Summary

• Crunchyroll offers a variety of short, single-season anime perfect for those with limited time.
• Some of the best short anime on Crunchyroll are noted for the high quality of their art and animation.
• Other short anime are noteworthy for being able to tell complete and well-developed stories in a short amount of time.

Crunchyroll is one of the biggest and most accessible anime streaming sites around, and that’s especially true for short, single-season anime. Not everyone has the time to devote hours upon hours of their time to anime with hundreds of episodes, and whether it’s newer, seasonal anime, or older favorites, Crunchyroll has an incredible catalog of shorter anime for people to watch at their leisure.

Crunchyroll has an incredibly large selection of single-season anime, and some are better to watch than others. Between the consistency of their animation, the high quality of their writing, and how efficiently they tell their stories with a limited amount of episodes, some short anime on Crunchyroll are easily the best to watch and have just as much to offer as some of the more famous long-running anime, if not more. Those anime are the best for anyone who can’t devote all of their free time to watching anime, and they’re all plenty worth mentioning.

10 Paranoia Agent Is A Surreal Masterpiece

13 episodes; Directed by Satoshi Kon

In Studio Madhouse’s Paranoia Agent, an overworked character designer is suddenly assaulted while struggling to come up with a new character, and she tells the police that a rollerblading boy with a baseball bat attacked her. While the police initially assume she’s lying, more victims of the same boy, now dubbed “Li’l Slugger”, start cropping up, and what follows is an increasingly surreal exploration into the mystery behind Li’l Slugger’s actions.

Paranoia Agent was the only anime series directed by the late Satoshi Kon, and it works incredibly well as a short series. The pacing of the anime allows for its mystery to quickly and efficiently develop over only 13 episodes, and that’s perfectly complemented by Paranoia Agent having the same surreal and all-around gorgeous art and animation that made Satoshi Kon such a big name. Paranoia Agent is one of the best showings of Satoshi Kon’s talents, and that makes it perfect for anyone looking for something short to watch.

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9 Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt Is Perfect For Fans Of Raunchy Comedy

13 episodes; Directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi

Studio Trigger’s Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt stars the titular Panty and Stocking, a pair of angels who were kicked out of Heaven for their bad behavior. The two of them need to work with reverend Garterbelt to protect Daten City from evil Ghosts and eventually earn their way back into Heaven, but between Panty’s obsession with sex and Stocking’s obsession with sweets, it ends up being a far more difficult task than need be.

What makes Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt stand out is the anime’s extreme adherence to raunchiness. Every episode of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt is filled with incredibly dirty jokes, especially in the English dub, and with an art style very reminiscent of cartoons like Dexter’s Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls, it’s the closest thing to an anime take on an adult-oriented cartoon. Anyone who’s a fan of those types of shows will get a lot out of it, and with its surprisingly good animation and direction, that idea rings especially true.

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8 Zom 100 Has One Of The Most Inventive Takes On A Zombie Apocalypse

12 episodes; Based on the manga by Haro Aso

Bug Films’ Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead stars Akira Tendo, an office worker who’s spent the past three years gradually losing the will to live due to the abusive levels of overworking his company has subjected him to. When the world is suddenly hit with a zombie apocalypse, rather than react with fear, Akira is ecstatic over the thought of not having to go to work anymore, and he, along with his friends, decides to complete a bucket list of everything they want to do before becoming zombies.

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead was one of the biggest breakout anime of 2023, and for good reason. Its unique take on the zombie genre is one thing, but when combined with Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead’s creative use of colors and inventive and all-around gorgeous art and animation, it becomes an anime with a perfect balance of writing and visuals from start to finish. Zom 100 was infamous for its frequent delays, but now that the show is finished, it’s a perfect horror comedy for a person to watch in one sitting.

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7 Kill La Kill Is An Incredible, Fast-Paced Action Romp

24 episodes; Directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi

Studio Trigger’s Kill la Kill is centered around Ryuko Matoi, a troubled young girl who goes to Honnoji Academy to search for the person who killed her father with a giant scissor. Under the tyrannical rule of Satsuki Kiryuin, however, might makes right at Honnoji Academy, so if Ryuko is going to get anywhere, she’s going to have to fight her way through the student body with her friends and the power of her transforming, sentient sailor uniform named Senketsu.

Kill la Kill was the debut work of Studio Trigger, and it still more than holds up over a decade later. Kill la Kill’s gorgeous and incredibly creative animation makes every episode a visual spectacle, and with how effortlessly it balances comedy and drama, the writing always does a great job of making there be more to Kill la Kill than just mindless action. For anyone looking for a fast-paced action series that never takes itself too seriously, few single-season anime are better to watch on Crunchyroll than Kill la Kill.

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6 Anohana Tells A Flawless Emotional Story In Under 12 Episodes

11 episodes; Written by Mari Okada

In A-1 Pictures’ Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, five friends who were once collectively known as the “Super Peace Busters” had their lives changed forever by the sudden death of one of their own, Menma. Five years later, one of the Super Peace Busters, Jinta, suddenly finds himself encountering Menma’s ghost, and to help her properly on to the afterlife, he and the other Super Peace Busters will have no choice but to confront their various traumas and make peace with each other and themselves.

