The 1990s were one of the most important decades anime has ever had. It was the era when hand painted cel animation reached an incredible level of polish, when experimental directors pushed television anime into stranger territory, and when Japanese animation began breaking into the global mainstream on a scale that would permanently change the medium. This was the decade of psychological science fiction, stylish space westerns, brutal dark fantasy, magical girls, street racing, martial arts tournaments, cyberpunk philosophy, and some of the most ambitious animated films ever produced. A huge percentage of what modern anime fans take for granted was either invented, refined, or popularized during these ten years. For this ranking, we're sticking to anime that debuted between 1990 and 1999 . That means a few series strongly associated with the decade, such as Dragon Ball Z and Legend of the Galactic Heroes , are excluded because they technically began in the 1980s. These are the 25 best anime of the 1990s . 25. Golden Boy Few anime capture the reckless comedy of the VHS era quite like Golden Boy . The six episode 1995 OVA follows Kintaro Oe, a wandering twenty five year old who travels Japan taking temporary jobs, studying everything he can, and repeatedly getting himself into situations that make him look much stupider than he actually is. It is extremely raunchy, extremely exaggerated, and absolutely a product of its time. But underneath the comedy is a surprisingly likable protagonist who genuinely wants to learn from everyone he meets. The animation is expressive, the pacing is fast, and the English dub became legendary in its own right. Golden Boy is not subtle, but subtlety was never the point. 24. Now and Then, Here and There Do not let the early episodes fool you. Now and Then, Here and There begins with the setup of a strange adventure anime and gradually becomes one of the bleakest anti war stories the medium has produced. After being transported to a dying world ruled by a brutal military dictatorship, an optimistic boy named Shu is confronted with violence, exploitation, child soldiers, and the consequences of unchecked power. What makes the series memorable is the contrast between Shu's almost impossible optimism and the cruelty surrounding him. It is emotionally exhausting, but its willingness to take its themes seriously has helped it remain one of the most respected late 90s anime. 23. Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team The 08th MS Team takes the enormous scale of Gundam and brings it down to ground level. Instead of legendary Newtypes and giant political figures, this OVA focuses on ordinary soldiers fighting a dirty land war in Southeast Asia during the One Year War. Mobile suits feel like military machines rather than superhero robots, and battles are often decided by terrain, positioning, mechanical limitations, and human mistakes. The central romance between Shiro Amada and Aina Sahalin adds a classic enemies across the battlefield element, but the real appeal is seeing the Gundam universe from the perspective of people who are nowhere near the top of the command structure. 22. Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water Before Neon Genesis Evangelion , Hideaki Anno directed one of the most ambitious adventure anime of the early 1990s. Inspired by the works of Jules Verne, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water follows young inventor Jean and mysterious circus performer Nadia as they become tangled in a globe spanning conflict involving Captain Nemo, the Nautilus, ancient technology, and the sinister Neo Atlantean forces. The series can be uneven, particularly during its infamous island stretch, but at its best it is magnificent. You can already see ideas here that Anno would later revisit in Evangelion : ancient civilizations, catastrophic technology, uneasy relationships, and humanity's tendency to repeat its worst mistakes. 21. Hunter x Hunter The 1999 adaptation of Hunter x Hunter has been overshadowed by the excellent 2011 remake, but the original series still deserves attention. Its darker color palette, moodier direction, and slower pacing give early Hunter x Hunter a distinct identity. Gon, Killua, Kurapika, and Leorio immediately formed one of shonen anime's great core groups, while the Hunter Exam showed how quickly Yoshihiro Togashi could move from playful adventure to genuine danger. The 2011 version may be the easiest recommendation today, but the 1999 anime has an atmosphere that remains uniquely its own. 20. Outlaw Star The late 1990s were unusually good to space anime, and Outlaw Star is one of the era's most entertaining examples. Gene Starwind and Jim Hawking stumble into possession of an advanced spacecraft and end up chasing the legendary Galactic Leyline alongside assassin Twilight Suzuka, alien warrior Aisha Clan Clan, and bio android Melfina. It mixes science