Ryousuke Hazuki has fallen in love with a local floral shop owner named Rokka Shimao, and he starts working part-time at the shop just to be near her. He begins getting close to her, but suddenly runs into an issue when he discovers that Rokka’s late husband still haunts her apartment! The spirit of Atsushi Shimao does not approve of Hazuki, and the trio finds themselves in an awkward situation indeed.

Rokka’s apartment is the scene for much of the haunting that goes on in Natsuyuki Rendezvous, as Atsushi stays behind to zealously guard over his widowed wife. Though it is not a particularly scary or dangerous place, Hazuki still needs to be on his guard when he is around Atsushi, since the spirit is trying to possess his body. While not quite as terrifying or memorable as some of the other haunted buildings from our list, Rokka’s apartment and the floral shop remain iconic for their pivotal place in this anime’s story, and we thought they deserved to be included on our list.

Koutarou Satomi finally finds a cheap apartment where he can live by himself, and he is excited by his new life of going to school, working a part-time job and living on his own. But when Koutarou finds a strange cave one night, his peaceful new apartment is suddenly invaded! Each of the newcomers is claiming ownership of the space, from magical girl Yurika to Kiriha Kurano, a girl who is descended from the mysterious Earth People. And thus begins the strangest battle royale ever, all staged in one tiny apartment!

One of the funniest examples of a haunted building, Corona House’s Room 106 is infamous for the strange girls that are fighting over it. While each of these may not be the “spirits” that traditionally haunt a space, they still settle down as if they own the place, making Koutarou feel very uncomfortable! Sanae Higashihongan is one of the few girls in the apartment who actually is related to spirits and spiritual energy. It may not be as characteristically frightening or full of spirits as a usual haunted house, but for Koutarou, this place definitely seems like one. Seeing as most of Rokujouma no Shinryukusha?! revolves around Room 106, we thought it fitting that the building be mentioned in our list of haunted spaces.

Takashi Natsume has been plagued by youkai for his entire life. His grandmother also had this gift, as she passed her “Book of Friends” down to him with all the names of the spirits she had brought under control. As long as he holds this book, Natsume has this same ability. Of course, this power isolates him and draws darker beings to him, ones that seek to gain this ability themselves. Along with his friend and protector Nyanko-sensei, Natsume will meet many spirits as he aims to free the ones his grandmother had previously bound.

Natsume and his classmates visit the abandoned school building early on in the series as a test of courage for the students. Though Natsume can see the spirits inhabiting the place, he tries to maintain a normal façade. The main spirit in this building is Shigure, choosing to haunt the place in anger after the school was torn down. Though Shigure is intentionally evil toward humans after the events of his past, he does not cause harm to people who approach him unaware. Though Natsume Yuujinchou has quite a bit of haunted buildings and places over the course of its episodes, we still remember this building and its events as one of the first true haunted spaces of the series!

Yuragi-sou is an infamous boarding house that was once a hot spring. People believe it is haunted by an unpleasant spirit, which is why it is so cheap! For Fuyuzora Kogarashi, this is the perfect place for him to stay. He decides to exorcise the ghosts that inhabit the place for a little extra money, but he soon sees that the rumors are not as true as he thought. The eccentric residents of Yuragi-sou begin to grow on him, and he begins to search for a way to help the beautiful ghost Yuuna pass on peacefully.

Kogarashi comes to Yuragi-sou with the intention of ridding the place of its haunting, but he finds that he rather enjoys the characters he has found! This is a harem series, so most of the characters are meant to be bound to Kogarashi in some way. Of course, this means that Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san is vastly different in its use of a haunted building. Yuuna haunts the room that Kogarashi inhabits, making his stay more pleasant than horrifying! For its unique perspective on the idea of a haunted building, we had to include Yuragi Inn on our list.

Daigo Kagemitsu sacrifices his first-born son to a pact with demons, allowing them to take his son’s organs in recompense for the land’s prosperity. He orders the disposal of the child, who is deposited into the river without another thought. A man looking for redemption saves the child, fashioning him a prosthetic body to keep the child alive. The boy, named Hyakkimaru, grows with a vengeance, eventually setting out to slay the demons and take his body back!

