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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. Their anime has always held a reputation for having meticulous attention to detail. Films like Perfect Blue and Redline perfectly illustrate their animation prowess. Meanwhile, their TV shows also reflect their design philosophies well.
Updated September 30th, 2022, by Sid Natividad: Despite newer and shinier anime being released left and right this upcoming holiday season, the classics remain as memorable as ever. It just so happens that these classics are certified Madhouse anime. Their stories have remained timeless and are yet to be overshadowed by even some of the biggest anime titles right now. So for those up for more studio brand loyalty or are looking for some uniform visual styles to binge, then these additional Madhouse anime will more than suffice.
15 Chihayafuru
Release year: 2012 Number of seasons: 3 (74 episodes total)
At first, Chihayafuru seems like another plain competitive obscure sport or 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.
But through Chihaya’s quirks and an upbeat attitude— as well as the anime’s unique premise of a shoujo/josei protagonist playing a card game, the title quickly becomes a novel hit. As it turns out, a card game centered around poetry and memorization can be fun.
14 One Outs
Release year: 2008 Number of seasons: 1 (25 episodes total)
Here, we have another sports anime, but this time around, it’s about something more popular, baseball. One Outs follows the tale of baseball prodigy, Toua Tokuchi but the catch is that he’s also a gambler who’s only out to make money and sees baseball as nothing but a means to an end.
Viewers can immediately tell what the protagonist’s dynamics with acquaintances and colleagues will be based on his arrogant attitude. Sure enough, he gets scouted for a baseball team and the team’s owner, as well as his newfound friend, set out to give him a humbling but exciting experience as a professional baseball player.
13 Beck
Release year: 2004 Number of seasons: 1 (26 episodes total)
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 an 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.
12 Trigun
Release year: 1998 Number of seasons: 1 (26 episodes total)
One of the angsty classics of the 1990s, Trigun is about a conflicted sci-fi 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.
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.
11 Parasyte -The Maxim
Release year: 2014 Number of seasons: 1 (24 episodes total)
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, decided to use his newfound powers for good all the while wrestling with Migi for control of his body and morals. To that end, it’s similar to anti-hero comic books like Venom.
10 Hellsing Ultimate
Release year: 2006 Number of seasons: 1 (10 episodes total)
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 for fighting supernatural threats. Their greatest weapon remains as 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.
9 Rainbow
Release year: 2010 Number of seasons: 1 (26 episodes total)
Rainbow is a mature anime intended for the seinen demographic, or young men. Thus, one can expect its themes and iconographies to be less apologetic or welcoming especially when compared to shonen anime. This goes to show how Madhouse prefers its audience.
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Rainbow follows the story of a group of delinquent youth who were forced to transfer to a literal prison school called Shounan Special Reform School. There, they fight for survival while serving their time. This prison drama is no walk in the park though as the wardens and the prison guards themselves are depraved and twisted human beings.
8 Nana
Release year: 2006 Number of seasons: 1 (47 episodes total)
Nana is tagged as shoujo but one might get surprised by its subject matter. That’s because Nana weaves a complex adult tale of romance, betrayal, and loss. Those things are usually not present in warm and light-hearted shoujo anime, but like in Rainbow, Madhouse simply won’t compromise just to gain 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.
7 One-Punch Man
Release year: 2015 Number of seasons: 2 (24 episodes total)
Madhouse did the honors in launching the One-Punch Man manga into 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 inspiring shonen hero.
The anime is about Saitama who was once an unimpressive salaryman. After having a bit of an epiphany, Saitama decides to train for three years straight until he lost all his hair and was finally able to defeat any opponent with just one punch. Eventually, he even grew bored of becoming the best until some otherworldly strongman challenges his supremacy.
6 A Place Further Than The Universe
Release year: 2018 Number of seasons: 1 (13 episodes total)
A Place Further Than The Universe explores a premise similar to Nana. It’s about three 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 dramedy adventure about ambitious yet foolish pursuits.
5 The Tatami Galaxy
Release year: 2010 Number of seasons: 1 (11 episodes total)
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, except in Japanese aesthetics.
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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.
4 Death Note
Release year: 2006 Number of seasons: 1 (37 episodes total)
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.
3 Hajime no Ippo
Release year: 2000 Number of seasons: 3 (127 episodes total)
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.
2 Monster
Release year: 2004 Number of seasons: 1 (74 episodes total)
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 picking 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.
1 Hunter x Hunter (2011)
Release year: 2011 Number of seasons: 1 (148 episodes total)
With all the unconventional anime that Madhouse made, they surely needed a big mainstream hit to solidify their recognition. That came in the form of rebooting one of the most prominent battle anime franchises of all time: Hunter x Hunter.
Madhouse was responsible for the reboot which pretty much ignore the 1999 original but continued the anime’s legacy. It still faithfully recreated the manga, of course. It’s about Gon setting out on an adventure to find his absentee father’s footsteps and make friends along the way. In order to reunite with his dad, Gon must become a distinguished Hunter but the road to that goal is not an easy one.
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