The best anime of 2026 so far

The elf mage Frieren, her apprentice Fern and the young warrior Stark keep walking north, decades after the hero's party won, and Frieren keeps learning what her old companions meant to her.

Season 1 was one of the most loved anime of the decade, and Madhouse brought the same patience and the same beautiful animation back for season 2, with Tomoya Kitagawa taking over as director. It is still the gentlest fantasy on television: small adventures, long silences and sudden flashes of grief. Users on MyAnimeList rate it about 9 out of 10, near the top of the whole site.

Only ten episodes after a three-year wait, which disappointed many fans. Watch the 28-episode first season first.

Coco, a village girl who always wanted to be a witch, learns that magic is drawn with ink and is taken on as an apprentice by the witch Qifrey, after an accident she cannot undo.

Kamome Shirahama's manga is famous for art that looks like old book illustrations, and fans worried no studio could match it. Bug Films came closer than anyone hoped, and ComicBook.com called the premiere one of the year's best debuts. The show mixes cozy apprenticeship scenes with real darkness, and it is a rare fantasy where learning the rules of magic is the fun part. Crunchyroll viewers rated it 4.9 out of 5.

There is far more manga than one season can cover, so expect to be left wanting more. Some episodes get darker than the cozy look suggests.

Yuru, a boy from a remote mountain village, learns that the truth about his twin sister Asa has been kept from him, and that the twins and their guardian daemons are the center of a fight much bigger than the village.

This is the first anime of Hiromu Arakawa's manga Yomi no Tsugai, made at Bones Film and directed by Masahiro Andō of Sword of the Stranger. The fights are excellent, and Arakawa's knack for mixing goofy comedy with grim stakes is all there. Its second cour picked up pace: Fandomwire's episode 13 review said nearly every scene delivers action or reveals something about the characters.

The opening episodes take a while to get going, and anyone expecting another Fullmetal Alchemist straight away may be let down at first, as Arab News's reviewer admitted.

Students at an elite girls' musical theater school, modeled on Japan's Takarazuka tradition, compete for roles and recognition, and each episode looks closely at a different girl's ambitions and wounds.

Director Morio Asaka (Cardcaptor Sakura, NANA, Chihayafuru) and Madhouse adapted Takako Shimura's manga, and Anime News Network called the result achingly beautiful. It is an omnibus drama about rivalry, envy and growing up, and it is the most quietly experimental series of the year. If you liked the slower parts of Chihayafuru, this is for you.

Little happens in the usual sense, and the episode-by-episode focus on different girls can feel scattered. It deals with ostracism and harsh rivalries.

In 1890, Johnny Joestar, a former jockey who can no longer walk, joins a horse race across the entire United States, chasing a mysterious man named Gyro Zeppeli and the secret of his spinning steel balls.

Steel Ball Run is the seventh part of Hirohiko Araki's manga and a fresh start, so you do not need to have seen the earlier parts. David Production, which has animated every JoJo series, opened with a 47-minute first episode on Netflix and is now releasing the race weekly. It is a western, a road movie and a very weird superpower story at once.

The release has been slow and the story is far from finished. JoJo's style, with its poses, shouting and strange powers, is an acquired taste.

In 15th-century Japan, a boy is drawn into the world of Noh theater during the art form's first great flowering.

This is the summer season's most beautiful show. Toshimasa Kuroyanagi (The Great Passage) directs at CygamesPictures, and Reijiro Tsumura, a Kanze-school Noh performer recognized as an Important Intangible Cultural Property holder, supervised the dance scenes, so the performances look like the real thing. Early reviews praised the color, the backgrounds and the dance that closes the first episode.

A slow historical drama about traditional theater, so it suits viewers who liked Frieren's pace more than those who came for fights.

After the Shibuya disaster, Yuji Itadori and the surviving sorcerers are pulled into the Culling Game, a deadly battle royale spread across colonies in Japan.

MAPPA's first part of the Culling Game arc is wall-to-wall fighting with world-building squeezed in between, and the animation under director Shōta Goshozono is as strong as the series has been. CGM's reviewer argued it was probably the best season yet, even with Gojo absent. Our If you liked Jujutsu Kaisen guide has more for when you run out.

This is the third season, picking up straight after the Shibuya Incident, and it ends partway through the arc. Very violent.

Gabimaru the ninja and the executioner Sagiri keep pushing deeper into the island of Shinsenkyo, where the criminals hunting an elixir of life are being picked off by things far worse than each other.

MAPPA and Twin Engine brought back Kaori Makita to direct, and the fights between the rival convicts and the island's creatures are better animated than ever. Bubble Blabber's review said the premiere brought back all of the first season's tension, and Espinof's critic called the season a spectacular show.

You need season 1 (2023). Graphic violence and body horror throughout.