The 14 Greatest Anime Soundtracks of All Time

Scores that outlived the shows they were written for: orchestral, lo-fi, choral, synth. Pick the one you still put on.

1

Attack on Titan

Hiroyuki Sawano's choral, German-titled battle music, later joined by Kohta Yamamoto for the final season.

2

Cowboy Bebop

Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts built a jazz and blues score that the show is now inseparable from.

3

Naruto: Shippuden

A long-running score built on taiko drums and shakuhachi that defined a generation's idea of ninja music.

4

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Akira Senju's orchestral score carries the series' grief as much as its action.

5

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Shiro Sagisu mixed orchestral bombast with lounge jazz and a Beethoven finale.

6

Princess Mononoke

Joe Hisaishi's score for Miyazaki's forest-war epic, written for full orchestra and solo voice.

7

Spirited Away

Joe Hisaishi's piano-led score, including the widely covered closing theme.

8

Samurai Champloo

Nujabes and Fat Jon set Edo-period swordplay to lo-fi hip hop, and invented a whole aesthetic.

9

Made in Abyss

Kevin Penkin's score swings from music-box wonder to full choral dread as the descent gets worse.

10

Demon Slayer

Yuki Kajiura and Go Shiina combine traditional Japanese instrumentation with orchestral swells.

11

Death Note

Hideki Taniuchi and Yoshihisa Hirano wrote choral, operatic cues for what is mostly two people thinking.

12

Ghost in the Shell

Kenji Kawai's wedding-chant main theme is one of the most recognisable pieces of anime music ever written.

13

Steins;Gate

Takeshi Abo's synth-and-piano score holds the tension across a time-travel story that mostly happens in one flat.

14

Your Name

RADWIMPS wrote the songs and the score together, so the music drives the edit rather than following it.