When the door between this world and the beyond opened on top of New York City, life there changed forever. Now known as Hellsalem’s Lot, the doomed city housing both demons and humans as well as those who have been changed by the energies freed by the merging dimensions. One of the latter is the unfortunate Leonardo Watch, a photographer who gained the “Eyes of God” capable of seeing through any illusion or magic, just as his sister goes blind. While trying to help his sister, he joins Libra, an organization composed of many humans that tries to keep some order in that corner of the world.

Based on the manga of the same title, one of the few problems that Kekkai Sensen has is that it only adapts some of the chapters of the manga and then goes to create its own ending. Even so, the animation is top quality and the story is very intriguing, so the fans were very happy to know that the studio decided to make a sequel just two years later: Kekkai Sensen & Beyond.

Earthquakes are terrifying. They last for mere seconds, but the damage they create can still be seen years after the fact. The only thing that could make them worse could be not knowing where your family is, or how to get to them when you are a child. Mirai Onozawa, a rebellious thirteen years old, learns this first-hand when she and her younger brother are together at a robotic exhibition in an artificial Island near Tokyo Bay just as an 8.0 earthquake hits the city. After surviving the initial destruction, she has to find the way to get her brother back to their home and find out if their parents are still alive.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is a very harsh anime, as it deals with very realistic reactions to the destruction caused by a natural disaster in a way that disaster movies rarely do. Instead of having the main characters threatened by other survivors, we can see that most people are just trying to get to their loved ones or grief in peace. While it is now even harder to watch, especially after real life earthquakes both in Japan and in other parts of the world, it’s a testament of how Bones can deal with more realistic tragedies and give us a heartfelt story.

Being able to see supernatural beings is not always a blessing. For Atsushi Nakajima, is a complete curse, as he is the only one who can see a ghost tiger that is causing chaos in the orphanage where he lives, and thus, he’s blamed by the mischief and thrown out to the streets. Being an orphan, that means that he is left without food, shelter, and, to make things worse, still chased by the mysterious tiger. By mere chance, he meets and saves Osamu Dazai, a supernatural detective that is also following the tiger’s trail, when not trying to kill himself. Thus, Atsushi is drafted into Dazai’s group, a crew of supernatural detectives that tackle those cases the cops just can’t deal with.

Based on the manga of the same name by Kafka Asagiri and Sango Harukawa, Bungou Stray Dogs is a very solid mystery story that becomes an homage to other great international authors. Given its initial success, it had a second season of 12 episodes, that aired on October, pretty much right after the first; while in 2018 we were rewarded with an amazing movie titled Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple. While not as flashy as other anime on this list, it’s still a great example of Bones’ amazing animation.

The life of a bounty hunter is never dull. And for Dandy, whose job is to catch aliens through the vastness of space, it’s even more exciting. Officially, he needs to find unregistered and unknown aliens to register them in a database, but he keeps taking weird detours as nothing is ever easy for him and his crew: a robot vacuum and a cat-like alien. Aboard the Aloha Oe, they keep finding new adventures, and even some new universes, in their search for their bounty.

Directed by Shingo Natsume and Shinichiro Watanabe, Space Dandy is a glorious visual treat. The story, at first, is a bit confusing, and that may be a put out for some as, let’s be honest, the fact that the Aloha Oe’s crew is not exactly professional can be tiresome after a few episodes, but once it hits the real plot it’s impossible not to love it. And the final twist in the second season makes it even better for all sci-fi fans.

After a war that almost destroyed the world, the survivors were divided in six peaceful city-states, each one surrounded by tall walls that kept them safe from the outside. Shion, a resident of the sixth city, known as Number 6, meets Nezumi, a fugitive from beyond the walls when he was 12, and moved by pity, gave Nezumi shelter for a night. This caused Shion’s family to be stripped of their elite status and sent to live in Lost Town. Four years later, Shion stumbles into another dark secret from No. 6, Nezumi saves his life to pay him back for his generosity, and together, they have to fight for their lives and figure out all the city’s secrets.

Based on a series of light novels, No. 6 is a very interesting story of maturity and intrigue. While reactions were mixed at first, especially as it had to condense nine books into 11 episodes and changed the ending while toning down some of the most gruesome scenes in the books, now it has a very steady fandom that remembers it with fondness.

