It’s truly exciting to see the ways in which anime has been able to evolve and challenge audiences over the past decades and it’s helped the medium gain an evergreen quality. Every year there are new series that are introduced, but anime constantly has a conversation with its past and it often finds ways to celebrate classic anime series that helped the medium take form.
At the same time, there can be anime that are popular in the moment, only to lose their shine over time or through hindsight. There’s never been more content to sift through, which makes the anime series that are eternally rewatchable a major asset.
10 Gintama Has Over 350 Episodes & Builds On Its Humor In Each One
Many anime series that last for hundreds of episodes can seem impenetrable to newcomers and aren’t worth the effort. Typically shorter anime series are ideal for rewatches, but Gintama benefits from how its humor evolves and strengthens over the course of its run. There’s such a strong and layered story that’s present in the anime’s bombastic comedy that it demands to be rewatched despite its unruly length. There are so many small jokes and hidden gags that are easy to miss or simply not understand on the first watch.
9 Attack On Titan’s Sprawling Story Only Gets Better On A Rewatch
Attack on Titan just concluded the first half of their final season and the series has never been more popular. Attack on Titan is an instantly engaging series, but it’s remarkable how much the anime’s scope has broadened and the different perspective that drives the final episodes forward. It’s never been a better time to revisit Attack on Titan from the beginning before the final episodes arrive and there are so many little gestures from characters who seem innocuous on the first watch but gain tremendous significance after everything that’s since come forward. It’s a masterpiece of foreshadowing.
8 Assassination Classroom’s Journey Of Growth Benefits From Repeated Viewings
There are many shonen series that ultimately dilute a strong premise by stretching it out for hundreds of episodes and losing track of the narrative through meandering periods of filler.
Impressively, Assassination Classroom wraps itself in just under 50 episodes and as a result, it’s able to capitalize on the impact of its ticking clock narrative. The bond that forms between Koro-Sensei and his class of budding killers grows stronger on every replay and there are minor details about Koro-Sensei’s past that make more sense after repeated viewings.
7 Parasyte -The Maxim- Delivers A Concise Story With Many Layers To It
There are lots of anime series where normal individuals become infected by some alien presence and end up an unlikely hybrid between man and some sort of monster. Parasyte -the maxim- is a sophisticated dive into body horror and conspiracy theories when an alien invasion gets underway on Earth. Shinichi becomes the host to an alien creature, but he forms a reluctant friendship with the beast that also helps him improve as a person. With only 24 episodes, Parasyte remains a tight series that's easy to repeatedly go through. The action sequences and emotional beats still resonate every time.
6 My Hero Academia’s Gigantic World & Large Cast Pop More More During Rewatches
My Hero Academia effectively combines shonen staples with archetypes from the superhero genre to create a highly enjoyable coming of age story. Izuku Midoriya and the rest of the students at U.A. High train to become the next generation of heroes. Each season pushes these characters a little further along and their maturity since the pilot becomes a lot more obvious after repeated rewatches. My Hero Academia will celebrate its 100th episode this season, but it still makes for easy viewing and it actively becomes better once the audience develops a deeper understanding of the supporting characters.
5 Mob Psycho 100’s Strong Story & Stunning Animation Deserves Repeated Viewings
Mob Psycho 100 and One-Punch Man come from the same artistic mind and they were turned into anime series relatively around the same time. Both series are enjoyable and challenging series, but One-Punch Man’s second season loses some momentum, whereas Mob Psycho 100 only strengthens its storytelling, themes, and visuals.
Mob Psycho 100 is very digestible at a lean 25 episodes and it’s easy to just escape in its beautiful animation. There’s so much going on all of the time that audiences should always discover something new on each watch.
4 Trigun Distills A Strong Action Story To A Manageable Amount Of Episodes
Trigun is a formative action anime series from out of the 1990s that efficiently tells its story across 26 episodes. Trigun fluctuates between an episodic bounty-of-the-week structure and the darker history that defines Vash the Stampede’s past. Trigun has its lighter moments, but it’s not afraid to show the fragile nature of an action hero who wants nothing more than to permanently holster his weapons. Trigun’s story never drags and the characters feel real, despite their exaggerated natures, and repeated viewings make them even more affable.
3 Cowboy Bebop Is An Iconic Anime Classic That Never Grows Old
Cowboy Bebop is one of those very special anime series that even has a following by people who aren’t generally anime fans. Cowboy Bebop is a perfect gateway anime series into the medium with its mature science-fiction storytelling and remarkable jazz-based soundtrack. The largely episodic nature of the series and the contrasting variety of the missions that the anime’s crew takes allows Cowboy Bebop to constantly feel fresh. 26 episodes doesn’t feel like it’s enough and once the final episode finishes, it’s all too tempting to go right back to episode one.
2 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Is Full Of Variety Across Its Many Chapters
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has been running for multiple decades and Hirohiko Araki’s defining shonen series still has no end in sight. What makes JoJo stand out from other similar series is that it ambitiously moves through the different generations of the Joestar family tree. This allows JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure to tell one larger narrative, but each new chapter is mostly able to function on its own. This level of variety is extremely useful for rewatches and the journey becomes more fun after the motivations of the characters’ descendants come to light.
1 Space Dandy Throws A Ton At The Audience Across A Subtle Story Arc
Space Dandy practically feels like the absurdist bizarro version of Cowboy Bebop. The series both come from Shinichiro Watanabe, but Space Dandy is an overwhelming deconstruction of genre. Every episode indulges in a different staple of storytelling with radically different animation styles that take over each new planet that’s visited and every new alien that’s encountered. Space Dandy acts like an episodic anthology of sorts, but it reveals that it does in fact have a connected storyline. Repeated viewings help tie all of this together and accentuate the truly brilliant nature of Space Dandy’s structure.