I’ve seen some wild anime in my time, stuff so bizarre it sticks with you—whether you like it or not. So, I lined up the standouts, ranking them from the ones that were weird but dreadful, to the top-tier crazy that I couldn’t help but love. If you’re looking for something unconventional to watch, stick around. You might just find your next obsession or, at the very least, something you can’t unsee.
10. Dead Leaves
Director Hiroyuki Imaishi and crew from Manga Entertainment and Production I.G probably chugged a Red Bull crate and went, “You know what’s cool? A guy with a TV for a head and an amnesiac girl going absolutely bananas in space jail.” The biggest perv on this list, the film is merciless about vulgarity, violence, and bodily functions. There’s no plot, coherence, or any semblance of sanity. Dead Leaves, it’s not me, it’s you.
9. Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space
I can’t tell you what exactly happens here except that there’s a sweary cat and some kind of a religious cult. And frankly, I don’t care. I gave up on trying to make sense of disconnected scenes that look like they were ripped from Osamu Tezuka’s sketchbook and the existential babble that the creators, t.o.L, hoped we’d eat up. Sure, the cat’s got swag, but the whole thing feels like an artsy mess trying too hard to be deep.
8. The Diary of Tortov Roddle
Watching Kunio Kato’s surrealist anime was like flipping through a pretty, but ultimately boring picture book. Odd creatures and dreamy scapes are cool, but somebody has to ask, so I’ll be the one: What’s the point? There’s no story, no emotional impact, just Tortov meandering around. I kept squinting at the screen, wondering if I was missing some hidden meaning. But there is none. This is just a beautiful void.
7. Belladonna of Sadness
A peasant woman, Jeanne, makes a deal with Satan to exact revenge on the trashy French nobles who assaulted her. What unfolds is a bizarre mix of witchcraft, alleged feminism, and NSFW hallucinatory psychedelia that’s so out there, it circles back to being fascinating. Would I watch this again? No, thank you. Directed by Eiichi Yamamoto—a man—this is a particularly disturbing watch for women.
6. Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond
Genius Party and its sequel are medleys of anime shorts by various directors. One moment you’re in the middle of humans vs. AI war, and the next, someone’s reading from Blaise Pascal‘s Pensées. It’s sitting at number 6 because for every short I loved, there was another I wanted to skip. Featuring heavy hitters like Shinichirō Watanabe, this is not bad by any means, but consistency, people, consistency!
5. Magnetic Rose (from Memories)
I always thought it was easy to make a scary anime, but one that haunts? That’s Satoshi Kon’s turf. He penned this 90s anime about space scavengers who end up on a rotting spaceship, which I can only describe as a haunted opera house hologram (I am doing my best here), run by an AI with serious attachment issues. A gorgeously unsettling ghost story and a standout piece in the Katsuhiro Otomo-produced anthology, Memories.
4. Kaiba
Speaking of memories: Kaiba basically transforms them into a currency, the center of a moving story of love, loss, and humanity. It’s probing, philosophical, and looks like those trippy 1970’s cartoons designed to communicate big, wild ideas. That’s what Kaiba does, too. Director Masaaki Yuasa created a high-concept sci-fi anime that even Isaac Asimov would give a nod to. I loved every minute of it.
See also: 10 Sci-Fi Anime You’ll Obsess Over
3. Angel’s Egg
Slow-burns can be boring as AF, but not on Mamoru Oshii’s watch. This avant-garde classic is about a girl guarding an egg in a beautifully bleak world. Barely anyone speaks, but rain, shadows, and otherworldly imagery do all the talking. Oshii’s love for dropping Christian symbols and existential nuggets is all over this one. By the end, I was left reeling, wondering about life, existence, and why am I so attached to an egg.
2. Mind Game
The premise is simple—God grants a love-struck loser a do-over in life—but the execution is not. It is the most Masaaki Yuasa thing Masaaki Yuasa has ever done in his career. Animation is an insane mash-up of every technique in the book, from rotoscoping to live-action bits. My eyes were working overtime. And the story just does whatever it wants—linear logic be damned—swinging with gonzo energy that hijacked my brain for 100 minutes.
1. Cat Soup
Freakish circus acts, doctors doing unthinkable experiments, pigs eating themselves—I can’t begin to explain how insane this is. It’s a cat’s journey through the land of the dead to save his sister’s soul, blending dark humor with surrealism—which occasionally takes a disturbing turn. But hey, symbolism. Life and death or something. Nasty little experimental film from Tatsuo Satō. I couldn’t look away if I wanted to.
And that wraps up my rundown of anime oddities. Got thoughts, love, or outrage to share? Drop a comment below, I’m all ears.