Published Feb 8, 2026, 10:30 PM EST
Dhruv is a Lead Writer in Screen Rant's New TV division. He has been consistently contributing to the website for over two years and has written thousands of articles covering streaming trends, movie/TV analysis, and pop culture breakdowns.
Before Screen Rant, he was a Senior Writer for The Cinemaholic, covering everything from anime to television, from reality TV to movies.
After high school, he was on his way to become a Civil Engineer. However, he soon realized that writing was his true calling. As a result, he took a leap and never looked back.
Netflix canceled one of its best crime dramas after just two seasons, but an obscure anime seems to perfectly fill the void it left behind.
Every once in a while, Netflix ends up canceling a show that may not have met its renewal metrics but still managed to leave a lasting impression with its brilliant storytelling. While many of these cancellations still feel unfair, one seems far more frustrating than most others. This cancellation was even quite surprising because the show in question boasts a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score after two seasons.
While it seems unlikely the canceled show will ever return, viewers who miss it must check out an anime that scratches a similar crime drama itch.
Mindhunter’s Cancellation Is Still Unforgivable
Mindhunter still boasts a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score of 97% after two seasons, which alone highlights how the show did not deserve to be canceled at all. From its early moments, the series also teased the rise of the BTK Killer (Dennis Rader), which is a story arc that reached its peak towards season 2's ending.
However, after building up to one of its best potential chapters, Mindhunter was abruptly shut down by Netflix, pouring water over David Fincher's five-season plan for the series.
Fincher is known for using extensive CGI even in shows and movies that do not require obvious visual effects. By using CGI in background details, Fincher often tries to capture everything from period settings to subtle foreshadowing elements with perfect precision. This significantly ballooned the show's budget, which was a major factor that led to its cancellation.
However, it almost seems hypocritical that Netflix is willing to invest a lot in sensationalist true crime dramas when it could have prioritized prestige crime thrillers like Mindhunter. Owing to this, Mindhunter's cancellation on Netflix still feels unreasonable and unfair.
2004’s Monster Perfectly Fills The Mindhunter Void For Crime Thriller Fans
The 2004 anime, Monster, is perhaps one of the few crime thrillers that operate on the same intellectual wavelength as Mindhunter. Set in post-Cold War Germany, Monster also features a protagonist whose empathy becomes his own weakness when he unknowingly ends up saving a future serial killer's life.
Both series prioritize the intellectual "why" over the "how," focusing on the profiling of sociopaths. Like Mindhunter, Monster also has traces of supernatural underpinnings and adopts a mid-century European setting.
It hardly features any anime tropes and feels more like a prestige historical true-crime drama. Fans of the Tench/Holden dynamic in Netflix's Mindhunter will also appreciate Dr. Tenma’s moral descent in Monster as he tracks down an antagonist who challenges the very idea of innate human goodness.
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Monster
Release Date April 7, 2004
Directors Masayuki Kojima, Morio Asaka
English (US) ·