fiction, westerns, magic, pirates, assassins, comedy, and gunfights without worrying too much about whether those ingredients should logically fit together. Somehow, they do. Outlaw Star is pure late 90s anime cool. 19. Macross Plus Macross Plus is what happens when elite animation talent, transforming fighter jets, virtual idols, and one of anime's greatest composers collide. The story follows former friends Isamu Dyson and Guld Goa Bowman as they become rival test pilots competing to prove the superiority of two experimental variable fighters. Their rivalry is complicated by the return of Myung Fang Lone and the rise of the artificial idol Sharon Apple. The aerial sequences remain breathtaking decades later. The combination of hand drawn mechanical animation and early computer imagery gives Macross Plus a visual identity that modern productions still struggle to replicate. 18. Initial D First Stage A teenager delivering tofu in an old Toyota should not have become one of anime's coolest protagonists. And yet here we are. Initial D transformed mountain pass street racing into a battle anime. Takumi Fujiwara's seemingly ordinary AE86 becomes a weapon in a series of downhill races built around technique, nerve, weight transfer, tire management, and absurdly dramatic Eurobeat. The early CG cars have aged in a way that is both charming and slightly terrifying, but the racing itself still works. Few anime have ever captured the feeling of speed so effectively. It also ensured that an entire generation would never hear "Running in the 90s" normally again. 17. Great Teacher Onizuka Eikichi Onizuka is a former biker gang member, shameless pervert, terrible role model, and somehow one of anime's most memorable teachers. Great Teacher Onizuka works because Onizuka succeeds where more respectable adults fail. He refuses to treat troubled students as problems to be managed. Instead, he gets involved in their lives, exposes hypocrisy, humiliates bullies, breaks rules, and occasionally commits acts that would get any real teacher fired within minutes. Underneath the outrageous comedy is a surprisingly sincere series about loneliness, school pressure, abusive authority, and the importance of having an adult who actually gives a damn. 16. The Vision of Escaflowne Before isekai became one of anime's dominant genres, The Vision of Escaflowne showed how ambitious a transported to another world story could be. Hitomi Kanzaki is pulled into the world of Gaea, where kingdoms wage war using enormous armored Guymelefs. She becomes involved with Prince Van Fanel, the knight Allen Schezar, and a conflict driven by the Zaibach Empire. The series combines fantasy, romance, mecha, astrology, war drama, and adventure with an unforgettable Yoko Kanno score. There is a sweeping romantic grandeur to Escaflowne that still makes it feel special. 15. Cardcaptor Sakura Cardcaptor Sakura represents magical girl anime operating near the absolute peak of the genre. Sakura Kinomoto accidentally releases a collection of magical Clow Cards and must capture them with the help of guardian creature Kerberos. The basic setup is simple, but the series succeeds because of its warmth, character relationships, imaginative card encounters, and gorgeous costume design. Sakura is one of anime's most immediately lovable protagonists, and the show treats its characters with unusual emotional generosity. More than twenty five years later, it remains one of the easiest classic anime to recommend. 14. Ninja Scroll If someone discovered anime through a video store shelf in the 1990s, there is a very good chance Ninja Scroll was involved. Yoshiaki Kawajiri's 1993 film follows wandering swordsman Jubei Kibagami as he battles the supernatural Devils of Kimon. The movie is violent, stylish, grotesque, beautifully animated, and almost aggressively cool. Its influence on the Western perception of anime is difficult to overstate. For many viewers, Ninja Scroll was proof that animation could deliver action with an intensity completely different from mainstream American cartoons. It remains one of the defining action anime films of the decade. 13. Rurouni Kenshin Rurouni Kenshin turned the aftermath of the Meiji Restoration into the setting for one of the 1990s' most iconic action series. Kenshin Himura was once the feared assassin Hitokiri Battosai. Now he wanders Japan carrying a reverse blade sword and refusing to kill, attempting to atone for the lives he took during the revolution. The series balances comedy, romance, historical drama, and sword fights, but its greatest stretch is the Kyoto arc, where Kenshin's ideals are pushed to their breaking point against Makoto Shishio. Even decades later, Kenshin's vow never to kill remains one of anime's most compelling restrictions placed on an action hero. 12. Sailor Moon Few anime changed the global reach of the medium more than Sailor Moon . Usagi Tsukino begins as a clumsy schoolgirl and gradually becomes the leader of the Sailor Guardians, defending Earth through a combination of magical transformations, friendship, romance, and increasingly cosmic battles. The formula inspired countless imitators, but Sailor Moon endured because its characters were allowed to be funny, flawed, emotional, and heroic at the same time. Its influence can be seen everywhere from later magical girl anime to Western animation, fashion, cosplay, and internet culture. 