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Action is, without a doubt, anime’s most popular genre that encapsulates everything from over-the-top supernatural battle shonen to grounded, realistic martial arts showcases. To most fans, bombastic action shows like Dragon Ball or Naruto were their gateway into the medium, and they remain immensely fond of its awe-inspiring spectacles to this day.
With the massive selection of top-tier action shows that anime offers those looking for an adrenaline-pumping experience, determining which series deserve to be called flawless masterpieces is no easy task. However, when it comes to the quality of these particular all-time favorite classics, no action fan would dispute that they are, indeed, the cream of the crop.
Hunter x Hunter Is One of Anime’s Greatest Battle Shonen Titles
Yoshihiro Togashi’s Hunter x Hunter opens, like many shonen fantasy series, with the promise of a grand adventure: a bright-eyed, optimistic hero, Gon Freecss, sets off from his small home island to become a Hunter and find his father, who found fame in the same profession. However, despite its conventional premise, Hunter x Hunter is anything but a cookie-cutter action-adventure where the power of friendship topples everything else and the characters never face any real danger.
Hunter x Hunter is a peerlessly creative, multifaceted series that, despite being wondrous, doesn’t shy away from venturing into darker places. Its story is structured in a way where each arc feels distinct – almost as if it belongs to an entirely new genre – while adding depth and complexity to the larger world. A similar approach of combining boundless imagination and nuanced realism applies to the action in Hunter x Hunter.
The secret to Hunter x Hunter’s success as a battle shonen lies, in no small part, in its magic system, Nen. Complex yet not rigid, while always following a sensible internal logic, Nen takes fights to a whole new level upon its introduction, allowing for the inception of numerous mind-blowingly creative abilities and the unfolding of clashes where strategy, quick thinking, and even psychological warfare decide the outcome instead of raw strength.
Furthermore, the protagonists of Hunter x Hunter are never guaranteed victory. Predicting a fight in the series is incredibly difficult; considering that the series doesn’t place its characters into inflexible categories of heroes and villains, fans often end up morally conflicted about whom to root for. Action in Hunter x Hunter serves a clear storytelling purpose beyond just being exciting – it adds narrative depth to the world and characters, fleshing out their different aspects through the encounters they endure.
Gurren Lagann’s Zealous Intensity Is Addictive
Gurren Lagann’s action-packed story begins deep underground, where humans, like the young digger Simon and his boisterous best friend Kamina, hide from the wicked Beastmen ruling on the surface. However, everything changes after Simon stumbles upon a buried mech suit, a Gunmen, deep in the soil. And when a bigger robot crashes into their quiet village to wreak havoc, Simon and Kamina seize the chance to escape their boring lives and join the human resistance against Beastmen.
Borrowing in style from the fun-loving “super robot” mecha shows of the ‘70s, Gurren Lagann takes a joyous, over-the-top approach to action where everything abides by the Rule of Cool instead of rigid logic, and unimaginable feats are possible through the power of determination. The fights escalate massively from regular mech battles to mind-blowing cosmic showdowns where entire galaxies are used as weapons. Yet, even at its most absurd, Gurren Lagann never fails to get viewers engrossed and excited.
However, Gurren Lagann isn’t just mindless fun. The series, for being so grand and high-energy, has plenty of heart and doesn’t shy away from more somber, grave emotions. Overcoming grief is a central theme in Gurren Lagann, and its inclusion means that not every fight concludes in the protagonists’ favor. And yet, the series’ tragic moments never feel out of place in its otherwise upbeat, high-energy story – they exist to add depth to the narrative and reinforce its overarching message.
Ultimately, Gurren Lagann is one of anime’s most inspiring and earnest series that urges viewers to face impossible odds head-on and always believe in themselves. It celebrates humanity’s perseverance and strife to evolve, all while embracing the fact that impactful stories with a lot to say don’t always have to be realistic – they can also be extravagant, excessive, and overwhelmingly emotional, not choosing between style and substance.
Hajime no Ippo Approaches Sports Action With Nuance & Realism
Not all action anime have to include mind-blowing supernatural battles or whisk viewers away to distant fantasy worlds. Some of the best series in the genre focus on a considerably more grounded type of action – something that wouldn’t feel impossible in the real world. One of the greatest sports anime series of all time, Hajime no Ippo, is this exact kind of action show – a story of a boxing novice, Ippo Makunouchi, gradually fighting his way up to athletic stardom.
A timid high school kid, Ippo accidentally discovers his latent talent for boxing after a professional boxer saves him from bullies. However, being somewhat naturally gifted hardly means that Ippo can kickstart his boxing career effortlessly. Hajime no Ippo is a series that acknowledges talent but celebrates relentless hard work that covers not just strength training and boxing fundamentals but also the development of one’s spirit and mind.
Unlike many sports anime series that, in order to make the action more entertaining, treat athletic abilities like superpowers, Hajime no Ippo keeps things grounded in reality. The show is relentlessly praised for its technical accuracy, stellar fight choreography, and strategic approach to depicting matches. However, the realism hardly takes away from the excitement in the case of Hajime no Ippo. Every fight in the show feels incredibly high-stakes, and when punches land, viewers can feel their weight and power much more viscerally than with more fantastical sports shows.
Ippo’s rise from a nobody to an accomplished athlete is tremendously gratifying to watch. However, his story doesn’t exist in isolation. Every character in Hajime no Ippo, from Ippo’s friends and supporters to his rivals, is just as well-developed, and knowing the stories of people the protagonist faces in the ring adds even more intensity to their showdowns. While not a series fans would think about first when considering anime’s best action shows, Hajime no Ippo undeniably deserves to be acclaimed within the genre.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Gets Close to Perfecting All of Its Elements
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood’s reputation in the anime community is that of a perfect shonen adventure, and it fully deserves all the praise it receives. The story of Fullmetal Alchemist is, indeed, phenomenal: an epic tale that starts with the protagonists, Edward and Alphonse Elric, suffering mutilation and great emotional trauma in a forbidden alchemy experiment, only to later, upon maturing, embark on a journey to find the rumored Philosopher's Stone – their only hope for restoring their bodies.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is a brilliantly structured story with nuanced, immersive worldbuilding, exceptional pacing, and a flawlessly developed cast of characters, all of whom receive enough narrative focus to have complete, satisfying arcs. Standing at 64 episodes, which is considerably shorter than many of its peers, it doesn’t drag its plot out and, unlike many similar shonen adventures, brings the story to a satisfying, cathartic conclusion that stays with audiences long after the credits roll.
However, despite being a show with so many strong points, Fullmetal Alchemist often gets unfairly overlooked in the action department. Fghts in the series are actually exceptional, thanks not only to the series' stellar writing but also its top-notch production quality, which, in Brotherhood – the second adaptation of the renowned series – is a particular highlight. Due to alchemy being a strict and realistic power system, combatants in the show cannot rely solely on physical strength.
They must approach every encounter intelligently, utilize their environment, and remain aware of their own weaknesses to achieve victory; these nuances result in some truly magnificent feats of strategic combat. However, the greatest merit of Fullmetal Alchemist’s action is that it adds to the emotional depth of the narrative, with all of its most iconic battles, be it Mustang vs. Lust or the final fight against Father, being both spectacular and outstandingly emotionally resonant.
