Top 10 Anime That Will Give You Nightmares (ft. Todd Haberkorn)

Top 10 Anime That Will Give You Nightmares

Eh, sleep is for the weak anyway. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we are counting down our picks for the Top 10 Anime That Will Give You Nightmares.

For this list, we’ll be looking at the spine-tingling series that left us quaking in our boots with their unsettling imagery, twisted narratives and often gruesome conclusions. Keep the lights on.

#10: “Parasyte” (2014-15)

It’s invasion of the body snatchers all over again, only this time they come in the form of little space bugs that turn their host bodies into living weapons, and who happen to have a particular taste for human flesh. If the sight of watching a person’s body unravel into bladed tendrils doesn’t gross you out, then the multitude of cannibalism and human dismemberment on display is sure to scratch that itch. One things for sure, this show’s going to give you a lot of trust issues and you sure as heck aren’t going sleep at night for fear that a parasyte’s gonna attack you!

#9: “Shiki” (2010)

It’s an age-old question – between vampires and humans, who truly is the biggest monster? In this instance, it’s both. You’ve got the children of the night slowly infecting their way across a rural town, culling and converting innocent lives as they go. Then you’ve got the humans, who, when pushed into a corner, resort to their baser instincts and mob mentality. Even if the Shiki are horrifying to behold, seeing their disgusting and gruesome fates is still pretty gnarly.

#8: “Serial Experiments Lain” (1998)

Blood and guts aren’t the only way to mess up a viewer’s head. Sometimes good ol’ fashion weirdness manages to cut the mustard. In this instance, we’ve got the oh so depressing adventures of a socially isolated and depressed young girl as she tries to cope with the vexing messages from a computer world known as the Wired. This doesn’t just amount to plenty of spam mail, as the Wired’s apparent omnipotent ruler has a nasty way of distorting reality around her…including making an alien randomly appear just outside her room. Still not over that.

#7: “Goblin Slayer” (2018)

You’ll never play Dungeons and Dragons the same way. What started as just another fantasy show quickly took a tumble into controversial territory when our stereotypical cast of adventurers ended up getting mauled to death by a horde of tiny yet deadly goblins, though that might have been a kinder fate compared to what befell some of the others within the group. No matter what you think of its attempts at storytelling, you can’t deny it put a lot of people on edge whenever those green bastards reared their ugly heads.

#6: “Another” (2012)

On repeated viewings, you might be able to find a couple of the fates that befall the unfortunate students unintentionally hilarious. That being said, this series does possess a terrific sense of dread about it, as you never know which of the extensive cast are going to bite the dust in the most unconventional of ways. Getting impaled by an umbrella, struck by lightning, trapped in a plummeting elevator, this series will ensnare you with its tension until you're jumping at every little shadows in your perepheral.

#5: “When They Cry” (2006)

Finally, a series that warns you against the obvious dangers of cute, adorable girls. After all, you never know when one might snap and decide to put needles in your rice balls, try to cleave your head off with a hatchet, rip out your fingernails, or just all around lose the plot for shits and giggles. It’s a menagerie of unpleasant experiences that the entire cast go through over and over thanks to the constant time-warping. Pick a torture and have at it!

#4: “Devilman Crybaby” (2018)

If you ever need an excuse to hate humanity, just take a gander at Go Nagai’s brutal magnum opus. There’s plenty of demon slaying and kinky content to satisfy the most hardcore of action anime junkies, but where this latest reimagining really shines is in its portrayal of mankind’s rabid descent into anarchy following the reveal that hell’s minions walk among them. The pinnacle of despair is without a doubt when the pure-hearted Miki is hunted down like a dog. After witnessing such misery, you’d want to burn everything to the ground as well!

#3: “Gantz: O” (2016)

This CGI adaptation may be lacking the eternal horniness of Kei and some of the more memorable deaths from the original series, but what it does have is nightmare fuel, and plenty of it. The way the animation elevates the sickening designs of the aliens, especially that final boss, is haunting. All of that interstellar weaponry and even a mecha wielding a giant, electric katana can’t take away the threat of these creatures. Might want to reconsider that whole pacifism thing when you’re staring at something as ugly as the Nurarihyon, eh Kato?

#2: “Terra Formars” (2014-16)

Do I really need to spell it out? Giant, humanoid cockroaches from Mars that love nothing more than ripping humans apart with their bare hands. How can you not lose sleep over that? An attempt to colonise the red planet leads to an all-out war between humanity and the uber-strong roaches that dominate its surface. While engineered super-soldiers manage to turn the tide in the Earth’s favour, that still doesn’t take away the dread of seeing a sea of alien roaches charge forward with their gargantuan, chiselled bodies ready to pull some poor bastard’s spine out. Nothing’s scarier than a bug that can’t be squashed.

#1: “Perfect Blue” (1998)

A classic and quintessential example of psychological horror, this exploration into the dangers of the online world and the infectious nature of paranoia is borderline prophetic. Mima’s desperate struggle against her stalker as well as her own fractured sanity is beautifully realised, which of course means that it’s scary as hell to behold. Knowing what we do now about the internet and social media, the disturbing imagery and implications are strengthened tenfold. A little bit of realism goes a long way, so don’t be shocked if you suddenly get the urge to dismantle all electronics in your house and triple lock the windows!