11. Slam Dunk Modern sports anime owe an enormous debt to Slam Dunk . Hanamichi Sakuragi joins his high school basketball team primarily because he wants to impress a girl. Unfortunately for him, he soon discovers that basketball is hard, teammates are annoying, and actual talent requires work. What follows is one of anime's great sports character arcs. Slam Dunk is funny, competitive, surprisingly grounded, and extremely good at making incremental improvement feel exciting. Sakuragi does not instantly become a genius. He learns rebounds, positioning, fundamentals, and discipline one painful step at a time. The series also played a major role in popularizing basketball with Japanese audiences. 10. Trigun Vash the Stampede has a sixty billion double dollar bounty on his head, entire towns panic when they hear his name, and he would really prefer if everyone simply stopped shooting at each other. That contradiction is the heart of Trigun . What initially looks like a goofy science fiction western slowly reveals a story about pacifism, trauma, guilt, and whether refusing to kill is still moral when doing so may put others in danger. Vash is funny because he wants people to underestimate him. He is tragic because the audience eventually realizes how much effort it takes for him to keep smiling. 9. Serial Experiments Lain Present day. Present time. Serial Experiments Lain felt strange in 1998. It feels prophetic now. After a classmate dies, quiet teenager Lain Iwakura becomes increasingly connected to the Wired, a global communications network that begins dissolving the boundaries between physical reality, digital identity, memory, and consciousness. It is intentionally confusing, deeply atmospheric, and uninterested in explaining everything cleanly. Questions that once sounded like abstract cyberpunk philosophy now feel disturbingly familiar. How much of a person exists online? Can a digital identity become more important than a physical one? What happens when reality itself is mediated through networks? Lain did not predict the internet exactly. It understood what the internet might do to us. 8. Revolutionary Girl Utena Revolutionary Girl Utena begins with fairy tale imagery and school duels before gradually revealing itself as something much stranger. Utena Tenjou wants to become a prince. At Ohtori Academy, she is drawn into ritualized sword duels over Anthy Himemiya, the mysterious "Rose Bride." Director Kunihiko Ikuhara uses repetition, symbolism, architecture, theater, surreal comedy, and deliberately artificial staging to examine gender roles, abuse, power, identity, and the stories people construct to survive. Few anime reward rewatching as much as Utena . Scenes that initially seem nonsensical become devastating once their meaning clicks into place. 7. Yu Yu Hakusho For pure 1990s battle shonen, it is difficult to beat Yu Yu Hakusho . Yusuke Urameshi begins the series by dying while saving a child, an act so unexpectedly selfless that the afterlife does not quite know what to do with him. After returning to life, he becomes a Spirit Detective and is gradually pulled into battles involving demons, tournaments, rival fighters, and the politics of the Demon World. The Dark Tournament remains one of the greatest tournament arcs in anime history. More importantly, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei, and Kurama form one of the strongest main casts the genre has ever produced. There is a toughness to Yu Yu Hakusho , but there is also enormous heart. 6. Ghost in the Shell Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell is one of the foundational works of cyberpunk anime. Major Motoko Kusanagi investigates a mysterious hacker known as the Puppet Master in a future where cybernetic bodies, networked brains, and artificial intelligence have blurred the definition of what it means to be human. The movie is famous for its action scenes, but the quiet moments are just as important. Long shots of the city, reflections in glass, artificial bodies being assembled, and characters simply thinking give the film a meditative weight. Its questions about identity, consciousness, surveillance, and artificial life have only become more relevant with time. 5. Perfect Blue Satoshi Kon announced himself to the world with one of the most unsettling psychological thrillers ever animated. Mima Kirigoe leaves her pop idol group to pursue acting, only to find her identity beginning to fracture under the pressure of celebrity, obsessive fandom, performance, and an increasingly terrifying inability to distinguish reality from illusion. Perfect Blue constantly manipulates the audience's sense of what is real. Scenes begin as memories, performances, dreams, or hallucinations without warning. The result is a film that feels unstable in exactly the same way its protagonist does. It is disturbing, brilliant, and still astonishingly modern. 