Feeling in need for some more horror in your life, but tired of the same live action series? From genuinely scary anime to fun parodies, here are some of the top Japanese Horror Anime Series out there.

One medium that makes some chilling and terrifying horror series are Anime. These are some of our favourite Japanese horror anime series, ranging from monster stories to more paranormal romance.

Attack on Titan | 進撃の巨人 (2013)

Based on Hajime Isayama’s award-winning manga, Attack on Titan or Shingeki no Kyojin, took the world by storm, anime lovers as well as those that never usually watched it.

This Japanese horror anime series follows a group of people, tasked to go outside the safe city walls. Outside of the walls, terrible giant monsters called titans lives. Humans have lived inside those very walls for centuries after almost being slaughtered and wiped out by those monsters. What makes it extra terrifying are their taste for human flesh.

The main character, Eren Yeager enlists in the Survey Corps, a military unit that dedicates their lives to battling these monster, the very monsters that killed his mother when he was very young. But when battling these monsters, the humans have to ask themselves, are there monsters among themselves as well?

Mushi-shi | 蟲師 (2005–2006)

This anime horror story series started out as a manga from the mangaka Yuki Urushibara. This is the adaption of the award winning manga with 26 episodes based on the chapters of the manga. The episodes of the anime aired differently than what order they were published in the manga, wich says some about how episodic it all is. One episode sequel Mushishi: Hihamukage and a ten episode series called Mushishi Zoku Shou in 2014.

Ginko is a so called Mushishi, those who research the thing called Mushi. It is a mysterious entity of ‘beings’. They are removed from good and evil, but inhabits the earth by manifesting in things like plants, animals and diseases to just mention a few things they appear as. Ginko wonders about the reason behind their existence, and in doing so, perhaps finding the reason for life itself.

Another | アナザー (2012)

This Japanese horror anime series is more of a ghost story than the other ones on the list. Another follows 15-year-old Kouichi Sakakibara transfers into class 3-3 of Yomiyama North. He is drawn to Mei, a mysterious girl in his class wearing an eyepatch no one but him seems to notice. She is in fact a ghost of a girl that died in 1972 and still haunts the school and the rest of the town that hides dark secrets.

Vampire Knight | ヴァンパイア騎士〈ナイト〉(2008)

This gothic vampire anime is also based on a manga by the same name. It follows Yuuki Cross that guards the secret of Cross Academy: Vampires exists. She and the other member of the disciplinary committee, Zero, has to keep the students at the night class apart from the day class as well as she is struggling to uncover her memories of her past.

Vampire Knight is one of those Japanese horror anime series that leans more towards romance than straight up romance, although a bloody one.

Mononoke | モノノ怪 (2005)

This anime horror story is a sequel to the Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror anthology series, were we meet Kusuriuri in the Bakano episode. He is a traveller called The Medicine Seller, a master of the occult in search of evil spirits called Mononoke to kill. But one day he encounters a spirit he cannot kill. His journey to find a way to defeat the monster, he meets Shino, a pregnant woman in an inn. There she encounters the Zashiki Warashi, the monster he is hunting down. And so the hunt begins.

Death Note | デスノート(2006)

Death Note has been adapted to what it can, be it movies, live action, musicals etc. The popularity of the manga and anime reached a global scale and is often the entrance for foreigners into the Japanese Anime medium.

The story follows the high school student, Light Yagami from the day he finds a notebook on the ground. It is a Death Note belonging to a shinigami, a god of death. Following the instructions given by the book, he figures out how he can use it to his advantage to kill any person he wants. The board shinigami that dropped it into the human realm, Ryuk wants to see what will happen and is intrigued to follow Lights quest to take over the world and rid it from what he deems evil, although well on his way to become the thing himself.

This Japanese horror anime series, although peppered with gothic and horror elements, it is more classified as a cat and mouse mystery, as the main plot follows the police force tasked to arrest Kira, Lights name he gives himself as the world ruler.

Blood + | ブラッドプラス (2005)

This is one of those vampire series that walk the fine line of them being a sort of human or straight up monster. And two identical twins from the same mother grows up very different and gives very different answers.

The main protagonist of this Japanese horror anime series is Saya Otonashi, a seemingly ordinary girl living a mundane life with her adoptive family in Okinawa City. Except the fact that she suffers from both anemia as well as amnesia. But she is unable to escape her past and have to run away when monsters starts attacking her friends and family. Together with the organization known as Red Shield, she has to find a way to eradicate the monsters, even if it means her own blood.

Elfen Lied | エルフェンリート (2004)

Elfen Lied is based on Lynn Okamoto’s seinen manga series of the same name and premiered while the manga was still in publication in 2004. It is especially remembered for the artistic opening inspired by Gustav Klimt’s paintings.

The Japanese horror anime series starts with Lucy, a special breed of human referred to as “Diclonius,” born with a short pair of horns and invisible telekinetic hands that lands her as a victim of inhumane scientific experimentation by the government. It begins with her escape away from the facility she has been imprisoned in. During her breakout she suffers an injury to her head, rendering her seemingly innocent and with no idea of her bloody and murderous past.

Two college students takes her in, unaware of her past. But as time passes, they realize she is not as innocent as she presented herself to be.

Black Butler | 黒執事 (2008)

This Japanese horror anime series places itself in Victorian England to borrow some of its gothic elements perfect for a horror series. In Victorian England, the young Ciel Phantomhive is known as “the Queen’s Guard Dog,”. He works for her Majesty of taking care of the many unsettling events that occur in Victorian England. By his side he is accompanied by his always loyal butler, Sebastian Michaelis. Although young, Ciel’s past is riddled in darkness and secret tragedy. During the darkest of times he made a soul exchange with a demon for powers, that demon being his butler.

Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu/Parasyte -the maxim- | 寄生獣 セイの格率 (2015)

This story is about how alien parasites came to earth and quickly infiltrated humanity by burrowing into the brains of vulnerable targets. 16 year old high school student Shinichi Izumi is infected by these parasites, but it fails to take over his brain, ending up in his right hand instead. Unable to relocate, the parasite, now named Migi, has no choice but to rely on Shinichi in order to stay alive.

This is one of the weirder Japanese horror anime series, even for being anime. The Chinese Ministry of Culture blacklisted Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu as well as 37 other works on June 9, 2015.

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