One of Japan's most venerable and oldest animation studios is the legendary Madhouse. This company is responsible for some of the most daring off-beat anime which, while deviating from the usual formula, still manage to set its own trends. Madhouse chooses its adaptations well and pours its hearts and souls into animating them.

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Beyond its impressive choice of manga or projects to adapt into films or shows, Madhouse is also famous for its consistent quality. The studio's anime has always held a reputation for having meticulous attention to detail. Films like Perfect Blue and Redline perfectly illustrate its animation prowess. Meanwhile, Madhouse's TV shows also reflect its design philosophies.

Updated June 1, 2024, by Mark Sammut: As the studio is not airing a series during Spring 2024, fans will just have to check out Madhouse's best anime from yesteryear. Or, this year, if they decide to watch Frieren.

18 Black Lagoon

MyAnimeList: 8.03 (Season 1)

A classic action series, Black Lagoon is all thrills and very little filler. Split into two seasons and an OVA series, the anime follows a group of merchants as they take on an eclectic range of cases, each one different from the last and most of them being very high quality.

Although largely remembered for its intense action sequences and mature protagonists, Black Lagoon also throws out the occasional philosophical musings, and they are surprisingly effective and nuanced. Except for season 2's final arc that threatens to overstay its welcome, the anime barely sets a foot wrong throughout its entire run, delivering top-quality animation every step of the way.

17 One Outs

MyAnimeList: 8.33

Madhouse has quite a few great sports anime under its belt, including one of the more unique entries in the genre: One Outs. Despite centering around baseball, the show has more in common with gambling series like Kaiju and Akagi, particularly the latter. The title refers to a street game that pits a pitcher against a batter in 1v1 action, with cash being on the line. Although he does not seem especially talented, Toa Tokuchi has never failed to strike someone out, and that trend continues when he faces off against Saikyou Saitama Lycaons' best batter. Long story short, the Lycaons sign Toa, and he accepts a performance-based contract that is effectively a high-stakes bet with the team's owner.

One Outs is all about mindgames. In each match, Toa focuses on breaking the psyches of his opponents, a process that is generally quite subtle. While technically the main character, Toa's thoughts are not revealed to the audience, putting the latter in the same position as the players who are trying to decipher the protagonist's intentions. This creative decision turns One Outs into a psychological drama, and an intense one at that.

16 Beck

MyAnimeList: 8.29

Beck offers a dramatic spin on the "lost, directionless youth" trope as it sees its protagonist, Yukio Tanaka on a journey of self-realization. He initially had no goals in life (like a lot of young people these days both in and out of Japan). But all that changed after he saved a dog named Beck.

By chance, Beck's owner happened to be a semi-popular guitarist and member of a budding rock band. Since then, Yukio was introduced to the world of Western rock and was enamored with music. Together with his newfound friends and a shining ambition to make it big worldwide, Yukio will set out to give his viewers a look into how rockers succeed.

15 Trigun

MyAnimeList: 8.22

One of the sci-fi cult classics of the 1990s, Trigun is about a conflicted bandit who doesn't actually want to kill people. His name is Vash the Stampede, and he has a dizzyingly huge bounty on his head. The kicker is that he loathes violence due to his troubled past as an experimental weapon; he was manipulated into killing too many innocents for his psyche to handle.

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It's similar in tone to other classics of its era, such as Rurouni Kenshin. Heck, both Vash and Kenshin Himura even share the same red motif in their clothing, signifying the guilt and innocent blood stains they're carrying. Trigun highlights Madhouse's fantastic animation along with its deft handling of very-90s comedy.

14 Parasyte -The Maxim

MyAnimeList: 8.33

When it comes to action-oriented anime, Madhouse is no stranger to calling dibs on reluctantly violent protagonists. Parasyte - The Maxim is another one of their titles that dabbles with this trope. This time around, the trope involves Shinichi Izumi who was accidentally chosen by Migi, an alien parasite who failed to take over his brain and granted him some nifty but disturbing powers.

Shinichi, being the upstanding member of society he is, decides to use his newfound powers for good all the while wrestling with Migi for control of his body and morals. The two entities slowly begin to influence each other's personalities as they become a single being.

