It is easy to forget sometimes that anime is an art form, and art is an explosion!
I mean, art is expression, experimentation, exploration and, well, yes, an explosion sometimes! Yet, much of anime was made to appeal to a pretty big audience.
Your shounen battlers.
Your isekai harems.
Your romantic comedies with basically the same plot every time.
They are all meant to appeal to a large audience in order to make maximum money for those who invested in the project, but there are some anime series that were made – and seem to appeal to – no audience except the ones that came, watched, and enjoyed it.
Those are the cult classics of anime.
Best Cult Classic Anime
Ranking of Kings
At a glance, Ranking of Kings has a young art style, and it kind of seems like it will have a young plot right out of the oft-ignored Kodomo genre.
Kodomo, or the child’s genre of anime, usually doesn’t get a lot of attention from the fan base. However, Ranking of Kings differs by not going the way you expect it to go.
It is not that they try the usual “cute art style juxtaposed with graphic violence” thing, but rather takes a simple fairy tale-like plot and make it less predictable, more interesting, but still surprisingly wholesome.
It evokes a classic fairy tale story, then subverts every trope you think you know in a great, surprisingly emotional experience.
The Heike Story
Now, I could be wrong, but something tells me that even in Japan, their classic literature isn’t something passionately embraced by most Japanese anime fans either. So when you have a series based on a classic Japanese literature novel, you already have probably a smaller initial audience.
Still, even a mild interest in Japanese history or even the more broad interest in political intrigue anime can make The Heike Story enjoyable. However, remembering all the extremely, frustratingly similar names and putting them to character faces is a big bar for entry.
Regardless, The Heike Story depicts the historical downfall of what was one of the most powerful clans in pre-Warring States era Japan. You watch greed and corruption erode power, and then watch the innocents suffer in the landslide.
Kaiba
While almost every cult classic anime can be considered an “art anime,” usually that is due more to the unique art style and not the stories going on within. However, Kaiba is an art anime in every sense.
The unusual art and its unusual story and storytelling are huge bars for entry to many anime fans who aren’t looking for experimental-type stories. It takes a standard amnesia plot and uses it to tell an emotional and ponderous tale, wielding the experimental animation that Masaaki Yuasa has come to be known for.
Furthermore, it has the kind of plot that you can’t really pitch people without kind of telling half the story.
It is a series absolutely made to be a cult classic anime.
Ping Pong the Animation
Ping Pong is an anime about ping pong, which – even for sports anime fans – might not be the most tempting series to add to the old plan to watch list. Furthermore, Ping Pong is a sports anime about ping pong using an experimental (Masaaki Yuasa) art style.
While a bit interesting to look at, to its benefit, Ping Pong keeps the action raw and grounded rather than trying to be flashy and overly dramatic like Prince of Tennis. Perhaps the most charming thing about this anime is its ability to show raw emotion in its animation and direction.
It’s a shame people glance at it and give it a pass since it very well be one of the very best sports anime when it comes to the action and relatable human emotion that people typically enjoy in the genre.
The Tatami Galaxy
The Tatami Galaxy is yet another Masaaki Yuasa creation, who, I swear, doesn’t just create cult classic things. However, this is on the more normal end of his spectrum despite still being strange enough to keep the standard anime viewer at bay.
The story is essentially a Groundhog’s Day sort of affair where the main character looks through the same time period trying to get different results, but done ponderously.
If there is anything one can take away from anime series that are labeled “cult classics,” it is that most people don’t like to have to think about a lot of stuff in their show. However, The Tatami Galaxy is a show that you won’t understand so well unless you think critically about what you consumed.
From the New World
It is actually pretty difficult to find a person who has watched From The New World to the end, and straight up just hated it. However, it is easy to drop show after the three-episode standard sample, and think it is boring trash.
From the New World piques curiosity by posing dark questions about what looks like a fine society that formed after some apocalypse, but the answers to those questions end up spectacular and sometimes very unexpected. However, it doesn’t answer most questions until much later.
The beginning of the series is slow and, to be candid, on occasion, quite weird. From the New World doesn’t have the flashy hooks early on to keep watchers invested unless you count bisexual love triangles, but it pays off for those who stick with it.
Serial Experiments Lain
Sometimes my job recommending anime is really easy. Got yourself a melancholic, wildly confusing, mindscrew of an anime? Slap a Serial Experiments Lain in the recommendations and call it day!
While Serial Experiments Lain is beloved as an “intellectual’s anime” in its surprisingly accurate prediction of the internet age and its effect on society, I think we can all be honest with each other and admit that it is a bit dry in the beginning.
Deliberately slow-moving and atmospherically quiet is indeed a mood, but it can be a boring one if you are not determined enough to get to the meat.
Haibane Renmei
Even if you are intrigued by the setup in Haibane Renmei, which follows girls with no memory who all have suspicious halos and wings, it is hard to get through.
