Halloween Anime Style: Top Ten Picks

Shinigamis, Zombies, and Witches, Oh My! Err yeah, it’s occurred to me there are a lot of great series out there very fitting to watch around Halloween time. In the past I’ve hosted an anime club and still have friends over and it’s been in our habit to celebrate Halloween anime style! So following are some of my top recommendations. Feel free to suggest your own 🙂

SOUL EATER Number #1 Pick: What better Anime to watch around Halloween? Crazy style, great animation, and characters in an inventive world of shinigamis, death sythes, witches, demons and more. One of the best anime I’ve seen in a long time, if you haven’t had a chance to check it out now is the perfect season for it (though granted, it’s a good series all year round). The characters alone such as as Soul Eater, Death Scythe, Shinigami-san, Death the Kid, Blaire the Magical Cat, Franken Stein, and Medusa is enough to warrant this series befitting for Halloween. Fun and awesome series, this is one you might even show to non-anime friends.

ANN Summary: Set in the Shinigami technical school for weapon meisters, the series revolves around 3 groups of each a weapon meister and a human weapon. Trying to make the latter a “Death Scythe” and thus fit for use by the Shinigami, they must collect the souls of 99 evil humans and 1 witch. Soul Eater is an anime that centers around meisters and their weapons and their mission to collect 99 evil souls and 1 witch soul. Upon doing that the meister’s weapons will become a Death scythe, which is the highest title for a weapon. Maka, Soul Eater, Black Star, Tsubaki, Death the Kid, and Patty and Liz Thompson are the characters Soul Eater revolves around. Besides taking the time to gather souls these students of Shibusen defend Death City from some of the most powerful of creatures while still attending school and trying to become stronger.

D.Gray-man Number #2 Pick: Exorcists, Akuma, and the Earl and his Black Order is enough to put this series on my Halloween list. Or forget Halloween–this is a series you should watch any way. I also will highly recommend the manga version though the anime is complete at just over 100 episodes. Great plot, great characters, dark and quirky feel splattered with humor and angst.

ANN Summary: Allen Walker, a young man with a cursed eye, lives to destroy a weapon known as Akuma. These weapons created by the Millennium Earl are sent out by his command to purge the world from humans. Allen Walker uses an anti-akuma weapon, Innocence, to counter the Earl’s attempts at destroying humanity. He travels to the Black Order by his mentor’s directions. There he meets with others who also fight against the Milleneum Earl’s plans. But more questions start to appear as Allen and his friends move further along to reach their goal. And these questions that seem to connect to Allen’s past.

Zombie Loan Number #3 Pick: Short and complete series perfect for Halloween. Come on, isn’t the title itself a give away? Very cool anime that’s also a very fun to watch.

ANN Summary: Michiru Kita is a special girl who possesses Shinigami Eyes, which allows her to see a dark ring around a person’s neck. This ring symbolizes the person’s impending death; once they are marked to die, a gray line, which is invisible to normal people, appears on their neck, and once the ring turns completely black, the person dies. Chika Akatsuki and Shito Tachibana, two boys in her class, both have black rings around their necks, but to her surprise, they are not yet dead. It is revealed that after a tragic accident that was supposed to kill them both, the two boys made a deal with a secret loan office called the Zombie-Loan. In return for keeping them alive, the two have to hunt zombies for the loan office. When Michiru gets involved with them, she finds that her life has just become more complicated.

Jigoku Shoujo (Hell Girl) Number #4 Pick: Creepy anime with a concept that truly makes you think, what would you do? When is revenge worth your soul? This anime is for the most part episodic, with the main characters changing and the main constant being Emma Ai… the mysterious dark girl who appears if you make a request for revenge at midnight on the website, Hell Correspondence. The choice is yours to make, and the price is your soul after you die. Every circumstance is different and a few twists and many more questions arise.

Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) Number #5 Pick: What can I say? Awesome series from what I’ve seen so far. Ciel Phantomhive (the boy who I consider to be the anime impersonation of Artemis Fowl) has acquired a demon to be his butler. Dark and humorous with plenty of fan service for girls and action for guys.

