The Best Anime of Summer 2025

The summer of 2025 has been one of the strongest anime seasons in recent memory. Perhaps that's hyperbolic, but even if you didn't love everything that came out, it's still hard to deny that there was a surfeit of delights for viewers to sample. Our editorial team weighs in with our favorite series from this packed season.

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10. Turkey!-Time to Strike-

By all accounts, this is a show that absolutely should not work. The idea of taking what is seemingly a straightforward moe sports girl anime only to turn it into a time travel story about plopping them in Sengoku era Japan seems like it would be suitable for a cheap opening twist, but one that would inevitably collapse under the weight under the weight of its own silliness as it's forced to keep coming up with even bigger swerves as it struggles to keep outdoing itself. If anything, it would have been even easier to imagine this scenario not working at all, and yet somehow, it avoided that fate. Instead, it turned out pretty good. Not just good, in fact, but genuinely one of the most underrated shows of the season. How can this be?

For one thing, it's surprisingly sincere. While it would have been pretty easy to take its premise and focus on being as comedic and over the top as possible, it actually takes the time to wrestle with it to deliver a far more dramatic story than its gimmick implies. It delves into the personal backstories and struggles of each of the main girls, whether it's Sayuri dealing with her general lack of confidence or Mai's cheery attitude masking how much she's wrestling with the PTSD of losing her parents in an accident. All of it is given the room it needs to breathe and brings the girls to life as three-dimensional characters. Their personal experiences also contrast nicely with the Tokura siblings, who have to deal with all the hardships of the era they live in, such as putting up with political marriages or killing to keep invaders out of their lands. The show does a good job of conveying the culture clash between their differing values without trivializing either one. It's surprisingly thoughtful, and all these elements end up coming together to forge a story that feels a lot more compelling than its silly setup would imply.

Make no mistake: this show is also very silly, and the fact that it knows it is a huge part of its charm. You'd expect the bowling-related parts of this show to have been ditched the second it showed its hand with the time travel twist, but it gets quite a bit of mileage out of it. From tossing bowling balls at soldiers as a distraction to ridiculously high-stakes bowling games, this series never stops finding new ways to incorporate its sport of choice into all of its melodrama, and the results are often as hilarious as they are clever. Turkey! maintains a delicate balancing act between being incredibly heartfelt and extremely goofy, and the fact that it's managed to do so without imploding has made this show the biggest dark horse of the season, and one that deserves a lot more appreciation.

—Jairus Taylor

9. Takopi's Original Sin

A lot of people look at anime as a form of escapism, but what happens when a show goes out of its way to almost be anti-escapism? That seems to be the ethos of Takopi's Original Sin. This show feels like a dark reimagining of a lot of those mascot-focused, happy-go-lucky shows that are still popular today. What happens if a little alien mascot came down to make children happy, but the problems that the children were going through were painfully realistic? What if that little mascot had a bunch of cool and wacky gadgets that were ultimately powerless in the face of those circumstances? This is not a show that is for the faint of heart, as it deals with weighty and shocking issues in its limited six-episode run. Within the first ten minutes of episode one alone, you will see child abuse, intense bullying, and suicide. You could very much be choked up in your seat at the sight of a little girl being driven to do something horrible.

There were various moments throughout the show that I felt disgusted by. The narrative was engaging, but the subject matter was also painfully realistic and almost cruel in its framing. Even when the show introduces ideas like time travel, instead of using it as an easy fix, it felt like an excuse to replay traumatic scenarios over and over again. This is the type of show that you need to be in a specific mood to sit down and watch. But even then, I don't think you can enjoy it in the traditional sense.

Most, if not every, topic out there has the right to be explored artistically. I don't think shows should shy away from telling stories that deal with abused children or suicide as long as they're actually doing something with that story. Takopi's Original Sin is a show that is trying to do more than shock the audience. It gets you invested in the realistic plight of its main characters through the naïve perspective of a mascot cartoon character, who is too innocent to even understand all the tragedies that are taking place right in front of their eyes. You get invested because you want one of those gadgets to work, you want the perfect circumstance to come out of nowhere to fix everybody's problem, even if you know that's not how the real world works. Sometimes the answer is a lot simpler, but there's beauty in that simplicity. Just like how the show flips your typical cartoon setup on its head, I, as an audience member, felt compelled to wish for one of those fix-it-all solutions to finally work. Any show that can get me invested enough to sit through those tragedies to get to that happy ending eventually is a recommendation in my book.

