Top 10 Horror Anime [Best Recommendations]

Anime in general is pretty unique and vastly interesting when it comes to imagination and story-telling.A lot of anime are very futuristic, eccentric, bizarre, etc.
When thinking about anime, not many think about the horror that can be created with these same genres in mind.

If someone, like a friend, were to say “let’s watch something that’s in the category of Horror”, you would immediately think about movies, not really anime. Hopefully, that will change when you check out these selections of anime that are based on horror.

In this “Top 10 List”, you will find anime that has everything a horror story should have. For example, gore, tragedy, death, monsters, zombies, killers, etc. Get ready to clear your daily schedule, turn off the lights, invite some friends, and maybe have popcorn ready.

Although, popcorn might be a bad idea, don’t want to create a mess or choke on a piece of popcorn. Now that would be scary!

After Maebara moved to a new, quiet town of Hinamizawa, he spends most of the time in school living a carefree life playing games with friends. It is in this town that appearances can be deceiving. Stumbling upon some news one fateful day, he discovers a murder occurred in the very town he’s in.

It is then that mysterious and horrific events begin to unfold in front of him, learning that his close friends may not be close at all. As stories take place in different scenarios, unbelievable events begin to take place in a very horrific way.

This anime may seem cute at first, be it will have you hugging your pillow!

This anime follows the story of a vampire named, Alucard, and a police woman turned vampire who works for an organization that is known as Hellsing, a vampire extermination group of England.
Alucard’s sole purpose is to search and destroy the threat of the undead and supernatural forces that seek to eliminate the Queen and the country of England.

It is when the organization discovers the remnants of a Neo-Nazi group known as the Millennium, continues to exist in reviving the Third Reich with an army of vampires.
Little do they know that he war raging on is to seek revenge on Alucard from the very beginning!

This anime is very good and I noticed that the anime came out many years ago. The anime series going on as I type is probably the best adaptation to the manga I can imagine.

The anime follows a 17 year-old named Shinichi Izumi, who lives in a quiet neighborhood of Tokyo. One night, weird looking creatures begin to surface on Earth, host onto humans while taking control of their brains. They become known as Parasytes, and they enter through the nose or ears in order to control their host.

One day, Shinichi encounters a Parasyte, but it was unable to enter his ear or nose and instead burrowed through his arm. Preventing it from traveling further into his body, he contained it in his arm and began to restrain its influence while being able to develop a strong bond and work together.

Thus, helping Shinichi keep his untainted brain from being hosted by other Parasytes as he struggles to survive.

This anime contains a number of short horror stories that are both scary and influential.

The anime follows a character only known as the Medicine Seller, and follows a storyline similar to Mushishi. The Medicine Seller encounters spirits called, Mononoke, and sometimes fights them to the point of destruction. He gains knowledge by learning their name, truth, and reason for existing in the world. So he can exorcise the demon back from whence they came.

It’s kind of hard to describe this anime without spoiling the series entirely. But, I assure you, its worth watching!

This is a great horror anime! Even though it’s a short four-episode series, it is memorable.

It was originally a game, then turned into a manga, and then an anime. The process of transitioning from one category to the other in sense of media type, shows how popular this title was and yet, not many people know about it! The story takes place at an elementary school called, Heavenly Host, which is torn and destroyed due to occurring murders and disappearances of several staff and students of the school.

As time goes by, another school called Kisaragi Academy, is constructed on the same grounds of the Heavenly Host. One night, a group of students begin to tell ghost stories when an earthquake begins and suddenly transports the students present at the time to another dimension.

In this dimension, Heavenly Host still exists and is haunted by ghosts of the murdered students once enrolled there.

This anime is pretty good. Its full of crazy encounters and lots of unsettling situations that would make a normal person go insane.

This anime takes place during the Bakumatsu of the Edo period where a young writer named, Monosuke, begins to do research for his next project of writing a book that contains 100 ghost stories.

While doing research for old myths and legends, he comes across a very mysterious group of three characters who call themselves the Ongyou. This group claims to be detectives who investigate the truth behind the legends in order to bring those doing wrong to justice.

Every time Monosuke crosses paths with the Ongyou, he faces the horrible truths and must battle his morals while seeing things no one should see….

This is another great horror anime to watch. The story follows Ken Kaneki, who survives an encounter with a woman who is later revealed to be a ghoul. Ghouls are human-like creatures with a hunger for human flesh who hunt and devour anyone crossing their paths. The woman critically injures Kaneki sending him to the hospital. After undergoing surgery and recovering from the hospital, he learns that some how, he has turned into a half-human/half-ghoul.

Needing to eat human flesh in order to survive he seeks help from those like him to teach him how to deal with living as a ghoul, interact with others in the ghoul society, and how to keep his identity a secret from other humans around him.

This anime takes place in 1972, where a student named Misaki unexpectedly died halfway through the school year. As students and teachers were devastated by the sudden death of Misaki, they continue on with their lives believing Misaki is still alive which leads to a strange presence in the graduation photo. Forward into time, Spring of 1998, transfer student Sakakibara meets Mei Misaki and is seemingly ignored by her classmates and teachers.

Soon, they’re all caught up in a strange phenomenon where the students and their relatives begin to die in mysterious ways. Sakakibara and Mei must find out how to survive after discovering that the killings are related to the death of Misaki in 1972. This anime series is a must watch.

Taking place in many areas but mainly in the immense sea of the internet, a very special website can be found and accessed only at the stroke of midnight. The website is know as the Jigoku Tsushin and is rumored that if someone has a grudge, all they have to do is enter a post about that person and they will soon be judged in some of the most scariest ways.

In doing so, the Jigoku Shoujo (a little girl) will suddenly appear and drag whoever torments you into the firey depths of hell. All that is known about the girl is that she lives with her equally mysterious grandmother, has three magical dolls as her servants, and whenever a post on the Jigoku Tsushin moves her emotionally, she becomes the Jigoku Shoujo.

This series follows the life of a girl who moves with her family to the hometown of her deceased mother. At her first day of school, her little brother, neighbor, and two others from school decide to visit an abandoned school building next to theirs to discover that it is haunted. After experiencing several encounters with ghosts, the girl learns that her mother was responsible for sealing many of the ghosts who haunted the school and town.

The ghosts free themselves because of urbanizations that took place in the surrounding areas and are now terrorizing the school and town once again. The girl’s mother left her book of exorcisms with instructions on how to exorcise the ghosts.

These are the selections of horror anime series that are great to experience. There are plenty more to be listed, so stay tuned for part two of “Top 10 Horror Anime (Part 1)”.
I feel the next part will be equal or better than this. In the mean time, check out the anime selections above if you love horror and everything that comes with it. I know I do!

What do you like about horror anime series? Do you watch them with the lights off? Or do you ask a friend to enjoy it with you because secretly, you’re too scared to watch it alone?!

Let us know in the comments below!

Author: Alfonso “Fonzy” Ortiz

I’m a Geek, Nerd, Writer, and lover of all video games, anime, science, technology and the internet. I previously worked for STFUandPlay.com, a contributing writer as the Japanese Corespondent at TheKoalition.com and founded a website called Transcend-Gaming.com! I currently live in Japan as Editor in Chief of Honey’s Anime and its very talented writers! I’m down for anything! What do you want to do?

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