The 10 Best 2020s Anime So Far, Ranked
Half a decade in, and these are the shows that already feel like future classics.
The 2020s have been a golden age. Budgets went up, streaming made anime the biggest it has ever been, and studios like MAPPA, Madhouse, Science SARU and Trigger have been releasing shows that people will still be talking about in thirty years.
It is too early to call the decade, but these ten have already earned their spot.
1. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (2023)
2023 · TV series · 28 episodes · MADHOUSE
The adventure is over. The hero has died. The elf who outlives them all finally learns what it meant.
Frieren helped defeat the Demon King, then wandered off for fifty years like it was nothing. When her old friend Himmel dies of old age, she realises she never really got to know him, and sets out on a new journey to understand people.
It is a fantasy about memory and time, with gorgeous fights from Madhouse, and it will make you want to call someone you have not spoken to in a while.
2. Jujutsu Kaisen (2020)
2020 · TV series · 24 episodes · MAPPA
A high schooler swallows a demon's finger to save his friends, and now he is a walking death sentence.
Yuji Itadori becomes the host of Sukuna, the King of Curses, and joins a school for sorcerers under Satoru Gojo, the strongest of them all. MAPPA's fights are some of the best-animated action of the decade.
The Shibuya Incident arc is where the show stops being fun and becomes the arc everyone talks about, in the worst and best way.
Shop the Jujutsu Kaisen collection
3. Chainsaw Man (2022)
2022 · TV series · 12 episodes · MAPPA
A broke kid with chainsaws for arms who just wants bread with jam and a girlfriend.
Denji is drowning in his dead father's debt to the yakuza. When he merges with his devil dog Pochita, he becomes Chainsaw Man and gets hired by Makima, a woman whose interest in him should worry him more than it does.
It is gory, absurd and cinematic, and under the chaos it is about a lonely boy who has never been treated like a person.
Shop the Chainsaw Man collection
4. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022)
2022 · ONA · 10 episodes · TRIGGER
Ten episodes, one street kid in Night City, and an ending people are still not over.
David loses everything in a single week and becomes an edgerunner, a mercenary with chrome in his body. He falls for Lucy, a netrunner who dreams of the moon, and pushes his implants further than any body should take.
Studio Trigger at its wildest, with colour like neon poison. It is short, it hits hard and it does not pull its punch.
Shop the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners collection
5. Spy x Family (2022)
2022 · TV series · 12 episodes · CloverWorks
A spy, an assassin and a telepath pretend to be a family. Nobody tells anyone.
Agent Twilight needs a wife and child for a mission, so he adopts Anya, who can read minds, and marries Yor, who kills people for a living. Each hides their secret from the others, and Anya knows everything.
It is the warmest show of the decade, funny for kids and adults, and Anya's faces have become a language of their own.
Shop the Spy x Family collection
6. Bocchi the Rock! (2022)
2022 · TV series · 12 episodes · CloverWorks
The most anxious girl alive joins a band, and the comedy of the decade is born.
Hitori Gotoh plays guitar brilliantly online and cannot talk to another human being. When a drummer drags her into a band, she has to play live, in front of people, which might kill her.
The visual gags are endless and inventive, the songs are genuinely good, and for anyone who has ever been shy it is weirdly comforting.
Shop the Bocchi the Rock! collection
7. Oshi no Ko (2023)
2023 · TV series · 11 episodes · Doga Kobo
A 90-minute first episode that turns an idol story into a revenge thriller.
A doctor is reborn as the child of his favourite idol, and what happens to her sets him and his twin sister on a path through the entertainment industry. The first episode works like a feature film and ends on a moment that shocked everyone.
It is a sharp, angry look at fame, online abuse and showbiz, and its opening song, Idol, was everywhere for a year.
Shop the Oshi no Ko collection
8. The Apothecary Diaries (2023)
2023 · TV series · 24 episodes · OLM
A kidnapped pharmacist solves poisonings in the emperor's palace and wants nothing to do with romance.
Maomao is sold into service in the imperial rear palace and quickly gets noticed for her knowledge of herbs and poisons. Jinshi, a beautiful eunuch with secrets, keeps handing her mysteries, and she keeps solving them while avoiding his interest.
Each case is a satisfying little mystery, the palace politics slowly tighten, and Maomao is one of the best lead characters in modern anime.
9. Dandadan (2024)
2024 · TV series · 12 episodes · Science SARU
She believes in ghosts, he believes in aliens. Both are right, and both are after them.
Momo and Okarun make a bet over the supernatural and end up cursed and haunted. Science SARU throws everything at the screen: aliens, yokai, bodies swapping, chases through the city.
Under the madness there is a real teenage romance and some genuinely sad backstories. Episode 7 is one of the best episodes of the decade.
10. Delicious in Dungeon (2024)
2024 · TV series · 24 episodes · TRIGGER
An adventuring party runs out of money, so they start eating the monsters.
Laios's sister is eaten by a dragon deep in a dungeon, and the party has no money for food. So they cook their way down, with the dwarf Senshi teaching them how to make slime dry, mandrake stew and basilisk omelettes.
It is a cosy cooking show, a smart fantasy about ecosystems and a story about grief, and Trigger animates it with total love.
Shop the Delicious in Dungeon collection
Want to feel something quiet and huge? Frieren. Want the most hype fights on TV? Jujutsu Kaisen. Want to laugh until it hurts? Bocchi the Rock! The 2020s have something for every mood, and they are not done yet.
How we ranked: titles are drawn from the anime fans name most often across the major community rankings of the decade so far, then ordered by Anime Crush on how well each one plays today. Year and studio are from the original Japanese release.