13 Ace Of Diamond

MyAnimeList: 8.11 (Season 1)

Perhaps Madhouse's most "conventional" sports anime, Ace of Diamond tells a fairly predictable story about two pitchers (Eijun and Satoru) who are striving to become a high school team's ace. While the genre tends to focus on weak clubs, Ace of Diamond's school (Seidou High) is known for its talented baseball team, a situation that adds a lot of pressure to not only the leads but also all the other characters. And, even if Eijun is presented as the protagonist, the anime is closer to an ensemble piece that emphasizes that baseball is very much a team-driven sport.

While a bitch stretched out at times, Ace of Diamond is consistently great, delivering thrilling matches, lovable characters, and drama that rarely steps into melodramatic territory. The show is pretty funny too, mostly due to Eijun being somewhat of an idiot.

12 Hellsing Ultimate

MyAnimeList: 8.35

Hellsing Ultimate is an OVA or mini-series that ran surprisingly for six years despite having only ten episodes. That's an indication of how careful the creators were in animating the most definitive anime adaptation of Hellsing. It's not just Madhouse who worked here but also other big-name studios.

In any case, Hellsing Ultimate retells the story of the titular organization created solely to fight supernatural threats. Their greatest weapon is Alucard — a vampire lord who has committed to fighting and exterminating his own kind for Hellsing. With his newly recruited vampire assistant, Alucard faces new dangers in Hellsing Ultimate, nothing he can't handle, of course.

11 Rainbow

MyAnimeList: 8.47

Madhouse's portfolio contains shonen, shojo, josei, and seinen anime, so the studio is more than happy to cater to all demographics. Rainbow falls squarely in the seinen bracket and is arguably Madhouse's most mature series alongside Monster. Inspired by a dark part of Japanese history, the anime follows a group of boys who are sent to a reformatory, basically a prison for teenagers. Once there, they deal with physical and psychological torture, all the while forming unbreakable bonds that allow them to persevere in the face of unspeakable horrors.

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Rainbow is a difficult watch due to its grounded nature. Be it the boys' desperate struggle for survival or the guards' horrifying actions, both feel uncomfortably human, and moments of triumph tend to be fleeting. However, the many, many disconcerting scenes are balanced out by small but powerful acts of kindness, togetherness, and resilience.

10 Nana

MyAnimeList: 8.55

Nana weaves a complex adult tale of romance, betrayal, and loss. These themes are more commonly associated with josei rather than shoujo anime, but Nana (and Madhouse) does an admirable job of tackling weighty concepts in a way that feels suitable for a younger audience.

Nana is thus a story about two women who share the same titular name. One of them is a province girl who risks it all to find her true calling in the big city while the other is a punk rocker and vocalist with big dreams. Somehow, they end up becoming friends and forming a close bond which is then tested by their respective romantic relationships and other adult circumstances.

9 One-Punch Man

MyAnimeList: 8.50

Madhouse did the honors of helping to establish the One-Punch Man manga as a household name and one of the biggest parodies in the anime world. They were responsible for the subversive show's first season, which is a tall order. One-Punch Man notably goes against the grain and pokes fun at shonen anime heroes while also having its own fantastic superhero.

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The anime is about Saitama who was once an unimpressive salaryman. After having a bit of an epiphany, Saitama decided to train for three years straight until he lost all his hair and was finally able to defeat any opponent with just one punch. This unmatchable strength came at a cost since the bald hero suddenly found himself bored with life as no one could hope to present a challenge.

8 Chihayafuru

MyAnimeList: 8.18 (Season 1)

At first, Chihayafuru seems like another plain competitive board game anime since it's about Karuta. It's a Japanese card game introduced to them by Portuguese traders. The anime explores this notion through its protagonist, Chihaya.

However, through Chihaya's quirks and an upbeat attitude, the anime quickly sets itself apart from the crowd. More importantly, Chihayafuru features consistently great characters, along with one of the better-executed love triangles in anime. Chihaya's near-obsession with Karuta stems from her desire to connect with a childhood friend, a mentality that (at times) creates a tunnel vision that obscures her immediate support system. Taichi is also a great character, and the same can be said for Shinobu.

7 A Place Further Than The Universe

MyAnimeList: 8.52

A Place Further Than The Universe explores a premise similar to Nana. It's about four girls who embrace the unknown and uncertainty in a bid to find what's beyond their world's known universe. Each of the four girls has her own reason for taking the path. One of them is looking for her mother. The other travels out of curiosity. Another does it out of leisure, and the last one just sort of tags along. All of them are drawn to one goal in this moving tale about ambitious yet foolish pursuits.