In one of the later episodes of Dororo, Hyakkimaru and Dororo encounter mysterious and distorted spirits haunting a ruined temple. The lord of the land seems saddened by the destruction of the building and tells the travelers that it used to be a home for orphaned children. Later on, Dororo learns that the building was intentionally destroyed and its inhabitants killed in order to keep the large moth creatures fed in that land. It is a tragic discovery which only further exemplifies that haunted buildings and terrifying spirits are not always as devious or evil as they seem, and this episode’s moral discussion stands out to us long after the show ended!

In the past, the ghosts haunting a schoolhouse were banished, but now they have returned to their old home. Though Satsuki and Keiichirou Miyanoshita have just transferred to this school, they discover the truth behind the rumors of its haunting! The siblings and their new friends now work to survive these ghosts as they come after them. Set up in a mostly episodic fashion, Gakkou no Kaiden is mostly well-known for the random English dub that was released with it, though the dub vastly changes the mood of the show!

Whether watching the dubbed or subbed version of Gakkou no Kaiden, the schoolhouse these students roam is inherently important to the series! Haunted in both the past and the present, the schoolhouse is full of a wide variety of ghosts. It can be a menacing place or a house of comedy, depending on the version you are watching. One thing is for certain, though, this schoolhouse is not easily forgotten!

Ash and Pikachu have been partners on their journey across the world since their very first meeting. Ash has a dream of becoming a Pokémon Master, and he aims to achieve this by meeting many new Pokémon and their trainers. Of course, he also needs to battle and win against many other trainers as well! Ash and Pikachu set out to get their eight gym badges and face off against the elite trainers of the Pokémon league, as they explore the vast new world along the way.

In the early stages of their original journey, Ash and his friends encounter a spooky tower in the quiet Lavender Town. They go inside, with Ash and Pikachu actually dying briefly to join the other spirits haunting the building. The tower is inhabited by ghost Pokémon like Haunter and Ghastly, who spend their time haunting passersby and playing pranks. Though this is meant to be one of the spookier episodes of the Pokémon series, we enjoyed the look at Lavender Tower’s lore and the prankster ghost Pokémon that reside within!

The man known as Storyteller has never revealed anything about himself. He commonly appears at dusk, gathering children around to hear his terrifying tales. All his stories are based on Japanese urban legends, passed down to the listening children. Using a kamishibai, his stories become even more twisted with the scenes played out before everyone. Yami Shibai is an episodic anime of short horror stories. As the Storyteller weaves his tales, we find each story more horrifying than the last…

From its first to its final episode, any of the settings could have been included on our list. Yami Shibai is known for its hauntings and creepy settings, with plenty of spirits involved along the way! We decided to pick one of the later episodes to highlight for you here. In episode 10, a high school baseball team heads to a training camp. They recall a time when one of the members, Daisuke, fell into a lodge’s pit toilet during one of their previous camps. When Daisuke goes to use the pit toilet later that evening, he suddenly remembers a creature stalking him while he was in the pit… Though we never find out for sure what creature haunts the pit toilet of the lodge, its image is terrifying enough that we will never forget it!

Seikyou Private Academy is known for its haunted halls. A young woman named Yuuko died in the school, leaving her to reside permanently in the basement. She remembers nothing of who she is, or how she died. To search for answers, she forms the Paranormal Investigations Club at the school. She reins in some living students to help her, and together they work through the Seven Mysteries of their school!

Yuuko is not your typical spirit haunting a school, but some of the events that surround Seikyou Private Academy are just as terrifying as you might expect from a school this infamous. And though Yuuko is typically cheerful toward her classmates, she also has a much darker side. The horror might not be as enhanced as other series in the genre, but Seikyou Private Academy boasts a perfect combination of comedy and horror to keep viewers interested the whole time! We love this unique anime and the Paranormal Investigations Club’s antics, and we think you will find this school to be one of the more pleasant haunted buildings on our list. Of course, nothing tops our number one pick, not even Yuuko’s combination of psychological genre/fan-service!

