The Best Anime Series of 2024 (So Far)

One Piece Fan Letter (Netflix, Crunchyroll)

It feels strange to highlight a single special episode of one of the longest running manga and anime series of all time (the arc before the current one is 208 episodes). But One Piece Fan Letter, even to someone relatively unfamiliar with its expansive story, is a wonderful encapsulation of both the series irresistible charms as well as the talents of its beloved director Megumi Ishitani.

It sees Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirates from an outsider perspective, both that of a young girl who idolizes the Straw Hats’ navigator, Nami, and that of a marine who feels indebted to Luffy for saving his brother’s life. There’s an infectious sense of nostalgia and adventure driving the piece, Ishitani capturing and expanding upon the warmth of manga creator Eiichiro Oda’s story as well as his intricate world-building. Everything feels so full of life, every sequence bursting with energy and color as it details how the larger-than-life main cast affects people that they’ve never met. It’s one of the best single episodes of the year, one that may convince even the One Piece agnostics that they’re fans too.

Orb: On The Movements of the Earth (Netflix)

For a series about the discovery of the heliocentric model, Orb: On The Movements of the Earth gets extreme almost immediately. It begins with someone’s fingernails being pulled out, establishing early the lengths to which the ruling “C religion” (Catholics) will go to shut down the propagation of astronomical ideas in “the Kingdom of P” (Poland). This adaptation of Uoto’s historical-fantasy manga builds drama from the attempted suppression of scientific theories that would threaten Christian sovereignty, based around the narcissistic belief that the whole universe was created by God for man alone.

The history of this scientific suppression is used loosely as a jumping off point, following heliocentrism across time and an ensemble cast of characters, separated by decades, seeking the truth of the universe almost against their own will. The aforementioned brutal violence exists to show the conviction of these “heretics,” spotlighting the importance of integrity in the face of a tyrannical institution.

Dan Da Dan (Netflix, Crunchyroll)

A show that’s horror-meets-sci-fi-meets-action-meets-romantic-comedy could seem unwieldy and unfocused, but Dan Da Dan handles its many digressions with grace, both on the page and in Science Saru’s delightful, energetic adaptation. Each episode tackles the paranormal with an irreverent sense of humor, utilizing Saru’s typically loose animation style and bold art direction. With its interests in the arcane, its pulsing score from Kensuke Ushio and a character with the demonic power of running really fast, it overlaps a little with the studio’s Devilman Crybaby, though this is far less traumatic. Still, Dan Da Dan combines so many things — a long list of cinematic obsessions beginning with Ken Takakura, for example — to the point that it feels idiosyncratic.

The story starts with a simple disagreement between two fanatics: The brash and loud Momo Ayase believes in the occult (despite telling her grandmother, a medium, that she doesn’t), while the quiet and diminutive loner Ken Takakura, later nicknamed Okarun, believes in aliens. Neither believes in the other, so they settle it with a dare. One goes to a haunted tunnel; the other searches for an encounter with a UFO; and both find what they’re looking for.

Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines (Crunchyroll)

The romantic comedy Makeine makes a strangely fitting partner to Shoshimin (see below) in that its central character, Nukumizu, is all too happy to fade into the background, but this show finds its hook in how he ends up bearing witness to everybody’s drama, whether he likes it or not. The first episode hits the ground running: In its opening scene, Nukumizu spots Anna Yamani in the same cafe as him, getting rejected by a childhood crush; seconds later, she holds him hostage with the entire backstory, veering between ludicrous contradictions while running up his tab.

Where Shoshimin searches for little moments of beauty and joy in its high-school environs, the more energetic Makeine runs headlong into its indignities — Nukumizu’s awareness of rom-com clichés doing little to insulate him from his weirdo high-school peers who can’t help but instigate them.

