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15 Best Anime To Watch If You Enjoyed Death Note

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Your next obsession.

Nazarii Verbitskiy

TV Shows & Movies - May 13th 2026, 19:00 GMT+2

15. Bakuman (2010-2013)
*Bakuman* takes the manga industry and turns it into a pressure cooker where deadlines matter more than sleep and reader surveys can destroy careers overnight. Two teenagers decide to create the next big hit, but the show reveals how brutal the business really is behind all those colorful pages. The competition between rival creators gets as intense as any sports anime, except the stakes are artistic dreams and publishing contracts. What looks like a simple story about drawing comics becomes a relentless examination of what people will sacrifice to see their work in print. | © NHK

14. My Home Hero (2023)
*My Home Hero* proves that the most dangerous person in a thriller might be the quiet dad who just wants to protect his family. When Tetsuo discovers his daughter is dating an abusive boyfriend with yakuza connections, his attempt to intervene spirals into murder, cover-ups, and a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with organized crime. The series turns an ordinary salaryman into someone calculating enough to dismember bodies and manipulate police investigations, all while maintaining the facade of a concerned parent. What starts as paternal instinct becomes something much darker and more methodical.

13. Link Click (2021-2023)
*Link Click* treats time travel like a detective story where every photograph becomes evidence, and every jump backwards creates new problems to solve. The series follows two friends who can dive into photos and change the past, but only for twelve hours, and only if they follow strict rules that get harder to obey with each case. What starts as helping clients fix small regrets turns into something much darker when the protagonists realize they might be pawns in someone else's timeline manipulation. The show builds paranoia the same way Death Note does, making you question whether the heroes are actually in control or just think they are. | © Funimation (now Crunchyroll)

12. Ergo Proxy (2006)
*Ergo Proxy* drops viewers into a post-apocalyptic dome city where androids are gaining consciousness and reality itself feels unstable. The series commits completely to being difficult and strange, mixing philosophical monologues with genuine horror imagery while refusing to explain much of anything until the final episodes. Vincent Law stumbles through investigations that blur the line between detective work and existential crisis, never quite sure what he's chasing or why. The anime treats confusion as a feature, not a bug, making every answer feel earned through genuine discomfort. | © Geneon Entertainment

Oshi no ko 2020s anime — 11. Oshi No Ko (2023)
*Oshi No Ko* starts with a doctor getting murdered and reincarnated as the twin son of his favorite idol, which sounds ridiculous until the show reveals how seriously it takes the predatory machinery behind Japan's entertainment industry. The series uses its supernatural premise to dig into talent agencies, social media manipulation, and the way fame destroys young performers from the inside out. What could have been another quirky reincarnation anime becomes a scathing examination of how the idol system chews up actual human beings. The psychological games feel just as calculating as anything Light Yagami ever pulled. | © Crunchyroll

10. Talentless Nana (2020)
*Talentless Nana* sets up like a typical superhero school anime before revealing its true nature as a paranoid thriller about systematic murder. The cheerful transfer student isn't there to make friends or develop powers. She's an assassin tasked with eliminating her classmates one by one, and the show commits fully to watching her manipulate, deceive, and kill teenagers who trust her completely. Every smile becomes sinister once you understand what she's really doing. | © Funimation

Cropped Terror in Resonance — 9. Terror In Resonance (2014)
*Terror in Resonance* drops two teenage terrorists into modern Tokyo with homemade bombs and a social media strategy that turns destruction into performance art. The show builds each attack like a puzzle box, letting viewers solve riddles alongside police while the bombers stay three steps ahead of everyone. Director Shinichiro Watanabe brings the same visual precision he used in Cowboy Bebop to something much more politically charged and contemporary. What starts as a cat-and-mouse thriller becomes a story about kids weaponizing their trauma against the system that created it. | © Funimation

Kaiji Ultimate Survivor — 8. Kaiji (2007-2008)
*Kaiji* turns gambling into psychological warfare, trapping its desperate protagonist in games where the stakes climb from money to fingers to his actual life. The art style looks deliberately ugly and harsh, matching a world where everyone is either predator or prey, and the house always has another trap waiting. What starts as a simple card games becomes an exercise in pure tension, with each bet feeling like it might be the one that finally breaks him. The show understands that the real gamble is not the cards but how much of yourself you are willing to destroy for one more chance.

