10 Most Perfect Anime of the Last 5 Years, Ranked

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Published Jun 29, 2026, 11:55 PM EDT

Lucas Kloberdanz-Dyck is a writer for Collider. He grew up creating lists, stories, and worlds, which led to his love of anime and video games. He attended Sheridan College where he earned an Honours Bachelor of Game Design. Lucas and his group won 1st place for technical innovation at LevelUp Toronto 2023, and he was also an intern for the Oakville Film Festival of Arts.

Anime has been popular for a long time, with classics such as Bleach defining a generation of fans and still impacting the culture of fandom today. However, it's hard to deny the impact of modern anime, with sensations such as Jujutsu Kaisen becoming among the most popular anime titles in history. But even though 2020 was six years ago, fans usually define modern shows by what has come out in the past 5 years.

That is why this list will rank the most perfect anime series that came out in the past five years, from 2021 to 2026. Based on elements such as story, animation, originality, entertainment value, popularity, consistency, fan opinion, critical acclaim, and overall quality, these shows are the must-watch staples of the past five years. New icons will come out, but for now, these are the most perfect modern anime.

10 'Sonny Boy' (2021)

The characters stand outside with a blue sky and a tall building in Sonny Boy.

Almost all the anime on this list are mainstream hits, but one of the lesser-known icons of the past decade is Sonny Boy. This unconventional isekai follows a class of students who mysteriously transport to a bizarre world. As they try to figure out the laws of this world, the students begin developing superpowers, and a natural hierarchy forms as they search for a way back home.

Sonny Boy was one of the last avant-garde anime series, and it impressed in a big way, delivering a stunning season of confusing, yet thought-provoking storytelling. This Lord of the Flies-esque anime delved into the creative realm to deliver a visually distinct and narratively complex anime that can be considered the must-watch hidden gem of the past five years.

9 'Delicious in Dungeon' (2024–Present)

Marcille, voiced by Sayaka Senbongi, in Delicious in Dungeon

The fantasy genre is bigger than ever, and series like Delicious in Dungeon prove that. After one of their party members is eaten by a dragon, the rest of the members either leave or plan to head back down. However, with no money, supplies, or food, they decide to cook the monsters they find down there. From adventuring to cooking creatures, there is more mystery that awaits them at the bottom of the dungeon.

Delicious in Dungeon is one of the most distinctive anime series of the 2020s, blending genuine fantasy mystery with fun monster gourmet creations. It has a brilliant use of worldbuilding and monster ecology, which works in favor of its cooking side adventures. No other anime does what Delicious in Dungeon does, and when the next season comes out, it may be the best fantasy anime of all time.

8 'The Summer Hikaru Died' (2025–Present)

Two boys walking next to each other in The Summer Hikaru Died

Horror anime generally isn't the best, but a history of lackluster shows can produce some hits, such as The Summer Hikaru Died. Yoshiki notices something wrong with his best friend, Hikaru, learning that he has actually died, and a spirit has taken over his body. Denying this new reality, Yoshiki struggles to come to terms with it while the new Hikaru just wants to be friends.

Whether fans prefer the eerie horror and riveting mystery or the dynamic between the two characters, The Summer Hikaru Died has more than enough to keep fans entertained. This gripping horror anime has thrills, character development, and gorgeous animation that create a terrifying yet nostalgic summer vibe, seeping in mystery that fans can't wait to explore more of.

7 'City the Animation' (2025)

Residents stunned at the rainbow in town from City the Animation.

Kyoto Animation is a critically acclaimed studio known for some of the greatest anime series ever, and their latest masterpiece is City the Animation. Set in a unique town with even weirder residents, every day is a misadventure of fun, hilarity, and nostalgia. From a city-wide race to searching for a lost pendant, even normal activities evolve into grand events in this acclaimed anime.

City the Animation isn't an action anime with the best fights, but it deserves more recognition for its directing and editing, which bring a creative flair that changes how the medium is presented. This explosion of imaginative craftwork is more impressive than most other anime, plus City the Animation is a charming comedy with surreal, chaotic, wholesome, and absurd humor that became one of the best anime shows from 2025.

Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In? The Pitt · ER · Grey's Anatomy · House · Scrubs

Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong.