Short-length dramas are prime binge-watching material, and Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day is one of the best anime for that. The writing of Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day always does a great job of conveying the emotional beats and the consistent growth of the cast, and with its stellar direction, it ends up having some of the most emotionally resonant storytelling in all of anime. At only 11 episodes, it’s even shorter than a typical one-season anime, so the fact that it did so much with so little says a lot about its overall quality.

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5 Samurai Champloo Is Episodic Storytelling Done Right

26 episodes; Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe

Manglobe’s Samurai Champloo takes place in Edo-era Japan and opens with two swordsmen, the brash and sloppy Mugen and the stoic and orderly Jin, trying to kill each other over a petty fight. When Mugen and Jin end up in trouble with the law and sentenced to death, a girl named Fuu manages to get them out of trouble and has them repay the favor by helping her find a man who smells of sunflowers, thus beginning a journey across the country for the unlikely trio.

Samurai Champloo was the second original anime by Shinichiro Watanabe of Cowboy Bebop fame, and it has a lot of the same qualities. Just like Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo makes great use of episodic storytelling with its likable cast and great art and animation, and its use of hip-hop music to contrast the traditional Japanese setting and cast works to give the series a lot of originality. It’s an incredibly stylistic story that always knows how to sell its story and cast from start to finish, and that makes it perfect for anyone looking for a short series to watch.

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4 Puella Magi Madoka Magica Is Still An Incredible Magical Girl Anime

12 episodes; Directed by Akiyuki Shinbo & Yukihiro Miyamoto

In Studio Shaft’s Puella Magi Madoka Magica, after a chance encounter with a monster called a Witch, ordinary middle schooler Madoka Kaname learns of the existence of magic and, of course, magical girls. Kyubey, the talking animal-like creature who oversees the magical girls, offers Madoka a chance to become one, herself, and help protect her home from Witches, and as Madoka ponders over the decision, she quickly discovers that being a magical girl is nowhere near as good as Kyubey first made it out to be.

Very few short-form anime of the past decade have been as big as Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and for good reason. Puella Magi Madoka Magica’s dark deconstruction of the magical girl genre makes for poignant and all-around excellent writing from start to finish, and even after over a decade, it still features some of the most creative art of any anime. The story is continued in a sequel film, which is set to have another sequel in 2024, but the anime, by itself, still works as an incredible standalone story that’s very easy to watch in a short amount of time.

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3 Bocchi The Rock!Is A Beautifully Surreal, Down-To-Earth Comedy

12 episodes; Based on the manga by Aki Hamazi

Studio CloverWorks’ Bocchi the Rock! stars Hitori Gotoh, a young girl with crippling social anxiety who continually fails to use her guitar skills as a means of breaking the ice with people. One day, Hitori is suddenly asked to a band with girls her age, Kessoku Band, and as the band grows as artists, Hitori, now with the nickname “Bocchi”, slowly begins to come into her own and become a more confident person.

Despite how recent a series it is, Bocchi the Rock! has quickly established itself as a great short series. Bocchi the Rock!’s inventive and all-around surreal animation makes every episode a visual spectacle, but beyond all of that, it’s a surprisingly thoughtful exploration into the realities of social anxiety, which makes for very relatable and hilarious writing from start to finish. It’s a series that was quick to win people over with an equal balance of heart and spectacle, and with its short length, that’s especially impressive and makes it even more worth watching.

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2 Cowboy Bebop Is One Of The World’s Most Iconic Anime For A Reason

26 episodes; Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe

Studio Sunrise’s Cowboy Bebop takes place in a futuristic setting where humanity has begun to live out in space, and going right along with that has been a new wave of crime that necessitates the use of bounty hunters called Cowboys. Among those Cowboys are series protagonist Spike Spiegel and the rest of the crew of the Bebop, and the series follows their episodic adventures chasing after bounties to make a living while occasionally confronting the demons of their pasts.

Over 20 years since its debut, it’s still easy to see why Cowboy Bebop is so beloved. Cowboy Bebop’s stellar writing, animation, and utilization of Western themes in its writing and overall aesthetic have made for one of the most unique stories in all of anime, and the largely episodic format employed by the series makes it easy for someone to digest all of that at their own pace. It’s somewhat rare for an anime to leave such a lasting impression without hundreds of episodes behind it, but Cowboy Bebop more than succeeds in that regard.

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1 Gurren Lagann Is A Masterpiece of Mecha Anime

27 episodes; Directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi

In the world of Studio Trigger’s Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, humanity has been forced to live underground for centuries under the threat of murder by the Spiral King and his army of Beastmen, something most people aren’t even aware of. When Simon discovers a mysterious robot called a Gunmen, he and his blood brother Kamina end up ing humanity’s fight against the Spiral King, and Simon’s part in it all has him grow into a man that can take on not only the world, but the entire universe.

Even with all of the anime that have come out since its debut, mecha anime or otherwise, there are very few anime like Gurren Lagann. With its bombastic and over-the-top animation combined with writing that’s equal parts heartfelt and hammy, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is one of the most entertaining mecha anime to ever come out, and that’s still true almost 20 years later. The fact that it manages to fit so much into a relatively short runtime says a lot about its overall strengths, and that makes it one of the best one-season anime to stream on Crunchyroll.

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