Mayonaka Punch (Crunchyroll)

A new and expectedly anarchic original series from the studio P.A. Works — known for creating the incredible yakuza parody Akiba Maid War and others — Mayonaka Punch delves into the livelihood of YouTubers (here called “Newtube”), but with the added absurdity of it also being about vampires. Directed by Shū Honma (Ya Boy Kongming, another show about contemporary culture from the perspective of people out of time), it begins with Masaki being booted out of her group of streamers, publicly shamed for punching one of the others on live video.

With its unruly house of misfit undead and one human documenting their actions, it plays like if What We Do in the Shadows was about the absurdity of content creation. Masaki is desperate and ruthless in her hunt for views, and her vampire comrades are mostly clueless about it thanks to their different relationships with time. Like Akiba Maid War before it, Mayonaka Punch is crammed with little in-jokes and references (one fight ends with a vampire left in a crater like Yamcha), though this is less about genre homage than it is about playing with the contrast between the eldritch powers of its cast and the petty struggles of making a name for yourself online.

Shoshimin: How to Become Ordinary (Crunchyroll)

Following in the soft footsteps of Hyouka — this is based on novels by the same author, after all — Shoshimin: How to Become Ordinary packages coming-of-age insecurities in an easygoing mystery format. Kobato and his friend Osanai have recently entered high school, and they don’t want to stick out — that aspiration toward mundanity reflected in the show’s sense of reserve, through naturalistic designs and patient pacing. Such restraint and emphasis on the “ordinary” doesn’t mean its visuals don’t stand out — the animation produced by studio Lapin Track favors a wide aspect ratio that immediately sets it apart.

The score is used sparsely, leaving plenty of room for genuine quiet between its character’s contemplations and problem-solving exercises. Even the mysteries themselves are incredibly low stakes: a missing bag (with nothing valuable in it), a reverse-engineered recipe, little slices of life that invite questions that perhaps allow Kobato to reflect more on how he wants to change himself. These little conundrums are charming glimpses into the behaviors of the students.

Oshi no Ko, season two (HiDive)

In practice, Oshi no Ko is a lot more down to earth than its completely unhinged premise sounds on paper. Aqua and Ruby, the secret twin children of famous idol Ai Hoshino, also happen to remember their previous lives: Aqua was a doctor who treated Ai, Ruby was a terminally ill fan of hers. After being reincarnated as her children, Ai is murdered by a stalker. Regardless, the two grow up with aspirations toward the entertainment industry — though Aqua does it to seek revenge on the man who leaked Ai’s address to her killer, a man he suspects to be his father.

Really, though, the show is mostly about the ins and outs of the Japanese entertainment industry — the first season immerses itself in the production of a reality show and then in idol culture. The new season dives into a rather unique space — theater. More specifically, “2.5-D” theater, which mainly deals in the adaptation of manga, but this particular project is more high-tech than the usual.

The show’s splashy presentation and delicate character designs hide a darker underbelly, entangling the ugly side of entertainment with Aqua’s single-minded revenge mission. The show is so engaging in the emotional and technical details of entertainment you could be forgiven for forgetting about its main characters’ utterly wild biographies. The theater arc also delves into other connecting industries, one episode honing in on the pains of adaptation and even the process of creating manga, an arc which feels particularly personal from the series’ original author.

NieR Automata Ver1.1a, season two (Crunchyroll)

Video-game adaptations are often a tenuous prospect. Some stories don’t land the same without the tactile input of a controller and player choice, and NieR Automata feels like a particularly risky choice as it’s expressly concerned with the story experiences that only games can provide, this particular tale creating melancholy out of the loops and repetition inherent to the medium.

Like the game, the show is set in the far future when androids fight on behalf of humanity in a proxy war with alien invaders, who themselves deploy an army of robots. The events of Automata are seen through the eyes of the doll-like androids 2B and 9S, part of a vaguely fascistic special force named YoRHa. Both sides go through painful transformation, grasping at imitations of human behaviors.

