5 min readThe best animated scene I’ve seen this year so far depicts—wait for it—two people talking. You might think that with all the massive fights and magical worlds that are drawn in anime that something else must have topped a simple conversation, but no. The way that Jujutsu Kaisen animated the exchange was simply on another level. The team over at MAPPA used a technique called rotoscoping, where artists trace over live-action footage frame-by-frame to better capture realistic movements. To pull it off for a full four-minute scene, it’s exhausting work. But you can see the level of dedication. The way the characters interact with each other is uncannily lifelike. It’s a real work of art.
Still, that one Jujutsu Kaisen scene is just the cherry on top of a fantastic opening to anime in 2026. Anime fans also received the beginning of One Piece’s long-awaited Elbaph arc. Netflix premiered their adaptation of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stell Ball Run, and the team behind Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood debuted their latest anime, Daemons of the Shadow Realm. New titles also blew me away, including Witch Hat Atelier and Rumiko Takahashi’s like-minded follow-up to Inuyasha, titled Mao.
For a full list of the best anime of 2026 so far, follow along below.
Jujutsu Kaisen (season 3)
Like I said up top, the level of animation in this season’s Jujutsu Kaisen arc was beyond anything I’ve seen from MAPPA yet. If you’ve followed their work in Attack on Titan, Chainsaw Man, and Vinland Saga, then you know that’s already an incredibly high bar to cross. It’s clear how much time it took when you see where season 3 leaves off, as well. The latest 12-episode drop from the series about a cursed teenager and his pursuit to stop even greater curses from destroying Japan only covered around half as many chapters from the manga as the prior season. But I completely understand why. There’s no reason to rush when the animation is this good.
Hell’s Paradise (season 2)
Speaking of MAPPA, the animation studio also released the second season of Hell’s Paradise in January. The story follows a criminal assassin who is given a second chance at freedom if he agrees to go on a perilous journey to find the elixir of life on a dangerous island. He’s accompanied by an executioner whom he must return with—and who is ready to end his life at a moment’s notice should things turn sideways. I’m still not sure if I’m wholeheartedly in love with the villain’s reveal that started at the end of season 1 (magic plant people?), but the more-realistic power dynamics at play between the criminals and their keepers are enough to keep me invested until the end—which is likely just one more season.
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (season 2)
If you’re looking for something a little more relaxing, Frieren is the way to go. It’s a cross-country adventure series about an elf with a long lifespan who wishes that she spent more time with the people she loved after she outlives all her friends. So, she embarks on a new quest to reappraise the meaning of life and who we share it with. Think of it like Gandalf and the hobbits from The Lord of the Rings just traveling around Middle-earth and helping people along the way. It’s simple fantasy, but it holds powerful lessons.
Nippon Sangoku
One of the more intriguing new series this year so far is Nippon Sangoku. The realistic story follows Japan in a post-apocalyptic future, where its population is decimated by a virus and a terrible earthquake. Three nation-states rise in the chaos, and a period of civil war takes over. Then, a hundred years later, a man named Aoteru Misumi leads a campaign to diplomatically reunite all of Japan. The art style also borrows heavily from the manga’s black-and-white ink pages, making the series a marvel just to watch.
Mao
If you’re a fan of Inuyasha—or just enjoyed the golden days of the anime’s run on Adult Swim/Toonami in the early 2000s—then I highly recommend Mao. The latest series from Inuyasha creator Rumiko Takahasi is basically a gender-bent version of her former, celebrated work, which follows the romance between a teenage girl who is accidentally transported to the 1400s and a half-human, half-demon from the period named Inuyasha. Mao is the reverse, where the transported girl is the demon this time around. But Takahasi still has a masterful hold on the genre, as she writes an even quicker-paced romance and plot for her two new yet familiar protagonists.
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run
Here’s something insane. Steel Ball Run follows—and I kid you not—a horse race across America for a $50 million prize. That’s not at all. Along the course, the U.S. president sends a team to dig up various human remains that he believes hold magical powers that he can use for world domination. So, one rider named Johnny Joestar sets out to enter the race and stop his evil rival. If that explanation alone isn’t enough to jostle you off the horse, it’s likely because you know the level of quality from the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure series—an iconic work in Japanese comics that Hirohiko Araki has written since the late ‘80s. It may feature insane plots, but the craft is undeniable.
One Piece (season 22)
One Piece, another long-running series, just returned to adapt the Straw Hat Pirates’s journey to the island of giants. If you’re a One Piece fan—a group that seems to grow by the thousands every day now thanks to the recent Netflix live-action series—then you know that this is a massive arc in the series. The story about pirates and their search for the One Piece treasure reveals a lot of highly anticipated events from the world’s past on this next island, as well as the identity of several characters who have remained shrouded in mystery for roughly twenty years of the ongoing manga.
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Daemons of the Shadow Realm
Many fans consider Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood as one of the best adaptations in anime. They’re not wrong. The story not only inspired countless others, but now an original work from the same team, titled Daemons of the Shadow Realm. The series follows twins Yuru and Asa who yearn to be reunited after they’re separated at a young age. Both characters also possess the ability to control demons, which the world’s military power regards as a dangerous threat. Outside of the early twists that keep the new story interesting, the animation in Daemons also provides a great nostalgia watch. You can see Hiromu Arakawa’s art style instantly return in Yuru’s eye shape alone. Sometimes, that’s all you need.
Witch Hat Atelier
If we’re talking illustrations, few books look as magical as Kamome Shirahama’s Witch Hat Atelier. The series about a witch apprentice who learns how to use magic by drawing specific runes with magical ink is basically about the magic of illustration itself. So, even though fans were worried about how that level of detail would transpose to an animated series, new studio Bug Films has done an excellent job so far. Luckily, it’s not a complex story, so the team can really put all their effort into the rich landscapes and creative use of magic. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it top the list of everyone’s favorite new anime by the end of the year.
