For every anime juggernaut, there's an obscure title out there, waiting to be discovered.
So join us as we explore the best anime you've never heard of, from the tenderest school
stories to the headiest heights of science fiction — giant robots, magical girls, and
masterless samurai included.
Once upon a time, there was an adorable little hamster named Ebichu. She was a happy little
thing, delighted to don her frilly pink apron, do her master's housework, and enjoy the occasional
nibble of fancy Camembert cheese. But all was not well in her fairy tale ... especially
since it wasn't a fairy tale at all. Ebichu is a raunchy comedy starring a warm-hearted
hamster, the 20-something Office Lady who owns her, and all the deprived, depraved,
and altogether desperate people that inhabit their world.
Weirdness abounds in the world of Ebichu, especially when it comes to the bedroom. Our
hamster heroine might be a starry-eyed dreamer, but she's also the mysterious Ebichuman, superhero
extraordinaire, who comes to the aid of couples who need a boost to their love lives. There's
also Maa-kun, a soft-spoken weirdo neighbor who nurses a bizarre fetish for the hamster
next door.
Episodes center around topics like dirty phone calls, clandestine affairs, and some pretty
grim jokes involving hamsters and blenders. Despite Ebichu's cute looks, this is definitely
not Hamtaro, but therein lies the joy of the show. It's as adorable as a grade-schooler's
favorite cartoon and as R-rated as anything you've ever seen. Sit back, relax, and let
Ebichu take you on a journey through housekeeping, deadbeat boyfriends, and all the weirdness
people get up to behind closed doors.
Ancient Rome, that land of poetry and politics, is a pretty juicy setting for fiction. Caesar,
Corinthian columns, a deity for every conceivable situation — there's a pretty good reason
that audiences love Gladiator, Rome, and even Xena: Warrior Princess.
"Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained?"
Thermae Romae is part of this storied pantheon, although it's probably the most unusual entry
in the series by far. The story stars Lucius, a befuddled Roman architect who specializes
in baths, both building them and taking them. It's just that most of the story's action
takes place in modern Japan, the locale to which Lucius is so often spirited, where he's
dazzled by advances in plumbing, leisure, and temperature control. That's right, folks:
Thermae Romae is about an ancient Roman's love of modern Japanese bathing and his subsequent
attempts to bring the technical advances he experiences back home with him.
How does he travel through time and space? Why is this happening to him? Does it happen
to others? That's not the point. The joy of Thermae Romae lies in its naked absurdity
— a dude just straight up loves baths and gets to experience two of the greatest bathing
cultures in history. It's never anything but hilarious to watch Lucius lose his mind over
innovations like shampoo hats, bidets, and water parks, and honestly, it's pretty heartwarming
(and bath-warming) to see him bring the delights he glimpses back to Rome.
Thermae Romae is a love letter to relaxation, togetherness, and the sheer pleasure of warm
water on sore muscles. Odd subject matter for an anime, you might think, and you'd be
right. But Lucius' wonder upon discovering the joy of a refreshing cold drink after a
hot bath will convince you it's a worthy focus indeed.
Decades in the future, a race of hostile insectoid aliens threatens the Earth. Our only defense
comes in the form of fantastic fighting machines, piloted by scrappy youngsters selected for
their grit, cunning, and bravery. If that sounds familiar, well, it probably should.
Gunbuster isn't just a classic giant robot anime but one of the absolute granddaddies
of the genre that's influenced decades of anime since its 1988 debut. You've already
enjoyed its descendants in the form of Gurren Lagann or Darling in the FRANXX, and maybe
even its sequel series, Diebuster. You don't need that context, though. Even a total newbie
to mecha anime can enjoy Gunbuster. That's how brash, bold, and absolutely brilliant
it is.
Much of its success lies in the dynamic between the duo at the heart of the story. Noriko,
our protagonist, is the clumsy daughter of a legendary admiral, while the glamorous Kazumi
is the top mecha pilot at their academy, as admired for her skills as her beauty. Fate
throws them together, creating a bond that powers the series through school hijinks,
interstellar action, and an utterly iconic ending. Gunbuster is the beating heart of
the mecha genre, a hot-blooded tribute to giant robots and the teens who pilot them.
No wonder so many stone-cold classics trace their lineage back to its bright beginning.
Nicoletta is a young woman raised by her grandparents in the wake of her parents' divorce, who moves
to Rome out of a long-simmering desire for revenge. Having tracked her mother down to
Casetta dell'Orso, a restaurant just outside the city's center, she prepares to strike,
only to fall in love with the easy rhythms of Italian life.
Casetta dell'Orso is as much a community as it is a restaurant, beloved for its delicious
food as well as its patient, handsome waitstaff. As her thirst for vengeance over her childhood
trauma fades, Nicoletta discovers an entirely new way of life ... and finds she has less
and less desire to give it up.
Ristorante Paradiso is slice-of-life anime at its finest. Casetta dell'Orso itself and
its beautiful food are as much the star of the show as any of the human characters. It's
the sort of place that feels imbued with love, from the wallpaper to the silverware. It's
a true delight to watch characters come and go within it, revealing their wishes, regrets,
hopes, and disappointments, and often finding that their time at the restaurant has changed
them.
This is an anime about the winding paths that human lives tend to take despite the best-laid
plans and how much of a gift that can be. Nicoletta and the Casetta dell'Orso staff's
lives might be quiet, but as Ristorante Paradiso proves, that doesn't mean they aren't enthralling
down to the last delicious detail.
Rakka, a young girl with no memory of her past, wakes one day in a guest room she doesn't
recognize. As she speaks to the people around her, she learns that she's joined the "Haibane,"
a group of women with nonfunctional wings and glowing halos, who live out their quiet
days in the walled town of Glie. Their home, an abandoned school, is a placid enough place
and they live a quiet, decent life, though Glie enforces some strange and mysterious
rules for its seemingly angelic residents. The Haibane have no new clothing, for instance,
and even more ominously, they're forbidden to approach the town wall that surrounds them.
But one day, it ends. The Haibane vanish in their "Day of Flight," gone beyond the wall
that blinds them to the outside world.
"Well then, let me try to explain everything to you from the beginning. Is it okay if I
smoke?"
Though fans have debated the nature of Haibane Renmei and its strange story for years, this
isn't the sort of anime that waits to be solved by the clue-savvy fan. Rather, it's an impressionistic
mediation on the nature of goodness, community, and sin that neither seeks nor provides answers.
The Haibane seem likely to be trapped in some sort of purgatory, but that doesn't really
matter. It just provides the canvas for the anime's real preoccupation: examining exactly
how self-actualization takes place. Rakka and all the other Haibane are struggling,
and they won't all learn exactly what it takes to become better, happier, or more at peace.
But that's the beauty of their journey. Working towards goodness is, in its own way, a goal
unto itself. In devoting itself to this moral, Haibane Renmei is an exquisite ode to the
ever-changing human soul.
Masanosuke is a ronin, or masterless samurai, living in Japan's Edo Period. That's exactly
the kind of protagonist one expects to star in an anime, right?
"The art of swordsmanship is learning how to kill. That is the truth."
But Masanosuke isn't some brash, sword-wielding action hero ready to throw down at a moment's
notice like his other animated samurai. He is, in fact, a timid man, to the point that
he's been released from the service of his shogun. That's how he ends up as part of the
Five Leaves, a gang of bandits whose leader, Yaichi, hires Masanosuke as a bodyguard. Thus
begins the deliberate and interesting story of House of Five Leaves, an anime about outlaws
and samurai that manages to spend a lot more time on conversation than killing.
The beauty of Five Leaves is in its quiet stillness. As the story winds on and characters,
settings, and relationships are explored, the anime never stumbles into dialogue, action,
or drama for its own sake. Rather, it allows a deep, personal story to reveal itself slowly,
line by line and frame by frame, until the viewer is utterly immersed in the story it
tells. This is an anime about people on the margins, finding beauty in the decrepit and
sorrow in the splendid. In taking its meditative approach to the bandits, ronin, and criminal
characters that are often often glamorized, it strikes an unforgettable contrast. House
of Five Leaves is unlike any other samurai story you've seen, and therein lies its success.
Director Masaaki Yuasa has stepped into the spotlight in the years since Kaiba premiered
in 2008. The decade since has seen him directing the hyper violent, terrifying smash hit anime
Devilman Crybaby, Ping Pong, and even an episode of Adventure Time. But everything that has
made him the luminary he is can be seen in Kaiba, and indeed, it shines as brightly as
any of his more famous work.
Set in a space-faring future where the digitization of the mind means life beyond physical death,
this anime follows Kaiba, a boy with a mysterious hole in his chest and, somehow, no memories
to speak of. Lost in the swirl of a society in flux, he struggles to find purchase and,
most critically of all, answers.
Kaiba is a notably cute anime, its visuals reminiscent of Astro Boy, Osamu Tezuka's most
kid-friendly work. The characters' bodies are soft and plush-looking, the edges of spaceships
are all rounded off, and even the harshest environments are crowded with friendly-looking
beasts and beings. But the effect of this isn't merely endearing, it's entirely disorienting.
In meshing an adorable aesthetic with a story about loss and personhood, Kaiba leads the
viewer into entirely unfamiliar territory, upending all easy assumptions about where
the plot is going and who the characters are. In so doing, Kaiba becomes something more
like a fairy tale than a sci-fi saga — frightening, enchanting, and affecting on a primal level
you won't easily forget.
Red Garden lies somewhere between the sparkly meadows of magical girl anime and the bloodied
halls of out-and-out horror. Our four protagonists — Rose, Rachel, Claire, and Kate — are
typical New York City teenagers, until the morning they wake with no recollection of
the previous night's events.
As a mysterious pair of elegantly dressed adults informs them, they're dead and have
been reanimated to fight a war on behalf of a shadowy organization called Animus. By day,
the girls continue to live their lives as students, daughters, and friends, but by night,
they face "monsters" that appear to be everyday people gone suddenly, violently insane. They
have a choice, of sorts: Beat the monsters to death or lose the reanimation they've been
granted and die for real.
Red Garden doesn't stop at subject matter when it comes to taking a unique approach.
Early episodes feature sudden bursts of singing – musical-style – and an aesthetic that
looks more like Western fashion illustration than anime as fans know it. Moreover, the
New York setting isn't just localization or set dressing. It's a real, researched part
of these girls' lives. Red Garden isn't quite like anything else you've ever seen before,
from its mashed-up genre to its Western setting, yet it never overwhelms. The story, at its
core, is always centered on its four heroines and the surprising, stirring, and even sublime
ways they survive their circumstances.
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