Best Anime To Watch in 2026: Girls' Last Tour, Blades of the Guardians, Fog Hill of the Five Elements, Baki, Super Cube, Dorohedoro, Undead Unluck, Sentenced to Be a Hero & Akudama Drive — Ratings, Episodes, Story & Official Trailers
Nine complete series you can actually finish this month — no filler, no 100+ episode commitment (mostly). A quiet post-apocalyptic slice of life, two brutal Chinese wuxia epics, the most unhinged fighting anime ever made, a dark fantasy isekai, a body-horror masterpiece, a chaotic superpower comedy, a cynical isekai parody, and a cyberpunk crime thriller. Genre, episode count, story, personal rating, and the official trailer for each.
🏍️ Girls' Last Tour
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic, Slice of Life, Sci-Fi | Episodes: 12 eps | Where to Watch: Crunchyroll / HIDIVE
Story: Two girls, Chito and Yuuri, drive a half-track motorcycle through the ruins of a dead, frozen civilization, searching for fuel, food, and a way up to the higher levels of a collapsing multi-tiered city. Nothing about their world is explained in a hurry — it's a show built entirely on small, quiet moments between two people who might be the last company either of them ever has.
⭐ My Rating: 8.8/10 — bleak setting, oddly comforting show; the melancholy sneaks up on you by episode 5.
⚔️ Blades of the Guardians
Genre: Wuxia, Action, Martial Arts (Chinese Donghua) | Episodes: 15 eps | Where to Watch: iQIYI / YouTube (official channel)
Story: Set in a fractured warrior world governed by clan honor and blood feuds, a wandering swordsman gets pulled into a conspiracy that spans rival guardian sects, each hiding secrets darker than the last. It plays out like a wuxia novel — political betrayal, sword duels, and a slow-burn reveal of who's actually pulling the strings.
⭐ My Rating: 8/10 — the sword choreography rivals a lot of Japanese action anime; underrated outside donghua circles.
🌫️ Fog Hill of the Five Elements
Genre: Fantasy, Wuxia, Action (Chinese Donghua) | Episodes: 7 eps | Where to Watch: YouTube (official Haoliners channel) / Crunchyroll
Story: A young man raised in isolation on a mystical mountain discovers he's the heir to a bloodline of elemental power, right as forces from the outside world close in to hunt him down. Short, dense, and gorgeously painted, it moves through mythic imagery — mountains, spirits, elemental combat — faster than almost any other action series on this list.
⭐ My Rating: 7.8/10 — only 7 episodes, but the art direction alone makes it worth the hour and a half.
💪 Baki
Genre: Martial Arts, Action, Seinen | Episodes: 91 eps (across all seasons) | Where to Watch: Netflix
Story: Baki Hanma trains obsessively for one goal: to become strong enough to finally surpass his monstrous father, Yujiro, "the strongest creature on Earth." Along the way he fights death-row inmates, world-class martial artists, and increasingly absurd opponents in fights that care more about spectacle and philosophy-of-strength than realism.
⭐ My Rating: 7.5/10 — deeply ridiculous at times, but that's exactly the appeal; watch it for the sheer commitment to insanity.
🧊 Super Cube
Genre: Fantasy, Action, Isekai-adjacent | Episodes: 12 eps | Where to Watch: YouTube (official channel) / Crunchyroll
Story: A mysterious cube grants ordinary people world-altering powers, but every gift comes with a catch that spirals their lives out of control. The story follows the people caught in its fallout as they're forced to decide what they're willing to become in exchange for power.
⭐ My Rating: 7.6/10 — solid "be careful what you wish for" premise with a moodier tone than most power-fantasy shows.
🦎 Dorohedoro
Genre: Dark Fantasy, Horror, Action | Episodes: 12 eps (S1) + 3 special episodes | Where to Watch: Netflix / Crunchyroll
Story: Caiman has a lizard's head, no memory of his past, and a sorcerer somewhere out there responsible for both — so he and his partner Nikaido hunt magic users through a grimy slum city looking for the one who did it. It's grotesque, funny, violent, and completely unafraid to look ugly on purpose.
⭐ My Rating: 9/10 — the character designs alone make this the most visually distinct show on this list.
☠️ Undead Unluck
Genre: Action, Comedy, Supernatural | Episodes: 24 eps | Where to Watch: Crunchyroll / Disney+
Story: Fuuko's power causes catastrophic bad luck to anyone she touches — which is exactly why the immortal Andy wants her close, since her curse is the only thing that can hurt him. Together they join an underground group hunting living, breathing "Negators," each one embodying a different concept made real.
⭐ My Rating: 8.4/10 — genuinely creative power system, and the humor lands more often than you'd expect from a "dark" premise.
🛡️ Sentenced to Be a Hero
Genre: Isekai, Fantasy, Dark Comedy | Episodes: 12 eps | Where to Watch: Crunchyroll
Story: Ordered to "become a hero" as an actual criminal sentence, a small-time crook gets dropped into another world to fight monsters he never asked to fight, alongside allies who don't fully trust him either. It leans into how absurd the "chosen hero" trope really is instead of playing it straight.
⭐ My Rating: 7.3/10 — a fun, cynical spin on isekai if you're tired of the genre taking itself too seriously.
🚔 Akudama Drive
Genre: Cyberpunk, Crime, Suspense | Episodes: 12 eps | Where to Watch: Crunchyroll
Story: An ordinary girl gets mistaken for a wanted criminal and swept into a high-stakes heist alongside a crew of actual "Akudama" — professional criminals with codenames instead of identities — in a neon-soaked Kansai run by a corrupt system. Nobody in this show is who they first appear to be, and the twists keep escalating episode to episode.
⭐ My Rating: 8.5/10 — style-heavy in the best way, from studio Pierrot with a script from the Danganronpa creator.
⭐ Final Take: want something short and beautiful — Fog Hill of the Five Elements. Want something you'll never forget the visuals of — Dorohedoro. Want pure, dumb, glorious muscle — Baki.
📦 Ratings are personal opinions. Episode counts and platforms are based on official studio, Crunchyroll, and Netflix listings and may be updated as availability changes by region. Trailers above load live from YouTube's official search results, so they always point to the current, real, official trailer instead of a fixed clip that can go stale.