The 50 best anime on Hulu right now

As with other series like One Piece, writer and illustrator Hideaki Sorachi’s Gintama has been acclaimed as one of the best long-form shounen in manga and anime. Animated by studios Sunrise and Bandai Namco, the story begins in an alternate Edo-era Japan where humanity was forced to surrender to an alien invasion and form an uneasy alliance, leading to the samurai creed and swords being banned.

However, Gintoki Sakata refuses to give up the lifestyle, going with his companions on a series of odd jobs that lead to even stranger misadventures. It’s a massive undertaking, but Gintama is a wildly entertaining and rewarding anime series to get invested in. The series’ anachronistic blend of sci-fi with 1800s Japan makes for a creative setting, and its use of action and comedy is consistently witty.

While it wasn’t one of the most prolific mainstream anime series of 2023, Tengoku Daimakyo — also known by its English title Heavenly Delusion — is a worthwhile dystopia tale. The series is an adaptation of writer and illustrator Masakazu Ishuguro’s manga of the same name and tells parallel stories. In a world where a disaster fractured Japan and left man-eating monsters in its wake, one story follows a group of children in a nursery who gradually learn the horrifying reality that lurks outside their haven’s walls.

Meanwhile, two teenagers named Maru and Kiruko team up to find a supposed place called Heaven for unique reasons, with elements of their pasts gradually coming to light. Heavenly Delusion makes the sci-fi dystopia premise stand out thanks to its combination of character-driven storytelling and enticing mystery elements at its core. The series also manages to tackle elements of societal and gender disparities with sincerity and nuance.

David Production, the animation studio behind the beloved JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure adaptation, has brought Yoshifumi Tozuka’s Undead Unluck to the screen. Cursed with a mysterious ability that causes tragic death to anyone who touches her, Fuuko Izumo welcomes her death.

But just as she’s about to die, a strange man touches her, causing him to fall in front of an oncoming train — but he begins to regenerate and is revealed to be immortal. Fuuko dubs him Andy and teams up with him to give his life one last hurrah, but the duo faces the threat of a shadowy group trying to exploit their powers.

Studio Pierrot and Tite Kubo’s Bleach aims to conclude the anime adaptation with Thousand-Year Blood War. This anime is a long time coming and adapts the final titular story arc of the manga, with vigilante Soul Reaper Ichigo Kurosaki and his friends and allies abruptly confronted by Asguiaro Ebern, who aims to reignite the vitriolic feud between the Soul Society and the ancient Quincy family.

With this, Asguiaro looks to pave the way for Quincy King Ywach to return and lay waste to both the human world and the Soul Society. So far, the first two parts of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War have been strongly received for their stylish and action-packed take on Kubo’s source material, with a third on the way in spring 2024.