Though the pilot episode felt like a false start, it quickly became clear that director Ryouji Masuyama wasn’t interested in simply lifting things directly to the new format (the game’s director, Yoko Taro, is also involved). Some details of the story have been changed, expanding on smaller side stories as well as reconfiguring the game’s dual perspectives — elaborations that make the game’s tragedies sting just that little bit more. There’s also some fun, original touches, the most delightful of which is a recurring post-credits puppet show that reenacts the game’s multiple joke endings, as well as adding some new ones. After the show’s initial stumbling blocks, Automata has gathered itself together as an interesting adaptation for fans and newcomers, adding enough to keep the story feeling fresh, embracing the game’s flexible approach to narrative.

The Elusive Samurai (Crunchyroll)

The creative and energetic direction of The Elusive Samurai belies a surprisingly dark story — a fictional spin on the life of the real samurai Tokiyuki Hōjō, whose family and clan is massacred by the traitorous Ashikaga Takauji. It manages to display the barbaric acts of violence of Japan’s feudal period without so much as flinching. The series is also one of the best-looking shows of the year. The movement is precise and detailed, and its flourishes of action are emphasized by exciting and expressive switch-ups in art style. The second episode culminates in a frenetic duel in which Tokiyuki’s astonishing agility is underlined by the characters transforming into a wild sprawl of broad, monochrome brushstrokes.

Still, it’s not without its blemishes: The continual pivoting from genuinely distressing violence to broad cartoonish high jinks is enough to induce whiplash. But it’s so delightful in motion that those qualities are incredibly easy to forgive. On top of that, its joyous, rhythmic opening and ending credits are “best of the year”–worthy on their own.

Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction (Crunchyroll)

The first of manga author Inio Asano’s works to be adapted to anime, Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction (say that three times, fast) pictures the looming apocalypse as just another day. Aliens suddenly appear over Tokyo, and the world reacts with the expected hostility and xenophobia, but after that initial chaos, life carries on as usual to an eerie extent, everyone too desensitized and worn out from societal obligation to think about the end of days.

The anime adaptation, through its “episode 0” prologue, makes sure to point out that this is all leading somewhere more plainly catastrophic in the end. But despite that promise of a bleak finale, the show is darkly amusing in how it contrasts that incoming disaster with a focus on everyday problems — keyboard warriors and internet conspiracy-peddling, awkward crushes, dead-end careers — rather than the giant saucer hanging over their heads.

My Hero Academia, season seven (Crunchyroll)

The blockbuster superhero anime approaches its endgame in its seventh season by adapting Kohei Horikoshi’s manga. The world of My Hero Academia echoes that of the X-Men, except people born with powers are the majority rather than the minority. Main character Izuku “Deku” Midoriya was one of the few born without a special ability, until the fateful day he met his hero, who chose him as his successor and gave him his power, named One for All — a combination of the abilities of its previous eight users, Avatar style, including super-strength, flight, and the ability to sense incoming danger.

In between its moments of spectacle and shonen grandstanding, My Hero Academia pays close attention to the sociology of a world inundated by fantastic powers. Super-heroism has become the norm — for some, it’s the family business — and such entrenched hereditary power has led to its own problems, with the previous generation having made numerous moral compromises to maintain the peaceful status quo. Those chickens have finally come home to roost, with the skirmishes between Deku and the League of Villains spiraling into all-out war, even reaching foreign shores. That’s right, the USA finally gets involved with a hero named (what else?) Star and Stripe wielding the power to impose rules over anything she observes. Winking, blunt-force allegories for imperialism aside, it’s exciting to see the show swing for the fences in its big final arc.

Go! Go! Loser Ranger!(Hulu)

Based on the manga by Negi Haruba, Go! Go! Loser Ranger! inhabits the point of view of an anonymous henchman as he seeks to take down the dominant and corpo-fascist Super Sentai–esque heroes from the inside. Every Sunday for 13 years, the heroic Dragon Rangers have fought invading alien monsters from a floating fortress — only the Rangers won long ago, and these battles are essentially predetermined for live television, with the monsters forced to maintain kayfabe under pain of death. The battles staged are effectively Saturday-morning children’s programming as propaganda. During one of these battles, Fighter D slips away and assumes human form in order to infiltrate the organization of his oppressors. It’s not so much a fight for justice as it is a spectacle for ratings — the Rangers, here a vast military operation, keeping up a facade for their adoring fans where the monsters see them for what they are: vain sadists. D’s mission to beat the Rangers picks up some unlikely companions, but whether they’re on his side or not, everyone in Loser Ranger is completely, compellingly unhinged.

