10 Best Thriller Anime That Are Impossible to Put Down

In the public consciousness, anime often gets flattened into Toonami battle shonen and conveyor-belt isekai offerings. While this is changing nowadays, thanks to providers like Netflix actively embracing anime and bringing it to a broader demographic, people still don’t always see the huge range of experiences it can offer. There’s a full-on rogues’ gallery of killer thrillers.

Or maybe you’re ahead of the curve. You’ve already seen one or two items on this list and you’re hooked―you want to know what else is out there, and you trust us here at ComicBook to guide you to some good picks. In either case, these great thriller anime below will keep you locked in from start to finish.

1) Monster

There are few words that could adequately describe Naoki Urasawa’s Monster. Its influence and popularity have been far-reaching and profound, and it would feel sacrilegious to leave it off a list of incredible thriller anime. Monster is a psychological thriller based around a doctor, Kenzou Tenma, who saves the life of a young patient who later becomes a serial killer―and leaves Tenma to be framed for the crime. Tenma travels the world to clear his name, forging some critical alliances along the way.

That’s just the plot of the manga itself, and says nothing of Madhouse’s masterful 2004 adaptation. Between Golden Age Madhouse’s desaturated colors, the top-notch casting, and its brilliant sound design, Monster‘s adaptation augments an already flawless psychological thriller. It’s wonderful, gripping, and a bucket-list anime if there ever was one.

2) Re: Zero – Starting Life in Another World –

At first glance, Re:Zero might not seem much like your type of story. It’s an isekai through-and-through, with most of the hallmarks of the genre from a high-fantasy setting to a healthy smattering of trope-heavy characters. So, why is it on a list of the best anime thrillers? Because it’s one of the best anime thrillers. From its first episode, Re:Zero thrives on playing games with the viewer, disarming them to maximize its psychic damage.

Based on the story of Subaru Natsuki, reborn into another world with a mysterious ability to turn back the clock every time he dies, it’s clear why the series would be host to excruciating sequences―including one of the most infamously devastating credits rolls in anime history. Even if you don’t love isekai, Re:Zero is a must-watch.

3) Steins;Gate

Speaking of which, we would be remiss not to mention Steins;Gate. It’s an anime whose reputation precedes it, so if you’re interested in psychological, suspense, and thriller anime, there’s a great chance you’ve already heard of it. The story focuses on Okabe Rintaro, a chuunibyou donning the persona of a mad scientist who winds up inventing a time machine with his close friends.

This accidental discovery has massive political implications, as the show plays out in gruesome detail. Attempting to navigate armed enemies and to restore timelines, Steins;Gate mirrors Re:Zero in its narrative flow. Rinse, tragedy, time-hop, repeat. The finer details differ a lot, of course, but a person who likes one is going to like the other.

4) Psycho-Pass

Cyberpunk is a genre that thrives in times of relative optimism, go figure―but as we ourselves veer into cyberpunk dystopia, Psycho-Pass gains ever more of an eerie relevance. The setting is a world where a cybernetic system evaluates likely criminals based off of their values, attitudes, and actions; the premise, at least for the first season, is a man who for some reason evades detection by this system entirely.

Granted, the series covers a lot of ground―in addition to three seasons, Psycho-Pass also recently received a movie commemorating its ten-year anniversary―and the mysteries and cast shift around, providing a slightly different foundation to each entry. Across the board, though, Psycho-Pass is bitingly engaging, and with so much material, it gives more than enough to work through if you’re in the market for a long watch.

5) Id: Invaded

On the surface, Id: Invaded shares some stylistic and narrative cues with Psycho-Pass, which is likely part of the reason it’s never quite gotten the flowers it deserves. At its core, though, it’s utterly different. Both stories deal with a cyberpunk setting where one’s psyche is under interrogation. Id: Invaded takes things in a totally different direction, though, with its emphasis on psychic exploration to uncover serial killers’ identities and motives.