The series is actually really obvious with what it is trying to say, but the way it goes about everything makes it seem like something more is going on. So, you either slog through melancholic, atmospheric, slow slice of life to wait to see what is going on, your go watch something else.
The mystery is what invests people at first, but when offered several episodes of not much happening, the interest tended to wane for many.
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
You could sell a certain crowd on Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei by saying it is a dark comedy about a teacher that is constantly trying to kill himself. And yes, those moments of comedy are abound, but the thing that makes it a little more unpalatable is that its not all comedy.
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is like Monogatari in that it is both incredibly creative, and sometimes a slog to get through as it explores its more thought-provoking stories.
Odd Taxi
Odd Taxi is an anime with simple animation, animal characters, and a synopsis that probably doesn’t do it justice. Everyone looked at it, passed on it due to the reputation that anime with animal mascots has, and it was only after being hyped by Gigguk and other prominent anime YouTubers that people start giving it a shot.
Odd Taxi follows – long story, extremely short – a Walrus taxi driver who find himself all caught up in the middle of a murder case. It is how the various characters intersect with each other and the unraveling of the mystery that cleverly draws you deep in.
Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash
Maybe it is because Grimgar came out before the major wave of isekai that people remember this short, relatively obscure anime quite positively.
I like to think that, even back then when everything wasn’t done to death, it dared to do isekai things differently.
For one, the focus of the series is on legitimately trying to grow in strength when your power and personal affinity for battle – as you could expect from young people from a modern world – is quite low. It makes the adventure seem like a dangerous struggle unlike the standard OP isekai protagonist that is pitifully given all the power.
For all the isekai anime that there is now, Grimgar presents probably the most likely experience that people would have.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes
A lot of old anime tends to fall into the “Well, it was good at the time” camp where the stories haven’t aged so well. You could say that about Legend of the Galactic Heroes, but they’ve still not been able to do a space opera any better since.
However, space opera isn’t a genre for everyone, especially since this one is rather long, and takes some time to hook you. It’s a classic, but not one people are really clamoring to watch anymore. These days, having watched Legend of the Galactic Heroes is treated sort of like a bragging right since even interest in the mecha genre is near-extinct, much less interest in the more nuanced space opera genre.
Gunbuster
Gunbuster is a six-episode early mecha OVA, how much can people love it?
The answer is a lot.
Gunbuster is Hideki Anno’s predecessor to Neon Genesis Evangelion, and really added a certain depth of emotion to the mecha genre. Furthermore, how can you not be inspired when she literally rips her shirt open in the middle of battle?
It sounds stupid or even just comically lewd, but it really was one of those passionate anime moments that you remember forever. You have Goku’s first Super Saiyan transformation and Noriko whipping out them bits. Two anime moments bound together by how iconic they were, but non-cult classic enjoyers only remember one of them.
Sonny Boy
Sonny Boy, an anime about a class mysteriously flung to a odd world unbound by the fundamental rules of reality, is one of those series that you have to watch to the very end in order to even have a chance at knowing what it was ultimately about.
As someone who did watch it all the way to the end, let me tell you that, even at the very end, its ending is up to interpretation.
While there is no crime in being ponderous and Sonny Boy gets big points for creativity, everyone has a threshold for vagueness of plot. I feel a lot of people were brought in for Sonny Boy’s mindscrew take on isekai, but began to be put off by the lack of clarity in plot – and even in key themes – after awhile.
Kemono no Souja Erin
It has always been kind of hard to sell this Kemono no Souja Erin. It is not a fantasy anime about tossing fireballs and looking cool. In fact, were it not for some of the creatures, it might not seem like a fantasy series at all.
Instead, what you get is a war story with coming-of-age themes, but very little actual action on the part of the non-combatant main character. Kemono no Souja Erin is for the fantasy fan that wants emotional stories and deep world building.
In its way, Kemono no Souja Erin, a fantasy anime about a child whose world as a war-lizard caretaker is upended by political intrigue, is almost like a fairy tale, but one that doesn’t shy away from depicting the worst parts of humanity.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
Last on the list of cult classic anime is the anime that has perhaps the biggest cult of loyal fans, but for good reason.
The bar to entry for Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure to many is right there in the title – It is a bizarre adventure. Each season more bizarre, deranged, and unhinged than the last – but in the best way.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is a generational tale with each new season following a new member of the Joestar family. It starts in Victorian England and ends – where all weird things up – in modern day Florida, USA.
The actual plot of the series is somewhat difficult to quickly sum up, but each Joestar is using their unique fighting abilities to fight others that seek to do evil. While that sounds perfectly normal, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is action done in a strange – and meme-worthy – way that has long-endeared itself to people who give it a shot.
Although, since most people don’t get too invested until Stardust Crusaders, may it is just a kind of Stockholm Syndrome.
Do you have more anime series that you would call a cult classic for its limited appeal to watchers? Let fans know in the comments section below.
