Okay, you got me, the title is a joke. ALL anime is animated. It’s literally in the name. That said, the quality of the animation in each project can vary, well, a lot. And while an anime doesn’t need absolutely fabulous animation to make it the best, it certainly helps.
Conversely, bad animation can ruin an otherwise incredible anime storyline. A certain anime on this other list comes to mind (hint: it’s Berserk—don’t watch the series from 2016, it’s brutal and not in the good Berserk way). Sometimes, however, when the anime stars align, you get a beautiful story that is carried along by an equally gorgeous animation style. That’s exactly the kind of anime we’re interested in for this list. Here are the anime series with the best animation quality.
10. Kill La Kill
Studio Trigger outdoes itself again and again with its spectacular animation style. Kill La Kill is no exception. The fight scenes in this show are to die for. Remember that one tracking shot in the first Avengers movie where the camera swings through the city of New York to capture each individual Avenger facing off against the alien invasion in seemingly one take? Kill La Kill uses shots that feel like that one all the time.
Just watch Ryuku and Satsuki go at it in one of their many city-leveling fight scenes. The amount of thrilling one-shot animation sequences creators use is simply bonkers. It’s a hallmark of Studio Trigger’s style, and they use it often. Just watch their feature film Promare and you’ll see what I mean.
9. Attack on Titan
Attack on Titan‘s animation style astounds me. It is a series that is somehow able to whiplash between beauty and horror without missing a beat. The golden-hour sunlight shining on the cloaks of the characters. A half-eaten corpse lying in the street. The brilliant expanse of the night sky hanging overhead. The look of horror in a character’s eyes as they realize they are about to be devoured. This show’s animation style is somehow able to capture it all.
If I had to guess, I think it’s because it’s so saturated, so impossibly vivid. It is able to simultaneously highlight the sweetness and terror of the world like a Rembrandt painting. And the fight scene animation sequences? Don’t even get me started. They’re on par with Studio Trigger, that’s for certain. Just take a gander at the sequence where Levi fights Kenny and the military police. It’s like being on a roller coaster: I’m freaked out, having fun, and sort of want to throw up.
8. Mononoke
It is my duty to sing the sacred gospel of this eternally underrated show. While Kill La Kill and Attack on Titan have animation styles that thrive with activity, Mononoke is a masterclass in animation that sings in stillness. I mean, just look at it. I have never seen a single series with this level of gorgeous, intricate detail. Every frame is a painting, a kaleidoscope of shape and color. This series doesn’t need flashy fight sequences to shine. Every single image should be hanging in a museum. How’d they do it?
The series is short, only 12 episodes long. I find anywhere between 12 and 26 episodes to be the anime sweet spot, unless the budget on the project is insane. What a series lacks in quantity it can make up for in quality. Less to animate means that the level often improves. The reverse is true as well, as long series can sometimes suffer a dip in quality as the budget is spread thin. Mononoke is a hand grenade of avant-garde style, and what it lacks in size, it makes up for in impact.
7. Evergarden
Looking at this anime makes me want to cry. Violet Evergarden just puts me in touch with my emotions in a way I don’t understand. Beautiful doesn’t even cut it; this series is Romantic with a capital “R.” It feels sweet, sensual, luxurious, and indulgent. Sunlight filtering through lace. Golden tresses of hair tossed by the wind from the sea. Dark leather gloves covering cool steel. The aching beauty of Violet Evergarden‘s animation style reflects the tender hearts of its characters. It is a story about delicate emotions, the minute movements of the human spirit. And so the world is rendered like a piece of stained glass. Gorgeous and fragile, ready to shatter at any moment. Hang on, I need a tissue dammit.
6. Mob Psycho 100
Anime is a medium that is able to convey beauty and violence in jaw-dropping detail, but it shines equally bright when used to convey humor. It’s hard to look at a frame of Mob Psycho 100 without laughing. It’s just goofy and ridiculous. Its characters are drawn with bodies of silly putty, able to be stretched and shaped to comic proportions. Mob, the protagonist, has a face like a three-ring circus, shifting between expressions of clownish vacuity to death-defying determination in the span of a second. And there is quite a bit of death to defy.
