While the shounen genre of anime tends to take up most of the mainstream's attention, there are plenty of series in the seinen demographic that are worth taking note of. Several of these series use their genre to shed some of the anime tropes popularized by shounen and go in different -- and at times even more ambitious -- directions.
The voting community at Ranker compiled a top-10 list of their favorite seinen anime. Unsurprisingly, the list includes revered genre classics like Berserk and Samurai Champloo, but there's still an impressive degree of variety.
One-Punch Man
Writer ONE's One-Punch Man webcomic had an explosive rise to fame, being adapted into a manga with the help of world-class artist Yusuke Murata and finally into an anime. Though 2019's season 2 showed a dip in quality on the animation front, season 1 gave anime fans some of the most exceptional animation work in the medium thanks to veteran studio Madhouse.
On top of its stunning action, One-Punch Man is acclaimed for its subversive premise and satire on the shounen and superhero genres. It presents a colorful cast of characters and an all-powerful protagonist that's grown bored of being the world's strongest, all while throwing in a healthy dose of clever wit. Ironically enough, it became one of the best superhero anime in doing so.
Psycho-Pass
Production I.G's original anime Psycho-Pass is an equal parts psychological thriller and cyberpunk series. And while the latter two seasons tapered off in quality compared to the original, season 1 was incredibly well-received. Psycho-Pass wears its genre influences on its sleeve, with perhaps the most apparent being the classic Ridley Scott movie Blade Runner.
It takes place in a sci-fi dystopia where a tyrannical government lords over its population by involuntarily scanning them with sensors that measure their likelihood of criminality. Season 1, in particular, was praised for its interesting character dynamics and having a tantalizing mystery at the core of the story.
Code Geass: Lelouch Of The Rebellion
The Code Geass series is an anime-original IP by studio Sunrise that tells a sci-fi story set in an alternate history. It follows the titular prince Lelouch who is bestowed with the "Power of Kings" and helps lead a rebellion in Japan against the increasingly hostile and invading Holy Britannian Empire.
This vibrant mecha-action anime was critically acclaimed for its wide appeal, touching base with fans of said action, intriguing characters, and high-octane storytelling. Given the premise, the series raises questions about the greed of power-drunken figures of authority oppressing the world and the generations that follow them.
Cowboy Bebop
The anime-original Cowboy Bebop was a landmark series for the genre as a whole. Its irresistible style and thought-provoking depth made it a juggernaut in the '90s that helped drive anime's influence on the international stage. While Netflix unsurprisingly missed the point of the acclaimed anime with a live-action adaptation, the source material continues to stand the test of time.
Cowboy Bebop follows Spike, Jet, and co. as bounty hunters in a mostly-episodic series taking jobs around the galaxy in a sci-fi dystopian future where mankind had finally peaked in its degradation of the earth due to corporate greed. Its acid-jazz stylistic influence helps complement the immersive character arcs of each of the crew in exploring themes of loneliness, letting go of the past, existentialism, and more with impressive tact. Many fans will agree that it's among the best anime available to watch, even over 20 years later.
Samurai Champloo
Like his work on the venerated Cowboy Bebop, director Shinichirō Watanabe's Samurai Champloo is another classic anime original. Whereas the former was a jazz-inspired blend of sci-fi and western genres, the latter is a hip-hop-fueled Japanese historical fiction. Samurai Champloo follows a pair of ronin named Jin and Mugen who find themselves in the service of a former tea waitress named Fuu.
They're tasked with helping her find a mysterious samurai who "smells of sunflowers" in a countryside adventure that mirrors Bebop's episodic structure. And like Bebop, Champloo shares its strengths in compassionate and emotionally resonant character writing. The show was arguably ahead of its time, as it tackled various themes of social inequality and persecution, as well as the acceptance of death. It's another must-watch single-season anime.
Parasyte: The Maxim
Another adaptation by Madhouse, Parasyte is an entertaining sci-fi horror anime based on Hitoshi Iwaaki's manga. It's a simple premise executed well thanks to its context, as the story revolves around a high-school boy whose right hand is infected by an Alien Parasite with a hostile mind of its own.
Parasyte touches on some light human philosophy in its themes, as Izumi's Parasite debates him on humanity's inherent nature. It's a good thematic vehicle for the madness that ensues, as Izumi finds himself having to fight off other Parasites that become better and better and disguising themselves as manipulative humans.
Steins;Gate
Originally based on a visual novel video game, Steins;Gate easily became a modern anime classic in 2011. The anime cleverly hides as almost a slice-of-life story, but emphatically unravels itself as an anxiety-inducing drama and arresting sci-fi thriller. However, even with the bombshell revelations that Steins;Gate drops, it never loses its intimate scope in telling an emotional character-driven story.
The story centers around Okabe Rintaro, a narcissistic self-proclaimed "mad scientist" and his group of friends who accidentally discover the technology to time travel. But as the story evolves, and a sinister conspiracy with exponentially high stakes grow, as does Okabe.
Monster
Madhouse's anime adaptation of writer Naoki Urasawa's Monster is one of the few anime that, on paper, could easily translate into a great live-action series if the likes of HBO got their hands on the property. The story is an enthralling crime drama about a Japanese doctor working in Germany named Kenzo Tenma, whose life is consumed when a former patient he saved comes back to haunt the country as an elusive serial killer.
Madhouse's anime was acclaimed for its seamless execution and faithfulness to the source material. Its sprawling 74-episode run is filled with tense drama and riveting plot revelations that would've made great inspiration for the likes of True Detective.
Vinland Saga
2019 was a densely packed year for major anime releases with the likes of Attack on Titan and Demon Slayer, but Vinland Saga still stands out as a richly compelling historical drama. Vinland Saga starts Thorfinn on a bloody and tunnel-visioned quest for vengeance, but the trail of corpses and the life he throws away forces him to wake up to reality the hard way.
His father was killed by Viking pirate Askeladd, leading the boy to join his crew for a chance to duel and kill him in return. The series, however, excels when expanding beyond Thorfinn into the supporting cast, as everyone has an enthralling backstory and unique motivations in life. It's one of the most introspective modern anime out there, but it's also not without its exhilarating Viking-themed action. Where the story leaves off makes the upcoming second season one of 2022's most anticipated anime.
Berserk
It's a somber entry, as the manga's author Kentaro Miura unfortunately passed last year. Nevertheless, he leaves behind a revered legacy in the form of Berserk, one of the greatest dark-fantasy manga ever written and illustrated. The story of Guts, Casca, and co. is surrounded by dense and fantastical worldbuilding, but it mostly focuses on the main cast at hand and how they navigate through it in a similar vein to Andrej Sapkowski's The Witcher novels.
Berserk has received a few anime adaptations, though, the '90s series is perhaps the strongest. Even though it needed to condense a hefty amount of the first two arcs with its limited 25-episode runtime, it's a relentless, tragic, and gripping watch about recovering from intense trauma and learning to let people in again.