7. Classroom Of The Elite (2017-2024)
*Classroom Of The Elite* drops viewers into a school where academic rankings determine everything, then reveals that the quiet, unremarkable protagonist has been hiding his true abilities the entire time. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka manipulates classmates and schemes behind the scenes while maintaining a perfectly bland facade, making every casual interaction feel loaded with hidden meaning. The show turns a high school setting into a battlefield of psychological warfare where test scores matter less than reading people correctly. What looks like a typical school anime becomes something much more calculating once you realize the main character has been playing a completely different game from day one. | © Crunchyroll

6. Tomodachi Game (2022)
*Tomodachi Game* turns friendship into a weapon by trapping high schoolers in twisted psychological contests where trust becomes the most dangerous currency. The games force players to choose between their bonds and their survival, with each round designed to expose the ugly truths people hide from those closest to them. What starts as a simple debt collection scheme evolves into something far more sinister, where the real torture isn't physical pain but watching your best friends calculate whether you're worth saving. The cruellest part is how the show makes you question whether any of these friendships were real to begin with. | © Crunchyroll

Cropped Death Parade — 5. Death Parade (2015)
*Death Parade* drops strangers into a mysterious bar where they must play twisted games that supposedly determine their fate in the afterlife. The hook isn't just the death games themselves, but watching how ordinary people crack under pressure when their deepest flaws get exposed through seemingly innocent activities like darts or billiards. Each episode peels back layers of human nature while the white-haired bartender Decim observes with clinical detachment, making moral judgments that feel increasingly questionable. The real game becomes figuring out whether the system itself is more broken than the people it's judging. | © Funimation

Steins Gate — 4. Steins;Gate (2011)
*Steins;Gate* builds its time travel premise around text messages and microwaves, which sounds ridiculous until the show makes you believe every word of it. The first half moves slowly through mundane lab experiments and character interactions, then flips into a nightmare where every attempt to fix the timeline makes everything worse. Okabe's gradual descent from mad scientist cosplay into genuine desperation hits harder because the show earned that emotional weight through patience. What starts as quirky sci-fi becomes a brutal lesson in how knowledge can be the cruellest burden of all. | © Funimation

Yuno Gasai from Future Diary — 3. Future Diary (2011-2012)
*Future Diary* turns the battle royale concept into something that feels like a horror movie disguised as a psychological thriller. Twelve people get magical diaries that predict the future, then have to kill each other until only one remains, but the real nightmare comes from watching protagonist Yukiteru realize his sweet girlfriend Yuno is actually a murderous stalker who will eliminate anyone who gets too close to him. The show commits completely to its own twisted logic, never backing down from moments that should feel ridiculous but somehow land as genuinely disturbing instead. What starts as a death game becomes a study in how obsessive love can be more terrifying than any supernatural threat. | © Funimation

2. Monster (2004-2005)
*Monster* builds its horror not from jump scares or supernatural threats, but from watching an ordinary doctor slowly realise he might have saved the wrong life. The anime follows Dr Tenma as he discovers that the child he rescued years earlier has grown into a calculating serial killer who leaves psychological devastation in his wake. Every episode peels back another layer of Johan's influence, showing how one person can corrupt entire communities through manipulation alone. The real terror comes from how normal everyone looks while the world quietly falls apart around them. | © Viz Media

1. Code Geass (2006-2008)
*Code Geass* starts with a simple premise about an exiled prince gaining mysterious powers, then spirals into something far more ambitious and unhinged. Lelouch's supernatural ability to command anyone becomes the foundation for elaborate schemes that somehow keep escalating until he's orchestrating global revolution from behind a mask. The show commits completely to its own dramatic excess, treating every plot twist like the most important thing that has ever happened. By the end, it has built something genuinely operatic out of what could have been just another power fantasy. | © Funimation

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Death Note set a standard that's hard to match, a psychological cat-and-mouse story with a morally complex protagonist, razor-sharp plotting, and stakes that felt genuinely life-or-death at every turn. These are the anime series that come closest to capturing that same feeling of being completely locked in from the first episode.

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Death Note set a standard that's hard to match, a psychological cat-and-mouse story with a morally complex protagonist, razor-sharp plotting, and stakes that felt genuinely life-or-death at every turn. These are the anime series that come closest to capturing that same feeling of being completely locked in from the first episode.