The Best Anime of 2026 (So Far)

6 min readYou can forgive audiences who aren’t familiar with anime outside of Dragon Ball Z or Naruto for thinking that the genre is mostly all punching and flexing. Some of the best titles of the past decade, including Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer, and Chainsaw Man, are certainly all Dragon Ball’s successors when it comes to big stage fights and aura-farming. But that’s not to say that anime as an art form can be contained to just one genre.This year, some of the most compelling series dive into less battle-heavy content. Witch Hat Atelier explores the world of magic through a system of drawing far more interesting than Harry Potter. Nippon Sangoku tells the story of a political struggle in a post-apocalyptic war zone, and Akane-Banashi teaches audiences about a seventeenth-century art of oral storytelling told through the lens of a sports biopic.Elsewhere, anime fans can also watch the beginning of One Piece’s long-awaited Elbaph arc. Netflix premiered its adaptation of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run, and the team behind Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood debuted its latest anime, Daemons of the Shadow Realm. Continuing titles also blew me away, including sophomore seasons for Frieren and Hell’s Paradise. For a full list of the best anime of 2026 so far, follow along below.Black TorchBlack Torch follows a teenager named Jiro, who is trained in the art of ninja. He also possesses the ability to talk to animals, which gets him in hot water when he meets a black cat that reveals itself to be an evil spirit named Rago of the Black Star of Doom. After Rago saves Jiro’s life, they become bound to each other as they fight for the Bureau of Espionage. If you’ve seen other shonen stories like Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen, the familiar beats in Black Torch should carry you along just fine.Watch on CrunchyrollYou And I Are Polar OppositesThere’s nothing in You And I Are Polar Opposites that breaks the mold. You can probably guess from the title alone that it’s about a shy teenager who is surprised to learn that a more outgoing classmate has a crush on them. But that doesn’t mean You And I Are Polar Opposites doesn’t create some cozy wins for the genre. Sometimes, more of a good thing isn’t so bad.Watch on CrunchyrollAkane-BanashiIf you’re looking for something you’ve truly never seen before, I recommend checking out Akane-Banashi. The story follows a young woman who is a rakugo performer, which is the traditional Japanese art of oral storytelling. It’s a technique dating back to the 1600s that is updated to a modern anime story—and though it may not hit for every Western viewer as much as it does in Japan, it’s a fascinating character arc told in the style of a sports biopic.Watch on NetflixJujutsu Kaisen (season 3)The level of animation in this season’s Jujutsu Kaisen arc was beyond anything I’ve seen from MAPPA yet. If you’ve followed its work in Attack on Titan, Chainsaw Man, and Vinland Saga, then you know that’s already an incredibly high bar to cross. It’s clear how much time it took when you see where season 3 leaves off, as well. The latest twelve-episode drop from the series about a cursed teenager and his pursuit to stop even greater curses from destroying Japan only covered around half as many chapters from the manga as the prior season. But I completely understand why. There’s no reason to rush when the animation is this good.Watch on CrunchyrollHell’s Paradise (season 2)Speaking of MAPPA, the animation studio also released the second season of Hell’s Paradise in January. The story follows a criminal assassin who is given a second chance at freedom if he agrees to go on a perilous journey to find the elixir of life on a dangerous island. He’s accompanied by an executioner whom he must return with—and who is ready to end his life at a moment’s notice should things turn sideways. I’m still not sure if I’m wholeheartedly in love with the villain’s reveal that started at the end of season 1 (magic plant people?), but the more-realistic power dynamics at play between the criminals and their keepers are enough to keep me invested until the end—which is likely just one more season.Watch on CrucnhyrollFrieren: Beyond Journey’s End (season 2)If you’re looking for something a little more relaxing, Frieren is the way to go. It’s a cross-country adventure series about an elf with a long lifespan who wishes that she had spent more time with the people she loved after she outlives all her friends. So, she embarks on a new quest to reappraise the meaning of life and who we share it with. Think of it like Gandalf and the hobbits from The Lord of the Rings just traveling around Middle-earth and helping people along the way. It’s simple fantasy, but it holds powerful lessons.Watch on CrunchyrollNippon SangokuOne of the more intriguing new series this year so far is Nippon Sangoku. The realistic story follows Japan in a post-apocalyptic future, where its population is decimated by a virus and a terrible earthquake. Three nation-states rise in the chaos, and a period of civil war takes over. Then, a hundred years later, a man named Aoteru Misumi leads a campaign to diplomatically reunite all of Japan. The art style also borrows heavily from the manga’s black-and-white ink pages, making the series a marvel just to watch.Watch on Prime VideoMaoIf you’re a fan of Inuyasha—or just enjoyed the golden days of the anime’s run on Adult Swim/Toonami in the early 2000s—then I highly recommend Mao. The latest series from Inuyasha creator Rumiko Takahashi is basically a gender-bent version of her former, celebrated work, which follows the romance between a teenage girl who is accidentally transported to the 1400s and a half-human, half-demon from the period named Inuyasha. Mao is the reverse, where the transported girl is the demon this time around. But Takahasi still has a masterful hold on the genre, as she writes an even quicker-paced romance and plot for her two new yet familiar protagonists.Watch on HuluJoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball RunHere’s something insane. Steel Ball Run follows—and I kid you not—a horse race across America for a $50 million prize. That’s not all. Along the course, the U.S. president sends a team to dig up various human remains that he believes hold magical powers that he can use for world domination. So, one rider named Johnny Joestar sets out to enter the race and stop his evil rival. If that explanation alone isn’t enough to jostle you off the horse, it’s likely because you know the level of quality from the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure series—an iconic work in Japanese comics that Hirohiko Araki has written since the late eighties. It may feature insane plots, but the craft is undeniable.Watch on NetflixOne Piece (season 22)One Piece, another long-running series, just returned to adapt the Straw Hat Pirates’ journey to the island of giants. If you’re a One Piece fan—a group that seems to grow by the thousands every day now thanks to the recent Netflix live-action series—then you know that this is a massive arc in the series. The story about pirates and their search for the One Piece treasure reveals a lot of highly anticipated events from the world’s past on this next island, as well as the identity of several characters who have remained shrouded in mystery for roughly twenty years of the ongoing manga.Watch on CrunchyrollWatch on NetflixDaemons of the Shadow RealmMany fans consider Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood one of the best adaptations in anime. They’re not wrong. The story not only inspired countless others, but now an original work from the same team, titled Daemons of the Shadow Realm. The series follows twins Yuru and Asa who yearn to be reunited after they’re separated at a young age. Both characters also possess the ability to control demons, which the world’s military power regards as a dangerous threat. Outside of the early twists that keep the new story interesting, the animation in Daemons also provides a great nostalgia watch. You can see Hiromu Arakawa’s art style instantly return in Yuru’s eye shape alone. Sometimes, that’s all you need.Watch on CrunchyrollWitch Hat AtelierIf we’re talking illustrations, few books look as magical as Kamome Shirahama’s Witch Hat Atelier. The series about a witch apprentice who learns how to use magic by drawing specific runes with magical ink is basically about the magic of illustration itself. So, even though fans were worried about how that level of detail would transpose to an animated series, new studio Bug Films has done an excellent job so far. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it top the list of everyone’s favorite new anime by the end of the year.Watch on Crunchyroll