🚨The Pitt

🏥ER

💉Grey's

🔬House

🩺Scrubs

FIND YOUR HOSPITAL →

A critical patient comes through the door. What's your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are.

AStay completely present — block everything else out and work through it step by step, right now. BTriage fast and delegate — get the right people on the right problems immediately. CTrust my gut and move — I work best when I stop overthinking and just act. DAsk the question everyone else is ignoring — what's the thing that doesn't fit? ETake a breath, make a joke to cut the tension, and then get to work — panic helps no one.

NEXT QUESTION →

Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The honest answer says more about you than the one you'd give in an interview.

ABecause I wanted to be where it matters most — right at the edge, when someone's life is actually on the line. BBecause I wanted to help people — genuinely, one patient at a time, in a system that makes it hard. CBecause I was drawn to the intensity of it — the stakes, the drama, the feeling of being fully alive. DBecause medicine is the most interesting puzzle there is — and I needed a problem worth solving. EBecause I wanted to make a difference — and also, honestly, I didn't know what else to do with my life.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do you actually want from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.

ACompetence and calm — I need people who don't fall apart when things get bad. BTrust and reliability — I want to know that when I pass something off, it's handled. CConnection — I want colleagues who become family, even if that gets complicated. DIntelligence and the willingness to be challenged — I have no interest in people who just agree with me. EFriendship — people I actually like spending twelve hours a day with, because those hours are going to happen either way.

NEXT QUESTION →

You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who's worked a long shift has had to answer this question.

AI carry it. All of it. I don't look for ways to put it down — that weight is part of doing this work honestly. BI process it and move — you have to, or the next patient suffers for the one you just lost. CI feel it deeply and lean on the people around me — I don't think you're supposed to handle that alone. DI go back over every decision — not to punish myself, but because I need to understand what I missed. EI grieve it genuinely, find some way to laugh about something unrelated, and try to be kind to myself — imperfectly.

NEXT QUESTION →

How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.

AIntense and completely present — no small talk during a shift, but exactly who you want there. BSteady and dependable — not the flashiest in the room but never the one who drops something. CPassionate and occasionally chaotic — brilliant on the hard cases, prone to drama everywhere else. DBrilliant and difficult — right more often than anyone else, and everyone knows it, including me. EWarm and self-deprecating — not the most intimidating presence, but genuinely good at this and easy to like.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.

AProtocol is the floor, not the ceiling — I follow it until the patient needs something it can't provide. BI respect it — the system is broken in places, but the structure is there for a reason and I work within it. CI follow it until my instincts tell me not to — and my instincts are usually right, even when they cause problems. DRules are for people who haven't thought hard enough about when to break them. EI try to follow it and mostly do — with a few memorable exceptions that still come up in meetings.

NEXT QUESTION →

What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What's yours?

AEverything outside these walls — I've given this job my full attention and the rest of my life has gone around it. BMy idealism, mostly — I came in believing the system could be fixed and I've made a complicated peace with that. CStability — my personal life has been as chaotic as the OR, and that's not entirely a coincidence. DMy relationships — I am not easy to know, and the people who've tried to would probably agree. EMy sense of gravity — I use humour as a coping mechanism, which not everyone appreciates in a hospital.

NEXT QUESTION →

At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you.

AThe fact that it's real — that nothing else I could be doing would matter this much, right now, today. BThe patients — individual human beings who needed something and got it because I was there. CThe people I work with — I have walked through impossible things with these people and I'd do it again. DThe next unsolved case — there's always another puzzle, and I'm not done yet. EBecause despite everything — the exhaustion, the loss, the absurdity — I actually love this job.

REVEAL MY HOSPITAL →

Your Assignment Has Been Made You Belong In…

Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.

The Pitt

You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn't let you look away.

You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it.
You've made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name.
Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else.

You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.

You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is.
You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through.
You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough.
ER is television about endurance. You have it.

Grey's Anatomy

You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.

You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with.
Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves.
You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection.
It's messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way.

House

You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn't fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.

You're not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you'd deny it.
You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong.
Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they're smart enough to keep up.
The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do.

Scrubs

You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.

