What Are the 20 Best Anime of the 2020s So Far?

Summary

• Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End became a game-changing fantasy anime with top-notch character writing and time-centric storytelling.
• BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War marked the incredible comeback of the series, earning accolades and bringing fans back to victory.
• Vinland Saga Season 2 surprised fans with strategic character development and brilliance despite a departure from action-packed sequences.

It’s 2025. The decade is already almost halfway through, making it a good point in time to take stock of how the decade is going so far. For anime, the 2020s might be remembered as the era when the medium gained true ubiquity; no longer being a niche source of entertainment for what has long been believed to be the target: overzealous Japanophiles (“weeaboos”) and individuals who shriek when light enters their dimly lit bedrooms.

After the COVID-19 pandemic forced the world into isolation, many people who had never given the medium a crack wound up learning of its brilliance. With the decade now halfway through, it’s time to take a look back at some of the anime that may go down as the titles that defined the 2020s so far. The incoming list is based primarily on the author’s opinion.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

The Only Accepted Usurper of MAL’s Infamous #1 Spot

• Airing Date: October 2023 – ongoing
• Episodes: 28
• Genres: Fantasy, Slice-of-Life
• Studio: Madhouse

In Fall 2023, the world was graced with the anime adaptation that would go on to change anime history. Sousou no Frieren, translated directly to “Frieren, The Slayer” and titled “Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End“, is a brilliant fantasy that follows the titular character, an elven mage who was part of the four-person party that defeated the Demon King and saved the world prior to the events of the series. Being set in the aftermath of the victory and not in the journey leading up to the Demon King encounter, the series subverted expectations of what a fantasy title should do, and its slice-of-life approach to the titular character’s journey as she remains relatively unchanged as time lurches forward.

It is a brilliantly animated series produced by Madhouse, a legendary studio loved by anime fans, and it contains some of the best character writing, and depictions of the flow of time around an immortal subject the medium has to offer. Frieren was very popular when it was airing, and its single most shocking reality is perhaps the fact that the series is so good that fans of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood; the anime that has unanimously been the highest-rated anime of all time on MyAnimeList.net for over several years, who would normally downvote anything that threatened FMA’s pole position, simply didn’t do that this time. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is an incredible series and a definite contender for anime of the decade, but right now what gives it a certain mythic status in the “cult” of anime is the fact that FMA:B fans accepted defeat for the very first time because of it. The cherry on top for older fans of the medium is the fact that such an amazing anime came from none other than Madhouse, a legendary production studio.

BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War

The Vindication of a Fanbase

• Airing Date: October 2022 – ongoing
• Episodes: 52
• Genres: Action, Supernatural
• Studio: Pierrot, Pierrot FILMS

The greatest comeback in anime history. After the original anime ended in 2012, and the manga in 2016, the BLEACH fandom was in a tough spot as the series’ reputation suffered greatly over the years, with many even questioning its status as one of Shōnen Jump’s The Big Three, for some reason. Prospects for the series’ future were bleak, and the fans craved an adaptation of the manga’s climactic final arc. The rumour mills were especially active about the return of the series in 2020, and by 2021, it was confirmed to be part of the 20th anniversary celebrations of the manga’s serialization, and by October 2022; 10 years after the original anime ended, BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War aired, boasting a brand-new visual identity and incredible animation, a new director, and series author Tite Kubo’s close involvement in production. With three of the four cours done, the return of BLEACH is almost over, and looking back, this will be remembered as the greatest comeback story in the history of the medium, and the vindication of an entire fanbase.

Vinland Saga Season 2

The So-Called Farming Simulator

• Airing Date: January – June 2023
• Episodes: 48
• Genres: Action, Adventure, Historical
• Studio: MAPPA

An adaptation that was actually incredibly late, as Makoto Yukimura’s Vinland Saga has actually been around since 2005, and has since garnered acclaim, but the first season of its anime adaptation by MAPPA would only become a reality in 2019, with the second season, which many disgruntled fans seeking a bloodbath have described as a “farming simulator”, becoming massively famous for its groundbreaking portrayal of one of anime’s greatest examples of profound character development and writing. Thorfinn’s journey as a character being contrasted to Einar made for some truly incredible moments, and the fact that the series’ far less action-packed second season is so greatly appreciated by fans is a testament to the overall brilliance of the series.

