Ranking the best anime of all time is one of the most-fought tier lists on Hot Ranking, and the reason isn't taste — it's that "anime" covers four largely separate eras with different aesthetic priorities. Whether your S tier looks like 1995 or 2023 says more about which era shaped your taste than about which shows are actually best.

Here's a quick guide to the eras and the shows that anchor each one.

Era 1: The classics (1980s–early 1990s)

The pre-digital animation era. Cel animation, theatrical scope, slower pacing. The defining works are Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli films — Nausicaä, Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away — and the cyberpunk wave: Akira, Ghost in the Shell.

For a certain kind of fan, this era is unmatched: the animation craft was higher (every frame hand-drawn), the storytelling was less serialized and more compositional, and the films held up as singular works rather than as installments of larger franchises. Spirited Away still wins "best anime ever" polls in this audience, and the case is strong.

Era 2: The late-90s/early-2000s explosion

The era when anime broke into the global mainstream. Cowboy Bebop, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Trigun, FLCL, Hunter × Hunter (1999), the original Naruto run, the original One Piece run, Fullmetal Alchemist (and later Brotherhood), Death Note.

This is the era that made anime fans out of people who hadn't been exposed before. Cowboy Bebop in particular has perhaps the deepest critical consensus of any anime — it's the show people who don't watch anime tell you to start with. Evangelion is the show people who do watch anime keep returning to. The tier list votes for this era are stable: these shows almost always appear in S or A tier on the modern aggregate.

Era 3: The 2010s — long-running shonen and breakout dramas

The era of Attack on Titan, Hunter × Hunter (2011 reboot), One Punch Man season one, Mob Psycho 100, Made in Abyss, Steins;Gate. Attack on Titan in particular dominates "best of the 2010s" tier lists — it's the show that crossed over to general audiences in the way Cowboy Bebop did fifteen years earlier.

This era's signature is plot density. The shows are willing to take their time, build mysteries across dozens of episodes, and pay them off with finales that fans plan their week around. HxH's Chimera Ant arc and Attack on Titan's final season are the cited peaks. If your ranking values plotting and emotional escalation above all, your S tier is from this era.

Era 4: The modern boom (2019 onward)

The current era, defined by streaming, MAPPA, and Ufotable's animation budgets. Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, Spy × Family, Frieren, Vinland Saga. The animation is denser than anything before — fight scenes from Demon Slayer's Mugen Train and Jujutsu Kaisen's Shibuya arc set new technical bars.

This era splits older fans. Some see it as the medium's peak — better-looking, better-paced, with global recognition that's a far cry from the niche status of earlier eras. Others see it as visually impressive but creatively safer than the wild experimentation of the late-90s era. Tier list votes for this era are bimodal: people who came in via Demon Slayer rate it S; people who came in via Cowboy Bebop tend to file it lower.

How to think about the cross-era ranking

The interesting part of the "best anime of all time" tier list is that the four eras don't compete on the same axes. Spirited Away wins on craft and emotional depth. Cowboy Bebop wins on style and tone. Hunter × Hunter wins on plotting. Demon Slayer wins on visual spectacle. They're not playing the same game.

A few honest tier list tactics for the question:

Decide what the question is asking. "Best anime ever" can mean "most influential," "most beautifully crafted," "most rewatchable," "most ambitious," or "best in show." Different answers for each. The most common interpretation is probably "most rewatchable + most respected," which favors the late-90s era.

Don't over-weight recency. Recent shows are easier to remember and the visuals are sharper, which biases the eye. Be honest about whether you'd still rank Demon Slayer in S tier in fifteen years, or whether the spectacle is doing more work than the writing.

Don't over-weight nostalgia. The flip side: the older shows benefit from the warm glow of having shaped you. Cowboy Bebop is great. Cowboy Bebop is not the only great show, even if it was your first.

The shows that almost always make S

Aggregate Hot Ranking results (with all the usual caveats about a self-selecting audience) consistently put a small group at the top of "best anime ever" tier lists, regardless of era preference:

If your tier list looks wildly different from this, that's fine — it means you have a strong case to make. Make it. The disagreement is the point.