Lists

A TV station in Japan has ranked the 30 "best anime songs" of all time

Listen to openers from 10 cult classics out of Japan (and be wowed by their view counts)

Olivia Wycech
9 September 2020

Welcome to Japan, the manga capital of the world. Also a subculture that the rest of the world so desperately wants to understand and be a part of, yet is criminally underrated outside of Japan. Despite our best attempts, we’ll probably never fully grasp the significance of Japanese anime to the country's culture as a whole, but we can try — and we can certainly enjoy the music.

TV Asahi Network, one of Japan’s largest television networks, has put together a list of what it considers to be the “best anime songs” of all time. The list is called ‘Animation Songs General Election’ and ranks 30 of the most popular tunes. The list was compiled through votes collected from over 130,000 anime fans.

Assuming the title of the best anime song of all time is ‘A Cruel Angel’s Thesis’ from Neon Genesis Evangelion (which you can watch on Netflix). Originally sung by Yoko Takahashi, the song was released in 1995 as the theme song to the hit anime which have now both achieved cult-status.

‘Gurenge’ comes in second and is the theme song to one of the most popular animes currently Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.

Check out the first 10 songs from the full list below, and pay special attention to the view count, many of which crush You Tube plays from some of the biggest western artists.