Fruits Basket Finale

The Proof That Reboots Can Be Better Than the Original

• Airing Date: September 13, 2022
• Episodes: 13
• Genres: Romantic Comedy, Slice-of-Life, Supernatural
• Studio: TMS/8PAN

One of the most exemplary reboots of a classic the world has ever seen, Fruits Basket returned in 2019, but the final episode ran in 2021 and was quickly rated one of the very best shows every year it aired. The original series ran in 2001, and it is already considered an influential title in anime and manga, but the reboot completely blew the original out of the water, showing that it is possible to have a brilliant reiteration of a beloved idea, especially one that, like a good deal of other anime of the 2000s, didn’t fully adapt the source material and thus left fans wanting more. The original Fruits Basket, while remembered as a classic, diverges from the story told in the manga, while this version, while it may have begun in 2019, the final season is especially deserving of acclaim for its darker and more faithful exploration of Natsuki Takaya’s manga.

The Apothecary Diaries

Easily One of the Decade’s Most Prominent Historical Fictions

• Airing Date: October 2023 – ongoing
• Episodes: 48
• Genres: Mystery, Historical
• Studio: OLM

One of Fall 2023’s prettiest shows, The Apothecary Diaries is an OLM production and incredibly well-made, while its medical, historical and mystery leanings rapidly turned it into one of the most-watched titles of Fall 2023, with its currently airing second season being highly anticipated after the end of its highly successful first season. The combination of its fictionalized Chinese setting, compelling mysteries and the brilliance of Maomao as a protagonist all come together to give The Apothecary Diaries the potential to go down as one of the most important anime titles of the 2020s.

Attack on Titan: The Final Season

“Never Gonna Give You Up…”

• Airing Date: December 2020 – November 2023
• Episodes: 35 + 2 specials
• Genres: Action, Dystopian, Mecha, Thriller,
• Studio: MAPPA

Attack on Titan took the world by storm when the anime first hit the scene in 2013, but there was a major change in pacing and atmosphere in the 2020s as The Final Season, the ending of which was beginning to feel nigh-asymptotic as it gained several new installments, each purported to be more “final” than the last. It would be three years before the final Attack on Titan: The Final Season would finally air, but each installment was an incredible addition to the franchise in a finale to a series that will go down as one of the greatest pieces of fiction, not to mention TV, ever made. The change in atmosphere brought on by the change in production studio from WIT to MAPPA didn’t initially go down well with the fandom; however, there was simply too much to celebrate about it as it progressed, unraveling Hajime Isayama’s incredible writing and capping off a series that was instrumental in the current ubiquity of anime and its establishment as a truly mainstream form of entertainment.

Demon Slayer: Mugen Train

The Litmus Test That Came Back Positive

• Airing Date: October 2020
• Genres: Action, Supernatural
• Studio: ufotable

Speaking of titles being instrumental to the current ubiquity of anime, there’s simply no talking about the sheer appeal of anime in the current era without bringing up ufotable’s adaptation of Koyoharu Gotouge’s Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, which might be singlehandedly responsible for the rise in anime theatrical releases. Following the success of the first season of the anime, the Mugen Train film would be a theatrical sequel, something that wasn’t the norm for a major Shōnen Jump adaptation. The film was shown in theatres across the globe, and for many, it was the first time in a long time, if at all, that an anime film had been shown at their local movie theatre.

The Demon Slayer: Mugen Train movie was a test to see just how embedded in the zeitgeist anime had become, particularly coming after the COVID-19 pandemic, during which many who hadn’t been exposed to the medium finally gave it a shot. The rest was history: the film went on to gross over $507 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of 2020. It was the first time a non-American film topped the annual box office, becoming the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time, smashing the record previously set by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away in 2001. Veteran anime fans saw Demon Slayer showing in theatres, saw all the hype surrounding the event, and, after finding a moment of quiet, shed a silent tear at the realization that anime is finally, truly, undoubtedly mainstream.

We used to dream of days like this.

Oshi no Ko

The Mystery of the Decade

• Airing Date: April 2023 – ongoing
• Episodes:
• Genres: Drama, Psychological, Slice-of-Life
• Studio: Doga Kobo

Oshi no Ko can be described as a foray into various branches of the Japanese entertainment industry wrapped up in an incredibly well-written tale of an obstetrician-gynecologist’s reincarnation as one of the twin babies of his last patient: Ai Hoshino, one of the biggest idols in Japan, who sought to give birth in secret, while hiding the identity of her children’s father. In a disturbing twist of fate, Dr. Goro Amamiya is murdered by an overzealous fan of Ai’s the day before she was due, and he finds himself reincarnated alongside a patient whose loss changed him forever, the true identity of either unbeknownst to both of them.

