot le Fou’ to ‘Alien,’ and a diverse musical palette courtesy of composer Yoko Kanno. There’s something for everybody in the 26-episode series, in other words, but the story of Spike Spiegel and the crew of the spaceship Bebop succeeds on its own terms. The tone bops from tragic to hilarious to adventurous to contemplative from episode to episode, offering perfect bite-sized stories about life in its lived-in, textile world of outlaws and vagabonds. Its overriding storyline of Spike’s past and redemption is elusive and vaguely told, and somehow all the more compelling because of it. ‘Cowboy Bebop’ is a show that could have run for 100 episodes easily, and yet its short run means it’s a nearly flawless gem. 

4. ‘Serial Experiments Lain’ (1998)

A compelling mix of ‘Ghost in the Shell’ inspired cyberpunk with queasy psychological horror, ‘Serial Experiments Lain’ and its expressionistic portrait of life on the internet feels years ahead of its time. Modern, very-online films like ‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair’ and ‘Searching’ owe a debt to Yasuyuki Ueda’s story of Lain Iwakura, an awkward high schooler who withdraws from the real world and into the virtual reality of the ‘Wired,’ losing sight of her own identity in the process. Filled with metaphysical musing about the nature of reality and dripping in atmosphere, its portrait of social and techonological alienation rings even more true in the 21st century than it did upon its first release.  

3. ‘Revolutionary Girl Utena’ (1997)

Written by Yōji Enokido and directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara,  ‘Revolutionary Girl Utena’ is a decadently rendered feminist fantasy that drapes mythological symbolism atop its yearning high school melodrama. Set in the boarding school of Ohtori Academy, the story follows Utena Tenjou, a girl who wants to be a prince, and her quest to win a sword dueling tournament for the hand of the demure and feminine Anthy. This simple, fairy tale inspired plot is rendered as an avant-garde, surrealist tapestry. It’s as much a visual experience as it is a narrative, and as essential a text of queer storytelling and gender fluidity as there’s ever been on TV. 

2. ‘Paranoia Agent’ (2004)

One of the great anime creators of all time, Satoshi Kon made his name through films like ‘Perfect Blue,’ ‘Millennium Actress,’ and ‘Paprika,’ which expertly examined the thin line between fiction and reality. Every movie Kon made is terrific, and yet his 13-episode series ‘Paranoia Agent’ might be the purest distillation of his skills as an anime storyteller. A psychological thriller presented as an anthology, each installment of ‘Paranoia Agent’ revolves around a different person of interest in the case of a mysterious boy that has traveled around Tokyo assaulting residents with a baseball bat. The nature of this boy is unclear: Is he a normal human? A paranormal creature? A figment of the imagination. ‘Paranoia Agent’ has its surface pleasures — a thick atmosphere of dread, brilliant movie-quality animation from studio Madhouse — but as the story delves into more surreal territory, its consideration of the lies and illusions people indulge in to escape their reality will wrestle itself deep in your mind. 

1. ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ (1995-1996)

Messy, controversial, polarizing, and divisive, ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ still feels as fresh three decades after its 1995 premiere. Hideaki Anno’s series starts as a decidedly contemplative giant mech series — about the battle between humanity and strange alien beings known as Angels, and the children caught in the middle as the only soldiers who can resolve the conflict — before morphing into a deconstruction and examination of its own genre and anime as a medium and cultural movement at large. At the core of ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ and its shifting, fluxing narrative is an intimate consideration of depression, the psyche, and whether humans are ever capable of truly understanding each other. As the show progresses, the central question changes from whether humanity can survive the invasion that starts the plot to whether the recessive, miserable protagonist Shinji can ever find happiness within himself. 

TV is inherently a collaborative medium, and no anime is just the work of one man. But more than any series, ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ feels like a reflection of the man who created it. Anno, who has revisited and reimagined the central narrative multiple times as he’s grown older, has been open about the depression he’s experienced during the making of the series, and it bleeds into the show in ways that makes its psychological storytelling feel raw and unfiltered. That breakdown — and the show’s rapidly dwindling budget — also led to the show’s infamous final two episodes, in which the core plot is abandonded completely for 40-something minutes of pure contemplation and internal monologues. The show would eventually receive a ‘proper’ ending in its brilliant conclusion film ‘The End of Evangelion,’ but those final two episodes feel like the purest distillation of the magic of ‘Evangelion,’ its mix of brutal reality with an underlying sensitivity. ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ is a messy, unrestrained work, which is what makes it so poignant and unforgettable. It’s anime at its best.