# Top 18 Space Anime of All Time

> Battleships, bounty hunters, debris collectors and a steam train to the stars: orbit has been anime's favourite stage since the 1970s.

*By YPB Team · Published October 21, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/top-18-space-anime-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Cowboy Bebop** — score 1000/1000
   Bounty hunters drift between Mars, Venus and Ganymede in a jazz-scored 2071.
2. **The Orbital Children** — score 606/1000
   Mitsuo Iso's 2022 thriller about children caught in a disaster on a space station.
3. **Astra Lost in Space** — score 605/1000
   A 2019 survival mystery about students stranded light-years from home.
4. **The Super Dimension Fortress Macross** — score 537/1000
   A 1982 mix of space war, transforming fighters and pop music.
5. **Outlaw Star** — score 537/1000
   A 1998 space adventure about a mercenary, a stolen ship and a girl in a suitcase.
6. **Space Battleship Yamato 2199** — score 454/1000
   The 2012 remake that rebuilt the classic voyage for a new generation.
7. **Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury** — score 454/1000
   The 2022 Gundam series set in a space academy run by arms corporations.
8. **Mobile Suit Gundam** — score 454/1000
   The 1979 war drama that moved giant robots into realistic orbital colonies.
9. **Planetes** — score 454/1000
   A 2003 hard-sci-fi drama about debris collectors in low Earth orbit.
10. **Space Dandy** — score 353/1000
   Shinichiro Watanabe's 2014 comedy about an alien hunter roaming the galaxy.
11. **Gunbuster** — score 353/1000
   Hideaki Anno's 1988 OVA about pilots whose missions near light speed cost them decades at home.
12. **Knights of Sidonia** — score 353/1000
   A 2014 CG series about a seed ship fleeing alien Gauna across space.
13. **Space Battleship Yamato** — score 0/1000
   The 1974 series about a resurrected battleship's voyage to save Earth, known in the US as Star Blazers.
14. **Gurren Lagann** — score 0/1000
   A drill-powered mecha story that grows from an underground village to galaxy-sized battles.
15. **Space Pirate Captain Harlock** — score 0/1000
   Leiji Matsumoto's 1978 tale of a rebel captain sailing the Arcadia against Earth's corrupt rulers.
16. **Galaxy Express 999** — score 0/1000
   A 1978 series about a boy riding a steam train through space toward a mechanical body.
17. **Martian Successor Nadesico** — score 0/1000
   A 1996 parody of space-war anime aboard a private battleship.
18. **Legend of the Galactic Heroes** — score 0/1000
   A 110-episode space opera about two strategic geniuses on opposite sides of an interstellar war.

Tags: tv shows, animation, sci-fi, space, japan