During the 2010s, anime became something viewers could follow without having to hunt it down. Legal simulcasts turned Japanese broadcasts into global events within the same week. The growing audience brought larger budgets with it, while a new generation of directors received the resources to make the projects they genuinely wanted to make. This selection is not a popularity chart. Several of the decade's enormous hits are absent by design. Instead, these are the series and films that still hold up after the surrounding arguments and hype have cooled, including work you could recommend years from now without adding an apology or disclaimer. The order moves roughly from loud spectacle toward quieter chamber drama, so placement should not be read as a verdict on quality. Two rules guided the choices. Franchises that began before the decade were excluded because this list is concerned with what the 2010s built for itself. Works whose true peak came after the decade ended were saved for another list. A complete remake still qualifies when it starts the story over as a new production and makes its own choices.
- 01
Attack on Titan was the defining anime event of the decade, and sales alone do not account for that status. It arrived with a degree of dread that action anime rarely attempts. Bodies end up in mouths, the walls feel like a closing coffin, and nobody in the cast seems protected from death. Its place here is secure because the story grew far beyond the monster of the week premise suggested by its opening. The gore and constant shouting act as a filter. Viewers who can endure them are richly repaid.
Where to Watch → - 02
Hunter x Hunter is the decade's best shonen and arguably the smartest work anywhere on this list. For its first arc, it can pass as a boys' adventure. Then it begins dismantling the rules it has just taught the audience. Power hardens into bureaucracy, while fights increasingly turn into negotiations. Even the hero's best friend eventually becomes the most frightening presence on screen. Its ceiling is absurdly high, which earns it this position. The unevenness is intentional, though, and the early arcs are much gentler than the material that follows.
Where to Watch → - 03
Steins;Gate
8.9Steins;Gate is the best science fiction anime of the decade. It also proved that a visual novel adaptation could outwrite almost anything conceived directly for television. People still reach for it when making the case that anime can handle character driven science fiction and write adults properly. Its oddball cast crowds into a cramped Akihabara flat, where their bad luck happens to operate through cause and effect. The series has aged remarkably well. Its opening episodes remain an obstacle, however, and probably always will.
Where to Watch → - 04
For the decade's animators, Mob Psycho 100 became a place to show exactly what they could do. The psychic fights explode through paint and distortion, with pure movement often taking priority over tidy drawings. What gives the series staying power is its belief that psychic ability is the least interesting part of the boy who possesses it. Being decent is treated as a skill that takes practice. The result is funny and warm, with an unexpected emotional force. Its scruffy character designs deter some viewers at first, but they are worth pushing past.
Where to Watch → - 05
One Punch Man forms the other half of that double bill, although it is a very different creature. The first season is an outright flex. Its parody of superhero escalation is animated with such ridiculous commitment that the joke produces real spectacle. A hero who wins every fight instantly sounds like a recipe for boredom; in practice, he anchors the funniest action show of the decade. Many viewers come chiefly for the visual craft, so they should know that this standard does not remain constant across the full run of the show.
Where to Watch → - 06
Your Lie in April pulls the decade's biggest emotional lever and never apologizes for doing so. A pianist who can no longer hear his own playing is drawn back toward music by a violinist who treats performance like weather. The musical sequences are thrilling, and the color work is gorgeous. Its melodrama, meanwhile, is applied with a shovel. Viewers who respond to such open sincerity will find plenty to feel. Anyone irritated by emotion delivered at this volume may spend the entire run arguing with the show instead.
Where to Watch → - 07
A Silent Voice provides a quiet counterweight to the previous choice. It works in a similar emotional register but uses the opposite technique. The film follows a boy who bullied a deaf classmate when they were children, then confronts the much harder question of what he can possibly do about it now. He is never granted easy forgiveness. Its treatment of social anxiety is especially well observed. Shame weighs heavily on the story, and the opening act is genuinely difficult to sit through.
Where to Watch → - 08
Made in Abyss delivers the decade's finest bait and switch. Its characters have round, cute designs, and its world initially resembles a storybook. A symphonic score supplies a sense of wonder. Then the hole in the ground begins charging admission. The series would earn a place here through its worldbuilding alone, since almost nothing else has made exploration seem so dangerous while keeping it so seductive. It can also be genuinely cruel to its child characters. Knowing that beforehand is preferable to discovering it unprepared.
Where to Watch → - 09
Nothing else on this list is as pretty or as patient as Violet Evergarden. A former child soldier finds work writing letters for other people, then slowly understands what the words she transcribes actually cost those clients. The mostly episodic structure is the reason the idea lands. Each client brings a small, complete grief. This is an easy recommendation for viewers seeking immaculate craft and catharsis. Anyone with an aversion to deliberate tearjerking should go in aware that the series aims directly for it.
Where to Watch → - 10
Vinland Saga
8.7Vinland Saga closes the decade with its most disciplined adaptation. It takes the bleak end of the shonen tradition, following a boy raised for vengeance among Viking raiders, and trusts animation to convey the cold. Grey light hangs over fights whose blows carry real weight. Silence takes the place where a lesser production would lay in a soundtrack. This was the last great work the 2010s built. It also develops an argument about violence that most of the other titles on this list politely avoid.
Where to Watch →
FAQ
Distribution changed during the decade, and the business changed with it. Legal streaming made same week viewing possible for a genuinely global audience. That larger audience brought higher budgets and made a wider range of projects commercially plausible. Studios could also pursue prestige productions that would never have received approval if they had depended only on a domestic late night broadcast slot.