The legacy of anime’s most influential decades
From Mamoru Oshii and Katsuhiro Otomo, to Hayao Miyazaki, here are 10 of our favorite anime titles from the era
"Perfect Blue" follows a J-Pop star who is coerced into the adult film industry.
Courtesy of MUBI
Words by Caroline Cao
While the 1980s and 1990s are deemed a “Golden Age of Anime,” it's debatable whether the title could apply to our current era, which has delivered series like Witch Hat Atelier and My Hero Academia. Regardless, the two penultimate decades of the 20th Century marked a blossoming popularity for the manga and anime industry, owing to the scale of artistic ambition.
It’s a herculean task to sort out the gems among the treasure trove of movies and series from that era, but we did our best and here are some of our favorites.
Fist of the North Star (1984)
Kenshiro is a wandering superpowered human in a post-nuclear, dog-eat-dog wasteland of bandits and water scarcity. If there was an anime that became synonymous with ultra violence, it is the Fist of the North Star series, adapting the manga written by Buronson and illustrated by Tetsuo Hara. The TV series is credited for raising the bar on the violence popping out of the screen. Manga artists like Kentaro Miura (Berserk) and Makoto Yukimura (Vinland Saga) have adopted the original manga’s style in their illustration of graphic violence.
Where to watch: Crunchyroll.
Castle in the Sky (1986)
After the triumph of Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Studio Ghibli was born and thus debuted a feature, Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky. The movie is a charming fantasy about two orphans finding the lost technological wonder of Laputa before it falls into evil hands. Composer Joe Hisaishi pumps this adventure with an aplomb score, as the movie sails into Miyazaki’s signature themes of eco justice, the conflicts within technological advances, and cherishing the lessons left by elders.
Where to watch: HBO Max. Rent or buy the English dub on Prime Video.
Angel's Egg (1985)
Angel’s Egg is quite a baroque cipher that stimulates speculations about its surreal symbolism. To scratch the surface of the plot, a small girl wanders an isolated hellscape and finds an egg that she is determined to protect. A stranger—maybe shady, maybe benevolent—observes her in the shadows and then follows her. Director Mamoru Oshii never leaves certain answers about the cryptic and isolated landscapes in Angel’s Egg. Those mysteries enhance the experience.
Where to watch: HBO Max.
Dragon Ball (1986)
Dragon Ball was mangaka Akira Toriyama’s riff on the famous Chinese saga, Journey to the West. The manga and Toei anime adaptation is a supersized saga about the monkey-tailed Goku, who trains hard to exceed his body limits, fight worthy opponents—be they villains or tournament rivals—and hunt for the wish-granting dragon balls. Although known as a gag-based martial arts epic, the sequel Dragon Ball Z eventually raises the stakes once Goku’s alien heritage blasts its way into the plot. Among long-runners like One Piece, Dragon Ball has a throne among other juggernaut franchises.
Where to watch: Crunchyroll or Hulu.
Robot Carnival (1987)
One might run into accounts online claiming Robot Carnival as a gateway anime for American viewers. Proof of concept that different animators can have a blast with the prompt “robots and robots,” this Fantasia-esque anthology film offers varying tales related to automations—like a whimsical fever dream (“Star Light Angel”), a ponderous reflection on existence and autonomy (“Presence”), or just plain fun mecha romp (“Strange Tales of Meiji Machine Culture: Westerner's Invasion”). It also includes the music of Ghibli-renowned composer, the aforementioned Hisaishi—in addition to composers Isaku Fujita and Masahisa Takeichi. One of the anthology’s creatives, Katsuhiro Otomo, would move on to executive produce and contribute his directorial hand to another beloved anime anthology, 1995’s Memories, which adapted his three short stories.
Where to watch: JoySauceTV.
Akira (1988)
You can’t also talk about Otomo without mentioning Akira, both his manga and the movie he directed. An animated motorcycle skid, known as the “Akira Slide,” became the template for imitations throughout cinema. In all its grit, Akira chronicles a post-apocalyptic Neo-Tokyo riddled with corruption and street violence. When biker gangster Tetsuo Shima becomes consumed by psychic abilities, his rapidly mutating and metastasizing body threatens to consume Neo-Tokyo. Akira is a mosaic of instability of the human body and government corruption.
Where to watch: Crunchyroll. Furthermore, beginning Sept. 4, Akira will screen in select theaters in the United States and Canada in 4K and IMAX.
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
In 2029, human augmentation or cybernetic bodies are ubiquitous. Major Motoko Kusanagi is a cyborg police officer investigating a shadowy force. For this 1995 adaptation loosely adapted from Masamune Shirow’s 1989 more gag-ish manga, director Mamoru Oshii and screenwriter Kazunori Itō adopt a serious and hardboiled route. An achievement in unraveling a hyperstimulated futuristic society, Ghost in the Shell tackles the loneliness and limits of artificial consciousness. How much of our selves survive in a rapidly hypertechnical world that’s transcending—or replacing—the human flesh? Motoko is one such vessel for the question.
Where to watch: Prime Video or Tubi (free with ads).
Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995)
“Shinji, get in the robot.” In Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion series, 14-year-old protagonist Shinji sweats and frets over his estranged father coercing him to pilot the Evangelion mecha to defeat the Angels attacking Earth. Shinji’s traumatic reaction sets the tone for the psychological fractures across Neon Genesis Evangelion. To be clear, otakus will note that the mecha genre has already been a repository for exploring human nature since the Gundam series, but Anno’s Evangelion series hits like a revitalization of the form and its psychodramatic possibilities through its penetrative, unpleasant dives into the minds of children piloting Evas at a titanic psychological price.
Where to watch: Netflix. Rent or buy on Prime Video.
Perfect Blue (1997)
When a J-Pop star is coerced into the adult film industry, the career swerve exposes her to enraged and stalking fans, a predatory industry, and a giggling doppelgänger who mocks her. Perfect Blue cements the directorial debut of the late Satoshi Kon, one of the grittest psychological horror directors who can take fantasy and reality and morph them into gruesome imagery. His signature aesthetics also carry over in Millennium Actress and Paprika.
Where to watch: HBO Max. Rent or buy on Prime Video.
Cowboy Bebop (1998)
In the year 2071, Spike and a ragtag crew of bounty hunters are blasting off into the cosmos. Cowboy Bebop was released at the turn-of-the-millennium, with Shinichirō Watanabe directing the gangbusters chase and combat sequences to the electric jazz music of Yoko Kanno. Each episode covers Spike and company’s wild endeavors to capture a bounty to afford to fill their bellies and pay their living expenses, while a larger arc begins to unravel Spike’s past in devastating measures. Cowboy Bebop is heralded for being a sumptuous cocktail of Neo-noir-western-science-fiction that gallops on the adrenaline of Kanno’s splashy score.
Where to watch: Crunchyroll. Rent or buy on Prime Video.
Published on July 7, 2026
Words by Caroline Cao