They live a life of bliss as children of their favourite idol until that happiness is ripped away from them when Ai is murdered by the same fan who killed Goro. Oshi no Ko is incredibly written, with the pen of Kaguya-sama Love is War author Aka Akasaka and the artistic brilliance of Scum’s Wish author Mengo Yokoyari adapted by character designer Kanna Hirayama coming together on TV to go down as one of the best mystery anime of the 2020s as Goro, now Aquamarine Hoshino, dedicates his life to finding the one person most likely to be responsible for Ai’s murder: his father, whoever that might be. Oshi no Ko features cogent explorations of the dark underbelly of various aspects of the entertainment industry, while also delivering a brilliantly convoluted whodunnit set up by one of the best pilot episodes, and one of the most streamed openings anime has ever seen.

DANDADAN

Shōnen’s First Big Hero of the 2020s

• Airing Date: October 2022 – ongoing
• Episodes: 12
• Genres: Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Supernatural
• Studio: Science SARU

Science SARU’s adaptation of Yukinobu Tatsu’s hit manga that famously blends sci-fi and supernatural elements was by far the most anticipated anime release of 2024. Despite having its first six episodes leaked in an unfortunate leak incident that might be the very worst in anime history, DANDADAN absolutely smashed it from week to week in Fall 2024, doing more than just living up to fan expectations and being exemplary when it comes to animation production, not to mention having the catchiest song of 2024 as the opening. While the ending might have been a disappointment, it was more so in light of how good the series had actually been up to that point. Perfect adaptations are possible, and we are once again aware of this fact because of Science SARU’s DANDANDAN.

The First Slam Dunk

The Greatest Sports Team in Anime History Returns

• Airing Date: November 2022
• Genres: Sports
• Studio: Toei Animation

Takehiko Inoue’s Slam Dunk is one of the main titles remembered as part of the greatest ever era in the history of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, and shonen manga in general, with its 1995 anime adaptation hailed as one of the best sports anime of all time. The 2022 movie reboot, The First Slam Dunk, divided opinion with its 3D approach to animation, not to mention its completely fresh cast. However, any concerns were very quickly crossed up, and left with broken ankles as the film became known as an achievement in 3D animation in anime, with Toei Animation, who also released the 3D animated Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, showed once again that beautiful 3D animation can be done. It could even be said that Toei is the one studio that could give Orange (Trigun STAMPEDE) a run for their money when it comes to 3D animation. The First Slam Dunk went on to gross over US$279 million, winning the 2023 Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year, the sixth-highest grossing Japanese film of all time, and the highest-grossing basketball film of all time. To top things off, series author Takehiko Inoue served as director.

Spy x Family

The Spy-rate Age

• Airing Date: April 2022 – ongoing
• Episodes:
• Genres: Action, Comedy, Slice-of-Life
• Studio: CloverWorks

The poster child and perhaps even ground zero in the wave of anime featuring the high lives of top intelligence agents, spies, and the murky world of espionage, assassins and/or organized crime. Emphasis on poster “child” as the series’ is a highly successful trove of comedy and child-rearing that drove up the readership of Shōnen Jump’s digital version, Jump+, while the anime enjoyed an impeccable adaptation by CloverWorks that is still one of the most popular anime series of its time. Spy x Family hits the right notes for the kind of anime that blends action, comedy and slice-of-life elements in a way that will surely have it hailed as a classic, as it spawned a new age of series that blend the high-octane with the mundane and subverts the well-established expectations of the spy trope in fiction. The 2024 film, Spy x Family CODE: White was absolutely incredible too, solidifying the series as a staple of the anime landscape in the 2020s.

Mob Psycho 100 III

The Perfect Finale

• Airing Date: October – December 2023
• Episodes: 36
• Genres: Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Supernatural
• Studio: BONES

The final part of the journey that began in 2016, the BONES adaptation of Mob Psycho 100 remains a triumph in animation to this day, with the series’ dazzling visuals and incredible incorporation of the original style of the series’ author ONE, the mind behind One-Punch Man, being hailed as a love letter to the medium. Mob’s emotional journey throughout the series was at its toughest in the final season, which went from strength to strength as our main character’s development reaches an all-important point: the coalescence, and thus, complete acceptance of himself – powers and all. To say Mob Psycho 100 III had a perfect ending would simply be an understatement, and a failure to capture what the series did in such a relatively short time. 36 episodes to make something utterly groundbreaking is a tall ask of anyone, but BONES took this unassuming bowl cut and turned him into a bona fide beacon of hope.