—Bolts

8. Anne Shirley

Shirley (get it), the second half of this anime affirms that Anne will be ranked among the best anime of 2025. Now having gone well beyond just about every other adaptation of the Anne novels (per our resident Annexpert, Rebecca Silverman, the sole exception is the 1987 series: Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel) the second half of Anne Shirley focuses on her young adulthood—teaching, going to college, learning about herself, navigating romance, and other bells, whistles, and china dogs that come with growing up. Indeed, it's not quite the low-stakes anime about a little ginger girl and her friends getting into mischief anymore. But what's left in its place feels like a natural progression from that. And especially for someone like me who's totally unfamiliar with the later Anne novels, it's been really cool seeing where Anne's story leads, and the type of adult that headstrong child who once hit Gilbert Blythe on the head with a chalkboard became.

So yes, especially compared to its predecessor, there's a lot more moving parts in this half of Anne Shirley. By extension of that, even if you haven't read any of the Anne books whatsoever (let alone anything post-Green Gables), the fact that there's just more going on makes it all the more obvious than ever that a lot of material from the source has been cut for the sake of time. Even so, it never loses sight of what makes Anne, well, Anne. And I mean that both in terms of the character Anne Shirley, but also the show overall.

Even though Anne herself is older, she still has the wit, whimsy, and imagination that are a big part of what made her so lovable in the first place. She still feels like her—just a more mature version, at least most of the time (she still has a bit of a childish side to herself at times). Her world is changing, and she's changing with it, but never in a way that feels antithetical or like a betrayal of anything that was established in the first half. The fact that the show can do this and maintain its trademark levels of charm, even during its bigger and more dramatic moments, speaks to just how much it's mastered the art of vibe curation.

And speaking of this show's vibes, they're still as immaculate as ever. Even when Anne is outside of idyllic and familiar Avonlea, there's still a peaceful air to her world that makes this show so comfortable to watch. And especially in times as stressful as the ones we're living in now, it can't be overstated how valuable that is.

—Kennedy

7. Call of the Night Season 2

Call of the Night's second season is even better than its first. If, for some reason, you're yet to sample the iron-replete lifeblood of this hypnotic, emotionally intelligent vampire slice-of-life/drama, then right now, with the recent conclusion of the second season, is very much an excellent time to do so. It's one of those shows where every aspect of the production complements the whole.

The marvellous, neon-tinged visuals significantly elevate mangaka Kotoyama's already compelling story. The yellow and purple-drenched cityscapes glow with life, their ardent hues alluring enough to tempt even those most diurnal of early birds to a nocturnal lifestyle. Director Tomoyuki Itamura draws on his time directing Monogatari to bring a sense of almost effortlessly cool style, complete with Shaft-esque head tilts, creative framing, and unusual camera angles. Synergistically enhancing the visuals, Creepy Nuts' musical contributions are once again a central aspect of the show's appeal, with an excellent flamenco-influenced new opener and an evocative closer. Some of their memorable first-season songs receive welcome reprises, too.

It's not hard to empathise with protagonist Ko Yamori, a 14-year-old middle school misfit whose persistent truancy leads to him meeting mysterious, mischievous vampire Nazuna Nanakusa, becoming enamoured with her and the freedom she represents. Most of the first season followed their relatively low-stakes adventures, becoming more serious only towards the end with the introduction of vampire-hunting private detective Anko.

The second season continues with a focus on Anko and her previous relationship with Nazuna. The vampires in this show don't know much about themselves, and Anko uses this to capitalise on their weaknesses. Nazuna herself may be the most mysterious vampire of them all, and partway through the season, we learn some startling truths about her origin, which helps explain how certain other vampires relate to her.

Anko is a fascinating, multifaceted character who evolves into much more than a simple antagonist. Through her, the show explores deeper themes like betrayal, rejection, grief, regret, and even suicidal depression. Other characters like Kabura also reveal previously hidden depths, and the nuanced examination of her and Anko's pasts really elevates the storytelling past what might be expected for what initially seemed like a show about a teenager and a vampire goofing off at night.

A late-season action scene reminiscent of the climax of the Kizumonogatari anime movie trilogy really lets the animators flex their muscles, and it's incredible. Generally, though, the show is strongest in its quiet moments of character reflection, where sometimes painful truths are laid bare. While wrapping up most of the season's plot points, the final episode lays threads for a future season to follow up. As we're only halfway through the manga at this point, I'm desperately hoping for a third and even fourth season to fully adapt Nazuna and Ko's nighttime escapades.

—Kevin Cormack

6. To Be Hero X

I was surprised to learn that this gorgeous series is part of a franchise that started with a wacky Super Mario spoof, To Be Hero. 2016's To Be Hero, as wacky as it looked and felt, told a heartwarming story of parenthood with a bittersweet/sad plot twist. To Be Hero X, however, aimed far and reached even farther beyond.