The end of the world is near, and many animals have gone extinct. Wolves have only survived because they have managed to learn to hide themselves as humans with various illusions. There’s a legend that they can find the gateway to paradise, but most humans and wolves alike think that’s just a myth. Kiba, Tsume, Hige and Toboe are four wolves that meet in Freeze City, looking for the Lunar Flower. Little by little, as they try to rescue the Flower Maiden, they start forming a pack, even if they were all used to be lone wolves, always looking out for themselves.

For many fans, Wolf’s Rain is one of Bones’ masterpieces. This reputation is earned, since not only the animation, character design, and music are gorgeous; the story is amazing and completely original for the studio, unlike other gems they have created that are based on manga or light novels. Followed by an OVA, it’s one of the titles that are in many “anime you have to watch” lists, and for good reason. If you haven’t seen it, give yourself a treat and enjoy this wonderful series.

Shigeo Kageyama is one of the least interesting people around. He practically disappears in the background, which is why he’s nicknamed Mob, as in “background character”. But what no one knows is that Mob actually has secret psychic powers that have grown stronger as he reaches maturity. Unfortunately for Mob and everyone around him, his trick to suppress his powers was to suppress his emotions, so now when he hits his limit, he’s overcome by whichever emotion he’s been trying to suppress the most, and his powers are unleashed.

Mob Psycho 100 is one of Bones’ most experimental anime. Based on the webmanga of the same name created by One, it manages to have a very interesting main character who, at the same time, looks completely unremarkable. It’s a very exciting manga that manages to keep the viewer intrigued for every episode and, once it’s over, wish for more.

Kazuya Kujo has just transferred to the St. Marguerite Academy in Saubure, a small town in Europe. The school itself is very nice, but he tends to be shunned due to his dark hair because of an urban legend that claims that “a traveler in the spring brings death with him”. Because of this legend, he also gets dubbed “the Black Reaper”. Still, he keeps with his studies, and then meets Victorique de Blois, a young girl with blonde hair and green eyes that loves mysteries and crimes. After saving Kazuya from being wrongly arrested, she decides that he is to be his helper in solving more mysteries.

While Gosick’s story is arguably less complex than other entries on the list, it doesn’t stop the series from being captivating. Everything is done with great care for the detail needed for a gothic mystery, and thus, the animation is gorgeous. If you are a fan of victorian era mysteries, this is absolutely the Bones series that you need to watch, as it follows the era’s tropes quite faithfully, making it a very polished gem in Bones’ animation crown.

In a world where 80% of the world’s population has superpowers or “quirks”, Izuku Midoriya is part of the unfortunate 20% that doesn’t. Despite this, he dreams to be a hero, just like his idol, All Might. Of course, since everyone knows that he has no quirk, this makes him a target for bullies. Still, he never falters, which is why, when he saves his bullies from a super villain, this is enough to impress All Might to the point that the legendary super hero decides to share his own quirk with Izuku so he can become his successor. Of course, before he can do that, Izuku needs to train with his new-found quirk, and for that, he enrolls into UA High.

At first glance, the premise of the manga that inspires this anime may sound a bit cliché. After all, the X-men in the West have done the school for superheroes for decades and every once in a while a new movie or tv show about the idea of heroes in highschool comes up. But Boku no Hero Academia makes up for the premise with a great cast of characters. From Izuku, who is the starry-eyed fanboy who gets to live his dream, to All might, who at first seems like a parody of many American heroes, but soon shows his true depth. Every student, teacher and villain in the series has something different to give which in the end makes the story a very enjoyable treat.

Edward Elric is a young alchemist prodigy. When he was only eight, he and his brother Alphonse tried the greatest taboo in alchemy: to revive their dead mother. They failed and Al lost his body, while Ed lost his left arm; and because he didn’t want to lose his brother, Ed also sacrificed his right leg in order to capture Al’s soul inside an empty suit of armor. Now, years later, Ed works for the State Alchemists, while being helped by his brother in order to find the Philosopher’s Stone, a legendary alchemy creation that is said to be able to break all alchemy rules, and thus, restore their bodies to their natural form.

There’s very little that hasn’t been said about Fullmetal Alchemist, the incredibly popular manga by Hiromu Arakawa. In 2003 Bones made the first anime adaptation, which received a lot of critical approval and grew an immense fandom but at the same time got some criticism due to the fact that since they started before the manga was over, their ending didn’t line up with what ended up happening in the original story. But in 2009, with the manga coming to an end, they made a new series; this time completely faithful to the source material and, with the extra years of experience, they made a true masterpiece that no Bones fan should miss.