Take the concept of “id wells”, which are essentially digitally accessible psychic terrains. By entering id wells, detectives try to piece together the aberrant fragments and uncover the “truth”. This process is hardly clean, though. In fact, it’s terrifying if you think about it too long. Psychiatry has been integrated with criminology since the dawn of either discipline, but among thriller anime, only Id: Invaded has so boldly taken that relationship to heart―and it does so in a cat-and-mouse format that won’t let your heartbeat rest.

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6) Erased

Similar to Re:Zero, Erased centers around an ability triggered by one’s life being threatened. Unlike Re:Zero, the stakes in Erased are far closer to home. Protagonist Satoru Fujinama is sent back 18 years in the past with the chance to save his mother and stop a serial killer in his tracks. It’s a simple idea, but Erased pulls it off elegantly.

Its youthful cast of characters resonates with viewers of every age. Not to mention, since the serial killer targets children, their innocence lends the series an atmosphere that is gripping and, at times, utterly harrowing. Erased is short, satisfying, and highly bingeable―and it’ll have you on the edge of your seat the entire time.

7) Terror in Resonance

MAPPA original Terror in Resonance happily receives some story beats from stories like Monster―and the joy of watching both is figuring out exactly what those story beats are―to create a deeply compelling scenario featuring two Japanese teenagers, Nine and Eleven, who take hold of a prototype atomic bomb and threaten to destroy Tokyo. It’s another cat-and-mouse anime that takes the conventions of the thriller sub-genre to the next level.

What makes Terror in Resonance stand out is its earnestness. MAPPA, only three years old at the time and still wet behind the ears, finds its footing with an 11-episode series that feels so much larger than its brevity would indicate. Nine and Eleven have a deeply compelling story and are smartly written that it’s impossible not to feel both abject fear and intense empathy.

8) Moriarty the Patriot

Speaking of cat-and-mouse games, the world literary canon writ large owes a lot to the classic antagonism of Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty. Many adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s short stories overplay their hand, trying at once to remain close to the works and to play up relationships that weren’t actually all that important. Chief among these is Mortiarty and Sherlock.

Moriarty the Patriot sidesteps this trap, reimagining Holmes and Moriarty’s relationship through Moriarty’s lens. Of course, the story is communicated through anime’s visual language: every prominent character is reimagined as an anime pretty-boy. Proud to be neither faithful nor conventional, Moriarty the Patriot is a thrilling watch from beginning to end that makes Sherlock and Moriarty’s game of catch-me-if-you-can deserve the reverence it receives.

9) Rainbow: Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin

Here’s an underappreciated pocket-pick: Rainbow is a once-in-a-lifetime watch―and truth be told, you may not have the stomach to watch it more than once in your lifetime. However, Madhouse’s adaptation of the prison-to-streets thriller is one of the most rewarding anime in existence, even if it’s also one of the most grueling.

Set in ’50s Japan during the periods of post-war reconstruction and American occupation, the series follow a group of young delinquents sent to a reformatory. The oldest member and de facto leader, Sakuragi, teaches the boys discipline and self-defense as they attempt to endure their heavy-handed warden and craft a plan to escape. After a tragic escape, the series then follows each boy’s path in life―some long, others short, each one equal parts disturbing and inspirational.

Rainbow is agonizing to watch. It’s also the best way to spend 780 minutes of your life.

10) Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor

Kaiji‘s influence can hardly be overstated, offering a direct line of influence to massive franchises like Squid Game and cult classics like Kakegurui. It turns out that the higher the stakes facing compulsive gamblers, the harder the series is to put down. Kaiji is a brilliant example of the mechanism behind that: the stakes become high for the viewer, too.

Its titular character is one such compulsive gambler who winds up saddled with another’s debt and winds up in a series of stomach-churning underworld gambles. A masterclass in the manipulation of tension and release, Kaiji is a chronic oscillation between emotional peaks: victory, defeat, devastation, hope, and even mourning. It drags you through the mud then guides you to a jackpot that brings such potent relief that you have no choice but to ask it for the mud again.

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There are so many amazing thriller anime out there that it’s hard to prune the selections down to just 10. Is there a series you feel should be here? Drop a comment below, we’d love to hear from you!