Quoting Richard's intro from his amazing timeline article, the story of To Be Hero X is a massive chronicle taking place over the course of 41 years. The first season tells stories of many characters that will duke it out in season 2's tournament arc. Storytelling quality might feel uneven at times, but the action spectacle more than makes up for it. You have to see it for yourself to believe it, but To Be Hero X is one of the most stylish animated superhero flicks of all time. The only downside is the frequent jumping back and forth in time, which can be hard to follow without taking notes (I didn't).

My favorite arcs are Lin Ling's, Ahu's, and X's. Lin Ling's arc as the opening for the series did an amazing job of hooking me. Ahu's arc tells the importance of believing in yourself, that even a dog can beat Nice, the perfect hero(poor Nice). X has been a mystery throughout the season, and the last episode did well to showcase who he is and his power. Although what he is remains a mystery. X's power is the flashiest and the most stylish of the series. Casually moving between dimensions with contrasting visual styles, dominating his opponents with snappy, stylish, simple moves.

Between Lin Ling's and Ahu's arc, we got E-Soul, Lucky Cyan, Queen, Loli, Ghostblade, Johnnies, and Dragon Boy. E-Soul's and Cyan's arcs are the weakest to me, as I don't enjoy teenage love stories and music that much. Still, every single one of them is a visual treat. And I couldn't complain more.

The superhero genre is getting increasingly stale nowadays, but To Be Hero X managed to keep itself fresh throughout the whole first season. I hope the production team will double down on the series's strength and deliver a bombastic second season—just stop jumping back and forth in time so much.

—Gunawan

5. My Dress-Up Darling

With the second season of My Dress-Up Darling, I'm spoiled for choice when it comes to what I want to highlight. Let's start on the technical level. If the first season was an exercise in how to adapt—not merely copy and paste—a manga onto the screen, then the second season is a tour de force of creativity. Every episode has a standout scene, whether it's a meticulously expressive display of animated body language, a puppet show interlude, or a fake indie horror visual novel brought to life one beautiful pixel at a time. Seriously, I want to play Coffin. Somebody please make the yuri nun cannibalism game real.

Anyway, my point is that this is one of the smartest and most fun manga adaptations I've seen in a good while. It's as if director Keisuke Shinohara let the folks at the post-Bocchi CloverWorks studio run wild, and the results blow nearly every other summer anime out of the water. It gets extra credit for an all-timer OP and ED combo, too. The opening is an in-your-face barrage of pop rock whose energy Yūki Yonemori matches with infectious aplomb. With the ending, indie animator VIVINOS crafts my favorite celebration of gyaru aesthetics since Gal & Dino's OP.

That said, a good-looking anime is merely part of the equation. My Dress-Up Darling also excels where it matters the most: characters and themes. Marin and Gojo retain their crown as one of the best couples in the romantic comedy space, with Marin's effervescence and Gojo's earnestness bouncing and resonating off each other in a kaleidoscopic fashion. While the romance isn't the main draw of the series, the will-they-won't-they element pops up in some very amusing and gently perverted scenes. I also love all of the new characters. Of particular note is Amane, a sociable crossplayer who quickly befriends our leads, and Akira, a reserved propmaker who has some unresolved beef with Marin. Both of them introduce new facets and friction into the narrative, and they help the second season feel like a natural evolution of the first.

The core of My Dress-Up Darling, however, remains the same. Fundamentally, this is a story about following your passions and loving yourself for who you are. Specifically, it's about the anime, manga, and cosplay scene as a wonderful facilitator of this. I'm writing for an anime website, so of course I'm biased, but I honestly believe we have something special here, and My Dress-Up Darling champions the best of it. The second season consistently advocates for inclusion and kindness. It has a running theme of crossdressing and gender nonconformity in general. And, most overtly, it views fandom as a catalyst for creativity, not as a conglomeration of signifiers to be regurgitated. Cosplay is an art actively in conversation with other art, and no matter how we prefer to interact with our passions, that's an attitude we should aspire to.

—Steve Jones

4. CITY The Animation

The art of animation is, fundamentally, about tricking the eye and mind of the viewer into thinking that they are beholding life. Whether we're talking about a simple flip-book scribbled into the corners of a bored teenager's math notebook or a massive computer-generated undertaking that comes at the cost of millions of dollars and thousands of hours of human labor, the essential magic of animation remains unchanging: If you take a series of still images that have been crafted with enough skill and care, and then you move them really fast in front of someone's face, you can transport that viewer into a world that is just as real and just as full of life, as anything they could see and touch in reality.