Sound Euphonium, season three (Crunchyroll)

Though moments in its story have been bridged by feature films (including the phenomenal Naoko Yamada spinoff, Liz and the Blue Bird) and an OVA, Sound! Euphonium hasn’t been released in weekly episodic form since 2016. The wait for season three proved worth it, however — from its very opening, the Kyoto Animation production is as lovely as ever. The instruments of its big-band gleam with resplendent light, rendered in breathtaking detail bordering on photographic but without sacrificing expressivity for rigid realism.

In this season, Kumiko is now the president of the Kitauiji High School band and coming to grips with leading the club that she was once just finding her footing in. Even with that new authority and their clear goal of winning gold in a competition, that desire to win comes with emotional cost. The show threads uncertainties and acute anxieties throughout, like the nagging stress of feeling replaceable, with the pressure that there’s always someone just as (if not more) talented than you waiting in the wings.

Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master (Crunchyroll)

Yatagarasu begins like a fable: A boy and his ailing brother are rescued by a man who can turn into a giant golden raven, only for the boy to forget it ever happened though they’re fated to meet again. But this is also the beginning of the series’ various tonal and narrative twists, as it quickly turns from that idyllic setting to a cold war for succession set within the gilded cage of a royal palace.

The series is set in Yamauchi, a country split into four houses with a mountain palace unifying them in the middle. Ruling over it is a hereditary monarchy, the descendants of Yatagarasu, mystical three-legged ravens (named for the Shinto god) that could turn into humans, ones that built the lands their descendants now squabble over. The monarch is always the k’inu, a golden raven. Everyone else jostles for whatever power they can grab. This struggle is observed from two perspectives: Lady Asebi, a consort sent by her family to the palace to compete for the prince’s hand in marriage, and Yukiya, the second son of landed gentry who now serves as the prince’s aide (while the prince’s own family attempts to usurp his position as ruler).

Yatagarasu patiently and deliberately creates a compelling court drama in which the ritual, ceremony, and propriety are covers for the same ugly human impulses that are anywhere else. It’s quietly one of the most interesting shows of the season.

Girls Band Cry (Purchase on Prime Video)

One of the tricky things about covering anime each year is that, well, some of the best stuff simply doesn’t get a proper international release. A couple years ago, Summertime Rendering missed out on our list because Disney simply sat on releasing the show until it was too late; anime fans have long referred to the company’s purchasing of licenses as “Disney Jail” for a reason. This year, it’s Girls Band Cry’s turn to have its potential viewership kneecapped; rather than weekly releases on streaming, the show’s English release is only available via digital purchase on Amazon.

The show follows Nina Iseri, a 17-year-old high-school dropout from the country on her way to Tokyo. She quietly rages at her overbearing parents, her bullies, and herself, a mood which radiates off her in red and black lines that almost look like flames. As fate would have it, she meets her favorite musician, Momoka, who herself is about to drop everything and quit the business. After hitting it off and getting in trouble together, and even becoming odd-couple roommates for a minute, they start a band.

As for its look, CG animation has a bad rap in anime, but the animation of Girls Band Cry is energetic and creative enough that the blemishes (incredibly smooth-looking cats, some awkward movement, and lip syncing) can be overlooked. In short, Girls Band Cry is a show that’s far too fun to be forgotten about on dusty digital shelves.