“Your life is your own, OK? It doesn’t have to be special, OK?”

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation

The Most Divisive Isekai

• Airing Date: January 2021 – ongoing
• Episodes: 48
• Genres: Fantasy Isekai, Harem, Slice-of-Life
• Studio: Bind

Isekai is an infamous trope in anime and manga now for the simple fact that it has been done to death, with each subsequent permutation condemning the trope for use in badly thought-out power fantasies and harems, particularly after the revolutionary impact of KonoSuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World, which made isekai and comedy almost inseparable and thus ushered in a new age of isekai. However, another interesting thing happened: isekai and subversion also became inseparable, and pretty soon the trope turned out to be a testing ground of various insane tropes and character combinations, story beats and other elements, all while trying to be meta and subvert expectations.

The mid-to-late 2010s was a period rich in interesting explorations of isekai as a concept, and one of the children of this generation is none other than Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, a series that is an ambitious effort in character writing and worldbuilding centred on a reincarnated man who lived a pitiful life now having access to immense magical talent and his old memories. While it splits opinion due to the proclivities of its obviously broken main character, the series is an incredible exploration into the “reality” of being “isekai’d”, in a way that can be extremely uncomfortable and downright incredible from a writing perspective. The series also boasts the most diabolical Father’s Day episode ever aired.

Monogatari Series: Off & Monster Season

The Banger No One Knew Was Airing

• Airing Date: September 13, 2022
• Episodes: 14
• Genres: Comedy, Mystery, Supernatural
• Studio: Shaft

NisiOisiN’s Monogatari Series needs no introduction at this point, with the 2020s having enjoyed a lot of interesting iterations of the franchise, including the Kizumonogatari film trilogy, which finally explores the incident that put the entire franchise into motion: series protagonist Koyomi Araragi’s exposure to Kiss-Shot-Acerola-Orion-Heart-Under-Blade. Off & Monster Season is set after Araragi departs for university, leaving the friends he spent the latter parts of his high school tenure helping with their supernatural problems. Off & Monster Season follows the various girls he’d supposedly saved from their afflictions, but their battle with the supernatural is far from over, in a brilliantly animated, high-payoff romp that really should have gotten more attention when it was airing in Fall 2024, as Studio Shaft (Puella Magi Madoka Magica) once again showed why it’s one of the greatest anime production studios in the industry.

Chainsaw Man

The Shōnen Jump Dark Trio’s Most Influential Title

• Airing Date: October 2022 – ongoing
• Episodes: 12
• Genres: Action, Supernatural
• Studio: MAPPA

The release of MAPPA’s CHAINSAW MAN was significant not only for it being a brilliant adaptation of perhaps Shōnen Jump’s most important series since the emergence of the Post-Big Three Era, but also as the final piece in the picture that shows MAPPA’s domination over the industry since its rise in the 2010s. With the adaptation of CHAINSAW MAN, studio MAPPA’s adaptation of the Shōnen Jump Dark Trio (Gege Akutami’s Jujutsu Kaisen, Tatsuki Fujimoto’s CHAINSAW MAN, Yuji Kaku’s Hell’s Paradise: Jigokuraku) was complete, not to mention the 2020 release of the anime adaptation of Q Hayashida’s Dorohedoro further proving the studio’s importance to the medium’s future.

Bocchi the Rock

K-On’s Awkward Cousin?

• Airing Date: October – December 2022
• Episodes: 12
• Genres: Music, CGDCT, Comedy
• Studio: CloverWorks

Older anime fans will probably remember the popularity of Kyoto Animation’s K-On!! in its heyday, a staple of the CDCGT subtrope in slice-of-life anime, and to those fans, Bocchi the Rock might just feel like K-On’s awkward cousin, but with the way the series pushed the envelope with its animation, presented a socially anxious character who quickly became the poster child of the condition but from a much more comedic perspective than we might have seen in other major titles of the 2020s, like 2021’s Komi Can’t Communicate. The story and characters are lovable, and the music is very enjoyable, especially for fans of Japanese rock or math rock. More specifically, for fans of ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, Bocchi the Rock might be a very strange experience, given that the main characters are actually based on the members of the band.

Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song

The Terminator of the Roaring ’20s

• Airing Date: April – June 2021
• Episodes: 13
• Genres: Action, Sci-Fi
• Studio: WIT Studio

WIT Studio, the house that gave us the first three seasons of Attack on Titan, had Tappei Nagatsuki, the author of Re:Zero, and screenplay writer Eiji Umehara, cook up a 13-episode thriller that was effectively what would happen if you mixed the core concepts of The Terminator with idol anime, a description that doesn’t quite do right by Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song, which is every bit as intense and emotional as it is pretty, and it is gorgeous. The premise follows Vivy, also known as “Diva”, an AI who works at an entertainment park, whose sole purpose in life is to make people happy through singing. However, things are turned on their head when a strange program installs itself into Vivy, explaining that it comes from the future and has been entrusted with finding her and preventing a series of events that lead to the rapid evolution of AI technology. The series’ gorgeous visuals are only one part of its brilliance, with the depth of writing giving rise to some truly brilliant, memorable emotional movements, not to mention eliciting some really intriguing conversations around some of sci-fi’s most prevailing tropes.

The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You

The Ironically Sincere Last Boss of Harem Anime

• Airing Date: October 2023 – ongoing
• Episodes: 24
• Genres: Romantic Comedy. Ecchi, Harem, Parody, Slice-of-Life
• Studio: Bibury Animation Studios

Harem anime have quite the reputation, often criticized for their blank, audience surrogate main characters who are usually insecure everymen who, for whatever reason, find themselves being the object of the affections of multiple women, all of whom could do far better. While the quality of such stories can vary intensely, very few people could have predicted the overt banality, but also the sheer sincerity of what may go down as the most ambitious romance story in anime and manga history. The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You is the kind of show that most likely wouldn’t have been possible to pull off twenty years ago, as it leans very heavily into the pre-established tropes of not just harem and romance anime, but anime as a medium.

The series’ wacky comedy but sincere approach to its ridiculous plot, which takes harems to a logical extreme, daring to ask: what if there was a harem MC who could date every one of his love interests in a way that highlights his near-angelic approach and appreciation for romantic connection? What if there was a harem that was every bit as scandalous as you’d expect, but just as careful with its exploration of the romantic connections developing between the MC and his heroines? We’ve had “How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend“, sat through the disappointment of “Osamake: Romcom Where The Childhood Friend Won’t Lose“, fallen in love countless times in so many different scenarios in romance anime, reverse harems, fought countless villains in classic shōnen and shōjo for an insane anime like “100 Girlfriends” to brilliantly stand on the shoulders of giants to deliver what may go down as the greatest harem, and one of the best romance anime ever.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

Doing What Anime Adaptations of Games Are Made to Do

• Airing Date: September 13, 2022
• Episodes: 10
• Genres: Cyberpunk
• Studio: TRIGGER, CD Projekt

The game with one of the most disappointing initial releases in gaming history that has since redeemed itself, Cyberpunk 2077’s anime spin-off, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, was a short but grim series that called into question the deep flaws of our society in a journey that was deeply sobering and ultimately did quite the heel-turn in terms of what you expect going into the series and how thoroughly beaten down you feel coming out of it. It quickly shot to the top of people’s recommended lists and received a score of 100% on the content aggregator site, Rotten Tomatoes. The series was praised for its worldbuilding, animation and score, and actually helped drive up sales for the Cyberpunk 2077 game to up to 20 million units sold.

Delicious in Dungeon

True Fantasy is Back

• Airing Date: January 2024 – ongoing
• Episodes: 24
• Genres: Fantasy, Comedy, Adventure
• Studio: TRIGGER

Maybe it’s far too soon to talk about Delicious in Dungeon in conversations like this, but Studio TRIGGER did something exceptional with this one, and every single episode was a combination of brilliant animation, writing and comedy. The fantasy setting and steady worldbuilding turned what would have been just fine as a goofy anime about adventurers eating monsters in dungeons but also gave us interesting character relationships, an insane twist concerning the antagonist, and one of the best monster designs in recent memory (Basilisk Falin). It does everything it does so well, and along with Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End and the upcoming Witch Hat Atelier, there’s a resurgence of pure fantasy in anime in the 2020s that has been a breath of fresh air.