There are not many studios in the industry that understand and wield this fundamental magic of the medium better than Kyoto Animation, and CITY The Animation stands as proof of their mastery of the craft. An adaptation of the spiritual successor to their beloved adaptation of Nichijou, CITY The Animation sees Kyoto Animation return to another surreal world of Keiichi Arawi's, which another cast of wacky and loveable weirdos has populated. Everything people loved about Nichijou is present and accounted for in CITY The Animation, with the added bonus of the artists at Kyoto Animation being determined to outdo their own masterwork and deliver some of the most gorgeous and ludicrously polished animation ever produced for a television series.

That may sound hyperbolic, but I challenge anyone to watch Episode 5 of CITY without dropping their jaws in amazement. With its madcap amalgamation of several ridiculous adventures playing out simultaneously across several split screens, only for everything to tie up together perfectly by the time the credits roll, this one episode alone makes the case for CITY to be preserved in a museum. The fact that every other episode has at least a sequence or two that is nearly as impressive is just insane. CITY The Animation may not be the funniest comedy of all time, nor does it tell the deepest stories you've ever seen, but the amount of pure creative joy—pure life—that bursts from every seam of this series is second to none.

—James Beckett

3. DAN DA DAN

This has been a pretty definitively strong season for anime, and I think a large part of what's gotten it up there is the sheer spread of genres getting quality representation. You want raunchy comedy? New PANTY & STOCKING with GARTERBELT has Trigger showing how they've only gotten better than that in the last fifteen years. Horror? The Summer Hikaru Died is killing it right before the month of Halloween. Call of the Night and My Dress-Up Darling are both delivering romance by delirious degrees. There are multiple good yuri shows! And if you're looking for a shonen action series that shows all the others how it's done? You do DAN DA DAN.

It honestly feels like a miracle that DAN DA DAN as an anime exists in the form that it does. The manga was already atypical even by the standards of modern battle shonen, being as focused on its earnestly delightful romance and indulgently goofy asides as it was in its cast of oddball teenagers turning on their supernatural powers to smackdown aliens and kaiju and whatnot.

That's all the material that can and has been flattened in other adaptations. With that in mind, I'm so grateful that Yukinobu Tatsu's story found its perfect adaptational partner in Science SARU. Similarly, I'm overjoyed that the idiosyncratic style of that studio, under the promoted directorial hand of Abel Góngora for this second season, has been allowed to be every bit as expressive as they want.

I bounced right off of other shonen adaptations this season, while DAN DA DAN gave me a refuge in scenes like a psychic-powered gyaru hoisting the corpse of a Mongolian Death Worm and running screaming to repurpose it as a gigantic macabre fire hose. This show took most of an episode, initially framed as a training arc, and instead hurled a couple of characters into a symphonic sidebar battling a bunch of spooky Classical (and Romantic!) composers, where the action just kinda cut loose in a flurry of dense visual music puns. The series baited me with what seemed like it was going to be an episode-long Epic Rematch of cool but clear-cut combat between Okarun and Evil Eye, then had the nerdy hero finesse the purple people-hater into a pugilistic playdate scenario to placate him. Each episode of this anime blows by, a color-coded cacophony of delights and musicality that I'm having fun watching, rather than feeling like I'm just incrementally moving through fight-based progress markers.

It's not that DAN DA DAN is irreverent. It has plenty it cares about, but that plenty is the simple, important connections we form between each other. Those bonds are carried through to delight in shared experiences like exploring the occult, or listening to amazing power metal ballads, or nerding out over making your own mecha. All the superpowers and references are brought to life by a crew of artists who love this material as much as they love the weird kids acting them out. It's one of the most entertaining anime in a packed season in its own right. And compared to its concurrent shonen brethren?

Nobody's doing it like DAN DA DAN.

—Christopher Farris

2. New PANTY & STOCKING with GARTERBELT

The fact that this show exists is a miracle. The first season was produced by Gainax way back in 2010. Shortly after, many of those who worked on the show left the company to form Studio Trigger. This, plus the mismanagement at Gainax over the following decade, made a second season seem ever more like an impossibility–something doubly tragic as the first season ended on a cliffhanger. Yet, here we are 15 years later. Studio Trigger has retained the rights, and many of the original staff members are back to deliver the fabled second season.

Now, does it live up to the hype? In a word, yes. Not only does it manage to successfully resolve its cliffhanger in a way that's both satisfying and hilarious (and within a single episode to boot), it returns to the status quo with an extended cast that is utilized perfectly.