Train to the End of the World (Crunchyroll)

An original anime from Tsutomu Mizushima (Shirobako), Train to the End of the World is a strange but often sweet road trip across a transformed Japan. The circumstances of that transformation is patently absurd, playing on contemporary conspiracy madness: The launch of “7G” twists the landscape into surrealist shapes and changes the laws of nature, effectively ending civilization as we know it. Some time later, rather than shelter in place in their hometown of Agano, a group of girls — Reimi, Shizuru, Akira, and Nadeko — have to brave the unknown to recover their childhood friend Yoka.

The effects of the 7G explosion are entertainingly unpredictable. In Agano, all the adults have turned into animals. At one of their next stops, mushrooms spout from people’s heads; later, strange goat men that “look like Baphomet” ram the train’s carriages. I’ll leave some of the weirdest changes as a surprise. The trip down the (supernaturally long) train line is characterized by great banter and bickering among its cast as well as a latent creepiness that slowly moves into the foreground. Even with its little bursts of horror, Train to the End of the World is soothing viewing regardless, remaining funny and optimistic even in the face of the end.

Brave Bang Bravern! (Crunchyroll)

Three words: gay giant robot. From industry legend Masami Obari comes Brave Bang Bravern!, which not only has a flashy super-robot invading the military-flavored setup of a “real robot” anime, but also has that same super-robot be in love with his pilot. The boisterous sentient alien mech Bravern comes crashing into the lives of mech pilots Isami and Lewis Smith, quickly forming an attachment to the reluctant Isami, leading to a man-on-robot romance for the ages.

Bravern stands out for its knowing but earnest absurdity, showing immense dedication to the conventions of the robot’s genre. To everyone’s bemusement, Bravern insists on yelling all of his attack moves while hilarious cutaways reveal that he plays his own theme music and projects his own logo behind him when he transforms. The show gets a lot of mileage out of its quirky giant robot that’s also a giant robot otaku, passing time by building model kits in the basement and thinking of something cool to do in his next fight.

Even if you’re unfamiliar with the sorts of shows Obari is parodying here, it’s hilarious to see Bravern guiding the reluctant, taciturn Isami through the etiquette of being a super-robot pilot. It also boasts one of the most spectacular end-credit sequences of the year, which really should be seen rather than described. So crack open that ice cold Kona Big Wave and enjoy one of the year’s funniest and finest shows.

The Apothecary Diaries (Crunchyroll)

In its second part, The Apothecary Diaries continues to unspool smart mysteries, following various medical cases through the eyes of the young apothecary MaoMao. The series takes the joys of a procedural and supplants them into a faux-feudal Chinese pavilion, its smart and funny main character working as a poison taster and then lady-in-waiting in a palace annex reserved for the emperor’s concubines.

The analytical detachment of the medical enigmas in the first part of The Apothecary Diaries take a turn for the more personal in this year’s episodes, as MaoMao’s familial ties to the palace are gradually revealed. It’s through the complications of those relationships — or lack thereof — that a new, overarching mystery is built. But, beyond the larger story, it’s consistently satisfying to see MaoMao’s process and intuition at work and the observations that she makes, not just on a functional and pragmatic level but on a personal one, too. While her emotional intelligence may not extend to her colleague, Jinshi, it serves her well with the concubines, a touch of empathy for women who are treated as trophies for the wealthy, locked away in gilded cages.

A Sign of Affection (Crunchyroll)

A syrupy sweet romance about communication, A Sign of Affection follows the tentative courtship between university students Yuki and Itsuomi. Yuki is deaf, so along the way she teaches Itsuomi, a keen linguistic scholar, how to speak Japanese Sign Language.

Beyond the sweet crush between its principal characters, A Sign of Affection rounds out its cast with a range of angsty and beautifully drawn 20-somethings with varying chips on their shoulders and romantic anxieties. (Seriously, these are some of the most beautiful people ever drawn.) Tried-and-tested shojo clichés — the spurned childhood friend, for example — are here, but they maintain dramatic weight and a sense of emotional complexity. There are some moments where its day-to-day drama becomes unintentionally funny, like Yuki looking completely awestruck at a Costco (to be fair, they’re university students, and anyone would be thrilled by the store’s gigantic tiramisu). Otherwise, the show has a cute sense of humor and an almost sickly romantic temperance, perhaps an acquired taste for some. But for those who do appreciate such unabashedly sentimental anime, A Sign of Affection will go down smooth.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (Crunchyroll)

Much like the title elf herself, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End stays as spritely as ever throughout a rather long (28 episodes!) but captivating season. Here, in its second part, Frieren must take a mage exam. It turns out that Frieren, in her centuries-old age, doesn’t have any kind of government-supplied proof of her aptitude for magic. Frieren and her longtime protégé, Fern, sign up for the test and meet a host of colorful new characters.