With their friend leaving their school, nine students gather after class to say goodbye. They perform a ritual, vowing to remain close friends forever and using small paper dolls to seal it. Yet these small charms are actually linked to Heavenly Host Elementary, a place of horrifying death and despair from the past! These friends from Kisaragi Academy are now lost in that place, trapped in another dimension until they either die or escape. Full of blood, guts and horror, Corpse Party’s anime adaptation proves itself to be just as memorable as its video game predecessor!

The title, “Corpse Party: Tortured Souls” gives away exactly what kind of anime this is going to be. Heavenly Host Elementary cannot be beat when it comes to haunting, with spirits of the dead lingering around every corner. Some of these spirits are only there to tempt or to make the characters question their morals, while others are out to kill. No matter what, this is a place we would never want to see ourselves! For its iconic and memorable setting of the haunted school, we easily place Heavenly Host Elementary as the top of our list.

Sometimes things are better left as they are, for when changes come about, they aren’t always for the better. As for Makoto, Taro, and Masayuki, traveling to Suiten, the Unseen World; a world parallel to the real world and inhabited by the likes of ghosts, only snowballs into further complications as malevolence bubbles underneath the surface. Now, with spirits making their way over to the real world, the time left to unravel the mystery behind this occurrence is dwindling fast and placing everyone at risk in the process.

‘Curiosity killed the cat’ are words to live by, and Makoto, Taro, and Masayuki turn those words into gold here on episode 4. Wandering through an old abandoned hospital can be a thrill worthwhile, but not always for the better. When these three travel through its corridors, something about its lack of fear-jerking elements makes the place all the creepier. As they aimlessly circle around, the absence of life almost transcends the atmosphere outside of reality. Empty beds, hollow walls and decrepit stairs. You could almost hear them taunting their every step. Thus making it time that this curious trio high tailed their way out of there once things start to escalate. Unfortunately, it might already be too late.

Looks can be deceiving. As is the case with Amu Hinamori; a student at Seiyo Elementary. Holding a high reputation, Amu is quite different underneath her false façade. Eager to become the person everyone believes she is, Amu makes a hopeful wish to be reborn as her “would-be” self. Well, her dream just may have come true, as three Guardians, Miki, Su, and Ran appear the following day. With these Guardians set to make Amu’s wish a reality, personality changes and new abilities make this road to her new self a bumpy one. After being recruited by a counsel of students possessing their own Guardians known as “the Guardians”, Amu inevitably gets pulled into a world like she’s never seen before.

There is more to ghost hunting than proving their existence. Ghosts have a history, and sometimes their stories are worth being heard. When The Guardians go snooping through a haunted mansion, they initially encounter everything that would make this seem like a stellar amusement park attraction. With Amu hollering at every corner, it’s not fear that makes episode 34 of Shugo Chara! such a great addition to our list, but eccentrics. Chasing after a supposed ghost, the trio stumble across Kuuta, a now fading Guardian. A moment of sentiment poured into the pool of comedic horror gives this spooky mansion adventure a unique flavor amongst the rest, and certainly makes it one worth tuning in to.

Exiling ghosts from their own haunted schoolhouse can come back around full circle; and in Ghost Stories, it already has. Dealing with the loss of their mother, siblings Satsuki and Keiichirou Miyanoshita get spiraled into a new life after moving into their mother’s hometown. Initially ignoring claims of their local school being haunted, these two quickly come to discover that the reality behind the rumors is much more real and vicious than they’d come to believe.

When Satsuki and Keiichirou run into the old schoolhouse in search of their cat at the kick start of episode 1, they immediately struggle to protect themselves from one strange occurrence after the other. This building is haunted to the core, and that’s a fact. Feasting on its prey until they finally break and become part of its long rap sheet, it’s as if there is a never-ending supply of frightening ghouls at its disposal. So much for it being the “old” schoolhouse, as with each passing episode, another paranormal presence makes itself at home. Making sure that the excitement of this haunted building never gets old at all.