Of course, the word “status quo” does a lot of heavy lifting in the case of Panty & Stocking. After all, this is a show where one episode is a parody of Yu-Gi-Oh!, another reimagines Dom and the rest of the Fast and the Furious crew as sperm trying to impregnate Panty, and yet another is a cussword-strewn homage to musicals. Yet, all of these perfectly fit the world and tone of the series. With each episode, you never know what you're going to get–and that's half the fun.

As you probably guessed from the previous paragraph, the humor is “adult” to say the least. Often sexual and always crude, the show is a non-stop laugh riot. The juxtaposition of perverted visual gags and an art style reminiscent of something aimed at children only amplifies the humor. Now, that's not to say every joke or vignette in the series is going to make you laugh. However, Panty & Stocking takes the shotgun approach to humor–there are so many jokes of so many types that some are bound to hit.

Yet, while the humor alone could easily carry the show, the visuals cannot be overlooked. Be it the hyper-sexualized transformation sequences (where the girls and guys put on their best strip shows) or the crazily entertaining and well-choreographed action scenes, the anime punches way above its weight class from what you'd likely expect from the art style alone.

All in all, New PANTY & STOCKING with GARTERBELT is fantastic on every level and is the gold standard for comedy anime. It knows what it wants to be and is bound and determined to be just that–no matter how many social norms it has to gleefully shatter in the process. It is, frankly, something we are unlikely to see again in our lifetime–unless, of course, we get a third season sometime in the next 15 years.

—Richard Eisenbeis

1. The Summer Hikaru Died

What a great season for queer anime! We've got explicitly queer couples and plausible subtext queer couples. There are queer romcoms, queer drama, and queer horror. That's where we find The Summer Hikaru Died: an exploration of the horrors of being gay in a small town.

When Yoshiki, a small-town teenager, realizes his best friend Hikaru died in the woods months ago and something else has been wearing his skin, he decides to continue treating this creature as his friend because a facsimile of Hikaru by his side is better than having no Hikaru at all. The situation invites multiple layers of symbolism as the pseudo-Hikaru tries to integrate into human society with mixed success and the town becomes beset with horrors. There's an ever-shifting strangeness as Yoshiki's relationship with his friend becomes irrevocably altered. Is it a story about Yoshiki realizing his feelings for Hikaru aren't platonic? Could it be about realizing your friend is changing into something different from what they used to be? Could it be about the all-consuming grief of either situation?

Manga creator Mokumokuren, who was also actively involved in the anime production, juggles all these metaphors, incorporating them in a way that feels neither obviously on-the-nose nor muddled. However you interpret it, though, there's distinctly queer overtones to the imagery surrounding Hikaru and Yoshiki: Hikaru opening his shirt for Yoshiki to feel his eldritch innards, the well-meaning townsfolk telling Yoshiki not to get too close to “that” world lest it change him, Hikaru breaking off a literal piece of himself to make himself less powerful and dangerous to the town's status quo, and countless other scenes. The occasional shift to more literal scenes, like a flashback to Yoshiki correcting Hikaru's language around a gay teacher, reinforces these themes without ever feeling preachy.

Over time, the story starts to open up as Yoshiki and pseudo-Hikaru begin to look into the nature of their town and the ghouls that have started coming down from the mountains to haunt the small towns in the region. Focusing on the intimate horror of Yoshiki's situation before getting into the mystery plot was a clever move; with so much emphasis on the two's relationship, there's just no ignoring or denying the homoerotic subtext. It forces the audience to face the nature of the primary metaphor, rather than treating the plot like a puzzle box to be solved.

The manga, which makes heavy use of text and other qualities of the medium to create tension and atmosphere, can't have been easy to adapt. Still, the fine folks at Cygames Pictures, under the leadership of Ryohei Takeshita, did an incredible job. In a season with DAN DA DAN and CITY: the ANIMATION, The Summer Hikaru Died still manages to hold its own in the competition for best-looking show of the season. Great care was put into bringing Hikaru's eldritch nature to life, in sound design as well as animation and visual design. The deafening hum of cicadas, the harsh mountain sunlight of sweltering summer heat, the starry nights setting off fireworks with your friends… These are all hallmarks of Japanese summer, at times comfortingly mundane, only to be turned around and alarmingly defamiliarized.

In Japan, summer is the season for horror; they say that the chills down your spine is one way to beat the heat. The Summer Hikaru Died will make your blood run cold with one of the scariest things of all: being a gay teen in a small religious town.

—Caitlin Moore

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of Anime News Network, its employees, owners or sponsors.