In its first part, Frieren was one of the most beautifully made anime series of last year, and it continues to be in its second. Beyond outstanding visual presentation under the eye of series director Keiichirō Saitō (Bocchi the Rock!), with its gorgeous backgrounds and articulate character animation, Frieren also shines through Evan Call’s work on the soundtrack, which evokes classic high fantasy with sounds that feel ripped from the past: fitting for a show about a bookworm who is over 1,000 years old.

If you’ve been watching up to this point, then you know about the show’s favoring of quiet character work only to surprise you with a kinetic, smartly choreographed action spectacle. The new arc leans into this excitement with a renewed focus on mage combat that unfolds like hypermobile battleships moving against each other, spells unleashed with sudden explosive power. Watching these psychos size one another up is fun, yet even with a higher concentration of battles than in its first half, the show never completely gives over to pure spectacle as it keeps delving into both Frieren’s extensive past and adding new complications to her world.

Delicious in Dungeon (Netflix)

This adaptation of the excellent Ryoko Kui manga from Studio Trigger (Cyberpunk Edgerunners) and director Yoshihiro Miyajima quite literally makes a meal out of the logistics of tabletop fantasy RPGs, with its main cast learning how to cook monsters in order to survive a trip down to the lowest depths of an incomprehensibly large dungeon. After a disastrous encounter with a dragon that results in his sister being eaten alive, the human Laios, the elven mage Marcille, and the halfling Chilchuck venture back into the dungeon to rescue their comrade with the assistance of the dwarven cook and forager Senshi.

What follows is part traditional fantasy adventure, part cooking anime as each episode — titled after whatever meal they’re having — follows the gang through the unique environment of each new level of the dungeon. The show’s second half in particular has only gotten more compelling, progressing from relatively low-stakes, lighthearted culinary antics to rather tragic and frequently dark drama colored by expansive world-building.

Each episodic story deftly balances action, comedy, and horror, as well as a sense of genuine wonder in the exploration of each layer of the dungeon. It’s the same appeal as Kui’s manga, in which every chapter is artful and funny and brings something new and exciting. The voice performances are great in both Japanese and English casts, too — anime fans can be choosy about dubs, but it’s worth highlighting the quality of the one for Delicious in Dungeon, which boasts some of the most deranged, laugh-out-loud line reads of this year in television so far.

Worth Mentioning

Uzumaki (Adult Swim, Max)

Well, we got a solid 25 minutes. Uzumaki may have had the most severe decline in quality in recent anime history — not just in terms of animation quality, but also in its unsteady grasp of timing and story pacing, as it unceremoniously rushed through the vignettes of Junji Ito’s manga. Considering that the production, vaguely speaking, seems like it was as horrific as the source material itself, perhaps that rush to get it over with makes some level of sense.

It’s a huge disappointment compared to the promise of that eerie and beautifully animated first episode, which proved atmospheric as well as thoughtful in its unique visual approach. It turns out, this was unsustainable — this writer should not have trusted that the premiere would be representative of the rest. While Uzumaki was originally included in this “Best of 2024” list based on the premiere’s strength, we’ve since relegated it to this spot. As for what happened, maybe time will tell what went wrong with production. “Cursed” is probably the right word for it, the result being a rather bracing (and embarrassing) lesson in not falling for the hype.

➽ Read Eric Vilas-Boas’s list, “The 22 Scariest Horror Anime of All Time.”