Suddenly realizing that phantoms have long since lived alongside humanity is certainly the revelation of a lifetime; a scary one at that. Thanks to a brain infecting virus, people in the world of Myriad Colors Phantom World become capable of seeing these paranormal creatures, and as the generations pass by, they are able to use special abilities to fight against them as well. Haruhiko Ichijou, Mai Kawakami, and not-so-evil phantom Ruru; better known as Team E from Hosea Academy, use their abilities to entwine their daily lives with the Phantom World. In a mystical environment such as this, things are bound to get interesting.

Cats are evil; this we already know! So what does that make an old mansion rumored to be filled with them? The eeriness that loomed around just the storytelling of the cat mansion at episode 7 could be enough to rile a person up. Now with talk of phantoms, and the entire team slowly turning into cats; yes, cats, that silly superstition doesn’t seem to be so far-fetched anymore. It seems like the only answer to the strange cat-ifying phenomenon is to face it head on and take a stroll through the cat mansion. But Team E will have to work fast, for soon they’ll fall into the paws of those darn evil felines.

When samurai are accidentally removed from a parallel universe, they find themselves misplaced in the modern-day world of Tokyo. Despite what you may be inclined to believe, the inhabitants of this world do not appear as the masculine warriors from our well known history; but instead look like high school girls. Coming from the medieval era and being placed in a bustling modern environment, urges them to become best friends as they embark on a handful of misadventures. Some of which, are downright creepy.

Long halls that just span onwards without end. A view that only stretches a few feet ahead before falling to complete darkness, pest-ridden with ghastly nooks and crannies. At this point the building itself brings on enough chill that a ghost is nothing more than a merciless overkill. When Yoshiaki’s friends begin disappearing one by one, the horror mystery starts to unfold. Episode 15 gives us a bite into nostalgia as they gape down the stairs into a deep abyss, welcoming them to their horrid demise. This was the same late night fun that grew hairs on your chest as a kid, and now it’s back to crawl up the nape of your neck yet again. Luckily we’re only watching it this time around.

Telling ghost stories amongst your friends may be all fun and games, but when the stories become real, suddenly the thrill isn’t as exciting. When Mai Taniyama is hired by 17-year old Kazuya Shibuya; president of the Shibuya Psychic Research Company, Mai gets a taste of just how terrifying some of those around-the-campfire stories actually are. Forced to work in order to pay back a broken camera, Mai uptakes the world of the supernatural and dives into the profession of ghost hunting.

Ghost Hunt brings us the good ol’ fashioned ghastly household that seems to be further beneath the darkness then they’d ever imagined. The confines of this house were spewing poison at its occupants. Creepy dolls and strange children, all within the aura of a deep rooted vengeance that knows no direction. As the SPR team take rudimentary steps at the onset of episode 4 towards discovering the culprit behind the house’s hauntings, we get a taste of that true to form spine-chilling fear that is a staple in the world of horror. Taking everything we know horror to be and placing it on the table in a refreshing manner is why we couldn’t let this old school haunting miss a stop on our list of top haunted buildings.

Following the story of an individual known only as “Medicine Seller”, Mononoke tells a magnificent story of the encounters of “mononoke”. A type of unnatural spirit lingering within the living world. As the seller seeks to fend the spirits off, he pours his knowledge into learning the mononoke’s Form, Truth, and Reasoning before unsheathing his sword and exorcising them. A transcending tale of the supernatural blended within the philosophy of our perception of the world around us.

Public places can carry some of the most weighted fragments of history. Infested in the rugs, and stained onto the walls. The sound of something terrible calling from the past can bring about a twisted sense of torture.

After checking into a room at a traditional inn, a pregnant woman is faced with a terrifying history that doesn’t seem to want to stay in the past. Apparently saving the lady from an assassin, the mononoke of the inn attract the attention of the Medicine Seller. A person only helps another in order to help themselves, and the Medicine Seller soon discovers that mononoke aren’t any different. The spirits of unborn children; they only want to experience the life that was ripped away from them. They are lost voices that hawk over the natural facet of life; fertility. Forever existing within this inn awaiting their ticket into this vile world. The questions that loom after watching this episode will wrap around your head and open your eyes to a new viewpoint. Every element, from the atmosphere to the obscure meanings, are what makes episode 1 of Mononoke a perfect fit for this list.