While the series is primarily a comedy, the telekinetic fight sequences are breathtaking. This studio responsible for Mob Psycho 100 also created the action/comedy series One Punch Man, a hilarious and hair-raising action romp in its own right. One look at Saitama’s flaccid features is usually enough to make me spit out my drink.
Related: The 10 Best Genshin Impact Characters Ranked on Attack of the Fanboy
5. Ghost in the Shell
It might be a bit unfair putting a movie on this list, considering that a film has the privilege to blow its entire animation budget in the span of two hours, while anime series have to draw their budgets out. But I would be remiss if I didn’t include the original Ghost in the Shell on this list. In my opinion, it is the most stunning piece of animation ever made for one reason alone: the light quality. Just look at some of these rain-drenched, neon-lit cityscapes. Now look at the way that the animators made it appear that the light is DIFFUSING in the mist. HOW DID THEY DO THIS!? This was 1995 and they made this film look better than major anime blockbusters made yesterday. This anime’s visual style was so seminal that one could argue it laid the groundwork for The Matrix and other iconic films.
4. Demon Slayer
Ufotable has taken combat animation sequences to a whoooooole new level with the release of new seasons of Demon Slayer. The animation sequences are simply jaw-dropping. Just watch the fight between Rengoku and Akaza during the Mugen Train arc. How did they do this!? Equal parts beauty and brutality, all animated with breathtaking precision. It does what only a select few anime fight sequences are able to do: make it hurt to watch. Something about the ferocity and grace of the combat makes it tug at the heartstrings. It’s like watching a bloody miracle.
3. Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works
Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works made its way onto the list purely for the final fight between Gilgamesh and Shirou. It’s just two dudes throwing infinity swords at each other! Mind-blowing! All taking place in a desolate wasteland that serves as a graveyard for forgotten weapons. Again, it’s that perfect mix of beauty and brutality that makes this fight work so spectacularly. It’s also the first time we see a juggernaut villain like Gilgamesh be forced to go all out against a foe, and STILL LOSE.
2. Yuri!!! on Ice
Yuri!!! on Ice eschews combat for another form of graceful and powerful movement: figure skating! The skating sequences are marvelous to watch, and are animated with such detail that you can’t help but think they just motion-captured an actual figure skater. I wouldn’t be surprised. This attention to detail carries over off the rink as well. Trembling hands and twitching lips make this romance anime a real passion watch.
1. Devilman Crybaby
The horror factor of this series puts Attack on Titan to shame. While it lacks Attack on Titan‘s crepuscular beauty, it makes up for it in sheer terror. Devilman Crybaby is the only anime that has legitimately left me disturbed. But Jack, I thought you liked anime violence? I do, when it’s rendered beautifully, but the violence in this series is not rendered with beauty, it is rendered with brutality. There is a specific animation sequence that I’m talking about: the Sabbath sequence. In it, a scantily clad group of twenty-something clubgoers are possessed by demons, and the result is an orgy of sexual violence and body horror that left me truly nauseated. Bodies are bent and twisted out of shape, sexual organs grow mouths with fangs, and characters are devoured in a death-by-sex bacchanalia that was forever seared into my brain. While other viewers may not be as deeply affected, there is something deeply distressing to me, personally, about the pairing of sex and violence. Bodies being destroyed at their most vulnerable. The defilement of a sacred act of love and trust.
Devilman Crybaby is filled with sequences like this, and they are hard to watch. HOWEVER, I think that their sickening nature is not a fault of the series but an absolute triumph of horror animation. For better or worse, this series has stuck with me. Now, please excuse me while I go throw up.
(featured image: Kyoto Animation / MAPPA / Ufotable / Toei Animation)
Published: Jul 14, 2023 11:46 am