You are warm, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field.
You use humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that's not a flaw, it's a survival strategy.
You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here.
Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

6 'The Apothecary Diaries' (2023–Present)

A girl smiling widely in The Apothecary Diaries anime

Historical anime have been on the rise these past five years, and one of the greatest is The Apothecary Diaries. After being sold to the Imperial Palace, Maomao (Aoi Yūki) works as a servant girl, showcasing her skills as an apothecary and detective. Solving murder cases and creating new concoctions, she proves more and more useful in the inner court each day.

The Apothecary Diaries is a beloved anime that already has over 50 episodes with more on the way, plus a new movie. With an endearing cast of characters and new mysteries every episode that build into a grand plot, this engaging anime knows exactly how to hook fans. The Apothecary Diaries is a spectacular historical anime featuring romance, political intrigue, and thrilling mysteries, and its new season is one of the most anticipated anime series.

5 'Odd Taxi' (2021)

A walrus and a hippo in a taxi in the anime series 'Odd Taxi'

This list has its fair share of hidden gems or underwatched masterpieces, and one such anime is Odd Taxi. Odokawa (Natsuki Hanae) is a taxi driver who doesn't like to stick his nose in his customers' business. However, after a murder involving some of his passengers, Odokawa might be the missing piece to solving this mystery.

Odd Taxi flew under the radar this decade despite being one of the greatest anime of the past five years. The eccentric cast of characters was engaging, and each had its own relevance to the story. With a charming style and a dark plot, Odd Taxi was a masterful show with one of the best plot twists in anime, culminating in an unforgettable ending.

4 'Orb: On the Movements of the Earth' (2024–2025)

As mentioned, there are plenty of great historical anime, and the most recent masterpiece was Orb: On the Movements of the Earth. Back when the world believed the Earth was at the center of the universe, a book revealed that it wasn't and that the Sun was the center of the galaxy. Following different protagonists through history, this is their struggle against the Church to prove heliocentrism.

What quickly became an anime-of-the-year candidate also established itself as a modern-day classic with a riveting story about human progress and knowledge. Orb: On the Movements of the Earth features brilliant themes and somehow manages to make each new protagonist just as compelling as the last, creating a once-in-a-lifetime anime experience that everyone must watch.

3 ‘Frieren: Beyond Journey's End' (2023–Present)

No modern anime list would be complete without Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, possibly the greatest anime of the decade. Decades after defeating the demon king, Frieren's (Atsumi Tanezaki) party has mostly passed away, leaving only their pupils. The near-immortal elf brings them on a nostalgic adventure to go to the land of the dead, where she wants to say unsaid words to her deceased friends.

Many fans claim it is the greatest modern anime series, and while it is nearly perfect, it doesn't quite make the top of this list. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End proves that stopping to smell the roses and taking on side quests can be a compelling narrative. These small quests form a gorgeous story about the joys of the world in this fantasy setting. With a sprinkle of action and some engaging characters, Frieren is the largest anime sensation of the past five years.

2 'Pluto' (2023)

Gesicht walking through a field of red and yellow tulips in the anime Pluto

Naoki Urasawa is a prolific author of some of the greatest manga of all time, and while his magnum opus is Monster, he has an equally engaging sci-fi masterpiece in Pluto. When one of the most advanced robots is murdered, Gesicht (Shinshū Fuji), another advanced android, is on the case. However, when the mystery begins to involve his past, he learns of a darker truth hidden behind everything.

Urasawa is known for his masterful mysteries that span over multiple decades, but Pluto has a more personal look, with plenty of emotional complexity and heavy themes alongside his staple riveting mystery. From the gorgeous animation and backgrounds to its profound themes that handle life and who has the right to feel, Pluto is a thought-provoking masterpiece that is one of the best things this decade has produced.

1 'Cyberpunk: Edgerunners' (2022–Present)

After years of only one season, Trigger surprised fans by announcing an unexpected sequel season of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, which will feature a new group of characters in Night City. After David's (Kenn) mother passes away, he joins a gang with a cybernetically enhanced spine seeking revenge for her unjust death. However, all he will encounter is more tragedy and heartbreak.

The new season is one of the most anticipated anime series, but the first season is one of the greatest cyberpunk anime ever, using its marvelous worldbuilding and intricate city to create a vibrant story. The colors pop and the animation is exhilarating, creating an over-the-top series with a relentless pacing that will have fans overdosing with hype. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is 10 episodes of pure, unfiltered excitement with an incredible narrative to boot.