The Devil is feared by many, thus when the Demon Lord Satan and his armies take strides to conquer the continent of Ente Isla; success seems almost certain. That is, until the evil conqueror is bested and forced to quickly retreat. This; however, placed him in none other than the human world. Now stranded in Tokyo, he eagerly fights to find a way back. Undertaking the guise of a human named Sadao Maou, the Demon Lord works to make ends meet by taking on a part-time job at MgRonald’s. Powerless in a world without magic, this evil ruler will know the face of true struggle as he shifts gears from conquering Enta Isla, to conquering Earth.

To think that there wouldn’t be any disturbing buildings in an anime with “devil” in its title is a fool’s mistake, for when the creepy gets creepy, it gets creepy. Strolling into an old mansion should be aborted at the birth of the thought. The first foot through the doors of episode 10 will land you right into literal hell. Straight from the get-go things get eerie. Seemingly taking a liking to oddly sitting in corners; deviously covered in a hoody, a child straight from the devil’s den mumbles off his cursed words of pain, causing these girls’ hearts to leap from their chests. Now, contemplate if you’re built to watch a show about the devil in the first place.

Diving into the iconic world of Pokémon, Pokémon: XY presents the bustling world of Miare City. As Ash and Pikachu seek to continue their efforts of becoming the best, things get a little sticky as Team Rocket’s mischief cause trouble yet again. This time around, however, their attention grabbing antics may have connected lives in an apparent call of fate. Ash and Pikachu continue their journey, while geniuses Citron and Eureka take life from a new perspective; meanwhile young Serena travels to Miare City in search of a close friend from her past. As these people look to fulfill their goals, the world of Pokémon XY takes you down an eccentric ride of classic Pokémon storytelling atop a sea of new and exciting adventures.

You’re probably wondering what could be so creepy about a world filled with Pokémon. Learning; at episode 72, that a few Pokémon remained alongside their master Lon for over 200 years is like an old Japanese tale of eternal loyalty. Most people don’t live for that long, and neither did this homeowner. Discovering that the person you were just conversing with was already dead may take some time to sink into your skin; but when it hits you, it hits you hard. Some of the most terrorizing horrors are ones that lurk in plain sight, as though it’s something straight out of the ordinary. Killing your sense of reality in the process, and single handedly pushing you inch by inch into insanity. You can never truly trust what’s right beside you.

They are considered the rudimentary forms of life; beings that just are. They transcend human understanding and are above our judgments. They can exist anywhere and everywhere, and can present themselves in numerous forms. They, are known as “mushi”, and in the world of MUSHI-SHI, are at the heart of the questions that Ginko hopes to have answered. Chasing after mushi by following occurrences such as dreams turning into reality, Ginko searches for the true meaning behind these anomalies. For the reasoning behind mushi, could lead to the reasoning behind this very world itself.

Just as mind debauching as they are, these mushi can cause some of the most bizarre situations at times. Such as in episode 16, where Izumi is seemingly lost within a mirrored world. Hidden in a space where it’s always night time, she goes about her day in a house no different than her usual one; except that she is the only occupant. In the real world, her mother desperately clings to the idea that she’s still alive, and her sister; sensing her presence, continually engages with her through a doll that somehow exists between the two realms. It’s almost as though Izumi is lost within a phantom world, doomed to roam that house endlessly as only faint traces of her remain; presenting herself akin to a spirit in a haunted house.

This, is of course the result of mushi, as these critters can cause reality warping effects by just simply being. Not much of an actual ghost story being told, but still one of unique taste, echoing that same skin-ruffling, uncanny essence. To be here, and not be here at the same time. Lost to the point that you even forget to come home. In a sense, this may be the most haunting of them all.