Arguably among Madhouse's best-paced anime, A Place Further Than The Universe brilliantly established its main characters' personalities, motives, and relationships during its opening half, all paving the way to their trip to Antarctica. As silly as that premise might sound at face value, the show handles it extremely well, creating a surprisingly realistic narrative that touches upon mature themes like the importance of closure.

6 The Tatami Galaxy

MyAnimeList: 8.56

For those looking for a solid arthouse anime with visuals that resemble an acid trip or what one usually sees when intoxicated, then The Tatami Galaxy is Madhouse at its most experimental. The anime utilizes a style that makes it look like a psychedelic rock music video, albeit with a singular visual presentation.

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What's it all about? It's complicated. But in a nutshell, The Tatami Galaxy is one lonely college student's second chance to fix his life after wasting two years being toxic and unsociable. It was thanks to a man with an eggplant-shaped head who deems himself a god and grants the lonely student a chance to start again. Pretty trippy.

5 Death Note

MyAnimeList: 8.62

Death Note is the Madhouse anime that defined a generation and its impact on anime culture still reverberates to this day. For one, it's an anime where the protagonist is also the antagonist. That would be Light Yagami. Unlike most shonen protagonists, he's also frighteningly intelligent to the point of villainy.

This all happens because a bored shinigami or death god drops their Death Note in the human world. Light happens to find it and discovers that he can use it to kill people just by writing their names. Thus began a series of intricately-planned murders which Light justifies as necessary and correct since the people he kills are all criminals.

4 Hajime no Ippo: Fighting Spirit

MyAnimeList: 8.77

A sports anime about boxing hasn't been done successfully until Hajime no Ippo arrived. After that, it will likely never be done in that magnitude and success again after such a knockout of a series. It was action-packed and raw as far as the characters and the story go.

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Hajime no Ippo portrays the plight of Makunouchi Ippo who aspired to be a champion boxer despite being bullied for most of his childhood and teenage life. This was after a pro boxer saved him from a bullying attempt. The rest, as they say, is history for Ippo's climb into the championship.

3 Monster

MyAnimeList: 8.87

Monster is one of Madhouse's most universally-acclaimed anime but it doesn't exactly sell itself well as a morsel for the masses. Instead, it's a serious drama and thriller about a surgeon and his moral dilemmas which led to a far more sinister plot.

It begins when Dr. Kenzou Tenma gets morally upset after being compelled to save a wealthier person and let a poorer patient die. Thus, he did right by another poorer patient by choosing to operate on him instead of a mayor in his succeeding dilemma. Little did he know, he cultivated a murderer who went after his peers and that same patient is now haunting him several years afterward.

2 Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

MyAnimeList: 9.36

An argument could be made that Madhouse's output is not as consistent nowadays as it was in the late 2000s; however, the studio is still more than capable of producing a masterpiece. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End was the best anime of 2023, and it might repeat that feat in 2024 due to being a two-cour show. Although always popular, fantasy anime have become inescapable since the turn of the decade, with each season seemingly producing about 15 additions to the genre. Frieren is about as close to a "perfect" fantasy series as fiction is likely to produce, one that blends history, adventure, humor, and character development to create a holistic and immersive experience.

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Primarily set decades after the hero's party defeated the Demon King, the story follows Frieren, the group's long-living elf, on a new journey that retraces the old one. Due to having a different perspective on time, Frieren tends to struggle to connect with other people, but she wants to change that while remnants of her former colleagues still exist in the world. She is accompanied by a few likable characters who are also seeking self-validation, and they bounce off each other extremely well. Frieren features gorgeous animation that brings to life a familiar but detailed medieval-style world, and it tells an adventurous story that leaves room for introspection. While not the main focus, the action scenes are very good as well, especially in the second half of the season.

1 Hunter x Hunter (2011)

MyAnimeList: 9.04

Rightfully hailed as a battle shonen masterpiece, Hunter x Hunter's manga has been adapted into two anime, once in 1999 and another time in 2011. While the former has its charm, the latter is undoubtedly the superior project, and it highlights Madhouse at its peak. Looking to follow in his father's footsteps, Gon sets out to become a hunter, a journey that starts fairly typical for the genre and demographic but eventually transforms into something with precious few peers.

Lasting nearly 150 episodes, Hunter x Hunter's consistency is ridiculous considering Madhouse did not take any breaks along the way. Despite such a stiff schedule, the company produced a visually impressive series that captured the depth and appeal of the source material.

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