Best anime series of all time
Anime has evolved from a niche interest into a global cultural phenomenon, with passionate fandoms debating which series truly stands above the rest. From epic sagas that spanned decades to genre-defining classics that reshaped storytelling, the competition for the title of greatest anime series of all time is fierce and endless. Now it's your turn to weigh in—cast your vote and help crown the ultimate champion!
What counts: Seeded with approximate real-world figures — the crowd's votes decide the order from here.
▲ Rising
The Colossal Titan's boot through Wall Maria's gate turned a monster-of-the-week premise into a decade-long descent into genocide, generational trauma, and the horror of being 'the good guys.' Isayama's willingness to let Eren become the villain of his own story, culminating in the Rumbling's ground-splitting apocalypse, made it the rare shonen that ended by indicting its own hero. It belongs here because no other series weaponized dramatic irony this ruthlessly across a decade of escalating stakes.
Premiere Year: 2013Final Year: 2023Episode Count: 88 episodesMAL Score: 8.5/10Animation Studio: Series Completed: ✓Primary Genre:
added by IJRin 4 rankings
108▲ Rising
Two brothers pay in blood and limbs for one transmutation circle drawn out of grief, and the show spends 64 episodes proving that equivalent exchange applies to storytelling too — every arc, every Homunculus, every throwaway soldier pays off. The Promised Day finale ties alchemy, politics, and theology into a bow without cheating a single character's arc, especially Mustang's fire-and-vengeance redemption. It's the gold standard for a shonen that actually sticks the landing, which is why it sits at or near the top of nearly every 'best of' poll ever run.
Premiere Year: 2009Final Year: 2010Episode Count: 64 episodesMAL Score: 9.1/10Animation Studio: Series Completed: ✓Primary Genre:
added by IJRin 5 rankings
77▲ Rising
A bored genius picks up a notebook, writes a criminal's name, and the show becomes a chess match between two people who never actually want to shake hands. Light Yagami's slow rot from vigilante idealist to preening god-complex tyrant, matched blow-for-blow by L's crouched, sugar-fueled deduction, redefined what a cat-and-mouse thriller could do in animation. Its cultural footprint — memed potato chips and all — proves that psychological warfare can be just as gripping as any sword fight.
Premiere Year: 2006Final Year: 2007Episode Count: 37 episodesMAL Score: 8.6/10Animation Studio: Series Completed: ✓Primary Genre:
added by IJRin 4 rankings
33Spike Spiegel drifts through a jazz-scored future hunting bounties he barely cares about, and the show turns that ennui into art — 'Ballad of Fallen Angels' and the Session 25 farewell are as close to cinema as television anime gets. Watanabe fused noir, westerns, and blues into 26 episodes that never wasted a frame, then ended it exactly where it needed to: with Spike walking into gunfire because he'd already died once before. It's the series that convinced Western audiences anime could be prestige TV, decades before that was a compliment anyone paid the medium.
Premiere Year: 1998Final Year: 1999Episode Count: 26 episodesMAL Score: 8.75/10Animation Studio: Series Completed: ✓Primary Genre:
added by IJRin 6 rankings
4▼ Falling
Luffy sets sail in a dinky boat chasing a legend, and a quarter-century later Oda is still building the most patiently constructed puzzle box in fiction, where a throwaway line from Water 7 pays off a thousand chapters later. Marineford's execution platform, where an entire era of pirates and marines collided and the world government's mask finally cracked, remains one of the greatest sustained gut-punches animation has produced. Its claim to 'best ever' isn't nostalgia — it's sheer, unmatched architecture: no other story has built this much world and paid off this much of it.
Premiere Year: 1999Final Year: Episode Count: 1,100 episodesMAL Score: 8.7/10Animation Studio: Series Completed: —Primary Genre:
added by IJRin 6 rankings
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Comments (9)
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Recency bias is real — the classics belong higher.
The writing in season one alone earns the top three spot.
The rewatch value of the top pick settles this for me.
- OOlga RossiJul 27, 2026
I came here to argue and left agreeing with the order. Rare.
Awards never tell the story; the crowd has this one right.