Summary: In Victorian-era Europe, a young boy loses everything he once held near and dear to a vicious plot. In his moment of death, he strikes a deal with a demon: his soul, in exchange for revenge. Ciel Phantomhive is now the head of the Phantomhive corporation, handling all business affairs as well as the underground work for the Queen of England. His new partner is a demon butler, Sebastian Michaelis, whose powers as a butler is only surpassed by his strength as a demon.

Vampire Knight Number #6 Pick: For the shoujo at heart, who wouldn’t want Bishie vampires for Halloween?

ANN Summary: Cross Academy is different from other schools. It has a Day Class and a Night Class, with different uniforms and no interaction between these two classes. Secretly, students of the Night Class are all vampires, led by Kuran Kaname, a noble vampire who 10 years prior saved Cross Yuki from the attack of a stray vampire. Now a Guardian of the Night Class vampires, Yuki works along with fellow classmate Kiriyuu Zero, a young man with a hatred for vampires deeper than anything she could imagine. Together, they protect Kaname and the Night Class vampires from having their identities revealed, as well as protect Day Class students from any vampire attacks that occur due to a vampire’s natural thirst for blood. Based on the manga by Hino Matsuri.

Wallflower Number #7 Pick: Sunako’s character alone fits with Halloween–imagine the girl from the ring. Forced from her rich aunt to become the “project” of a gang of pretty boys to turn her into a lady in lieu of rent, Sunako is different than your normal shoujo protagonist. Horror loving, creepy, she’s terrified of light melting her and would much rather hide in the dark and play with her skeletons. Sometimes homical, from chibi to kick-ass, Sunako balances out the sparkly bishonen to make this a very funny anime.

Tweeny Witches Number #8 Pick: I’ll be the first to agree this series doesn’t have an amazing plot (I don’t know if it even has an interesting one), but the visuals are a treat for the eyes. I love the quirky dark witches and feel of this series, trust me it’s not as cute as it title sounds. Flying contraptions and brooms out of a mind I would expect from Miyazaki, this is an interesting world of witches worth checking out around Halloween.

Sugar Sugar Rune Number #9 Pick: I admit I adore this series. If you find the anime too candy sweet, however, try the manga – no magical transformations, cute fillers, and a great plot that moves much more quickly not to mention very cool art style. I bought the entire 8 books and don’t regret it for a minute. Despite the very cute premise there’s actually a very interesting plot, nice romance, and inventive magical world with its rules and politics.

Summary: Two little witches in training, Chocola (Shocola) and Vanilla (Vaniya), arrive in the human world to compete over who’s to be the next queen of the magic world. They have one important rule in mind: “Hearts are to be picked up, but never let anyone get yours!” While humans can produce hearts over and over again, based on different emotions, witches only have one – and losing it can mean death. Now, the witch who can manage to pick up the most hearts from human boys will win! But will they manage to stay friends while at the same time being rivals? As it turns out, not all witches and warlocks are friendly and the bad ones have been outcasted to the human world.. Trouble begins to brew as Pierre, a cold and mysterious boy, begins to win Chocolat’s heart and starts to use both her and Vanilla to his own use.

Bakemonogatari #10 Pick: Perhaps this one can be placed higher on the list, but it’s a last minute addition as I have only seen two episodes thus far. First impression? Stunning animation and presentation. I would only recommend for a slightly older audience. Back story is so far interesting but I’m still early into the series and quite bedazzled by the look of it. Check it out and let me know what you think!

ANN Summary: Although there are still traces of the brief period he became a vampire, third year high school student Koyomi Araragi is human again. He happens upon others with their own supernatural problems and finds that he can empathize. Koyomi becomes involved in their lives, seeking to help them and occasionally asking for advice from Meme Oshino, the homeless man who helped him become human again.

Other Suggestions: Death Note and Bleach (you know, assuming someone actually hasn’t seen either… ) Pandora’s Hearts, Hellsing, Blood the Last Vampire, xxxHolic, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei