Top 5 Sci-Fi Anime, Ranked
Bounty hunters, time machines, cyborgs and neon cities: the five that define anime science fiction.
Anime has shaped science fiction around the world, from Hollywood blockbusters to video games. These five are the reason.
Each one is a different flavour of the future, and all of them are about very human feelings.
1. Cowboy Bebop (1998)
1998 · TV series · 26 episodes · Sunrise
Space westerns, noir and jazz, with a crew that never quite becomes a family.
Spike Spiegel and his crew chase bounties across colonised planets in a future that feels worn and lived in. Each episode is a different genre, held together by Yoko Kanno's music.
It is cool in a way few things are, and underneath it is deeply sad. See you, space cowboy.
Shop the Cowboy Bebop collection
2. Steins;Gate (2011)
2011 · TV series · 24 episodes · WHITE FOX
The best time-travel story in anime, built in a cluttered lab above a CRT repair store.
Okabe sends a text into the past and the world shifts. Every change has consequences, and fixing one mistake creates another.
It takes time to get going, then becomes impossible to stop watching. The logic of its time travel is airtight, and its emotions are even stronger.
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3. Ghost in the Shell (1995)
1995 · Film · Production I.G
What makes you human when your body, your brain and your memories can all be hacked?
Major Kusanagi is a full-body cyborg hunting the Puppet Master, a hacker who can ghost-hack people's minds. Mamoru Oshii's film is slow, beautiful and full of questions.
It directly inspired The Matrix and remains the reference point for cyberpunk.
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4. Akira (1988)
1988 · Film · TMS Entertainment
Neo-Tokyo is about to explode.
Psychic powers, biker gangs, military coups and a city rebuilt over a crater. Kaneda's attempt to save Tetsuo turns into an apocalypse.
The hand-drawn animation still looks unreal, and the film opened the door for anime in the West.
5. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022)
2022 · ONA · 10 episodes · TRIGGER
Night City chews up dreamers. David dreams big anyway.
A street kid with a military-grade implant becomes a mercenary in a world of corporations and chrome. Lucy dreams of the moon, Maine's crew becomes his family, and the cyberpsychosis meter keeps rising.
Ten episodes of Trigger at full throttle, and one of the most emotional sci-fi stories of the decade.
Shop the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners collection
If you want cool, Cowboy Bebop. If you want twists, Steins;Gate. If you want the deep end, Ghost in the Shell and Akira back to back.
How we ranked: drawn from the sci-fi anime fans name most often across the major community rankings, then ordered by Anime Crush.