4. Berserk The 1997 adaptation of Berserk is incomplete, visually limited in places, and ends at one of the most brutal stopping points imaginable. It is also unforgettable. Guts is a wandering mercenary who joins the Band of the Hawk after being defeated by its charismatic leader, Griffith. What begins as a medieval war story gradually becomes an intimate tragedy about ambition, friendship, destiny, jealousy, sacrifice, and the terrible price of chasing a dream. The Golden Age arc works because the supernatural elements remain mostly distant for so long. By the time the horror finally arrives, the audience has spent dozens of episodes becoming attached to these people. And then everything changes. 3. Princess Mononoke Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke may be the greatest environmental fantasy film ever made. Ashitaka becomes cursed after killing a corrupted boar god and travels west searching for a cure. He finds himself caught between Iron Town, led by the formidable Lady Eboshi, and the gods and animals of the surrounding forest, including San, the human girl raised by wolves. The brilliance of the movie is that there is no simple villain. Eboshi destroys the forest, but she also provides work and dignity to people society has discarded. The forest gods are majestic, but nature is not presented as gentle or harmless. Everyone has understandable reasons for what they do. That moral complexity turns a fantasy adventure into something much larger. 2. Neon Genesis Evangelion There is anime before Evangelion , and anime after Evangelion . Shinji Ikari is summoned to Tokyo 3 by his estranged father and ordered to pilot Evangelion Unit 01 against mysterious beings called Angels. The setup sounds like a conventional mecha story. It does not remain one for long. Director Hideaki Anno gradually strips away the heroic machinery surrounding the genre and focuses instead on depression, isolation, self worth, fear of intimacy, parental neglect, and the painful difficulty of connecting with other people. Its production troubles are legendary. Its symbolism has inspired decades of arguments. Its ending remains controversial. None of that reduced its impact. Neon Genesis Evangelion permanently changed television anime. 1. Cowboy Bebop If one anime represents everything great about the 1990s, it is Cowboy Bebop . Spike Spiegel, Jet Black, Faye Valentine, Edward, and Ein drift through the solar system aboard the Bebop, chasing criminals and barely earning enough money to eat. Each episode can become a western, noir film, horror story, comedy, martial arts movie, or melancholy character drama. The episodic format makes the series look casual. It is anything but. Every member of the crew is running from something. Spike cannot let go of his past. Jet carries old betrayals. Faye has lost hers entirely. Even when the characters sit together at the same table, they remain isolated in ways they do not fully know how to fix. Then there is the presentation. Shinichiro Watanabe's direction, Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts' music, Toshihiro Kawamoto's character designs, the fluid action, the atmosphere, and the confidence of the storytelling are all extraordinary. Cowboy Bebop is cool without trying too hard to be cool, sad without becoming melodramatic, and stylish without letting style replace substance. More than twenty five years later, it still feels timeless. The 1990s Were Anime's Perfect Storm Any list like this could easily stretch to fifty titles. The 1990s gave us landmark television series, OVAs made with extraordinary levels of craftsmanship, theatrical films that expanded what audiences thought animation could accomplish, and genre defining works that continue influencing creators today. It was also the last great decade in which cel animation dominated the medium. That alone gives 90s anime a visual texture that modern digital productions can imitate but never perfectly reproduce. Painted backgrounds, film grain, hand drawn mechanical detail, heavy shadows, and imperfect linework created an atmosphere that now feels inseparable from the era. More importantly, the decade was fearless. Anime could be commercial, weird, philosophical, violent, romantic, hilarious, experimental, and deeply personal—sometimes all in the same show. That is why people are still discovering 90s anime today. The classics did not survive because of nostalgia. They survived because they were that good.