Top 19 Psychological Anime of the 2010s

Some of these shows hide their darkness behind cute character designs; others announce it in the first episode. Expect time loops, rigged games and narrators you shouldn't trust.

1. 1
   Psycho-Pass

   A 2012 cyberpunk crime series set in a Japan where an AI system measures each citizen's likelihood to commit crime.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Steins;Gate

   A 2011 sci-fi thriller about a self-styled mad scientist whose time-travel experiments unravel his sanity and his friends' fates.
   871pts
3. 3
   Erased

   A 2016 mystery in which a struggling manga artist is sent back to his childhood to stop a serial kidnapper.
   871pts
4. 4
   School-Live!

   A 2015 series whose cheerful school club slice of life hides a zombie apocalypse and a heroine in denial.
   742pts
5. 5
   Puella Magi Madoka Magica

   Shaft's 2011 deconstruction of the magical girl genre, where wishes come with a horrifying price.
   742pts
6. 6
   Tokyo Ghoul

   A 2014 dark fantasy about a student who becomes half-ghoul and struggles to hold on to his humanity.
   548pts
7. 7
   Shiki

   A 2010 horror series in which a remote village is slowly drained by a vampire plague, blurring who the monsters are.
   548pts
8. 8
   Kakegurui

   A 2017 series set at an elite academy where social rank is decided by high-stakes gambling and mind games.
   548pts
9. 9
   Future Diary

   A 2011 survival game in which twelve diary holders who can read the future must kill each other.
   464pts
10. 10
    March Comes in Like a Lion

    Shaft's 2016 drama about a depressed teenage shogi professional slowly finding a family.
    464pts
11. 11
    Happy Sugar Life

    A 2018 series about a girl whose obsessive love for a child she keeps hidden drives her to murder.
    464pts
12. 12
    From the New World

    A 2012 dystopian saga about children with psychic powers growing up in a society built on hidden atrocities.
    464pts
13. 13
    Devilman Crybaby

    Masaaki Yuasa's 2018 Netflix adaptation of Go Nagai's apocalyptic manga, raw and unflinching.
    365pts
14. 14
    Terror in Resonance

    Shinichiro Watanabe's 2014 thriller about two teenage bombers who taunt the Tokyo police with riddles.
    365pts
15. 15
    Classroom of the Elite

    A 2017 school drama where a seemingly indifferent student manipulates a ruthless merit-based system.
    365pts
16. 16
    The Promised Neverland

    A 2019 thriller about orphans who discover the dark truth behind their idyllic home and plot an escape.
    249pts
17. 17
    Another

    A 2012 horror mystery about a cursed middle school class where students die in gruesome accidents.
    249pts
18. 18
    Re:Zero

    A 2016 isekai whose hero relives his deaths over and over, turning a fantasy adventure into a study of trauma.
    249pts
19. 19
    Death Parade

    A 2015 Madhouse series where the newly dead play games in a bar while an arbiter judges their souls.
    0pts

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